October 2008 in Review

Hello all! It has been a crazy month for us and I haven't really blogged much about what we are doing. There have been so many things over the last few months that I have wanted to blog about and haven't because I just didn't have time. But, I don't want that to be the case for October.

First of all, a sweet family at church, the Jordans, had their 7th little blessing, Priscilla. I was able to go visit them at a rare moment when no one was home except Jennifer and Priscilla until just a few moments before I left. It was a nice visit. Here is a sweet picture of Priscilla that I took at church a week or so ago.


Our small group had a bonfire cookout at our friends' Charles and Maggie's house. It was a lot of fun with hotdogs, chili, smores, and fun games like horseshoes and double ladder ball! Here are the pictures in a slide show:

I have done a bunch of planting this month as well. I threw away most of my summer potted plants and did some pots of bulbs (tulips and some daffodils) and pansies, from the Growers' Outlet, of course. I love that place. We got 31 3" pots of pansies and 30 bulbs for less than $30! I had read in my Month-by-Month Gardening in Georgia book by Walter Reeves and some other lady that you can save plants like Geraniums over the winter in your garage in paper bags, so I did that. I really liked the colors of the ones that I had and every bit you can save helps. I don't think I'll do any more planting this year except for the daffodil bulbs I have to plant - and I am going to wait until we get back from vacation for that. I will do a quick slide show of my plants, but here's a picture that I tried to take of myself with my updated hanging baskets - it was already dark, so it's not the best. Hey Daddy - do you recognize that shirt? (I save it from a yard sale several years ago - I think that shirt is as old as I am).

Scott and I (well, mostly Scott) have our Disney vacation almost completely planned out! We are leaving this coming Sunday (YAY!!!). We are staying in the Caribbean Beach Resort and we have 5 days of park-hopper passes. We have made meal reservations (we bought the meal plan thingy) for The Rainforest Cafe, Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater, Coral Reef, Liberty Tree Tavern, and Teppan Edo. We are hoping that we can get a last-minute reservation at Le Cellier because it looks really good. We also plan to go to the ESPN Club and the La Cantina De San Angel at some point in time. We ended up having to make lunch reservations for most days because the dinner slots were all full. So, I guess we will eat our "quick service" meals for dinner. We have been looking at the websites for each park and deciding what things we want to do and saving them on our vacation planner on the Disney website. My friend Carrie told me about a website where we can check out the menus for our restaurants at http://www.allears.net/. I feel like I need to pack my whole wardrobe because I am nervous about what the weather will be like!

Another extremely exciting thing happened this month: our friend Clay came to church. This might seem strange that I am excited about someone coming to church. However, Clay has had Cystic Fibrosis his whole life and received two new lungs through a transplant a couple of months ago. He has been on quite a journey of recovery and infections. I believe that Clay is still recovering, but doing much better. It was such a blessing to see Clay. He is such a witness for everyone.

In less exciting, but still quite humorous, news, I am still #1 in our Pigskin Pickem league that I mentioned in a previous post! Chris, aka Master Jordan, sent out some trash talk this week stating that he thought the girls were going down this week. He also does not believe that I am going into my picks blindly and I have not idea what I am doing (hehehe-yes, he put that in his trash talk email). Well, here is a screen shot of our current standings: I'm #1 (Lady Luck) and Caitlin is #2 (Captain Awesome)! Heeheehee! I am waiting until after the Monday night game to send out any trash talk though! I don't want to jinx myself. I must say that I went into this expecting to be in last place every week and to rarely ever think about it. But, it is fun to be winning. At this point, if I drop in standings, I think I will be disappointed. Whereas at the beginning, I would have been happy to not be last. I doubt I will ever do this good again (if Josh invites me back to the league). So, I am enjoying it while it lasts! P.S. Scott is still in last place, even behind Shana who failed to make picks one week...sad.

Scott and I went to our only Georgia Tech football game this year - homecoming against Virginia. They looked really good for the first 7 minutes or so and it was all downhill from there. I was bummed. I did meet some new people that Scott went to college with and saw some old friends that I have known for almost as long as Scott and I have been together. We had fun even though the team lost. Here are some pics from the day:

Okay, most of you already know this, but I went to the New Kids On The Block concert last week with my friend Lindsey. Our Shorter friends Heather and Allison also went and we had dinner with them before the concert. This concert was awesome! I was totally surprised at what a good show they put on. They had multiple wardrobe changes, ran around, danced. They even sang a couple of songs from a round stage in the middle of the main floor that rotated and had a grand piano in the center of it. The New Kids have aged well is all I am saying. I mean, do you realize that the oldest one is at least 40!?? Crazy. I mean, I really do not think that is old, but it is old for what they are doing. You can tell that they haven't really gotten mixed up in drugs and stuff like that (at least, I don't think they have). I was glad that they sang a lot of their old stuff because their new album really does have some raunchy stuff on it. There are only a handful of songs that I can stand to listen to. Here is a slideshow of pictures Lindsey took at the show.

