Lumber Bridge, NC

Latin Teacher's mother's family is from Scotland County, NC. More specifically Lumber Bridge, NC. We went down on Sunday afternoon for a family reunion lunch, it was the same weekend as a Dayton 500, so we were watching a little of that too!


Out back of this great house, Uncle Tommy Toler is a bee keeper, and we took some risks to get some pictures of the houses.



There were also some other very pretty sights on our around the house that allowed be to feel like a photographer. It was really nice to use my great camera in good natural light.

It was a great time meeting more of Latin Teacher's extended family!

Pioneer Woman would be proud!

Marina and I took it upon ourselves (and little Sofia) that we would make Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls in her cook book.

It called for lots and lots of butter, and sugar, and stuff that sticks to your finger and hips. I made the mistake of not taking pictures until the end of the whole adventure (and that's really what it was). But you do get to see the finished product.


Here is the dough rising in the nice warm bowel, it worked much much better than the Cinnamon Bread that I tried a while ago... Marina and Sofia have a way with yeast.


After kneading and playing we rolled the dough out and put the sugar and butter and cinnamon (read: we used 1/2 the butter and it was still good... I can't imagine what it would be like with all the butter).


We then rolled them and put them into pans, since the recipe made a TON of rolls we froze most of them in the Offner's freezer, but made two pans for immediate consumption.


They were/are AMAZING! I was so impressed in us! I could not have done it without the Offner ladies. We made a glaze with maple syrup and lots of confectioner sugar. Wonderful. I could eat the whole bowl of it.

We didn't get a picture of the rolls with the glaze, we were too busy eating them, sorry folks.

On a side note, Latin Teacher and Spanish Teacher were doing the patch work that was discussed in the Bathroom Renovations post along with installing a ceiling fan in Sofia's room. But that wasn't the real work done today.

Big Brad's 90th Birthday!

My mother's father, Brad, Granddaddy, or Big Bad Brad as Latin Teacher has dubbed him hit a new milestone recently. He made it to 90 years old! Isn't he good looking!!

We had a little get together at his home in High Point, where he lives in the same house my mom and her family has lived in for many many years. We hadn't been able to all meet up since before Christmas, so we did everything all at once. It was slightly confusing for the birthday boy... but all he really wanted was some presents to open, who would blame him... he's 90, he can do whatever he wants in my book.

Daniel (Latin Teacher's Brother-in-Law) goes to school at Appalachian State and gave him a large golf umbrella for his Birthday, which he asked "Am I supposed to support this team?"... he is a UNC Alum, sounds like something they would say :)


Latin Teacher and I brought him lots of candy and socks... I was looking to appeal to all his needs... warm toes and a sugar high.

We also had some surprisingly yummy chocolate on chocolate (Birthday Boy's Fave) after a great meal at a local restaurant, Austin's (also a Birthday Boy Fave).


All and All everyone had a great time, and as we all told what we wanted to accomplish in the next year. Big Brad said " To make it to 91!" What a great plan!

Bathroom Renovation

Hello All,

I know, I know... It's been a long while since I've blogged... something like 3 Months of not blogging, but I'M BACK!

I'm going to start this story with a perceived leak in the master bathroom's shower. We stopped using it for a short while and began using the guest bathroom. I was walking out of the shower and saw a spot where the ugly ugly wallpaper was starting to peel. This is what the beautiful wallpaper looked like (it was also textured and painted over when we bought the place).


I love love love peeling things, paint... paper... and well if someone has a sun burn... I'll leave it at that. So, I started peeling the wallpaper off the wall... only to find, more wallpaper. There was a lovely blue, pink, and while flowery pattern on the layer underneath.

After I started working I found that the best way to do this was to use a razor blade and peel the layers off as best I could. After the first layer, it looked something like this:


There is another layer of the pink/blue stuff underneath all this. We also removed the ugly brassy fixtures, we'll talk more about this later.

I removed both layers and all was left was the backing to the second layer, using that blue nasty gel stuff, I was able to remove the backing and glue from the wall. It was all quite magical.

All the while, we have removed the large plane mirror and the fixtures. There were large, aggravating, and damaging wall anchors... I guess the previous people though they were going to hang weights on these fixtures. They were old, metal and left huge holes in our walls. They looked something like this:


Latin teacher and Spanish teacher worked to patch the walls (the putty was pink, although it dried while) so he's going to sand it and do it all again before I can prime and paint. I'm thinking of using This Color... it is a small room, but I'm planning on having a mirror ($10 from Goodwill) with a white frame and the cabinets are white as well. So we'll see.


It's obviously really really dark, so obviously I'm scared to paint it that, but we'll see.

There is still more to do, always is, and so I'll work on posting an update as soon as we, well do more work :)