The saddest weekend. The happiest weekend.

It's been exactly one week since my dad unexpectedly passed away from a heart attack.  We are all heartbroken and still trying to recover from the shock of him being gone.

The funeral service was beautiful and so many people came to pay their respects.  It did my heart good to see all the people lined up out the door waiting to speak to us.  That line hanging out the door brought me a small measure of peace. Please continue to pray for my family as we try to find our way without my dad. His stature and personality were large and he his absence leaves a gapping hole in our family.

Even among the sorrow of the weekend, we did have some occasion to celebrate.

Sarah had her regional swim meet on Friday evening.  Her 400 Free relay qualified for states and she was beyond thrilled.

Isn't this cute?  I accidentally took a burst of 65 pictures trying to get a good shot and my phone turned it into animation. 

That's Sarah in the center getting ready to swim her backstroke.

The team heads to Raleigh this weekend for the state championships.

And on Sunday, Peter received his Eagle Scout Award.  It was perfect except for the fact that my dad wasn't there.  Peter gave his mentor pin to my mom.  He was planning on giving it my dad but my mom happily accepted it.

My sweet Peter heading out to his very first Cub Scout meeting in first grade.

My sweet Peter heading out the door to receive his Eagle Scout award.

I was shocked to learn that only 4% of scouts make it to Eagle.  It has been a lot of hard work for him over the last 9 years but he did it and we could not be more proud of this kid!

Peter and Sarah - I know Grandpa is in heaven cheering you guys on.  You were his pride and joy.

Rest in peace, Dad.

My father passed away unexpectedly on Wednesday morning.  He was kind, cantankerous, funny, opinionated, smart, impatient, generous, and always willing and eager to help me with anything I needed no matter how big or small. He loved us with all his might and our family is not going to be the same without him. Please pray for my family.

Below is his obituary:

George W. Tesh, Jr., 76, passed away on January 30, 2019 at his family home.

A memorial service of his life will be held graveside at Enterprise Moravian Church on Enterprise Road, Lexington, NC at 11:00am on Saturday, February 2. The Reverend Arkon Stewart and Reverend Trudy Irving will be officiating. Visitation will be held prior from 10:00 to 11:00am in the Enterprise Fellowship Hall and the graveside service will immediately follow at the church cemetery.

Mr. Tesh is survived by his wife of 56 years, Donna K. Tesh, of the home. He is also survived by his daughter, Elizabeth “Beth” Cotell (Daniel) and his son, Bradley K. Tesh, all of Lexington. He is also survived by his two precious grandchildren, Peter Robert Cotell and Sarah Donna Cotell. Also surviving are his two brothers, David A. Tesh of Clemmons, NC and Steven W. Tesh of Greenville, SC.

He was preceded in death by his parents, George and Lois Tesh, two brothers, Lee Tesh and John Tesh, and two sisters, Polly Daniels and Rachel Harvey, and a precious granddaughter, Rebecca Irene Cotell.

Mr. Tesh graduated from North Davidson High School in 1960. He attended North Carolina State University and from there he joined the US Air Force for four years. After the USAF tour, he worked several years at R.J. Reynolds and Fogle Brothers Lumber Co. He then worked for 36 years at Publicom, Inc., of Roanoke, VA. After retiring from Publicom, he continued to work part time for them as a consultant.

Mr. Tesh was born and raised at Enterprise Moravian Church and loved the Lord with all his heart. He loved to read the Bible and study his Sunday School lessons. He received many blessings with this time spent with the Lord. He was a longtime Sunday School teacher at Enterprise Moravian and Beulah UCC and served as a board member of these church boards.

Mr. Tesh’s delight was in his two grandchildren, Peter and Sarah. He loved to have them come down and visit him with many hugs, kisses and the stories of their day. He delighted to tell his friends about his grandchildren and their accomplishments and adventures.

Mr. Tesh had a beautiful bass voice, loved to sing and was a member of the Enterprise choir for many years. For a time, he was the bass singer in the Arcadians Gospel Quartet. In his later years, he became a KCBS BBQ Judge and enjoyed traveling to and judging many events. He enjoyed spending time at Oak Island and rocking away the day on the front porch watching the waves. He loved grilling and smoking many kinds of meats for family and friends and was always delighted when someone enjoyed his finished product.

The family chose this scripture for George, their husband, father, father-in-law, and grandfather.

Matthew 6:33 - But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.

What day is it?

This is one of those weird "what day is it?" kind of weeks.  So even though it feels like Tuesday, it's actually Wednesday which means I'm a little behind in all the things I wanted to accomplish this week.

But no matter how behind I am I have to do a recap of the weekend - the long weekend.

