Thanksgiving Part Two

Andy wanted to title this post "Beating Bama (part two)" but since I am not an advocate of worrying about who we beat, I thought we could just maybe say War Eagle! Matthew has walked around the house this week chanting "It's great to be an Auburn Tiger...." He really got into Tiger Walk. :) We enjoyed seeing the Vest/Parrish side of the family the second half of the Thanksgiving holiday and spent most of that time pep rallying, tailgating or watching the ballgame! Whew...what a long day! Matthew made a new friend - Tex and Cindy's son Josh was so sweet to play with him - you can see pics of them on the slide show. Matthew also really enjoyed playing with "Aunt Reesy" and Buddy and Teresa's dogs! He definitely did not want to come home and in fact stalled a good half an hour throwing pennies into the fountain out front of the house and taking pictures with Buddy and Teresa on Sunday morning to avoid getting in the car with Mom and Dad. :)

Have a great week. We love you! CAM

Thanksgiving Part One

We enjoyed seeing all of you who were at Granny Garrett's over the Thanksgiving holiday. For those of you who aren't aware, I am one of 6 kids and my Dad is as well. My Dad and all of his siblings gathered for Thanksgiving at my grandmother's in TN with their respective families. It is always a big crowd and lots of fun with cousins, aunts, uncles and extended family. These days we're mostly grown up :) and get rooms at the Holiday Inn but I was remembering holidays when I was a kid and there would be 5 or 6 pallets on the living room or den floor full of my siblings or cousins. Matthew had a great time letting everyone feed him an enormous amount of pie (he needs some cousins....to balance his attention seeking efforts) and building a questionably designed but well assembled paper airplane with Aunt Meg. Here are a couple of my favorite photos - you can see more on the slide show. If you click the slide show, it will take you to Picasa Web where you can manipulate the photos in various ways. If you have some photos you'd like to share, email them to me and I'll add them to Picasa and the blog. We love you! C, A and M

Thanks and Giving

As we enter this week of Thanksgiving, we are often surrounded by symbols of this season. Matthew has brought home several pieces of art focused on turkeys, cornucopias, gourds, pilgrims, family, etc. Today, for the second time this week, in a lecture a speaker asked us to stop and think about what we were the most thankful for in our personal and professional lives. Most of you probably can recount similar incindents.

Last week I was fortunate to be invited to attend a session with a professional dance troupe, AXIS. I attended both a teacher workshop and a public performance. AXIS is a dance company dedicated to the production of high quality modern dance through dancers with and without disabilities. It was truly an incredible experience and I was unprepared for my reaction to the performance, even after going through the workshop. The idea that dance is an art form that should be accessible to everyone, regardless of ability does not seem foreign to me, and that is why I was so open and excited to attend and participate in the activities. Meeting the dancers, gleaning ideas and taking part in roundtable discussions about how to incorporate these ideas with my students were all wonderful experiences. I attended the public performance in my role as an arts mentor at the Alys Stephens Center (a local venue) with two of my mentees and a fellow mentor and as I said, was totally unprepared for what I saw. The pieces were so incredibly moving. If you asked me to list the three worst disabilities I could think of, I'm not sure what they would be, but I am pretty sure I would never think to list, "someone who had no fingers" but when a dancer who had no fingers or feet danced onstage, I thought of that in a completely new way. As a pianist, I can't imagine not making my art. I'm sure you can't imagine not doing the things you do with your fingers every day. This person was a gymnast in her previous life (she was disabled at age 21.) And she is a beautiful dancer today. If AXIS is ever on tour in your area, you should check them out - they reside in the Bay Area, CA. Check out their website at http://www.axisdance.org/.

I am thankful for each and every one of you ~ my friends and family. You make our lives complete in your own way. Some of you we see often and know well, some of you occasionally and you know more about us through this blog than ever before! My Aunt Teresa posted once on here about family and I liked that post (you can go back and read that) and I really like a guy named John Jacobson (no, not john jacob jingleheimer schmidt) who says, "You're all valuable, we need everybody." And that sums it up for me...we need everybody. I love you. Happy Thanksgiving.

Beating Bama (part I)

So here's a little trivia: They were the first team to lose a regular season basketball game to Samford in the Pete Hanna Center. Who is the University of Alabama, Alex?!

True enough, the Samford women's team christened the new arena with a 48-46 win over the Crimson Tide last week, starting a week of excellent public address announcing that also led to victories over Princeton and East Tennessee State.

Matthew was on hand for the big game, and periodically ran down a few rows to give score updates to one of his teachers, Miss Melanie. (She also happens to be the coach's wife, but was nonetheless excited to get the news from Matthew that "Samford is winning!") Matthew also got to enjoy basketball last week with his Mom, Papaw, Uncle Scott and Shannon. He summoned up the courage to give a "high five" to Spike the Bulldog mascot, and used his considerable cuteness to score free popcorn from Mr. David, the concessions manager.

Sunday night, Mom and Dad raced up to Guntersville to pick up MVP, who had spent an entire 36 hours away from home. We missed him badly, but Matthew was not homesick in the least, since he'd been with his Aunt Jo-Jo and Uncle Bradley, and had spent the day at a horse show!

On the way home, the conversation somehow turned to Santa Claus and potential gifts. Mom mentioned that she would get online and find out when Santa would be visiting our area, so Matthew could tell 'ol St. Nick (not the football coach) what he wants. Matthew replied with the advice: "You should try going to Christmas dot com."

