FINALLY!

Finally something good happened this weekend! Brittanie was chatting online with one her cadets and he mentioned that his mom found keys for Brandy Sightler and it was keys and a wallet. He thought it may be Brittanie's sister. Brittanie told him that her sister is 4 and her name is Katelyn but her keys are missing. So he want and looked and sure enough, it was Brittanie's keys! I don't know why she didn't turn them in when it was announced over the PA system that the keys were missing but we are thrilled that they have been found and we don't have to replace the locks on her car. Tom did replace the locks on the house but that's no big deal. I'm just thrilled that someone decent has them and we don't have to worry about her car being stolen from the school parking lot tomorrow. We had already made plans to get Brittanie's tires changed tomorrow (2 need changing) and letting Tom take her car to work and she will take his truck to school until we get her car locks changed to avoid the car being stolen. We can breathe a little easier now and she will get her keys back tomorrow.

This has been a horrendous weekend. I worked canteen yesterday and a male cadet's mom, who has made it clear for a month now that she wants Brittanie to date her son, said something VERY rude to John. She told him that Brittanie liked her son more than him, which he denied and she told him to check with Brittanie. He is respectful and didn't get ugly back but that made me mad! That's a future mother-in-law from hell if there ever was one. Brittanie isn't interested in her son that way. They are just friends. But even if she were, after what she did to John, she would never date him now. I have taught her for years to stay away from mama's boys and boys that have mothers that have an "in your face attitude" because they NEVER mind their own business. No matter how much they like you at first, eventually you will do or say something they don't like and the true colors will show and that rudeness will be directed to you.....then I will have to kick some butt.

But it has been a horrendous weekend. First Brittanie's keys were stolen....or so we thought. Later that night the same mom above went to buy supplies for the canteen for the competition on Saturday and Sam's was closed by the time she got up there so she had to go first thing Saturday morning, which made the canteen open late. Then she was mean to John and flat out lied when she said that Brittanie liked her son more than John. Then I find out my mom is back with her loser geezer friend who treats her horribly but she keeps coming back for more. Then today the Panthers lost. I am just glad at least something good happened this weekend....our JROTC brought home 7 trophies at the competition yesterday, the Gamecocks won and are now #11 and LSU is #1 in the AP poll (YAY!!!) and Brittanie's keys have been located! Let's hope next week will be better than this weekend.

Katie has a new name for Tom

I was picking at Katie and calling her Tom Jr. and she called me booger....that's Tom's name for her but she decided to give it to me. I asked her what Tom's name was and she said "Tom Sightler Grumpy." LOL

The Jena 6

Tom and I have somewhat of a difference of opinion on what is going on in Jena, LA. That doesn't surprise me since Tom has always been able to see all sides of an issue and I lean towards seeing things in black and white. I frankly don't care what Justin Barker did. NOTHING he could have done would make it acceptable for 6 young men to beat him up. I don't care how many times he allegedly called them the N word. That wasn't a fair fight. That was gang mentality and it is criminal. He was unconscious and unable to fight back and they continued to beat and kick him. If my son were one of the six young men that did that, I would let him stay in jail. There is NO WAY I would bail out my son or daughter after he/she joined 5 other people to beat one person.

It sickens me that people are marching and protesting that they were charged as adults and basically want a slap on the wrist. To me, these are older teens and they know better. So what if he was only in the ER a couple of hours and went to a school function later that night. He was still kicked while unconscious and unable to defend himself. That's criminal and they should be tried as adults. I don't care what color they are.

Tom argues that from what he has read, the black people in that town see a big difference in punishments for black people and white people and that isn't right. Ok, so? So does that mean the Justin Barker gets no justice, even though he deserves justice because the judicial system there is allegedly corrupt? I say NO! Fix the system but don't send the message that if you beat an unconscious person....especially 6 on 1....you can get away with it.

