Last Post Of 2008

Well as James and I get ready to set off on our journey to Florida I thought I would put up one last post for the year.  We leave for Ft. Lauderdale tomorrow morning and will take two days to drive down there and then we depart on our cruise on Wednesday afternoon!  Over Christmas break James has revealed to me all the places we will be going by giving me several different travel books that have information on the places we will be going.  It turns out we are going some places that I never imagined I would ever make it to which are: Cozumel, Costa Maya, Belize, and Roatan.  After looking through all the books I am totally excited to get to explore these places and I'm also pretty pumped to see what is going to be on our boat, The Miracle from Carnival Cruise lines!  Like I said we depart this Wednesday the 31st and we will be gone for 8 days and 7 nights so we are expecting to be back in NC by the 9th or 10th of January.  

On another note it seems kinda crazy to be writing the last post for the year.  If I think back on all of the major things that have happened in my life this past year it really is amazing.  James and I got married, we spent our first full year as home owners, we got certified to scuba dive, James finished up his Master's degree, and we also found a great church this year where we both got baptised back in August.  I truly feel like this has been one of the best years of my life so far even though it seemed to fly by.  I am really looking forward to what 2009 will bring and even though it seems that the state of our country is not at its best right now I am optimistic that we have some great things to look forward to this year!

James and I wish everyone a safe and fabulous New Year and even though we won't be able to call anyone to say "Happy New Year", we will be thinking of you all while we are on the boat at midnight on the 31st!  See you next year!

Christmas Fun!

Well James and I had a great last couple days celebrating with our families here in Tennessee.  We were lucky enough to be able to spend quality time with both of our families.  Christmas eve we went to my cousin Natalie's house for dinner and to just hang out together.  Then we went to James's house to stay and we woke up Christmas morning to the Brown traditional banging on the iron skillet!  No one is allowed to get out of bed until Dad bangs on the skillet to let everyone know that breakfast is ready and it's time to get up!  It was fun to be able to learn more about his families traditions.  

We then went to my Aunt Eileen's house for Christmas dinner and to do gifts with that side of the family.  It was great to get to see everyone, my cousin Greg even came to town who we haven't seen in about two years.  The only ones who unfortunately didn't make it were Eric who was up in Michigan celebrating with his girlfriend and her family and also Mom was unfortunately not there because she has a stomach bug.  She seems to be getting better though so hopefully she will be back to her old self soon!  Here are a few pictures from the last few days...


James and I taking a "self portrait" at Aunt Eileen's house...I am getting pretty good at these if I do say so myself!

James's Aunt Carol Dean brought a reindeer costume that she thought would look cute on AJ...what do you think??  He is such a good sport!

James and Brennan sporting some bows from their packages

Greg was lucky enough to get the traditional gag gift of the family...the fart machine!  Yes we are quite the special family, always love a good laugh!

We hope that everyone else has had a wonderful Christmas with their family.  James and I are truly thankful for all of our wonderful friends and family that we have been blessed to be with this year and we look forward to seeing what's to come in 2009!

Busy As Can Be...

Winter Wonderland!

Here is a cool picture that James took somewhere along our travels up north.  The first night we were in Michigan for Eric's graduation we got six inches of snow and also got six inches two nights later...so yep we saw quite a bit of snow!  When we left Michigan and took the train to Chicago we were lucky enough to feel what a -30 degree wind chill felt like which needless to say we didn't like.  We went in a few stores while we were there and then hopped in the cab to catch our train to Grandpa's house.

Visiting With Friends In Michigan!

James and I got to stop and spend some time with Kelly and Justin while we were in Michigan also.  It was great to get to spend some time with them since we haven't seen them since the wedding.  It was Kelly's birthday this weekend also so we celebrated that with a few drinks which was fun!  With all the snow coming through the departure from there place was a little rough but after having to drive through a snow storm and stop at several different train stations we finally made it out of town and on our way to Chicago.

"Cheers" Happy 27th birthday to Kelly!

A quick shot of James and I at the bar celebrating

Kelly & Justin

James hanging out with Gracie, Kelly & Justin's sweet little Boston Terrier

Scuba Diving Galore!

Last but definitely not least James and I finished up our scuba diving certification a few weeks ago while we were in Gainsville and I haven't been able to add any pictures yet so I thought I would do that as well!  Even though it was an exhausting weekend when we went to Florida, we had a great time and really learned a lot.  We are officially certified to dive now and are excited to get to do some diving on our cruise!

A picture of James and I after our first dive

Here is a picture of what it looked like walking into Devil's Den, the second place that we dove.  We had to walk down rocky steps into an underground cavern which was a little scary but it was awesome to be able to see the underground lake!  This place was a little bit harder to be able to see but we got to swim with a few catfish and a cool turtle so we enjoyed ourselves of course!

Here we our with our instructor, Hal who we really enjoyed learning from and has been absolutely great to work with.

