Tuesday, November 30, 2010

looks like a war eagle sunset to me...


As you know, we were losing...boy, were we losing...the iron bowl at halftime.

BUT, we started to make a comeback...
and when we did...
the skies parted and the sun (that we hadn't seen all day) came out
....and cast the most beautiful orange and blue sunset i have ever seen....

 
God loves Auburn...amen!

                              



Dear Hubby

I have just found what I would like as a Valentines Day or Anniversary gift....
ahem
Hubby, you out there????
it comes out in February
Ree Drummond is known as "The Pioneer Woman" and I just love her blog.
Well, now she has finished her book and I am dieing to read it!

(also, those chocolate pearl earrings)


You didn't think I would let you off that easy did you babe???


Wednesday, November 24, 2010

*This Man*

Is a GREAT dad....



has always been an outdoorsman....

knows how to have a good time!


has a little bit of a wild side...

loves me....


    ....he loves his kids


.....and he turns 28 today! Happy Birthday Zach! I love you!!!!

prayers requested

Brittany over at "The life of a Steel Magnolia", is going through a very tough time right now.
Her dad (an old teacher of mine) has been battling cancer and they have just called in hospice.
Here is a link to the CaringBridge page.

Brittany, I am praying for comfort and peace for your dad and your entire family. May God's love and warm embrace comfort you in this time of need.


Tuesday, November 23, 2010

if i had a million dollars....

i would go crazy and buy every single thing in this store

have you heard of it?
they are located on top of lookout mountain in northeast alabama, and have the most amazing glass you will ever lay eyes on!
oh, my! just look at those babies! ill take one in every single color please!
 
get this, their products have been featured in several national publications (ever heard of O magazine??)!
they are like the little hidden gem in the mountains of alabama.
they even have classes during the holidays where you can go "blow your own ornament" for $35.
click here to see the schedule. we went last year and had a great time!
 
 
 
 
ORBIX HOT GLASS DOESN'T EVEN KNOW I EXIST, MUCH LESS THAT I AM BLOGGING ABOUT THEIR GLASS. UNFORTUNATELY, I DIDN'T RECEIVE ANYTHING FOR THIS PRODUCT REVIEW.

Monday, November 22, 2010

I finally decided...

Family Wall Blue Christmas Card
Make a statement with custom Christmas cards at Shutterfly.
View the entire collection of cards.

boys will be boys

griffin decided he wanted to learn how to shave this weekend....


...dont worry, no razors involved! just lots and lots of shaving cream!



Thursday, November 18, 2010

Help me SHOP for Christmas Cards!

It's that time of year folks!
I have been browsing Shutterfly all morning searching for the perfect holiday photo card for 2010.
It is SO HARD because there are SO MANY that I loooove! Maybe I could just send two or three to each person on my list???
We have a gazillion pictures from this year PLUS we are planning to have my father in law snap some photos of us this weekend so I knew I wanted one with lots of photos.
I have narrowed it down to these so far, tell me what ya think!
Black for Christmas??? I think so! I love how simple it is.

Oh, brown and green....SOLD! My two most favoritest colors!

Two of the same...again in black? I am a sucker for monogram!
Again, I like how simple these are...and both color and black and white photos would work well!
Oh, I love this one with the b&w photos!

...monogram and polka dots, be still my heart!!!

This makes me wish my last name started with an "E"...look how flippin' cute that "E" is!

Also, check out their Custom Mugs...Zach has requested one of these this year...how sweet!

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Ohhh Atlanta....

(((I hear you callin')))
sorry...i had an alison krauss moment!

exciting news!
zach and i were just GIVEN tickets to watch our tigers play for the SEC championship in atlanta, ga on december 4th!!!
YAY!!!
i also got us tickets to the coaches luncheon on friday, we'll call that his birthday gift!
i can't wait.
we are also going to the iron bowl on nov 26....im gettin' goose bumps just thinkin' about it!