What is wrong with the parents of those 6 boys? I would be angry with my son and tell him that he deserves what he is getting for acting like a hood rat! What do yall think?

Future Clemson student???

Katie made us laugh tonight. She drew a big ball and colored it all in so it was just a big black ball and asked Tom to guess what it was. Tom, of course, guessed a black ball. She said no. She gave him a clue. It was big an fell when the wind blew. He guessed apples, oranges, etc. It was none of those. So she had one last clue....it grows on coconut trees. LOL I thought that was hilarious. I said "Yep there's a future Clemson student."

BTW, way to go Gamecocks!!! Don'tcha' just love Smelley!! He is so talented!! And our kicker is incredible. What a great game!!

Katie's new friend

Katie had soccer practice at Grace today. Tom took her to practice because I was working the canteen at Brittanie's drill team, rifle team, and color guard competition. Well when I got home, I asked her how practice was. She told me she has a new friend but doesn't remember his name. But she said he was "a little bit black." I thought that was hilarious. It is like being a little bit pregnant. I don't think that's possible. But when I asked her again what she said and she said her friend was ok because he was "just a little bit black." Tom told her that there is nothing wrong with being black so he would be ok if he were a whole lot black. LOL

You just never know what will come out of her mouth next!

All thieves should be shot

Brittanie went to the homecoming football game tonight to oversee color guard. She hung her keys, which are like mine and have a velcro ID wallet on it, on the fence and had her back to them less than 5 minutes and they were stolen. The only thing that saved her car from being stolen was that she wasn't parked at the football field. She had actually parked in the JROTC parking lot and walked to the football field. Brittanie was crying but I was mad. I hate being robbed. This is going to cost us a bundle. We are going to have to rekey her car and our house. We also had to cancel her debit card, because it was in the ID wallet, and get her a new driver's license Monday morning. In the meantime, I am going to have to drive her everywhere or she will have to take my van because her car is VERY well known. If she parks it where the thieves can see it, the car will be GONE.

It is too bad that the law doesn't allow us to shoot thieves in the head because I promise you if we ever find out who stole her keys, that will be what I want to do to them. Obviously I would not do that because no loser is worth going to jail over. But it is too bad we can't get revenge on these losers!

Update on Brittanie's ROTC scholarship

Last night, I checked the status of Brittanie's ROTC scholarship application. We were happy to see that she has been approved to move on to the interview process. It said for her to contact the Military Science Instructor at the school of her choice. We had to list 5 schools she was interested in so we put Carson-Newman, Campbell, USC, UNC Chapel Hill and Charleston Southern. Since she is in school all day, I am going to call Major Bryant at Carson-Newman and try to get an interview set up for October 5th since she doesn't have school that day. October 8th is visitation day at Campbell University so she is going there and interviewing with Major Psaltis that day. She can interview anytime with USC since they are only 12 miles from us. I will talk to her about UNC and see if she really wants to interview with them. Charleston Southern sent her an e-mail telling her that since their program is relatively new and is run through the Citadel, they are only offering 2 year scholarships right now. So they are off the list. I didn't like the thought of her doing ROTC at the Citadel anyway. They have the reputation of treating female cadets badly.

Brittanie was so excited that she is moving closer and closer to getting that scholarship. I think when she gets the letter stating she has the scholarship, she is going to be as excited as she was the day she got her new car. She has really worked hard to get that scholarship.

Brittanie is 17!

Brittanie's 17th birthday was Tuesday. She invited all of her friends to go to Pizza Hut with her that night to celebrate. Well Brittanie is just like I was when I was growing up.....99% of her friends are male. She has two female friends and the rest are male. She invited them all. Unfortunately the guy that she is closet to and both of her female friends couldn't make it. She ended up at the table with 8 guys! lol Well John got jealous of Randy, who was also there. By the end of the night, she and John had broken up.

