They'll pluck you and BASTE you and then they will TASTE you!

I had to change the title of this post from "Happy Thanksgiving" because Carigan sang that song so much it earned its place as the theme of this year's Thanksgiving.  :o)  Monkeys making monkey bread:

The girls (including Joslyn) spent all of Wednesday morning singing loudly:  "I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas - uh-UH-uh - I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas..." over and over and overnadoverandoverandoverandover.   So when Michael and I were out on our date Wednesday night I bought them all microphones.  You're welcome. 

Expert punch-stirrer.  So happy to be home with my babies this Thanksgiving!  I missed them so much last year!  -BELOW- More Feliz Navidad with the uh-Uh-uhs.  

The King & the Queen, fresh from a good night's sleep in their castle. 

Kiddie table for eight, please!  Another Thanksgiving with Grandmother and Granddaddy.  Such a blessing.  Grandmother will be 90 in a few weeks and Granddaddy will be 94 in January.  I spent some time asking Grandmother all about the schools she and Granddaddy attended in Nashville growing up.  She has such a great memory.  I'm dying to do some Googling now!

Uncle Chimichanga... the girls decided to call him that since he calls Anna Kate Taco.

Erin and I got to sneak away for a brisk walk in the cold after dinner!  I miss having such a beautiful place to walk or jog... it just doesn't get prettier than Williams Lane in Versailles, Kentucky!  When we got back, it was time to say goodbye to Grandmother and Grandaddy and to Uncle Chimichanga and Aunt Angel... and then it was time for CHRISTMAS!

I love Thanksgiving night because it's always the official kick-off the Christmas!  I got all the girls matching shirts.  I think it's a bunny rabbit with a beehive hairdo.... whatever, it was the only long-sleeved shirt at Target that came in all the sizes I needed!

I got the boys matching Lego Chima pajamas.  I almost didn't get Jorden a pair because the smallest size they had was size 4-5 and he just turned two.  But I'm SO glad I did anyway, because he was just proud. as. punch in his matching jammies!  I got a big surprise late Thanksgiving night when I got a message from Megan that she had just flown in from Colorado, arriving at 2 a.m. on Thanksgiving!  It was a last minute change of plans and I could not have been more excited!  Our trips to Kentucky haven't coincided in years!  She and Adam drove out to the house on Friday and she got to meet the other half of my kids (she had only ever met Wesley & Anna Kate) and they took us to lunch at Ramsey's.  It put the perfect little cherry atop my Thanksgiving!  

We brought the Jumperoo to Kentucky so that we would have a safe place to put Tate where he couldn't crawl around if someone couldn't keep an eye on him at some point.  The kid has never done anything but just dangle in it and fuss.  Erin's foster baby Angel jumped like crazy and had a ball in it, so I told Erin she could have it.  And then literally hours before we hit the road to head back to Florida, Tate figured out the Jumperoo.  He probably cleared two feet under his legs, jumping and cackling and laughing the whole time!  Little stinker!  I had to get at least one photo of him jumping in his Jumperoo before we left it behind.  It was a looooong drive home.  We got a pretty late start Friday afternoon, so it was late by the time we stopped for dinner at a Taco Bell/KFC.  Tate was so fussy and I was so desperate trying to deal with the others that were all clamoring for things that I handed him his first real food - a potato wedge.  He dropped it within seconds and I probably won't give him anything like that again for awhile (it was truly just a moment of desperation).  But at least it occurred to me to grab the camera and snap of a pic of him with his first table food!  Saturday morning I kept a bagel from breakfast and set it out in the car and let it get nice and hard and then when Tate got fussy on the drive Saturday night, I let him gnaw that bagel.  Probably a wiser choice than the potato wedge for a first non-baby food.  We kept a close eye on him and I had to go digging in his mouth for a few chunks he managed to tear off, but for the most part it made for a good teether.  I think we'll stick to baby food again now that we're home though!

Four tired kids, happy to be out of the car!  One day on the road down, one to go.  They really did do great though.  Despite a massive traffic jam outside Atlanta on Saturday and having to get off I-75 and travel the back roads from Gainesville to Ocala, the kids never approached nuclear meltdown.  Sadly, Michael missed the best Auburn game of all time though!!!  We were driving the back road around Gainesville following the Alabama/Auburn game using the ESPN app on his iPhone.  But with only a few seconds left, the app froze up and we couldn't get anymore updates.  That's when the phone rang and it was Patricia telling us the miraculous news that Auburn had won!  It will go down in history as their most amazing game ever and we MISSED it!  As soon as we got home and got the kids to bed, we got on the computer and started watching the clips of those final seconds.  Amazing!  Such a great Daddy that he would miss history to drive his family home from the holidays.  :o)

Storming the Castle!