It was nice that it was a four day weekend for the kids.  With exams behind them, they were able to relax with no projects, tests, or homework hanging over them.  They slept late every day and did a lot of nothing.

Except on Saturday we had the conference swim meet.  I can not tell you how excited I was that it didn't start until FOUR!  A 4:00 start meant that Sarah didn't have to be at school until 2:00 which meant that my tired girl could sleep in and relax on Saturday morning.  And if anyone loves to sleep in and then wake up only to sit around and  relax is my girl.

The girls team came in 2nd in the conference and the boys team finished first!  But better than that was that Sarah managed to shave time off both her 100 back and her 100 free.  She was thrilled AND she came in THIRD in both of those events.  Not bad for a freshman.  Her two relays also placed a third and a second.  Here are a few of shots from the day:

Sarah swam butterfly in the medley relay.

The state regionals are in two weeks and she will be swimming her backstroke and will be on a relay! 

On Sunday we watched the Patriots game.  And, unlike the rest of the world, we were very thrilled with the outcome! 

And other than a doctor's appointment on Monday for Sarah we didn't really do a lot.  And now it's Wednesday even though it feels like Tuesday and I am hoping to get my side of the closet cleaned out and organizedbefore it's time to take Sarah to swim practice.  I've got plenty of time but I would rather sit here with another cup of coffee and relax and do nothing and ....hmmmmmmm.....that must be where Sarah gets it!  :)

An end of the week recap.

It's been an odd week.  The kids have had exams and their schedules have been a little crazy and throw in swim practice and it just seems like for  most of this week, I haven't been at home. 

But, thankfully, exams are over now!!  Exam time is stressful around here.  They think they did "okay".  I think that means they did well on some and not so well on others.  I guess we will see when grades are posted next week.

They both have a nice long 4 day weekend stretching ahead of them.  But Peter has a doctor's appointment this morning so no sleeping in for him today.  And Sarah has a doctor's appointment on Monday.  I like to get the appointments in when we have no school which is why as soon as next year's school calendar comes out I load it into my phone calendar.  (And yes, next year's calendar is out and is already loaded into my phone because that is the only time I'm proactive!)

Sarah has her conference swim meet tomorrow so tonight after practice the swim team is having a spaghetti dinner.  Tomorrow we will be in Mt. Airy watching Sarah swim. 

Tonight are more home basketball games so once I get Sarah back from the spaghetti dinner Peter and Dan and I will be heading back to school for the basketball games.

Sunday we will be cheering on the Patriots for what I hope is not (but most likely will be) their last game of the season. 

Sarah always has a hard time falling asleep at night and early this week was pretty bad I think due to stress over her exams.  She has been sleeping  with the overhead fan on at full blast because she likes the noise.  So I "Primed her" (that's short for  "I went to Amazon and used Prime shipping to get it here in two days") a noise machine and last night was the first time she used it.  I can't wait to see if it helped her.  She also has used melatonin for the last couple of nights and she said that helped.  Girlfriend was tired!  Poor baby.  I have no trouble fall asleep so it's hard for me to be able to help her since.  I'm hoping the combo of melatonin and the noise machine will be just what she needs to get a good night's sleep.

I have been trying to eat low carb and found a pretty easy recipe for cheese bread.  It's basically 2 eggs, 1 cup of mozzarella and a half a cup of Parmesan.  Mix together, add spices if you would like and make 4 little piles and flatten on parchment paper and bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes.

This becomes four pieces of "bread".  Bread is a bit of a stretch but I put cream cheese on them and Everything But the Bagel spice blend on them and pretended they were bagels.  And I will definitely be doing this again.  It would be the perfect breakfast if I ate breakfast but I ate this f one night this week when Dan had to take customers out to dinner.

I have yet to use this as sandwich bread or a hamburger bun but I will do so in the near future.  I think I would also like to play around with different cheeses. 

I hope everyone has a great long weekend!

It's Monday and I can see the sun!

This is going to be a weird week.  It's exam week and of course the kids schedules don't quite match up and Sarah will still have swim practice so there's going to be lots of me driving back and forth but that's okay because THE SUN IS OUT!!!

We had some ice Saturday night and many of the school systems are on delay today but since it's exam week at our school and the first exam is a little later than the normal start of the day, we are on normal exam schedule.  AND THE SUN IS OUT!  Did I mention that already?

It's cold but I'm happy to see the sun.

This was my backyard tree covered in ice Sunday morning.  You can't see the ice but it was really pretty.

I think Peter may, like me, have a touch of seasonal affective disorder.  He was in super complain mode last night about all the clouds and rain and general gross weather we've been having around here.