Later that night, Tom surprised Brittanie and I by defending John for being jealous of Randy and told Brittanie that she can get mad at John for the way he handled his anger, especially on her birthday, but he had a right to be angry in the first place. So I'm sure things will be back to normal soon. But since her birthday night was ruined, I took her to O'Charley's (her favorite restaurant) last night, just the two of us, and we had a great time talking and laughing. Then we came home and after she got out of the shower, we watched Jeff Dunham: Spark of Insanity. She laughed so hard through the whole show. I would say last night made up for having her birthday night end badly.

Brittanie is convinced she has a birthday curse. All odd birthdays bomb. She had a great 10th birthday slumber party that was still being talked about 2 years afterwards at school. But the 11th stunk. She had a swimming party on her 12th party. The 13th stunk. We took her and Miranda to Concord Mills mall, which for Brittanie is HEAVEN, for her 14th birthday and she LOVED it. She was dating William for her 15th birthday and he stood her up on her birthday and she ended up crying through that birthday. Her sweet 16 party last year was legendary...people at Swansea are still talking about how much fun that was. And this year, at 17, she has a fight with John and ends up breaking up with him the night of her birthday. I don't believe in curses but I can see why she would think she has one.

Mike Gundy is my new hero!!!

With all the junk that has been written about Gaston this year, you can imagine how much I hate reporters. Oklahoma State's football coach, Mike Gundy, let one reporter know that writing inaccurate things and trashing people is unacceptable, especially when you are talking about one of his players. He's my new hero!!

Brittanie's birthday weekend

Brittanie's 17th birthday is tomorrow and she requested a weekend in Myrtle Beach. I asked Jenny and Jessica to go with us. Tom doesn't like the beach so it was just Brittanie, John, Jenny, Jessica, and I heading out Friday afternoon. We stayed at the Dunes Village Resort. Brittanie's youth group from church had stayed there before and she loved it and wanted to stay there this weekend. It was perfect!! We had a 2 bedroom suite (one room had 2 queen beds, the master bedroom had a king sized bed, and there was a sleeper sofa in the living room), jacuzzi tub in the master bathroom, a full kitchen complete with dishwasher, stove, full refrigerator, washer and dryer, a long balcony with a view of the ocean, and an indoor water park.

Brittanie, Jessica, and John went grocery shopping Friday night to stock our kitchen. Saturday morning, Brittanie and Jessica got up and made pancakes and strawberries for us for breakfast. After breakfast, Brittanie and John went swimming. When they got back, they grabbed Jessica and off they went! Brittanie and John got henna tattoos with their initials. They also did some souvenir shopping. Saturday night, we went to the Dixie Stampede. I LOVED it! It was expensive but it was worth it.

Sunday morning, we checked out and went to the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch. We did more souvenir shopping after lunch and Brittanie and John got airbrushed shirts to remember their weekend.

It was so fun and mainly because Jessica was there. It is impossible not to smile or have fun with Jessica around. She's awesome. We got home around 9pm last night. I gave Katie and Tom their souvenirs, talked to Tom awhile and then went to bed. I'm pooped!!!

Jenny took some pictures at the Hard Rock Cafe and she also bought the picture of all of us at the Dixie Stampede. When I get those from her, I'll post them. We had a great weekend but I'm glad I'm home and sleeping in my bed.

Color Guard

The Swansea JROTC color guard made the paper! That's Brittanie all the way at the end on the right, holding the rifle! Right next to her is her best friend, William. You can click the picture to make it larger.

Daddy's girl

Tom and both of our girls are like vampires.....they HATE bright light. Tom takes Katie to school every morning. This morning after dropping my van off at the shop, I got in Tom's truck and noticed something adorable. Tom has a pair of sunglasses for Katie on his visor....which is where he keeps his when he isn't wearing them. Tom drives a noisy truck with a Carolina Panthers steering wheel and always needs washing....it is a man's truck. But you look up on the visor and there is a cute pair of pink sunglasses. Daddy's little vampire has to wear sunglasses like Daddy! I had to take a picture. I thought it was cute!

