North Point Christmas Opener

On the Sunday before Christmas, the Christmas Service at Buckhead Church began with a Christmas medley LIVE from all three campuses - North Point, Buckhead, and Browns Bridge. It was quite a production, as the perfomers traded verses between four stages on three campuses. You have to see it to believe it. This all went down live. Check it out!

North Point Christmas Opener

taco mac and roddy jones

Guess who we ran into last night at Taco Mac across the street? Roddy Jones! He came in to get a take-out order and Ben spotted him. I made Ben go over and talk to him while he waited for his food, and then I went over a few minutes later and took Ben's picture with him. He was so nice! He showed us the ACC Championship watch they got and told us about the rings they will get. He chatted with us for 10-15 minutes and could not have been a nicer guy.



For those wondering who Roddy Jones is, here's a reminder.

how do i do these things?

Sometimes I do the strangest things. I used to laugh or just get frustrated with my mom because I didn't understand how some things happened to her. Now, I understand. 

Several weeks (maybe months?) ago, I was taking my rings off to put on my nightstand. I put my rings on this cute little dachshund ring holder. Beside the bed, we have a fan on the floor because I turn into a furnace once I get in the bed. I have to run the fan year round. Anyway, as I was taking my rings off, I dropped one of them. In the fan! Thankfully, Ben fished it out somehow before the weenies got it.

And, since I haven't posted in a long time, I thought I would put a picture of my sweet weenies!

 

the weenies are ready

They are ready for the game today. They have their game day jerzee and hoodie ready to go!

changes in the loft

As promised, here are some pictures of the updates we have been working on here at the loft. We still have a little more to do, but I think our house is almost how I want it. We painted the entire main living area of the loft, meaning everything but the bathroom. We used a white with gray tint, and I really like it. For the wall behind the bed, I really wanted to do some sort of design. We didn't to paint strips because those are out now, but didn't really know what to do. Ben found a picture of something similar to this online and we really liked it. We picked out the colors and then Ben painted the whole thing by himself. I was nervous about it at first, but now I love it! 

We also got a new duvet cover to match the new colors, as tan didn't match anymore. Plus, Eleanor had chewed about 10 holes in the old duvet cover. BIG holes. 

I also cleaned off our leaning bookcase a little, so it looks much nicer. Notice the painting of Cleo and Eleanor. Hillary gave this to us for our anniversary and we love it!

This kind of shows the new paint color. 

My cleaned off bookshelf! Yay! See the empty cube on the left? That is where I want to put some sort of bowl. 

Our house is beginning to look a lot less cluttered, finally! Next project = changing the vanity in the bathroom!

supermarket sweep

Do y'all remember this show? I remember watching this show everyday after school with Lori. It involved three teams of two people.  It came on in the same hour with another show that I don’t remember the name of, but it has something to do with shopping. In the show, the teams answered questions about groceries. Sometimes after the contestants answered with whatever product, they had to run around the store and find the product before the timer ran out. This usually involved the contestant running around the store, up and down the aisles trying to find the box of Lipton onion soup mix with the little supermarket sweep tag on it. Sometimes they found the products, but usually not.

I thought of this show tonight as Ben and I wandered around a different Publix looking for a few items. We (I) decided to run over to West Elm because I am in search of a bowl to place on one of our newly empty shelves. They are having a sale, but of course, the two bowls I like are not on sale. Over dinner we were talking about needing to stop by Publix at some point to pick up a few things for the tailgate on Saturday. So, I suggested that we stop by the Publix in Atlantic Station next to West Elm instead of going to our home Publix. We had a short list of items to pick up. Three of the items were easy to find, but two were not. We had some trouble finding the spices and the foil baking pans. I think we walked up down the ends of the aisles, reading the signs from the ceilings. Finally, we decided to split up. I told Ben to go down one aisle, and then I would go down the next aisle and we could meet up at the end. He must have walked really fast because when I got to the end of the aisle, he was gone, so then I had to find him. He had actually found the foil pans, but of course, they didn’t have the ones we needed. I seriously felt like we were on supermarket sweep. Ben kept saying, “This Publix is weird. They have a bad set up.” I thought they did, too, but maybe we are just used to our Publix.