In order to combat that (for myself, I'm pretty sure Peter doesn't care if there are fresh flowers around or not), I purchased these last week:

On Friday night, we went to the basketball game at school.  Peter wanted to drive himself but since he can't drive without an adult after 9:00 Dan and I had to go too.  He drove himself and we went out to eat (Chipotle because the place we wanted to go had over an hour wait...ain't nobody got time for that!) and then watched the game.  And Dan drove home with him and I drove home by myself.  Sarah was very excited to just be home alone for a few hours.

On Saturday we had to get the oil changed in Dan's car and it needed to be inspected as well and we ran a few errands and then we came home and we all watched the Kids Baking Championship.  My kids love this show.  We like to see what ridiculous things the kid bakers are going to say and someone always cries. 

Sunday morning was Mass and lunch at my parent's house and then we watched the Patriots game.  They won!  We are looking forward to next Sunday's game but it's going to be tough.  The Chiefs are looking unbeatable and it's at their stadium so the will also have that as an advantage.  

And in other news, Sarah got glasses so she can see the board at school and I got new glasses a few weeks ago:

This selfie isn't the best quality but I think we look cute in our new glasses!  We both went with large frames that scream "hey look, we're wearing glasses!" and honestly, I couldn't be more pleased. 

I hope you guys have a sunny week!

I've still got my chauffeur's hat on!

Dan is in Ireland and the kids are on their way to school.  Had this been prior to Peter obtaining his driver's license, I would have had to drive them to the carpool drop off point every morning this week (as well as drive my one day of carpool) but now?  Now, I am currently sitting in front of my computer, in my pjs, and leisurely drinking my second cup of coffee while nervously patiently waiting for my Life360 app to alert me that Peter has arrived safe and sound at school.

claclunk

Hey! That was my app and it just went off!  They have arrived safe and sound! I can relax now.

I am slowly but surely starting to see that the benefits of having a driver will eventually outweigh all the nervous fretting. I fervently pray for their safety each morning and try not to fret. I've got the fervent praying down but I'm still working on the not fretting part.

This weekend, Peter had to do the sixth and final (all the praise hands!) installment of his religion video project with his group.  He was going to drive himsleft to High Point where they have been working on the project.  There is a back way from our house that is country roads and no highways.  It takes 40 minutes as opposed to the 30 minute highway route.  (I am not at all comfortable with him driving alone on the highway yet.  He has had very little practice with us in the car with him.)

He said he would be fine and he has driven (with me in the car) this route before.  However, right as it was time for him to leave, I think he panicked. Or maybe just decided he didn't feel like driving all that way.  But Dan and I ended up taking him.  Peter assured us that this one would be short and he would hopefully be done in an hour and a half so around 4:30. 

After we dropped him off, we headed to Target and I got a text from Sarah.  She wanted to know if we could drop her off at 6:00 to have dinner with some friends and do some shopping in Winston.  We said yes assuming we would be home from High Point in plenty of time to get her to Winston by 6:00..

But of course, Peter never texted he was done so I finally called him as we were running out of time.  They were still busily working on their video. Long story short, we got Peter, went home, got Sarah, went to Winston, dropped her off a little late, ate dinner out while waiting on Sarah and then finally made it home.

Since I woke up Saturday morning thinking I wouldn't be doing anything but messing around the house, I did all of this while wearing leggings, a sweatshirt, unwashed hair and no makeup!

If you saw me out and about any on Saturday, thank you for not coming up to me to say hi!

Moral of the story -  while Peter is learning his independence and getting more comfortable driving alone, I need to always be dressed and ready just in case he decides he wants to be chauffeured around!

And on a totally unrelated yet highly adorable note, the four of us have a group chat.  It mainly consists of us texting pictures of Wally doing adorable Wally things.  Peter text us all this picture the other day:

Cute, right?  Well don't think it's normally like this.  One of Wally's favorite pastimes is chasing Kitten and cornering her behind this chair or underneath the nearby dresser.  Maybe our little orange terror is maturing?   Nah!  He was probably just tired from all that chasing and needed a rest. :)

A very nice after Christmas treat!

The day after Christmas, we decided to take Dan's Uncle to visit Belmont Abbey. Belmont Abbey is a Benedictine monastery dating back to 1892. There is a Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes on the grounds that is a pilgrimage shrine. In 1904 St. Katherine Drexel visited the abbey and in 1910 Belmont was created as a  nullius ‘diocese’ by Pope St. Pius X which gave the abbey church cathedral status. In 1998 the church was designated a minor basilica by Pope John Paul II. There is also a college there which dates back to 1876.

On our way to visit the abbey, we stopped for lunch in Charlotte.  After a delicious hamburger at Pinkies Westside Grill  we decided to drive past the Panther's stadium and see if we could locate their practice field.