Well, Thanksgiving week is here - and I understand there is a football game coming up soon - so to sum up the holiday, Samford, beating Alabama, and horses: War Turkey Dogs, Hay!

Love y'all, and see you soon!

Drum Roll Please...

Homewood City Schools are out for the next entire week and some of my students are waiting (oh so patiently!) for these results, so I told them I would post them on the blog...here you go ladies!

The 2008 All State Choir participants are...Soprano 2 - Savannah Wright and Liza Spencer! Alto - Kinsley Collins! Bravo to all of you who auditioned - this was quite an undertaking and I am incredibly proud of you. Have a great week off and I will see you back on Monday. - Mrs. P :)

Call of the Wild

Monday was a school holiday for Homewood City Schools and so Matthew and I headed to the Birmingham Zoo as it was a beautiful day to be outside. Many of the animals were more active than we remembered from several of our summer visits and we enjoyed seeing the white tiger that we had missed the last time we were here as well! Matthew was disappointed that the Butterfly Encounter was closed until Spring, but it was a great opportunity for a science lesson about the cycle of life! Ha - wishful thinking, Mom! Anyway, we had a great day and enjoyed some down time from the busy weekend. We love you all and look forward to seeing you during the holidays ahead.

Thanks Memaw and Papa!

On Friday, my Mom and Dad were in town and we met for lunch. Matthew was very disappointed that he was unable to join us, but super excited that they left him a "prize cookie" from Savage's, our favorite bakery! He ate all around the edges and saved the "Auburn part" for last. :)

At dinner Friday evening Matthew entertained us with tales about his friend Lily, who apparently plans to marry him. Another girl, Jordin drew him a card with a picture of them both in pink dresses because she "really likes him a lot and wants to marry him." Matthew says he doesn't want to marry either of them and just wants to play trains or let them chase him on the playground. Man, the girls are so young to start being worried about liking boys - craziness. Hmmm.

Busy Times

Hello everyone! Sorry for the lack of recent updates. We are extremely busy this week. Andy had 2 Monday night basketball games and a Thursday night football game at Samford, Cherith's kids open the King and I at SCT this Friday evening and her school kids' Veteran's Day Program performance is Friday morning! So, in addition to all of our "regular" activities, we're keeping late nights.
The weather change has been very sudden here - we went from this beautiful but hot summer to realizing we never really dress appropriately for winter in Alabama until it is freezing out! And then it is typically gone! It seems earlier this year, however, or maybe I am just not prepared yet. Jo and I went to Christmas Village last week and I could not believe it was holiday time already.
Here are some pictures from a recent weekend at a Samford football game, Matthew with a friend, Antonio. They spent the entire day climbing trees, eating, climbing the rock wall, sliding down the "big hill" (A Samford tradition), jumping in the numerous bouncy things, eating, running, etc. By the end of the day you can see what they looked like. :) Boys are so fun.
We love you all and hope to see you soon. Let us know how you are. Have a peaceful weekend.

Cherith, Andy and Matthew

DC revisited

Since we talked about our Washington trip, I just wanted to share a photo from one of our students (one of Matthew's new girlfriends) Emily. She took this picture on one of the dark, dreary, rainy nights of the Vietnam Memorial. I thought the "points of light" effect is pretty cool.

One of the traditions of the media convention is a "shootout," in which photojournalism students have 3 or 4 hours to go out into the city and take all the pictures they can, competing for the best shots. The winners and other good photos are posted here .

It's amazing what they came up with on a dark, rainy day & night.

Geaux Bulldogs!

So it's my turn to do the blog, and tell you about our weekend. For me, it was a lot of football. PA for the Samford vs. Jacksonville State football game. The title of this entry is a reference to Acadian influence at Samford, of course.

Well, we lost. We were expected to lose, and we came through...but played well. And most importantly, the announcer got most of the names right.

Meanwhile, Matthew and Cherith were in Alabaster to continue working on the childrens' production of "The King and I". (I told her it should be "working on the king and me," but she disagrees.) Once again, Matthew helped in decorating the set. Practically since he was born, Matthew has been able to memorize any song he hears. So at any time during the day, he is likely to start up with "Getting to Know You," or my favorite from The King and Me, "We Are Siamese if You Please." And speaking of show tunes, just a couple of hours ago, Matthew was very excited to hear "Shipoopi" on "The Family Guy," and he joined in.

We also had a nice visit this weekend from Jo"Aunt JoJo"Anna, in town for the conference of the LVTA, or LAVT, or some combination of those letters that make up a veterinary organization. After going to church this morning, Cherith and Jo went to the Christmas Village show at the BJCC. They spent a lot of money, which I guess will turn out good for you in about 7 weeks or so.

Right now, as we're in bed and about to sleep fast before an early start to Monday, we're watching "American Beauty." What a great movie! And a good reminder of just how lucky we are for all the "stuff" we have, and more importantly, each other.

Love y'all...

Spider Update

You'll all be happy to know that our spider is growing well. He is now at least 3 times his orginal size and still going. We discovered a "Grow a Fish" as well in our package and so now the spider has a friend.

Matthew had a great day at school - it was field trip day. His class went to the Children's Theater to see Peter and the Wolf with the Alabama Symphony. Matthew really enjoyed it, although now he is telling me his very favorite part of the day was when he and his friends yelled really loud on the bus as they went through the tunnel.

Have a great night!