Happy Holidays!

Just wanted to write a quick note to say happy holidays to all! We have been working very hard at getting the house in order and thanks to a few of our great friends helping out it looks pretty good so far! We feel pretty good about it all and finally have internet installed and the security system in and now we will just have to wait for DirecTV so James can get back into watching all of his Sunday ticket football!
We are leaving today on a trip for the holidays, we will spend most of it in Tennessee and then be going up to Illinois for a few days to visit my Grandpa and some family on my Dad's side! We'll definitely be very busy but are excited to see family because we haven't seen them since our October break.
Also on a wedding note we FINALLY have all of our stuff together for our Save the date cards(or STDs as Melissa likes to call them) and will be sending them out on Monday along with a belated holiday letter with our new address and all so be on the lookout for that!
We hope everyone has a very safe and fun holiday and LEAVE US COMMENTS to let us know how you are doing! haha!

What's new on the home front...

Well James and I are pretty excited to announce that it looks like we will soon officially be home owners! As many of you know we have been looking at a house for a few weeks now in downtown Monroe and we went this evening to write up a contract on the house! We are set to close on December 17th, what a wonderful Christmas present for us! We are also now officially taking applications for a moving crew as well...doesn't take much, just a smile and a hungry belly for some pizza after the move!

It is a very quaint little house that was built in 1940 and definitely has a lot of character to it. It is 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom with a den and a nice size living room so it's just enough room for us for a first home! It was for sale by owner (who were also first time sellers) so needless to say we all learned a lot along the way and it looks like we made a few new friends as well! One of the best parts is that we are going to be a lot closer to work (like within 2 miles) and also we get to live near some of our good friends!

The living room and fireplace...we hope to get gas logs in there sometime!

The dining room looking into the kitchen

Our green apple kitchen!

A.J.'s new home...a nice fenced in back yard!

Man Law

When mama bear is away little bear and daddy bear will play. Not really but it at least sounded good and made me feel like I run the show. Anna is away for a conference at school from Sunday afternoon until Tuesday evening. I am not sure what AJ and I will do.

Here are some things that need to be done and they are not very exciting, before the fun can start.

1. Start packing

2. Research windows

3. Lesson plan

4. AJ does not know it but I am becoming Pavlov on his bad self, and he is going to be in studious training these few days.

After a few of these things get done then I can engage full man power law and watch some serious hardcore football action, and play the Wii.

The great feeling of man law in full force.

I have not posted about our last trip to Jekyll Island, and that is long overdue.

We got quite a bit done on the tripe. We were able to select a florist for the wedding, along with a DJ, and book the chapel and the reception hall, a swell as the menu for the reception.quite a lot of work and we did not have a lot of time for other stuff. We also have all the rooms that we are going to use for people to stay in picked out as well.

Below are some pictures of our trip.

It was a great view from our room.





Woman law though is even more powerful than man law.





Nothing however is stronger than true love not even man law or woman law.

Gotta love "turkey day!"

Well lets see where to start this one. It has been a very busy week! Even though there were only two days of school with the kids they were definitely very packed full of activity. Yesterday we had a work day at school and were both able to get a lot done on our rooms which was nice. After that we had a little mishap when we went out to Five Guys for lunch and I went in the bathroom to wash my hands and when I was coming out I hit my ring on the door and bent the band so my diamond was now sitting on its side instead up standing upright. So we then had to make a quick trip out to southpark where we got the band and to make along story short I am ringless for the next week. Along with the topics of rings and the wedding we got a LOT done the other weekend when we went to Jekyll and are excited about the plans for the wedding. James will be updating soon with the pics and to tell you more about our trip!

Today is good ole Thanksgiving and we are going to spend the day at Shelly and Gary's house hanging out with them and eating some turkey of course! This is our 2nd Thanksgiving together and we definitey have had a lot to be thankful for in the last year. I am VERY thankful for the fact that James was able to move out here and that we have learned so many new things about each other after living together. I look forward to seeing where we will be at as man and wife by our 3rd Thanksgiving next year! I'm also very thankful for our health and the fact that (besides a few colds here and there) we have been lucky enough to stay away from any sickness. Last but of course not least I am thankful for my family and the way that they have been there for me in everything that I do in my life...many of you have heard me say how truly lucky I think I am for the family that I have and how wonderful they are. I have to admit that part of me is sad that I don't get to see Mom and Dad and Eric this year but I know it's hard with them all so far away! Which by the way if you haven't checked out Mom's blog of the trip you definitely should at clute.blogspot.com because it is very neat!

