Aunt Ethel's 97th Birthday!

My Granny's older sister turned 97 on Saturday, September 17 (just one day after my brother turned 34!)!! We've decided that she is going to out live us all!  She is in fairly good health and has a wit that is sharp as a tack!!  She amazes me!

Since the Gators were playing Tennessee in Gainesville, I suggested that Steven and Tiffany leave the kids in Wauchula and Grammy, Papa, and I would take care of them.  We had a blast!!  The kids were great at the party and other than waking me up at 6:00 A.M. (but I'm not really complaining because I got cuddle time with them for an hour and a half), it was a great weekend!  Jay was too cute at the party.  While sitting in my lap, eating finger sandwiches and carrots, he kept putting his arm around my neck, pulling my head down to his, and saying "Cheese!".  So we took some self portraits!  I did realize that I somehow got through the party without taking one single picture of my great aunt! Hopefully my Uncle Bill will send me some that he took!

Grammy and the two
Gator fans!

Lily and her Grammy!

One of the shots after Jay insisted
on being cheesy!

Our first shot

Playing with the birthday balloons!

If I get pictures of Aunt Ethel, I'll be sure to add them!!

And here they are!

The Birthday girl sitting down to
enjoy the party

Chatting with her son David!

Until next time!

Football Season is here!!

And we are in full swing with tailgating and games!  We've had two games so far and we've won them both (which is not saying much considering the teams that we've been playing).

The first two games were at 7:00 PM, so I suggested that I keep the kids while Steven and Tiffany went to the game, after tailgating of course. . .  We had a blast!  I didn't take any pictures of the "campout" as Jay refered to it, but I do have a few of the kids while tailgating



Jay, trying to hide from
the camera



Lily - red faced. It was hot!



This past weekend, Tiffany kept Lily at home so that Jay could go to the game (we had to do a little convincing last weekend to get him to come with me and Lily).  Since Mom wasn't going to be at the game, Dad asked me if I would like the tickets.  I said of course!  So I asked my friend Susan if she wanted to join me.  We tailgated, of course, before the game.  I'll have to see if I can get the pictures off my phone and add them - Ethan was FILTHY by the end of the tailgate.  Steven took Jay to the game and we all stayed to the end of the 3rd Quarter so we could sing "We Are The Boys"!  I can't believe how big Jay is getting!



The boys in Orange & Blue



Love the interaction between
father and son!

A shot for Mom & Dad to say Thanks!

The moon was almost full and I got a few great shots of it.  I wish I could have gotten a picture of the clouds too.  They looked like a painting.

 Well, until next time.  We play Tennessee this weekend, but I won't be going. I'll be watching with the kids and Mom and Dad in Wauchula.  We will be celebrating my Aunt Ethel's 97th Birthday!!! 

The first scenes from the new apartment!

My Uncle Randy is an amazing carpenter!  When I spent the weekend with he and Aunt Jeannie in May, I mentioned wanting to get a bookcase for all (and I mean ALL) of my books.  So what does he do?  He offers to make one for me!

It is beautiful and perfect!!  Well, don't just take my word for it.  See for yourself!

It looks like I might be getting Jay and Lily overnight during the first football game this weekend.  So I've been cleaning and organizing the apartment like a mad woman!  That being said.  There WILL be pictures of the rest of the place soon!  I just had to first post a picture of my wonderful bookcase!  Thanks Uncle Randy! You're the BEST!!

Another Galloway Girls' Weekend

Last weekend, my two Florida aunts (Jeannie and Susan), my mom, my cousin Leslie, and I all got together for a Girls' Weekend.  Aunt Jeannie had some flight vouchers that needed to be used and so she flew Leslie down from Nashville just so we could have some fun.  Again, I forgot to take pictures of the entire weekend, but did get some shots of us at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company and a group shot on the beach Sunday morning before the "storm" hit (it didn't come until much later in the day, but we were sure we only had an hour window between showers).

We played Uno, drank Coastal cruisers, played Uno, ate snacks, played Scrabble, and oh, did I mention that we played Uno?  It has become a Galloway tradition to play Uno and eat Cheetos at any and all gatherings. 

