Willy Nilly Friday 5 No. 124

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Last weekend we took a small trek down to Hickory, NC...here's a few random shots...I'll share some of these in more detail with Tom's Tuesday's Treasures in the next couple of weeks...

1)

Bunker Hill Covered Bridge

2)

An uplifting message from inside the bridge...

3)

A cute fire hydrant...

4)

An old mill...

5)

A pop of color...

That's my 5 this week! I hope you will play along too! Post 5 randoms, link back and visit others!! Have a great weekend :)

An Old Porch In Hickory

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Hickory, NC

Think of all the stories that have been told on this porch!

Today I am thankful for the chance to spend the weekend with these 2...Nick will be out of town so it will just be us (Ashlyn and Christian will be in and out doing their own thing as usual). We get a whole weekend to be irresponsible...stay up later than we should, eat junk and watch movies together :) (although I do have a few things on my own list that I want to get done)...I always enjoy these little special chunks of time! Linking up with Michelle's Thankful Thursday

Nap Time

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Old mattress along side of the road near yesterday's bridge. How does that even happen?

Linking with Wordless Wednesday

The Phoenix Bridge

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Phoenix Bridge in the Eagle Rock area . Botetourt County

A couple of weeks ago I saw someone post this awesome bridge on Instagram and I was wondering how in the world I didn't know about this! So the boys and I set out to find it! It was built in 1887 by Phoenix Ironworks and crosses Craig Creek.

For some interesting info on the bridge and style Click Here and for some info on Phoenix Ironworks Click Here

Linking with Tom's Tuesday's Treasures

2 more treasures :) these boys never leave home without a basketball!

Overdressed

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Hickory, NC


“Do whatever makes your spirit glow out loud.”
― TemitOpe Ibrahim

Linking up this week with Mersad's Through My Lens

Willy Nilly Friday 5 No. 123

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Smithsonian National Zoo . Washington DC

I've read the book Water For Elephants and have also seen the movie several times...here's some quotes:

1) “Life is the most spectacular show on earth ♥”
― Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants

2) “The more distressing the memory, the more persistent it's presence. ”
― Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants

3) “Is where you're from the place you're leaving or where you have roots?”
― Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants

4) “It's just a crazy damned life, that's all ...”
― Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants

5) “Although, pretending not to notice is almost worse than noticing.”
― Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants

I think I need to watch it one more time!

That's my 5 this week and I hope you will play along too! Post 5 randoms, link back and visit others! Have a great weekend! Be safe!

Waiting On A Woman

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Washington DC


Nick was in the hotel getting us checked in while the boys and I waited out in our car and we saw all this commotion...Fancy cars with tinted windows coming and going...we thought some sort of royalty was here! Turns out it was a wedding. All the guests were so colorfully dressed. It was pretty neat!

Today I am thankful for family...well everyday I am thankful for my family but today they are really on my mind. There's a little tension in the house right now with my oldest and my husband but it will work out when tempers settle. It's hard being an adult child trying to figure out where you fit in and what is expected from you when you have moved back in with your parents temporarily. As some might remember, she graduated from college last May and is living with us again until she finds a permanent job that utilizes her major, hopefully...she's anxious to get out and on with her life! I love having her here but I know she has to spread those wings!

Linking up with Michelle's Thankful Thursday

Otterly Adorable

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Smithsonian National Zoo . DC

Linking with Wordless Wednesday

Reptile House

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National Zoo . DC . 1931

Those snakes have a pretty cool house! I was armed with only my zoom lens so getting pictures was super difficult that day, not to mention the crazy crowds! But I did find some neat info and great pics of the building HERE

Linking up with Tom's Tuesday's Treasures

Big Red

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A little community at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains
View from Parkway Church . Roanoke

Willy Nilly Friday 5 No. 122

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1)

Sunrise over the Blue Ridge Mountains this week....linking with SkyWatch Friday

2)

I have a very small patch of Blue Bells in my yard...I didn't know these were actually Blue Bells till I saw someone nearby post an upclose picture of them recently...I've seen big fields of them in photos before but never put 2 and 2 together ;) Well next year I will have this little space all cleared of debris, like old leaves that have fallen, so the Blue Bells can grow...I got down flat on the ground for this photo because this was the day the weather guys were saying we were to get a few inches of snow and I thought these sweet little flowers would be gone afterwards...well, no snow but we did have below freezing temps and these little dudes are hardy let me tell you! They still look great today! Linking this with Denise's Friday Flowers

3)

Some Japanese Magnolia that have gotten a little too cold...

