S H A R K

AND SOFIE IS A…

P R I N C E S S!

I JUST CAN’T TAKE LIFE TOO SERIOUSLY…

The day started with looking at the leaves of our Japanese Maple tree in our front yard.

I saw fall everywhere I looked…

Craig drove to Gentrys Farm.

Tour on a hay ride…

History…

Turkey…

Rooster…

Hen…More Hens…

Goats…

Snacks…

Tire swings….

            Old Chevy Pick Up Trucks…
These are for you, Cassidy…

 I DO love my kids and so I want to share with you some fun they’ve been having scaring people who like to be scared for fun at Millers Thrillers Haunted Woods. For more information, click on the link.

C R E E P Y

giraffes

meerkats

We used to go to the San Diego Zoo all the time, when Michael was a kid.  The Meerkat was one of our favorites!

zebras

         Rosanna’s favorite when she was a little girl.  

White Tiger

Porcupines

I guess porcupines like to eat bananas!  Did you click on “bananas”?  Do it–you might not want to miss it…

I am so glad that Michael and Rebekah invited me to go to the Nashville Zoo with them!  It was so much fun!

I found inspiration in Asheville, North Carolina.

Craig and I went to a place called Early Girl Eatery…

Oh my goodness…Buscuits with Vegetarian Herb-Cream gravy…DELICIOUS!!

This captured Asheville for me…it just did.

After we had breakfast at Early Girl Eatery, we went exploring in the rain.  I remember Woolworth’s from when I was a kid.

This wasn’t the Woolworth in my memory.  Look at this!  It’s an art treasure chest!  

Do you see the standing rack of greeting cards right in the middle of the photo?  That’s right where I found a jewel…

The jewel is Rhea Fitzgerald.  She is a poet, photographer, artist, teacher…

This is what was on the greeting card that I found, written by Rhea Fitzgerald.

I never wanted to be just a good girl. Bad girls have more adventure and more mud. 

I want to swear when I bang my thumb with a hammer and yell loud when I am angry. 

At the end of the day I want to leave a ring in the bathtub worth the trouble of drawing water- to show that I have lived in this day. 

Tired and ready for bed-a day well spent.

A girl-good and bad- worth the salt of her sweat.

So I found my inspiration in Asheville.  

Open up the gates to your creativity and choose to LIVE each moment, alive and muddy!

Craig and I had so much fun playing in the snow! We are at Thompson Station. Behind us, is a train track and in the distance are farms with cows.

I made a snow angel for the first time ever…I had so much fun! Today was a wonderful day of playing in the first snow of the season.

Wreaths are pretty popular out here in Tennessee. I remember in California, you would often see maybe one wreath hanging on the front door. In Tennessee, you will often see a wreath hanging on each window! So, that’s what we decided to do this year…especially since we scored on wreaths at a great after Christmas sale at Michael’s craft store last year!

This year, we hung the old fashion big color lights on our house…thank you, Craig!

The city where we live always decorates for Christmas too. I love the wreaths on the telephone poles…they light up at night with white lights!

This is Tucker Tree kitty…remember him? He’s the kitty we found that made his way to us via the back of an open trailer carrying trees all the way from Alabama. Yes, Tucker LOVES to tuck himself down inside the center of our wreaths and just hang out there! This was a pile of about 5 weaths that were waiting to be hung on the windows.

After some Christmas decorating, we went to downtown Franklin for lunch at Mellow Mushroom’s. This is what the street looks like in downtown Franklin…so charming.

Rosanna is giving me a beautiful paper napkin sculpture she created!

We were seated next to a glass door in Mellow Mushroom and this is the view of the “square” (that is really a circle) in Franklin. The red leaves on that tree were amazing.

Here is one little guy in his Christmas elfie pajamas…

Here is the second little guy in his Christmas elfie pajamas…

and here is the third little guy in his Christmas elfie pajamas!

We had such a fun day of decorating…

…and this is just the beginning.

This is Steve. He is a friend of ours who came up from Florida to spend Thanksgiving with us. Craig and Steve went to cut some firewood the day after Thanksgiving. I went to take pictures and it’s a good thing I did because we had an adventure!

We were so surprised to see cows in the field this time!

All of a sudden the cows started running! We drove our pickup down to the spot where we cut the wood.