On Friday night, which was the last day of October, Christ Church celebrated a Reformation Day party. Oct. 31, 1517 is the day that Martin Luther tacked up the 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg, thus beginning the Protestant Reformation. I have quite a few pictures from this, but I have not looked through them yet to make a slide show. I will do that later and post them. They will also be up on our church website, I am sure.

So, that's it. That's our October in review. I have left out the yucky stuff like me being sick for almost the whole week before homecoming with a fever of over 102 and all the cold weather we have been experiencing in our area, forcing us to wear long sleeve shirts and turn the heat and humidifier on. Also, the fact that for about 2.5 weeks my office was having some upgrades done to our A/C causing parts of our building to be 65-68 degrees, which is what made me get sick, I am fairly certain.

So, happy reading. I hope this wasn't too long. If you have made it to the end, feel free to leave a comment about anything above!

Date Night

Last Saturday night, Scott and I had a really fun date night. Indiana Jones and the City of the Crystal Skull was playing at the Fox. Just before the movie, they had a wine-tasting. Scott and I neither one really like wine, but we thought that they would have all these different types and we'd find something we liked. Um, no. They had about 3 kinds and they were all gross. Oh well...no big loss.

Every summer the Fox does a Coca-Cola Summer Film Festival, some movies are old and some new(er) at the Fox downtown. We have been to one each summer for the past 3 years. I love it. The first one we saw two years ago was actually Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. It is just so much fun! Before the movie starts, the huge organ at the Fox, the Might Mo, rises up out of the orchestra pit and the organ player plays a couple of songs while a video about the history of the Fox shows. Then, they put words up on the screen and you sing along to several songs. Most of them are songs that they would have sung back with the Fox first opened. We sang "Georgia", "Take Me Out To The Ballgame", "I've Been Working On The Railroad", and "Dinah Won't Blow Your Horn". Then, unlike at the regular theater, during the movie, people clap and cheer during the exciting parts. This was especially true when we saw Raiders of the Lost Ark. Some people at that movie even wore Indiana Jones-type clothing!

Scott and I had already seen the movie, but we really liked it and it's only partly about the movie. We love the Fox and the Might Mo and just having an excuse to go downtown. We also ate an early dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory. Mmmmm....

Overall, we had a great time!

4th of July Weekend

The 4th of July weekend was a very busy weekend for us! We attended a surprise 30th birthday party for our friend and small group leader, Zach. The party was at his in-laws' house, which is always a fun place to be! There were lots of Zach's friends and family there and we really enjoyed ourselves. Scott and I brought fireworks and stayed until it got dark and did fireworks with Karen, Bob, Zach, Lauren, Andy, and Caitlin. I think everyone had a good time!

Then, on Saturday, we went to visit with Meme for a little while and then to Daddy and Stephanie's house for a 4th of July celebration. We had barbecue (they ordered some special for me without that sauce), pasta salad, deviled eggs, and all kinds of other good stuff. We had a lot of fun. We were too tired to stay for fireworks in addition to the fact that we didn't want to be out that late and be too tired for church the next day. I took some pictures with my camera, but not very many. However, I am sure that Stephanie wondered who took so many pictures with her camera when she downloaded them! Heehee. I saw her camera sitting out while she was upstairs, so I took it upon myself to take pictures with it. I hope some of them turned out good! (I think I even took at least one picture of myself!)

Meme seems to be doing about the same. She seems less like her old self and more like someone that isn't all together. She didn't complain as much about us not coming to see her very often, but she did say that she eats the same thing all the time and does the same ole' thing every day. So, it seems like she has less than her usual spark. My great-great aunt Annie Lou is also there and it seems like she doesn't even recognize us any more, which is sad. I also found out that I have some other further-removed relative there at the nursing home that I had never met.

So, over all the weekend was a lot of fun and we were still pretty tired on Sunday. But, I was still able to pay attention to the preaching, so that's good. Right, Chris?!

Time Flies!

Can you believe that today is July 2...2008?!??!!!

I can't!

They say that time seems to pass more quickly as you get older. I think I have hit "old" because time seems to fly by.

We had a wedding shower for my sister, Wendy and her fiance, Paul this past Saturday. We had some friends and some family come. We ended up with 19 people, including Scott and I, at our house. I thought that was a good number. Wendy and Paul got lots of gifts, so that was really great!

After the party, Wendy and Paul and Emily and Kristyn (Paul's two girls) stayed and hung out and played Wii. The girls LOVED the Wii. They wanted to stay for the rest of the weekend to play! We would have let them, but they didn't have any extra clothes or toothbrushes!