A marriage in trouble??

I am laughing so hard right now that I may not be able to blog this but I have to let everyone know what a nut I'm married to. He is still smarting from his beloved panthers losing today. Well the San Diego vs NE Patriots game came on and I asked him who he was pulling for. I hate all California teams and I was a Patriots fan since the 80's when they stunk and then lucked up and got in the Superbowl only to get the cream cheese knocked out of them by the arrogant stinky Chicago Bears. Anyway, Tom just told me that NE was yankees and he will NEVER pull for them...he HATES them. And he told me I better not pull for them either or he will divorce me. I started laughing. He said "I have loved you for 18 years but if you pull for the Patriots, I will divorce you. You can want them to win but you can't let me hear it. " LOL He cracks me up!!!

So to the guys that work with Tom, how about open up the yellow pages to divorce attorneys and leave it on his desk. He is a trip! Too funny!!!

Addendum: He just told me "The only thing funny about that is that you think I'm kidding!" He's hilarious!!

Collard Festival pictures!

I finally got the pictures from the Collard Festival off of my camera. I recently installed Adobe and it was fighting with my Canon utilities over which one would actually download the pictures and ended up with neither of them doing it. So Tom fixed that problem for me this morning. So here are the pictures! (You can click on any of them to make them bigger.)

First up is 50's Elvis, as played by Phil Urban. Phil is a great performer and if you didn't know any better, you would think he was Elvis!

Check our Red's guitar!! I LOVE it!!

Next up is 70's Elvis....my personal favorite. Phil was so animated....shaking his tush and doing everything Elvis did at his concerts, including giving scarves to the ladies! It was GREAT! The stands were packed out!

Here's the tush shakin!

A singer is only as good as his backup band. In Phil's case, he has the TCB band, who is also known as Wishful Thinkin when they aren't backing up Phil. The leader of that band is my buddy, Red Fraley. He is an outstanding performer and I couldn't do the Collard Festival entertainment without him. He does sound for us as well as performs. And he is married to one of my best friends, Jenn. He's a lucky guy because she's the best and is right by his side helping out with anything he needs.

Here is, in my opinion, the best Southern Gospel quartet in the business....Unity. They are great performers. One of the girls, Victoria, writes songs for the group. The other, Rachael, has a solo album out. And they are so genuine. All of the Elvis pictures were taken for me by Victoria. They were so wonderful to work with. It was a joy and a priviledge to have them at our festival!

This is the booth for Operation Thank You. Operation Thank You has Thank You cards and Get Well cards that they ask everyone to sign and Operation Thank You sends them to our soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Brittanie and her cadets went around in the heat all day long getting people to sign cards. They didn't mind the heat because they believed in what they were doing. Below is Brittanie's friend, Josh, holding the cards that they asked everyone to sign.

Way to go Brittanie!!!

This morning, Swansea JROTC went to a rifle team and drill team competition at Lower Richland High School. The rifle team took 3rd place. The armed drill team got 1st place. The unarmed platoon (which was lead by Brittanie) got 2nd place. Well the unarmed squad commander didn't show up and neither did his alternate. Master Sgt. called Brittanie over and filled her in and asked her if she knew the routine. She didn't know it. But he gave her the paper and told her learn it because she was going to lead that squad in 45 minutes. She literally had 45 minutes to learn the entire routine. She did it and her squad got 2nd place!!! Major Norton and Master Sgt were thoroughly impressed and gushing over her. One of the judges heard Master Sgt talking to everyone about how impressed he was with Brittanie learning that routine in 45 minutes and getting 2nd place. He came over and asked Brittanie if he heard that right and did she really just learn that in 45 minutes. She said yes and he was very impressed and told her it was just about perfect!! Their JROTC as a whole got 3rd place overall. Not bad for their first competition!!