My first underwater picture...giving what we quickly learned was the "I need to go up" signal, not the "I'm OK" signal!

My great dive buddy!

Official scuba divers...taken after our last dive of the trip!

Here We Go...

James and I are getting ready this morning for our first official scuba diving adventure. We are leaving to go to Gainsville, FL to do our checkout dives for our certification. We will be visiting two places this weekend to make four seperate dives. We are both a little nervous about it but totally excited at the same time! I thought I would post the sites so you all could see some of the cool things we will be seeing...hopefully! On Saturday we are going to a place called Blue Gratto (http://www.sfdj.com/springs_issue/bgrotto.htm) and we will be doing three dives there and then on Sunday we will be getting up and doing one last dive at a place called Devil's Den (www.devilsden.com). We hope that everyone has a great weekend this weekend and we will DEFINITELY be posting some new pictures when we get back!

A little gift for Molly...

We took a little time tonight and went over to Brian & Melissa's house for dinner and also to give Molly her Christmas present that we got her because we aren't going to be around much for the next few weeks...needless to say from the first picture you can tell how happy she was to see us when we arrived!

Lucky for us Molly calmed down a little after getting a bit scared of James's camera. After dinner James and Brian gave Molly a bath while Melissa and I planned for Tara's going away party tomorrow. I have to say it was pretty sweet hearing James talk to Molly during her bath!Look at the sweet baby getting oh so fresh and so clean!

Oh my...too much going on in this tub!

All finished with the bath and gazing up at Daddy with loving eyes!

Yup...gotta love soft cuddly animals when you get out of the tub!

OK now this brings us to present time...after a little convincing Molly was ready to start tearing into her gift!

Tearing into it little by little...ohhh gotta love wrapping paper!
What did we find inside you ask? Good ole TEDDY RUXPIN!!! Yes that's right we found one of our childhood favorite's in the store the other day and knew it would be perfect for Ms. Molly for Christmas. At first I wasn't sure if Mom or Molly was more excited!

Molly got aquainted with Teddy real fast and gave him a kiss before we could even get him out of the box!

Hey guys...how do we get him out of here?

WOW! There he is...and he talks!

Molly definitely seemed to love Teddy very much and she was fascinated with the way that his mouth would move when he talks. She wasn't very interested in the book that went with the story right now but the proud Daddy said it would only be a matter of months before she would be reading it! Way to go Molly!

Well after a long day we had one tired baby on our hands...what a sweet girl!

Christmas Fun has Begun!

James and I kicked off our official holiday season this week when we decorated our mantle with my family's nativity set. It was really exciting to see that set in our home and to be able to set it up with James and tell him stories of when we used to set it up when we were kids!

We also had our Christmas party with our small group from Elevation yesterday and we had a great time. Scott cooked some fabulous vegetarian chili and we also had taco dip, corn bread, and apple pie for dessert of course, yum! James and I have had a really great time getting to know everyone from our small group over the past few months. It has really helped us feel like we belong more with the church and we have met some really wonderful people! Jeremy and Judy gave us all some fun gifts that I had never seen before...you pull of the ends and the gift pops out...not to mention the crowns and corny jokes that were inside...we all had lots of laughs!


James and I with our crowns on and our gifts!

Scott and April...one of the set of expectant parents in our group!

Judy & Jeremy...our fearless leaders and the other set of expectant parents!

Eric & Carrianne all dressed up for the Florida game...we were all thinking of Carrianne last night while watching the game and i'm glad that she will be able to breathe now!

Our group shot...it only took us about 5 attemps with the timer on the camera but we finally got it! What a good looking group!

Scott & April's dog Doozer...he entertains us all each week!

And you know if we put up another dog we have to add AJ as well...this is probably what he was doing while we were at the party!

A Thanksgiving Adventure...

This Thanksgiving we decided to make the hike down to Biloxi, Mississippi to visit James's brother and his family for the holidays. James and I started out ready and excited for our trip Tuesday after school. We rushed out of school by about 2:15 and were on our way home to pack up the taurus (we were taking this down to give to James's nephew Austin) and grab AJ to be on our way. We left the house shortly before 3:00 and made a quick stop at Petsmart to get AJ's nails clipped and went to Target to get some allergy medicine (there family has two husky's and I was a little worried about my allergies)...turns out my allergies were going to be the least of my worries over the next 24 hours!

