It's Been Awhile!

A couple out riding their bikes today stopped me as I was on the way back from the laundry room and asked if I was the lady who did the blog. I thought they meant the Periwinkle Park blog but he said, no, they meant mine. And they said they were worried about me because I hadn't posted for so long. I admitted that I spend a lot of time on Facebook, therefore have let my blog go by the wayside. But--it did kind of give me a kick in the you know what so thought I would catch everyone up on what I've been up to.

I was spending 4-5 days a week at CROW but with the snowbird volunteers back, I'm only working 3. We pick up patients on Thursdays and I work in the clinic on Fridays and Saturdays. We have been feeding MANY baby squirrels this fall. Very time consuming but I really enjoy it. Another plus was that we have hired another vet. Dr. Steph was an intern a couple of years ago and stayed on for two years as a rehabber. She left last June but they hired her back this fall. YAY!!! Be sure and check out CROW's up to date, new and improved website.

In October we headed to Walt Disney World for 4 nights staying at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. If you stay there, you can take a special tour of the Savannah and get up close and personal with the animals. Part of the tour includes a wonderful meal at Jiko's, their really nice restaurant.
I also treated myself to the Characters in Flight in Downtown Disney. This is a balloon which is tethered but goes up in the air. I've been wanting to do that forever. Chuck doesn't like heights so I went alone.
From Orlando, we headed up to Stone Mountain, Georgia to attend the Stone Mountain Highland Games. We met up with our friends, Vard and Lora from Michigan, and our Montgomery "cousins" from Clan Montgomery and we got to see our favorite Scottish singer, Alex Beaton. We are enjoying the cooler weather here in SW Florida. It was a very hot summer. And thankfully, we have (so far) escaped any hurricanes or tropical storms. We still enjoy our deck. Here are a couple of sights from our deck. So, I guess this posting is thanks to the people who stopped me today and asked if I was the lady who had the blog. I neglected to get their names but thanks guys. Hope you read this.

Stone Mountain 36th Annual Scottish Highland Games Scottish Festival

So, we attended the Stone Mountain Scottish Highland Games Scottish Festival this past weekend. Usually we make this a stop on our way south to Florida for the winter. This year, as most of you know, we migrated to Florida the lst of September. So we had to travel north 604 miles and 10 hours (with stops) to attend for the 5th year in a row. We always stay at the Stone Mountain Inn because it is so accessible to the sights of Stone Mountain and is walking distance to the Games. Our main draw to the Games is to meet up with and be entertained by our friend, Alex Beaton, but also to join our friends and family from Clan Montgomery.




Now, you must understand, most Highland Scottish Festivals are called Highland Games because of the Games. Although, I have observed some games at various festivals, I tend to spend most of my time at Alex's tent or at the Montgomery tent. So, therefore--no pictures of the games or Highland Dancers. I do, however, have pictures of various things from the weekend. So here goes.

After the rain out on Friday, Saturday and Sunday were crisp but sunny. Here are a few of Alex's faithful bundled up for his 10:00 performance.

You see all kinds of dress at Scottish Festivals.

There are always Clan Tents. This year there were about 100 clans represented.

Every Games has an opening ceremonies where dignitaries are introduced, bands march, speeches are given and national anthems are sung. And of course, crowds watch.

Stone Mountain always has LOTS of Pipe and Drum bands. This year, the featured band was the Royal Canadian Mountain Police Regimental Pipes and Drums all the way from Alberta, Calgary, Canada. (BTW, regimental in terms of kilts, means, nothing is worn underneath the kilt. All together now, Oooooo, Ahhhhh.)

Of course, every Pipe and Drum Band has pipes.

And drums.

And men in kilts. (Ok, so there are ladies in kilts too.)

And when bands get together, they are known as Massed Bands.

Also at the Games are Heeland Coos. (Translation--Highland Cows.)

Falconry. This is a Red Shouldered Hawk. Gorgeous, huh?

Vendors, crowds and bands.

And of course, Clan MacMedic.

Then we have the Atholls. The Chief of Clan Murray is known as the Earl of Atholl. Alex has a whole litany of jokes and comments about the Atholls. BTW, our favorite pub in Glasgow, Scotland is the Atholl Pub! Gotta love it. Sorry to all the Murrays out there.

And then there is Rhu, the future Earl of Eglington, the hereditary Chief of Clan Montgomery. I love little boys in kilts.

This was the about the only fall colors we saw but at least we saw some.

This is Stone Mountain--the view from the hotel parking lot.

The Stone Mountain carving of Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee

I caught a glimpse of the carving through the trees on our way back to the hotel. So, goodbye to Stone Mountain and to the Games. We had a great time and are looking forward to next year's festival.

My Weekend in Pictures

The weekend started with a Friday night Barbecue and concert. We met Alex at the dinner then proceeded to the concert where we helped sell his CD's. This is what a teenager does during a Celtic concert when he is bored.

This is my beautiful friend, Jan, who I wore the pink bracelet for last year. She is with her hubby and daughter.

Here are the 4 Scotsmen from Crieff. One of these is the father of Ewan McGregor. Wish I could read their nametags to figure out which one is the guy.


Here we are with Alex. Since he had a couple of other friends also selling his CD's, we were free to wander the grounds and see other things.

In our journeys around the grounds, we found Danny the Clydesdale. He and his buddy, Diamond, both sported red hats. Don't you love it?

They also had some "Heeland Coos" or "Hairy Coos" or in Americanese--Highland Cows. Here I am petting one of them.

We then wandered over to the Clan Area and visited our booth--Clan Montgomery. Here is Mr. Snowbird with President Hugh Montgomery.

This is Clan Montgomery's president, Hugh Montgomery, with his wife Karen. They always have a fantastic booth with lots of things to look at. While we were there some kids were having a ball trying on armor, playing with swords (toy of course) and chasing bubbles from the bubble machine.

After stopping by the dance building, looking at a few vintage motorcycles and cars made in the UK, watching a pipe band march by and looking at all of the vendor booths, we wandered back to Alex's booth. This was the nametag they made for him this weekend. He LOVED it.

Here are Alex and Mr. Snowbird clowning around a bit.

Here is Alex with Sister Mary Assumpta. She is just adorable.

Alex--up close and personal singing one of his more serious songs.

We left the games, drove to our son's house to change clothes, then headed to Erin's playoff game. We set up our chairs and then this happened!!!

Here is our son who is one of the assistant coaches with a drenched team. Since the downpour only lasted a couple of minutes, the coaches managed to get the field back in shape and get the game underway.

Here is Erin at bat. I believe she walked on this "at bat" but she did get a single another time. The pitching from the other team wasn't the greatest so she didn't get a lot of pitches she could try to hit. There were a lot of walks during the game. Erin also made a heck of a play when she was playing shortstop. Her team won by quite a lot and were supposed to play in the championship game that night. Due to weather and some scheduling problems with the other team, the game was moved to tonight so we won't get to see it. Erin was also one of 4 chosen from her team to be on the All Star team which plays Tuesday night. She definitely is our little athlete.

Here is how Erin practices! She even got Grandma up playing Wii. I did pretty good in bowling and I loved playing with the Wii. Great exercise but unfortunately I managed to mess up an already bad knee playing baseball with her. Can you believe it??

Last but not least, here are Erin and Sam playing Super Mario racing on the Wii. We had a great weekend despite threats of severe weather most of the time. I took lots more pictures but I think I've bored you enough!!