Tennessee

A rocking horse sits in front of a Christmas tree at our house, one of our Christmas 2023 decorations. Christmas decorations have started to spring up all over our house. We have lots of decorations everywhere, and Laura takes care to make sure everything looks just right. Every now and then, new things get added into the mix. This rocking horse was added a couple of years ago, and it goes well in front of a tree full of horse-related ornaments.

Christmas inflatables of Mickey Mouse and Olaf from Frozen are highlighted by a spotlight on a foggy evening in our front yard. We have had our Mickey and Olaf inflatables for some years now, and they add a bit of joy and happiness to our front yard each Christmas season. However, over time their internal lights have died, which makes it difficult to see them at night out here in the wilderness.

Thanksgiving 2023 has come and gone, but it will live on in photos! We had our traditional Thanksgiving meal with my parents, complete with turkey, dressing, vinegar green beans, strawberry pretzel salad, cranberry sauce, and much more! And after dinner and a bit of a rest, we decided to take a family photo, as we often do. But if you know us, you know that just one photo will not do.

Recently, the trees in our yard were changing to their autumn colors for the fall season, and so on a nice, sunny day I went out to get a few photos. Take a look! This pear tree still had some green leaves left toward the inside, but the outer leaves were bright red. Add in a perfect blue sky and you have quite a colorful photo! Speaking of colorful, these trees behind the horse pasture fence were putting on a colorful show, too.

Continuing in the great tradition of Laura’s Trunk or Treat ideas (see past ideas here), Laura dressed as a pirate complete with a pirate ship this year for our church’s fall festival. It was a great success! But this was no ordinary pirate or pirate ship. As the sign near the bottom of the ship said, “Treasure ahoy, mates!” Whenever a Trunk or Treater walked up (which was almost constantly since we had well over 200 children there), Pirate Laura would say, “Fire the cannon!

A wooden boardwalk winds through cypress trees along the edge of the lake at Reelfoot Lake State Park in Tennessee. Recently, a group from our church went to eat lunch at Boyette’s, a catfish restaurant near Reelfoot. Nothing against the rest of the group, which are all fine people, but Laura and I decided to take our own car instead of riding the bus and then see if we could find any adventures after we ate.

As you gaze upon the title of this post, you may be pondering, “What in the world do Michelangelo and Casey Jones have to do with each other?” The answer to that question is simple: Not much. Yes, they were both characters in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but that has nothing to do with our story today. We came across both the famous artist and the famous engineer in one day, very close in distance to each other.

The other night, we went for a walk as the sun was setting, and it was an adventure. I did not have my camera with me, but I did have my phone. So here are some photos from our evening. Sunset Views Even before we had started walking, as I was still tying my shoes, Laura said, “Look at the sky!” And when I turned around after making sure my shoes were double-knotted (can’t have them coming untied while we walk, after all), the above was what I saw.

Spring break has once again come and gone. It had its ups and its downs. But let’s not focus on the downs, shall we? Let’s just remember the good times! Jaylin got to come home for most of the week. Last year, his spring break did not line up with Laura’s spring break, so it was nice to have everything in the same week this year. And the Riedel kids all had the same break, too, so we got to spend time with Katie, Zach, and Leah as well.

Welcome to Adventures by Burnsland! This new site is an extension of the original Burnsland.com site. Here you will find photos and stories of our new adventures, as well as some memories from our previous adventures, too. Why the change? There are several reasons for this change. One reason is site speed. The old Burnsland site was created with Wordpress. Wordpress is great for a lot of things, but for me it had become a bit much.