Monday, November 15, 2010

***all about us***

{miss southern vol} posted this cute little questionnaire this afternoon and i decided i was just bored enough to join in!
ill call it.....anything and everything you ever wanted to know about zach and alyse...


1. What are your middle names? his-Houston...yep, just like the prez  mine-was alyse, now its frasier...big news there...
2. How long have you been together? 10 years...wow
3. How long did you know each other before you started dating? we were in high school...we started "dating" like the second we were introduced...
4. Who asked who out? he asked me...at my cheerleading car wash- so cliche!
5. How old are each of you? he will be 28 next week and i am 25
6. Did you go to the same school? yep

7. Are you from the same home town? yes we are!
8. Who is the smartest? ohh, common sense..me! but he is really smarter at book stuff
9. Who majored in what? Zach - Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, me- didnt finish....slacker...i know!
10. Who is the most sensitive? me  duhhh
11. Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple? mexico
12. Who has the worst temper? bah! me....totally

13. How many children do you want? we still havent decided....i think we both know we want more than we have...
14. Who does the cooking? me...not because he cant cook...cause he can i just hate cleaning up after hurricane zachary has been in the kitchen!
15. Who is more social? he is!
16. Who is the neat freak? me!!!

17. Who is the most stubborn? me....
18. Who wakes up earlier? i do...usually
19. Where was your first date? chilis and a movie....pretty ballar for a 15 year old...hahahah!
20. Who has the bigger family? me for sure!
21. Do you get flowers often? i havent lately but he has done well with flowers in the year 2010....
22. How do you spend the holidays? in the car....not by choice....gotta try to make it to see everyone!
23. Who is more jealous? me!
24. How long did it take to get serious? we were teenagers...
25. Who eats more? we both love food equally...
26. What do you do for a living? he works for NASA and I work for a nonprofit doing bookkeeping
27. Who does the laundry? the magic laundry fairy???
28. Who's better with the computer? he is
29. Who drives when you are together? i hate driving...he always drives
30. What is your song? we dont really have one....maybe Stellar...incubus

Thursday, November 11, 2010

My Papa, Our Veteran

Thurman Oliver Frasier
1924-2010


So I havent had the opportunity to make a post about my Papa. Well, scratch that... It is more like, every time I sit down to type it up I feel like words just can't do him justice.
He married the love of his life, had 4 children, 12 grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren, and 3 great-great-grandchildren. He proudly served his country in WW2. On top of all of that....look at the handsome thing!!! Harry Connick Jr anyone??

Below, is his account of his time in the war...he wrote it back in August of 2004. He didn't forget a single detail of his time in service. Although, as his minister pointed out at his memorial service...remembering wasn't his problem. His problem was that he remembered all too well. He suffered from PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) in the last years of his life. He would wake up with terrible nightmares. He was reliving the war every single night. Ultimately, a middle of the night fall, after one of these "nightmare" episodes is what killed him. I hope that everyone realizes how serious this condition is and how much we need to help our veterans, old and young.

Now, here is his story....

It has now been almost 62 years since I received my notice from Uncle Sam that I had been selected. A few days after that I was on a bus headed for Fort McClellan, AL, which at that time was an induction center. At the induction center they had desks set up where you could sign up for the Army, Navy, Marines or Coast Guard. Another person, William McBride, was inducted at the same time as myself and he tried to get me to sign up for the Navy but I told him I had rather keep my feet on the ground so we both signed up for the Army. In a few days we were loaded on another bus headed for Camp Wheeler, Georgia, which was at that time an Infantry Training Camp.






