Ashlyn's 25th

Ashlyn turned 25 this week, a quarter of a century! It's just doesn't seem possible that our oldest baby can be mid-twenties now. I still see her as that cute toddler who always wore a hat (she had no hair) and got into bandaids.

Now as an adult, she didn't want a real cake, so we settled for a small cupcake that we each took a bit from.

Instead, she wanted us to make her a sweet potato casserole with a very thin layer of nuts on top. The youngest in the family wanted to still use the nut mixture, so we piled them on high for half of it.

Here's a picture of her in her usual attire. The coffee is absolutely part of her wardrobe since she's working 12+ hour shifts.

And when she's not working, you can find her in Columbia visiting this guy.

Happy 25th Ashlyn! 

Army FTX

It's rare to find pictures of our son in his element because I have to rely on other photographers. But thanks to FB and scanning hundreds of posts, I found some! As a senior cadet, Luke's role this year is to plan the field training exercises (FTX) for the UofSC Army ROTC.

Most of the planning happens well before their FTX weekend. Once in the field, though, his white board helps him keep track of each platoon and the location of each activity.

Since he is away from us on his birthday and back in Columbia, we celebrated early. Happy 22nd birthday, Luke! We miss you!

HOCO Float

Our youngest is a Student Council officer this year, and they were in charge of the freshman float for homecoming.Their theme...the 50's/Grease.

The officers decided to dress up while decorating the trailer with juke boxes, records, balloons, streamers, and musical notes.

Since we were driving the trailer, I decided to get in on the action. Eric thought it was comical.

Time for the parade to start!

Even their candy was 50's themed with gummy hamburgers, hotdogs, and fries! They did a nice job!

All the decorations were salvaged, if possible, for the hall decorating contest on Thursday. Good luck, Patriots!

Bike Crawl

After days and days of rain, we finally had a beautiful sunny weekend to be outside. We loaded up the bikes and headed for downtown Greenville.

Eric had a long route planned that started at one end of Greenville, followed the Swamp Rabbit Trail through town and finished in West Greenville. 

We stopped for a brief picture at the Cancer Survivors Park. When I took this picture, I didn't realize my phone had a focus lense that blurs the backround. I must have hit that feature accidentally, but I love how it turned out!

Here's the unblurred photo so you can see the other two.

When we got the end of our ride, Eric wanted a beer. So we stopped at the brewery on the trail for a refreshing drink while the girls got kombucha.

When the beer was finished, we got on the bikes and went maybe 50 yards to a new brewery that just opened up. He decided to try another beer. This new place had kombucha on tap! The girls loved it!

There was a 3rd brewery just 100 yards away, but we realized we wouldn't make the long ride back if we stopped again. This could be a fun Mueggenborg event for our SC Cousin Reunion in 2023!