Tuesday I helped with the annual luncheon at church for our nurture members – older people, many of whom are mostly shut-ins.  A lot of work is put into getting as many there as possibly can come – lots need much help with walking, etc.  It is always so special seeing these old friends who so seldom get to see each other spending time together again.  Linda Lowman is a hugely talented member of our church, and she did all the gorgeous decorations.  I served and cleaned up.  This is the dessert table.  Also, I did, in fact, put the fruit and cool whip on the plated slices of pound cake 🙂

Monday I spent the morning at Rosewood Elementary working their book fair.  As it turned out it was their Thanksgiving lunch day, and I stayed and ate with Adam, Jenny, and Andrew.  That’s Adam’s bff Olivia in this picture with Adam and his mom 🙂

Adam, along with Mason, was in the Sunday school class I taught this past Sunday.  During worktime playdough was a big draw.

Saturday night four of the six cousins slept over, and we had our traditional root beer floats for bedtime snack.

Our day started out yesterday at the Veterans Day celebration at Larne Elementary.  As we were walking in, Mrs. Wald, the music teacher, told me that she noticed we were double dipping yesterday – Mason was part of the color guard, in his cub scout uniform, presenting the flags, and June took part in the program as a member of the Honors chorus, singing with her fifth grade homeroom, and as one of the narrators.  It was such a nice program.  They introduced each of the veterans one by one to a round of applause.

Then we met Cooper at Rosewood Elementary Program for their Veterans Day program at lunchtime. We weren’t able to see Adam in the crowd while he was singing, so were even happier that, he, too was a cub scout participant in their presentation of the colors, too. We had a great view of him there. It was such a special day.

Thursday afternoon I picked both girls up from school – that doesn’t happen that often any more, because Mallory so often goes to play golf.  I had some dipping chocolate left over from making buckeyes last week, so I took it, and we spent some time that afternoon dipping marshmallows and pretzels.  It was kind of holiday-ish, for sure!

We stopped by the state park for one more hike before the trip came to a close.  This is the park where we’d camped and hiked when Olivia worked there, so we’d been to Little Pinnacle several times.  It gets prettier every time I see it, I believe.

Sunday we spent the day in Abingdon – what a beautiful Virginia mountain town.  We were so excited to find the Abingdon Muster Grounds, a National Park on the site of the grounds where the Overmountain Men gathered to march to Kings Mountain for the big battle there.  Since Kings Mountain National Battlefield is here in Clover, we have been hearing about the Overmountain Men forever, so it was exciting to see where they originated.  My favorite stories at a national park are always the ones you never hear anywhere else, like this one.

From we left the Muster Grounds we headed to Heartwood Craft Center, a juried store of absolutely gorgeous pieces made by craftsmen in, I think they said, an eleven county area around there. It was like being in a museum – so much so that the only thing I could afford was a S’mores Latte, their flavor of the month, at the coffee bar there. And it was a steamer – didn’t even include the espresso. Delicious – and so pretty!

When we left there we spent some (ok, a lot) of time at the oil shop that friends had recommended, and then walked around town for a while. We had hoped to eat at the legendary Martha Washington Inn, right there in the middle of town, but it didn’t work in our timing. Another thing to look forward to on our next trip!