Henry Children

Here are some updated pictures of the nieces and nephews on the Henry side. Below is the newest addition- Caleb Luke Henry, born October 23rd. From what Kim says, his big sisters love him!

Here is Nathan with Madison and Noelle, and their first snowman of the season. No fair!! I wish it was that cold here!! :(


Madison was a princess for Halloween, and Noelle was a cow. Aren't they adorable?! :) And the next picture is Caleb, bundled up as a little bear, for a trip out to the doctor. What a cutie!


We were excited to get an email from Mark and Lesley, with some pictures of their time in Australia. Here's a picture of Mark riding horses on Lesley's family's farm- her dad, brother and nephew are riding with him. I think horseback riding is probably pretty new for Mark- I'm sure he'll pick it up pretty quickly, though :) It looks like a beautiful area down there! Sure wish I could ride horses as part of my daily job duties!!


Here's a family shot, and one each of Michael (handsome little man!) and Laura (beautiful girl!). Aren't the kids getting big?! Looks like they have adjusted and are pretty happy down under :)

They also sent this shot of and Aussie sunset- gorgeous!! We hate that they are so far away, but it's great to get updates and know they're doing well. Maybe one day (with lots of sedation involved for the plane ride) we'll get to go visit them!

Visit with the Henry's!

This past weekend, Phil's parents drove down from New York to visit. They got to see our house for the first time, helped us work on it, met Tucker, and took a drive up to the NC mountains. Our camera should be getting back from the shop any day, but we did have to buy a cheap one to get us through the weekend! So the pics aren't as good as they'd be with our good one, but they'll give you an idea of the fun we had!

We visited an apple orchard right off the Blue Ridge Parkway, which was fun. They took us on a hayride, told stories about the history of the area, and had lunch and live music. We decided to test Tucker out on a real excursion, and brought him along. He actually behaved VERY well, and we were extremely excited that he didn't bite the two little girls who pulled on his tail the whole time we were on the hayride! I was about to pop them, since their mom didn't seem to care!

This first picture was just me trying to take fun, pretty shots- I love split-rail fences :) The next shot is off the back of the flatbed during the hayride. It's a little blurry, but you can still tell how many apples were on the trees- I've never seen anything like it!


The orchard grows one kind of apple called a King Luscious, which can weigh over a pound! Here's a (very blurry- sorry!) picture of me and one of these HUGE apples!

Here's a shot of my happy little family :)

At one point, we left Tucker in the car to go into a store, and when we came back, we didn't see him anywhere. When we opened the door, he had curled up into a tiny little ball in the front seat, where the sunshine was :) Such a cutie!

We drove along the Parkway after our orchard visit, and while the leaves weren't changing much at the southern end of our journey, as we got closer to Grandfather Mountain, they were amazing! The pictures do not do it justice! I'm thankful Phil's parents were able to see my mountains in all their splendor :) (Along with hundreds of other people driving the parkway that day- it was wild!)

Price Lake was gorgeous:

When we got home, Tucker was worn out! He was ready to go again on Sunday, but we made him stay at home and hang out with Phil and his dad while they worked in the yard. Here's a picture of Tucker with one of his most favorite things ever- a stick. Too bad it was thrown up on my carpet about 15 minutes after this picture :(

Phil's mom is one of the best cooks ever, and she shared a ridiculously yummy recipe with me to use some of the apples we bought from the orchard. See my massive baked apples below... each one is like it's own apple pie. Quite tasty with some vanilla ice cream!

Tucker's grandparents totally spoiled him, and he didn't seem to understand what was happening if we stopped paying attention to him. Here he is, with quintessential puppy-dog eyes, trying to figure out why I'm not playing tug-of-war with him and his Frisbee :)

We took this picture this morning, as his parents were getting on the road to head home. We really enjoyed having them down here and hope they have a safe trip home! Hopefully we'll get up to NY to visit soon- preferably when there's some snow :)

I'm still waiting on pictures from our trip to Greensboro the first weekend of the month. Again, with no camera, I had to steal control of my brother's camera and proceed to take an embarrassing amount of pictures of Emma :) As soon as they have time to send them to me, I'll post them, so everyone can be assured that she's only getting cuter as she gets older :)

Broken Camera!

Well, our camera is broken :( It has been sent to the camera doctor, and hopefully we'll have it back in time for everything going on in October: my dad's big birthday next weekend, a visit with Emma, Phil's parents coming to town and our missions/rebuilding trip to New Orleans!

