JEG...The Story Of Us!

Our Gatlinburg Adventure!

2011-01-06T10:12:00.000-05:00

Here are a few pictures from the week we spent here in Gatlinburg! We leave today to head back home and back to reality with work starting on Monday. I have to say that this has probably been one of my favorite breaks so far and I have truly enjoyed all the time we got to spend with family this break!

Our Cabin - Legacy Peek!

A few pictures from our visit to the Titanic exhibit. This was a very cool exhibit where you even get assigned a name that you are going through and you get to find out in the end if you lived or died!

Some pictures below from the aquarium...definitely a great place where we saw some of our favorite sea creatures!

An eel above and a saw shark below...had never seen one of these before and it swam right over our heads!

Two of our favorites, the leafy sea dragon (above) and of course the penguin...this ones name was Norman!

Here are some pictures of the inside of our cabin...the place we stayed at was called Gatlinburg Falls and I would definitely reccomend it!

And of course a few pictures of the snow!

Open The Eyes of my Heart...

2010-12-14T16:48:00.000-05:00

I felt like I needed to add a special song to go along with the pictures from Africa. One of my favorite times of the day was our devotions and this is one of the songs that we would sing on some of the days. I feel like it kinda sums things up when I listen to the words and it makes me think of the way that the Lord opened my eyes while I was in Africa!

Africa Pictures...

2010-12-14T16:26:00.000-05:00

Well I know i've been back for 3 weeks without an update...but between recovering from jet lague, time change, Thanksgiving, finishing up my grad school class, and getting back to work...it has been a busy three weeks to say the least! I have just today started going through my over 600 pictures from Africa and thought I would post a few while I have a chance to do so!

I have talked to many of you since I have been back to share stories, etc and look forward to talking to many more! Africa was a life changing experience to say the least and I know that I will never be the same again which is SUCH a good thing! I truly have learned to thank my God every day for the things that he has given me in my life and I can't wait to see what is to come! Here are a few pictures from the beginning of the trip to start things off and I will post more again soon!

Above is the view from our plane of the sunset when we were flying over seas. Our trip started at 2:45am when we met at the church and then drove to the airport to leave at 6:10am. We flew from Charlotte to DC and then went from DC to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with a stop in Rome to fuel up (about 17hrs) and then we went from Addis Ababa to Lilongwe with a stop in Lambashi (about 6hrs) for a total travel of about 25 hours when you include layovers...WOW!!

This is a picture of the mountain we saw from the plane when we landed in Ethiopia. I'd say one of the highlights of the flight had to be seeing the Nile river from the plane which unfortunately the light wasn't good for me to get a picture.

Below is a picture of the group we were greeted by when we got to Malawi. I had never been greeted with such love and warmth by people that I had never met before and looking back now I never knew how much I too would grow to love these people over the next few weeks!

This is the "coaster" (named by the bumpy ride) which we used to travel in while we were there.

A picture of the view of the lake...Kamuzu Dam...where we were staying at the first week that we were there.

A picture of my bed the first week we were there...mosquito net and all! The accomodations were better then I had thought to begin with and although the showers we took were definitely cold...we were thankful just to feel clean!

The outside of the building that we slept in the first week in Nsanje (Na-sin-ja).

A picture of some of the houses we saw the first day that we went out into the villages...most houses were built of brick with straw rooves and dirt floors.

Baby Angel...pastor Jackson & his wife Mary's precious baby girl that we got to spend some time with while we were there!

These are pictures of the church that Pastor Jackson is with and where we went to church the first two Sundays that we were in town.

OK I think that's a good start...more pictures of some of the work that we did while we were there will be coming soon!

All My Bags Are Packed...

2010-11-04T22:24:00.000-04:00

and i'm ready to go!!!! :) We meet at 2:45am at the church to head to the airport for our 6:05am flight! We then go up to DC and in DC change to Ethiopian airlines and fly to Rome and then on to Malawi...travel time should be about 26 hours and we should arrive (from what I figure) at about 8:30am on Saturday NC time. If I am able to use the internet I will be posting and adding pictures here when I get a chance so keep checking back while I am gone!

Before I go I wanted to update with a few pictures of what we have been up to over the last two weeks! Tara came down for a baby shower and it was great to see her & Justin and celebrate with friends to get ready to welcome their new little girl in March!

Above is the diaper cake I made for little "frogger" and below is the cake that Melissa's mom made for the shower!!

A picture of Tara & I

Tara, Robin, and litle Anna...I thought this picture showed off her sweet baby belly!!!

We also had a great time celebrating Halloween with some friends last weekend and of course dressing up our little puppies for trick-or-treating!

Above is James's traditional Power T pumpkin and below is my pumpkin for the year!

Our little AJ the shark!

Kaiden was a little excited about his first halloween as a spider...kinda hard to get a good picture of him!

AJ and his little girlfriend Bailey!

Well that's about all that has been up with us besides going crazy getting ready for the trip! Hopefully next time I update I will have some news from Malawi! Please continue to pray for our mission group and all that God has in store for us while we are gone!

2 Weeks and Counting...

2010-10-20T21:55:00.000-04:00

I can't believe that we leave TWO weeks from Friday! Several people from the mission team left on Monday and a few others leave in the morning (including my dear friend Dwight who got me interested in this wonderful trip) so please keep them in your prayers as they are traveling! It has truly been amazing to me these last few weeks as I have been helping the team get ready for the trip how much there is to do that I never imagined. I would have never guessed in a million years that I would have been able to feel God's presence while counting out aspirin and packaging it for other people. It is crazy how several weeks ago we were so short of items that we were going to take on the trip and suddenly they all started pouring in and we have almost met most of our goals now!

One of the things I am most excited about taking to Africa is something that has personal meaning to me. My wonderful mother agreed to knit some scarves for the women who are AIDS patients in Africa that we are going to visit. I could tell she was a little worried at first about time when I told her that we needed 15-20 scarves in about 2 months time but sure enough before I knew it she was giving me 19 beautiful hand made scarves that she poured her love into while making each one! I can't wait to take them over and get some pictures of the women in Malawi wearing the scarves. Here are a few pictures of them before they got packed...

I also got a list of items that I need to pack to take to Africa (in my 15lb carry on and back pack...yikes that's not a lot of space)!!! So...I am going to take a moment to beg and borrow here becuase my thought is that some of you may have the things that I need and maybe would let me borrow them so rather then spending money on buying these things I can take more money on the trip with me so here goes!! If anyone has any of the items below and you are willing to let me borrow them PLEASE let me know, it would be greatly appreciated and might even get you a little gift from Malawi (yes I'm willing to bribe you)!!
* A "carry-on" size suit case
* deet (bug spray) wipes
* money belt that will fit under clothing
* blow up pillow for the plane
* baby powder
* eye drops
* light weight flashlight
* small bottles of hand sanitizer
* a plug convertor
I realize that some of these things are things you may not want me to return but thought if anyone has them laying around the house and are not using them they could go to a good cause!!

Africa!

2010-10-03T18:15:00.000-04:00

Just over one month from now I leave on my mission trip to Africa. As many of you know I am so excited to go but yet so nervous at the same time. I am going with a group of about 20 amazing people that are all part of a mission group called Missions 4 Jesus. God definitely played a huge part in leading me to learn about this group after my life long dream of going to Africa. It was one of those things that I had thought about for years and talked about over and over but was always to scared to go. Well this time when the opportunity came up my wonderful husband decided that he wasn't going to let me take no for an answer and before I knew it I was signed up and on my way raising money for my trip!

I have already learned so much about myself through this process of preparing physically and spiritually to go on this trip. I go back and forth between feeling nervous and down right scared but every time I feel that way I am relieved to know that I am a child of such a wonderful God who will watch over me and take care of me while I am gone. And as Dwight (one of the men on our mission team who lead me to go on the trip) told me the other day..."we haven't lost anyone yet"...so i'm sure i'll be OK!

It seems like forever ago that I was having to think about getting my shots for this trip...with four shots complete and one more to go tomorrow I am so happy to be almost done with that! I know that this next month is going to fly by and before I know it November 5th will be here and I will be getting on the plane to start what will surely be one of the biggest life changing experiences I will ever have. I am so thankful to know that I have had so many people supporting me and praying for me and know that those love and prayers will continue while I am gone. I can't wait to get back from the trip and share with everyone what I lived and experienced while I was there!

I appologize for kind of skipping out on the blog the last two months but there has honestly been so much going on that I just didn't know where to start! I will do my best to update more as I prepare for this trip over the next month and will definitely have LOTS to share afterwards!

A Day At The Beach!

2010-07-10T22:49:00.000-04:00

Today I had a great time hanging out in Ohio and we spent a while at the beach this morning. It was a great time and a lot of fun to watch Molly play in the water and in the sand! Here are some pictures from our day!

Mommy & Raina getting ready to go out in the sun!

Heading out to the water...

Molly hanging out with Auntie Tara & Uncle Justin in the water!

Here comes Mommy bringing all the fun stuff for the day!

Molly building her sand castles.

Tonight when we came back Tara & Justin had to go to a meeting so Melissa and I took the girls out the back yard and had a frosty party while Melissa painted toe nails! Good times...

What a great & fun day! Can't wait to have a few more days of fun in Ohio!

Michigan!!

2010-07-10T10:26:00.000-04:00

OK so Tara & Melissa ASSURE me that people are still reading the blog so here I go with a post! I am up with Melissa & the kids visiting Tara & Justin in Ohio right now and I was able to rent a car and go to Michigan yesterday for a night! I stayed with Laura and got to finally meet her two wonderful children, Maddie and Charley! Here are a few pictures from my visit with her!

Here is little Maddie being an artist with her chalk!

And sweet little Charley in the new outfit that we got for him...what a cutie!

Spring Is In Bloom

2010-04-18T17:06:00.000-04:00

OK so I realize that once again it has been FOREVER since we have updated the blog but I honestly feel like we haven't really had that much exciting going on in our lives lately...I am proud to say though that over spring break I finished up my National Boards and shipped them off to be scored so now it is totally out of my hands and we are just praying for the best! James has also been working hard as always on his doctorate degree and he is looking forward to a small break that he has coming up soon as well!

Over break my mom and aunt Eileen came out to visit and they decided to surprise us and plant some beautiful flowers around the house for us so I thought I would update with pictures of those!

My mom passed on this planter to us last year and we have been so excited to get it filled with flowers!

They also found us this beautiful rooster planter that is so colorful on our front porch!

My wonderful husband also bought me some gerber daisy (my FAVORITE flower) hanging pots today for us to put on our front porch...it is looking nice and colorful out there now!

Well that is about all of the news for now...hopefully it will not be so long before an update next time. Please leave a comment and let us know if anyone is still out there reading! :)

Our newest addition!

2010-03-02T19:24:00.000-05:00

As many of you know James and I got a new puppy this weekend! He is a sweet goldendoodle and we have decided to name him Kaiden...which means "loyal friend and companion"! Over the last few days he has been wonderful and has not (knock on wood) had any accidents in the house! His puppy personality is definitely coming out though and we are looking forward to him getting out of the chewing stage! So far him and AJ get along OK for the most part though they definitely have their moments where AJ wants to be an only dog again! Hopefully time will make it better though :)

Happy Valentine's Day...and a few other things!

2010-02-14T21:50:00.000-05:00

James started off my Valentine's day weekend by having flowers sent to me at work on Friday...he is such a sweetheart and knows how to make me feel loved when i'm at work! We didn't have much money to go out and celebrate v-day this year so we decided to stay in and we cooked together...I made James a special pizza (his favorite food) for dinner and he made me some yummy chocolate covered strawberries for dessert! That is probably my FAVORITE treat and he makes them for me every year!

