Just Keepin N Touch: April 2013

A Fun Yearbook Presentation at CA Today

The police car pulled up with its siren wailing and all the students were standing out in front of the school thanks to a fire alarm that was set off. The officer announced over his car broadcast system that Gary Pennell (our history teacher) was wanted due to his extreme political views. He slowly ambled over to the car, where the officer asked him to put his hands up on the back of the car.

Our editor, JoAnne, got the yearbook from the police officer and told Mr. Pennell that we wanted him to have the first copy since the book was dedicated to him.

Gary told me he'd never been arrested before, and neither has he had a yearbook dedicated to him before. It's about time!

Gary with his wife, Jan, who helped me by cancelling an appointment that would have taken him away this morning and provided the great pictures in the yearbook.

Sat. Nite Settlers Fun with Friends

Terrie and Brian came over for some Settlers Sat. night. They were keen competition, with Terrie pulling out the first win, thanks to her longest road win the last minute. Randy, who wasn't able to build many roads, snuck up on us to win the second game - look for his blue dynasty, that's hard to even spot.

Terrie repeatedly told Brian "Don't do anything the Heilmans tell you to do in this game." :)

Delivery Day!

Since May of 2013 this "baby" has been developing thanks to the efforts of my faithful yearbook staff. In early March our labors were over. It arrived today! My editor is gone on Senior class trip to NY City so she hasn't seen it yet unfortunately. But Nick, a very faithful yearbook staffer/photographer (who was in study hall in the computer lab when they were delivered) and Randy helped get them moved into hiding where they will remain until Monday when we deliver them to the students after chapel! And now a few pictures of today's long-awaited delivery (Randy and I took the majority of the pictures in the yearbook, so it was only fitting that we had the camera ready for action today too!)

Glad to sign that they were safely delivered!

Bringing them in to their hiding place during 2nd period - we were lucky it wasn't during a class break time!

Now to open a box!

Nick and I getting our first look at long last. It will be hard to keep this quiet till Monday. We surprise the students when we announce they are here, so don't breathe a word to any CA students or staff about this post. We are involving the police in the announcement so it should be fun!

A Sabbath Hike in the Park - the Smoky One!

We hiked a new trail in Smoky Mtn. Nat'l. Park - Schoolhouse Gap, on Sabbath. On a side trail we were told about, we went down into White Oak Sink that was full of gorgeous phlox and trillium and had a waterfalls in the same general vicinity. We'll do that trail again I hope!

The redbuds and dogwoods were lovely

Approaching White Oak Sink - what a cool meadow full of phlox!

It was a vigorous hike coming back up from White Oak Sink!

We spotted this fox while driving around Cades Cove after our hike.

This picture is not representative of what most of the drive around Cades Cove was like . . . to Randy's dismay. He got to wait on slow pokes ahead of us going 10 mph most of the time, which was too reminiscent of the time we got stuck in there, and it took us 6 hours to make it around! This trip only took us an hour to cover the 11 miles.

One of our favorite picnic spots in the park at the Cades Cove picnic area

On our way back to our campground, we passed this Townsend campground that was full of Casita's!

This fiberglass unit looks interesting to us.

Ours looked so big and boxy after seeing all the cute little Casitas, but we sure like our 27-foot Catalina with a bedroom separate from the rest of the living area. (I took this through the windshield unfortunately.)