Well, Friday is the 4th of July and we are off work. July 4th is a very important holiday for our country and I think that sometimes people get so caught up in fireworks, BBQs, and, for certain people, drinking, that they forget WHY we celebrate. We should always be mindful and thankful of our freedom.


Just as a side note, it sounds like someone that lives close to me is celebrating a little early. I think I'll open the blinds and check it out...I can hear it but I can't see it.

Speaking of the sky (well, I kind of was since I mentioned the blinds and fireworks...right?), on Sunday we had a really powerful thunderstorm (that really didn't bring that much rain, even though it seemed like it did). The storm happened right before dusk-ish. So, the sun had not started going down, but it was blocked by clouds. Well, the clouds started moving out of the way just as sunset started and everything was really still and...well, pink, outside. I was a little concerned that we may have a tornado, but there were no warnings. Scott went out side and got these pictures. I think they are beautiful!

This is a question for all you cat people out there: do your cats seem to get sweeter as they get older? Ours do. Maxwell won't drink water from the tub now until we pet him first. Sometimes, it isn't enough for just one of us to pet him, we both have to if we are here. Also, most days when I get home, Sampson talks to me really sweetly until I pet him for a few minutes. They didn't used to "ask" for attention like that. Sunday night, the reason I didn't take the pictures of the sky is because Sampson was curled up in my lap. That was probably because I was covered up in his favorite blanket, but I'll take it how I can get it. We just have the cutest, sweetest boys ever. I'd like to hear your cat stories!

Mi Vida Loca

I have finally recovered from the weekend, I think! It was a crazy one.

It all started on Friday morning. Our Controller's birthday was Monday(6/23), but we knew he wouldn't be there then, so the CFO asked us to all wear black. Little did we know that he had had this sign made that said "Lordy, Lordy Dexter is 40" and bought a helium tank and black balloons! Claire, our assistant controller, had also left us a bunch of stuff to decorate his office with, but we were planning to wait and do it on Monday because she had been on vacation and we wanted her to be able to see it. But, when our CFO started decorating with his stuff, we figured, we shouldn't drag it out on him, so we went to town! It was crazy how much stuff Claire had bought. His office was well decorate as was the entrance to our floor coming in from the lobby with the sign from our CFO. Then, we had cake that afternoon. Have you ever seen a cake with 40 candles on it and a fairly tall man walk in with an inflatable walker and blow them all out (well, all but 3, but come on, that's a lot!)? Well, it's humorous!

I also got some work done on Friday, believe it or not...

Well, I had all my stuff ready for the BIG event on Friday, Callie's bachelorette party!! A group of us girls met up at Lauren and Zach's and got all dressed up and drove downtown (I guess it was really midtown where we were) and ate at Shout. Then, we came back and had a super yummy dessert made by Lauren and let Callie open her gifts from us. Some people went home and some stayed the night. It was a LOT of fun! I have an album on Facebook. Girls, I promise I'll email pictures or pass a disk around of all of the pics soon!

Callie had gotten a call that Lauren, Caitlin, Alison, and my bridesmaids' dresses were in at the dress store in Lilburn on Friday. Lauren and Caitlin really only had time to go on Saturday morning and really, I don't know when else I could have gone, so I got up and had breakfast with Lauren and Caitlin and then drove home, took a quick shower, then turned around and headed for the dress store! The dresses are beautiful! I'll send pictures to Callie and let her decide if she wants to post those pictures or make you all wait for the wedding!

No, you aren't reading the wrong blog, this is a super-cute picture of Eli I took on Friday night before we went out. We dropped Eli off with Chris and Jennifer before we went to the restaurant (thanks Chris and Jennifer). Eli was really happy to see all of us!! I just couldn't help but post this. (Yes, Maggie, I will email these to you!)

As most people know, Shana and Josh Stringer are moving to Louisville, KY to attend Southern Seminary (the best seminary in the world according to Pastor Lee). Saturday afternoon, the Lucases, some close friends of Josh and Shana's, helped Dean and Judy throw a going-away party for them at Dean and Judy's house in Talmo, GA (like, up near Gainesville). So, while I was getting fitted, my wonderful husband made the pasta salad that we were going to take. I had time to get home from the dress store, eat a little something for lunch, and put on some make up before Scott and I packed ourselves up and headed to Talmo. I was about to fall asleep in the car on the way up to Talmo, but knew Scott would not be happy if I did. But, once we got there and I started talking with everyone and then we all started playing jump rope, I got a second wind. I really think that Dean and Judy bought those games for the kids...and we let them play some, but mostly we jump roped with the big jump ropes and let the kids play wiffle ball and draw with sidewalk chalk... It was a lot of fun. Andrew and Quinn both did really good jumping rope. Nehemiah was great at it! Several people tried to do double dutch, but no one was exactly successful. The closest was Maggie, who jumped three times, I think.