The heart shaped pizza I made...we ordered a heart shaped pizza from papa john's a few years ago but this one was made with much more love!!

We also got some snow this weekend on Friday night...it was very fun we got a few inches that came quickly and unfortunately it melted just as quickly as it came. Before it melted we got up Saturday morning and went out and enjoyed it with a snowball fight and a little fun!

Last but definitely not least I thought I would put up a few pictures from when my parents came out to visit last weekend. They came for four days and came into school to visit both mine and James's classes and they helped us out a lot around the house too! We definitely enjoyed our visit with them!

Dad helped me hang up lots of things around the house!

Mom & Dad also brought the newest member of the family, Oliver, to visit our house! He is definitely a sweetie!

We had our first official family gathering at our house too when Shelly and Gary and the boys came over for dinner. It was a lot of fun for James and I to be able to entertain family in our new house!

Well guess that's about all for now...I will try to do better this month with updates...if anyone is still out there reading!

A Long Overdue Update

2010-01-17T11:15:00.000-05:00

Well as Melissa has pointed out to me SEVERAL times it has been over a month since we last updated and I guess it is finally time to put one up! So much has happened over the last month and I was not in a place where I could update so I guess I just let it all pass by! I think I am just going to let the pictures tell you the story so that I don't leave anything major out so here goes...

Just after we got out of school we had the Kindergarten team over for a Christmas gathering...we drank lots of great wine and exchanged gift cards...a good time was had by all!

James and I also decided to bake Christmas cookies this year and deliver them to our neighbors. I think he got a little more then he bargained for when he signed up to bake cookies but it was fun delivering them to our neighbors and getting to meet more of them!

Then we headed to Tennessee to have Christmas with our families!

Mom got us all "poppers" that had little flutes inside for us to play a song together...it didn't sound very good at all...we definitely need more practice before we go on the road!

A nice picture in front of the tree of the Bogusky side of the family...guess our side doesn't like to have a picture taken!!

After Tennessee we headed to Michigan and Illinois (there and back in 3 days) to visit Eric and Grandpa.

Yep...we saw LOTS of snow and even some deer in Grandpa's yard which was pretty cool!

And THAT my friends just about sums up the month of December for us! We started back at work this past weekend after 3 weeks off and are currently enjoying our 3 day weekend since we have Monday off for MLK day! James and I are right back at it with our graduate and doctorate work and are also trying to do a reading with our church...the new testament in 30 days...so needless to say we are doing a LOT of reading between all of that! We are going to also be getting our house painted and a new fence this week so I will take pictures of those and that will probably be our next post!

This weekend my cousin Tyler is staying with us and we got to take him to his pinewood derby for boyscouts yesterday. I had never experienced anything like it but thought I would post a few pics from that too!

These are the cars that the boys made...I was VERY impressed by how creative the are!

Tyler (on the right) took 3rd place once, 2nd place once, and 1st place in three of his races so needless to say he was very excited and we were very proud of him too!

OK I think that is all for now...hope that satisfies you Melissa (haha) and we will hopefully post more soon!

Holiday Fun!

2009-12-13T13:26:00.001-05:00

Well we sure have been busy around here getting ready for the holidays! I think that we can finally say that we have all of our shopping done and we have been very excited to decorate our new house and put up our Christmas tree. Here are a few pictures of our decorations!

Our mantle with the nativity scene that my grandmother made and our Christmas tree!

AJ's Christmas picture!

Last night we also had our staff Christmas party for school. We all went to a local golf club and had dinner and did some dancing. It was a lot of fun to get to see everyone outside of work and spend time together!

The kindergarten team...well those of us that were at the party atleast!

"The guidance girls!"

Our principal...a.k.a Santa!

James with Mr. Wright our custodian...Mr. Wright was lookin good and his "pimp hat" was a hot item at the party!

James and I have had a really great start to the holidays so far and we are excited to get to spend one more week at school and then have three weeks off to spend with our families!

Final Project

2009-11-25T21:39:00.000-05:00

I had my final level 1 cake decorating class yesterday so thought I would post a picture of my final cake for the class! Let me know what you think!

My Newest Hobby!

2009-11-19T22:28:00.000-05:00

Well that's right about a month and a half ago I was walking around in Hobby Lobby with James and just as we were going out the door I saw a sign for an upcoming Wilton cake decorating class...so what did I do? I signed up of course! I mean I did have two free nights during the week so why not fill up one of them with something fun! I am taking the class with my friend Jeanne that I work with and we have had a lot of fun doing it together so far! Here are some pictures of the cakes that I have made. My last class for this session will be this coming Tuesday so stay tuned for pictures of my "final project"!! Oh boy!

This was the first cake that I made...we were pretty much able to choose our creation and it was definitely fun! I was very proud of having a filling in the cake which I had never done before!

This was the second cake that we made in class when we learned how to make clowns. I thought they were super cute and fun to make, I really enjoyed this one!

Keep me in mind as your official cake decorator for the next clown party at your house!!

This guy was my favorite with his legs hanging off the side!

Finally I just finished up a cake this evening for a friend of ours on James's grade level who will be celebrating her 60th birthday next week! We are having a few people over tomorrow to celebrate with her so James thought it would be a good time for my cake debut!

I had fun getting creative with this cake and making the roses...James insisted on having black roses for the cake! I think it turned out pretty good though I will definitely be working on my cake writing skills!

This was the first rose that I made in our class...it's supposed to be the hardest thing to make for cakes! If anyone has a sweet tooth just stop on by our house because after these last few weeks I think I am done eating cake for a while!

Sunset Beach

2009-11-15T17:55:00.000-05:00

Last weekend my wonderful hubby surprised me with a trip to the beach for the weekend! I came home from class on Thursday and was told to pack my bags and that we were leaving the next day! We went to Sunset Beach which is about 3 1/2 hours from our house and just relaxed and walked around the beach and enjoyed spending time together...it was FABULOUS! We had both been really busy with work and classes lately and it was nice to just get away and leave all of that behind! I'm one of those people that the sound of the waves crashing is instantly calming for me so it was great to just walk and talk with the man I love and have been married to for 16 months (he said the trip was for our 16month anniversary)!!

I thought it was pretty cool looking at our footprints in the sand...so I took a picture of course!

We both tested out the water and didn't get much farther then our toes...it was COLD!

Beautiful scenery and crashing waves...a perfect combo!

Welcome To The World Baby Rayna!

2009-11-02T21:32:00.000-05:00

We are so excited that our great friends Brian and Melissa had their daughter Rayna today. James and I went up to the hospital to visit them after work and she truly is a little blessing and absolutely adorable! I know that Brian & Melissa are so excited about the newest addition to their family so we wanted to share a few pictures on here for everyone to enjoy!

A picture of her precious little face! She slept the whole time we were there but I saw some pictures with her eyes open and they are beautiful as well!

James and I were both very excited to get to hold her. Neither one of us has ever held a baby the day that they were born so it was pretty great!

We took one last family picture (minus Molly of course) before we left to head home.

Congratulations Brian and Melissa we are so excited for you both and Rayna truly is a little blessing from God! We love ya!

Pumpkin Carving!

2009-11-01T18:16:00.000-05:00

James and I spent a great Halloween day together yesterday shopping, carving pumpkins, and handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters! The weather was so nice that we were able to take some chairs and put them on the front porch and sit outside while we handed out candy. We got to meet a lot of people from the neighborhood too which was nice! Here are a few pictures from our pumpkin carving!

Scooping out the guts...

Cutting out the "Power T"...look at that concentration!

The finished products!

The lit up Power T pumpkin!

Above is my pumpkin lit up from this year and below is my pumpkin from last year...I'm beginning to think I need to expand my pumpkin creativity for next year!

AJ watched all the fun from under the table...I think he was trying to hide so we didn't dress him up like a pumpkin again...I think he made a cute pumpkin last year though!

While we were handing out candy James decided that he wanted to be the "cool house" so we had some music and sound effects playing out the office windows for when the kids came up! Someone even told his son that we must have been torturing someone in the basement! ha!

Team Courage!

2009-10-27T21:32:00.001-04:00

This past weekend I traveled to Knoxville to take part in the Susan Koman walk for the cure to fight against breast cancer. I have to say it was a very humbling experience to see so many people (about 14,000) just from the Knoxville area all out to fight this cause. Not only to see the people supporting it, but the survivors as well. I know that seeing all of those survivors had to be somewhat comforting to my wonderful cousin Natalie who is undergoing her chemo treatment right now.

Mom and I went out and bought our "team scarves" the night before which were a hit with everyone at the walk. Next year we will have to start early and create a team shirt that will compete with the others as well! My wonderful husband James surprised us all by sending us a good luck gift from edible arrangements that is pictured above. I have also included a picture of the note he attached as I thought it was incredibly sweet...yep bonus points for James!

This is a picture (from the side) of all of the breast cancer survivors that were at the walk.

A picture of our team before the start of the race...the only thing that would have made this day better is if our team captain Shelly would have been there, she was home sick with the flu :(

Real Men Wear Pink! Little did they know these scarves came from the princess section at BigLots!

Brady cheered on her Mom by dancing with her dance team during the walk!

A picture during the race of all the people in front of us!

Our team picture at the end...WE DID IT!!!

We all went out to grab a bite to eat after the race and enjoy those delicious strawberries James sent us!

I thought that this song was fitting for this post because of the chorus of the song...it was also one that they were playing during the race! I think that we all loved being a part of this race for a fabulous cause and can't wait to do it agian next year!

Happy Birthday Molly!

2009-10-19T21:01:00.000-04:00

Well I am definitely being a picture theif for this post but I just had to take them and put them on our blog since they are SO adorable! As many of you know Molly is one of our favorite little people in the whole wide world and this week she will be turning 2! James and I won't be able to make the birthday party since we will be out of town so we decided to go over this past weekend and giver her the Elmo gifts we got her! Even though she has been a bit under the weather I think she enjoyed them and it was great to get to see her as always.

I had to include this picture from our visit as well to show you what a sucker James is for Molly! I think he would have done just about anything that sweet little voice asked him to while we were there. James enjoyed having a birthday tea party with Molly and her little Lamb and even got offered some "pizza" at the party as well! Happy Birthday Molly!

Race For The Cure!

2009-10-09T10:33:00.000-04:00

As many of you read before I am doing the Race For the Cure in Knoxville this year on Saturday October 24th. We are all walking in honor of my 41 year old cousin who is currently undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer and will hopefully be diagnosed cancer free in January! Our team goal has been to raise atleast $500 and we are only $30 away from that goal! Please help us to reach our goal and go above and beyond what we have hoped to raise. Thanks to those who have helped and donated so far!

If you would like to donate on my page you can go to http://komenknoxville.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&eventID=506&participantID=3124

Everyone in our family has taken this as a time to talk about and realize how important it truly is to get your yearly screenings so make sure all the women in your life that you love are doing the same!

You Know You're In The South When...

2009-10-02T21:52:00.000-04:00

You go to the "local" hamburger joint and order sweet tea with lemon and a burger with "slaw"!

OK so I do realize that the pictures in this post may grose some of you out but when we were out to lunch today Melissa convinced me that this moment was "blog worthy" so here it is! Duke's grille is a local hamburger place that is right across from our school and is one of those hole in the wall places that is ALWAYS packed and serves great food! They also only take cash which definitely is different from most places now days! Anyways when we went out to lunch I had my first officially southern hamburger after living in the south for six years now...and I have to say it was pretty good too! In fact I think I may have to take my pocket book and go to the wal-mart and get me a buggy to buy some slaw and soda...oh yeah and I can't forget a toboggan to wear on my head since it's getting cold outside these days!

The Painting Has Begun!

