Merry Christmas

Lillian received a book from her cousins today. She loves books. She'll bring them to me all day long. I've recently caught her flipping through her favorite jungle book while doing her lion roar. "Baaawwh!"

Lillian loves her new book. Though my voice is on vacation somewhere warm without me we read it six times in twenty minutes. How she heard me is a mystery.

Halloween

Many Halloween parties were to be had while we were in Alaska. We love us some Halloween parties! There's a great costume shop near my parents home known to only a few. A lady has an extensive collection in her three car garage. No cars. Hardly any standing room either. We found a little duck costume for Lillian that served us well for the first party. This gave us (my mom) enough time to make her costume for the last party a week later. A party with a fabulous bon fire and fireworks!

Thank you to all my siblings who had wonderful parties and amazing food. Thank you to my mom for making the adorable panda costume. We had a great Halloween!

October Duds

Rest and Recuperation

We are still here! We are here and thriving in the Good ole South. We've been busy frolicking the last of our summer away while Dave was home for his r&r.

It was a wonderful two weeks. Filled with so many activities. Which included the following:

Devouring juicy Amish peaches

4 Wheeling across a 600 acre farm

Folding laundry, together

A weekend of camping

Washing the car, together

Rafting the Ocoee River, twice

Attending the temple

Watching baby perfect her mad walking skills

Fixing the lawnmower, together

Watching not a lick of TV

Patronizing Chattanooga's Aquarium

Snuggling with our daughter at 6am

Hanging out with friends

Cliff jumping

Brushing our teeth, together

Attempting horseback riding, there were some uncooperative horses

Sitting down at our dinner table, together

Discovering an Amish Pumpkin patch

Rural county fair ferris wheel rides while camping

Attending church, together

Touring a wonderful veterinary clinic

Dodging a spewing baby while touring clinic (Yeah, our baby)

Stuffing ourselves silly at our favorite sushi spot

Sigh. It was a great two weeks.

Christmas at the Harrell's

Though it's a little behind the times, here is our Christmas.

Thank you to all who sent us a Christmas card. Opening the mail was an anticipated part of our day throughout the season.

If you don't see yours in the front it might be on the back. Love that huge "joy to the world" card. Thank you Banana!

These pictures were taken Christmas day. So if you still don't see yours it showed up a little later and we enjoyed it thoroughly.

Bell ringing for the Salvation Army in front of Walmart.

Busted out the snowsuit for squirt. Good thing too. It was super cold and the Carhart coat didn't quite reach around me, the carrier and the baby. She slept through the whole thing. Dave brought in the masses with his enthusiastic bell ringing. While the baby worked the crowds.

First time in the bumbo. She has started grabbing things and pulling them towards her face. Her pants are not that short she's just showing off her legs. A latest pass time of hers.

Christmas day we all gloriously slept in. Stayed in our comfy pajamas, ALL DAY! With the exception of the baby who did get dressed. Played Hand and Foot, our latest time suck that we have fallen in love with. Went out for sushi, in our pajamas. Played Hand and Foot at our sushi table, in our pajamas. All the Asian women at the sushi place telling Dave he lost because he's male, priceless. Watched Avatar, in our pajamas.

We agree that pajamas and sushi may well become a Harrell Christmas tradition.

Puppy Love

This is for all the canine loving children we know.

4th of July weekend we went camping with a great family. They brought ten puppies along with them. So much fun!

Sully found a unique chew toy while at our campsite. A turtle shell. Thankfully the previous tenant had long since relinquished it's claim to the external casing. I was trying to get a shot of him flinging the shell into the air, catching it with his teeth and then continuing to chew. He wasn't cooperative on that, however. He worked on it for two days off-and-on till it was obliterated.

There were 3 wave runners in attendance. One of which Dave managed to tip upside 3 times. Once with it still running. That was exciting! Even Sully got a ride on one.

On the actual 4th Dave went back to Ft Campbell because the Army had him pulling staff office duty all day and all night. He drew the short straw. It's not like someone is out to get him... maybe. That night I went back too and it was a good thing because there was all kinds of crazy storms and tornado's in the area. Our tent got blown over and filled with water. The people we were camped had a tree fall into the campsite. Thankfully nobody was flattened. And they had a kayak get blown away and sunk wherewith no amount of searching could discover. Lame. But Dave, Sully and I stayed high and dry. When we went back in the morning the party that stayed was soaked pretty good and ready to go home.

Our Hunter Gatherer

Ahh! Some time on the lake.













Dave decided that my back-up-in-case-we-tip-clothes made a good covering. We're both fried anyway. Though our head gear did do some good. The skin is still attached to our noses. Hopefully it will remain that way.

The one he kept.


The one he didn't.

Happy Memorial Day everyone!

Daddy's Home!!

I'M BACK! And I love America. It's the best. I haven't sat down to write a blog because I've been to busy having fun, and I forgot all about it. Valli is at a lathe class so instead of pinning I'll write a blog about being home.

