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!

recent happenings

we have been in our new house about a week and a half now. we had a great group of friends who helped us move in. we are so thankful for their friendship & help!
we moved the same weekend as my dad's 60th birthday, and we were planning to surprise him the next day (sunday) for lunch. it turned out that since the move went so smoothly (and quicker than we thought, thanks to my sweet engineer husband who streamlined everything), we were able to go to augusta that same saturday (my dad's actual birthday) and surprise him for dinner! he was not expecting it, and we had a great visit.
we are slowly getting things unpacked, but i am seeing that it is going to be a process. this is the first time in my life i've moved where i didn't have 2 weeks or a whole summer off of work and school to get settled.
we are getting used to our new location and driving a little further to get places. downtown doesn't seem as far as i thought it would. i went to liz's birthday downtown last week (but unfortunately didn't take any good pictures!). tonight i had dinner at the nosedive with my sweet girls from bible study, as an end-of-the-study party. i am sad that we no longer have a central location to meet. the four on the left are new moms or moms-to-be, which is exciting! these girls have challenged me in my faith and "spurred me on to good works," which i thank God for!

round trip

this weekend we drove to alabama so i could attend my cousin ashley's bridal tea sunday. on the way down saturday, we got to have lunch with our college friends luke & julia. luke just returned from kosovo after a year of military duty. i know he must be so glad to be reunited with his wife & baby daughter, carrigan! (she was at her grandparents' for the day here.)we went to church on sunday, and my grandmother proceeded to introduce me & christopher [read: show us off] to no less than 20 or so of her friends. keep in mind this is at a church where that probably comprises 20% of the congregation! we went to the bridal tea shortly after church, while the men went to lunch. it's funny, because there was actually no tea involved. it was basically a shower. except it felt more like a reception. our gifts were opened discreetly by the hostesses and displayed on several tables for all to see while everyone mingled and ate. i think this is how things are done in small southern towns. it was fun to meet some of ashley's other bridesmaids that i will be seeing more of over the next two months. here i am with the beautiful bride, her mother (aunt jenny), and our grandmother. grandmother is wearing the same dress that she wore to her & daddy buck's 50th wedding anniversary (they are now going on 63 years!) and to mine & christopher's wedding. on the way back through atlanta, we got to have dinner with our good friends wes & blakely. we enjoyed little szechuan while their sweet boys, ashton & collin played. soon it was their bedtime and ashton was in his little monkey pj's. i asked him if i could have a hug and he said "yeah, sure!" they are both so sweet! it really works out well that many of our friends living in atlanta are in the perfect path for us to meet up with on our way through town. we love greenville, but we do miss our atlanta friends!

blessings

i heard a quote once: nothing happens, and nothing happens, and then everything happens. we had a period of about a week-and-a-half like this last month. first, we found out christopher was promoted to lead engineer! in case you're wondering, he does still work on the hot gas path. while this isn't as hilarious as the first time i heard it, it still strikes me as kind of funny. the next big thing that happened was that i also got a promotion at my job! my new role will start next month as a mental health counselor II. (as opposed to a mental health counselor I; the government is very creative with their titles.) and then, the biggest news of all was that we made an offer on a house, and the sellers accepted!! in a few weeks, we will be calling this home:eva is going to have fun running around in the backyard! we are so thankful for all three of these blessings. God is good!

flashback

last weekend our sunday school class had an 80s & 90s party. we collected music from those decades to listen to at the party, and we all dressed up. i had a great time looking through my cds from the 90s. some highlights include early alanis morissette, ace of base, coolio, and the one-hit-wonder preconfigured-dance-move favorite: the macarena.
a few weeks ago, i was telling a (50-year-old) coworker about our party, and she let me borrow some great 80s songs she had on record (or lp, or whatever they used back then) from when she was my age! what i really love about the 80s style are the bright colors- purple and teal are some of my favorites. amazingly, i already had almost everything i needed in my closet for my outfit. i did buy a t-shirt and some cheap jewelry. but, i didn't buy anything i won't be wearing again. you can't really tell in the picture, but i wore the hot pink floret earrings. i really enjoy having these in so many colors!as much as i wanted us to go as an 80s couple, it is very difficult to create a boy's outfit from the 80s. props to brandon who was able to do this (two pictures below, second from the left). his wife lori (the one i mentioned in my previous post makes jewelry ) made him a clip on earring. for chris' 90s look, we found a nirvana t-shirt at target, and he wore an unbuttoned flannel shirt over that. when he paired it with his boots (which may actually be from the 90s!) and cargo shorts, he was ready with his grunge band look. most of the girls decided to dress 80s. i really love lori's walkman accessory (she's to the right of me below). she said she found it at home in her nightstand!the guys are a mix of the two decades. here is what we called their band "album cover" shot! it was a great night, and it got me wondering: what styles will we laugh at from the 2000s in ten years?

paperie

something i really enjoy doing in my spare time is making greeting cards. ever since i was in elementary school, i can remember making my own cards to give to family and friends for birthdays and other holidays. i recently bought some scrapbook paper and other fun crafty items to do a craft night with my bible study girls between studies, intending to use the leftover paper to make some cards. that night we made bookmarks to use with our study books. here's mine:i really admire (and maybe secretly envy!) people that have a unique hobby that they could potentially turn into a full (or part) time job. one of my friends, liz, is a talented photographer and started her own business, yellow umbrella photography. another friend, lori, makes beautiful jewelry and recently set up a shop online for simply idyllic. maybe one day i will sell my cards...i just imagine it being hard to earn a living on products that are essentially paper and glue! i think sometimes it's just fun to dream about doing something else when my real job is challenging or doesn't seem particularly fun.i think one reason i enjoy making cards is that it combines two things i truly love: creativity and encouragement (or words of affirmation, for you 5 love languages fans). i like having cards around because you never know when you might want to send someone a handwritten note.

adventures in house hunting

christopher & i spent the better part of saturday looking at seven more houses with our realtor, josephine. i was curious how long this was going to take us because last weekend, four houses took 3 hours! i guess we're getting faster because it didn't take double that. we saw some great houses, and i couldn't put my finger on why but a few just didn't pop for me. josephine says we have to love it, almost instinctively. i have enjoyed this process so far, and we have a couple houses we really do like a lot.

one really funny thing happened at one of the older houses: we were looking around downstairs, then i was the first one to go upstairs to look in the master bedroom. at first i gasped when i saw this hairy thing in the middle of the floor. then i thought, no- that couldn't be...must be a dog toy or something (keep in mind that the house was completely vacant). but it was, we discovered, a dead squirrel! just sprawled out, legs every which way in the middle of the floor. josephine thought it was really sad and wouldn't set foot in the room, i thought it was really disgusting and tip-toed past so i could look at the master closet, and christopher thought the whole thing was truly hilarious...and took pictures. i'll spare you and limit it to one:
we developed a scenario for what must have happened, based on the squirrel's positioning: christopher thought he got in through the roof. josephine & i thought he must have wandered around desperately, looking for water or a nut. then he dragged his body across the carpeted desert until his strength gave way and he collapsed dead. fortunately he had not been dead very long- so christopher tells me, with his ME experience (as in, medical examiner not mechanical engineer!) from watching law & order reruns.

as we were leaving that house, our realtor called the selling agent of the home to let her know there was a dead squirrel in the middle of her master bedroom. she said a what? after josephine clarified, the agent wanted to know - other than the dead squirrel - what we thought of the house! um, it's not at the top of our list.