Contained within is our personal account of events, experiences and ideas that have shaped our lives.
The Hyacinth flowers came up in the middle of March and Mom had the whole house smelling good.
This video was actually from last summer. but we didn’t have a chance to post it – a time lapse photo of the hibiscus in the front yard.
Mom and Dad managed a couple of quick trips this spring, but other than that we have all been working and somewhat relaxing. This last weekend was probably the last we will see of spring because it’s predicted to start heating up now that we are headed into May. Hopefully though, we will get some rain as we are in a drought in NC… down about 8-10″ from our normal precipitation and they have already started water restrictions. Sam and Mom have been working hard in the yard, moving plants around and getting ready for the everything to start blooming. We promise to get some new photos up when that does happen. Sam has dives planned in June and July and we are going to the Asheville area in June to do some quick hikes and take a few photos.
Mom and Dad made a short day trip up to DC to see the Cherry blossoms. The last time we all went together as a family and it was Easter weekend – not something we would ever do again. This time, there were still a lot of tourists but it was much more manageable. The weather was pretty chilly and rainy in the morning, but by afternoon it was mostly sunny.
Mom and Dad made a short trip down the coast with a short stop off in Folly Beach, South Carolina and then on to Cumberland Island, GA to visit a National Park with wild horses and ruins of a Victorian mansion owned by the Carnegie’s. Mom, of course added to her shell collection and they put in about 8 miles hiking on the day.
Dad made a quick trip up to the Corporate office and got to meet the CEO of the company (she of course, just announced her retirement today) and for his birthday he got a new bread machine – which he made his first loaf, Rosemary and Olive Oil, the next day.
Well, as usual, we didn’t get any posts in the last half of the year so we have to play catch-up in the spring. Nothing too exciting happened after our visitors left last year, but we did get some house projects completed – that will be another post though. The holiday season went by without any hiccups and this year we made it through the whole season without anyone getting sick… this was a major victory for us! Overall, we had a nice holiday season, Gung Gung was here through February so we got to spend some time with him as well. Everyone did work a lot of hours, 35-40 for everyone except Dad and he was the usual 50-60, but by February everything had calmed down and we were all starting to catch up on our rest. Below are some pictures throughout the back half of the year.
Sam bought a Honda 2021 CRV and he went on 3 dives during the summer – this was the most he has done in several years due to weather and/or poor visibility, so he was pretty excited. He has 2 more scheduled this year as well.
Alex bought a new Pit Boss grill before we moved, but we were never able to put it together because we didn’t really have the space. Since we added the grill patio last year we also had some extra space for his grill and he has practicing ever since.
Mom and Alex had birthday’s in August – Alex got some more grill supplies and Mom got a new fancy hose reel for the yard.
We had a full menu on Thanksgiving, but overall it was pretty relaxed as we all had to work long hours the next day. We did get to open a few early Christmas presents – a new inflatable for Dad and everyone got Advent Calendars from Nana.
We added a couple of small Christmas trees downstairs this year and the Christmas village grew even bigger as apparently more people moved to North Carolina last year.
We had our first significant snowfall in quite a few years in February, along with a couple of ice events were the roads were virtually impossible to drive on.
We were lucky enough to have the house full for a few weeks this Spring as Aunt Sue and Tony had an extended visit in April, while Emma and the Boys visited in May. We loved having everyone in town and just wished we had more time to spend with everyone.
Aunt Sue and Tony landed while Dad was in Minnesota for meetings and luckily they escaped their visit without getting the plague initially started by Sam and Alex (Dad also came back with a bad case of allergies as Minnesota is a few weeks behind for Spring). We did have a nice Easter dinner together and the following week Gung Gung and Tony took a long drive to Kentucky for a Revolutionary War re-enactment. In-between we found time for a few dinners together and a couple of trips shopping.
Emma, Seby and Ollie came a few weeks later and we had a nice visit to the Museum of Natural History where they got to see some scientists working on the new exhibit with the dueling Dinosaurs (https://duelingdinosaurs.org). The boys got to visit a couple of the parks in the area and we had a couple of nice dinners together.
Hopefully, everyone had as much fun as we did hosting them. Maybe next year, we will make a visit across the pond to visit them.