Well, next time I hear the beep, I’ll think of all the fun I could have on Supermarket Sweep.

i've got a head start...

...on gathering 2 of every animal for the ark, since I have two weenies. (I know it is supposed to be a male and a female of every animal, but oh well.) Seriously, the rain here has been ridiculous! It has been raining for over a week now. Today it rained so hard on my way home. Actually, it was a major downpour for at least an hour. I was on the third floor of the school this afternoon, and the rain was beating down on the roof so hard that I actually had a kid get scared. I didn't blame him! I was a little freaked out myself. There has been a lot of flooding, so much so that some school systems are closed tomorrow, and the connector was closed this afternoon. It is weird/interesting to think about how we go through periods of drought and periods of flooding, all within a few years. I guess that is how God planned it, but it is interesting to think about. 

Anyway, I thought I would post a few pictures of the weenies in the rain. I know I have posted some before, but these are just so cute that I could not resist! They don't like the rain very much at all. If we try to take them out to the dog walk, they just stand on top of our feet so they don't have to touch the wet gravel. 

We are going to try to stay inside and dry tomorrow!

*Ben is working on some changes to the blog, so if you stop by and it looks weird, that is why. He is going to start making the backgrounds for me, so he is trying to figure everything out. He also added my signature to my posts! He's such a good husband. 

I'm Back!

Things have been busy, busy, busy for the past few weeks. I started my new internship at an elementary school out in the suburbs, and that wears me out. I absolutely HATE getting up at 6:00 a.m. everyday. It puts me in a grouchy mood first thing in the morning. Working in the schools has been a good experience, but I am not sure it is for me. I like the kids, but speech does not seem to be very important in the schools. Plus, it is really hard to make progress with the kids when I see them for 30 minutes twice per week, along with 4 or 5 other kids. Oh yeah, and they all have different deficits. Ah! 

Speaking of being grouchy in the morning, the weenies, particularly Eleanor, have not helped the situation. She wakes up so many times during the night, barking at a noise in the hallway or outside, like a MARTA bus. We are also paranoid because we have new sheets and a new duvet cover set, and we would like to keep them free of holes. Anytime we feel her move we jump up and look under the covers to see what she is doing. Cleo also sleeps on top of my pillows and I end up with one small corner of my pillow. Sometimes I move her, but she just comes back. I can't wait until we have a house and we can leave them in their crates at night to sleep. I think we will sleep much better then!

On another note about the weenies, today we were supposed to go to the Splish Splash Doggie Bash in Piedmont Park. I was super excited about taking the weenies to the park to go swimming. The park renovated the pool this summer and they are in the process of renovating the dog areas as well. As a fundraiser for the dog park, the doggie bash allowed dogs to swim in the pool before they closed it for the year. Anyway, with all the rain, we didn't go. It has been raining all day and we thought it would be too much of a mess. We are sad because we really have been wanting to the weenies swim. We ended up getting an email from the park this afternoon saying that they moved the event to next weekend because of the rain, but we can't go because we will be at the GT game. Oh well! Maybe next year!

We have also been busy with some home improvement projects. We painted the everything in the main room of our loft, including a design on one wall behind the bed. We also cleaned off our bookcase and put some books (textbooks!!) in plastic tubs, which will be put in storage for now (aka, the in-laws basement). We are so glad they have a basement that they let us use as a personal storage area. Their basement is in addition to our packed storage unit in the basement in our building and all of the stuff in my mawmaw's basement. The home projects have kept us busy! I will post some pictures soon of all the changes. 

Finally, my aunt Ginger, who has been dealing with cancer for several years, died last weekend. She was in the hospital for a couple of weeks before that. It was a somewhat stressful time for the family, so that also kept us busy. My family has changed so much in the past year! 

