Seems like years ago

All right, I confess. I have become horrible at updating our blog. In my own defense, when I started this I had much more free time on my hands, and that's not such the case anymore. However, I know you all crave knowledge of our happenings, so I will once again plop myself down in front of my magical computer screen and wow you with tales of our lives.

Perhaps the most exciting thing to happen since the last post is that we took a trip (albeit a short one) to visit my grandparents at the end of September. Anthony's never met most of my family, so I was extremely excited for the interactions as well as seeing my dear grandparents. There were some bumps along the way in regards to my job, but everything smoothed out just in time for us to run to the airport and settle in for a week's worth of travel.
For those of you who don't know, I have a set of grandparents in Ohio and another in Tennessee. When we get the chance to visit (typically every other year or every two years), we usually fly into Ohio, stay there for a few days, then drive down to Tennessee, stay a few days, and then drive back up to Ohio for a day or two before flying back home. Bouncing back and forth can sometimes be exhausting, but so worthwhile. Oh yes, and we usually visiting during the 4th of July, so it's scorching hot and humid like you wouldn't believe. Most of the time I have to spend indoors because the heat and humidity make me so sick. This was the first trip we've taken since I was little that wasn't in the middle of the summer. This is the first east coast Fall that I can remember, and it was wonderful! A bit chilly at times, but the changing leaves and refreshing breezes were fantastic.
While we were in Tennessee, we did something that we've never done before. In nearby North Carolina there is a privately owned mountain called Grandfather Mountain. The brochure talks of wild animals that roam the area and of a mile high swinging bridge. The bridge is what caught our attention, and of course, it was decided that we MUST go. So up the mountain we went in search of bears, mountain lions, and a mile high rope swinging bridge. Imagine our surprise when reaching the first stop on the mountain we found paved walking trails, a nature museum, and a parking lot. We all shrugged and decided to stretch our legs for a bit and headed down the "hiking" trails. Not far along a sign sprung up in front of us. "Cougar exhibit to the right. Otter exhibit to the left." I'm going to assume you're all intelligent people and know that Otters do not live on mountains. Our curiosity peaked and off to the otters we went. Turns out that the "wild life" roaming the area is actually a very small zoo placed in the side of Grandfather mountain. You can even feed the bears, and they do tricks for their treats! Although a bit disappointing, we still enjoyed the animal area. But then it was off to the mighty swinging bridge where we would all face certain death. We drove up to the very top of the mountain (a steep a windy road), piled out of the Pimp-Mobile (did I mention we were rolling in a baby blue Lincoln Continental? Oh yeah. That's how we roll.), and began the climb to the bridge. The view was breath-taking. You could see almost the whole of the Smoky Mountains, and learned they weren't called that without reason. The family stopped for a quick photo-op out on some rocks, and while Anthony and I were doing our own pictures, everyone else decided to tempt their fate upon the bridge. Now when you think of a swinging bridge, you imagine an Indiana Jones-type bridge right? Made of rope, sags in the middle, only enough room for people to cross single-file. I was so incredibly disappointed to find that our death-defying bridge was actually a walking suspension bridge made of metal. It barely even swayed! Coming as far as we had, we decided to complete our adventure by crossing the bridge and traversing across rock to the tip of the mountain for an unobscured view of the valley.
Not long after that, we set our sights on Ohio. It was my Papa's 80th birthday this year, and my grandma Pat had been planning a big celebration for months. A good portion of the family came into town for the festivities, and we bunked up at a little bed and breakfast for a few nights to clear out rooms for Uncle Bob and cousin Nan. The house we stayed in was built by Pat's brother (hope I got that right) and was really cute, with a wrap-around porch and a Chapel built just off the house. The couple who bought it had decided to retire, but loved the area so much that they wanted to share it with other people. So they dug out a huge chuck of ground behind the house and made a pond that looks out to the fields behind it. The weather was too cold for us to go sit out there, but just looking at the pond from our window there was a sense of peace that overtook you. Unfortunately, the house is fairly old, as are the pipes, and the water coming out of the faucets reeked of sulfur. Anthony and I learned the hard way to open our window when someone was taking a shower so that our room didn't start to stink. But the people were incredibly sweet and we sincerely appreciated their hospitality. I actually felt kind of bad that they had gone to so much trouble and all we did was sleep there. We were out the door as soon as we woke up and only came back at the end of the day.
One of the things that I had to show Anthony was Eerie Lake. So we all bundled up against the wind and made our way down to the deserted shore. One a good day, you can occasionally see Canada on the other side of the lake, or a big liner cruising along the horizon. There weren't any ships out that day, but we spent a long time strolling along the shore, shouting stories to each other and examining the types of debris we could find. Anthony made a collection of golf balls at one point. A whole arm-full! One of our traditions is to walk along the shore collecting any seashells that we can find. At one point we did run across a group of birdwatchers, braving the cold and the spray from the waves. Even though it was freezing, it was so nice to visit "our" lake, especially since we had the whole beach to ourselves. Usually the beach is overrun with people and seagulls.
For Papa's party, a local firehouse was rented and we spent a few days getting everything ready for the party. The day of the party, everyone went to the hall first thing in the morning to set up the tables and chairs, and then returned later in the afternoon to get the food ready and blow up all the balloons. My aunt got helium tanks for the balloons, and Anthony, Nan and a few others decided to experiment with putting balloons inside of balloons. Eventually they wound up having far too much fun with the helium and we had to remove them from their inflation post. ;)
The party was such a good time! I saw more family in those few hours than I have in about 12 years...not even joking. All the brothers made the trip for the party, as well as several cousins, Pat's family and friends from church. And the food! Oh the food! There was so much of it! And we had to make a table just for the pies! I'm not much of a pie person, but even I was drooling obscenely over that particular table. At the end of the night we had a balloon releasing party for the hundreds (literally) of balloons we had inflated. Everyone piled out of the hall to cheer the balloons on their journey into the night sky.
Even our trip home wasn't without incident/excitement. Not many of you know, but I have an intense love of Cheddar popcorn. Normally the only time of year I can get it is around Christmas, when Walmart has those tins of popcorn. So while Strolling through the Cincinnati airport the aroma of popcorn wafted into our nostrils. Idle curiosity and hunger drove us to the stand and I was beyond elated to discover the stand not only sold Cheddar popcorn, but it was the BEST Cheddarcorn I've ever tasted. I quickly bought the biggest bag they had and smuggled it onto the rest of the flights home with me. My kind of souvenir!