Well, we completely missed the holiday update as it seemed like the holidays just flew by last year. We did get to spend Thanksgiving with Gung Gung, but he left in early December to go visit everyone in England/France. Christmas and New Years were pretty quiet overall, but we did have a nice time just relaxing and recovering, as we seemed to be passing a cold around the house the whole holiday season. On top of trying to stay healthy, Alex and Sam were both working full-time hours, while Dad was putting in about 65 hours a week trying to keep the new store he was transferred to running, but in the end, we all survived.
After watching the KC Chiefs lose the Super Bowl, we started off Spring cleaning early and in February and March we started working on some small projects around the house. We painted David’s room, upgraded the front hallway with new paint, wallpaper and molding, re-organized Nana/Gung Gung’s storage shed, started work on the yard and gardens and for the mother of all projects – we cleaned Alex’s room. As we move into summer, we still have a few house projects to tackle, including a new Grill Patio that we just recently started…. we had to get HOA approval first of course. We also hope to get away to the beach soon to get some much needed R&R.
Today, we joined the millions of other Americans that voted early. Mom, Dad, Sam and Nana all closed in all the correct circles on the ballot. Alex, as usual stayed at home. 🥲 We were a little worried that it would take long because the parking lot had been full everytime we drove past the last few days, but we were lucky as the lot was only half full and the whole process only took about 20 minutes.
A couple of weeks ago, Mom and Dad got a chance to go down to Greenville, NC and see the Vice-President give a speech at East Carolina University (ECU Minges Coliseum). It was standing room only and they were some of the last ones that were allowed in to the event. This whole election is like watching a Kansas City Chiefs football game… you have no idea who is going to win and you know it is going to come down to the last few plays. 😆
Well, the birthday season is over as Alex and Mom had birthdays in August and Nana had her birthday in September. Each birthday boy/girl got to pick their own dinner that day and each received a couple of small gift bags. Other than the birthdays, not a lot of New News to report. The hurricanes all missed us, but we did got quite a bit of rain… oddly enough, we haven’t seen much rain since then. The flowers, except for the Cannas, are starting to wind down and soon it will be time to trim back the elephant ears and banana trees which both exceeded our expectations this year. This weekend we will probably go ahead and put out the Halloween inflatables too.
Dad had to fly up to Minnesota a couple of weeks ago for merchandising meetings. Only 64 people were selected from the stores to attend (2 from each Marketplace). It was a long, but short trip. Dad got up at 3am on Wednesday to get to the 6am flight and was in Minneapolis for 29 hours (12 hours of meetings) and then got back home at 1am on Friday morning. Luckily he didn’t get stuck in the Crowdstrike debacle, because the other guy in the marketplace didn’t actually get home until 10pm Friday night – spending most of the day on Friday in the airport waiting for a flight. Anyway, Dad and the other guy now have to teach back what they learned to the Marketplace AVP (Associate Vice President) and all the Marketplace Directors… of course they didn’t tell him this before he left. 😀 The only free time he had, he went over to the Mall of America to get dinner. The highlight of the trip was that he bumped into a friend from KC. His friend lived a block away and they went to school together from 1st grade through high school, but hadn’t seen each other since HS graduation.
Sam and Mom have been working tirelessly out in the yard and the dividends are really starting to pay off. The lawn is looking much better, the flowers are in bloom and we have lots of friends dropping by to say Hi. 😀
We also added some new outdoor seating to the venue…
And speaking of new friends… our next door neighbors have put their house on the market and we noticed the other day that it is already pending on Zillow. We didn’t go to the Open House, but we did look on Zillow and when we did we found a drone image of their house and ours. We saved the photo and cropped it a little so you can see our new cottage/shed and the new walking path (the grass is a lot greener in real life 😀).
Just a quick post to bring everyone up-to-date with life in Clayton. First off, Dad had Father’s Day off this year, but unfortunately Alex and Sam had to work. So we had a nice, low-key Father’s Day dinner on the following Wednesday (ribs, beef strips and farmer’s market potatoes and tomatoes). Meanwhile, we finished a couple of more projects around the house as Nana painted the front door and made some new curtains for the downstairs living & dining area. Mom and Sam have also been working diligently in the garden and are now starting to see some of their hard work over the last 2 years starting to pay off, so we decided to show some before and after photos of the yard.
The Payne Chronicles 