2009-09-13T19:17:00.001-04:00

Well my goal this weekend was to get the kitchen painted and finished and I am happy to report that WE DID IT!!! I started edging yesterday afternoon during the football game and then our friends Titus and Christina came over for dinner and helped us finish it up! Here are some pictures of our new red "wine themed" kitchen with our pictures hung and everything! I am SO excited! :)

Here are the pictures of the kitchen before we started painting...

Let the painting begin!

Titus decided to try the paint out for dessert!

Christina the monkey climbed up on the counters and fridge to get the areas over the cabinets!

And here we go...drumroll please...OUR KITCHEN!!

We are very happy with our finished product and are hoping to get the dining room done next weekend. We are going to do a striping effect in there so hopefully it will go smoothly!

A Wonderful Gift...

2009-09-09T17:19:00.000-04:00

I have come to truly believe that although we LOVE the children that we work with each day, one of the greatest gifts you can give a teacher is a "duty free lunch". At our school we usually get these lunches once a month where we get to go back and eat lunch in one teachers classroom together while other staff members watch our students at lunch. Today my grade level got the ultimate gift...a duty free lunch OFF campus where we actually got to go off campus for an hour and eat lunch like real adults! :) We chose to go to McAlister's Deli and we sat outside and just enjoyed each others company for a whole hour, it was absolutely wonderful! Some of the wonderful PTA parents at our school covered our classes while we were gone and I think we are each very thankful to them and hope that they will come back very very soon!

Breast Cancer Walk!

2009-08-31T21:36:00.000-04:00

Well as many of you know my family has been going through many things in the past few months. One of those things is that my cousin was diagnosed with breast cancer and has begun her battle and her road to a hopeful recovery. We are going to be walking in a breast cancer walk this fall to show support for her and to try and raise money for a great cause! I am attaching the link here for you all to check out...please do not feel pressured to donate...though you are definitely welcome to and we would love to raise lots of money for a good cause! If nothing else, please continue to keep my cousin and the rest of our family in your prayers.

The link for my fundraising site is:
http://komenknoxville.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&eventID=506&participantID=3124

Dr. Brown

2009-08-21T22:21:00.001-04:00

Well I realized it has been WAY to long since we have updated the blog...since we started school James and I have been very busy getting back into the swing of things and we have also both been sick with the flu in the past two weeks so that was no fun to say the least.

I wanted to send some props out to my wonderful husband though to let everyone know that he has officially been accepted into the doctorate program at University of Pheonix. I am VERY proud of him to say the least for what he is doing to better himself and our future family! It's going to be a busy few years with us both in school but it will definitely be worth it in the long run!

In other news we have decided to take a "mini vacation" this weekend to Virginia Beach. I surprised James with some tickets to a Creed concert that we are going to tomorrow night and we are excited to hang out on the boardwalk as well! We will be taking lots of pictures and I will update when we get home to let everyone know how our trip went! Hope everyone is doing well and I will try to update more soon!

Back To School...

2009-07-30T20:30:00.004-04:00

I have to say it seems like the summer absolutely flew by this year and now we are suddenly back at school again. We have been back for just about two weeks now and James has been enjoying getting to know his new class and I have been testing our new kindergartners all week. We got our class lists today so I am excited to get things going with them all next week!

Before we headed back to school "the boys" came in to visit and check out our new house. We had a great time when Michael, Sidney, and David were here and hope they will be able to visit more often! James and I spent more time downtown while they were here then we have in a long time. Here is a picture of the guys before we were getting ready to head out on the town for the night to a piano bar downtown.

Once we got there Michael, David, and I all had a drink to start off the night!

We even got David called up on stage for his 30th birthday...I have to say this was DEFINITELY the highlight of the evening!

The next day we went back uptown and were going to head to the imax theatre but when we got there found out it was all sold out. We ended up going to a farmers market downtown instead and got to hear a band playing and look at some yummy fruits and vegetables that were being sold.

After that we took our guests to a downtown favorite, the penguin. It's just a tiny hamburger joint but it is always packed and known for its great food...we all definitely enjoyed it!

Here we all are at our booth at the penguin!

What have we been doing since Bonaire?

2009-07-16T16:12:00.004-04:00

I have realized the last few times that I got online that it has been quite a while since we updated the blog. We have definitely been busy since our trip to Bonaire...we spent a week in Tennessee visiting family and have been back in NC for a little over a week now getting settled and unpacked into our new home!

While we were in Tennessee we celebrated our one year anniversary and since we didn't have much money to spend on a big date after the trip, James decided to plan a picnic that he took me on instead! First, he showed up at the house with two boquets of beautiful flowers...one for me and one for my Mom (way to earn extra points!)

He also packed us a picnic basket

We drove to a nice spot overlooking the lake (a spot where we used to visit when we were dating in Knoxville)

We also ate some of our anniversary wedding cake that his cousin Tammy had been keeping in her freezer for us this year...it was surprisingly good!

We definitely had a good time spending the day together!

We came back to NC on the 6th of July and have been working hard to unpack the house and get it back in order before we go back to school this coming Monday. I don't have a whole bunch of pictures of the house inside yet but we will hopefully get some soon. We have been trying to get some cool things to decorate on a budget and one of my favorite projects so far has been some candle holders that we found on sale at Hobby Lobby that I spray painted to match our living room...here is the before and after!

I think they turned out pretty great if I do say so myself!

Last but not least these past few weeks we have been trying to get in a little rest and relaxation as well...here is a picture of James and AJ doing just that after a hard days work!

How to drive in Bonaire?

2009-06-27T21:28:00.003-04:00

Ok so here's a little game I thought we would play...you see one of the first things that James and I had to learn here (at 5am and running on 23hrs with no sleep mind you) was how to drive the streets of Bonaire. After much debate and a few wrong turns we finally figured out what some of these crazy road signs mean. I thought I would see how many of these road signs you can figure out...I will number them and then you can leave a comment with a guess for what each sign means...the person with the most is the winner! Good luck!
1.

2.

3.

Ok so there you have it...make sure to leave a comment with your guess and we will check back and see how you are all doing after we arrive home!

Some Bonaire Scenery

2009-06-26T20:29:00.004-04:00

Well a lot has happened since we last updated...on Thursday I went on my first night dive and got to see what it was like in the ocean at night. I went with the instructor that we had met down here and I have to admit I was a bit...OK very nervous to go on this dive but I am ABSOLUTELY happy that I did it! Our dive started off with an eagle ray swimming by and although we didn't see any octopus swimming around or anything like that it was just amazing to see what a difference there is at night. We had two big tarpon that followed us around also and would hunt in our flashlights to look for the little fish that we saw...that was scary at first to have those big fish so close but then you just get used to them being there. Unfortunately I wasn't able to take any pictures at night but atleast I will have the memories to last!

I thought everyone might be getting a little tired (not that I can imagine why) of our ocean pics so we are throwing in a few pictures of scenery around here as well. Don't worry though, there are still a few fish pictures to go along with it! Tomorrow (Saturday) is our last day on the island and since we are not able to dive tomorrow we have decided to rent a boat and to go Klein Bonaire (an island/beach nearby) and spend the day there on the beach relaxing and reading and maybe do a little snorkling too. We will try to do one more update before we leave the island...we leave for Atlanta on Sunday morning and will arrive back in Knoxville on Monday.

OK so I guess we don't have as many "scenery" pictures as I thought on this camera...the rest are on the big camera and we can't upload those until we get back to the states....but i'm sure you all will enjoy this picture of my nice pedicure on the beach!

A sea cucumber

This was a new fish that we saw today...I think it is called a white-spotted filefish

We got to see our first "shipwreck" today too...it was pretty neat to see all the stuff that has grown on the boat.

A few tarpon...these guys were huge and the same kind of fish that were following us on the night dive as well

A few squid...these guys are really neat to see the way that they swim

Two happy campers after a great last dive for the week!

Greetings from under the sea

2009-06-24T14:57:00.004-04:00

Anna and I completed our 3rd day of diving in Bonaire today. We did our first unguided dive with just the two of us today. It was a great experience. You definetly have to be a good dive buddy for each other. I think I have the best dive buddy in the world. :)

This is our marking we used when we descended into the blue. It kind of looks like two sea horses kissing. It is always good to find a navagation point to reference when its time to go up.

We stayed shallow on this dive only going to about 3o feet but were rewarded with a majestic beast. A spotted Eagle Ray came to within about 5 feet from us. I think he even wanted to get closer, but that was close enough for me.

This I think is a really near picture. It is of a trumpet fish who is eating things off of coral. It kind of reminds me of a a hummingbird getting nectar with its long snout.

This is a great photo of a trunk fish hanging out.

We have had a great time scuba diving. I have realized though that scuba diving sure does make you hungry. The local pizza joint is open tonight and we are about to go tear us up some good ole pizza.

Hope all is well with everyone who reads this.

Talk to you all soon. Continue to check out the blog.

My First Day As An Underwater Photographer!

2009-06-23T19:49:00.006-04:00

On our first day the instructor Bas took all the pictures so that James and I could concentrate on getting comfortable with the area and with our bouyancy. Today however it was my turn to have a little bit of fun with the camera so here are a few pictures that we took under the water today! As you can see I had to start out with a self portrait of course but here are a few more...

My wonderful husband and dive buddy!

Not quite sure why this one turned up side ways on here but he was a cool fish who kinda followed us along most of our first dive today so he had to make the blog!

These are one of my favorite fish called trunk fish.

Just thought this was a neat looking picture with the coral and fish

The long one in the middle is called a trumpet fish...another one of my favorites

These are two sergeant major fish...and yes I have become a bit obsessed with learning the names of all the fish that we see!

I just thought this was a cool picture...reminded me of the ones that we took in Roatan, Hondurras also!

And last but not least James thought I should put on the blog that we tried some local food yesterday. Our dive instructor took us to a local restaurant where James had some Carribean chicken and I tried out the local goat stew...and I gotta say it was pretty darn good too! Not sure i'd ever eat it again, but it was fun to try while we were here!

The diving has begun!

2009-06-23T08:03:00.005-04:00

We have officially completed our first day of diving here in Bonaire and it was amazing! The first dive was at a site called "invisible" and it was beautiful looking at all the fish and just watching them was so neat. I saw an eagle ray off in the distance and we also saw some little garden eels and a bunch of other beautiful fish! We then went to have lunch with the dive master we were diving with, Bas. He has been really great and has also been giving us lots of information about the island while we are here!

Our 2nd dive was at a place called "something special" and we definitely saw a lot of special things. We were on the hunt for a frog fish which Bas had seen at this site a few days before but were unable to find it this time. Even though we didn't find the frog fish we were able to see an octopus, some squid, a seahorse, and a baracuda...definitely some special creatures!
This is one of the angelfish that we saw...there are several diffierent kinds and I think this one is called a gray angelfish.

The octopus that we saw all curled up in a hole next to some brain coral...he is sleeping right now because this was during the day. I didn't even know that this was an octopus until Bas filled me in after the dive!

This is the red seahorse that we found at the end of our dive!
We also have a few videos to upload that were taken but I think we will have to put those on next post as youtube is giving me some trouble! Off to our 2nd day of diving...wish us luck!

BON BINI!

2009-06-21T12:54:00.003-04:00

Well as you can see we made it safely to Bonaire at 4:30am this morning but the last 48hours have been crazy to say the least! Where to begin...we closed on our house late on Thursday and were thankfully able to get almost everything moved in on Friday after having the carpet cleaned, Direct TV installed, CPI installed, and the appliances installed...as if that weren't enough to ware us out, here is what we did next! Lets see i'm just gonna give like a "play by play" here...