Brittanie said that Lower Richland's format/competition procedures were great and everything was running like clockwork and she was making mental notes and talking to the instructors about how she wanted to implement some of their procedures for the home competition that Swansea is hosting in two weeks. Major Norton was so impressed that after just coming off an incredible 2nd place with a routine she learned in only 45 minutes, she was thinking of what she could do to make the home competition run great in 2 weeks instead of basking in her accomplishment. Brittanie is a true leader. I'm so proud of her!!

My accent

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The South   That's a Southern accent you've got there. You may love it, you may hate it, you may swear you don't have it, but whatever the case, we can hear it.
The Midland
Philadelphia
The Inland North
The Northeast
The West
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

The Game is on!

We LOVE NFL football but we still cheer on our USC Gamecocks and LSU Tigers. The Gamecocks have a Cinderella story! You can't help but pull for them!

Check out this video! (Thanks Ken!)





www.letsshowcorso.com

Underneath it all, she's still a girl

Katie and Tom love to wrestle and run through the house and just be rough and tumble. At night when Tom says "Ok Katie B, it's time to go to bed." She takes off running and hides somewhere and he has to find her. Once he does, they do their little nightly thing where Tom morphs into whatever she chooses....my personal favorite is Lightning McQueen.....49 losers, only one winner! lol

Another thing they do is race each other to Tom's truck in the morning. Well yesterday morning, for the first time ever, she fell and skinned her knee pretty bad. She just got up, brushed herself off, and got in the truck without a tear. She loves to say "I'm tough!" Well they were going down 321 and she felt something on her leg and lifted up her dress and found blood. She freaked!! She started crying and acting like she was going to bleed to death. When Tom got to school, her teacher helped him clean her up and bandage it. Last night, Tom asked me what we were going to do about her knee. So I told him that we have to clean it with Peroxide and leave it open at night and covered during the day. That's what my boss/doctor tells his patients. Well she started freaking out that she didn't want him to take the bandage off. He finally convinced her to let him get it off. When he went to get the Peroxide, she was standing by him at the medicine cabinet crying that it was "gushing" down her legs. It wasn't bleeding at all. But she was convinced that it was. She sat on her little Lightning McQueen chair and started freaking out that he was not going to bandage it and how she wasn't going to be able to sleep with covers because it would hurt her knee. (Now earlier in the day she was alternating limping and plopping down from a standing position down onto her knees but covers were going to hurt her knees!) She wasted all of our big bandages a couple of weeks ago when she stole them out of the medicine cabinet and was playing with them in her room. So we had to put two small Band-Aids. This morning she has forgotten all about it.

It is amazing how one minute she is a rough and tumble tomboy and the next she is a girly girl crying over nothing. She is so much fun! She is definitely going to keep us on our toes through her childhood but I can already see she is going to be a blast!! Now I just have to steal her away from her daddy sometime! She loves me but she definitely loves him more.

OLD PEOPLE SHOULD NOT DRIVE!!!!

Today I was driving down Highway 321 (south) heading home after picking up Katie from school. Highway 321 is a 4 lane highway divided behind the El Cheapo gas station with lots of trees. We passed the El Cheapo gas station and was approaching Glenn Road when this stupid old lady pulled out of Glenn Road and decided to turn left to head northbound. The problem is she didn't go across the southbound lanes first. She just turned left into the southbound lane and was heading straight at us. I was in the right lane. I couldn't pull off the road because there is a drop off right there. I couldn't pull into the left lane because she was partially in the left lane. I was totally freaking out and layed on the horn. Luckily the old goat got in the left lane until she passed me then changed to the lane I was in and was heading straight towards tons of cars. I don't know if she actually hit anyone or not but this is why I believe that old people should be retested! To me, the minute you qualify for Medicare, you should be thoroughly retested.....on highways, interstates, MERGE lanes...which is when they usually cause the most headaches/accidents.

People love to say teenagers are bad drivers but I'm much more scared of being on the road with these geezers who have senile dementia and no reflexes!

