Looks like ......

G-I-I-I-L-L-Y has come out of the closet!!!!! (my peeps will crack UP when they see this!!) sorry!and soon after it will be the lights on the tree and holiday decorations everywhere!! Have you begun yet? I've always waited until December 1st but we've had a rainy day here and I've been piddlin'............hence....Gilly!!

(not to mention the bagel with HUCKLEBERRY JAM I had for lunch on a Christmas plate!!)

.......sigh.....the bug has bitten....

One more pic for the album..

This boy......er, I mean, man, is like another son to us! He has been a roomate to all three of my sons in college. He hunts with them, he plays with them, he bothers the crap out of them and come May, he will have been in all three of their weddings, as their friend. He loves Lilli and I got this pic of them together on Thanksgiving day. He'll kill me for putting it here but I loved it!!
Love you shanon!!!

You thought I was kidding....

...when I said over the bridge and thru the woods.....

to Turkey Day at the deer camp I go...........
and while we were inhaling our chocolate pie

Ms. Lilli was having hers...

and very proud of herself!!

Full Bellies and Happy Hearts!

~~sigh~~..........isn't it just fun when you like your family? heheeheheheheh......so many times, when the holidays arrive, people start to dread the get-togethers because for some reason or another, you just really don't wanna spend time with them. But ya have to.......because.....well, I don't know. There must be some written rule somewhere that says you have to...who knows?

But when you absolutely adore your family and have so much fun together.........it's magical!

Here's a pic of the hunters coming in from the duck hunt...........ready for food!

Until I can get to the food pics.........here's a before and after pic of some VERY hungry boys!

patiently, kinda, waiting for dinnner to be ready. Only one of them screamed in low voice.....I'm staaarrrvvvving! I heard this one million times when they were growing up!

...and afterwards, with full bellies and sleepy eyes. Catching some zzzz's before the football games begin!

this is alot of what we do at night at the deer camp! But this next pic may be my favorite this yr! All of my guys sitting together watching the fire. Notice I said "ALL"......this is the first Thanksgiving I've had my oldest home to spend with us in over 6 yrs......I'm a very happy mama!

Happy Turkey Day tomorrow!

I've got all the foods prepared and ready to load into the car ...........so I can go over the bridge and thru the woods........to the deer camp I go!! All of the boys, the dogs, the wives and for the first time......MS. LILLI......will be gathered together to give thanks for the abundance in our lives. We are safe. We are healthy. We are happy. What more could any person ask for?
(and yes, Granna, you will be sitting right between Lilli&Amy!!)

Hoping everyone of you have a very Happy Thanksgiving 2010!!

Who'd a thunk it??!!!!!!

That I would invite my boyfriend and myself up to Washington state on a Sunday ... arrive on the following Friday ... and "I" get surprises?? Man, oh man.............some kinda fun! She and I have this coffee cup thing going on so it was so fun to see these in my basket!She even brought me a lil sumpin sumpin from her trip to Cabo!! Gotta love this gal......
Thanks, girlfriend.......for everything!
Being Thanksgiving, when we stop to really, really think about what we are grateful for....I think about my family first, of course, but right after that...I think about my friends. They surround me, they lift me up, they make me laugh, they go on trips with me and they come to me when they need a shoulder....specially when their special grandmother's trees get cut up without their permission! I know that no matter what.....they will be there for me. As I will be for them.
So... Thank You, girlfriends. You know who you are. I'm thankful for you not only at Thanksgiving ...... but every single dingle dangle day!!

My Boys...

...little boys...... (his first deer!)

grow up to be big boys.... (his biggest deer last weekend!!)and they still love to play in the woods!!

Hunting has been a family bonding experience in our family since they were old enough to walk. Just as it was in their dad's family. They've learned lessons in life that could never be taught in a better atmosphere. Safety, confidence, goal achievement, patience, the love of nature, pride and most of all.........the love of being with their dad and brothers....cousins.....friends. I didn't come from a family that hunted, so all of it was new to me and took me a while to "get". But boy do I ever get it now! The smiles on my boy's faces when the seasons open and they get to get those hunting clothes out, kinda clean up the deer camp, load up all those 4-wheelers and all take off for the boy's weekends.........makes me so happy for them. Their dad has instilled a legacy in them that they will carry on into their own families and I cannot think of a better way to spend time together learning character and values to pass down to their own. So even tho, these pics may only look like some gory pictures of deer...they actually show so much more. (not to mention all the venison that will be going into my freezer......and believe me, when times were tough when the kids were growing up, that was ALL we ate and loved every minute of it) They show me that even tho little boys turn into big boys, they still love to "play" together and love being a family with a love for hunting!