*Finished moving about 10pm Friday night

*Packed for Bonaire

*Went to bed about 1am

*Woke up at 6:30am

*Drove to Atlanta airport...a 4 1/2 hour trip that turned into 6 1/2 hours with accidents on the road

*Almost missed our flight to Newark but thankfully it was delayed

*Sat in Atlanta airport for an hour and a half before bording the plane

*Sat on the airplane for another hour because of weather delays in Newark

*Made it to Newark at 8:15pm and had a layover there until our next flight at 11:55pm

*Left Newark for Bonaire at 11:55pm

*Arrived in Bonaire at 4:30am, went through customs, got luggage, and checked in with rental car

*Drove around Bonaire from approximately 6am until noon (still no sleep mind you) because that was when we could check in

*Spent $95 on groceries that would have cost about $30 in the states

*FINALLY checked into our room and getting ready to shower and crawl into bed after being up for about 30 hours straight

Now if THAT doesn't make you tired, I don't know what will! Needless to say it has been a crazy trip but the waters in Bonaire are absolutely amazing and we will have more pics to update with later on today or tomorrow, i'm just to lazy to get the card out of the other camera right now! Our first scuba diving trip is tomorrow also, going to do 2 dives in the morning so hopefully I will have my first underwater pictures with my new camera to update with as well!

Babies all around...

2009-06-07T21:13:00.003-04:00

James and I have had a very busy weekend trying to get all packed up and ready for the big move in less then a week! We were lucky to get to spend a little time with friends though and see some of the cutest babies that God has created! On Friday our small group had a get together and there are two sweet new members to our group, Judah and Alice. While we were there cooking out and having a good time with friends James was able to hold a baby for the first time...I was surprised that it was his first time ever holding a baby that small but he did a great job!

Our friends Kris and Melissa also had their baby girl on Friday night and her name is Shawna Rae...she is just precious and we got to see her when they came home from the hospital today. Both James and I were able to hold her and it looks like we are becoming quite the natural baby holders...wonder how we would do with one of them all night though!

Here is a picture of the new family!

We had a hard time choosing what music to put with this post but I decided on "You Are My Sunshine" since that is the song my Dad always used to sing to me when I was just a little baby like these two! :)

Birthday Fun!

2009-05-24T21:14:00.005-04:00

Ya know I have to say that after this weekend I have truly learned what a lucky person I am...I am so blessed to have the most wonderful friends and family that a person could ask for! James started off my "birthday weekend" by giving me a gift Thursday morning because he said he wanted to start my weekend off with a smile! It definitely did the job! This weekend Shelly and I also took a trip to Tennessee to visit the family out there and really had a wonderful time visiting with everyone. They even surprised me and had a birthday cake waiting! We had a cook out on Saturday and just got to spend some quality time together on the lake so it was great.

A picture of us all getting ready to head out on the water in Bryant's new boat. And also a picture of Brennan doing a little fishing...to bad he didn't have any worms!

Last weekend we also got to have Kyle and Tyler come over and here are a few pictures from that as well.

James and Kyle kicking back while playing some video games. As you can see Tyler became great friends with AJ as well!

Then tonight when I got back into town my great husband arranged for everyone to meet up at Outback to have dinner to celebrate my birthday. I was also able to get one of those wonderful Mai Tai's that they have there too!

Titus and Christina...making us all smile as always!

The Hines family of 3...soon to be a family of 4!

Beth and her daughter Maddie came out to join us as well!

Molly got a kick out of the singing card that Titus and Christina got me!

Afterwards we took a quick trip over to Kohl's where James got a few new shirts and Molly got a new pair of jeans...nothing for the poor birthday girl though...haha!

And last but not least I came home from a long weekend of fun to one last surprise from my wonderful husband...chocolate covered strawberries....YUMMY! I have been asking for this treat since valentine's day and he kept telling me it would come when I least expected it and he was right...good job sweetie!

Well I guess since this is my birthday post I get to choose whatever song I want to go along with it...so I chose this one because it has just been one of my favorite songs lately and one that I have really leaned on too...and any of you that know anything about my family right now you know that we have a lot to be praying for and a lot to be thankful for too!

Thanks to everyone who made my birthday a great one!

Moving on up!

2009-05-15T17:13:00.008-04:00

As many of you know Anna and I have found a new house to call home. Our old house is on the market. This has been a whirlwind experience. It has come on quick and through much up and down we really feel like this is a blessing.
We put an offer on the house last Friday which they have since accepted.
We had the inspection and terminte process today. Everything came back good.
We are hoping to close on the house the first ten days of June or so. Right before my birthday.
Happy B-day to me!
Again we do feel blessed to have gotten this house.
We can't wait to have everyone help us with the painting party. The house is 3.5 baths, 4 bedrooms, a relaxation room, man room, office, and fomral dining room. It is 3500 sq ft. Much more house than we thought we would ever be able to get.

This is a view of the formal dining room.

These are the stairs.

This is the one of a kind privilleged few "MAN ROOM"

"This is a view from the stairs upstairs.

This is the Master Bedroom. The bathroom is off to the right. The sitting room is right behind this picture. Notice the Craford ceiling.

This is the master bath. Notice the garden tub!

This is another view of the master bed room. Notice the sitting room attached to it. This is the relaxation chamber.

This is the dining room/breakfast nook.

The kitchen is nice and big minus all the appliances and knobs. The people took all the knobs.

Here I am standing in the entry way. This has a nice hardwood flooring. The office is across from the formal dining room on your right when you walk in.

This is the backyard.

This is the living room.

Have you ever been "flushed"?

2009-05-06T21:24:00.003-04:00

This past weekend James talked me into volunteering at our school carnival in the "fun flush" booth. We do our best to always be involved in school events but I have to say that when I got to the carnival and saw the booth I wondered what on earth we were thinking! I guess I didn't realize that it would be freezing cold hose water that would be coming down on my head! I have to admit that the first few times I got hit it was pretty bad but after that it got a lot better and I could even say that I had a good time! It was fun to see all the kids faces when they were able to "wet me"! Here are a few pictures!

James was the first one in the booth and of course I had to "test it out" to make sure it was working correctly! As you can see below...he got his paybacks!

Here we are after both of our shifts...soaked...but we had a great time!

Molly also got in the booth after us and I thought this was a pretty cool picture of her too!

The things we will do to give the kids a good laugh...

Our Latest Traveling Adventure

2009-04-19T09:16:00.003-04:00

This past week James and I drove down to Florida to meet up with my parents and spend some time with them traveling on the boat. I was really excited to go see them since we hadn't been able to see them since Christmas time so it was a long overdue trip! We drove down there on Saturday and they met us at the sponge docks in Tarpon Springs (we left our car there) and then they took us down to where the boat was at. On Easter we were able to spend the day boating up to Tarpon and enjoying the absolutely beautiful weather. It was a very relaxing and fun trip and we even got to see a few dolphings! Unfortunately James and I didn't bring our scuba gear...otherwise we may have decided to jump in after them! Here is a picture of the boat when we got docked in Tarpon Springs and a few other pictures of our trip!

James as the self proclaimed "skipper" of the trip!

Captain Paul getting his headset on and ready to dock the boat...NOT an easy task!

There's Mom getting ready to do her docking duties as well...man she has gotten good at "lassoing" the pole!

Cody...doing his usual duties...

Here are a few pictures of one of the dolphins that we saw while we were on the trip. It just stayed right with our boat for the longest time and kept doing tricks for us...we loved it!

We also saw lots of pelicans on our trip. They kept landing on and near the boat when we were docked also and Cody did not like that one bit so he would have to run out and scare them away!

The trip was short but fun and it was really neat because we used to go to Tarpon Springs every year for spring break as a kid so I got to show James and lot of the things that we did growing up. I think he liked most of it though by the end of the trip I think he was a little sick of seeing sponges!

Enjoying Spring Weather!

2009-04-10T08:49:00.006-04:00

We have started off with a great spring so far this year! Last Sunday we had some wonderful weather and James and I went to Cane Creek to take AJ out for some exercise and our friends Matt, Molly, and Tacori came along too! We took one of AJ's water toys to see if he wanted to go for a swim in the lake while we were there but it was unsuccessful to say the least.

A few family pictures!

AJ running away from the water when we threw his toy. He ended up getting in just a little but definitely wanted nothing to do with the idea of swimming out there to get it!

A sad Dad when his pup would not go fetch in the water. If you look closely in the background you can see a little orange thing floating in the water...yup that's AJ's toy!

After our hiking we decided to go over to Matt & Molly's and have a BBQ with them and some other friends from work. Matt grilled up some burgers, chicken, and potatos...yum!

A picture of the girls!

This past week James and I also taught intersession at our school with an underwater theme! When we found out the theme we jumped at the idea of taking some of the kids to the pool and doing a scuba demo for them. Our instructor from Neptunes Locker Diving (click on the name to check out his site!) was nice enough to arrange everything and teach the kids a little about learning to dive as well! It was really neat to hear the kids talk after the demo and hear so many of them say that when they turn 10 years old they want to lear to dive too!

James and I hanging out in the water. The kids would throw some water toys and we would race to see who could get it first...good times!

We even got to be TV stars at school also when they kept our picture up all week as the background of the clock...James and I definitely got our 5min of fame this week!

We are getting ready to leave tomorrow on a trip down to Tarpon Springs, FL to go visit my parents on the boat so hopefully we will have some pictures to update with from that soon!

Our little Pooch!

2009-03-22T15:22:00.008-04:00

A lot of our friends have cute young kids that they post about all the time with updates and pictures (which we love to see and read by the way)! But as you know James and I do not have kids...yet! The closest thing we have to a child right now is our little pooch AJ who we love very much and sometimes treat like he is our child! Anyways we have taken some fun pics of him this weekend and thought we would go with a post all about AJ! Hope you enjoy!

AJ started out this beautiful weekend by getting a "doggy sundae" from Bruster's when we went there after school! Yep I think he enjoyed this treat!
*

This morning I made yet another green smoothie for James and I to have with our breakfast and we decided it was time for AJ to try some (James read on one of the green smoothie websites that they are good for dogs too!) I'm not quite sure he liked this one as much as the ice cream though! OK I've tried about 5 times to get the video to upload but it just won't work...so i'm gonna try again later!

Finally we thought we'd take a few pictures of AJ doing one of his favorite things lately which is playing fetch in the yard. James took him for a walk and played fetch with him yesterday and then I played with him this afternoon...guess he was full of energy after that green smoothie!

AJ sitting and waiting for the ball to be thrown

There he goes folks...he's got it and it bringing it back for another throw!

All tired out and ready to take a nap!

Everyone is Irish.

2009-03-17T16:51:00.004-04:00

Today of course is St. Patrick's day.

The day started off by making an extra tasty green yummy batch of green smoothies for the 3rd grade team. Tasty Tasty!

Even Mr. Harvey jumped on the green smoothie bandwagon.

Quite the nice tie for $1.

Those rowdy Leprechauns up to no good! Little did Anna or I know that those pesky Leprechauns would come visit her room today. They looked to have a passion of destroying anything that was green. I think they escaped through the window. Darn, those pesky creatures.

They were out of control!

Before we left the house today AJ got to put on his green hat. I am not sure he liked it all that much. I don't know though what do you think?

Hope everyone has a great St. Patrick's day.

Fun Friday at the Chattanooga Aquarium

2009-03-15T19:59:00.004-04:00

This past week James and I had to go to Tennessee for a few things. While we were there we got to spend a lot of time with his family including his great Aunt Gertrude who is going to be 95 next month so needless to say any time that we are able to spend with her is wonderful! We also got the chance to go to Chattanooga to the aquarium which I had never been to before. We really enjoyed it and ended up getting season passes in hopes to go back there again sometime. We went with Michael and Sidney and had a lot of fun spending the day with them also. Here are some pictures that we took at the aquarium while we were there!

