Tim's party

A week ago we went to South Carolina for Tim's graduation party. It was nice to go home for a few days and see my family. (Steve wasn't able to come!! Booo hooo!) We left Friday as soon as Ben got off of work and came back Sunday afternoon. The 4 1/2 hour trips are sure alot better than NY!!
Tim's party was nice. After wards we decided to go up to table rock park since we were not that far. It was too late in the day to hike to the top but I want to one of these times. Instead we went boating in the lake and hiked a little trail to a waterfalls. It was very pretty and relaxing.

The delicious food

All of us... well except Steve!

The gift we gave him!!

Ouch!!

Ben thought this was so cool so he took a pic. It is kinda amazing how big the egg was. (As most of you know we have chickens) My thoughts were just, POOR CHICKEN!!

Strawberries!

Here is the trunk of our car!! A sure sign of spring. Ben's uncle has a farm and due to unfortunate circumstances for him (too much rain), we were able to get all the strawberries we wanted. (Well almost)
Now my freezer is full of strawberries. I also attempted to make jam. I haven't made jam since I was little with my mom and was a little nervous. However I just followed the recipes in the pectin and ta-da, delicious jam. I made freezer jam, some sugar-free to give as gifts. I also made some regular jam and canned it. It all turned out well and tastes delicious. And now my shelf looks so pretty with all the jam jars on it!!

Tornado

Give you an idea how the leaves just fell like rain. The roads were green!!!

On Sunday a tornado came through, right down the road we live off of. We had bad thunderstorms and wind and a lot of hail. Our road goes east and west, the way most storms go. The tornado touched down about a mile and a half west of us and then about the same east of us. I know from all the limbs and leaves and wind that it was close. Power was out for about 5 hours for us. Thankfully no one around was hurt at all and our place was fine. The gate for the chicken yard came open and the chickens got out. We did lose one chicken that we found on the far side of the fence. I think the wind knocked her around a little and beat her up. Poor thing, she was a good layer!
God protected our place. Here are some pics I took from our place and some neighbors down the road. I want to get some more of the ones down the other way on our road. I drove by today and it is amazing. All these trees around a farmers field are just torn and snapped off and the barn about a quarter mile off the road is missing half its roof, with a big piece of it by the road.

Sorry it is fuzzy. The tree laying over is on top of the house, crushing the two vehicles underneath.

Here is the telephone pole just snapped off. Right in here you can really see that it came down.

This is the house near the telephone pole. Notice the tree... it is just suspended in the air, hung on the other trees!! Weird!!
Now how hard does wind blow to planster the side of your house with leaves, on pretty much every side?

My poor plant. This is what large hail does to them, just shreds them!

Selma

I was able to go to my first reenactment of the year at Selma, AL. This is my favorite one, for many reasons, but especially for the ball. It is held in an old civil war era house with gardens and a huge lawn where they hold the ball! Absolutely gorgeous!



I was able to be one of the women in the battle scenario. They build a little shack out in the field and as the Yankees approached and fired on some nearby confederate soldiers, the women ran from their home. Ben said I was the only one he could really hear screaming from across the field. So my big mouth came in handy! LOL

The city of Selma is such a neat place with so many old houses. I also love all the spanish moss hanging from the trees. Here is some pics of the graveyard near the battlefield! It was so neat but almost eerie.

Jerrel always seems to have fun at the reenactments.
This time he went and found some boys who camped near by to play with. He is really starting to grow up and will soon be out there with his dad!

Here is our good friends Richard and Anna. Richard is also our captain!

Back again!

Yes, I am finally updating my blog. I kinda gave up computer or put it on the back burner for a while since it was taking alot of my time. I will try to update a little of what has happened.
I am now a year older at 28. Ben took me out to a park and played some frisbee and surprised me with horse back riding they have there. It was a lot of fun!!
The last post was about snow and the next Saturday was my birthday and it was 70 degrees!
So spring has come and now it is almost summer except the nights are still cool! Here is a few pretty pics of spring I took!