Merry Christmas!

From our house to yours:

Peace on Earth; Goodwill towards men!

Skylar!

We got our first Hopscotch Hill School doll this week. Her name is Skylar. HHS is a series of four 16" tall, hard plastic, jointed dolls with books that American Girl made for the early elementary aged girl. They were only available from 2003-2006.

Meet Skylar!

AGB&B Atlanta

We haven't been to the American Girl Boutique and Bistro since September, but I didn't post any pictures then.

The outside of the store in the North Point Mall in Alpharetta (just north of Atlanta) and Traveling Nora.

The main entrance from inside the mall

Julie choosing something to eat at the Bistro
We all had fun shopping at AGB&B Atlanta. I can't wait to go back again sometime.

Meadow at the Zoo

We took Meadow to the Knoxville Zoo for her last trip while she's here visiting us.

Here is Meadow looking out at the bears from inside a 'cave'. You can't see the bears in this picture, though, but we had a good view of them!    

Here she is visiting with some flamingos in the bird sanctuary.

She got to go inside the petting area and visit with this goat. He was very friendly.

There are always fun things to see and do at the zoo!

 

 Meadow is pretending to be a wild animal in a cage.
She's not very wild though, she's a really sweet girl.

Now Meadow has to leave today. We are very sad to see her go.
"Goodluck on the rest of your travels, Miss Meadow!", "We'll miss you!"

Meadow's Fall in Tennessee

Meadow has been having fun here this fall. She has gotten to do and see lots of things in East Tennessee.  Here are some of the fall things she's gotten to do.


 

 Meadow enjoying a hayride with some of her new friends  

Meadow inside the bouncy house at a local Harvest Festival.  

She even got to try her hand at a big sized bean bag toss.  

Of course, getting candy for prizes is always the best part.  

Here is Meadow trying the Plinko game.  

And she got to color some pictures too.


I think Meadow had a good time, don't you? She is only here for a few more days...what else can we do together?

Meadow visits Knoxville

We took Meadow downtown to show her some of the sights. First off we stopped at Fort Dickerson where one of the battles of the Civil War was fought.

Then we went to the University of Tennessee where Meadow had her picture taken next to the stadium where the UT Volunteers play football. Go Vols!

Of course, since it was a beautiful day, we went to the World's Fair Park and visited the Sunsphere.

Meadow at the pond

Here are a couple of pictures of Meadow as she enjoys the pond near where we live.

Meadow goes to the Orthodontist

"Everything looks good!"

Meadow in the Mountains

On Saturday, we took Meadow around to show her some East Tennessee sights. First off, though, we had to stop at Home Depot Kid's Workshop.  October is fire safety month, so this month the children were building a fire truck.

Meadow helping with the construction!  

This hammer is awfully big!

Then we took her to the Smoky Mountains where we stopped to try to get a view of the mountains. It's hard to get a nice picture of the mountains when you're already in them! 

Welcome to the Smokies!
Then, of course, we had to go to Dollywood. It is Harvest Celebration time at Dollywood, so Meadow got to learn lots of things about how things were made in the olden days.

Meadow welcoming people to Dollywood  

Watching the bees make honey.  

Learning how meals were cooked along the open prairie.  

Watching and learning about weaving.  

Meadow even got to make her own jump rope (or lasso) to bring home.  

Meadow certainly enjoyed her visit to Dollywood, but her favorite part was visiting with this horse who had been helping grind sugar cane to make sorghum.

Traveling Meadow

Traveling Meadow (GT#6) has arrived for her visit with us. She's originally from Colorado and has been to New Hampshire, Virginia and New York so far on her travels. I believe her next host after us is taking her to the United Kingdom. What fun!

Meadow meets all the girls who live with AGR in Tennessee


Feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the new girls and tired after her long trip from NY, Meadow decided to rest for the afternoon.

Curling up to relax and read, Meadow dozed a bit in Josefina's bed.

Addy & Adele Rose

I found a lot of Addy things on eBay that I wanted to get for my Addy. The lot also came with another Addy. I figured we'd just sell her and keep her things. But NOOOO!!! This new Addy that arrived in this lot was a 1993 original issue Addy!! We just had to keep her. Here's a comparison picture of our Addys faces:

 Our beautiful 1993 Addy has her hair in the original braid and has softer, more pliable vinyl unlike the newer Addy. She is just gorgeous. (Addy never photographs as well as she looks!)

So we've decided we needed to keep both Addys. And to minimize the confusion, we've made the 1996 Addy into a modern American Girl.

Meet Adele Rose our new Haitian American Girl of Today.

Willow comes aboard

Recently, on the very fun doll forum at American Girl Playthings, I came across a person selling this beautiful, cut hair Kaya.

I thought she was perfect for a "girl of today" doll, since she no longer had those long braids of Kaya. Also, I've always wanted to play with my Kaya's hair, but didn't want to take down those original braids. The seller also mentioned that she would consider a trade. So I sent her a picture of the re-furbished Josefina, that we had fixed up from her horrendous state.

The seller was instantly in love with our Fosterfina and agreed to a 'trade'. So trusting one another explicitly we mailed out our respective dolls (UPS with tracking) and waited. It only took two days, and our lovely "Willow" was here! What a great deal. Welcome to the family, Willow.

Nora's adventures conclude

We had lots of fun with Nora. It was very hard to send her on her way to her next host. We are going to miss her very much.

Goodbye!

Julie

We went to American Girl Boutique and Bistro in Atlanta last weekend. Look who joined our family from that store:

Ms. Julie Albright
Now we need to get a wide angle lens to get everyone in one photograph!

Nora vacations in Florida!

Vacation in Florida

 

After my host family took me to AG-Atlanta, they took me to visit Florida (although I was just in Florida with my first host.) This visit we got to go to the Gulf Coast. It was certainly hot and sunny down in Florida. Here I am being given a WARM welcome.

 

 

Julie and I enjoyed a day at the Reddington Beach on the Gulf coast of sunny Florida. Being that it was a weekday in September, we basically had the beach to ourselves.    

We went to Florida to visit with my hosts' grandma. She lives in a really nice retirement area where most of the folks only live there in the winter. So basically we had the run of the streets. Playing street hockey was lots of fun. I had a bit of trouble with Molly's skates at first, but I learned pretty quickly.  

Look at me go!!!

And, of course, being a retirement community there was a chance to play shuffleboard. 

Here are Julie and I facing off.

Nora travels to Georgia!

Georgia

We traveled to Georgia and took lots of pictures. However, we are only going to share a few with you here. It was hard to pick which ones to post and write about, but here goes.  

First is AG Boutique and Bistro in Atlanta! I can't believe we are here.  This is going to be so much fun.  

We had lots of fun posing with the various girls in the store. I even got to help my host pick out a Julie for her to adopt into her family. I couldn't believe this girl here....it was ME! So here is a picture of me and my twin me baking some goodies with the new sweet treats set.  

After we shopped for like, forever, we finally got to go eat at the Bistro. This is Earhart and I trying to decide what to eat for lunch. Julie ate with us too, she's at the other end of this table.

After we did the fun girl kind of thing (American Girl shopping!) we did some fun stuff for the boys. We went to see expensive imported sports cars. Here are Julie and I as we hang on to the back of an Italian sports car....a Lamborghini.  

Ah, this is the life. After a hard day of shopping and browsing, Julie and I got to relax by the pool.

Then we got into the car (again) to continue our trip on to Florida.  No car trip is complete without a nice BIG cup of coffee.