Anyways we were on our way to Biloxi by about 3:30 that afternoon and after about 2 1/2 hours we decided to stop for dinner and to switch so I could start driving. About 30min into my drive I noticed that there was some smoke coming out of the back of the car...so we stopped in a gas station and James checked everything out and it seemed to be alright so we got back on the road. We kept on eye on things and from what we could tell the smoking had stopped. All seemed well until my surprise the car decided that it no longer wanted to accelerate while I was driving...I kept pressing on the gas and the engine would rev but we weren't going anywhere. Luckily God was watching out for us and we were able to make it off the expressway as the car continued to slow down and there was nothing coming at the exit so we didn't have to stop in order to make it into the gas station that was there. A very nice guy helped us push the car up under the lights of the gas pumps so that we could open the hood and take a look at things. To make a long story short here the gas station was getting ready to close (it was 10pm) and we could not get ahold of the tow truck company and there are no cab services in town...we were both in good spirits the whole time though I have to admit when I looked around and realized that we were in the middle of nowhere at a gas station that was about to close...I got a bit scared. Lucky for us it seems that everyone in the town of Madison, GA is incredibly nice and both the cashier at the gas station and a customer offered to take us (along with all of our stuff and little AJ) to a hotel at the next exit so we pushed the car back into a parking spot and off we went to the hotel.

James's brother decided that he was going to drive up from Biloxi (a 6 hour trip) to meet us and give us a ride to his place and just tow the taurus back behind his car so that he could figure out what was wrong with it so his brother Robert and his wife Misti set out to come rescue us. We were able to get a few hours sleep but it turns out that while we were sleeping poor Misti got a speeding ticket and they also decided to stop mid-trip and get a little sleep at a hotel. James and I got up early the next morning and James spent probably a good two hours on the phone looking for a u-haul place that had a car dolly. During that time I decided to walk to a gas station and get us coffee and then I came back to take a shower. That was when the first smoke alarm went off. It appears that the alarms in this hotel were INCREDIBLY sensitive to smoke, steam, or anything else that came up next to them because both James and I set it off during the morning.

Robert and Misti finally arrived just after noon and we were on our way...or so we thought. We ended up having to stop and get an oil change in their car (which seemed like it took hours) and then we went to get the taurus. The rest of the trip back to Biloxi went a lot more smoothly though it seemed to take forever. It was alright though because we were able to do a lot of talking and laughing with Robert and Misti in the car with us to pass the time. We finally made it home by about 9pm Biloxi time, which is 10pm Charlotte time. That means that our trip that we thought would take about 10hour ended up taking approximately 31hours and THAT my friends has been our Thanksgiving adventure so far!

We will update when we get home with pics and stuff from the trip but just thought I would let you all know how things are going so far...say a little prayer for us on the way home on Saturday that things go a bit more smoothly!

The Power of the T or lack there of

These are some pictures that were taken of our recent trip to TN. Sorry for the delay. It sure is nice to get home to TN and see everyone. As you all know Anna's mom had a b-day and another shoutout is in order towards her.

Thanks for continuing to read our blog, and enjoy the pictures.

This is the beginning of the band coming out to make the Power T.



The closest I will unfournately get to ever running through the T.



This is Smokey coming out. The real fun. For all you folks that do not know he is a good ole Blue Tick Hound.

This is the next Smokey coming out. He does not bite, the other one bites hard. Only Gator fans though.



This sure is a hardcore group of Vol fans. All smiles even though this picture was taken after the game.
Even the Electrical wire balls are orange. This is a hardcore football town. Even when we are not so good.

This was a nice picture taken at Melton Hill Dam Campground that I stayed at when I went camping with Michael and David.

This is David. I do not know if I would pick him up or not. You never know especially in the middle of nowhere in good ole TN.

This picture was taken right out from our campground. Our campground was right on the water with a great view.

The camping crew before going camping. Still all smiles even though TN let us down!

This is the majestic horse that we want to get when we move to our new house in TN. Anyone have any ideas what kind of horse this is?

I know all smiles is great and everything. Sure is not a smile here. Turn that frown upside down. Sure do not want it to get stuck like that.

Happy Birthday To A Wonderful Mother

Mom & Dad at Mom's birthday celebration!

Is that a cake or a porcupine???

Well tomorrow is my Mom's birthday and we went out to dinner with everyone to celebrate last night.  We had a great time going out to eat at Carraba's and then we went over to Natalie's house for some cake and ice cream afterwards.  Natalie and Eileen had the great idea to decorate Mom's cake with 62 candles for her 61 wonderful years of life plus one to grow on! We were really happy to be able to spend Mom's birthday with her this year and also get to see some other family as well.  James and I also got introduced to rock band when we played with Brady and Brennan and man was that entertaining!  Lets just say that I think we are going to be pretty famous some day!

Aunt Eileen, Mom, & Brennan

The cake after all those candles were lit...so what if we had a little wax in the frosting when we were done!

How many people will it take to blow out the candles?

Our bands...I have to say I think I was a better drummer then I was singer...

James and I...ready to rock & roll!

Needless to say we had a great time with family yesterday.  Tomorrow we will be heading back home to good ole Monroe and are hoping to stop in Asheville along the way and do a little hiking on our way back.  We also went to the UT game this weekend but I do not have the pictures to upload yet so I will leave that part to James when we get home!