Peter did some quick googling and directed us to the field.  He wanted to see if he could spot some players but of course, they had black draping around the fence so you could hear some football sounds but couldn't really see anyone.  Also, there was another fence around the field to keep Lookie-Lous like us from bothering the players.

We parked (in a lot that said "No Practice Field Parking" like the rebels we are.  This was the only lot remotely near the field and the businesses at this lot were not working because it was the day after practice.  And it was clear that everyone else trying to get a glimpse of practice was parked there as well.

Dan and his uncle stayed in the car while Peter and I walked up the hill to the fence.  We were disappointed when we realized that we wouldn't be able to see any of the players.  There were probably 20 people there with chairs, their lunch, snacks, etc. 

One of the men there turned around towards us and I asked him if the players were going to come out soon.  He replied that they said practice would be done at 1:30.  It was currently 1:15.  After further conversations with this man, it was clear that everyone that had brought chairs had been there since the morning when all the players went into practice and they were hoping to get more autographs as the players came out.

This nice man convinced us to stay with the logic of "it's only 15 minutes and you might never get this chance again."  So we stayed.  He even gave us a piece of heavy art board and a sharpie. 

When the players came out his family moved their chairs so we could get right in beside them.  They started calling out the players names and this family had researched the players favorite treats and had them.  They would call the players name and say, "We have your favorite Haribo gummy bears will you sign and autograph for us?"

And the player would come over and sign for them and then we would meekly say, "Will you sign this for us?"  Peter was able to get the autographs of 3 of his favorite Panthers.  Sadly Cam Newton wasn't there because he was injured and Luke Kueckly rode out on a golf cart but Peter was very pleased with our impromptu stop! 

Honestly, he was just as excited about these autographs as he was on Christmas morning!

Getting DJ Moore's autograph.

Getting Dante Jackson's autograph.  That's Peter's hand behind the other boy with sunglasses.

Christian McAffrey! 

 

And then we made it to Belmont Abbey.  The church itself is very plain but there was some beautiful stained glass windows inside:

All in all, I would say it was a great day!

And they are off!

Today was the day!  Peter drove himself and Sarah to school this morning!

Here they are pulling out of the lower driveway at 7:37....

And no, I did not go running after the truck!  (Although I thought about it!)

I did,however, go inside and start immediately following them on the Life360 app.  But then I realized that it doesn't track them second by second (it updates every few minutes) so I got in the shower and started to get ready for the day.  And in no time I got a notification from the app that they had arrived at Bishop McGuinness.

And did I mention?  Sarah took her 30 hours of in-class driver's ed instruction over Christmas break.  At some point between now and her birthday she will do her in car work and in June, I'll have another driver in the house.  YIKES!!

Pray for us all!  :)

Christmas and New Year's and some pictures.

Merry Christmas!  Happy New Year!  And all that jazz.

I hope everyone had a wonderful everything.  We survived all the festivities and things are starting to get back to normal...ish.  Dan went to work this morning for the first time in almost two weeks but the kids don't go back to school until tomorrow.

We had a really nice two week break from everything normal.  I really enjoyed having Dan and the kids home for such a long stretch.  It was so very good.  I was sad to say goodbye to him this morning when he went ot work.

Dan's uncle was able to spend 5 days with us over Christmas which was lovely.  We celebrated Christmas Eve at the church of my youth with a beautiful Lovefeast and Candlelight service and then came back to our house for a little party with my family and my best friend's family.  (And as usual, I got no pictures because I never think about it until it's too late and I was too busy enjoying myself.)

On Christmas morning, I literally had to drag the kids out of bed so that we could unwrap gifts, eat breakfast, and get dressed in time to make it to the 11:00 Christmas Day Mass.

I did manage to get a lot of pictures of that and here are a few of them for your viewing pleasure:

After Mass, we celebrated at my parent's house with a delicious feast of turkey, ham, and all the sides and my mom's famous chocolate cake and of course, presents.

On New Year's Eve we went to a Japanese restaurant with my best friend's family and another friend's family and then back to their house to watch the ball drop.  And no once again no pictures because that's how I roll.  Just imagine a large group of people eating way too much food and then hanging out until the ball dropped.  There - isn't that just as good as a picture? :)

I am excited for things to start to get back to normal now that all the festivities are over.  We still have our tree up and all of our decorations because my husband and my kids love them so much.  If it was up to me they would all be down by now.  But we are going to do it this weekend and even though it feels like Monday, it's already Wednesday so only a few more days of all the decorations being up!  Bahumbug!  My family thinks I'm a big scrooge but I've always said I prefer ordinary time...

I hope you all had a great holiday and that you made lots of memories and spent quality time with family and friends!  And here's to a fabulous 2019!