Welcome to flamingobear. We're the Martin family. Jenn cooks a lot. Tim eats it. And the trees are awesome.
As new homes in Tennessee go, ours is in a pretty old spot. The very first settlement in Williamson County was, literally, across the street from us, and dates back to at least 1800. We’re talking really old. In fact, our local plant expert, Mike Berkley, tells us that his read on things is that our “orchard” has been cultivated for an incredibly long time.
Halloween got off to a slow start with the cancelation of two more soccer games (bummer!), but it picked up from there. We had an excellent, chill visit to the farmers’ market, followed by a visit to Provence’s Fall Fest. Much to our surprise, the Fall Fest included face painting, which contributed to the later festivities beautifully.
As every Halloween should, ours finished with some excellent trick-or-treating on a gorgeous, crisp, fall night. Really, a nearly full moon, a partly cloudy sky, 50° temperatures… it was beautiful. Further, the neighborhood we adopted for the night (Annandale) was nothing short of fantastic. The walks were short, the people were great (this is part of our school bus route), and the houses were awesome. All told, the night was great.
Without further ado, allow me to present, “The Three Broomsticks“!
This has long been the place for the adulation of my daughters’ soccer teams. Well, today we get to share a drubbing! That’s right, Aspen’s Purple Pandas went down at the hands of a good team to the tune of 7-1. But, there were some good things too! It isn’t, of course, all about winning.
One of the challenges for the Pandas was a small roster! Today, they played with just the minimum 6 throughout (and truth be told, injuries meant there were about 5 minutes where they were one short!) And, speaking of “short”, the shortish number 2 you see in the video below is none other than Oakley Martin! True, this was a U9 game, and Oakley is still 6, but her sister’s team needed some help, so Oakley stepped up. (Over the course of the game, Oakley’s sisterly, loving hands were needed for Aspen too!)
We’ve got one half worth of video that features some of Aspen’s awesome goalkeeping and a remarkable save. We’ve also got one half worth of pictures which feature, among other things, Oakley setting up the only Panda goal of the game. Well done Martin girls (and well done other Pandas who might be reading this).
I’m gonna go ahead and take a stand on Fall Break. I’m officially in favor of it. That’s right… no qualifying here… Fall Break is indubitably good.
This year, we found ourselves in Nashville the whole time, but we were none the worse for it.
Still, I have some nice pictures for you…
Truth be told, I haven’t even watched this whole video yet… I’m waiting to do so with the girls. But, I thought some of you might want to kill 8 minutes on a Monday morning, so I’m putting up the video of Saturday’s soccer game.
Aspen’s team got off to a “slow” start… Pretty quickly, they were in a 3-0 hole, with little hope and lacking aggressiveness. And then, right near the end, they woke up…
Doesn’t everyone have a horse that lives next door? One that’s sweet, and available, tolerant of kids, and loves to eat carrots? Well, I highly recommend it.
Have we ever had an awesome time on Tennessee’s waterways lately. This weekend, we were treated to a fantastic day on Tims Ford Lake. Our neighbors, the Donahues, invited us to their lake house for a day of playing around in the water.
Even today, as I was putting together the video below, I was shocked at home many cool things we all got to do in a single day. A brief list? Kayak, jet ski, water ski, tube, jump off a 14 foot dock (even Lindy!) It was nothing short of a perfect day.
More than any of that, though, do you know what I came away most amazed by?
A week ago, we took a recommendation from Jay and Stephanie and headed out to the Harpeth River for a bit of canoeing. We had a great time on the river. Exploring, swimming, eating some lunch, the whole thing was awesome. The girls were great… it was just a great experience.
We were sitting down to read tonight, just before bed, like we always do. I heard the phone ring downstairs, and promptly ignored it (as I often do). When it rang again, I decided I’d better go see what was up.
Well, it turns out that one of Aspen’s friends from school had called. Now, this has happened before. Play dates need to be set up, sleepovers arranged. I figured it was something along those lines, so I let Aspen make a quick call back while we all waited. Get this:
Aspen’s friend had called with no other purpose than to talk on the phone!
Whoa. What could possibly be next? The prom?!