Okay...that was Saturday...

Sunday was Josh and Shana's last Sunday at church and they got up and Josh talked and made us all cry. Then, our small group went out to lunch together. We are truly blessed to have such a great church family. We love our church family!

I think that reality is finally beginning to set in that Josh and Shana are really leaving. I am happy for them and I feel like this is where they should be, but I am sad in a really selfish way because we are going to miss them! I am also excited, because Shana has been working at Fresh Market and has had strange hours. Now, she will get an office job in KY and we can talk on the phone on our way home every day again like we used to. I know we'll stay close, but I'll miss them...and Bogie and Zoe too...

So, that's why I am tired. I know Scott is too. Scott has really been studying hard for his Cisco exams. Please be praying for those. He seems to really be interested in this stuff.

The next several weeks promise to be busy. This coming Saturday, we are throwing a shower for Wendy (my sister) and Paul who are getting married on 8/8/08. Then, on July 5, we are going to my dad's for a July 4th party and we are going to visit with Meme while we are there. July 12 is Callie's wedding (my, it is very close now!), so the 11th and 12th will be full or wedding preparations! Then, July 13th I have a shower to attend for a college friend in Canton after church!

Whew! I feel tired again. I am going to bed. Have a great night!! If you are expecting pictures from me, hopefully I will email them soon.

Laser Show

Friday night, we went to the Laser Show at Stone Mountain for a Family Fun Night with Christ Church of Metro Atlanta. It was a lot of fun. The Laser Show is a lot different this year for the 25th Anniversary of the Laser Show, you should go see it. And, if you have never been to Stone Mountain, plan to make a day or two of it. There is so much to do!

Here are some pictures from before the show. We ate and talked and the kids played. It was a lot of fun and good fellowship.

Family Birthday Celebration

Scott and I had my family over for a early/late birthday celebration on May 24. Some of us had already swapped gifts, but this pretty much covered all the ones that weren't swapped yet. We also snuck Father's Day in there too. We are an efficient family. We had dinner, gifts, and cupcakes. We also talked about Wendy's and Paul's upcoming wedding. Here's the proof:

Renaissance Festival

On Memorial Day, Scott and I visited the Renaissance Festival. It was a lot of fun. We each had a turkey leg and some other fun treats. We watched all kinds of crazy "talent shows", jousting, and saw a glass-blowing exhibit. If you ever get the chance to visit a Renaissance Festival in your area, you should defintely check it out!

Movies

Scott and I both really like movies. There are always so many out that we want to go see. A lot of times, we miss them. But, we have gotten to see quite a few that we have wanted to see lately.

A few weeks ago, Callie, Caitlin, Lauren, and I went to see Made of Honor together since the three of us are bridesmaids in Callie's wedding. Afterwards, Lauren, Caitlin, and I picked out shoes for the wedding (so fun). I enjoyed the movie, but there was some language and certain scenes that we weren't big fans of. I wouldn't say that it is an R movie, but I would say that it is worse than PG13. It was kind of a reverse version of My Best Friend's Wedding, but with a better ending.

Scott and I went to see the movie Expelled recently. This is the Ben Stein movie about how scientists are refusing to admit that there is any kind of intelligent design involved in the creation of the earth and all the things and people on it. I found it very interesting.

Friday night, we met at Discover Mills after work and had dinner (during a terrible thunder storm), then we went to see the new Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I really did enjoy this movie. I thought that it was not as realistic as the previous movies. Not that I thought that any of the stuff in his previous movies could happen, but this one was a bit more cheesy and over the top. But, I think it definitely leaves room for more sequels. Shia LeBeouf is also a big star in this movie and I really thought he did a great job as well.

The other movie we really want to see is the new Chronicles of Narnia movie, Prince Caspian. I have heard it is really good. So, hopefully we'll get out to see it soon. Tomorrow, we are taking advantage of our day off by going to the GA Renaissance Festival. We will not forget the reason we get the day off: to remember and appreciate all the veterans and the current men and women in our military. We should all say a prayer for them and show our appreciation however we can.

It's Strawberry Pickin' Time!

These strawberry fields are about 10 minutes from our house and we never knew about them until Jennifer told us last year! This year we wanted to check it out ourselves. When we drove up on Saturday, we knew we were at the right place because all you could see was rows of rearends sticking up in the air. It was pretty funny. Then, we joined them. It was a lot of fun to pick strawberries. I cut up a bunch of them tonight and put sugar over them to create a syrup. We invited our neighbors Nan and John over and poured them over Sara Lee pound cake with whip cream and they brought over some vanilla bean ice cream. Yum. It was soooo good! But, we still have almost two full gallons of strawberries! I guess I will be putting some up tomorrow night!

This is what we took home!

Here we are picking berries!