2009

Tonight when I read the Chester County Independent, I thought about all the events that happened in 2009. I thought I would put some of them down in my blog so that I wouldn't forget them. Michael Jackson, Natasha Richardson, Patrick Swayze, and other famous people passed away in 2009, but I want to remember the things that happened in our town of Henderson.

January: Barak Obama took the official oath of office at his inauguration.

February: FHU's Lectureship: "Crying Out to God: Prayer and Praise in the Psalms" I (with lots of help from Becky) presented our VBS/Bible class lessons about David and Psalms.

On the 27th we had a record snowfall in Chester County - about 12 inches.

March: Mrs. Carolyn Ward was taken from the parking lot of Fred's and later found murdered.

April: Chi Beta wins Makin' Music with "In Living Color." More cuts were make in FHU's budget with 12 more people losing their jobs.

May: CCHS graduation: Jessica Steele was valedictorian.

June: VBS: We taught about Jesus' miracles: feeding the 5,000; calming the sea; healing the 10 lepers; and the empty tomb were our lessons in the 3 year old class.

July: Chester County Sheriff Mark Davidson passed away after battling brain cancer. We also had some bad storms in July - one storm happened during church services on Wednesday night. We all went down in the basement and stayed for quite some time before feeling safe to go home.

August: School started and so did my job as East Chester's principal. I'm so lucky to have Spring with me and the wonderful faculty and students at East.

September: CCHS beat McNairy in football 39-20 for the first time in 16 years.

October: BBQ Festival

November: Mallerie Graves passed away after a long fight against very severe Post Hepatitis Aplastic Anemia.

December: The Henderson National Guard unit left for training in Mississippi before going on to Iraq. Mike Huckabee spoke at FHU's Benefit Dinner. Henderson Police Captain Dennis Cagle dies following attempted robbery. Hundreds of law enforcement officers from across the state attended the funeral service for Cagle at Loyd Auditorium to pay tribute to their fallen comrade.

The Independent also listed some other facts:

Top 5 U.S. Scenic Drives:

1. Seward Highway, Alaska

2. Highway 1, California

3. Beartooth Highway, Montana/Wyoming

4. Zion National Park Scenic Highway, Utah

5. Custer Scenic Byway, South Dakota

Top 5 Social Networking:

1. Facebook

2. Myspace

3. Twitter

4. Fixster

5. Linkedin

Top 5 Football Movies

1. Rudy

2. All the Right Moves

3. Any Given Sunday

4. Friday Night Lights

5. Invincible

Top 5 Breed of Dogs

1. Labrador Retriever

2. Yorkshire Terrier

3. German Shepherd

4. Golden Retriever

5. Beagle

Christmas at Nana's House

After lunch at Wayne's parents, we went to Cherokee to my parents' house. My mother found out on Wednesday that she has a stomach ulcer, so she wasn't feeling very well. Mother, Daddy, Chris, Stacy, John, Joseph, Wayne, Katy, Daniel, and I enjoyed time together. We enjoyed finger foods together: ham & cheese rolls, cheese ball, chicken ball, sausage balls, candied pecans, fudge, cherry delight, popcorn chicken, Bagel Bites, Granny cookies, sugar cookies, cookie sandwiches, and coconut cake were on the menu for this family gathering. After we ate, we opened presents. It was so fun to watch Joseph open his presents. He got so excited each time and would say, "How did you know that I always wanted one of these?" John brought Daddy a flag from Iraq - that was a special gift. Chris got Mother and Daddy a 26 inch flat-screen TV. We all got wonderful gifts, but we would all have traded them for Mother to feel better. Hopefully, she's on the road to recovery and next Christmas she will be back to her old self. Merry Christmas, Choat Family!!!

Christmas at MawMaw's House

We started Christmas Eve morning by traveling to Florence to Wayne's parents' house. We were joined by Wayne's sister Tina and her husband, Steve. Their daughter Stevie and her boyfriend, Landon, were also there along with their two dogs. Wayne's aunts Carlene and Faye also came as well as his cousin Zack. We enjoyed a wonderful lunch together: ham, macaroni and cheese, pasta salad, potato soup, grape salad, peas, and rolls. Dessert was a choice between turtle pie, lemon pie, rice krispie treats, pecan pie, and fudge. We all got wonderful presents. In the pictures Pawpaw Scott is opening knives he picked out; Daniel is opening a video game; and Katy is opening Transformers movies. Merry Christmas, Scott Family!!!

