Papa and Nana C's Visit

Here's my latest excuse for not blogging...

Papa and Nana C came to visit us, and we packed in the fun!

 These albums don't capture all of it, of course, but here are a few of the highlights of the week.   

We didn't get to celebrate Christmas with the Roark family, since we moved right after Christmas.  So they brought our gifts and we had Christmas one night; complete with a ham for dinner and presents for dessert!

Pictures of our Christmas Night:

We went on quite a few walks and they went with us to our weekly gymnastics hour.

Park and Gymnastics:

We went on a double date to Founding Farmers for dinner (thank you, Lindsey!)

and Nick and I went on a date to Lauriol Plaza (thank you, Papa and Nana C!)

I wish I had pictures of those nights, but I don't.   Sad!

On Saturday, it was a gorgeous day and we headed to Eastern Market,

then the Botanic Gardens, then to the Natural History Museum, and finished it off with Good Stuff burgers, which never disappoints!

Saturday's Outings:

We loved our visit, and we're so glad you got to visit our new home, church, school and city!

Thanksgiving in Tennessee

This year was our turn to spend Thanksgiving in Tennessee,

and we had such a fun visit!

The weather was atrocious on the drive over, as we drove through a monsoon,

but it cleared up and the kids spent most of their time outside.

Nana C and Mrs. Nancy (confusing huh?!) made a delicious Thanksgiving meal,

and Chris smoked a turkey that was so yummy.

We loved our time with Bob, Court, Chris and Ashlea - they are so sweet to our children!

Of course, I have oodles of pictures, but here are a few...out of order, whoops!

Hiking with Papa and Daddy.

Emmaline loved all the empty water bottles on the porch for the ferns 

and poured water in and out of them.

The big boys threw the football a bit.

Papa loved on his baby girl.

And he built the boys a rope swing!

Emmaline tried her hand at skateboarding.

The boys took turns with Chris.

Yummy!

Emmaline and her BFF.

My sweet sisters-in-law!

Two Roarks and a Poore.

We went to see some Christmas displays in the windows of a building downtown.

Ashlea, where are you!?

And here's the album!

MaMa Roark

Nick's precious grandmother passed away on Friday.

She was 98 years old, and she lived such a full, amazing life.

She is in Glory, and we are rejoicing and praising God!

He left yesterday to fly to Tennessee for the funeral, and I'm so glad he could be there.

Of course he wouldn't have missed it.

But I wish we could have all gone too.

I know it was such a sweet time!

How could you not just love her!?

Here's her obituary:

Virginia Eudine Roark

Mrs. Virginia Eudine Roark, age 98, of Huntingdon, TN, passed away peacefully on Friday, September 9, 2011 at Harmony Hill Assisted Living.

Funeral services will be conducted 11 a.m., Monday, September 12, 2011 at Huntingdon Missionary Baptist Church with Pastors Lynn Stapleton and Andrew Stokes officiating. Interment will follow in the Hampton Cemetery. 

Mrs. Roark was born March 20, 1913 to the late Albert Lee and Ruthie Lee Hill Stokes. She was preceded in death by her husband, Horace Roark; one brother, Edd Stokes; two sisters, Nannie Smith and Mary Ann Gooch. 

Mrs. Roark was a life-long resident of Carroll County. She and Horace, her husband of 66 years, lived on their beloved farm where they raised their children and provided wonderful memories for their grandchildren. 

Mrs. Roark's pursuit and passion was teaching. Over a career of thirty years, she taught in the classroom and counseled generations of children as a history teacher and guidance counselor at Clarksburg High School. 

She is survived by two daughters, Nancy (Kenny) Rush and Ruth Ann (David) Rhodes both of Huntingdon, TN; two sons, Randall (Judy) Roark of Huntingdon, TN and Tom (Carol) Roark of Chattanooga, TN. 

Her ten grandchildren will serve as Pallbearers: Ken Rush, David Rush, Brian Roark, Jonathan Rhodes, Bradley Roark, Chris Roark, Jaclynn Rhodes, Nick Roark, Burton Roark and Courtney Roark Poore. 

She is also survived by ten great grandchildren. 

Chattanooga Wedding Weekend

We had a packed weekend in Chattanooga!

Nick and the two littles flew over on Thursday, and Nick joined the guys for a bachelor outing while the kids stayed home with Nana C, Penny and Court.

Elijah and I joined them just in time for the rehearsal dinner at The Big Table.

Poor Em threw up on the way up to the rehearsal; we're not sure if it was a bug or the mountain roads, or a combination of the two, but it sure did add to the craziness!

She perked up and the boys enjoyed being reunited after 2 days apart.

On Saturday, we got ready for the wedding most of the day, and headed down to Pot Point House for the festivities.  It was a gorgeous night, and the rain held off!

Nick officiated the ceremony and the kids were ring bearers/flower girls along with Jackson, Ashlea's nephew.  They did a great job; I can't wait to see more pictures since I couldn't take many.

The food was awesome, and the dancing was super fun.

We tucked the kids in at 11:30 - what fun memories we made!

On Sunday, we went to church then came home for a day of fun with the cousins.

Nick has three cousins that are close to our age, and two of them are married with kids.

They played outside all day, and we ended the day with a little birthday party for Emmaline.

Then, on Monday we packed up and headed to Chilis to meet Court and Bob one last time before heading to the airport.  It was POURING but we made our flight.

However, we had to circle for quite a while in the air before landing and it caused us to miss our connection in Charlotte.  And we weren't the only ones.

