March 2012 Wilmington Trip

When my Mom comes back to NC I always try to take time off work so we can spend time together.  Chad & I went to Wilmington for a quick weekend trip to visit my Mom and Grandmother.  The weather was absolutely incredible too - upper 70's or low 80's and sunny.  It was abnormal for March, but we definitely enjoyed it!  We were only there a few days and mostly just hung out with my Mom and Grandmother, but here are a few pictures from our trip:

Hickory Grove Library

I worked at the old Hickory Grove library location from June 2001 - September 2003.  In 2010 they finally opened a new building, which they had been promising since I was working there!  The new building is beautiful and the staff area is bigger than the whole library was at the old location.  Here are some pictures of the old and new Hickory Grove library:

Georgia side trips

On the way down to and home from Florida for my cousin's wedding we stopped in Georgia to break up the trip.  On the way down we stopped overnight in Savannah, GA.  We didn't have time to really do much, but it was very pretty and I'd love to go back for a longer trip.  Here are our pictures from Savannah:




On the way home we spent the night in St. Simon's Island GA, and other than having to go over a HUGE bridge it was so beautiful there. We were able to stop by the Georgia Sea Turtle Center on the way home, but I'd love to go back there too. Here are our pictures from St. Simon's Island:

Florida Wedding

My cousin Davy got married on March 3, 2012 in Melbourne, FL.  Chad & I were able to go down and be there for the wedding.  My Mom and Grandmother came too, so it was kind of a mini family reunion.  The weather was beautiful and it was really nice seeing everyone.  The last time we had been to FL was in 2006 when my other cousin Phillip got married, so it had been awhile since we'd been down there.  Here are some pictures from the wedding weekend.

Here are some of the pre-wedding pictures: 

The wedding ceremony: 

The wedding reception: 

The day after the wedding was overcast and much cooler, but the water was still so pretty. 

There were also 2 weddings held at the hotel where we stayed and we noticed this guy across the courtyard from our room. It looks like he had a pretty rough night!

New Bird Seed

I had been buying a giant bag of bird seed at BJ's that was their generic brand.  I wanted to try to attract more cardinals and goldfinches to my feeder, so I decided to buy some "nicer" more expensive bird seed at Petsmart.  But, apparently the only birds that like the "better" seed are mockingbirds - which I don't like because they are mean birds who constantly harass other birds.  Then, recently I finally saw some other birds at the feeder - I hurried to get some pictures since I was so happy to see something other than mockingbirds out there!  Hopefully they'll come back so I can use up the rest of this "better" seed and go back to the BJ's brand that attracted lots of different birds.

Sweet Sandy

Recently Sandy has been very affectionate with Chad.  He thinks it's because she knows he's the one who usually gets out the mouse laser pointer to play with her, but she is just a very sweet cat.  Recently after dinner when we're relaxing on the couch she will go over to his side and climb all over him giving him head-butts and purring.  Then when she's done she'll lay down on the arm of the couch for awhile.  It's so cute and I was finally able to get some pictures with my phone.  Here are a few pictures of Sandy being especially sweet.

Valentine's Day

This year Chad & I celebrated Valentine's Day early because I had to work until 8pm on Valentine's Day.  But, like I told one of my co-workers we probably would have still celebrated early even if I didn't have to work that night because we're an old married couple who likes to avoid crowds!  While we do celebrate Valentine's Day we don't make a big deal over it - we usually just go out to dinner somewhere nicer and exchange cards or maybe a small gift.  I don't need a holiday to show my love to Chad I go home to the love of my life every day!  Here is a picture of us before we went out for our early Valentine's Day celebration.

January & February 2012 Cat Pictures

Here are some cute pictures of Sandy & Roxy to start of 2012!

Sandy sleeping among all our Christmas decorations before they were put back in the attic.

Sandy inside the cat's new cube bed.

Roxy keeping Chad warm on the couch.

Sandy cuddling with Chad upstairs on the futon.

