Christmas - December 2012

Hi Friends & Family,

This is my last post of 2012.  It has been a good year for the Phillips/Thorpe household.

My mom is still with us and hanging in there even with all her medical problems.

Jeff got a great job with great benefits.

But most of all - we are all healthy and happy - living here in Georgia.
Life IS good !

We had family & friends visit over the Christmas Holiday. My mother in-law brought her friend Sandy and we all had a great time shopping and getting our manicures & pedicures for the Holiday!

My brother, Jamie, came up from south Florida also - it was great to see him again........

Jeff was in the kitchen tending to our 21 lb turkey. It was huge and turned out perfect.

Below is a picture of my brother, my mom and myself.  Most of the time they were here the temps were in the 20's at night and 40's during the day.  Great Holiday weather !!

I hope everyone had as good a Holiday as we did and from our family to yours we wish you a wonderful, happy, healthy and wealthy New Year .................

See ya'll later,

Jody & Jeff

My 60th birthday present - 11-20-2012

I told the hubby that I wanted something "BIG" for my 60th birthday. Never had a big gift and I wanted something special.

He asked what I wanted (BIG mistake) and so I told him " I want a pool. "  SO, guess what?

I got it.  Here are some pics of the stages of delivery & set up of our new saltwater, fiberglass pool:

As you can see in the picture above, it was a tight fit between our trees.

The picture above shows that the pool is off the flatbed and now the crane has it hooked up to place in the yard.

Now the pool is in place. They start to fill in the sides with sane. I will it up with some water & they fill in with some sand. All this done until pool is completely full.

Pool ready and dirt ready, now it will get formed up and the concrete Kool-Deck will be poured.

Concrete deck is being poured, then the color goes on.

Color is on and when it hardens, the plastic comes out of the pool. We continue to fill up and then the pumps get hooked up.

Finally it is done!  Now if only it weren't 60 degrees IN the pool and 45 degrees in my yard.
Dang............guess it'll be late spring before we can get in it  ! !

See ya'll later ----  Merry Christmas & Happy New Year ---

I doubt I'll be posting before the new year..........as I have lots of company for the Holidays ! ! !

My visit to South Florida, Oct. 2012

I was very lucky to get to go down to South Florida to see my son, mother-in-law and friends.

Below are a few pictures of my family. This first picture is my mother-in-law Laura & her boyfriend, Izzy.

This picture below is my son and I........

This is a picture of my good friend, Evelyn, who I always try to see when in Florida.....

This picture below is of my former boss (Dr. Lakin( & his wife (Arlene)......both of whom are very important to me as I worked for Dr. Lakin for thirty years !

Below is a picture of my sons dog (closest I'll get to a grandchild), Enzo.......

Hope to get back there soon,

See ya'll soon !!

Family visits from Tampa, Florida, Oct. 2012

Lucky for me and my mom, that we have family coming to visit for a few days from Tampa.

My niece, Chelsea, gave birth recently to a  beautiful baby boy named Carter.  They came to visit us here along with daddy Joey.

My mom, Great Grandma Bette, was so happy for their visit. She truly was excited to see her one and only great grand baby !

That little Carter is a ham......for sure........

See ya'll later !

High Falls St. Pk, Jackson, GA

On this rare occasion in mid September,   Jeff & I were able to get away for a weekend and visit a state park that is about 1 hour 45 minutes from our house.  It is off of I-75 between Macon & Atlanta.

My babies (Ginger & Scruffy) are lounging in their beds at the campsite.

As you can see from the picture below, the falls here are very low this time of year.

Jeff and I started our hike and he is resting with Scruffy below & then we took off on the 2.5 mile hike through the park.

So it was an enjoyable hike and we loved the park. There is also a very large lake to canoe and/or fish on, but we didn't bring our canoe this time. Hopefully we can get back in the Spring because that is when the water levels will be high and the falls should be beautiful.  There is also a putt-putt area for a fee, but we didn't try it out this time around.

See ya'll down the road !

Sometimes life doesn't go as planned....