I got back to Ft Campbell around 8pm on the 23rd of December. Happy Birthday Joseph Smith, Lindsay Firth, and a bunch of other people not listed att. After 4 hours of time-wasting bullcrap I got to go home. The Army sucks. Literally, who on Earth wants to listen to the crappy band, sing the crappy Army Song, and be speached at about 'How great it is to have us back, now don't kill yourself or get sent to jail the first night back' for four hours, after sitting in airplane and airfields for 30 hours while our families are waiting in bleachers. Army: you suck for that. Suck. Anyway, after that mess I had seven days of repatriation/paperwork/dont-kill-anyone-including-yourself-beat-your-wife-drink-and-drive-drink-and-anything speaches.

I told you I was busy having fun. Now that that worthless crapfest is over with I have finally started my vacation. I have 30 days of Army-free bliss to spend doing all the things I've been waiting for. It's been awesome. Valli posted the bike pictures already- which is uber-cool, but not the best thing. The BEST thing is being with Valli, and includes a billion smaller reasons rolled up together.

Other best things about being home are:

Peace and Quiet. I could go on and on about the one. But I'll just say that Afghanistan was a very noisy place.

The House. Valli has done so much work on the house that I hardly recognise it. The bathroom is awesome and the eternal hot water is awesome and the new kitchen counters and cabinets and no more crappy carpet and crappy panelling is awesome too.

The huge truck Valli bought.

Christmas Holidays and rad gifts like friggin-awesome fuzzy slippers, REI gift certificates, and a monster gas grill. Also, Jenny- your gift is almost done, I swear I'll have it sent by February. And Ed, sorry man, not this year either.

Cooking my beautiful cow. He is so delicious.

Not working. There are no words.

Not being in Afghanistan. Way too many words.

The. Bike. Is. AWESOME!!! In case you also want one now, it's a Yamaha RoadStar Warrior 1700, and it has a ton of power! Who knew? Apparently not the insurance company because the premiums are so cheap! About a quarter of what they were for the last one. It is so sexy and loud and fast and shiny and cold to ride on in January but I DON'T CARE! I just bundle up and suffer because it so much fun!

The list has to end somewhere and I guess this will work, but I could go on and on. Being home is wonderful, and Valli and I are doing great, and if I haven't got around to calling you yet you are not alone because I've hardly called anyone. But I love you guys and hope you are having at least as good a time as I am, if not better.

Ichabod Crane never had it so good

It's that pumpkin carving time of year again. Woo Hoo!

This uber beautiful pumpkin is brought to you all the way from Afghanistan by the talented Dave. I can't believe he got so much detail on such a small area. Carving genius I tell you. It is lacking flames. Did I say lacking? I meant improved upon with no flames.

Mine on the other hand, hee he, while lacking in detail makes up for it in uniqueness. Ok, so maybe it doesn't actually make up for it. But it is unique. No one else I know of used my hand for their inspiration.

The rest are brought to you by a few of the Hatley siblings who participated in our Family Home Evening.

Laci's cute creation.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Spencer with Hogsqueal.

I think the top would do well for a tail.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Mark's impersonation of his pumpkin.                                                                                                                       

                             Lanisha and the Joker.

Happy Halloween Everyone!

The Bestest Sister in the World

Last week I vowed not to submit any more posts to our blog. We all see how long that lasted. As determined as I was to stick to my guns on this I’m throwing in the towel. I even went so far as to write up something and email it to a few people. Then today I got the greatest package and totally have to show it off.


And here I thought I was all on the ball and everything when I filled out two lousy valentines and stuck them in the mail for her and her hubby today. I am now the proud owner and wearer of a fabulous pair of Valentines socks and I have Pansy seeds I am so excited to watch grow into delightful colorful faces that I can say good morning to. Family is the Bestest!

Now I am so going to decorate and enjoy this coming day of Love. Thank you everyone for being so great and supportive while Dave is deployed.

Happy Valentines Day!

Birth of a Bedroom

O Holy Crap. That was the theme of our "get the bedroom ready for company" Christmas. So much work and so little time. The week before my Mom and Dad came to visit was one renovation headache after the other. The most traumatic phase was just agreeing what color, style, texture, combination, paint, carpet, ceiling to go with. It took multiple trips to Home Depot amounting to several hours of looking at different samples, tiles, colors etc. Compounding the frustration was my endless indecision paired with my normal good-natured wife's deteriorating patience. And no thanks to the paint desk dudes discreet martial advice. 

Which didn't help either of us in the get-in-a-good-mood category.

And then there was the real work.

This room has been the storage area for the past year. Everything was pulled out and relocated (in a very optimistic sense of the word) in other places in the house. Because of the shortness of time I was trying to mud, tape, sand and texture all at the same time. It doesn't work. But I did the best I knew how, even though I sometimes sabotaged Valli's well-laid plans. My hope was that we would have the room cleaned out, have the floor prepared for carpet, and have the walls painted just in time for the carpet installers to show up Wednesday morning, pick up and assemble the bed Wednesday afternoon, and have dinner ready for the folks early Wednesday evening. And something like 4 days to do it. Okay- no sweat.

