...away we go...

some exciting news

2011-08-15T22:39:00.004-04:00

If you're reading this, it's indeed probably not "news" to you by now but we're so excited about a recent engagement...

As a disclaimer I did not take this picture - it's from the camera of Robby who happened to be in the area to take several awesome pictures of Miriam and Michael on the actual engagement. But she looks so beautiful [and he so handsome as well:)] that I just couldn't help but want to post it...

we can hardly wait...

2011-04-04T22:56:00.003-04:00

...until wednesday!

(sheen nee-en)

2011-03-18T21:47:00.009-04:00

A couple of weeks ago I was invited over to celebrate the Chinese New Year with some friends from work - thus the title of this post is how I would spell what "Happy New Year" in Chinese sounds like to me. That of course might be more than a little off:) It actually brought back memories of my first Chinese New Year celebration experience a couple of years ago when we were back in Jackson. Not surprisingly, as you might can tell from the pictures below, it's celebrated a lot like our "American" holidays in that you spend the time with family, friends, and food!

sort of catching up

2011-02-11T22:51:00.046-05:00

it's probably mostly a reflection of what can seem a bit of a "mundane" schedule right now around our house - and a demanding schedule at work for claude - but there's not been a whole lot of blogging material and thus not much blogging activity over the last couple of months. however here's an attempt to get a little caught up on the past six or so months...

we went to savannah for their jazz festival in september. we also saw flannery oconnor's childhood home, got plenty of exercise walking around downtown to and from the festival in forsythe park, and had our first experience with booking a hotel on priceline and then being placed in what must be the hotel's priceline closet! the jazz festival was the main reason we made the trip and it was really a lot of fun. claude is probably a much bigger fan of jazz music (as in he can typically name the artist if he hears a song whereas i definitely have no idea) but i enjoyed it so much i hope we can go back next year. and of course before packing up and starting the drive back i found claude with 2 of his favorite "off" morning companions - a cup of starbucks and his ent textbook:)

we also celebrated our 2nd anniversary in september. for our 1st anniversary (alongside serving as a dual late summer vacation) we went back to seaside for a week. we weren't able to make an anniversary trip there this year so instead we treated ourselves to a piece of cake from boll weevil - the place here which is widely recognized as having the best cakes in town. these cakes are not only delish but also massive. in the end i think i ate more than my fair share of this piece... [and claude took good notes - for my birthday a couple of months later he got me a whole birthday cake from the same place in a different flavor. it's taken him two years to learn how i really appreciate excellent birthday cake but he's finally getting the idea:)]

in october i flew for the weekend to new orleans for my cousin sara's wedding. those pictures are on a different camera though so i'll post a couple later. along with my advice for flying out of the augusta airport:)

for halloween some friends invited us over for supper and to watch cape fear - the older gregory peck version. halloween is nowhere near my favorite holiday but we had a good time dressing up and watching an old "scary" movie. as far as costumes go, we went all out and dressed as a nerd and firefighter. while it may be hard to believe we really didn't have to do too much searching to throw these costumes together. a quick trip to the quite interesting "everything's a dollar" store down the street yielded my glasses, claude's tshirt w fireman logo, and fireman hat.

unfortunately claude had to work several call shifts during both thanksgiving and christmas. so on thanksgiving we went to eat thanksgiving lunch at cracker barrel with amy, michael, will, julie, and taylor. we enjoyed the company but missed food prepared by our favorite cooks - our moms and grandmothers!!! then for christmas i actually trekked back to ms for a couple of days that i had off since claude had to work in essence every day between being on call and post call. i headed first to jackson where the crazy christmas sweaters made their second - (in what will become an annual tradition?) - appearance. i didn't pull the camera out until the awake crowd had dwindled down to just laura, breck, and me but this picture of laura gives you an idea. of the sweaters..

while there we had a delicious meal, opened presents, played cards, and watched emily put up a valiant attempt at the cinnamon challenge. also i think laura took several pictures with her new awesome camera so if she ends up blogging some of those of everyone i'll link to them from here. since we didn't really have enough to play any more card games at this point and since laura and i have the same camera now so we spent some time trying to figure out how to work some of the settings: hence the pictures of breck and the flying cards. i think she's learned a lot more than me since then so i'm excited about getting some tips next time we're together next week!