Most of my family and friends know what happened to me Mother's Day weekend of this year.

This is the culprit:

And these are the results:

First a hard-cast-like splint below -

Then the surgery on 7/30/12 which resulted in in a screw being placed in my scaphoid bone. (The ONE bone I am told that you should NEVER fracture as it is hard to see the fracture on an x-ray and even harder to heel!)  This is my beautiful bandage the day of surgery below -

Next after surgery and 2 months of physical therapy, I ended up with this Freddy Kruger stretching device -

Finally my therapist and the orthopedic surgeon dismissed me on 11/6/2012 and I only have to do my exercises at home, and use the brace for flexion and extension three times a day to keep my wrist tendons stretched out for another month.

I am about 90% now, but hopefully in 2-3 months I'll be 100% again. Anyway, I was given the okay to ride my ATV again so I plan do to so ASAP.

Right now I have a $5,000 ATV and a $40,000 hand - hopefully they'll both last me a few more years!
Take care,

See ya'll later on !

Building our front porch, starting August 2012

Jeff and I dediced it is time to start on the front porch which is greatly needed!

The afternoon sun is brutal coming in our three large living room windows and just bringing in the groceries if it is raining is really a job. So, here we go......

Jeff gets started by laying the concrete blocks. We have laid out a 9' x 20' porch. It will have three columns which will be half stone and half square fiberglass column. Then he has to extend out the roof (that will be a job......) and then the porch is done.

We have already purchased stone that we will do ourselves and it will go along the front bottom border of our house and the porch and also on the bottom half of the porch columns. We hope it will look awesome when it is all done - probably next year though !

new beginnings ----

Next in line is the roof as you can see from this picture above. But I have a feeling it won't get started on till winter passes - although you never know. Jeff's new job is causing him to work a lot of weird hours so it may be that he starts the rest in the spring.

Well, see ya'll later on - we'll keep you updated as we go along...........

Altamaha Rvr Paddle, Baxley, GA -June 2012

The end of June our friend, Oggie & Karen, invited us on a river run on the Altamaha River. We had not paddled this river before and were anxious to get out and paddle.

We are all unloaded and ready to paddle out.

We are headed out on the river. The pic below is of some new friends we met that also live in Soperton.

The picture below is of Karen in her Kayak.

This run/paddle was about 8-10 miles long and at the end of it our entrance fee included a great lunch.

This river when it dumps into the ocean near Brunswick, GA is actually a combination of three rivers that have joined - the Oconee, the Ocmulgee and the Altamaha rivers that are combined.

After a few hours on the river with friends and a great lunch with dessert we load up to head back home.

See ya all soon !

Sunnyside ATV Park, Wren, GA - June 2012

My mother-in-law, Laura, came to see us mid June and we took her to the ATV park in Wren, GA about 2 hours north of us. I had already at this point broken my scaphoid in my right hand but didn't know it - doc thought I just had a sprain - so I was in this splint/cast like thing.

We are loaded up and ready to hit the trails!

Laura had NO problem hitting the big hills - as you can see from the picture below.

The chalk mine is currently still in use and is open only on weekends at $20 a head, but you can stay as late as sunset.

This is a pretty large ATV park and we had lot of run riding it - even though I could not drive and had to ride with Jeff due to my hand situation.

We all had a great time and hope to get back some time. It might be a while for me though!

See ya'll soon !

Yeah, We've got EGGS ....

On October 2, 2012 we received our first two eggs, and since then we have gotten four more.

After five days we had six eggs.  The first two eggs I labeled and put back in the nesting boxes so they would remember where to go.

The next egg we cracked open to see how it looked and it looked awesome. (Tossed it though)

The next three eggs we decided to cook them up !

After Jeff made up some pancakes, we then threw the scrambled eggs on the plate with some slices peaches and ate it up !

I am so happy my lovely hens are finally laying eggs........

They are 7 1/2 months old (right on time I am told) and those eggs are tasty.

I've been told you can taste the difference between white eggs and brown eggs, but honestly, we didn't !

Do you think the video below 'encouraged' the hens to speed it up ??