Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Random Things


Our new bird Feeder! We have plenty of birds eating out of our feeder. Brett went and bought a book so we could easily identify them. Too bad they make a huge mess. What sloppy eaters!!

I came home one day last week to find Alyssa eating her "snack". This is what she had! Pickles, Thousand Island dressing and strawberries with cool-whip. I thought for sure that she would have a stomach ache, but she didn't.
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Our Opening Day parade was cancelled last weekend due to the weather. I was soooo disappointed. We had such good ideas and had spend so much time preparing for it. We won our first two games of the season, which is nice. Trent has pitched well and has gotten on base too. More baseball to come, yall.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Golfing with Papa

Last Sunday we were able to visit Nanny and Papa for a couple of hours. Trent loves golf and is somewhat good at it. My dad and Trent love to hit the balls back and worth in their backyard.





Look at his form. lol.
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This is what I got when I tried to take Alyssa's picture!





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Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Visits from Texas

Alyssa and Trent were so excited to have their cousins from Texas come and visit us on their Spring Break. They always have so much fun together and Alyssa enjoys the girls company. Hopefully they will soon learn how to actually say each others names. It is quite funny. Trent can't say Jackson and it comes out Jackskin. Katie kept saying Melissa and Shrimp. We just love our Texas cousins!!!!!


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Monday, March 23, 2009

SLACKER

I have been such a slacker on this blog. I am so sorry. With School Council, The Mudcats, CRCT practice and Alyssa I have been extremely busy.


His first game of the season is tomorrow @ 7:30pm. Then the parade is Saturday with Opening Day ceremonies. Hopefully if my computer at home corporates I can get some pictures posted. I think its about had it.


Alyssa has been sooo good. She has been on green for 4 weeks! That is a record. She is really growing up! And starting to be a daddy's girl. I had to pay for her cap and gown last week. I can't believe that she will be graduating from K-4 and into elementary school. Watch out Rock Spring!

Funny Story:

Last night Brett and I were watching TV and I said "Alyssa, you need to go to play in your room, this is a grown-up movie and you can't watch it."
She then said, "Well why is Daddy in here then?"

Monday, March 09, 2009

Happy Birthday, Honey

I just wanted to wish my husband a very Happy Birthday today!

Thursday, March 05, 2009

What took so long.....

I actually remember thinking of this in the 4th grade at Arnold Elem. I hated the taste of the water fountain water. This version is alittle different because I wanted to invent an acutal water fountain type machine just like this. Cool Huh?








Gene Farrell, a vice president in Coke’s food-service division, waves a badge over an electronic pad to unlock a room down a quiet hall at Coca-Cola Co. headquarters in Atlanta.
Inside this room sits what Coca-Cola calls the “fountain of the future.” The sleek red machine, about the width of a refrigerator, is protected by more than 20 patents and a host of non-disclosure agreements.
The inner workings borrow from micro-dispensing technology used in the medical industry. The looks were created in collaboration with an Italian car designer.
Most importantly, this machine seems to make people happy, Farrell said. In a field test, one woman kissed it on the side.
After years of six to eight choices from most restaurant dispensers, the fountain of the future can provide more than 100 different beverages. It spans the spectrum from orange Coca-Cola to strawberry Sprite.
The machine connects people to Coke brands in ways not available before, Farrell said. “It gives them this place where it’s fun again,” he said.
For almost four years, Coca-Cola has been working on the fountain machine. Last fall, guests at a Willy’s Mexicana Grill in metro Atlanta were part of an early pilot project. That’s where video cameras caught the woman kissing the machine.
Later this year, the fountain of the future will be tested in more restaurants in Atlanta and Southern California. Coca-Cola has not made a decision about a broader roll-out.
The machine, though, has potential because it opens the door for Coke to provide fountain customers a wide array of beverages, said John Sicher, editor and publisher of Beverage Digest. Coke has about 70 percent of the U.S. fountain market.
In recent years, the beverage market has dramatically expanded with growth in segments such as teas, flavored waters, energy drinks and juice drinks. Fountain outlets have not kept up with the expansion, Sicher said.
“Consumers like experimenting,” he said. “They like trying new things. This allows Coke to do this in a very efficient way.”
To take a fresh look at the issue, Coke created in 2005 a small skunk works code-named project “Jet.” By limiting choices at the fountain, Coke believed it was missing opportunities with customers who chose to drink tap water, skipped ordering a beverage altogether or settled for something they didn’t want.
The goal was to allow this small team to explore ideas that might normally be overlooked by traditional corporate culture, said Farrell, who headed a Coke food-service division in Seattle before leading the program.
Working mostly in secret, the Coke team tinkered with equipment and interviewed more than 7,000 consumers about fountain drinks, Farrell said. One of the biggest surprises was the number of beverage choices Coke would need to satisfy consumer demand, he said.
“Our hypothesis was that as you added brands we’d reach a point of diminishing returns, probably somewhere in the 30 to 50 range,” Farrell said. “What we found was as you increased products, all the way north of 100, you continued to add volume. …They were interested in a lot more variety than we thought.”
During development, the team also received a suggestion from Muhtar Kent, who moved up last year to become Coke’s president and CEO. The team originally developed a dark, boxy machine dominated by a rectangular screen.
Kent suggested talking with industrial design firms to find ways to put some passion and character into the dispenser. He referred them to some Italian car designers.
“He said this is really cool, but it’s a little cold,” Farrell said.
The result is a fountain dispenser that’s distinctly Coca-Cola. It’s been designed in three bold colors — red for Coke, silver for Diet Coke and black for Coke Zero. The company’s dynamic ribbon runs down the front.
The machine greets consumers with a touch-screen that displays a host of brands, including Coke, Vault, Powerade, Fanta, Dasani, Minute Maid and Mr. Pibb. When consumers pick a brand, the screen moves to a set of flavoring options. Want a raspberry Coke, vanilla Coke Zero or peach Fanta? This machine has it.
Ice and beverage are dispensed from the same place, a “center-of-the-plate” design, Farrell said. Consumers insert their cup in an opening in the middle, nudge a lever to drop the ice and then push a silver “pour” button to dispense the beverage.
Farrell would not open the machine to show its inner workings, but he said Coke engineers were able to put more choices in the same space as a current eight-valve fountain by using highly concentrated cartridges for ingredients.
The machine also has a computer brain that allows Coke and the food-service outlet to track usage. This could help restaurants decide when and how much beverage to order. It also could reveal trends.
The fountain of the future still has more hurdles to clear before wide-spread deployment, Farrell said. The initial reaction, though, has been strong, he said.
About two weeks into the test at Willy’s, Coke decided to uncover the old dispenser to see how the fountain of the future would fare, Farrell said. An interesting thing happened, even when a line formed behind the new fountain, he said.
“The second person would get out of line and go get their ice from the legacy machine,” Farrell said. “Then, they’d get back in line so they could get their drink from this machine.”

Monday, March 02, 2009

SNOW DAY!!!!!

Finally a Snow Day that my kids will remember!!!!




Even Granddaddy enoyed playing in the snow!
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You Know You're a Redneck.........


When you hook up an emergency water craft float to a tractor and pull your kids through the christmas tree farm!


The kids had a blast with this.


This is a very cool picture of "Jake". He loved to chase the kids! Check out his tail. Weird?

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