4)

This is the view from Parkway Church...you can see all the way to downtown Roanoke...see that tall building with the pointy top? That's the Wells Fargo Building and Nick works in there now...

5)

And this is the HUGE amount of snow we woke up to on Tuesday...little doggie prints on my back deck...(don't worry, our dogs are inside but these are Riley's little tracks he made when he went outside first thing in the morning!)

That's my 5 this week! I hope you will play along! Post 5 randoms, link back and visit others! Have a great weekend friends!



I am also linking up with Photo Friday

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Walkway

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Bedford

Monday afternoon I had to take Dalton to the Ortho doc to have him evaluate the break in his thumb. While looking at it he said that he might want to do surgery and put a couple of pins in it depending on the degree of the break so he took us in for xrays...today I am thankful that the break was "borderline" on his degree scale so we got out of there with just a cast! I am pretty sure if Dalton participated in Thankful Thursday he'd be thankful for the same thing! We go back in 3 weeks to see how it looks...hopefully I can update that week's Thankful Thursday with "his thumb is all healed up and the cast was removed"! Poor kid is getting bored having to sit out of sports.

Linking with Michelle's Thankful Thursday

Off topic: Do you like to fish or know someone who does? My oldest son Christian and his best friend (both are avid fishermen) have started their own mail order fishing lure business. Aaron hand makes the lures and Christian is on the business end of it. Check out their website: Shrews Customs

A Bench And Boxwoods

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Avenel Plantation
Found this interesting blog post about Avenel HERE
See yesterday's post for more on Avenel...

Linking with Wordless Wednesday

Avenel Plantation

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Bedford . Built 1838

What it looked like a very long time ago...

A little history:
"Union troops stopped here twice during Hunters Raid, and Confederate forces paused here as well as they pursued the enemy
out of the area.The Bedford County Militia Company, Old Dominion Rifles, drilled on the property in 1861; the company’s captain was Dr.Thomas M. Bowyer,the husband of Catherine Burwell, whose family owned the plantation. The unit became a
light artillery battery in action under Gen.Thomas J.“Stonewall” Jackson at Cedar Mountain and Antietam. Bowyer later treated and protected Union Col.William Powell after he was captured by Confederate troops; Powell, released in 1864 and
riding with Gen.David Hunter, returned the favor by protecting Avenel during Hunters Raid, leaving
the home untouched." Copied from News Advance

Now the home is owned and operated by the Avenel Foundation and can be rented for weddings and events...see their website HERE

Avenel is rumored to be haunted by a lady in white (of course..aren't all ghost ladies wearing white?!)...she is thought to be Mary Francis "Fran" Burwell...legend has it that she stayed on the front porch waiting for her husband to return home from the Civil War but he never did...what a sad story :(

Linking up with Tom's Tuesday's Treasures

Who's getting hit with this big snow storm? Yesterday our weather people had everyone worked up over the amounts of snow we would be getting...another one misses us...we got a dusting here and there and rain, blah...now it's just cold and rainy...schools were closed though so I've got happy kids!...until we have to make it up, boo!

Alone

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Botetourt County

This sad little house is not far from me...I have not seen anyone in it in the 2 years we have lived over here...

“The feeling of abandonment overwhelmed me as I realised that no one had waited, or cared where I was.”
― Emily Williams, Letters to Eloise

Willy Nilly Friday 5 No. 121

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I'm going to show you some springy-ness that's popping up around my house:
1)

My front porch and the neighbor's pretty white tree...

2)

Looking down the street at another pretty white tree...
(I have blooming tree envy as none of my trees in my yard bloom at all...we've been here almost 2 years and I need to plant a few pretty blooming trees!)

3)

Forsythia across the street...

4)

One of my favorite views along Mountain Pass Road

5) I took these on Thursday afternoon as I was heading out to do a few errands...it was a pretty day, blue skies and warm weather but that's all supposed to change over the weekend, maybe even some snow, yikes! I'm so worried that everything that has bloomed will die and spring will be ruined before it has even had a chance to be spring!