Mom, her sisters and her parents get together at least once during the year to just have some time together.  A few years ago, we decided that the Florida Galloway Girls (including the next generation) needed to get together.  Then Leslie decided to move out of the state to Tennessee (no worries, she's still a Gator fan!).  So we've had to improvise as to how to have her involved.  Aunt Jeannie to the rescue!!!  We had a blast and can't wait to do it again!

Just a few shots of our adventure:

This is where our adventure
began on Saturday.

This is where we ate lunch on

Saturday.  YUM!

Enough said!



This was really cool! They
had the scene set for you, just
sit and insert your feet!





This is why we don't let Mom have
the camera! I should have known
better!



The girls! It was windy, but nice.





Galloway Camping

Ok, so a few months ago, I mentioned that my mom's side of the family were almost all meeting together and going camping and I promised lots of pictures.  Well, I lied. We did get all but 13 members of the family there (which was a huge feat for us!), but I don't think I took the first picture! :( (I did actually take a few pictures and have added them to the end of the post) I was too busy running around with the kids. 

We had a chili cook-off the last night that we were all together and it decided that as soon as we were ready to serve the chili, that it needed to start raining.  Let me just tell you that trying to figure out how to get 12 people under one shade tent when it starts raining was fun to watch.  7 of the 10 Southwells headed back to the cabin (so that the kids weren't in the weather) while the other 3 of us huddled under the canaopy of the camper.  The main concern was making sure that my almost 90 year old grandparents didn't get wet.

It was nice to see everyone and watch the kids experience new things (Jay discovered lightening bugs for the first time! and he got to sleep in the camper with Grammy and Papa one night).  However, we have decided that Hard Labor Creek State Park is not the place for us to try to camp with 2 elderly adults and 4 smaller children.  The ground is unstable and it is HOT (which my cousin Leslie and I reminded the planners when the discussion was started about camping in June)!!!

Next year I think we will all be gathering in Charlotte for Granddaddy's 90th birthday party.  At least we'll all have a cool place to stay! :)





  Updated pictures (hopefully this will work)

Lily's favorite past time: play (and eating)
rocks!



Mischievous! Cute, but

mischievous.




The kids in their chairs from
Grammy and Papa

Jay being tickled by
his Daddy



  Grammy and Papa also brought a pool, so we decided to let the kids have some fun it in.  We were even able to get Rowan (a cousin we just met who is only a few weeks older than Lily and Ethan) in for some pool time!



It's a little chilly!





Miss Lily!



All four kids!







 Then, once the little ones were finished and out of the way.  I let Jay splash around as big as he could!!



The BIG finale!



Getting ready to splash around!



Posing for the camera



Catch-Up

I've been accused of not updating people as to what is going on in my life.  So here we go:

A lot of this . . .

Mixed with a little of that!

I've been working at my job and on my class work (couldn't find a suitable picture for that) and did actually take 4 days and went to the beach. I haven't uploaded pictures from that trip yet, but hopefully after this weekend (a quick trip this time), I'll have some good ones to share.

I promise that pictures of the apartment are going to be posted (may not be until after football season gets under way - only 38 days!), but I'm still getting things in the right place and thus don't want to take pictures with boxes in them!

That's what I've been up to.  How about you?

My Crazy Life

I'm slowly but surely getting things settled in my new apartment.  I've completely cleaned out my storage unit and have emptied the fair majority of the boxes.  I had a little excitement on the Sunday evening before Memorial Day when my t.v. decided to blow its tube!  Scared the mess out of me to have white smoke coming out of the back of the t.v. that I wasn't watching!  Daddy says that he has another t.v. for me. Hopefully it will last longer than 3 weeks.

We are getting ready for our Galloway Family camping trip/reunion next weekend and I promise LOTS of pictures from that!  And soon (once everything is in place) there will be a post as Tubits Tebowski (my Gator Gnome) takes you on a tour of the Oba Casa!  Ethan had some fun in the apt last night and it helped me realize that when the kids are over, we may have to rearrange some things to give them a larger/safer place to play!

Well, I guess it's back to work. Will post again (with pictures) soon!