More cat pictures!

When my mom and grandmother were in town, my grandmother brought our cats this scratching post that her cat, Sweetpea, didn't ever use. Well, ever since she brought it Roxy has been loving it! Here's a picture of her scratching away.

Sandy is always looking for a place to sleep in the sun. It's kind of hard to tell from this picture, but Sandy is laying on my sweater drying rack and there is a sweater on there too. No wonder I'm always covered in cat fur!

Best Husband Ever!

Chad is such a great husband! He is always surprising me with roses for no special reason. He knows that I love roses and he always gets different colors too. Here's a picture of the recent bouquet he gave me.

Carving our pumpkins

Chad takes out his frustrations on the pumpkin.

Here I am working on my pumpkin.

The Carved Pumpkins!

Here are our completed pumpkins on our porch. I carved 2 cats and Chad carved "C & J" in his.

Here's how they looked with candles lit in the dark.

Our Halloween Costumes

Usually if I have to work on Halloween I just wear all black and put on cat ears, but this year I decided to take it a little further and dress up as the Wicked Witch of the West (complete with red shoes). Although, I think I need a more authentic broom to carry.

Chad decided to dress up as a Resun employee (which he used to be) since he is now self-employed.

More Halloween Costumes

Our nieces usually stop by our house on Halloween to show us their costumes. Karissa is on the left and is a princess and Kathryn is on the right and is a vampiress (but she left her fangs at home).


This year I helped my mom come up with a costume to wear to work. Since she lives in Hawaii she wanted something to represent her Southern heritage. We came up with Scarlet O'Hara - what is more Southern that Gone With the Wind!?! She sent me a picture of her in her completed costume.

Roxysaurus and Sandysaurus

As some of you probably know I would LOVE to be able to put some clothes on my cats and this Halloween I bought a dinosaur hat for them. As you can tell from the pictures I was not successful in getting them to let me put it on as a hat. This is the best I'm going to get from them with this dinosaur hat...

Here's Roxysaurus...

...and Sandysaurus.

Fall Colors

We are fortunate that our neighborhood decided to plant a tree in front of our house. It's really nice to see it change with the seasons. It was so beautiful and bright red this fall that I wanted to take a picture of it. I'm glad I did, because the next week it was more windy and now most of the leaves have fallen off.

Carolina Basketball Home Game

This year I was able to get us tickets to a home game at Carolina. It was an exhibition game against UNC Pembroke. It was so much fun to get to see a game at Carolina in person! I only wish we had gotten there a little earlier so we could have walked around campus more. Here's a picture of Chad by one of the light poles with a Carolina flag.

Here's a picture of some of the flags as you get closer to the Dean Dome.

In the Dean Dome!

Here's a view of the inside of the Dean Dome before the game started.

Here's a picture of me & Chad at the game.

Game pictures

Going to this game made me realize how much we need a better camera! Here's a picture of the game in action.

Not that you can really tell from this picture, but here's Roy Williams standing on the court watching the game.

Here's the score at the end of the game: Carolina 102 and Pembroke 62.

Go Heels!

The Cats and the pumpkins

Sandy & Roxy have to check out anything new we bring into the house. Our Halloween pumpkins were no exception. Here's Roxy coming over to check out the pumpkins.

Here is Sandy sniffing the new pumpkins too.

The Pumpkin Patch at Hodges Farm

On Sunday we went to Hodges Farm to pick out our pumpkins for Halloween. Here's a view of the pumpkin patch where you can pick your own pumpkin.

Hodges Farm also had a lot of sunflowers growing around the pumpkin patch area. Here's a picture of a patch of sunflowers too.

Hodges Farm Animals

There were a few farm animals that could be petted at Hodges Farm when we went to pick out our pumpkins. Here is a close-up of one of the sheep.

Here I am petting a baby goat.

And here's Chad petting the same baby goat.

Picking our pumpkins

Here are the pumpkins that Chad & I picked out to carve for Halloween!

Here is a cart full of tiny pumpkins at Hodges Farm.

Billy Graham Library

While my Mom and Grandmother were in town they wanted to tour the new Billy Graham Library. I was very well done and overall I was very impressed with everything about the Library. Here is a picture of the Library building.

Here is Billy Graham's childhood home.

More Billy Graham Library

To tell the story of Billy Graham's life and ministry there were guided galleries that covered certain aspects or time periods in Rev. Graham's life. I thought the one below was one of the coolest ones. It depicts an appliance store window and each TV was showing video of Billy Graham speaking. Rev. Graham was the first evangelist to realize how television could reach even more people than his crusades - he has always been a pioneer and on board with using the newest technology to reach people for Christ.

I know that this is probably an unusual picture and I don't normally take pictures in public bathrooms, but the sinks in the bathrooms at the Billy Graham Library were so unique that I had to include them on the blog!

Prayer Garden

Here is a picture of me, my Grandmother and my Mom in the Prayer Garden area at the Billy Graham Library.

Below is the path that leads to Ruth Graham's gravesite.

Family Visit

My Mom and Grandmother came to visit us for a few days last week and we celebrated my Grandmother's birthday a few days early. Here's a picture of my brother, Fielding, my Mom, my Grandmother and me at our house.

Here's a picture of Fielding, my Mom & me.

Political Rant

I know that this election is definitely a hot topic and that people’s emotions are running high, but I had a pretty crazy encounter dealing with the election. At work, I’m working at a different library branch (I won’t mention it by name, but most of my friends and family know) and the patrons are very different than where I was before. A few days ago an older man stopped by the desk just to tell me that I “better not vote for Obama or he’ll come back and get me” and when I told him that he won’t know who I vote for he said “Oh, I’ll know, so you better not vote for Obama!” This was completely out of the blue, no previous conversation, I wasn’t wearing anything political or anything. Just an old man yelling about how I shouldn’t vote for Obama. Now, why was this necessary? It just irritates me to no end that people assume that if you look like them or live in the same community that you must be just like them and think like them. Sorry old man, not the case.

And while I’m complaining about the election and politics in general I’ll go ahead and vent about another issue: Christians and politics. Why do people assume that if you profess to be a Christian that you are going to vote Republican? I am a Christian and I’m not ashamed to say that in all the Presidential elections I’ve voted in so far, I’ve yet to vote for a Republican and I’m a registered Democrat. When I tell some of my Christian friends this, they are shocked. I think that Christians tend to forget that Jesus was one of the most radical and revolutionary figures of His time. I’ll even go so far as to say that Jesus was pretty liberal for His time too. I also think more Christians need to think beyond the abortion issue when they are voting. If anyone is using birth control, then you need to think hard about the slippery slope of reversing rights. I think this election is making people think more about a lot of issues – and I hope that more Christians can see past the party stereotypes and vote for who they think is the best candidate regardless of their party affiliation. I also hope that Christians can at least try to be more open-minded and not assume that the world’s going to hell if a Republican is not in office. We are supposed to believe that God is in control – and I believe He is in control whether a Democrat or a Republican is in office.