Books of 2009

As my friends and family know I am an avid reader.  For the past few years I've been keeping track of all the books I read each year - Goodreads has made this super easy too.  Since I've had this blog I've been posting my top 10 books of the year - these are my top picks of what I've read in the past year.  This year I read 78 books, which is hard for me to believe!  So here are my top 10 - 5 each in Fiction and Non-Fiction and in alphabetical order by the author's name.

Fiction  
The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
After You by Julie Buxbaum
Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen
Mouse Guard: Winter 1152 by David Petersen
The Promised World by Lisa Tucker

Non-Fiction
Cherries in Winter by Suzan Colon
Homer's Odyssey by Gwen Cooper
Columbine by Dave Cullen
The Compassionate Carnivore by Catherine Friend
Wesley the Owl by Stacey O'Brien

Sandy and Roxy Christmas video

We took a video of Sandy & Roxy playing with their Christmas toys on our camera.  You will see that at the end Roxy accidentally throws her toy into the Christmas tree!  If you have the sound on you'll realize we had the TV on the whole time, but oh well - it's a cute video of the cats playing!

Christmas 2009

Last year I was really sick from before Thanksgiving until the New Year, so this year I was determined to enjoy every minute of Christmas!  Chad & I have established Christmas Eve as our day to celebrate Christmas - we always go to the Christmas Eve service at church, out to eat and then we drive around and look at Christmas lights.  On Christmas Day this year we celebrated with Chad's family at his grandmother's house.  Then on the day after Christmas we celebrated with my family and some family friends too.  Here are pictures from all of our Christmas celebrations and I am so thankful that I was healthy this year and really enjoyed Christmas 2009!

Athenaeum Girl's Night

My friend Nicole and I went to see Athenaeum at Amos' Southend for a Girl's Night and for our Christmas get together.  Athenaeum is one of my all time favorite bands and even though they're not together anymore they usually play one or two shows a year.  To make it even better Amos' is now smoke free - which makes the concert even better!  It just blows my mind that a band like Athenaeum can't make it in the music industry, but there is so much garbage on MTV - they are so incredibly talented.  It was a great show - they played for 2 hours!

Friends Christmas Party

Every year we get together with our closest friends and have a Christmas party.  We also do an ornament exchange game.  This year Melanie & Dave hosted since the renovation on their house is finally done!  We always have a good time and it's become one of our Christmas traditions.

Mint Hill Staff Christmas Party

Last year I was sick on the day of the Mint Hill Staff Christmas Party, so this year I was very excited to be able to go.  Donna hosted the party and we had lots of fun eating, playing Sneaky Santa gift exchange and revealing our Secret Santas.  Here are some pictures from the party.

Decorating for Christmas

Here are some pictures of me & Chad decorating our Christmas tree and our house decorations.  I love Christmas and really enjoy decorating and getting ready for the holidays!

New Sandy pictures

Here's Sandy sleeping on the bed - so cute!

Sandy on my sweater - this is why even clean clothes have fur on them!

Sandy sleeping in between all the Christmas decoration boxes.

Partylite Show

At the beginning of November I had a Partylite show.  I've had multiple Partylite shows - especially since my Mom used to be a consultant.  I really like Partylite candles and earned LOTS of free stuff from my party.  Thanks to all my friends who came and ordered lots of stuff too!  Here are some pictures from the party.

Wrightsville Beach Flotilla 2009

While we were in Wilmington for Thanksgiving this year we were also able to see the Wrightsville Beach Holiday Flotilla.  The flotilla is always the Saturday after Thanksgiving and is basically a boat parade at night with the boats decorated for the Holidays.  There is also a craft fair that day as well.  We had a great view of the flotilla from our room at Summer Sands!  Here are some pictures from the flotilla:

Thanksgiving 2009 in Wilmington

This year we went to Wilmington for Thanksgiving.  We had our Thanksgiving meal with my Dad and Nana.  We were also able to see the Holiday Flotilla at Wrightsville Beach too.  Here are some pictures from our Thanksgiving trip:

Leis for the cats

My Mom made mini leis for the cats since she made ones for me & Chad when we were in Hawaii.  I asked her to not make them a closed circle so we could just drape them over the cats.  I was surprised at how well the cats tolerated modeling their leis!

David Crowder Band

We had the opportunity to see the David Crowder Band on Nov. 18th.  In my opinion they are one of the most talented and original bands around!  They put on an awesome show.  Here are some of the pictures we took.

My Little Star

I got my cat Star for my 17th birthday from my then-boyfriend Stephen.  We got her from the Union Co. humane society.  She stayed with my parents after I moved out and got married and then Fielding took her when my parent's sold their house.  She is now 13 years old, which is hard to believe!  She is more frail and sickly now, but here's a picture of us together again.  I'm trying to find another picture from when she was just a kitten to post with this one, but I can't find it right now.  So, here's my little Star at 13 years old!