That's my 5 this week! I hope you play along too! Post 5 randoms, link back, visit others! Have a great weekend :)


I'm linking up with Photo Friday

Brothers

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Bedford

During the week I take the boys to school early for weight lifting and on Wednesday they practice running routes for football. Well yesterday I get a call not too long after dropping them off. It's Dalton, "Mom don't worry but I think I dislocated or broke my thumb." I tell him to go to the nurse and let her look at it thinking he probably just jammed it. Another call a few minutes later that she wants him to go to the dr's. So I drive on over and pick him up and we head over to Express Family Care. They take x-rays and sure enough, it's broken. They set it in a temporary cast and now we wait for ortho to call for a sturdier cast. The Dr. was able to set it pretty straight and showed us another x-ray that looked so much better than when we came in!

Today I am thankful that it was nothing more serious and this is the first broken bone any of my kids have had! I am also thankful that the Dr. who was working there yesterday was also an ER Dr. and was pretty experienced in these types of things! Also thankful for the nice day (even if half of it was spent at the Dr's and the reason behind that) spent with Dalton. It's not often I get one on one time with any of them so I take it when I can get it! We ran over to Subway and picked up lunch afterwards then rented Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children which was pretty good!

Linking with Michelle's Thankful Thursday

Long Legged Rooster

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Bedford

Linking with Wordless Wednesday

Bricks, Shadows & Cool Architecture

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Bedford

This was taken in January...Now the trees are probably all blooming. What a pretty house!

“Houses are like people - some you like and some you don't like - and once in a while there is one you love.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Emily Climbs

I'm linking up with Tom's Tuesday's Treasures

Pineapple

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Just a random pineapple sighting in Lynchburg.

Linking up with Monday Murals

Willy Nilly Friday 5 No. 120

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1) On Wednesday, the day of the storms, my yard was FULL of Robins!

2) Last Thursday when I was sick, Christian had an appointment to get his wisdom teeth pulled. I was supposed to take him but having come down with whatever I had on Wednesday night I knew I couldn't so I asked Ashlyn to take him. His girlfriend took the day off of school and went too and she was a big help with him after he got back home...taking care of him like she did so I didn't have to worry about anything. Luckily it went smooth and he has not had any pain from it at all!

3) On Wednesday of this week was Nick's LAST day in the car business. He has been in the auto/rv industry for the past 25 years. It was good to us but he was so burned out. He got his real estate license a while back and will be changing careers on Monday...going into Commercial Real Estate...we are pretty excited! It's nice to see him excited about work again!

4) This Sunday is the boys football banquet. Yes football was over in November and for some reason we never had a banquet and I had forgotten about it until last month when I recieved notification about it coming up. Don't know what took so long but I'm excited to see everyone, it should be fun!

5) I think I told you that Nick got me an Ancestry DNA kit for Christmas? Well I got my results back and boy was I surprised!
Here they are:
Asia < 1% Trace Regions < 1% Asia South < 1% Other Regions Tested Asia East 0% Asia Central 0% Europe 99% Ireland 38% Europe East 22% Scandinavia 22% Europe West 6% Trace Regions 11% Iberian Peninsula 5% Italy/Greece 4% Finland/Northwest Russia < 1% European Jewish < 1% Great Britain < 1% What I was most surprised about was the Scandinavian because I haven't researched that at all and didn't even know I had a drop of Scandinavian in me...this will be fun to investigate further! That's my 5 this week! I hope you will play along too!! List 5 randoms, link back and visit others! Have a great weekend :)

I'm linking up with Photo Friday

A Tangled Mess

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Blue Ridge Turnpike . Botetourt County

Is it too much to expect someone to come out and clean this mess up so I can get a proper picture from the side of the road? ;) Do you think the land owner would object if I show up with a chainsaw and just start cutting? :) I want a better view of these old buildings, how selfish!!

Today I am thankful that the storms that blew through here yesterday weren't any worse! Schools were dismissed 2 hours early in anticipation of a lot more going on I think. Click Here to see a few pictures of the storm damage from around the area...I think the photo of the donkeys looking at their barn damage is so cute! Linking up with Michelle's Thankful Thursday

City Daily Photo March Theme Day: Black & White In Color

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Ashlyn's little dog Riley in our 1 (and only?) snow we got this winter! Today is 75 and thunderstorms, spring time weather...the trees are all starting to bloom and last night I even had 2 little frogs on the windows of my front door! I'm so excited to be welcoming spring!!

To see more interpretations of the theme, visit City Daily Photo