the next morning i got to visit with a friend and then eat sushi for lunch with claude's mom before picking up mirm and then heading on to philly where mirm and i drove into town just in time to pick up pappaw for the candlelight service. to be honest it was a bittersweet christmas in that it was the first one without mammaw there. we did go to the candlelight service and then back out to the country for supper and the christmas punch which pappaw made himself. even though it was a different christmas eve compared to most of the other years of my life thus far it was so good to be with my family who i miss so much. in the morning we had a big "country" breakfast at the dining room table and even got to experience a white christmas - which is kind of the exception rather than the rule in the south. while together we also watched funny videos on youtube, opened gifts, and had a really sweet time.

then we headed off to laurel to have dinner with my mom's family. this is definitely a big and ever growing group and it was nice that most everyone was there at the same time - and those who couldn't be there that day were there later in the week.

then came sunday morning and the time to drive i20 back to ga. i was definitely thankful for safe travel on the way back as a good portion of the drive included roads with snow along the way... and i don't have much experience at all with those conditions. upon finally arriving back home and after getting the car unpacked claude and i opened a couple of gifts. we have the most thoughtful families who are so generous and sweet in their giving. even though it's not the getting of gifts that makes christmas special, we treasure what we receive as those things are such sweet reminders of the ones we love:)

into the new year...claude actually got that whole weekend off! we had a nice dinner at a nice restaurant downtown and the next morning we set out to see all the huntsville crew. we enjoyed every minute of our somewhat whirlwind trip (there saturday, back sunday) - especially hearing of mammy's latest escapades in the war of pranks that seems to never end in that town. also while we were there and still dressed up harper was kind enough to take a picture or two of us. i realized this past year while doing christmas cards that we have very pictures of the two of us looking "nice enough" to send on a card with both of our eyes open. claude told me it's probably the last year i can get away with using an engagement picture on our card:) and then of course we couldn't leave without getting a picture of claude with hobbie and granddad.

that gets us posted up through the american new year at least. up next just might be a peek into the chinese new year...

what's a girl to do?

2011-01-10T18:02:00.004-05:00

First of all let me start off by saying - I've had an awesome Monday! I woke up (like probably anybody who would be reading this) to a blanket of snow covering everything outside. And a phone call that campus...translation for me - work...was closed for the day. Wahoo for me! Don't get me wrong - I do actually enjoy work but it was nice to have a day to stay inside a warm house, watch movies all day (though I had to settle to watch movies I've already seen several times because I was scared to get out and risk it driving), and catch up on loads of laundry and dishes that I didn't get around to this weekend. I just can't believe the day's already over.
So now to my dilemma. Even before the unexpected holiday from work I was looking forward to watching the big game tonight. Growing up I have always loved watching college - and more specifically SEC - football. And since my collegiate alma mater is not a Division I school I don't have one particularly strong loyalty - in general I root for MS teams and then after that any other SEC team that happens to be playing. Within the past couple of years (i.e. since meeting Claude and in extension his devoted Auburn family) I have come to enjoy rooting for Auburn as well. And they play tonight...for the national championship...on ESPN...which is not one of the ten channels we get:( I had already thought about that a bit since we didn't pick up numerous bowls in the past couple of weeks but felt sure that THE college football game of the year would be on one of the major networks we get, right? Wrong. I think I can buy the game off of ITunes but am not quite sure if it will be worth it to watch on my aging laptop with some audio issues of its own:) Either way I'm sure I can call someone up to get updates on the score! And relish the fact that as of now there is still a delayed start time for work to start tomorrow.

thirteen hundred miles

2010-11-21T20:12:00.016-05:00

Claude recently took his 1st vacation week of his 2nd year and I took the week off as well so I could make the trip home with him:) Over the course of the week we drove at least 1300 miles and hit Jackson, Laurel, Philadelphia, and Huntsville and saw all of our immediate family (minus Thomas who's in Oxford currently - which was too far away for us to squeeze in this time) and a couple of friends who happened to be around while we were in town. We also managed to eat really well, played some spades and bridge (Claude already knew how but I had beginner lessons), found a couple of geocaches, and did some bargain hunting along the way. As usual, it took me a while to get around to pulling the camera out so we're missing pics from the first couple of days but I'll share the ones we have:)

Laurel visit...funny aside on the second one - as Grandaddy was sitting down and Claude was clicking away on the camera Granddaddy remarked about the girl who sat down in a chair which proceeded to fall to the floor in pieces at Hudson's the day before - and I'm laughing because that girl happened to be me:)

We stopped by to see Emily and David and then got to see Niping (and Miriam who stopped by on her way home from work) for a bit at the apartments where Claude lived all through med school and where we lived the better half of our first year of marriage. As we were pulling out of the drive that night we talked about how it seemed like just yesterday that we would pull in and out of that drive daily. And even though we love our home now, I think we both miss Cups being right down the street just a little bit - Claude for the coffee and me for those blueberry scones!

