The First Annual Thanksgiving Day Henderson Girls Pie Bake Off!

Thanksgiving night, we had our first annual pie bake off, between all the girls, Mom, and Nanny (Terrie's mom.) The judges were Me, Michael, Andrew, Sean, and Granny (my Mom.) We had Pumpkin, Blueberry, Banana Cream, Ice Cream, and 2 Apple pies to taste, inspect, and judge. It was very difficult to select the winner, but we had to do our duty, and narrow the field down to 3. Here are the official results from the "The First Annual Thanksgiving Day Henderson Girls Pie Bake Off!":

	Claire Henderson with a lucious Apple Pie!
	Anna Henderson with a delicious and wonderful Ice Cream Pie!
	Mattie Henderson with a Scumpdilicous Apple Pie made completely from scratch!

Here are some more pictures from this monumental event:

The judges hard at work!	Scoring the entries.
All the contestants.	Everyone enjoying the pies.
Claire and Michael	Michael ('nuff said)

PreVisor Announces Acquisition of CraftSystems, Inc.

The company I have been working at for the past three and a half years, CraftSystems, was aquired today by one of the largest companies in our field, PreVisor. It's been in the works for quite a while, and was finalized today. Click the title of this blog entry for the official press release. It will be a little different for me, in that my immediate manager will be in Atlanta, GA, at the corporate headquarters. I will still be working in the Bradenton office, and after we move to Orlando, I will be able to work from home (what a blessing!) We had a meet-and-greet with the CEO of PreVisor, and he was very nice and welcoming to us as new employees. It will be a little sad not working for Larry Craft anymore. He will finally be able to be fully retired now, which is good for him. He has worked so hard for the past 29 years to make CraftSystems what it is today. He and his wife Carol have been very kind to us as a family. I wish them all the best in their retirement years.

Befores and Afters on the house renovations...

As promised, and I know you were really looking forward to this with great anticipation, I present the official house renovation "Before and Afters". So here we go, presented in chronological order:

The Roof


Siding in the Front


Siding in the Back


Master Bathroom


Hall Bathroom


Master Bedroom


Bedroom #2


Bedroom #3


Kitchen
 


Family Room
 

Living Room


Landscaping

How did you celebrate October 31st?

Our family does not participate in traditional (spooky) celebrations of October 31st. We have chosen to attend carnival type activities, commonly called Fall Festivals, or Happy Harvest Time, or some other goofy name like that. Anyway, the kids have a blast and get candy by playing little carnival games and such. The past couple of years, we've been going to a local Baptist church for their community Fall Festival. We have a lot of fun, and gets tons of candy (which I pick through after the kids go to bed. Shhh! Don't tell them I said that.) There's usually no scary or inappropriate costumes.

The past two years, this church has brought in one of those blow-up arena things, called Jousting, or something like that. Two people battle it out with blow-up "sticks" in an air-cusioned arena. You have to stand on a pedestal, and whack each other, trying to knock the other person off their pedestal. I'll tell you one thing, the pedestal is not made for an over-weight grown man to stand on.

Here's a couple of videos of the kids battling it out. The first one is Claire vs. Mary, and the second one is Sean vs. Mary. Pay no attention to the over-zealous parents, prodding their kids to knock each others heads off.