It's a good tired!

Well the weekend is coming to a close and it has been a busy one! We are all so tired. I sold Collard Festival T-shirts Friday night and all day Saturday at the festival. The festival was GREAT!!! Every aspect of the festival was a huge success but I have to say my favorites were the fireworks on Friday night, which were incredible, and the entertainment on Saturday. Elvis did a fantastic job and they were followed by one of the best quartets in southern gospel music, Unity. Unity is a family group, a mom, dad, and two beautiful daughters. The mom is Darlene Shirey, who I was excited to meet last year when I booked them for the festival the first time because I loved listening to her as an on air personality on WDXU (I believe that was the call letters), which was the only southern gospel station in the midlands when we first moved here. We LOVED it! Unfortunately, the radio station had to shut down and it is definitely missed but still being able to talk to Darlene Shirey is definitely a treat! She is just wonderful and her girls are so sweet, as is her husband. I had such a good time at the Collard Festival. Can ya tell? I will have pictures up of my wonderful entertainment on Monday or Tuesday.

Brittanie caught a nasty cold earlier in the week and she was much better by Friday but unfortunately she gave it to me. So I was at the festival with tissues and Afrin all day. I'm still battling it but feeling better today than I did yesterday. Brittanie marched in the parade with 3 other color guard cadets, went back to her car, drove to the school to put away the color guard equipment, changed clothes, came back to the festival and she and 8 other cadets helped Operation Thank You by going around getting people to sign Thank You cards and Get Well cards for our troops who are serving overseas. WLTX came out and did a report and Brittanie and the other cadets were right there. Brittanie, as battalion commander, was standing right next to the man from Operation Thank You that was being interviewed. They had about 8 minutes of footage. We weren't expecting all 8 minutes but when it aired, there was absolutely no interview and no cadets shown at all. Needless to say, it stunk and we weren't happy about that. They showed footage of Elvis on stage, someone's name on a card, and a little girl, about 2 years old, standing at the booth. To the left behind the little girl was Brittanie but it only showed her from the collar bone to the middle of her thighs. I knew it was her because I recognized the Rudy Guilani sticker on her and her dog tags and her Swansea JROTC shirt. But she was in the background. And here is all that was put on the website, wltx.com. No mention of the cadets that were out there sweating for something they believed in. Operation Thank You officials were wonderful though. They came to me and thanked me for inviting them and told me how wonderful the cadets were and that they couldn't have done it without them. I was proud of our cadets!!! But after Operation Thank You packed up and left, Brittanie and one of her friends went to see a movie. Then she came back home and went to John's house and got home at midnight. Needless to say, she was dog tired! John actually had to talk to her on the cell phone all the way home to keep her awake.

Today, Brittanie started doing chores, Katie was overtired from a busy weekend so she was whiny all day, and I'm still sick and trying to type anyway. Oh and Tom had to work all day. He didn't get home till after 8pm. So our weekend has been nonstop since Friday at 6pm. We are tired but it is definitely a good tired. I do want to say how much I appreciate Jessica, our collard baby, and all of her hard work in making the festival a success again this year.

Oh and I have a GREAT progress report. Brittanie has still been working hard with the diet and exercise and has lost 12 pounds now, drinking plenty of water, and according to the Army body fat calculator, she is at 30.35% body fat!! She is still not in compliance (30%) but she is soooooooooooooooooooo close! We are still waiting to hear back from the Army about the next step with the scholarship. But I'm so proud of her. She wants this scholarship and wants to be an Army officer so bad that she is willing to do whatever she has to in order to accomplish that goal!!

Couldn't resist!