We were numbers #47-51 on the stand by list, and the last two flights were already full.

So our chances were pretty much non-existent of flying to Raleigh.

So it was either stay at a hotel (with the kids and no luggage!) or drive to Raleigh.

We couldn't rent a car since we didn't have any car seats.

We were so close, and yet so far away!

(It's about 2.5 hours to Raleigh from Charlotte.)

Mr. Renstrom ended up coming to pick us up, and they sweetly let us play at their house while we waited for our hero, Joe Miller, to drive from Raleigh to pick us up in our van.

The kids played until midnight at the Renstroms (with no naps) and crashed in the van.

Instead of landing at 5 pm, we got home around 3 am...with no luggage!

We are caught up on our sleep and back in our routine and it was all worth it!

Birthday festivities.

We decided that Nick and Courtney were actually twins.

Football with the cousins.

Love this pic of sweet Isaac...aren't those curls amazing?!

Nick and his mommy.

Court, Bob and Emmaline opening her gift from them...a doll with a paci!

Hee.

Chris and Ashlea's Wedding

This weekend we flew to Chattanooga for Chris' wedding!

I don't have many pics of the rehearsal dinner or wedding, as I was slightly preoccupied...

I have more from the rest of the weekend, and I'll blog those soon.

In the meantime, here they are... drum roll...Chris and Ashlea Roark!

(At the rehearsal dinner.)

And here are the Three Stooges.

Emmaline, wake up, you've got a long night ahead of you!

We stayed until 11:00 at the reception, which was the latest they've ever stayed up!

The kids left drenched in sweat from all the dancing they did -- what a fun night!

Emmaline actually fell asleep dancing with Papa at the very end.  

I hope to snag a few photos from the photographer, so I'll post those sometime.

Congratulations to you two -- we love you!

Christmas, Birthday and Easter, Oh My!

We had such a great visit with Papa, Nana C and Uncle Chris this week!

It was packed with Christmas presents, Birthday celebrations and Easter treats.

After all of that fun, how will we survive the normal, ordinary week ahead!?

Thank you so much for coming!

Visit From Papa and Nana C

Papa and Nana C came to meet Emmaline last week. (Hudson started calling Nana C "Tennessee." So cute.) We had a fun week, and made many good memories! They took the boys to Duke Gardens, Marbles, and the Museum of Life and Science. We enjoyed a delicious dinner at Firebirds, ice cream at Goodberrys, salads at Cafe Carolina, and donuts from Krispy Kreme. They gave Emmaline some cute things for her room and some precious outfits. They also gave the boys some yard tools and clothes. Thank you for the generous gifts, and for coming to visit us!

Here's a slideshow from Papa's blog with his captions:

And here's one from our camera (no time for captions over here!):

The Roark Men

We had a great visit with Papa and Nana C! (Whom Hudson calls "Tennessee.")

I am working on an album of Papa's pictures and our pictures together, but it is slow going. Right now, Elijah is in preschool and we need to pick him up soon. Emmaline is squirming in my lap, and Hudson is flicking milk all over Emmaline's face with his sippy cup straw.

Yes, on purpose.

I'll try again this afternoon.

But in the meantime, here is one of my favorite pictures from the week.

Aren't those Roark boys handsome?

Home Again, Home Again

And we're back from our worldwide travels!

Ok, so we just went to Emerald Isle, NC and to Chattanooga, TN, but we were gone for almost 2 weeks! Our yard nicely resembles a meadow right now. Maybe we'll frolic and have a picnic in the grass tomorrow after church? The boys did wonderfully in the car on the ride home today, and we're so thankful that we were able to visit with our family. Thank you for the fun week! We enjoyed some Aretha Frankenstein pancakes for dinner (got some mix in Chattanooga) and the Hickmans brought by some Goodberrys for a welcome home treat. Thank you, guys! You know how to make us feel right at home.

Instead of unpacking, we are vegging. Nick's reading a book that we were supposed to read together, but I read ahead and beat him to it. It's fun to see who he thinks the suspect in the book is when I know already. And I'm blogging when I should be doing a thousand other things. What's new?

I'll let the captions give the play-by-play in the pictures below. These are all from Papa's camera, so there are some "duplicates" from mine in the previous posts.

And then I'll be going to bed early. Gotta rise and shine for Sunday morning!
(And I have nursery rotation too. Better iron my prettiest dress for all of that spit up.)

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Slip 'N Slide

We had the first day of sunshine today, so we took advantage of it and busted out the slip 'n slide that Papa and Nana C gave Elijah for his birthday. The boys loved it!

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Chattanooga

We are here in Chattanooga this week with the Roarks and Poores. I'm about to devour a piece of chocolate cake, and there's an NBA finals game on, so I'll keep this post short and sweet.

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Christmas Day

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(Update: I added some photos at the end from Papa's camera.)

Trains, Planes and Donuts

Nick was off today (after graduation practice this morning), so we had a fun afternoon! We went to Pullen Park to ride the train and play in the playground. Then we had dinner outside at Armadillo Grill and finished it off with hot Krispy Kreme donuts.
It doesn't get much better than that!

Come on, ride that train!

Nick and Papa played a competitive game of Tic Tac Toe.

It's no surprise that Elijah loves this digger.

We rode the "airplane" too.

Armadillo Grill is on a busy street (Glenwood Ave.) and Elijah loved watching all the trucks and buses go by.

And...the red sign was on at Krispy Kreme!

We love it when Daddy's home "all day!"