I never blogged about this, but several of you knew this situation. When mom was in the hospital, Ben and I went to her safe deposit box in search of her will. Long story short, the whole box, as in all of the contents and the box itself, were gone. Missing. The bank had no explanation, as the box had not been drilled. All of the records relating to the box were mysteriously missing. Well, this week, the contents of the box were returned to us. I'm not really sure what was in there before, but somehow I don't feel like we got everything. 

at this point, I'm glad we got what we did. Now everything sits on the counter, still in the plastic bag. For some reason, I'm a little sad about it, but I'm not sure why. I don't really want to go through the stuff right now. So it will just sit there for now. 

Finally, I have gotten a little bored with eating at home. We always stick with the same meals. With the weather getting colder soon, that will add some meal options into our rotation. We only make soups and roast when it is cold, so that will help. Anyway, Kelly's Korner had a dinner recipe tour, so I am excited about getting some new dinner recipes. 

I think that is all for now! 

I've reflected on my reflections of my reflections

For the past few days, I have spent all my non-internship, non-sleeping time completing my program portfolio. My grad program requires us to complete a portfolio instead of taking comps. This thing is HUGE! It is full of many of my assignments, projects, papers, and reports that I have completed while in grad school. There are fourteen different sections, each focused on a different outcome that I should have met while in school. Each outcome requires 2-3 examples of graded work to demonstrate that I have gained the knowledge and skills relating to that outcome. Additionally, each outcome requires a 2-4 page reflection, where I reflect on how I learned the information contained within in the outcome and why it is important to me as a speech-language pathologist. I'm definitely over all of the reflecting. 

I finally turned the darn thing in today, so I am finished! Well, finished for now. I'm sure I will get it back with minor "edits" that my professors want me to make. One step closer to graduation in December! 

Date Night!

Ben loves going to the movies. Me, not so much. I like to watch movies, but I hate having to pay ($19!!) for us to go, plus I can get very antsy. I always have to go to the bathroom about 30 minutes into the movie. I generally prefer to wait until I can just rent the movie and pause it whenever I feel like doing so. Ben has really been wanting to go to the movies recently, and I wanted to see Julie & Julia, so we agreed to go tonight. 

The movie times were 7:25, which was a bit early for us, or 10:something, which would be way to late for my grandma self. I picked Ben up from work, brought him a change of clothes. We headed over to California Pizza Kitchen at Atlantic Station because I had a 20% coupon. It's not my favorite restaurant, but it is usually a reliable good meal. After dinner we went to the theater at Atlantic Station. We got there a few minutes early, so I spent some time playing pac-man and hangman on my phone. The previews finally started, and there are two movies coming out soon that look good, The Blind Side with Sandra Bullock, and Did You Hear About The Morgans? I'm not sure I would pay $19 to go see them, but they do look good. There were two other previews of movies that seemed pretty disturbing. 

Anyway, back to the movie. Just as the movie got started, my nose completely stopped up. As in I couldn't get any air to go in or out. So I became a mouth breather, which is really frustrating. (I seem to have caught a cold from my therapy kids in the first week of my internship. Oh the germs!) The theater we went to is really nice, and they have these seats that rock a little. About half-way through the movie, I feel feet on the back of my chair and then my chair move. I ignored it. Then I felt someone moving their feet around on my chair again, making the chair rock more. I knew there wasn't a kid back there. Then it happened a third time, so I asked Ben to look through the seats behind us to determine if someone had their feet propped up on my chair, and sure enough they did. I was debating whether I should say something, and then you know what? It happened AGAIN! At this point, I turned around and poked my head through the hole between the chairs and politely said "Hey! Can you take your feet off my chair? It's making my chair move," which was then met with blank stares by the guy with the shifty feet and his girlfriend. Hmm...I know, I'm the crazy one. Why wouldn't I want someone's feet constantly moving all over the back of my chair causing my chair to move? I only paid $19, right?