Me petting a sting ray...they were surprisingly squishy when you touch them!

We all know James loves his penguins! I tried to get a picture of him and Michael in front of the tanks but the penguins look kind of fake in the background.

An eel and some jellyfish...both things that we hope NOT to see while we are scuba diving!

This was a pretty cool picture of a starfish that James got in one of the tanks!

The big sea turtle! He was hard to get because it was so dark in the tank.

We all took pictures in front of the tank by the river otters. Those otters were pretty fun to watch but a little too fast to get a good picture of!

Fun Friday!

2009-02-27T16:31:00.005-05:00

Well lets just say that today was a BUSY Friday to say the least! We started off our day in Kindergarten today with our African marketplace. Our kids have been studying Africa for the past two weeks and they made goods to be sold in the market today. They got to come in and barter with us to buy some things for themselves! It is always one of my favorite things that we do each year and this year was no exception...the word "Jambo" means hello is Swahili which I why I chose the song for this post just in case you were wondering! Anyways here are a few pictures from the market!

After school we had a baby shower for one of our first grade teachers, Andrea, who is going to have a little boy in just a few weeks! We got to see some 4-D ultrasounds of him and they were really quite amazing!

The mommy to be with her new hand made blanket from Diane

A cool little "diaper cake"

Melissa & Andrea

After the shower we went back to Melissa's room and I got to cut James's hair! Our neighbor usually does both of our hair but she had surgery a few weeks ago and is unable to cut hair yet so James was stuck with me doing it instead! I was a little nervous at first (and I think he was too) but it turned out pretty good if you ask me!

Here we go!

The "before" shot...doesn't he look happy?

Melissa putting on the finishing touches and trimming up around his ears.

Well Melissa and I are off now to go see The Wizard of Oz which is being put on near us and it includes a lot of students from our school as munchkins so it should be fun! Never a dull moment around here...hopefully we will get some rest and relaxation in at some point this weekend though!

Will it blend?

2009-02-22T11:44:00.004-05:00

Say it ain't green?

The idea of a green smoothie has been an interesting one to me. Most people I know would love to try a smoothie made out of banannas and pineapples etc, but not many have jumped at the idea of trying one made with Kale or romaine lettuce. We were in Costco a month or so ago and this amazing piece of creation caught out eye.

We stalked it for a few weeks and were able to get a good deal on it. Anna has even been heard calling it her "NEW LOVE". Who would have thought that I would have been replaced by a blender. It is pretty useful and I am starting to see where she is coming from. We have a short video that follows that shows you one of our green smoothie creations.

We are still working on the recipe daily to get it just right for a good ole St. Patrick's day celebration. A.J. thinks we are crazy but little does he know that he will soon get to experience the yummy green treats for himself. Yes...... thats right green smoothies for dogs. Oh Boy!

You can watch other videos of the blender in action at

http://www.willitblend.com/

Other than the blender we have started watching season one of Prison Break. It is a show that we have wanted to watch for a long time but quit because we missed most of the episodes. We are almost through seaon one. Sorry this is short but gotta get focused on more Prison Break and progress reports for school. Oh Boy!

Hope everyone is well and that everyone actually not just reads the blog but starts leaving us comments. It is easy to do!

Here are some pictures of flowers that I got Anna for Valentines day. She is such a great wife and deserves everything in the world. The flowers just help radiate her beauty! Enjoy.

This is really the size of her heart. I thought it fit.

Here is the video. Click on it to start it. Hopefully you like it. It may even inspire you to start your own green smoothie revolution. Good luck! Sorry the video is sideways. It just adds to the experience.

A Beautiful Day!

2009-02-08T17:59:00.006-05:00

Well with the absolutely amazing weather that we got today we were able to get outside and get some fresh air by taking AJ to the park which was a great time. I just finished up some grad school work and wanted to update the blog since I haven't done that in a little while...but realized that I really don't have much new to update with...so I decided to add a few more pics from our trip that we didn't have in the previous posts...who knows maybe it's the warm weather that makes me think of it, I don't know!

Looking at each one of these pictures definitely makes me smile though and makes me so thankful that I have such a wonderful husband who took the time to plan each detail of our trip just for me...as I was adding pictures to this post James was sitting in the living room and working on some papers for school and one of the songs from our wedding, "I Will Be Here" by Steven Curtis Chapman came on the radio...for those of you who were at the wedding that is the song that played while we screwed up the unity sand (haha!). Anyways it only took a few notes of the song before we both knew what it was and James called me into the other room so that we could dance together for a minute...it's times like that one that make me remember how lucky I am to have such a wonderful man who cares so much about me! Ok enough lovey dovey stuff...here are a few pictures!

James and I on our big date night on the boat...we went to the "fancy" restaurant that night which was fun but I don't think that either of us REALLY know what we ate that night!

This was in Ft. Lauderdale before we left on the cruise at the Hard Rock hotel...can anyone guess why we took this pic?

Our cruise ship, the Miracle!

This was our first sunset picture that we took on the boat, that is the city line in Miami.

A few other sunset and sunrise pics from our trip!

Each night when we came back to our room our bed was turned down and we had a little buddy waiting for us...we had to take a few pictures of them!

This is probably one of my favorite pictures that James took...it is a horse in Cozumel wearing a sombrero...I thought that was awesome!

We saw a lot of iguana's in both Cozumel and Hondurras

Here we are on New Year's eve, our first night on the ship wearing our matching shirts!

Me with our awesome waiters, Rosanna and Martin...they definitely made each night at dinner a fun experience!

And of course you all know I couldn't post pictures of the cruise without including a tiki hut!

Alright well I hope I didn't bore you with more pictures from the trip...hopefully I will find something else to update about soon when I find our camera too that is "temporarily misplaced"...whoops!

Our 2nd Annual Superbowl Party...in 3D!

2009-02-02T05:31:00.004-05:00

Here are a few quick pictures from our little superbowl get together last night. We had a few great friends come over to join us while watching the game and of course eating a few yummy snacks! Although I have to say I wasn't too impressed with the commercials this year, we did enjoy getting ourselves ready for the 3-D commercials with our lovely glasses! Here are a few pictures...yes don't we all look amazing in 3-D glasses??

Here we are...yep we make those glasses look good!

Matt & Molly...who now that I think about it never ended up taking off their coats...you guys think our house is cold or what?!?!

Beth & her friend Jim stopped in for a bit to join us in the fun...just in time for 3-D...lucky them!

A picture of Melissa and I...her quote for the first half of the night was "Is it time for our glasses yet James?" We are glad Melissa was able to make it even though we wish Brian could have been there too!

Hakuna Matata

2009-01-28T16:34:00.007-05:00

Most of the time I like to post about things that James and I do together or stuff going on in our life but I guess this one is a little bit different...
Let me start out by confessing something about myself...I am a worrier...a lot of times a BIG worrier...sometimes I even worry about how much I am worrying about things.

I have definitely worked hard to try not to do this so much and am lucky to have a great husband who always helps me to look at the bright side of things (usually by singing me a verse from the song Hakuna Matata from the Lion King)...but it still is a struggle for me. When I get home each day after school I guess you could say I have the habbit of checking updates on blogs and on facebook first thing. Today when I read our pastor's blog (www.stevenfurtick.com) I was really hit by one of his posts on this subject. I think that with the economy and life the way it is right now the "worrying syndrome" is probably effecting a lot more people then ever before so I just was moved to share what he had written about the topic because it really made me think...

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” -Matthew 6:3

"God supplies all the strength we need to do all that He’s called us to do.But He rations this strength much in the same way He rationed manna to the children of Israel.He provides sufficient strength each day for the challenges of that day..and that day only.This strength doesn’t carry over from one day to the next. You either use it, or lose it.And He will not give you enough strength today for the confrontations, obligations, and challenges of next week, next month, or next year.That strength will be deposited in your account precisely when you need it- not a moment before.
If you’re stressed and overwhelmed today-check your strength supply.I’ll bet you have enough to get you through this day.And that’s all you need for now."

I think that what paster Steven has written here is SO true and the fact of the matter is that I (we) only need to focus on the things that are happening right here and now and just trust that everything else is going to turn out OK...and that ultimately the "plan" so to speak is not up to me so it's just a matter of knowing that He will take care of giving me the strength that I need for today!

Snow Day!

2009-01-20T13:30:00.008-05:00

James and I woke up several times in the night last night and were excited to see it snowing outside! Our school district decided to wait until about 5:30 this morning to make the call that we weren't going to have school but we were happy with the choice even if it did come late! We decided to sleep in until about 10:00 and then James got up and made us banana pancakes to eat while we watched our 44th president, Barak Obama get inagurated into office. After that we went outside and did everything that you could imagine to do when it snows...we built a snowman, had a snowball fight, and made snow angels! After that we came inside and warmed up with some home made hot chocolate that one of my students gave me this year for Christmas (thanks Georgia)! Last but definitely not least we are going to attempt to make some snow cream! After that I think that we are just going to finish up by doing a little relaxing around the house, turn on our fire in the fireplace, and just enjoy our day off together!

We are making "How To" books with our students right now so we thought we would take some pictures of each step to show them! "First you roll the 3 balls..."

"Next you give it a face and arms."

"Last you give it buttons, a hat, and a scarf!"

Making snow angels...

Here is our bowl of snow ready to make snow cream! We made sure to take Melissa's advice and stay away from the yellow snow!

AJ also enjoyed getting to play in the snow! When we first opened the door to let him out this morning he came right back inside and wasn't to sure about the snow but once he went out he loved it and ran around like crazy!

AJ was up to his usual tricks and found some sticks to dig up in the snow!

Last but not least this is just a picture of our University of Tennessee well in our back yard that we got as a wedding gift...thought it looked pretty neat in the snow!

The Final Port: Roatan, Hondurras

2009-01-18T14:50:00.014-05:00

OK so here are some pictures from the last port that we went to on the trip which was Roatan, Hondurras. I have to admit that when I found out that we were going to Hondurras I wasn't all that excited about it...I guess because I didn't know very much about the area. When we got there though I COMPLTELY fell in love with it to say the least. It has beautiful green trees all over the place and that amazingly blue water that you only see in the movies. When we were there we went on an excursion called pirates, birds, and monkeys. It was really neat because we got to see a lot of the island on our bus ride to the park where the excursion was and then we got to go for a hike (and cross a scary swinging bridge over the water) that lead to an area where there were a bunch of Macaw's (a type of parrot) and they would come and sit on your shoulder. It was really neat! James and I had a lot of fun with this...until one of the birds decided to say hello to James by giving him a little peck on the head...whoops!

After we left the areas with the birds we went on to visit the Monkey's! There were several different types of monkeys that we were able to see which was pretty neat. These guys would just come up to you and climb up your body and sit on your shoulder and jump from person to person! It was kind of hard to get a good picture of them sitting on you because they were so active but I think that we got a few good ones! One of the things that they warned us about before going in there was that the monkeys will steal things from you and if they steal something from you then they really think that it belongs to them so not to try to take it from them and they will eventually get bored with it and give it back.

Here I am with one of the howler monkeys...he just kind of sat right in my arms

Yep, the monkey climbed right on top of his head!

One of the monkey's stole a bottle out of James's shorts pocket and they took it up in the trees to play with it!

I have to say that I literally begged James to let us stay in Hondurras as we were getting back on the boat. My plan was that we could quit our jobs and just move into one of those cute little huts on the beach and become professional scuba divers and live a nice happy life together on the beach. Well as I'm sure you can tell he said no and made me come back home but hopefully we will be able to go back there and visit some day! Here are a few more pics from our stop here that I thought were pretty neat.

There were a lot of banana trees here and we also saw them in Costa Maya...I thought they were pretty cool looking!

