Part 6

Following the meal, Dad read two stories, the traditional classic "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and the ultimate Christmas story telling of the birth of Christ Jesus in Luke chapter 2.  Christmas morning the boys woke up early, as usual, and we celebrated by exchanging gifts with one another, making a big pallet in the middle of the living room floor and playing and watching movies all day long!  After supper we all gathered around a fresh baked cake with a single star candle and sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus!!  We then settled in to watch the Chronicles of Narnia Prince Caspian where everybody slowly drifted back to sleep.  In a few days we will celebrate the end of a great year and the beginning of a new one in two ways.. the traditional calendar year and Chad and Tanya's 14th wedding anniversary!

As mentioned before, we have so much to be thankful for, the greatest of which is Love-capitalized on purpose.  God is Love...for God so Loved the world that he gave His only begotten son, Jesus... So, from our family to yours, we hope you have a wonderful Christ filled season that is celebrated at Christmas time and lasts all year 'round!  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.... Chad, Tanya, Zach, Jakob, Joshua and Luke

part 5

December is always such a big month in so many ways.  Again, there are a number of extended family birthdays spread over the month.  Jakob and Joshua's piano recital went very well this year!  Jakob performed "Silent Night" and Joshua performed "The Chipmunk Christmas Song."  Then they surprised Dad with a piano duet of "The Little Drummer Boy."  They really are coming along well!

The Christmas season seems to have come on even quicker than normal(are the days shorter, are there fewer days...how does it keep going by so fast?!)  Tanya prepared a very nice Christmas Eve dinner, the table was set just right with the help of the boys.  We all got cleaned up and put on our new pajamas(a tradition mom started a few years back) and we ate a wonderful meal and drank "sparkling grape juice" in wine glasses.

part 4

A few weeks later we headed to Uncle Mike's for a Thanksgiving feast with the Green Family.  The cousins always have a great time catching up and playing and we finally got to see our new nephew, Shawn, what a cutie!  After eating more than anyone should, we headed over to Aunt Debby's house for a hunting trip with Uncle Brian where Jakob, all decked out in camo and hunter orange bagged his first deer...with just a little help from Uncle Brian, of course!  He was very excited and we are all proud.  Dad and Zach think they are on to Uncle Brian's routine and are going to switch hunting locations with him and Jakob next year to see if our odds improve!

And now here we are in December, again already!

part 3

September found Chad starting graduate school in pursuit of a Masters degree at Trevecca Nazarene University and Jakob crossing over to Boy Scouts.  October brought Tanya's 36th birthday followed by a trip to Holiday Acres with the McCarthys and a neighborhood trick or treating with the Moodys.

November proved to be a pretty busy month as Chad had to go to the Gulf Shores area for a work trip, so we rolled in a family trip to the beach.  We enjoyed a couple of days of 80 degree weather on the beach and got to see the Blue Angels and the Naval Air Museum.  Chad was working throughout the trip juggling events for a songwriters festival.  The guest writer/artists for the trip were Joey+Rory Feek and Steven Dale Jones.  The whole family went to Lulu's for dinner and the show.  Lots of good food and music!  On our way home, we capped off the trip with the only request that the boys had which was to eat at Lambert's "home of the throwed rolls."  

Part 2

This June we were able to attend the Keller Family Reunion at Tanya's Aunt Glenda's home in Bear Creek, AL.  It's always great to visit with family, especially when there's loads of food involved!  Chad got together with his old band mates to perform for the Beard Family's 4th of July picnic this year in Harvest, AL.  Tanya, the boys and Maw Maw and Paw Paw came making it an even more fun/family event.  We also celebrated Christmas in July with our friends the McCoys at Holiday World in Santa Claus, Indiana.  The biggest news is Joshua's baptism in the creek at Grace Chapel.  