Not long after confronting Mr. Shifty Feet, my nose miraculously cleared up. I could breathe through it again! I think it was a sign. I'm not sure what for, but a sign nonetheless. From then on, everything was pleasant. The movie was very good; Exactly the kind of movie I like to see. After the movie, we went to Kilwin's, where I got a caramel and pecan covered pretzel. It was a sweet end to a good night!

Kim's Shower

On Saturday, Kim, one of my friends from grad school, had a wedding shower. It was at a cute tea room in Woodstock. It was very girly, just like a wedding shower should be! I went with Kimberly, another friend from grad school. I know, they have the same name. It confuses the heck out of me at times, but I try to always call one of them Kim and one of them Kimberly to keep it straight. 

Kim can be quite humorous, and she can make the funniest faces. 

How about this funny face? As soon as I took this picture, I looked at it and laughed out loud. (Don't worry - I told her I was putting this on my blog!)

I made her hold up the towels I got her. 

This one is just cute. 

This photo is Kimberly, Kim, and then me. Please ignore my chunky-munky arms. I thought about having Ben photoshop them so that they would look smaller, but decided against doing so. I never understood why my mom thought she had fat arms (she didn't like to wear sleeveless clothing) until now. I have them as well and now I totally understand. 

We were served some kind of berry tea and some little tea pastries and sandwiches. I bypassed the sandwiches in favor of the cute little desserts, obviously not helping the arm situation. I wanted to take pictures of the table and food, but I was a little unsure of how the nice older ladies at my table would respond to that decision. I thought trying to explain the whole blog thing was a little more than I was interested in explaining at the time. 

It is fun to go to girly activities like a shower every now and then.  She is getting married the weekend before Christmas and I have always wanted to go to a Christmas wedding. I had a great time and can't wait for the wedding!

Seaside...Again!

I am participating in "Show Us Your Life" over Kelly's Korner again this week, except this time is is all about your favorite vacation spot. It actually started yesterday, so I am a little late, but better late than never, right? We just got back from our favorite vacation spot last week, and I was planning on doing a post anyway, so I thought I would still participate in the blog tour, even if it is a day late. 

Our favorite vacation spot is Seaside, which is in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. We absolutely love this place. We went for the first time in May (you can read about that trip here), and decided to go back for our anniversary last weekend. Actually, we got an offer for a free night there, and that is when we decided to go back. Anyway, the beach is gorgeous, we can walk everywhere we need to go, and it is a great family-friendly beach. 

The room we stayed in this time is called "Sunnybrook." As much as we liked the last room we stayed in, we liked this one even better. It was a little bigger and it has lots of windows, meaning lots of sunlight, which we like. I got another Vera Bradley bag for free, too! It was on the bed when we checked in. 

The beach is just so pretty!

During the summer, movies are shown at the ampitheater on Fridays. "The Truman Show" was the movie of the week while we were there, which was neat because it was filmed in Seaside. 

Every evening, we saw TONS of people heading down to the beach to take the classic white and khaki on the beach picture for their Christmas cards/over the fireplace family photo. 

We took this picture of the sunset as we were walking back from dinner. The beach houses are so nice. I wish we could afford to live in Seaside! 

The sunset on the beach. So pretty!

I can't wait to go back next year! 

3-Day Fundraiser Night

On July 30th, our 3-Day team put together a fundraiser at Chick-fil-A. (You can learn more about why we are doing The 3-Day here.) We have a lot of money to raise before October, over $8,000, and thought that this would be a great way to raise money. The operator at this store was kind enough to agree to give us 10% of the total sales for the specified time of the fundraiser. We also raffled off a couple of gift baskets, donated by my mawmaw and aunt Sandra, as well as one of my mom's friends from high school. The night was a success, and we are closer to meeting our fundraiser goal. Thanks to everyone who came out for dinner to support us! (Oh, and if you would like to donate to the cause, follow the link on the left side of the page.) Here are some pictures from the evening. 