Top 10 Books of 2011

This year was a record year of reading for me, I read 87 books in 2011!  Here are my top 10 picks - these are not necessarily books published in 2011, just books I read this year.  Here is my list:

Fiction

Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks
Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok
The Last Letter From Your Lover by Jo Jo Moyes
Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Non-Fiction

The Pioneer Woman by Ree Drummond
The Kitchen Counter Cooking School by Kathleen Flinn
A Secret Gift by Ted Gup
Animal Factory by David Kirby
A Thousand Lives by Julia Scheeres

2011 Totals

At the beginning of this year I made it a goal to see if I could save even more money with coupons by being more strategic.  I signed up for the Harris Teeter and Lowe's Foods e-mail ads that way I could check the ads each week and combine the sales with my coupons.  This takes only a little extra time each week to look through these online ads and it's made a BIG difference in how I shop.  Now instead of deciding what to eat each week and buying what I need for those meals I buy what is on sale and what I have coupons for and then base our meals on what we already have at home.  I still have to buy milk and vegetables, but this has changed how I shop for groceries.

So, this year we saved $1597.04 with coupons!  This is almost $400 more than last year so I think my new way of shopping has definitely made a difference!


Our 2011 Garden Harvest totals:

4 yellow squash plants = 37 squash
4 zucchini plants = 22 zucchini
2 cucumber plants = 7 cucumbers (we had a problem with some worm eating all our cucumbers)
2 lima bean plants = 28 pods
2 kidney bean plants = 25 pods
5 okra plants = 318 pods = 18 bags of cut and breaded okra

Christmas Reflections

This Christmas season I was reminded of something we don't often focus on - how God purposely uses "lowly" people to shine through.  First my church did a series in December leading up to Christmas called "The Mother of God" that focused on the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus.  Most people are familiar with the nativity story and as someone who grew up going to church it's easy to overlook things and just remember a familiar story.  I learned a few things I didn't know from this series, like the fact that Joseph probably took Mary with him to Bethlehem to spare her from the gossiping since she was pregnant before they were officially married.  Also, that the part in the story where the shepherds follow the star and visit Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus would not have been a good thing - in that day shepherds were considered the lowest class of people and they were not even allowed to testify in court, so their visit would have been seen by most people of that time as something bad.  I also learned that when Joseph and Mary took Jesus to be presented in the temple after 30 days they were so poor that they had to get special permission from the priests to sacrifice a pair of doves instead of the typical lamb.

This reminded me that God does everything for a reason and every aspect of Jesus' birth was done to make a point.  In Isaiah Jesus' birth is prophesied and he is described as "...[having] no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.  He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account." (Isaiah 53: 2b-3).  God did all of this purposely because if Jesus came from a wealthy family or royalty then the common people wouldn't be able to relate to Him at all.  People would say He was who He was because of a privileged background, but He came to lift up the broken and humble the mighty.  If He came from a family that was "something" that would have been the focus not God.  One of my favorite verses is 2 Corinthians 12:9 that says "My grace is sufficient for you; my strength is made perfect in weakness."  If God used strong, powerful people to fulfill His will people might not see God in it, but when He uses weak, lowly, despised people it is obvious that something beyond that person is at work.

The second thing that reminded me of all this was an annual Christmas concert that my church hosts called "Behold the Lamb of God" which was written by Andrew Peterson.  Chad & I have gone to this concert for 6 years now and every year I'm reminded of how powerful it is.  Andrew Peterson basically decided to write a Christmas concert that really focused on Jesus.  He starts in the Old Testament and the prophecies about the Messiah who was to come and goes all the way through the birth of Jesus.  Not only is Andrew Peterson and the other musicians who join him extremely talented, but the songs and the perspective of the Christmas story is very powerful and moving.  This has become one of my favorite Christmas traditions.

So the combination of this series at church and the "Behold the Lamb of God" concert just really reiterated to me how God does everything for a reason and it's all to try to bring us to Him.  One of my friends recently posted a quote on Facebook from a Penn Jilette book that was talking about how if every religion was wiped out with no trace it would never be recreated the same again - more nonsense might be created, but not the exact same nonsense, whereas if all the scientific discoveries were wiped out science is true so it would eventually be rediscovered.  While I agree that "religion" does not always represent God well, I don't agree that anything to do with God is nonsense.  God has been revealing Himself to us since the beginning of time and He will continue to do so.  Humans tend to screw things up even with the best of intentions, but that doesn't mean that God isn't real.  There are so many layers to God that we'll never be able to comprehend with our small human minds.  But, yet He is always there showing us that He is at work in our lives and everything down to the smallest detail was done for a purpose.

