playing catch-up: memorial day weekend

i'm a couple weeks behind on blogging...for memorial day weekend, we went to the farm where chris' mom's side of the family gathers for eating, laughing, and relaxing. the male grandchildren have revived the tradition of smoking a whole pig. here they are being manly. sorry for any vegetarians out there, but this stuff's delicious! eva even enjoyed some scraps.here's a picture of me with my future sister-in-law, andra (kevin's fiancee- immediately next to me). if i look a little different, it's because i tried a spray-tan. i've always wanted to because God did not give me the ability to tan naturally! it felt funny, but i think i could get used to it.

i can't remember who the middle lady is, and the one on the far right is angie, who is a super cool mom and lets me borrow her sweet daughters for some crafts. this year we made beach cupcakes with blue sprinkles, crushed nilla wafers, goldfish, and gummies. thanks to my friend meg for the idea & mrs. cathy for helping gather the supplies!

busy weekend!

christopher and i have had a fun but busy weekend. it was his first free weekend after having to put in all those extra hours for a design review he had tuesday. (it went well, by the way.) so friday night, we went on a date... he surprised me with these beautiful irises, then took me to a new restaurant in greenville, the nosedive. it is operated by the same restaurant group that owns my favorite restaurant, the lazy goat. the concept for the nosedive is "gastropub," which apparently means common food prepared in an uncommon way. for example, our appetizer was fries three ways- porcini mushroom dusted, sweet potato, and lime salt with dipping sauces of citrus chipotle & truffle aioli. chris had a burger and i had a croque madame, which is a croque monsieur with an egg on top (my high school french teacher would be proud!). for dessert we had the krispy kreme brulee (delicious! though it didn't really taste like the donut) with espresso chocolate chip cookies. we have lived in greenville almost three years and really enjoyed our apartment complex. this year we are starting to look for houses, and yesterday was our first outing with the realtor. it was really fun, but kind of exhausting! there's so much to think about. we saw four houses and there was one that i could really see us in. when you find one you like, it's hard not to imagine way ahead- chris was thinking about having a "man cave" and i was thinking about a craft room for my art projects. when we were at our favorite (so far) house, i ran back upstairs to take one more picture, and i found myself getting a little teary looking into one of the bedrooms and thinking, this could be a nursery one day! i guess it's easy to get emotional buying a house because it is so much more than money or how many rooms it has- it's where you are relocating your life. good thing for me, i have a logical-minded, engineering husband who can balance me out. we are meeting with our realtor again next weekend to look at several more. i am eager & hopeful, but i also want to be patient and trust in God's timing & provision for this (and all!) area(s) of our life.

holidays continued...to 2011!

we have enjoyed a whole week off for christmas & new year's. for the first time ever, christopher & i had our own christmas eve and christmas day celebration before visiting family. i wanted to make a special dinner and use our china, but i didn't want the traditional menu. i made chicken fettuccine alfredo with salad and garlic bread: our church's christmas eve service wasn't until 11pm, so after dinner we had plenty of time to drive around and look at lights. on christmas morning, we made banana pancakes and opened presents from each other. one of the things we got were study bibles. i am hoping this will help us understand the bible better and give us insights into some of the historical contexts. later in the morning we drove to augusta to visit our parrents. apparently, we missed a white christmas in greenville, but we had a beautiful drive to alabama the next day- there was snow on the ground and in the trees. we had a nice visit with grandmother and daddy buck. we also got to see my cousin ashley and her fiance, patrick. they got engaged last month and will be getting married in june! we came back to augusta and got to visit with some of chris' high school friends, the boxes and jessica...and some of mine- lindsey & gerrit. (check out the dogs- they were playing at our feet and i didn't realize it would show in the picture!) 2010 has been a great year: we celebrated our third anniversary in charleston. we traveled to chicago for tori's wedding. we celebrated milestones with family- my grandmother's 80th birthday and our brother's & cousin's engagements. we continued to be active in our church, christopher with playing softball & coaching upward basketball and me with the women's ministry. we also started serving as AWANA leaders for third grade girls & boys. God is showing us new ways to use our resources to serve Him. one amazing thing that happened in 2010 was paying off my student loans and being 100% debt free! we have grown in the Lord through our bible studies. i prayed for God to reveal His character to me, and through a study of the patriarchs i was reminded that God is absolutely trustworthy, He is faithful even when we are not, His love is unconditional, and He pursues us because he wants us to have closer relationships with Him. i have many hopes for 2011, and i am eager to see what God will do in our lives over the next year!

my sweet husband (our anniverary & my birthday)

last wednesday, august 11th, marked 3 years of marriage for christopher & me! we are thankful for God bringing us together and for strengthening our marriage these past few years. we have many more to go! we spent the weekend celebrating with a trip to charleston, which chris planned and kept a surprise until last week. i hadn't been there since middle school and had been wanting to visit again, now that we're south carolinians and all. we stayed at an antebellum hotel downtown called the mills house.on friday evening we took a carriage tour of downtown. i love the quaint row houses and cobblestone streets! on saturday, chris & i each planned an activity. there was an art museum two blocks from our hotel, the gibbes museum, so i couldn't resist that! chris was very patient with me as i enjoy taking my time looking at paintings.chris chose for us to visit ft. sumter, so we took a ferry that afternoon. he definitely enjoyed looking at the monument and old cannons. i was reminded about how little i retained from u.s. history, which i attribute to having coaches for all my high school history classes!
we ate delicious food (especially seafood!) all weekend. my favorite restaurants we went to were magnolia's, where they serve kind of a modern southern cuisine, and hominy grill, a quaint brunch place where the servers wear t-shirts that read "grits are good for you." when we left the hotel on sunday morning, there was a torrential downpour! chris had to navigate alternate streets so as not to forge the rivers that various streets had become. we had planned to drive to the beach at isle of palms before going home, so we headed there (less than a half hour drive), hoping the rain would subside. it did briefly, but began again. we just decided to enjoy our time there, since we were getting wet anyway!
my husband is a master of surprises. i brag to my coworkers (who, being counselors, are pretty good at confidentiality!) that christopher is like a vault...i haven't had a chance to blog about it, but he also surprised me on my birthday in july. i wanted to get some friends together at my favorite restaurant in greenville, the lazy goat (mediterranean tapas food). chris made all the reservations. my favorite part of any meal is dessert, and this is especially important on a birthday. i thought maybe friends could come over for cake and coffee afterwards. chris led me to believe he had some amazing dessert in the fridge (i wasn't allowed to look in it all afternoon), and then surprised me at the restaurant by having them (singing, of course), bring out a mint chocolate cake from their sister restaurant/bakery. it was delicious! i love christopher!