What I'm Reading: Everyone Worth Knowing

I bought this book about a year ago with the intention to read it during my short summer break, but then everything with mom happened and I never got to read it as planned. I've said this before, but I have to force myself to not read during the semester because I end up reading instead of doing school stuff. I took this to the beach with me over the weekend. I bought it because I found on sale for $5 and because it is written by the same author who wrote The Devil Wears Prada. It turned out to be a good beach read. It wasn't really about anything of substance, but I enjoyed it. Basically, this girl goes to college at Emory, takes a banking job in NYC because it will pay the bills, but she ends of hating the job and quits after a few years. Through her uncle's connections as an entertainment writer, she gets a job at a PR firm that deals with all the biggest celebrities and socialites. The book basically details her experiences through her job, including all of the craziness/activities in which the wealthy participate. There were a few things that I was somewhat uncomfortable about, such as drug use, and some sex things that I would rather not read about, but it never got anywhere near anything graphic. The main character doesn't get involved in any of this, just details the participation of those she represents. I'm sure that it is, unfortunately, an accurate representation of the activities of some of the wealthy. Overall, I enjoyed the book. I will probably buy another of her books if I happen to find it on sale.

SHOW US YOUR LIFE - Reception/Honeymoon

Our wedding reception was at Magnolia Hall in Piedmont Park. Piedmont Park is kind of like the Central Park of Atlanta, just not quite so big. Our ceremony was held on the lawn in front of Magnolia Hall. You can see the last row of chairs from the ceremony in this photo. Magnolia Hall is an old blacksmith's forge that has been converted into a event space. 

This was our cake. We got it from Mark at Baker's Man Inc., and we loved it. All the layers were the same, so that they would all get eaten, including the top layer. He made us a replica of the top layer on our first anniversary. The layers were white cake with buttercream frosting. The inside layers were key lime curd with raspberry, and then cream cheese frosting. The dj played "How Sweet It Is" by Marvin Gaye while we cut the cake. 

The groom's cake was chocolate with chocolate ganache and chocolate buttercream frosting. This one went quickly at the reception! We actually liked it better than the big cake. 

We took dance lessons and learned how to the Foxtrot for our first dance. We danced to the jazzy version of "The Way You Look Tonight" by Frank Sinatra. 

These are some extra photos of our wedding party and us that haven't really fit in to any week, so I just included them here. This is the entire wedding party walking across the bridge. 

Ben pushing me on the swing in the park. 

And the best for last! This is our favorite picture from the wedding. The photographer had us dance in front of the Atlanta skyline.  

For our honeymoon, we went to Antigua, and it was fabulous! We stayed at Hermitage Bay, which was recently named to the Conde Nast Hot List. We actually stayed there right when they opened, before it was recognized by Conde Nast, so it was not quite so expensive. 

This photo is the view from the spa. Ben loves this picture because of the tree. 

This is a photo of the beach. This place was super secluded, and we were often the only people on the beach. 

We stayed in a hillside cottage, where we had our own plunge pool. It was so nice! This is the view from out on the water, looking up at the cottages on the hillside. 

This is the view from our cottage, as well as our plunge pool. 

It also happened to be Carnival while we were there, so we went into town to check it out. It was so much fun, and definitely one of the coolest cultural experiences ever. This photo is of us from where we watched the parade. (When I say parade, it isn't anything like a parade here in America. This thing took HOURS! Like 4 hours at least, sometimes it just stopped moving, and the people in the parade would go into the stores to by cokes as they went by.)

Y'all aren't going to believe this, but these girls were doing the cotton-eyed joe! Haha!
These little girls were in the parade. The girl in the middle was fascinated by my hair. She walked straight up to me while I was watching and just touched my hair. I don't think she had seen/felt white people hair before. She was so sweet! 

This photo is of some girls dressed as butterflies. I just thought their costumes were really pretty!

Sorry this post is so long! I hope you enjoyed the pictures. Head over to Kelly's Korner to check out more!