This August was big as Zach became a teen!!!  That's right he's 13 now!  He is also taller than Mom and just about as tall as Dad....with no signs of slowing down!!  Zach had a big blowout this year with a luau party...swimming, pizza, friends and family.  It was big...Zach style!  Chad's birthday wrapped up August as he turned 38.  Tanya surprised Chad with a trip to a B&B in Guntersville, AL.  It was a great time!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year Part 1

2008 was another great year for the Green’s. Wow! Did we say another year...it seems like the calendar turns quicker than ever anymore! This year, instead of the traditional card, we wanted to go back to our past tradition of sending a bit of an update via letter. While we don’t have news of family additions (“Whew!!!” says Chad!) or moves (“Whew!!! says Tanya!)...[folks that have known us for a while understand that we had a pretty good track record of either having a baby or moving every other year or so!]...we still have had a year full of blessings and much to be thankful for.
As usual January and February was pretty quiet around the home front. March hits big with Jakob’s birthday. He turned 10 this year and we celebrated by way of Transformers, laser tag and CiCi’s Pizza! Later in March we had a great time on spring break going with Maw maw and Paw paw fishing at Uncle Calvin’s pond where Zach caught the most and the biggest fish of the day! April saw us celebrating the blessings of Easter once this year as well as hunting eggs with family friends at a local park.

May is extremely busy for our immediate and extended families with the limbs about to break off the family tree with all the birthdays...we’ve contributed two of them. Joshua turned 8 with a Spiderman birthday party at home and Luke turned 4 with a dinosaur birthday party at home. This May also found us camping at the state park in Gulf Shores, AL following a night stay in the USS Alabama on a cub scout trip. Well, Dad, Jake and Josh stayed on the ship the first night (very cool and lots of fun), which meant Mom, Zach and Luke were left to set up camp alone the first night! The first night was very hot and muggy, but they all made out just fine. Dad, Jake and Josh caught up the next day and we all camped together another 4 nights. Did we mention it was tent camping - no RV, no cabins - but we were conveniently located next to the air conditioned “facilities”...thanks to Mom’s advanced planning. We had a great time...on the beach by day and
cooking out and camping by night...the best of two of our family’s favorite things!

On The Roost

This is my first attempt at blogging and boy do I have a lot to tell.   This past Sunday was Chad's 38th birthday so we celebrated all weekend.  Friday night Maw Maw and Paw Paw kept all the boys and we went to a B&B on Lake Guntersville in Alabama.  We had a fabulous time!  The innkeeper was so pleasant and had everything set up for us.  She had made dinner reservations for us at a very nice local restaurant.  We ate so much that we were too stuffed for dessert.  We ended up at a coffee house and played battleship.  Which I will admit that Chad is a very intense board game player!  I had only found 3 of his ships by the time he had sank ALL of mine.  I was exhausted after that game. 

 The next morning we had a lovely breakfast on the veranda overlooking the lake.  Then we packed our bags and headed to the Unclaimed Baggage in Scottsboro, AL.  If you have never been, you have got to go.  It's a big store full of unclaimed baggage.  Just like the name.  Really, its just a bunch of other people's stuff that they have lost during their many travels.  We probably spent 2-3 hours in there.  

We went back to Maw Maw and Paw Paw's Saturday night.  Sunday, Deb (Chad's sister) and her family and Uncle Calvin and Aunt Yvonne joined us for a cookout.  We had burgers and dogs and of course watermelon.  Chad had an ice cream birthday cake which was so yummy.  He wanted to know why we didn't put candles on it......can you imagine 38 candles on a ice cream cake at the end of August?    

As many of you know, we have a passion for chickens.  And most of you know that our whole flock got wiped out last year by an opossum.  Maw Maw so graciously hatched us some baby chicks and has taken care of them for the first 8-10 weeks of their lives.  Needless to say, it was past time for us to bring the babies home.  So, Sunday after the cookout, we loaded up the boys and chickens and headed 2 1/2 hours North.  Have you ever put 8 chickens in your car with the windows up and the air conditioner going full blast with 4 sweaty boys in the heat of the summer?  I think you get the picture.  All that, to say this.....our chickens are home and doing fine.  

We had a very memorable Labor Day Weekend and we hope your family did too.