I saw this picture and it made me laugh. After reading about the 6 black kids from Jena, Louisiana that hit a white kid and knocked him unconscious and then continued to beat and kick him and people were actually acting like the black kids were the victims! I was stunned. I thought this picture explained it all. lol

Just a reminder

The Collard Festival starts tonight! The auction and the live entertainment, as well as the rides start tonight at 7pm. There will be no collards sold tonight though. But there will be a fireworks show at 9:30 and if it is anything like past years, it is a long and beautiful display! I will be selling the black T-shirts that have our 25th anniversary Collard Festival logo in silver metallic on them by the outdoor stage. Some stop by and say hi!

Tomorrow the parade starts at 10am tomorrow with opening ceremonies at 11am and Elvis takes the stage at noon. Come on out for good, clean family fun!!

Happy Labor Day!

Hope everyone had a good labor day. Mine was quiet. Tom and Brittanie went 6 Flags over Georgia in Atlanta and had a great time. They rode that huge roller coaster that you see when you pass by the park on the interstate, Goliath, twice. Tom said it wasn't crowded at all. They walked right on to most rides all day and the longest they waited for a ride was 20 minutes. Katie and I stayed home. I tried to type but she wasn't letting that happen!

When Tom and Brittanie got home from 6 Flags, Brittanie and I sat down and filled out her Army ROTC scholarship application. The last time we checked their website, it wouldn't let us apply because when she went to chose her year of birth, it stopped at 1989. So we assumed she would have to wait until she turned 17 to apply. But the application has changed and she was able to apply. The hardest part was the personal statement but she even got that part done. Now we just have to wait to hear! She has been working hard to get her weight down because she started at 34% body fat but is now at 32.57% body fat and she has to be 30% or less to qualify for the scholarship. By the time her birthday comes around (September 25th), which is the earliest they can call her for the physical because she isn't 17 yet, she will be down to 30%. She has been on a diet and exercising like crazy for 3 weeks and has lost 9 pounds and almost 4 inches from her hips. We have the formula that the Army uses to calcuate body fat and we are weighing and measuring every Sunday. It is going well!! It just scares me that she is going to be married to the Army for 8 years! But it is her passion so I'm not going to do anything to talk her out of it. She knows the risks and dangers and still wants to serve her country! You have to admire her for that!

It's Collard Festival time again yall!!!

Click to make this larger!

Next weekend is the 25th annual Collard Festival and it is going to be the biggest and best EVER!!! Bring some money to get a souvenir limited edition 25th Anniversary shirt. They are black with the 25th anniversary logo in silver metallic! They are gorgeous! I'm in charge of the entertainment and we have something for everyone. We have rock on Friday night with the Overtones. Saturday we have Elvis doing a double show (50's and 70's Elvis), southern Gospel and then Red Fraley and Wishful thinking doing Country/Rockabilly. It is going to be GREAT!!!! We have lots of food vendors, crafters, and exhibitors.

Here is the flyer that we are passing around (above)
In PDF form

And as a JPG

It is a family festival so bring the kids. There is no alcohol allowed and lots of rides and games for the whole family. It is going to be the best festival to date. This year we have a new chairperson, Jessica Poole....the Collard baby! She is called that because she was born the day of the very first collard festival....September 7th. So if you see Jessica and no doubt you will because she has really worked hard in every aspect of this festival, wish her a happy birthday and tell her how much you appreciate all of her hard work. She's always got a smile and a kind word and is such a hard worker!! I for one definitely appreciate everything she has done!

A little bit of Tom and a little bit of Bill Engvall

Brittanie went to Hot Hair this morning to get her color done and on the way back home, stopped at the red light. That's when a girl collecting money for her soccer team came to her window. The first thing she said to Brittanie was "Did you just wash your hair?" Now she could have just said yes or I just left Hot Hair. But not Tom's child. She said "No, I'm like Eeyore and have a rain cloud that follows me everywhere I go." The girl was stunned and said "Oh. Well would you like to donate some money to our soccer team?" Brittanie told her no and rolled up her window. (I'm old...we still "roll" up windows, even though they are electric now.) The only thing missing from a Bill Engvall joke was the "Here's your sign." She's such a smart butt!