Black Friday

Why's it gotta be about color?

This was the line in front of our nearest Best Buy at 5:40 a.m. this morning, and it stretched all the way around the far corner of the building, down the side, and around another corner into the side parking lot... we kept driving and went to Home Depot instead for a tree.

Pictures of the tree will be put up after we put it together. A $179 tree for $79 and a coupon for a $30 HD gift card - sweet! Only problem? The box was too big for our little Saturn. We managed to squeeze it into the back seat - no way it could get into the trunk in any direction - but it was longer than the car is wide... so the drivers side door wouldn't close! What to do? Run back inside the store for a $4 pair of bungee chords: crack the back window, hook one bungee onto the clothes hanger hook, loop it around the top of the window, connect the other bungee, hook it into the child seat hook behind the back seat, and drive home via the back roads - no problem!

Happy Thanksgiving

Time for leftover at Granny's:


Ready to bake an apple & butter dump cake:

The end result after baking... yummy!

St. Johns Town Center at Night

Ack! It's been a month since our last post. We've been busy and/or sick and/or having camera issues.

We took the camera up to the St. Johns Town Center the other nigth to get some shots of the decorations, etc.

Courtyard of the new section that opened between the new restaurants:

Mitchell's Fish Market sign and palm tree:

Lion statue in front of the Capitol Grill:

A statue in the courtyard:




Self-portrait in a Christmas tree ball decoration:




In honor of Mel Brooks, name this movie line:

And yes, some morons have already stolen all four of the knights from the chess set!

After taking photos for a while we were walking towards the older section to take pictures of the pond and such and were stopped by a security guard (aka rent-a-cop) who told us we weren't allowed to take pictures! I asked why. He didn't know. Since Erin made me behave we turned the camera off and I slung it over my shoulder and we kept walking. Not five minutes later a new security guard began following us in their SUV - driving only as fast as we were walking, staying just behind us, tracking us like criminals! Absurd! I wanted to confront them but Erin wouldn't let me. They should be worrying about shoplifters, not amateur photographers taking pictures of their outdoor holiday decorations!

An email will be sent to the mall management company to complain and ask about their photography policy. I don't want to see anyone taking pictures with Santa or I will call security!

Legends of the Fall - Marching Band Style

Saturday we went up to Blackshear, GA with Erin's parents to watch Erin's alma mater Terry Parker participate in the Sound of Silver marching band festival.


One band had James Brown:







There were a few majorettes with flaming batons. Erin wonders if they were wearing "Satan's panties" (that is a reference from the movie "Miss Congeniality" btw):

Then the TP Marching Braves took the field for their Pirates of the Caribbean show:

Best field prop ever? The "Jolly Jim" (we dubbed it thusly during the show), a Pirate ship powered by a riding lawn mower, driven by a band parent who dresses all out in pirate garb including earings and tatoos. It holds drums for entering and leaving the field and also has room for a soloist during the show. Flippin' sweet!

Alas, the Braves came in third (should have been second). But the band that came in first place - South East Bulloch from somewhere in Georgia - had a great show, the most creative marching show I've ever seen:

Their show was titled "Under Contsruction" and they all wore construction vests, played songs like "Sledgehammer", "Workin' in a Coal Mine", and their percussion players were amazing on the mallets. Highly creative and nearly perfectly executed. No shame losing to such an amazing effort. Still the best performance I've seen from Parker in the years I've followed them since falling in love with a certain clarinet player in 2000. :)

This just in: our cat is weird.

Further proof that Cricket is just plain weird...

She insists on jumping into the tub after either of us takes a shower and then licks water off the side of the tub. Perhaps her mental imbalances can be blamed on soap?

"It was... it was... soap poisoning!"

"Aaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

(Name that film!)

The roof... the roof.. the roof is on fire.. we don't need no water...

No, the roof isn't really on fire. After coming home this afternoon from lunch, at one of those rare times lately when the skies cease to rain down upon us and the sun - THE SUN! - came out to embrace us in its warmth and beauty, we found that our roof - and those of all our neighbors - were steaming:

Baseboards and miters and nail guns - oh my!

With tools and help from my Dad we were able to get the baseboards installed today:

No humans were harmed in the filming of this blog:

No, I am not using the board to play air guitar:

Squirting the caulk:

Smoothing the caulk:

Blowing the steam off of my gun, James Bond style:

A little touching up of the paint in a few places tomorrow (after the Jaguar game, of course) and we can begin putting together furniture and moving back in.