I grew up behind a castle.  I still remember the first time I saw it, when Mom and Dad (who are clinically incapable of living "in town" where they work and go to church) decided to drive us out to Versailles while on a house-hunting trip to Lexington in 1988.  My parents had said there was a castle, but I still remember that first second I spotted it... my eyes bugged out and I remember thinking, "Oh you mean a CASTLE!"  We ended up building a house nestled amidst the same horse farms that surround the castle.  Ever since we moved into our new house in 1989, directions to our house always begin "Turn at the castle."  Versailles Road (the main road connecting Versailles and Lexington) runs along the left-side of the photo below.  To get to our house, you turn right onto Pisgah Pike from Versailles Road, which means you turn right at the castle.  The road visible behind the castle in the photo is Pisgah.  From Pisgah you turn left onto Paynes Mill and then Williams Lane (our road) is the next road on your right.  Thus, I have driven past this castle literally thousands of times.

What is a huge castle doing in the middle of horse farms in Versailles, Kentucky, you ask??  Well, for the entire time I lived at home, it did exactly nothing.  It just sat.  The story goes that a rich man named Rex Martin built it in the 70s for his wife, who fell in love with castles during their travels in Europe.  But they divorced before it was finished so he quit working on it and moved to Florida.  Rumor was that the turrets were just like hollow silos and that the interior was completely unfinished.  Although in all my Google searching, I've never been able to come across a single photo of the interior of Martin Castle (as it was called back then).  The whole time I lived behind the castle there was a huge NO TRESPASSING sign and a big FOR SALE sign up by the front gate, with a phone number that I've read never returned calls.  Rex Martin has always been referred to as reclusive and it was often pondered why he bothered to post a for-sale sign if he wasn't interested in selling.

Anyway, that's the cloud of mystery that hovered over the castle I passed every single day as a kid.  Despite it being so much a part of home for me, in 25 years I had never passed through its gates.  It's always been a bucket list thing for me to get to go inside the castle... I think it was for most kids in Versailles.  In high school my friends and I talked about storming the castle after graduation our senior year.  We talked about it all the time and swore we would do it - but of course we never did.  So the mystery remained.

After I married Michael and moved to Florida, someone named Tom Post managed to get Rex Martin to sell him the castle, and he began renovations.  It was during this renovation period in 2004 that the castle caught fire and the interior part burned to the ground.  Even though he rebuilt, he made major alterations when rebuilding, so now I'll never know what the original castle looked like inside.  Super bummer.  I've scoured Google and YouTube looking for photos... there HAVE to be some because the thing was for sale for ages and a caretaker always lived in a trailer behind it and workers went in and out for more than 30 years before it burned down.  SOMEONE had to have taken some photos!!!  Even if it's true that it was just hollow emptiness in there, I want to see it!  Help me out here, Versailles peeps!  Someone find me some photos!!  Martin Castle as it looked when I lived at home and Martin Castle on fire in 2004:

This is the closest I came to finding pictures of the interior of the original castle.  It's not the actual interior, but it shows the interior structure up-close from within the walls of the castle.  I found this photo and several others on a real estate website, presumably the one that actually managed to sell the castle.  Anyway, ALL of that to say...  I FINALLY GOT TO GO INSIDE THE CASTLE!!!!!  A lifelong dream!  It may not have been the original castle, but I got to go INSIDE the original exterior walls and drive up that forbidden driveway I'd passed bahgoodles of times, forbidden to enter!  Tom Post turned the castle into an extremely upscale Bed & Breakfast, with the cheapest room originally priced near $1,000 a night and the luxury suites located in the four original exterior turrets priced well above that.  As soon as it opened I started plotting to turn up the drive and pass through those now-open gates, but I figured someone would stop me and ask for my reservation before I could even get up the hill.  I envisioned all this high security, so I never tried it.

So we're sitting around on Thanksgiving Eve and Angel quietly whispers to Nathan that she needs to go ahead and check into their hotel because they keep calling to see if they're coming.  She said she'd be right back.  Usually they stay in Lexington so I'm wondering why she's going to drive all the way to Lexington just to check in and come right back?  So I asked Nathan if they were staying in Lexington and he said, "Oh, it's not far."  Those humble little non-braggers!  They finally copped to the fact they had booked a room in THE CASTLE for the night!!!  Prices have gone down since the castle first opened and they booked the cheapest room (still a few hundred dollars) for one night.  I looked at Angel and said, "You're going to check into THE CASTLE???"  I immediately ran to get my coat and said, "I'm coming with you!!"