And then we decided to use leveling concrete on the floor. More trips to Home Depot. Which we discovered had to have a primer coat. "Oh, and by the way", needs to set for 12 -24 hrs.

Then we found that when an aerosol can of spray-on orange-peel texture says 110 sq. feet it really means just 10 sq feet. So we figured it would cost about six hundred thousand dollars to buy enough cans of texture. So we needed to find an air compressor to borrow, and learn how to use it, and buy mix-yourself texture, and learn how to mix it, and buy/learn to use a texture gun. Which means more trips to Home Depot.

When we were about halfway through leveling the room we simultaneously ran out of auto leveler AND discovered that not only are these "square footage per bag" also hopelessly optimistic, but so is the term "auto" in auto-leveling. So, the result was more scrambling to fix the newest disaster and of course, more trips to Home Depot as the first couple batches were drying and being put down by Valli.

Next came the texturing of the walls- before we finished sanding.  But I didn't care.  I just wanted the room to look done.  I could go back and fix that stuff later.  So on went the first batch with our brand new spray gun and borrowed air compressor (note- one trip to hardware store to but adapters, another trip to return them and buy the right adapters).  The first batch went on really nicely.  I was actually really buoyed up by this- that something actually worked the way I wanted it to.  Did I mention that this is the night before the folks get here?  I thought maybe- just maybe-  I could finish texturing in the next hour, let it sit for 6 hours with the floor fan on high blast, spray on the primer, let that sit for 6 hours, and spray on the base coats of the actual paint right before the carpet installer show up Wednesday morning.  Oh yeah, and somehow go to work, too.  But the next batch of texture was too runny and started sliding down the walls.  So Valli and I trowelled off everything and started over after we went back to Home Depot and bought more texture.  The next time, only a quarter of the texture ran off the wall.  And it had to be removed again, and more texture mixed again (really good at this by now).  But the problem was that the wall was too wet by this time and nothing would stay on until it had dried for at least 6 hours.  But if that was what the box says, then it probably meant to say six days.  Anyway- I finally had to concede that it just wasn't going to get finished.  The only positive thing now was that at least I didn't have to stay up all night, and no more trips to God-Bless-America Home Depot.

The next morning Valli called me at work to announce- with happiness and joy that rival the angel of the Lord, long ago in Bethlehem-  "(Hey! Unto you a Child is born!) Honey, we have carpet!"  The bad news is that since that floor has been raised by cement, pad, and carpet, the bedroom door no longer opens or closes.  It's an acceptable compromise.  

Once I got home from work i spent the rest of the day picking up and assembling the bed, wiring the new light fixtures wrong so that neither of them work and plunged the room into darkness, and making a last trip to Wal-Mart for floor lamps and a new lock set for the bedroom door- to install once Valli finishes cutting an inch or so off the bottom of it.  Turns out the door was built with a metal sheet in it.  That explains the slow process and black smoke billowing from the circular saw.  Oh well.  We threw the last bits together with an hour to spare before company arrived and haven't done a productive thing since.


It's as finished as it is going to be for a good while- and its beautiful.

And we love you Mom and Dad!

 

The finished product!

A "soda" but not really, Christmas

Valli had the fun idea to make a crapload of cream soda and give it away to our friend’s and such around the neighborhood with the following poem.

Some people are soda crazy, fun to be around.
Some people are soda cheery,
making others smile instead of frown.
Some people are soda neighborly, taking
interest and lending a hand.
Some people are soda superior when it comes to
being a friend.
So at this Christmas time, we want to celebrate by telling
you that we think you’re soda great!

So a week and a half ago she made 3 gallons of cream soda and left it to brew. Last night she typed up the poems on pretty paper and sanitized 30 or so bottles that have been collecting dust, ants, goo, and other yuckies for the past couple months since we switched to kegs. I didn’t really do much work, I just advised on the sanitation process since that has traditionally been my job. Everything was going great until we opened up the soda jugs and discovered that they were nasty. It was the first batch that we have ever made of cream soda that wasn’t delicious. The bottom line is this- No soda for you!


Oh well, we have had a great Cristmas holiday anyway. Its great to just be together. And wait till you see what we've done in the bedroom!


Not that- sickos.


Merry Christmas Everyone!

Harrell's Pumpkin Patch

Here are the fruits of our labors.
They came away with a couple awards at the Halloween party: Most adorable, Most Creative, Best over all.
Can you guess which pumpkin got what?



Trunk or Treat. A lot of fun. A lot of candy. Dave got to show off his sword and used it to open a bag of skittles.



Dave went through quite a bit of rubbing alcohol to keep the fires stoked.



More than meets the eye. The kids were captivated by the color changing LED's.



We thought a sweet four year old girl was going to run off with Bubs our gourd. Once again, the lights. Mesmerizing.



The Carpel tunnel pumpkin. Can you notice anything wrong with the Black Widow? Dave says it's obviously wrong. But right for a Japanese Black Widow. I so think he made that up. But he sounded so convincing I didn't question it at the time.



Happy Halloween Everyone!

The next post will have nothing to do with pumpkins.  Promise.