We can see that the cows all stopped up at the top of where we were and they just looked at us. We were trying to figure out what they might be thinking…were they just curious or were they going to stampede us?!

All of a sudden, they all started running down the hill toward us! We jumped back into the truck!

We waited to see what they were going to do. We looked at them and they looked at us!

Craig and Steve get out of the truck and get started cutting firewood and the cows just watched…

…and they watched…

…and they did what cows do…

We heard a noise and noticed that someone was approaching…

It was Farmer Sam!

He was here to feed the cows…

So now we know why the cows were running toward us. They thought we were going to feed them!

Their feeding trough was right next to where we cut the firewood!

Craig and Farmer Sam talked for a little while…because that’s what you do out here…

So that was our cow adventure…

We ended it with Craig and Steve unloading the firewood.

]]> http://giusiloves.wordpress.com/2008/11/29/herd/feed/ 2 giusi dsc_0161 dsc_0164 dsc_0179 dsc_01771 dsc_0183 dsc_01921 dsc_0259-1 dsc_0219 dsc_02701 dsc_02631 dsc_03371 dsc_0229 dsc_0309 dsc_0199 dsc_0341 dsc_0371 dsc_0392-1 dsc_0409 dsc_0418 dsc_0422 dsc_0439-2 dsc_0427 dsc_0456 dsc_04721 http://giusiloves.wordpress.com/2008/11/28/thanks/ http://giusiloves.wordpress.com/2008/11/28/thanks/#comments Fri, 28 Nov 2008 22:41:36 +0000 giusiloves http://giusiloves.wordpress.com/?p=600 ]]>

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

I cooked the turkey…

Craig baked the pumpkin pies…

Craig bought this kind of evaporated milk for the pies…he loved the cow on the front of the can!

William ALWAYS lays like this right in front of the oven whenever I cook.

I started a tradition last year, of taking out our Christmas tree and decorating it for Thanksgiving with fall leaves and fall garland.

I also print pictures of Thanksgivings from the past and hang those pictures up on the tree.

I make a request to everyone that will be together with us on Thanksgiving day to think about what they are thankful for and send me the list ahead of time. Rosanna printed them on cards and we added them to decorate the Thanksgiving tree. We love reading what everyone is thankful to God for.

Come outside with me and I’ll show you what it looks like out there…

I just love fall…

Ok, back to cooking…

William is so thankful for Celery. He LOVES his celery!

The best part of our Thanksgiving is being together with our friends and family… I so much enjoyed sending messages and love to everyone and I loved hearing from you too. We missed Rebekah and Michael so much, but we are so thankful that we did have friends to be with…

Jon and Jess brought the green bean casserole and an amazing Oreo cookie cake…

Steve made the candied yams…

Dann made some delicious pumpkin/apple stuffing…

Dann’s mom, Judy, made awesome rolls from scratch…

and Chip helped with washing dishes.

Craig’s mom and stepdad stopped by to say hello before they went on with their Thanksgiving plans. I am holding a platter of appetizers that I just made. They are dates, stuffed with half of a pecan and then wrapped with a piece of bacon and then cooked in the oven long enough for the bacon to get crispy. So good!

We started on the Oreo cookie cake first, then we ate the turkey and other food…

We got our priorities right!

Tucker.

Craig had a fire going all day…it was great!

We hope you had a nice Thanksgiving day.

]]> http://giusiloves.wordpress.com/2008/11/28/thanks/feed/ 4 giusi dsc_0244 dsc_0386 dsc_0265 dsc_0300 dsc_0263 dsc_0274 dsc_0405 dsc_0542 dsc_05431 dsc_0391 dsc_0313 dsc_0491 dsc_0324 dsc_0520 dsc_0327 dsc_0475 dsc_0483 dsc_0490 dsc_0467-1 dsc_0429 dsc_0448 dsc_0472 dsc_0532 dsc_0587 dsc_0588 dsc_0440-2 dsc_0594 dsc_0495 dsc_0613-1 dsc_0618 dsc_0621 dsc_0647 dsc_0709 dsc_0729 dsc_0702 dsc_0511 http://giusiloves.wordpress.com/2008/11/25/wedding/ http://giusiloves.wordpress.com/2008/11/25/wedding/#comments Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:37:34 +0000 giusiloves http://giusiloves.wordpress.com/?p=586 ]]>

We’ve been to one wedding in Tennessee so far. Here is Ashley, the bride.