friday five

friday five...i used to do this via email a while ago and decided to start it up again. both on my blog and via email.

so if you read this, join along in the fun of friday 5!

This week’s 5 is inspired by the party game called Taboo, in which players must make their teammates utter key words by giving them clues. The twist is that each key word is assigned five Taboo words, and players are forbidden from using the Taboo words in their clues.

Your task is simply to answer these five questions without using any of the Taboo words or phrases. Challenge yourself not just to avoid using the words, but to think of fresh, new answers to these sort of cliched meme questions!

1. Who’s making a positive difference in your life?
   Taboo words: friends, family, husband/wife/spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend.
   my tweetie pies on twitter
   
   
2. Where would you like to be right now?
   Taboo words: home, bed, anywhere but here.
   on a beach staring at the ocean with chris
   
   
3. What’s the first thing you’d do with a $5,000 (or your local equivalent) gift?
   Taboo words: save, debt, vacation, payments, invest.
   add a screened-in porch to the house
   
   
4. What super-power would you really like to have?
   Taboo words: invisibility, x-ray vision, flying, strength, transform.
   healing. being able to heal people physically, emotionally, and spiritually.i know too many people who are hurting !
   
   
5. What’s your favorite sound?
   Taboo words: laughter, music, ocean, wind, ____’s voice.
   the dog barking because chris is home.
   

Thanks for participating, and may your weekend be filled with laughter, music, the ocean, wind, and _______’s voice!

family reunion mabe style

i recently posted about the icenhour reunion and now it's time to post about my family reunion. i'm sure the title has you confused since my last name has never been mabe. the mabe family refers to my grandmother and her lovely sisters. my grandmother came from a family of nine. it included one boy and eight girls. their brother died when he was around the age of 30. the sisters became very close after their mother died during the birth of the youngest sister.

when i was a little girl someone had a great idea to do a weekend reunion with the sisters and their families. every reunion needs a good name doesn't it!?! someone, i think jc, came up with the title of AUCSCAOR. That stands for..
Aunts
Uncles
Cousins
Second Cousins
and
Other
Relatives

isn't that clever???

last weekend we traveled to smith.mountain.lake for aucscaor. it was a wonderful time to get reacquainted with cousins and family that i haven't seen since the reunion three years ago. it was even more special since we were with my mom, my sister-in-law and my nieces. unfortunately my brother couldn't get the weekend off so he wasn't able to come.

there was the usual croquet game, swimming in the pool, food, card games, looking through old photo albums, more food, a talent show, visiting with family, and time to remember those who have gone on to heaven. including my dad. it always gets to me during the weekend that he isn't there with us. it's making me teary now just thinking about it. but i know he is in heaven with the mabe cloud of witnesses and they were having their own heavenly aucscaor.

there was a lot of knitting going on too since my cousins gina and brittany wanted to learn. they both took right to it, especially gina. my nieces even wanted in on the action, but we ran out of time for marla to knit. i love that there was knitting at auscaor. my grandma would be very proud of that!

i could go on and on about all the fun we had. when i get my pictures sorted out I'll get them up here for you.

one thing i took away from the weekend is how important it is to stay connected to those you love. i hope you will take a few minutes this week and some how be in touch with a family member you haven't seen or spoken to in a while. i promise it will brighten your day and theirs too!

family reunion icenhour style

this past weekend we went to bristol for the icenhour family reunion. most of chris' family lives in town and there are only a few of us who moved away. in fact all of his dad's brothers and sisters (all eight of them) live in the same town. i think there are only five or six of the cousins that are out-of-towners. john really is an out-of-towner since he is currently stationed in afghanistan.

the golfers, including chris and his dad, had a 7:30 am tee time saturday morning. they had nice weather. while chris and his dad were golfing, anne and i decided to do some shopping at tj maxx. we didn't find anything. can you believe it! anne and me shopping and not buying anything?!? ha ha!

we had a fun time at the reunion. lots of good food, and great desserts. uncle johnny made his famous banana pudding, aunt joann made a mounds cake, and aunt shelby made a cake that was delicious (i can't remember the name of it).

the entertainment was the kids playing in the creek and catching crawdads. what is it about kids and crawdads? i did the same thing when i was their age. here's some pictures of the crawdad catching. rae was the obious star of the pictures. she's such a sweetie!


we really did have a great time. it's always so nice to go home to bristol and visit with chris' family.

no thanks

we both have family reunions this month. let's hope this doesn't happen to us! hee hee!

time flies when you're having fun

since my last post on june 30 we have been having lots of fun and staying super busy! here's the scoop on what we've been doing.

father's day weekend we helped our good friends jeff and lisa and their kids move to atlanta. they didn't have any help unloading so along with some other sunday school friends, drove to atlanta and unloaded their 26 foot u-haul and the guys had the pleasure of unloading their slate top pool table. that was rough a rough job to do at 11:30 pm when it's still 90 degrees! we spent the night there and then drove back home the next day. along the way home we decided to stop at sticky fingers in chattanooga for lunch. yum, yum! here's what i had for lunch that day. mmm...ribs.



the next weekend some of our lynchburg friends, denise and her son jack, were coming through town so we got to be their tour guide. they were helping some friends move to oregon (from richmond) and were taking a cross-country trek. it was so much fun showing them where we now live. i can't believe we've been here four years now! jack is now 14, not sure how that is possible! we had such a great time with them. it was wonderful to see them and show them our new town. we even took them to chris' favorite spot, ted's montana grill. they serve bison and beef there. guess what we all had....bison. it's so healthy and delicious! here's a picture of jack with his bbq, bacon bison burger. say that three times real fast.


that same weekend we went to my favorite place for sunday brunch, germantown cafe. yum. we went with my friend shannon who hadn't been there yet. we were seated in my favorite spot with a view of downtown nashville. we were also lucky enough to be seated next to lee.ann.rimes!?! she was having brunch with her hubby. being a good "nashvillian" we left them alone and so did everyone else in the restaurant. it was my first star moment in town! i included a picture of them. they really are cute together. chris went to work the next day and said he had lunch with three beautiful blones. his wife, her friend, and lee.ann.rimes. LOL!


then my mom came to visit us for the 4th of july! she came on thursday and left that sunday. i love the fact that my mom and chris' parents have such a good time together that mom drove to their house on wednesday and spent the night with them. when both our moms get together there is some serious giggling going on! i love that!

when mom was here we had such a great time. we shopped, took her to eat a buffalo burger, shopped, got drenched while watching fireworks downtown, shopped some more, and ate great food. we even waited an hour and a half just to have breakfast (which turned into lunch) at the lovelss cafe. we had a fantastic visit with her. can you believe neither of us took a single picture while she was here??? guess we had too much fun. and yes, this picture is from the downtown fireworks. nashville is one of the top five places with great fireworks displays in the country.


this weekend we are going to bristol for the icenhour family reunion. i'll try to remember to take some pictures this time!