By the time I had grabbed my coat, Erin had hers in hand and was ready to storm the castle as well.  I grabbed my keys and said, "I'll drive."  So for the gazillionth time in my life, I drove down Williams Lane, turned left on Paynes Mill and right on Pisgah but this time instead of passing the forbidden private entrance to the castle, I TURNED IN.  As soon as we passed the first gate I told Angel to hop out so I could take her picture.  I expected security to come running asking to see our reservation, but no bouncers tackled us and no laser beams appeared or sirens blared.  We SO should have done this a long time ago!

We actually had to park and go inside and wander around a bit before we found someone that could check Angel in.  It may have just been because it was late on Thanksgiving Eve and everyone wanted to go home (that's why they were calling Angel).  Turns out Nathan and Angel were the ONLY ones staying in the castle that night, so they were upgraded to the fanciest room in the interior of the castle.  The woman said she was leaving at 5 p.m. but that the night guard would leave the back door unlocked for them if they wanted to go anywhere and that someone would come in the morning to set up their breakfast downstairs but then would leave.   WHAT??  Who knew storming the castle would be so easy?!

Although it's a bummer that the interior of the new castle did nothing to satisfy my curiosity regarding the interior of the old castle, it was very gorgeous and super impressive.  Nothing like having a whole castle to yourself!  -BELOW- Checking out Nathan and Angel's suite - love it that Angel caught Erin in the midst of her "This is awesome!" happy dance.  This was in their turret - you can see one of the original turrets of Martin Castle outside the window.   Their turret overlooked the swimming pool, but seeing as it was SNOWING, the pool was covered.  

We're such dainty princesses. 

It was freezing, but we walked out onto the main balcony facing Versailles Road.  -BELOW- There's Versailles Road, and that right turn I've made a thousand times.  And there's MY car parked INSIDE the original walls of Martin Castle.  I can't count how many times I've beheld the castle from Versailles Road - so weird to behold Versailles Road from within the castle!

Erin and Angel were freezing and tried to go back inside, but I started up the ice-covered steps on the balcony to explore further.  Making footprints in the snow on the roof of the castle!  Wednesday, November 27, 2013.

Freezing but SO worth it!  I finally agreed to go inside and we rushed inside a door up on the roof and found an elevator.  Just another day, calling for the elevator in the castle I have all to myself…

Who needs security?!  No wonder they leave the back door open for her!  Lovely Thanksgiving memories.  It was worth the wait.  -BELOW- Gold-leaf covered hallway to the potty, anyone?  We had such a fun time!  Much thanks to Angel for letting us crash.  She and Nathan had such a special night alone in that great big castle, just the two of them.

I had a pretty special night too!  I got home just in time to head out for a date night!  Mom watched the big kids and Michael and I took Tate with us to Ramsey's, one of my Lexington faves.  I happened to be texting with Madison, who kept me company on Thanksgiving last year in Spain, and turns out she was heading to church which was just down the road from Ramsey's.  So she popped in to see us.  I told Michael I'm probably a bad date for inviting friends mid-date, but he said, "Hey, someone else held the baby so I could eat my pie."  Win-Win! 

SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The snow started coming down Tuesday night and Wednesday morning we bundled up the little Floridians (with some help from Grandma... we don't have hats or gloves!) and ventured out into the arctic tundra of Kentucky.

Tate's first snow!

Cousin snowball fight!  I sent Michael inside with Tate after just a couple of minutes... his little cheeks stayed chapped from the cold hitting his slobbery face every day!  I'd put lotion on it at night and he'd wake up clear, but he was always chapped again by lunchtime.  

 

None of the kids lasted that long... Carigan wanted to come in after just 10 minutes or so.  Anna Kate lasted the longest.  -BELOW- My sister's sensational six!  Erin is the only foster mother in all of Nashville that would take three kids so close in age.  If it weren't for my sister they would have to go to a group home.  Joslyn is 3, Jorden just turned 2, and Angel is the same age as Tate.  They've been a part of the Sowards family for over three months now.  They have completely stolen our hearts and I had a really hard time saying goodbye, not knowing if I would get to see them again.  I have so much admiration for my sister's strength and faith... never knowing from court date to court date whether she will bring them home or have to say goodbye (Although this isn't her first rodeo in that regard).  She willingly surrendered the calm of her neat and orderly life to live in a constant state of being overwhelmed.  She has always been one to let her heart lead, and she's been a tremendous blessing in the lives of children "in the system" in Nashville.  Please keep these kids in your prayers.  We all grew quite attached to them during our time in Kentucky.

Snow fun Round 2:  It started coming down again around 4 p.m. so we bundled up and headed out again in hopes of catching snowflakes on our tongues. 

It's SNOWING!!!!  Happy Thanksgiving to US!