Oldest boy with his biggest deer to date captured last weekend!!And duck season opened this morning so there's no telling what they'll come home with tomorrow!! GAWD.....I LOVE MY BOYS!!!

Guess who's in the kitchen with Cap'n??

CLISA!!!!! on LSU game day!!
stay tuned shortly for pics of teacher & student making gumbo!!

OK. whew........laughing my ass off, working on these pics and remembering that day!!! So damn funny watching them in the kitchen together!!!

And the story goes something like this:..............One Saturday morn, oh .. prolly on November 6 of 2010, these two got up...after a very fun night out with more friends...and began the gumbo dance! Now, what you should also know is that ms. clisa is a trained chef....all culinary school and all .... and she is taking a class this day from the cap'n.....all sailboat trained and all! So one thing she does, that some of the rest of us don't do, is listen. She was all about learning this process...cuz you know she's a yankee --oops--a PNW'er and those from that far north sometimes don't understand the meaning of making a real, coonass gumbo!! (not their fault!!)

notice they both still have on their pjs!! and getting all the pots and cast iron dutch oven ready....which the cap'n shipped to her house before we arrived!! Which, again, all cajuns know that all cooking must be done in cast iron pots!

Look how intently she is listening to what he's saying!!!! At this moment, he's wanting HER to now be his wife!! hahahaha....I don't always listen real well!!

These next two pics will show you more reasons why he would like her to be his wife........she did all the prep of veggies and put them into separate bowls.....OMG...thought he was going to...well, you know...when he saw that!

Cap'n stirring the roux. Can't believe I didn't get a pic of the final roux because it did turn out beautifully but there are a million pics on this blob of us making roux. And NO virginia....you do not toast the flour!!! hahahahahaha

ms. thang finally put her clothes on but the cap'n stayed in his cooking/LSU clothes all day and that really bothered the daughter in this house.She couldn't understand why a man would not get dressed all daylong!!!!!

The line-up to fix your bowl. All cajun/coonasses know that just a lil scoop of potato salad beside your bowl of gumbo atop a pile of rice is just necessary. So, we had the world renowned homemade potato salad, by chef clisa, with rice and cornbread muffins. Forgot to bring the gumbo file, pronounced fiel-aay, to top it with. It's sassafrass and just gives it that final lil poof of magic! (that bowl below had to have been fixed by one of those PNW'ers cuz there was entirely not enough juice in there!!)

The finished pot of chicken/sausage gumbo! oh.....and did I mention that LSU beat Alabama on this day?? hahahaha
BEST DAY EVAH!!!!!

few details!

So many of you have asked me where my banner pic was taken and what kind of trees those are....actually, it's my yankee friends who have asked about the trees!! I took the picture on my drive from our lakehouse to other house. Several days before I got this shot, I'd thought to myself that I should just pull over and walk back to the bridge to get these trees while their colors are so awesome. So, finally I did.........after driving past...remembering....turning around and going back to get it. And they are cypress trees.....which are abundant in our water areas. And their root systems are awesome....called cypress knees, which you can read about here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypress_knee

This is a shot of a tangled bunch of them from our area.

The cypress trees do make beautiful frames for my pictures!

Cutest LSU fans!!!

My kiddos!!

...or HOOLIGANS??!!!!! (which when I went to get the actual definition, the first thing that popped up was......"This word spells Trouble"..........!!!!!!!!!

The one on the left even caught two of the field goal balls kicked during the game....well, he caught ONE and the other one hit him in the throat...hmmmm!!Good Times!!

Even prettier than the landscapes??

The friendships made and nourished by all of us! It's hard to see each other when you live across the country from all...so we work hard to see each other. And SO worth it!!! I'm going to post pics of our weekend with those friends......t0 cherish and share forever! Hoping to tell the story of the trip thru the images....

..flying over mountains is always a thrill!

First things first!...cap'n had a special armadillo painted for Cu*t's bar adorned with LSU and an Abita beer bottle!

This man's "great BIG.. um.....shaker"

and these....

tend to lead to this!

Some precious LSU Tigers-to-be!

and then, of course, the fun and nerve-wracking watching of LSU beat BAMA!! heh.

Only this woman would have the most beautiful Washington apples beside our bed! A delicioso breakfast strata! Glorioso vino! And the juiciest tomatoes IN the most adorable tomato dish!!

A darling November beauty!!

And a sight I never thought I'd see................all my friends AND my boyfriend coming out of a "ZIPS" after a super-duper breakfast together!

A wonderful trip for the books!! And another pile of happy happy memories........:)
(haven't even gotten to the gumbo-making lesson by cap'n to clisa.....OMG!!!)