We were all lined up and sworn in and then received all of our clothing and training gear. We were escorted to our barracks and shown where everything was, our bunks, mess hall, latrine, issued sheets, blankets and pillows. The next morning we heard the bugle and the Sgt. came in and told us to rise and shine and fall in outside. After breakfast, we started some of the most grueling training anyone could receive. I began to get used to this after a few days and later I was in the best shape I have ever been in my life. They issued us all 03 rifles and we had to keep it clean at all times and it was inspected every day. We were sent to the rifle range pretty often and one day we would pull targets and the next day we would fire at the targets. They gave us an aptitude test to see what we were best fitted for. It so happened that I was assigned to the radio school. I had to learn a phonetic alphabet, like a (able), b (baker), c (Charlie), and etc. I also had to learn the Morse Code but not by dots and dashes but by sound like Di Da for A, Da Det Dit for B, and etc. We also had to train with a coding machine. Our radio to start with was a field radio, which was a 284. With this radio each person would generate the power and the other transmit. We would take turns doing this. We also trained with a 193 radio by using voice and C.W.






After we completed our training, we rode a train to Camp Chenango in Pennsylvania. We were there a short time and then went to a port in New York. We were loaded on a ship which was a luxury liner converted into a troop ship. We had no idea where we were going. After we were out to sea a few days, they told us we were headed to North Africa. We were out at sea quite some time as German submarines were chasing us and we had to zigzag back and forth for quite a while. We also ran into bad weather and they had to fill the ballast tanks on the ship and there was a lot of seasickness.






The first land that we saw was when we went through the Straight of Gibraltar. We finally landed at Oran in North Africa. The cities were not very clean and neither were the Arabs. There was a lot of sand, hot and very few trees, which were mostly palms. While there, I was in Tunisia, Bezerte and Mature. We were not there very long. Afterwards, we were loaded on cattle cars and went to another port of embarkation, loaded on a ship and headed for Salerno in Italy. From the ship we were loaded on L.C.I's and went in as close to land as we could and waded water up to our heads with rifles over our heads. At this time though they were M1 rifles instead of 03s.






I did not go in with an outfit; I was an infantry replacement at the time when I was assigned to an Artillery outfit, Hq Bty 6 Corp Arty, as a radio operator. We went from Salerno to Casino where we were stalemated as the Germans were holed up in a monastery and they did not want to destroy the monastery. We were there for some time and they pulled us back to another port of embarkation and we made a landing at Anzio in Italy. We were on the beachhead for quite some time and the Germans were looking down on us all the time that we were there. We stayed in wine cellars most of the time as we were being shelled with artillery most of the time. A lot of the shelling was with a gun that was named Anzio Annie. They had tried many times to locate this gun. Finally, they sent up cub planes and they spotted it by the flash of the gun, the sound, and how far it traveled. The gun was located in a railroad tunnel on cars and the recoil would push the gun back into the tunnel when fired. They sent planes up and bombed the tunnel at both ends and sealed the gun up.






Most of the time at Anzio I would be attached to other outfits. The Indian Gurkas for a while. I found out that when these Gurkas pulled their knives they had to bring blood with them. That if they showed it to you they would have to cut themselves. I was also attached to a Scottish outfit, the 80th medium regiments. We would also draw their rations. Every night when they went on guard duty, they would get a shot of rum and so would we. During the day we had to listen to bagpipes and they all wore their kilts and pranced up and down. One night the Germans dropped a bunch of paratroopers and we had to hunt them down all night.






One day we were watching the Italians dig holes in their grape vineyards and bury their wine flasks. And when they left, we'd go dig them up. Needless to say, we had all the red wine we could use for a while. We had to go into our outfit to get our new SOI signal operations instructions and we were caught in an artillery barrage and we all jumped out of our weapons carrier and ran for a wall to hide behind. It was at this time I was hit on the hand with shrapnel. We stopped at a field hospital and they dressed my hand. I was told to report it when I arrived at our outfit. I made a mistake and did not turn it in.






We finally moved out from the beachhead and were on our way to Rome. It took some time to get there but we finally did. After we were there for a while I went into Rome to sightsee, but I got lost and wandered around all night trying to find my way back to our outfit. I was supposed to be manning the radio but someone else had to fill in for me. Another time I went into Pompeii to look at the ruins there. Also I walked around the ruins of the coliseum. We were in a little town called Bagnolia and I got to see Mt. Vesuvius when it erupted. I believe this was in 1944 but I'm not sure.