Well I guess I will close this out so that we can get ready to head out for the day. I hope that everyone has a truly blessed and wonderful Thanksgivng and that you all find some great deals shopping tomorrow (yes, James and I are heading out at 1am for his first "black Friday" experience)! We will update later with some pictures from today as we seem to have lost the cord to our camera when AJ decided to eat it for dinner the other night! Ahhh the joys of puppies!

Yes we are still "Bloggers"...

James did a great job getting this shot just at the right moment...pretty cool, huh?

OK so I do realize that it has been quite some time since our last post and I do apologize for that. A lot has been going on in the last few weeks so I'm not quite sure where to begin. I guess I will start off with some promised pictures from Michigan! We went up for Kelly & Justin's wedding and had a great time hanging out with them and enjoying the unseasonably warm weather...poor Kelly was hoping for a cool fall wedding day...whoops! Here are a few pictures from their wedding that James took:

Justin getting ready to sweep Kelly off her feet!

James and I stopped to take our picture by the lake as well!

We also spent some time up in Muskegon visiting some friends and had a little free time while they were at work to introduce A.J. to the Lake Michigan Beaches! We had a great time there and he actually went in the lake some too! After that we took a long drive to go over to the East side of the state where I grew up and I got to show James my old house and we visited a Cider mill and also got to have lunch with my brother. It was such a short but fun trip, I really miss everyone up there but can't wait to see them all down in our neck of the woods for the wedding!

Our family picture by Lake Michigan!

Man he is like a little fish!

One last picture on our trip at the historic Parshalville Cider Mill!

The Bless Back Project

Well James and I have had a very busy weekend so far. Yesterday we spent the day taking care of our "car issue" that we have had for the last few months. It was something that had put a lot of stress on both of us and we are very happy that we finally got things figured out. We had been praying about what to do and it was all taken care of yesterday. We ended up turning in all THREE of the cars to the Hyundai dealer and were given a horse and buggy to ride home on (haha James wanted me to put that)...no but we did turn in all three cars and ended up with a new Hyundai Sonata that is basically like the one we had but has more options on it...you must come try it out and we will even turn on your "Butt Warmer!" It was a hard choice for us to get rid of the other cars but we are very happy with our decision!

Ok now about the title of this post. Our friend Debbie has been asking us for months to go to church with her. We finally went with her today to Elevation church here in Charlotte. We have both commented that it was a VERY different experience then we were used to at church. It was pretty much like a rock concert first thing on a Sunday morning. It was definitely different but a very powerful church to say the least. We were extra blessed by having gone on this particular Sunday. The pastor decided rather then to do a collection he would give out a collection for the people to go do God's work with and to give to help someone in our community. James and I each got an envelope to open and have decided to pray about what God wants us to do with the money. We are VERY excited about the whole idea of the project and look forward to seeing what everyone does with the money. The church has asked us all to post on a website what we do with the money so if you want to check that out then the website address is www.blessbackproject.com . I have always heard about things like this happening on Oprah and stuff but never thought I would get to be a part of it!

Hope everyone has a blessed rest of the weekend and we will be posting soon with pics of the new car and from our trip to Michigan...back to school tomorrow, oh boy!

Hometown Hero Update!

The hometown heros, "nominators", and the Keffer Hyundai staff

The winners and manager at the Hyundai dealer.

James and I are working on figuring out our car "situation" as many of you know and today he was looking at Keffer Hyundai's website and found out that they FINALLY update it with stuff from the hometown hero contest so check it out and see a video from the awards ceremony and some pictures! The link is http://www.kefferhyundai.com/ there is a video clip when you get on the webpage and you can also click on the red and white hometown hero link on the bottom of the page!

We will try to update again in the next few days to add some pics from our Michigan trip!