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!

Interesting Election Thoughts

OK so I am up this morning and one of the first things I am doing (just like many mornings) is checking blog updates.  I guess I just like to start my day with some new information!  I was reading my pastor's blog and under his comments about the election he referred to another one of his pastor friends J.D. Greear and I just found some of the things that he said to be right on with the what I think we need to do as a country now so I wanted to share them as well.  If you want to visit either blog you can click on the link or click on the link of the right side of our blog to visit our pastor's blog.

Whether you personally like it or not, Barak Obama is our president now.  As such, he deserves the prayer, support and respect due to someone in that office.  Paul commands us to honor and serve our rulers as the ministers of God (so far, of course, as conscience allows).  Speaking disrespectfully of them is an offense against God and a bad testimony to the name of Christ.  (1 Peter 2; Romans 13).  He is our president and he has my prayer and respectful support.  

Our citizenship as Christians is not in the United States of America, but in heaven.  Our hopes and our loyalties lie first and foremost there.

Just thought i'd share...hope everyone is having a great weekend.  We arrived safely in TN last night and are getting ready to head to the UT game today...I'm sure I will have some pics to update with from the game!

Halloween Fun

Our cute little halloween pooch!

Here are a few pictures from our Halloween last night. We ended up having a busy afternoon as soon as we left school! We came home and had a heating company here working on installing our gas fireplace (which hopefully will be inspected and running soon) and then ordered pizza to get ready for some trick or treaters! We had about 50 kids or so come to our house. Quite a few of them were kids that either James or I know from school and it was neat to see them all dressed up and to know that they made a special trip to come to our house! Here are some pictures of our pumpkins that we carved for the front porch. James and I didn't dress up but AJ sure did make a great pumpkin, didn't he? Surprisingly enough he actually didn't mind having the costume on for a while...but then he started to tear it off as expected but atleast it lasted a little while...maybe he will like it more next year!

Carving the pumpkins on our back porch

James holding the cut out of the "Power T"

So I was trying to make a scary pumpkin...but I think he turned out kinda cute instead!

The glowing Power T!

Doesn't AJ look happy in his costume??