At one time we set up our radio car on top of a mountain where there was a big monastery so that we could cover more distance. You could look out below on Sunday and see the people walking up the mountain to mass. They would be strung out below the mountain. They had several kids there that were training to be monks or something and they would wait on us hand and foot. When we were ready for a meal, we had to walk through a tunnel in a mountain to get to a place to eat. Monks there blessed the cross and gave all four of us one. I have no idea what happened to it and I don't remember the name of the town that this was in.






Not too long after this, we were back with our outfit heading for another port of embarkation; this time for southern France. We landed there at the same time as the Normandy invasion. We didn't meet too much opposition at this landing. They had a lot of fake artillery guns made out of logs and a few machine gun nests.






We made our way into Paris after some time and they sent us to the rest camp for a week. But before this they carried us to a place where we had to strip off our clothes and be de-liced. They gave us all some new clothing and we spent a week in Paris. One thing I did while in Paris is that we went to the top of the Eiffel Tower and I took a leak off of it. After this, we went all the way through France and to Germany and then to the German Alps and then to Austria. I did get to see the place in Ensbrook, Austria, where they hold the Winter Olympics. After the war ended, I played on a softball team and traveled all over Germany. Finally, it came time to leave Europe and head home. And again we went to a port of embarkation. The Merchant Marines went on strike at that time and we had to stay there quite some time before we could come home.






When we did get back in the states, we were at Camp Kelmo, New Jersey, and we were on our way home.






Something to add on: While in France, eight of us were lost in a snowstorm. We tried to get some military police (MPs) to lock us up but they would not think of this. We finally found an old farmhouse and an old gentleman who was a very big man, 300 lbs. or so. He took us in and I wound up sleeping in bed with him. The others slept on the floor. When we finally got back to our outfit, they were ready to put us down as missing in action.






The first night that we landed on the beach at Anzio, 25 or so heavy German bombers flew over where we were. It seems that they waited until they got into the middle of the beachhead and opened fire on them. I've never seen as much antiaircraft fire and tracer bullets as they put up. The sky was lit up and the planes were going in every direction. One of the planes fell about 100 yards from where I was on duty that night. The next morning, I went out to look at the spot where it fell. You could only find a few small pieces of the plane and there was a hole big enough and deep enough to put several army trucks in it. This happened some where in Germany.






One day while I was not on duty I went out with the wire section to help them put in some telephone lines that had been knocked out with artillery. I looked up and saw a soldier coming from the front lines as we were very close to them. And I was very surprised to find that it was someone that I knew from Huntsville. It happened to be Humpy Owens. We became very close after the war ended and we played softball against one another. After we got back home, we made several hunting trips together in the bottomlands of the Tennessee River. On one trip, I lost my watch that was self-winding. At that time snow was on the ground. We went back a week later and I found the watch and it was still running. Probably because the snow melting and it kept the watch in motion was the reason that it was still running.






I started my Army service as a private, at $50 a month, and ended my service time three and a half years later as a corporal. I don't remember what my corporal pay was. From my pay, I made an allotment to my parents. The government contributed some to the allotment, at least 50/50, if not more.






Before I was drafted, I had finished my junior year of high school. When I came back from the Army, I decided to take advantage of the GI Bill and finish school. I returned to Rison School to the 12th grade. Probably because Mr. Fain had been in WWI, he told me that if I needed to walk around or go out and get a cup of coffee that would be all right. I guess he told the teachers because when I'd get up to leave during a class the teacher didn't say anything. I graduated in the class of 1947.


The date is totally wrong on this photo...It was Thanksgiving last year.

The day he finally got to meet Griffin...Papa couldnt see him in the NICU because he couldnt walk that far.




Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Cool Freebies

I am a list person.
 I like to have a list that I can mark things off of.
Maybe its the sense of accomplishment....who knows?
Well, until now...my lists have been scribbled on any ole scratch paper...not anymore!
My fridge will be covered with super cute meal plans, grocery lists, and chore lists!
Head on over to the Executive Homemaker...
there are lots of very useful, cool, {free} downloadable (is that a word?) files.
or the :::strawberry jam printable labels::: {complete with recipe!}
there is so much more too...check it out!

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Soccer

We survived Aubree's first year of soccer.
She even scored a goal at one of her games! This is quite the accomplishment considering she "played up" a division, meaning she was the only one who had never played an organized sport...not to mention the size difference in her and the other girls. It took three of her steps to equal one of theirs!

The Yellow Sunflowers....how intimidating....
(Aubree hated the name, she wanted to be the Yellow Fire Dragons)



Shorty, in the middle!

She had a great time and I am sure she wants to play next season. She proudly hung her "Gold Medal" above her bed.
Now we start music lessons after Christmas, possibly gymnastics, and definetly tee-ball in the spring....phew!

Friday, November 5, 2010

haters gonna hate....

sorry, i just COULD NOT resist the title for this post...

this post, is in regard to a certain school here in the state of alabama,
this school, has a football program...
that i kinda love,
and they have this player that is so amazing,
the kinda guy who wins a hiesman trophy, 
and helps take his team to the national championship... 
you kinda want to hate him if he doesn't wear your school's jersy.

which means,
he has a big fat TARGET on his back...

ooooh, man...the drama.

so... its no secret that espn.com broke a story about dinnertime last night
stating that "someone" on behalf of the Newton family had requested $180,000 from Mississippi State during the recruitment of Cam Newton.
This "someone" also said that there were other schools who had offered $200,000.
In case you didn't know, this is a no-no in the world of NCAA football.

Lets consider our sources...
"Someone (as named above)"- Kenny Rogers - an ex MSU football player who now runs a scouting agency based out of Chicago to match High School players with proscpective colleges. He is under investigation with the NFL players association and the NCAA because of his association with Chicago-based agent Ian Greengross.
Dan Mullen: Head coach at MSU and former Offensive Coordinator at Florida. They wanted Cam....and they didnt get him. We did. Not hard to find the sour grapes in this story.
John Bond: The former MSU player...who got the info from Rogers, and then fowarded it to MSU athletic directors (does this sound ridiculuos yet). John Bond is a native of Northport, AL...hmm...do we know of another state school located in Northport who might wanna get Cam off our team before a certain Black Friday this Fall???? John Bond was doing a favor for the home team by sending this info over...wheather he is alumni or not.
Urban Meyer: What??? He coaches at Florida...how in the world??? Well, lets see. Meyer (who worked with Mullen during his time at Florida...and while Cam was at Florida but riding the bench because they had Tebow at the time) urged Mullen and Bond to release the story to the media. Mississippi State’s coach Dan Mullen is Meyer’s protege. Meyer's motivations to get this story out to the media (regardless of how many holes in it) are ego-driven.
I could be wrong. Cam Newton could be a money hungry punk who got his pay on before the season began. I just really dont think that is the case. I dont think Auburn University is dumb enough to fork over any amount of money for any player. Auburn says they knew about this months ago...launched their own investigation and found zero wrongdoing. Let's hope they are right.

Let's also throw any hopes of Cam winning the Heisman Trophy out the window...cause after the Reggie Bush scandal...they don't want another "black eye" added to the award. Even if Cam is cleared...he wont get the trophy that he deserves....the voters will find someone else.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Thoughtless Thursday...


WANNA PLAY? Go to Katie's blog and link up...oh and steal this cute little button!

My thoughtless thursday is completely thoughtless....except for

WAR EAGLE!!!







Don't feed my baby to that mean ole football player!

The Holy Grail....Bo's Heisman!

mmm...staduim food!

Last year, on the field for A-Day.

my {little} big girl...