The Holidays are Here!

Our house has been buzzing with activity lately!  Thanksgiving started it out on Thursday, with Ethan's birthday following right behind!  In the middle of that we also went and got our Christmas tree!  We usually have a tradition to go cut down our Christmas tree, come home to decorate it, and order pizza so we don't have to cook anything.  With it being Ethan's birthday party the same day we got the tree, we kind of had to change up tradition a little, but shrimp fettuccine was a wonderful fill in (especially when Dad offers to cook it!)

Dad, Savannah, Ethan and Mom



Noah on Thanksgiving Day

 We have been enjoying fires both inside and out!  The other night the wind was really whipping and it had been raining on and off.  It was fairly warm that night so we had our windows open (I know, I know, South Carolina weather is very unpredictable - windows open one day, fires in the fireplace the next!).  All of a sudden we heard a loud crack and then something came crashing down outside!  We all looked at each other, jumped up, grabbed the spotlight, and ran outside.  We knew what it was as soon as we heard it.  We had a dead, old pine tree, about 65 feet tall, in the goat pen.  We had been putting off cutting it down because if we tried to drop it, it was either going to hit the fencing, the pool pump, or the pool and it's cover!  But that wind storm blew off the top of the tree, about 10 or 15 feet of it, just enough so that it could fall inside the fencing!  So the next day all of us went out there to cut it down.  Gram and Pop helped tie the cable up and we all prayed for safety before we began...then Dad cut her down....right where we needed it to land!  It didn't hit anything!  So Dad cut them into 2-3 foot sections and we started a fire!  (For those of you who don't know, we are notorious firebugs!  To the point that the fire department made us put up a street sign for our driveway just so they could find us!  That'll have to be another story, though!) 

Well, after 3 or 4 days of burning, we got the pasture all cleaned up.  Every time a tree falls, the Lord always sees fit to keep the fencing safe!  We have had several times when we had some close calls; one time a pine broke off about 5 feet off the ground, fell and stayed attached by a little piece on the bottom so that it was laying 2 inches off of the fence!  The Lord truly is amazing!