More Favorites

6. Favorite Holiday - I love all that comes with Thanksgiving and how people seem to take a minute to think about all the blessings we have to be thankful for, but I have to say that Christmas is my favorite. I love the songs, the decorations, giving gifts, and the food. I also love getting together with family and friends. 7. Favorite Candy Bar - This is an on again off again favorite. My favorite right now is....

8. Favorite Potato Chip - Chips are my favorite snack of all. My very favorite are...

9. Favorite Flower - I love flowers. My Granny loved flowers, and she always let us help her water the flowers when we spent time with her. I love three flowers in particular.My Granny always had geraniums on her front porch. They were so big and beautiful. She had a green thumb - she could grow anything. Then in the fall, she would break off stems from the geraniums and "root" them so she could have them again the next year. I always plant geraniums in the spring because of Granny.Granny also had buttercups in her yard. We dug up bulbs from her yard, so we now have Granny's buttercups in our yard now. I'm always so excited when they buttercups come up in the spring.

Granny also had roses in her yard. She loved roses. Mother has the same rose bushes in her yard. All Granny would do is stick a branch from a rose bush into the ground and amazingly it would grow. Daddy can do that now. Mother and Granny always wanted a yellow rose bush. Hopefully Mother's yellow rose bush will live. Granny always said that the soil must be wrong in Cherokee for yellow rose bushes. I had lots of rose bushes at our blue house, but so far I haven't been able to find a good place to plant roses at our house now.

10. Favorite Homemade Christmas Candy - Mother's Fudge

My Favorites

For the few remaining days of 2009, I'm going to write down my favorites right now. I'm interested to see if they're still my favorites this time next year...

1. Favorite TV Show

2. Favorite Drink

3. Favorite Football Team

4. Favorite Basketball Team

5. Favorite Restaurant

Happy Birthday, Daddy!!!

Today is my daddy's 66th birthday. We planned a family lunch for him at our house. Mother, Daddy, Chris, Stacy, Joseph, Evelyn, Rhonda, Melinda, Wayne, Katy, Daniel, and I were the partiers, but Stacy and Mother were both sick. Chris stayed with Mother to take her to the doctor. Doug was able to come with Rhonda, so we had nine partiers after all. We had Honeybaked Ham, scallopped potatoes, peas, green beans, deviled eggs, marshmallow salad, grape salad, and rolls. Daddy's favorite dessert is German chocolate cake, so we had that and cherry delight. My granny always had cake and cherry delight at Christmas. Mother also made "Granny cookies." We talked about some memories we had of Granny - that was nice to do. We also played Dirty Santa. I'm so glad that we were able to have this special time for my daddy, Roger Choat. He's an awesome dad!!!

Roll Tide

We're so excited that Alabama is going to be playing in the National Championship Game. The Auburn and Florida games were thrilling, but if we could win the national championship again, that would be just wonderful!!!! Roll Tide

Cookie Exchange

Laura Beth invited Katy and me to her cookie exchange party. Becky made the cutest invitations for the party. Katy and I made reindeer noses for the party. We took three dozen cookies - 2 to eat and 1 to share. The girls made goody bags for some of the elderly neighbors in the neighborhood. The hit for Katy was Becky's chicken ball that she made by her grandmother's recipe. We'll be making one for our family Christmas gathering! We enjoyed the cookie exchange very much!!!

"How the Penguins Saved Christmas"

Each year for the December PTO meeting a different grade level puts on a Christmas play. This year was second grade's turn, and I think they did a great job! Several moms helped with the stage decorations; Mrs. Norma helped work with the kids who had speaking parts: Mrs. Nancy ran the music and sound; and the second grade teachers and students worked so hard getting ready. Everyone enjoyed the program on Thursday night and again on Friday morning. Merry Christmas!!