Making Peanut Brittle

I have been slack about downloading pictures lately, so have a few days to catch up on.  A couple of weeks ago when Mallory & Clara were here we made peanut brittle.  It was my turn that night to take refreshments to circle meeting at church, so I decided to make some to go with the veggie tray and cheese & crackers.  Cooking is always fun with the girls.  We actually sat out on the front porch & shelled the raw peanuts to use.  Clara wasn’t a big fan of the peanut shelling.  She told me she hoped that was the most boring part of what we were doing that afternoon :-).untitled

She does, however, LOVE greasing a pan.  She also loves pulling the cooked chicken off the bone.  Just likes getting in there and getting the food underneath her fingernails, I guess.  It was a fun afternoon, and the peanut brittle was yummy!     I’m also glad I got these pictures because it was Veterans Day, and they were dressed in their red, white, and blue for their program at school. 🙂untitled

Charlotte on our Trip

Sunday morning – the last day of my birthday trip – we got a few final pictures of the Big Mill Inn before we headed out.  Here is my dear, dear friend Charlotte by the sign out front.untitled

We spent the morning touring Bath, NC, the oldest town in the state.  We had driven through the night before, but it was almost dark before we got there, so we went back to check it out in more detail.  This picture is on the grounds of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, the oldest church building in the state.  Charlotte is standing with a bust presented to the church by a church in Bath, England – another town she had also visited.  It was just a beautiful morning to be out and about.untitled

We left Bath & headed to Cary, NC, where both Charlotte’s daughter Carin and her family, AND my nephew Nathan and his family, had moved over the summer – Carin from Detroit and Nate from Jacksonville, FL.  We stopped by so I could get a tour of Carin’s lovely new house, and to visit with them for a few minutes, and then on to Nathan & Diane’s, where I got to meet Baby Daniel for the first time :-).  He was just absolutely perfect.  A month old, & such a hunk of sweetness.  A perfect end to a perfect weekend.untitled

 

 

Back to the B & B

How lovely the inn was after dark!  The night before, when we’d checked in, it had still be daylight, and we just stayed in the room & chilled for the rest of the evening, so we never went back outside to see how pretty the Big Mill Inn looked all lit up!untitled

Saturday on Our Trip

As it turned out, Charlotte had chosen where we would go on my birthday trip so we could tour the Hope Plantation.  She said she started looking for historical sites in the Carolinas, & when she found one named Hope she knew that was where we had to go :-).  We got there just as it was opening Saturday morning, & for the most part had a private tour of the entire site, which was so, so interesting.  Our first stop was the King-Bazemore House, which had actually been moved to the property.  It was donated to the Historic Hope Foundation with the understanding that it would have to be moved to the plantation property.  It was actually about forty years older than the Plantation House, and much smaller, although our tour guide said it was a very nice house for 1763, when it was built.  This is the Hall, which included all the original woodwork on the walls.  That just blew me away.  It was beautiful.untitled

Our tour moved up to the big Hope Plantation House, and it was equally interesting and just so, so well preserved.  There were five things in the house that were original to it, I think our tour guide said, but all of the other furnishings were from the period, and were things that would’ve been used to furnish houses in that part of the country.  This was in the children’s bedroom.untitled

After we finished up at the plantation, we headed to Belhaven to visit the Belhaven Museum, where the info online said they had a display of 30,000 buttons.  How could pass up something with that kind of hype?  And it did, in fact, have 30,000 buttons, but it was so much more.  It had all kinds of stuff that just looked like they drug it out of someone’s attic, and then had like a whale skull and a part of a space ship found in the waters off the Bahamas.  It was crazy and entertaining – so, so funny.  In among all these rows and shelves of just a conglomeration that can’t be described, I happened to see this Pluto Water Bottle, which is from the springs where we vacationed with Addie & Lee & the kids when we were in French Lick, Indiana, this past summer.  It was crazy.  Just such a good, good day.untitled

Birthday Trip

Last Friday my friend Charlotte picked me up at 8 AM sharp, for us to head out on my Destination Unknown Birthday Trip.  What a great, great weekend we had!  We headed into NC & turned east – and the whole time I had no idea where we were going.  It was a beautiful day for a drive, and we – of course! – had such fun visiting while we were riding.  AND we ended up in Pinehurst, NC, which I guess is best known for its golf courses.  We went, though, because it is also home to the #1 ranked Tea Room in North Carolina – Lady Bedford’s Tea Parlour – where we had maybe the best tea experience of my life.  We have been to several tea rooms together, but this one was really something special.  The people were so nice, and the food was wonderful!  We each got a three tiered plate with our food for the occasion on it.  I was especially taken with the chicken salad sandwiches shaped like little tea pots 🙂untitled

We took our time enjoying our tea, and then started driving again – I still had no idea where we were going.  We ended up in Williamston, NC, where we spent the weekend at an absolutely wonderful Bed & Breakfast, the Big Mill Inn.  It was such fun listening to Charlotte tell about how she went about picking what all she had chosen for the weekend, and this bed & breakfast was a perfect choice.  The innkeeper had turned her childhood home into this inn, which was pretty special.  It was beautiful and spacious, but I loved how it kept the old farmhouse feel.  We were in a two room suite, which gave us plenty of room to spread out in the sitting room, and I even loved the pretty bathroom.  It had a great corner tub, but something about it also reminded me of the bathroom in Momma D’s house when we were growing up.  Just a great start to a fabulous weekend… untitled

Pizza Man Night

Tuesday night was the fundraiser at Pizza Man in town for Bethany Elementary School.  I had kept Mallory at home that day from school, but she was feeling good enough to go get pizza that evening :-).  For the treat this month, Lindee had jars of candy for the kids to guess the number of pieces in each jar, & of course the closes guess was the winner.  Here are Clara & Mal filling out the guess papers.  We tried the sub sandwiches there for the first time, and they were YUMMY!!!untitled

At the Auditorium

Last Monday night Meg shared her tickets with me for the program at the auditorium in town, and Addie went with me to take June, Clara, & Mason.  Mallory had planned on going, but she was running a fever when she got home from school – luckily the fourth graders had gotten to go during the day to see the same man perform.  His name was David Berkey, & he used masks & puppets to tell stories from all over the world.  It was really good – the kids laughed & laughed.  Here they are afterwards, getting ready to head home.untitled

Sunday after my Party

Sunday morning after my birthday party I headed to Rock Hill, where I met Andy, Amy, & Liz at their hotel, & we sat & drank tea and coffee, & visited a while longer.  Nathan and Mia had already hit the road for home.  Then when they left I headed over to Susan & Ross’s hotel, and they followed me to Waffle House for breakfast.  Lindee & the girls joined us there.  It was packed, but we waited in line, & didn’t have any trouble finding something to talk about while we were doing that.  After we ate, Lindee, Mallory, & Clara headed out to do some shopping, & the rest of us went to Gran’s for a visit.  They stayed a couple of hours – great fun.  I got this picture just as we were getting ready to head out the door.  Just such a special ending to a great, great weekend.untitled

More Birthday Party Pix

I tried to get pictures of me with everyone who came to the party.  I think I did, but not all of them ended up on my camera.  Here I am with Joe, the guy I’ve worked for for 25+ years, and his wife Sandy.untitled

And with Zollie and his family:  Zol, Renee, Olivia, Rachel, & Cooper.  I loved this evening!untitled