While we were there we found some coconut trees by the pool that we layed out at...too bad we couldn't quite get one to bring home!

This is a picture of the hut that we could have lived in...looks like fun, right?

One final picture as our boat drove away from the island...hopefully we will see it again someday!

Port #3: Belize...Scuba Diving!

2009-01-14T21:11:00.006-05:00

Well we didn't get to actually see much of the city at our 3rd port because this was the port where we tendered (anchored) out at sea and took boats to our excursion or to shore. The cruise ship could not get close enough to the shore because of the reef that they have in Belize. This was the stop where we decided to do our scuba diving because it is the 2nd largest barrier reef in the world (next to Australia). We unfortunately didn't see any turtles or sharks or anything like that but we enjoyed ourselves to say the least. It was absolutely beautiful under water there, just like a colorful garden but with fish swimming through! Our pictures that we took (with the cheap $15 underwater camera that we bought and will probably never use again) definitely did not do the scenery justice. We were dissapointed in the pictures to say the least but it was still neat to have memories of the things that we saw. There were a ton of tropical fish, coral, sea fans, and tubes and unfortunately you can't see a lot of the fish in the picture because due to the lack of color they seem to blend in. Anyways here are a few pics that we did like from the trip that we thought we would share...hope you enjoy and we promise we will try to get some more colorful ones next time!

This is a picture of a "Sea Cucumber". The dive master that was with us went down and petted it!

Here is one of the snapper that we saw swimming...there were a ton of these around

Right in the middle of that plant you can kind of sea what is called a fireworm...not quite sure what it is but the dive master pointed it out to James when we were diving so I thought I would get a picture of it!

This is a pretty cool picture of James that I took when we were swimming

My attempt at a self portrait

After that failed attempt we had someone else take our picture for us which seemed to turn out a bit better!

We hope that you all are enjoying the pics from our trip, I will be back next time with picture from Roatan, Hondurras (my favorite place) where we got to play with some really fun animals!

Port #2: Costa Maya

2009-01-11T19:07:00.006-05:00

The second stop that we made on the cruise after leaving Cozumel was in Costa Maya. When we were there we went to visit the Mayan ruins of Kohunlich and spent most of the day there. It was neat to learn a lot more about the Mayan culture and way of life. We also got to see a lot of the country side in Costa Maya which was very sad looking at all of the run down houses there because of the last hurricane that they had. The port where our ship went into had just been rebuilt and this was the first time that our ship had returned since the hurricane. We learned that a lot of the streets have speed bumps on them so that merchants can have time to come up to your car and try to sell fruit and other things to you. We could have gotten two pineapples for $1.00 on the street or 20 oranges for $1.00. I think a few people were tempted by the deals but unfortunately for them the cruise ship (and US customs) doesn't allow you to take any fruit from the islands that we visited. Here are a few pictures of the ruins that we saw!

We made it to the top!

The first honeymoon update!

2009-01-10T16:26:00.005-05:00

Well we have so many fun and exciting things to post about that James and I decided we would turn it into a couple posts and add one for each excursion that we did on the trip. So here is our first one! The first stop on our trip (after spending a day at sea) was in Cozumel, Mexico. This was definitely the biggest shopping stop on our trip and we had fun bartering with people and bought a blanket, a bag, some pearls, and a few maraccas! After shopping for a few hours we met up with our group for the excursion where we were going to go swimming with some dolphins! It was awesome! We worked with a dolphin named Romulo and we got to swim with him, have him push us on a boogie board, and also ride on his flippers. I had wanted to swim with dolphins ever since I was little so I was thrilled to say the least! Here are a few pictures that we took..they didn't turn out the greatest because they were taken with one of those disposable waterproof cameras but we had a good time none the less!

A picture of us when we first got on the cruise ship wearing our "United We Ride" shirts!

James surprised me by having the room decorated for our honeymoon and they also brought us a cake that it took us the whole week to eat!

James getting a kiss from Romulo!

Me holding Romulo and getting to pet him!

I thought this was a neat picture...couldn't get it to turn sideways though!

Romulo and one of the other dolphins putting on a show for us!

A Quick Post From Sea...

2009-01-05T18:01:00.002-05:00

Hey all we just wanted to come on real quick and let everyone know that we are having an AMAZING time...in the last few days we have seen and done more then we could have imagined including swimming with dolphins, scuba diving at the 2nd largest barrier reef in the world, and playing with monkeys! We are now leaving one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, Roatan Hondurras...I made James promise me today that we could move here someday...i'm sure you would all come visit us, right? Anyways we just wanted to log on real quick (the internet on the ship is $0.75 per minute) to say hi to everyone. We have taken a ton of pictures and will update with those as soon as we get home. We have two more days at sea and then we return to Ft. Lauderdale on Thursday and should be driving home that day! Hope everyone has had a safe and fun new year so far!

Last Post Of 2008

2008-12-28T18:23:00.003-05:00

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!

2008-12-26T21:39:00.004-05:00

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...

2008-12-23T11:11:00.008-05:00

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...

2008-12-12T06:12:00.002-05:00

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...

2008-12-10T21:14:00.006-05:00

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!

2008-12-07T08:38:00.005-05:00

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...

2008-11-28T18:11:00.003-05:00

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

2008-11-18T18:57:00.008-05:00

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

2008-11-10T21:25:00.006-05:00

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

2008-11-08T08:02:00.002-05:00

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

2008-11-01T12:06:00.005-04:00

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??

Officially Southern...

2008-10-30T17:24:00.003-04:00

OK so I have to admit that when I moved down here to North Carolina from Michigan I definitely made more then my share of comments about the "crazy southerners" who are all bundled up when it is 50 degrees outside with there winter coats and hats on. Well this week I realized that I have officially become one of those people. I found myself walking with Sally the other day completely bundled up from head to toe...including sporting a "toboggan" on my head. It was probably in the mid 50's out which is definitely cool but I know that a few years ago I would have probably been wearing a t-shirt at that same temperature. If you look in the picture above I am even more bundled up then James who has been a southerner for most of his life! I guess it is true what they say that your blood really does thin after a few years in a new climate and now I feel like I am cold ALL the time! Sure can't wait till Christmas break when we get to go on our cruise and warm up a bit!

Here I am after returning from the walk!

Oh yeah we are also having red ribon week at our school this week and today was "put a cap on drugs" day so James and I went to party city last night and got ourselves some cool hats to wear...what do you think??

Breakfast and Baptism!

2008-10-21T05:25:00.005-04:00

Well I thought I would do a quick update now that we have been able to upload our pictures that we took this weekend. James and I had a really great last weekend together before we headed back to school yesterday. On Saturday my wonderful husband decided to get up and surprise me by cooking me breakfast in bed...he has done this several times since we started dating a few years ago and each time it gets a little bit more gourmet! This time it was pancakes with syrup and fresh raspberries...yum!

We also got the joy of witnissing Brian & Melissa's daughter, Molly getting baptised at their church on Sunday. It was really great to get to see them again and to be able to take part in such a wonderful event for Molly!

Molly with Mom, Dad, & Nana!

What a sweet face that girl has!

My First Wedding...As A Photographer!

2008-10-17T19:23:00.004-04:00

The beautiful archway at the park where they got married

Well James and I officially shot our first wedding together this week on Wednesday night for our friends Titus and Christina. Things got a bit hectic for a while when their sunset wedding started a little bit late so we were left doing the best we can with basically no daylight left! All in all though it was a wonderful wedding that they had in an absolutely beautiful location. Here are a couple of the pictures that we got...some of them are waiting on being edited when we hopefully get a computer program to do that soon.

I definitely have to say that I really enjoyed doing the pictures for the wedding and it was fun to be able to be a part of someones special day like that. I look forward to hopefully being able to do many more weddings (even though James says they aren't his favorite thing to shoot). Ever since planning our wedding I have thought it would be fun to be a wedding planner and be able to take part in weddings all the time...Sally and I even decided that we could do a package (minister and photographer) deal for weddings, good times! We hope you enjoy the pictures, let us know what you think!

Christina outside the house where she got ready for the wedding

Saying a prayer during the ceremony

Their very unique wedding cake...some sort of French specialty...boy was it yummy!

Christina with her nephew

Titus with his brother

The happy couple!

The Camping Adventure!

2008-10-15T11:45:00.008-04:00

Well James and I have had an awesome week so far this week. We are fortunate enough to work at a year round school and even though we taught intersession the first week, I really feel like we have taken advantage of the break this second week. We left Saturday morning to head up to the mountains for our first camping adventure with our new tent that we got as a wedding present. We also borrowed some sleeping bags and a grill from my friend Robin and her family and thought we were all set for our first camp out.

A picture by one of our first stops, Julian Price Park where the lake was absolutely beautiful!

To begin our trip we headed up to Boone and got on the blue ridge parkway to make our way towards the campground. We passed some amazing sights and the higher we got into the mountains, the better the leaves looked with the colors of fall. Oh and did I mention that this was our first trip out with our new camera equiptment? So needless to say we stopped at EVERY opportunity there was to get some great pictures of the leaves and scenery! Anyways the campground that we wanted to stay at was booked up for the night so we went to the campground where Robin and her family were staying and set up camp there. After finally get our tent and everything set up (which I have to say we did a pretty good job with it being our first time!) we took our first trip to Wal-mart. I say that it was our first trip because before the weekend was over I think we ended up there about four times for one thing or another and spent a lot more then we had planned to spend at Wal-mart while camping, but hey it's all good!

Hooray, we got the tent set up and ready to go!

The next morning we got up and went to Wal-mart again (I had a cold and needed some medicine) and then met up with Robin and her family and followed them to Mt. Mitchell which was absolutely beautiful. The only downfall was that it was about 45 degrees with 20+ mph winds so it made for a chilly afternoon! While we were there we got to grab a bite to eat at the restaurant that was near the top of the mountain and get some good home cooking which was fun and the view was beautiful of course!

A picture that Robin took of us at one of the overlooks on the parkway

Robin & her family at one of the stops along the parkway

A.J. and I at the top of Mt. Mitchell!

After leaving Mt. Mitchell James and I made a few stops for scenery pictures and then we wanted to head to "Little Switzerland" which was another stop along the Parkway. I'm not sure if we missed out on the whole Little Switzerland thing but the only thing we could find was one building of some pretty run down country stores and we were not thrilled by anything that was there. We are thinking that we had to have missed out on what Little Switzerland was all about because people were talking about it like it was something not to miss out on. After that it was back to Wal-mart for gas this time...which by the way we got gas for $2.79 so that was pretty great!

We then went on to our campground to set up camp for the next two nights. The only problem was that we realized there were TWO campgrounds by the same name and the major difference between the two was that one had showers and one did not...we definitely needed showers! So after almost setting up camp we realized that we were at the wrong campground so we packed up once again to head to the right place. Once we got there it was a great place and we set up camp and then James cooked us up some dinner and we settled in for the night. On Monday we got up and went to Wiseman's View and Linville Falls which were both very pretty hikes. The road to Wiseman's view was amazing it was one of those little tiny dirt roads where it gets a little scary at times that you can't see what is coming around the corner or at the top of the hill.

A.J. and James at Wiseman's View

Here we are at the waterfall!

We also took a hike that afternoon (after a nice nap back at the campsite) to the Viaduct which was really cool...it is where the road is built off the side of Grandfather mountain because they were trying not to damage the mountain. You could hike up by the road and watch the cars go by...I kind of felt like a spy because no one knew we were there!

One of the pictures of the Viaduct

A.J. and I hanging out on the hike under the Viaduct

Then Tuesday morning we got up early and packed up camp so that we could head out to Boone. We stopped at the outlet mall in Blowing Rock and spent some time in downtown Boone at the Mast General Store and of course we found a little local pizza shop to eat at also! Well to finish off this nice LONG post I figured I would end things by adding a few of our favorite pictures of the trip and the scenery!