Christmas at our house

We had a very relaxing Christmas this year.  I had 4 days off work and even though we saw a lot of family, it was very relaxing to have that time off.  Christmas Eve is when Chad & I do a lot of our traditions.  We go to the Christmas Eve service at church, eat dinner at Outback, then drive around looking at Christmas lights.  When we get back home we watch the movie "The Family Stone."  On Christmas Day we open our gifts and we also have some gifts for the cats too.  Here are some pictures from our Christmas at home and also a short video of Sandy & Roxy playing with new toys and hiding in wrapping paper:

Christmas with Family

This year for Christmas my Dad and Grandmother came up on Friday December 23 and we had our Christmas with my family that night.  It was really good to see both my Dad and my Grandmother and get to have our Christmas celebration a little early.  Then we saw Chad's family on Christmas Day at his Grandmother Ruby's house.  Here are pictures from both Christmas celebrations with our families:

Christmas Concert and Light Show

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is going to see the Behold the Lamb of God concert at our church.  This is a very unique Christmas concert in that the songs tell the story of Christ's birth from the Old Testament all the way through Christ's birth.  Andrew Peterson is the singer/songwriter who created this awesome concert.  The concert features Andrew Peterson and quite a few other musicians, singer/songwriters, etc.  The first half of the concert is the individual artists performing some of their work, then the second half is the Behold the Lamb of God songs.  It is so powerful and moving and it's one of my absolute favorite Christmas traditions.  This year I brought my camera and took a few pictures from the concert:




This year we also went with our friends Adam and Tiffany to see the light show at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. You drive through a light display and then actually get to drive on the Speedway track. It was VERY crowded when we went and we waited over an hour to get to the lights, then it took almost another 2 hours to get through all of it. It was OK, and I probably wouldn't go again, but we really enjoyed hanging out with Adam and Tiffany. Here are some pictures we took:

Friends Christmas Party

For the past few years we've had a Christmas party with some of our friends.  We've known these friends for years now and this has become one of our Christmas traditions.  We have a potluck meal and do a white elephant game with Christmas ornaments.  It's a lot of fun and now that some of our friends have kids we get to see the kids open up some gifts and just hang out with everyone.  Here are pictures from this year's party:

Christmas Cats

Sandy and Roxy LOVE to hang out under our Christmas tree.  Thankfully for the most part they leave the ornaments alone and don't try to climb the tree or anything.  They just like being under the tree.  Here are a few pictures of them at Christmastime:

Here are Roxy and Sandy both under the tree!

Sandy LOVES to get under the tree skirt - Roxy's trying to figure out what she's doing under there!

Sandy "hiding" under the tree skirt.

When it's colder and I wear more sweaters and Sandy likes to sleep on them on the drying rack!

Christmas Decorations

I love decorating for Christmas!  This year we spread it out over a few days since there was a lot to do.  First I pulled out all my Christmas candle decorations - and I have a lot thanks to Partylite over the years!  Then we put up the tree and our other decorations, and on another night we decorated the tree with ornaments.  Chad is always saying how we have too many Christmas ornaments, but you can never have too many!  And our tree is not overly full or anything.  Maybe when we're in a different house I can convince him to let me have more than one Christmas tree...  Here are most of our Christmas decorations:

Thanksgiving

This year Chad & I had two Thanksgivings.  We had a Thanksgiving meal with Chad's family at his Grandmother's house and my brother came to that with us, and we also had a small one at home just us.  For the one at home we roasted a chicken from the farmer's market and made a few side dishes.  We also gave the cats some turkey wet food for their own little Thanksgiving meal.  Here are the pictures from both our Thanksgiving celebrations:

Random fall photos

These are just some random photos that didn't fit in with any other posts.

This was a beautiful sunset in mid-November.

Roxy taking a closer look at the TV stand!

Tree Transition

You can definitely tell the seasons based on the tree in front of our house.  Here are a few pictures showing the transition in our tree this fall and heading into winter:

This first one was taken in early October when the tree was just starting to change.

This one was taken in early November when the tree was completely red.

This one was taken in mid-November after some very windy days cleaned off our tree.

If you look hard you can see a visitor to our tree - a cat!  I think it was after the birds who come to our feeder, but with no leaves to hide in I don't think any birds would have been fooled.