Given the camera issue, I've been forced to steal pictures off my sister-in-law's blog, again. Here's a picture of Kim, and our nephew-to-be! How exciting to have another little boy to keep Michael company in the realm of spoiled nieces/nephews! She's about 28 days from her due date, and we can't wait to meet the little guy! We know his name, but I'm not sure if it's supposed to be a secret, so I won't tell :)


Kim and Nathan took the girls to an apple orchard to enjoy the fall weather, and here is a pic of each girl, Noelle and Madison, respectively. Are they not adorable?!?! I hate that we are so far from them- I miss their sweetness!!

And, finally, a picture of the fall colors they are already seeing in upstate NY- Saranac Lake/Lake Placid area. Ah, I wish we were there!!

Virginia Creeper

Over Labor Day, two other couples (David and Trina, David and Hollie) came up to the mountains with us for the long weekend. We stayed at Granny's house (which is getting quite the makeover by my stepmother, Brenda, by the way!!) and spent the weekend doing nothing but eat! :) Well, not really, but it felt that way, at least! We spent the day in Boone on Saturday, since 4 of the 6 of us are App grads. We visited old hang-outs, marvelled at all that has changed, and reminisced :)

We actually spent most of the day on Sunday riding the Virginia Creeper bike trail. It is an old railway bed that's been turned into a hiking/biking/horse trail, close to the NC/Virginia border. You can get a shuttle service to drop you off at the head of the trail and then ride down to their shop at the end. The leg we chose is the 17-mile portion from Whitetop, Va to Damascus, Va. And don't be too impressed with us for biking 17 miles... it's almost completely downhill :)

Here are some shots of our group on the trail, as well as some of the scenery. It's a beautiful trail, mostly shaded (nice when it's 90 degrees), and you pass over lots of old railroad trellises and pretty creeks. There are stops along the way, and a cafe at the halfway point. It was a great day, but I think we all questioned our choice as we sat down for dinner that evening- ouch!!! ;)

The girls: Bike dorks :) I mean, really- who looks good in those helmets??Isn't Trina cute? :)
Here's what I wish I'd been riding:
Before we left on Monday, we drove up to the top of Mt. Jefferson, which is the mountain in front of Granny's house. There's an awesome overlook up there, with a huge rock outcropping to climb around on. Here's a fun group shot:

We're Parents!!!!

I'm sure that everyone will be happy to know that Phil and I have become parents of a beautiful boy named Tucker... he's about 80 lbs, and a couple feet long :) We found him at the Humane Society- see his picure from their website:

We went to visit him, and played with him, and several other dogs. My always-responsible husband kept me from applying to adopt ALL of them (darn him). Tucker stood out to us as the one most "in need" of rescuing. He is about 8.5 years old, and the family he came from had given him up because they had a baby. You could tell in his eyes that he was pretty scared and uncomfortable at the shelter. He's also very well trained, and already housebroken. We knew the younger dogs had a better chance of getting adopted, and really felt like Tucker needed us.

They approved our adoption application, and we picked him up yesterday afternoon. He gets super-excited when he sees the leash, and he almost pulled Phil over when we left the shelter! He calms down after a second, though, and walks pretty nicely. He gets super-excited again when he realizes he's going for a ride, and he enjoyed the car ride home:

We let him explore the yard for a while, and then took him in to his new home. I thought he looked so cute waiting for Phil to open the door for the first time! He was so excited!

He seems to love everything- walks, rides, getting brushed, playing... he certainly seems to act more like a 2-year old than a 8.5-year old!

He's already made it quite clear that he's a daddy's boy- he ADORES Phil. He likes me alright, but was stuck like glue to Phil. Phil was the only one who could get him to lay on his dog bed when we were going to sleep, but as soon as he realized where Phil was sleeping... well...

He obviously didn't stay on the bed, but he did sleep right beside Phil's side of the bed all night. He was wide awake and ready to play this morning, and pulled out every toy we had to try to keep us from getting ready for work. I'm heading home at lunch to check on him, and see how he's doing on his own. We love him already, and can't wait for everyone to meet our new family member!

Also, I'd like to plug the Charlotte Humane Society- we were impressed with how well they seemed to know each animal there, and how excited they were to bring Tucker to us. Someone was bringing an awesome dog in yesterday while we were there (again, if Phil hadn't been there...) and I hope anyone in this area will consider them when they are looking for their next pet! www.humanesocietyofcharlotte.org

Emma Claire

Ever-increasing cuteness....