A.J. has become quite the mountain dog...he has given up on finding sticks and decided to find logs instead!

The lake at Julian Price Park

Rainy Day Blues

2008-10-08T17:09:00.005-04:00

I was so excited I finally got all the pieces for my new camera setup.

I went to go outside and realizesd it was pouring down rain. That of course will not stop me, as a dedicated photographer. The postal service credo has nothing on me.

These are just random pictures that I shot around the house. Think I pulled it off well? I always love feedback good or bad. It only helps me become better.

Here they are in no real order.

This first picture is of the wax hands that we made at the festival over the weekend. Just thought it might make an intersting pic.

This picture the background was blurred on purpose which is of my scarecrow being overshardowed by all the ellegance and grace that my wife's scarecrow casts.

This is of a Gerber Daisy that she got from the festival.

This is a sunflower from the flowers I got her last weekend.

This is a terrible spider that she has hung from the doorway that scares me everytime it moves up and down with its beady horrible eyes.

Welcome to La Casa Brown.

The wild valley of flowers on our front porch.

It was definetly raining.

A pumpkin made by one of Anna's family members.

A GREAT DAY!

2008-10-07T17:18:00.009-04:00

I have not actually posted in a long time. I thought it was time.

This post shows pictures from the Reniassance festival this past weekend. It was a good time. It is the first one I have ever been to, and I am lucky that I have such a teriffic wife to go with me.

This is the first picture where you go through the gate to enter the Renaissance festival.
I must admit we are quite the king and queen. Don't you think?!

This is my beautiful wife. She is standing their with her beautiful Gerber Daisy that I bought her. You can't have a princess with a flower now can you?

A wax museum has nothing on us. You can come see our first signature showpiece which is our wax hands at our house. Guess what, we will not even charge an admission fee. Come on, you can't beat that!
This picture was taken of the jousting match. This was a pretty intersting time. The camera did not do so great taking the picture but hopefully many new pictures will occur with the SLR.

Beautiful Weather!

2008-10-05T20:44:00.005-04:00

Well since the last two posts have gotten NO COMMENTS what so ever I thought maybe I'd add on some cute baby pictures to get some comments!! Last Thursday I finally got to spend some time with Melissa and Molly when we took a trip to the park that is down the road from our house. Molly went on the swing for the first time and also took her first trip down a slide! She seemed to enjoy both very much!

Molly & Mommy

Molly & "Auntie Anna"

Here she is enjoying her ride on the swing

Here is Molly heading down the slide...she wasn't quite as sure about the slide as she was the swing!

James and I are now on our fall break though we are both teaching intersession this first week of the break. We are hopeing to earn a little extra money for our cruise (which is just over 2 months away...yippy!) by teaching this week. The second week of break we are going to go to Boone to do a little camping in the mountains with our new tent that we got from Erika as a wedding gift. We will be back the middle of the week because we will be doing some photography for a friends wedding on the 15th. Other then that I am really hopeing to get in a little rest a relaxation to get us ready for the next 9 weeks of school!

Don't Vote...

2008-10-03T17:05:00.004-04:00

OK so I tried for quite a while to get this video to come up so I could post the actual video on the blog but I guess i'm not so good at the whole video thing...anyways this is pretty neat so I think you all should check it out when you get a chance!

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedishrag/2008/10/leo-dicaprio-je.html

"Date Night" and a little bit more...

2008-10-02T20:08:00.007-04:00

Well I have to say one thing that James has done really well with since we got married is making sure that we have our weekly date night. I definitely have been impressed with the way that he is always continuing to want to plan things and surprise me with new restaurants and places to go. Well this week (right after payday of course) we went to the Southpark Mall and ate at McCormick & Schmidts seafood restaurant. Though neither of use are huge seafood people we were definitely impressed when we got to sit in our own personal booth (with curtains for privacy) and the food was definitely tasty!

Our fancy appatizer...baked brie with a mango and orange sauce...YUM!

We also went shopping this past weekend and got some new decorations for our first fall in our home! We were able to get a few scarecrows for the front porch and we worked hard decorating the mantle for the season.

James with his scarecrow.

My scarecrow!

A picture of the new decorations on the mantle!

Of course we had to include A.J. in the post...here he is watching out the front door while we were setting up the porch! We are still working on the finishing touches and will add more pictures when it is complete!

Scuba Adventure #1

2008-09-18T19:05:00.005-04:00

Well James and I had our first scuba adventure in the water this past Saturday and we really enjoyed ourselves. We were both a little anxious to actually get in the water and see what it is like to breathe under water. Well after the joys of figuring out how to get that big ole tank on our back and those flippers on our feet it seemed like the swimming was the easy part! We didn't do a whole lot this trip just did a lot of swimming around under the water to get used to breathing with the tank and also to learn how to equalize our bodies with the pressure under water. I think this was probably what we had the hardest time with since you are supposed to keep breathing at all times and also pop your ears while swimming but we will get it! We also got to learn the skill of clearing your mask while under water if it gets a leak of water in this and needless to say I ended up with a pool in my mask before finally figuring out how to do it! It definitely took me a lot longer then James to get that one right and we'll see if I can remember what to do when I have to try it again this weekend! Needless to say our first scuba experience was a success and it left us wanting more and looking forward to our next trip to the pool this weekend!

James getting ready for his first dip in the water!

We made it and still have a smile on our faces!

Other then that this seems to be an incredibly slow week so far and we are definitely ready for Friday night to get here. I had my teacher of the year observation and interview yesterday where my class put on a play of "The Little Red Hen" and then after reading and acting out the story we put on our "chef hats" that we made and we baked bread in our classroom! It all went really well and was a lot of fun even though I didn't win. Last night we had our first meeting with our new small group from our church that we have been going to. It was pretty fun and we got to meet a few new people which it will be nice to have some more familiar faces when we go to church on Sundays! We also have had some very unwated visitors in our kitchen this week (fruit flies) and we have been trying very hard to get rid of them. We happened to have the exterminator coming over tonight to do our termite update so he went ahead and smoked the house out for us so needless to say we had to take AJ and vacate the house for a bit so that is always fun! Luckily we have a great friend down the street that we hung out with for a bit while we waited...thanks Sally! Well i'm off for now and hopefully I will have some more exciting scuba news to post after our next session this weekend!

A Great Day!

2008-09-07T19:12:00.005-04:00

This picture has absolutely nothing to do with the post...it's just one that I took that I thought was pretty cool!

Well i'm going to make an attempt to do a better job at updating more often on here...maybe that will help us get more comments...HINT HINT! hehe! I have to say that Friday was probably one of the best days that I have had in a while. I was pretty bummed out that I wasn't able to go up to Illinois for the "Clute Golf Open" this weekend with my family but my day at school on Friday made me feel pretty good. I had my name pulled out of a drawing to win a free dinner at Logan's steakhouse and I was also nominated as one of the candidates at our school for teacher of the year this year! I was definitely surprised and excited when I heard that come over the announcements in the morning. James is bound and determined that I am going to win but I am just proud to be nominated, no matter what happens!

The rest of the weekend wasn't really much to write home about as James and I pretty much just sat around and relaxed but I have to say it has been nice to be able to do that! Yesterday we did a little shopping around town and got to go over to Brian & Melissa's house to welcome them home and see their beautiful new baby, Molly. I have to say as adorable as she is in the pictures on their blog, she is even cuter in person! I didn't get any pictures yet but I will be a good "Auntie" and get some soon...for now I will just still a few from their blog to post on here! Other then that I have not really done much this weekend though I have been able to enjoy the weather a lot since Sally and I have been walking pretty much every day lately...and we are up to three miles now so we think that is pretty darn good! Days like today make it hard though when it's "like 1000 degrees out!"

Well I guess that's about it for now...check out the new updates on the right side of the blog where we added links to other blogs and also a spot where you can become a "follower" of our blog...oh boy!

Molly with her proud Mommy and Daddy!

The "Dog Days" of Summer

2008-09-01T13:13:00.007-04:00

OK so I thought that title to this post would be perfect as James and I have been taking lots of pictures of A.J. lately and wanted to add a few to our blog! We have been working hard training him to be a frisbee dog and he is slowly but surely beginning to be able to chase and catch the frisbee which we think is pretty cool! The only problem that we have faced is getting him to give us the frisbee back after he gets it!

A.J. also made a new friend in our yard today...James and I were inside working and I heard him barking outside and went to look and see what he was barking at and we came upon quite an intertaining little situation...here is a video that we took of AJ with his new little friend, guess we need to teach him some manners though so next time he doesn't scare the poor little guy off!

Here is a picture of me holding the little turtle as well!

This weekend we also went up to the Matthews Alive festival in downtown Matthews. They have it every year on Labor Day weekend and since we are usually in Tennessee during Labor Day we have never been before. It was pretty fun and had a lot of arts and crafts booths along with all the good ole carnival food that you see at festivals. James also found the new car of his dreams at a Saturn booth that was there and he got a picture with it. We are not 100% sure if we like this one better then the Nissan 350z though!

Well tomorrow we are going back to school after the long weekend. I have to say that I really do feel like we got a lot of rest and relaxation in this weekend which was really nice for a change! I feel like I am actually rested and ready to go back to be with the kids tomorrow...we'll see what happens after staying up late to watch the good ole University of Tennessee game though! Hopefully the Vols win by a landslide and it will be OK with my wonderful husband if I go to bed early and miss a bit of the game!

Molly is on her way!

2008-08-15T21:49:00.003-04:00

Well yesterday we had Melissa & Molly's "surprise" baby shower at our house and had a GREAT time with everyone here. The house seemed a little bit cramped but it was definitely full of love for Melissa and Brian and their new daughter that they are going to get just one from today!!!! We all wore t-shirts with Molly's picture on them to surprise Melissa and show her that she is going to have some huge competition when it comes to deciding who gets to babysit for Molly when they go out! Brian & Melissa got a lot of great things for their new little lady and we all can't wait to meet her when they get back from Vietnam...you will all be in our prayers while you are there!

Brian & Melissa sporting their shirts that say "Molly's Mommy and Molly's Daddy!" The rest of our grade level had shirts saying "Molly's Babysitter!"

Melissa with a lap full of things to keep them busy on their trip to Vietnam!

A New Day...

2008-08-05T19:59:00.003-04:00

Well I feel like we have a lot of things that we should be updating with yet i'm not quite sure where to start. I put this picture in the post first to celebrate our one month annivesary (yippy!) but also because I think that look on my face just shows the way I feel about life since James and I got married. I feel like such a lucky woman to have been brought together with such a wonderful man who puts up with my shortcomings and STILL even after those buys me roses for our one month anniversary! For those of you still waiting on pictures from the wedding, we are in the process of trying to upload them on our computer except the computer doesn't want to take them so hopefully we will figure something out soon!

Something great that happened to us this weekend as well is that we were both baptised at our church on Sunday. It was what they called a spontaneous baptism where our pastor talked about the meaning of baptism and how it is one of the first things that you should do after you give your life to God. While I was listening I sat in my chair thinking about everything that was being said and the priorities in my life that had changed lately and how wonderful it has been to truly feel like God is the center of my life. When he was done preeching a song played and he counted to three and told you to stand up if you felt moved to do so and sure enough before I knew it both James and I were on our make to one of the most wonderful and meaningful experiences we will ever have. When I woke up this morning I heard this song on the radio that I really feel like I was able to relate to so I thought I would put a bit of it on here.

