We're Famous!

Our family got a mention in a New York Times Article this weekend! See below for the link:

For those of you who have been to our cabin - you know that we're living "off-grid". This means that we're not connected to city water, power or sewage. We have to produce all our own power which we do using solar panels with a back-up generator (although Michael claims he's going to install a wind turbine as well). The house is wired like a normal home with normal appliances but we have to be careful to manage the power to ensure we don't run out.

Water has been a bit tricky. For the first year or so our water was delivered by truck into a large cistern (1550 gallon tank) and then pumped to the house. This made for some very careful water management lessons. The first time the tank ran down and we didn't know - we burned out a pump and melted all the plastic piping. Today we have a well which regularly fills the cistern so while we are still careful about our water usage - we don't have to panic if someone leaves the water running while brushing their teeth.

Overall living here has been a really cool opportunity to teach our kids about conservation and make them aware of the excessive consumption that might occur back home.

If you want to view this article go to the NY times-  Aug 29th Escapes section- and the article is call Powering Up.  I was not able to get the link to work.

Birthday Girls

Today marks a special day. My brother Kyle was born, I was born and my youngest daughter was born. I have shared my birthday my whole life which makes my day extra special. We spent the day lounging at the cabin, going for a nice morning walk with my mom, and spending the day in town with the girls. The highlight for Isabelle was getting her ears pierced!

Happy Birthday Isabelle!

Up Up...almost!

My parents have been here visiting the last few days.  We went to dinner with David and Shelly Saturday night at my new favorite restaurant Typhoon (Thai food...yum).  We are now at the cabin and will post boating pictures later.  Dad says he is going to wake board!  I told him if he does, he can have a full page on the blog!  Mom is worried that the picture of him will be on a gurney headed to the hospital!   To be continued....

What do you remember?

Michael and I have recently realized that we only have 4 more years before Hayden  leaves the nest.  It has been very sobering to come to this realization-  he will start high school in less than two weeks and before we blink an eye it will be over!  Because of this newly discovered realization, we have spent a lot of time contemplating what we can do to make an impact on the last 4 years of his childhood.   I have been collecting ideas from all of my  older clients in the salon(where I gain all of my wisdom) and have come up with some really great ideas.  The questions that I have been asking them are:  1. What did you do with your children that made an impact on their lives?  2. What are some of your children's favorite  childhood memories?  I have gotten all sorts of great ideas- all of them included family vacationing, spending time as a family doing various activities and doing something out of the ordinary or unusual.  I decided to put one of the ideas to play and see what happened.  The idea came from a very wise 50 something lady whom I want to be when I grow up.  She told me that one year when she was working and her kids were about my kids age- she took them to the grocery store and gave them all their own carts-  because of her busy schedule they were to be in charge of their own meals for one week (promoting independence).  I too had a really busy work week this week because of all of our time at the cabin so I decided this would be a great week to try this out!  My kids were delighted!  I was pleasantly surprised to see what they put in their carts!  Hayden's cart included items such as:  ingredients to make pizza, spaghetti, chili (with a jalapeno pepper to dice up) cereal, pop-tarts, sandwich stuff, chips- 12pack of root beer and some ice cream.  Olivia's cart had sushi, soup, cereal, popsicles & fruit.  Brittan's cart was full of fruit, bagels, berries and Gatorade.  I must say that it was a very fun experiment- one that you should try!

Bella can wakeboard!

With Brittan's assistance, Isabelle got up the very first try!

Cousins, cousins, cousins!

Ava and Eli

Chloe and Hayden


Shell's belles...7 1/2 months pregnant!
Hang on Sophie! Luke is the best baby ever!

Kyle and Nate have been here all week visiting with their families.  Here are some of the highlights!

High school reunion

Go Braves!

Here are some fun pictures from my 20 yr H.S. reunion!  We had a great time and it was fun to catch up with friends that I haven't seen in a really long time.