I Know You Now by 4Him

"Finally I'm understanding

Just who You are

I feel my life is landing

Safe inside Your arms where I belong

But, I know You now

I know You now

I know You're in my heart

Yes, I know You now

Beyond the shadow of a doubt

I know You now

In my heart

In my soul

In my life

Now I know

I know You now"

And ya know what I have to say that one of the most amazing things was when I went through that pool on Sunday? Not only did I feel an amazing sense of pride and excitment and love from my wonderful husband and friends who were there to witness it, but the first person who I hear cheering for me and whose smile I saw was the woman who made me realize how important it is to have God in your life, my good ole Aunt Cheryl who I know was smiling down on me at that moment!

The Honeymoon!

2008-07-16T15:54:00.008-04:00

Well I wanted to come back and update real quick with a few pictures from our "mini honeymoon" that we took right after our wedding. We started our first day as husband and wife by getting up Sunday morning and getting all of our wedding gear back on so we could go take some pictures on the beach (we were unable to take them Saturday because of the thunderstorm that was rolling in). After that we went to visit both our families and say good-bye and headed off to Beaufort, SC for two nights. We enjoyed spending time in downtown Beaufort and stayed in a private cottage at a bed and breakfast that James found. We also spent the day Monday driving around to some of the near by islands and went to Hunting State Park and relaxed on the beach!

Our champagne that was waiting for us in our hotel room! We are going to save it for our year anniversary to eat with frozen wedding cake! Yum!

A picture of our cottage that we stayed in when in Beaufort.

A sailboat that we saw in the water downtown...James wanted to get a good picture for his brother!

The lighthouse at Hunting State Park

James and I on the beach!

A cool picture that James took when we were going on a boardwalk in the marshes...it had just rained so it made for a good photo opportunity!

Tuesday we left Beaufort and drove to Charleston to spend the day there. We definitely both enjoyed our time there and look forward to coming back to spend more time there soon. We went to the marketplace, rainbow row, battery park, and to a local restaurant that was reccomended. As you can see from the pictures James somehow convinced me to wear matching shirts while we were there that say "United We Ride"! Though I was not sold on the idea at first it ended up being kind of fun and we had lots of people ask us about them so that got us some extra attention as well! During our few hours in the city we also got talked into going to one of those time share presentations where yes, we were able to stay strong and turn it down! We did however get six free tickets to use the next time we are there so we thought that was worth it!

Me in Battery Park

James trying to lift a cannon ball...use those muscles babe!

Now we are back in good ole Monroe and have been working hard on getting our house back in order with all of our wonderful new things that we have gotten. We are excited to see everything come together. We are also heading back to the world of BHES and have spent the last two days there getting our classrooms in order and ready for the kids to come back in a week and a half. We have a week long workshop next week so we need to get everything we can together this week to lighten the load after sitting in class for 7 1/2 hours! Hopefully the workshop will be beneficial though and help us to become the best teachers we can be for our new students! I guess that is all from me for now, we will update with more pictures of the wedding (yes Laura i'll put a full length picture of my dress just for you) when we get them back!

Our new sign that hangs on our mailbox at our house...thanks Kelly & Justin!

The Browns!

2008-07-10T11:30:00.011-04:00

Well yes it's official we are finally married and we had a GREAT time down at Jekyll with all of our closest family and friends, it was a once in a lifetime chance to get to take a trip with that many people! One thing that I think James and I both realized on this trip is how lucky we are to have such amazing people in our lives. I can't tell you how many people came together to help to make sure that this past weekend was a success and we are truly thankful for each one of them.

A picture of the sign lettings us know that we made it to our destination!

Our rehearsal dinner was absolutely awesome and James and his family did a great job finding some of the "World's Greatest BBQ" for us to enjoy on the 4th of July! We also got to see some fireworks from the beach that night which was pretty fun as well.

A picture of the ladies being thugs with our great new hair styles...good looking wedding party, don't ya think?

I had to get a picture with Sally "The Rev" who married us and did a wonderful job with our ceremony. James and I feel relly blessed to have had her as a part of our day.

Just hanging out and enjoying the night with my new husband! I don't think either of us got tired of getting pictures taken that night so we would have many to remember it by! It's funny because in a way I feel no different now that we are married but on the other hand there is just this sense of comfort in knowing that I will always have James in my life no matter what! I have to say though that it has felt kinda weird to hear him refer to me as his wife the last few days but i'm glad to know he enjoys calling me that!

Well I guess that's all for now...we will update again soon with pictures from our trip after the wedding and with more pictures of our day after we get them from Matt our wonderful photographer!

How sweet it is to be loved by you!

2008-07-01T21:45:00.012-04:00

As many of you know we are starting our journey down to Jekyll Island, Ga tomorrow morning. I thought it would be neat to take a few moments and take you on a journey with us through the past few years. This will be just a quick snapshot.

We appreciate all our family and friends who have been along with us for this journey. Buckle your virtual seat belts and please keep feet and hands inside the ride at all times.

This picture was taken the first time I came out to Charlotte. This was our first Easter as an item. This was also the first time that she told me that she loved me. For those of you who do not know she did this event quite well. She broke the words up in a different language and hid them all over the house for me to find. This picture above was taken at the Botanical gardens here in town.This picture was of us during our first New Year's Eve celebration. This was taken at a restaurant called the Butcher Shop in downtown Knoxville. It was great food and great time. Yes, I do believe I got a kiss at midnight. Lucky me:)

This is the first ring I ever gave her. Isn't it pretty! I think she was speechless and overcome with happy emotions at this moment!

See, I told you that she loved me! That was one powerful olive. Never underestimate the power of true love!

This is of course the house that we bought! Buying a house was such a great journey. It is a lot of work but something that I both think that we would not have traded the experiences we gained from this for anything.

This of course is the newest addition in our family! He has brought so much joy and fun into our lives. We do love him dearly. This was the poor fella when he lost his manhood. He was the lucky winner of a nice bright shiny cone!

This is a picture I took of Jekyll Island's Club Hotel. It is a beautiful place full of history and beauty! The picture does not do it justice.

This last picture is of Faith Chapel. This is where we will be getting married at on Saturday. We hope to see a lot of you there. Remember if you could not make it to the wedding we are having a celebration here on the 19th. You are definitely welcome.

A Quick Update!

2008-06-23T21:23:00.007-04:00

Here are a few pictures to show some of the fun things that we did while we were in Tennessee for the past week and a half. Thanks to everyone who has sent us thoughts, prayers, and wishes for the wedding on here over the last few days and weeks...we truly appreciate it and hope to see you all either at the wedding or at our BBQ on July 19th!

My cousin Brady and I hanging out by the lake!

James and Brennan taking a break from their "noodle war" in the lake!

Who knew the simple task of getting on gloves could take so much hot air? We are getting ready to do some tye dying with the kids and surprisingly enough it turned out pretty well!

A picture of our cake from the shower that James's Mom & Aunt threw us while we were in town!

My wonderful Mom & I at the shower!

James's cousin Tammy showing off our new door mat...probably one of my favorite gifts from the shower!

Two Weeks & Counting!

2008-06-21T21:00:00.002-04:00

Yep that's right it's officially only TWO WEEKS until we get married! Part of me feels like that is plenty of time to get things done and the other part of me knows that it is going to FLY by! Especially with having to work half days all week next week with our "Kindergarten Boot Camp" I know it is going to be here before we know it!

We have been having a great time in Tennessee for the last 10 days getting some last minute things done for the wedding and also just spending some quality time with our families. Last weekend on the 14th we celebrated the birthdays in James's family by having a good ole southern BBQ at their house. We also spent some time on the lake with Michael and Sidney (James's brother and his wife) and with Brady and Brennan, not to mention the fabulous tye dying that we did with them as well!

Today James's Mom and his Aunt threw us our 2nd wedding shower at a local church and we had a great time. It was nice to be able to meet some new people in his family along with meeting some of his Mom's friends that live in the area. We got some really nice things off our registry and most importantly got to spend some quality time with loved ones!

Tomorrow we head back home to NC to finish things up the last week and a half before we leave for the wedding. As I said earlier I know that this time that is coming up is going to just fly by along with the time while we are in Jekyll and I know that it all will not go as planned but whatever happens the most important part is that we get to spend time with family and friends and you can't get any better then that!

Schools out for Summer!!!!!

2008-06-08T13:15:00.002-04:00

Friday was our last day of school with the kids. The first thing that popped into my mind when I woke up on Friday was the song "Schools out for Summer." Surviving your first year of teaching is a milestone I was told. It is one that I can definitely agree with now. Coming into the school year midway through the year has to be one of the hardest things to do. This year was full of ups and downs. There were definitely more ups than downs. The year was very rewarding, and I am looking forward to starting from day one in third grade next year.
Anna I know had a great last day of school with Beach day. It sounded like the kids had a blast it.

We have a few work days left to go, and then its off to Tennessee for a while. Birthdays abound while we are there. My birthday is on the 14th as is my twins of course, along with my moms. My dads and his sister's bday is on the 13th. That all adds up to a lot of cake and icecream over the next little bit. YUM!

Hope everyone has a great break and a great safe Summer. More posts to come. We can't wait until we see all of you at the wedding.

The Time Is Getting Near...

2008-06-03T20:17:00.004-04:00

Gotta love a sunset in the mountains...just one of the many amazing things that God does to show us the beauty of the world!

Well yes as everyone keeps reminding me we are just about a month away from the big day...WAHOO! We are getting excited and to be honest I'm just sick of waiting and ready for it to be here. I went for my 2nd fitting on my dress today and that definitely gave me that "wow" feeling in knowing that the time is close!

While we wait we are definitely kept from being bored by all the things we have going on at school. Thursday is our field day and on Friday we are having a beach day in Kindergarten where the kids get to play a bunch of water games and such so that should be a good time and wear them out pretty well! It is really neat to see how far some of the students have come, especially given the way that they came in to K. Seems like if we let them that the kids would be able to run the class on their own (and some of them try to on a daily basis!) Even though many people talk about how much pressure is put on Kindergarten students it is great for me to be able to still get to see their innocence. Just today one of our students brought in pictures of his dogs and was telling us how one of his dogs can be mean some times and they have to "smack him" to which one of my little girls replied "well if he's mean and you don't like him then you should just sell him in a yard sale or somethin!" Gotta love the minds of kids!

As many of you know James and I have also been doing a lot of traveling lately including a camping trip to the beach with Molly & Matt and also a trip to the mountains that James to me on for my birthday! We had a great time on both trips and feel really blessed to be able to get away like that, especially with gas prices and all going up I think our trips are going to be minimal here the rest of the year! Here are a few pictures I thought you all would enjoy from those trips!

Setting up a tent on an incredibly windy day...not so easy but who needs guys when the girls can do it!

Molly & Matt on the beach with their dog Tacori

James & I sitting by our JEG in the sand that I drew...awww! OK 10 points if you can tell me what JEG means!!

James and I on our trip to the mountains at the top of Chimney Rock...we did it!

The view from Chimney Rock...it was BEAUTIFUL!

James doing some creative photography with my ring...thought it turned out pretty cool!

A.J. and I were ready for a nap after a long weekend!

A Year Already?

2008-05-15T21:13:00.004-04:00

"To love is nothing. To be loved is something. To love and to be loved is everything"
~Claire Dempsey

Today is mine and James's one year anniversary of being engaged! Who knew that a year could fly by so quickly. He took me out to dinner last night to celebrate at O'Charley's since neither one of us could go this evening. We got to talking about our favorite memories since we got engaged and I said that one of my favorite was just being able to call everyone that night and share the news and also getting to tell everyone at school the next day was fun as well! James said that his favorite moment would definitely be buying our house which has been a huge part of starting our new life together!

James also surprised me tonight by coming home from our school play and knocking on the door. When I came to answer the door he had a dozen beautiful roses and a new wind chime to put outside our house...what a sweetie pie!