In Philly out in the country.

We were so happy to make it to Hobbie and Granddad's just in time to eat supper with a table full of the Huntsville H's on Friday night. Even though our time there was short it was packed full - we were able to visit Mammy at her new place and watching Auburn win the SEC West on Saturday afternoon. We additionally were lucky enough to have pimento cheese and caramel and marble cake sent home with us as we left after supper on Saturday night - they did make it back to Augusta but didn't last long after that!

twebb

2010-11-21T20:05:00.003-05:00

Happy birthday Thomas!

Hope you like this picture. I it was the best "solo" shot I could find already loaded on my computer:) Hope you had a great day!

our labor day weekend

2010-09-30T20:40:00.000-04:00

Staying true to my usual habits I'm a little late in getting around to this weekend recap but we had such a good time with Laura and Breck (who were here for almost a whole 3 days, woo hoo) that we can't not post some of our pictures from their visit a couple of weeks ago. While they were here we ate a lot, played a lot of cards, and toured the town a little.

Due to the fact they had a marathon drive here on Friday and got in the wee morning hours of Saturday we had a pretty slow morning and then went to eat at a fun cafe near the river for lunch. We (meaning Claude and I) don't eat there all regularly but really like to make a special trip to eat with visitors. If it just happens to be nice weather it's especially awesome to eat outside and then walk down to the river afterwards. There were no pictures on my camera from this part of the weekend but take my work for it - it was a beautiful day!

Cooking with Laura on Saturday night. [To be honest the aprons we pretty much just donned for the picture but I think they're both super cute and both happen to be courtesy of my mom!] I don't have the best track record with actually cooking meals here at home (I'd MUCH rather bake) because I think in part I'm always scared I'll undercook the meat. Hence it was really nice to have Laura in the kitchen with me as moral support and cooking guidance. Another real plus to having Laura cook along with me was the delicious chocolate pie (a la Darby) she whipped up for us to enjoy over the rest of the weekend.

Even with all the excitement Claude found time to get a little reading in - this is where you'll actually find him in most of his spare time - in his State chair reading either A) ENT textbooks/journals or B) his "for fun" reading.

Playing some spades - which seems to be the card game of choice when the Harbargers are together. We played on both Saturday and Sunday night and both times - if I recall correctly - I had trouble staying awake towards the end of the round. I think girls won one night and guys the other but couldn't say for sure. I was too busy catching cards to keep up with the score...
We went to a pizza place downtown for lunch after church on Sunday and happened to also have lunch with Tanema who is a visiting student from UMC here for the month...all through growing up I always seemed to blink in a majority of pictures...I've apparently not outgrown that habit:(

In the afternoon we took a little field trip over to drive through the Murphy's Travelers area. This is Laura on the way to see where the gypsies live - notice her trendy sunglasses...

Since Claude was on call for the day he couldn't make frisbee but that didn't stop Breck from heading to play that night at the park where Claude goes when he can. Laura and I went along and watched from the sidelines and then we all met back up with Claude for dinner at IHOP a little bit later.

On Labor Day Laura and I headed to Kroger in the morning to get the rest of our cookout supplies - and at Claude's urging we made sure to get more ribs than we thought we'd need, right Laura? Anyway, once we got back to the house we got to work getting things prepped and Claude arrived shortly after that from rounds to get the grill going. Around lunchtime Tanema came over for the barbeque as well. We all decided to document the grilling of the ribs...

After lunch and a little bit of resting to let our big meal settle it was time for Breck and Laura to pack back up and head towards Charleston to see Anne and Will for a couple of days. Laura was apparently really sad to leave...

And so were we...we can't wait for our next visit:)

the 2 year mark

2010-09-27T17:40:00.006-04:00

Today is our second wedding anniversary, and even though in some ways (I think largely due to the big move and completely new city, new people, new jobs, etc. in the midst of year one) it's hard to believe that it was only two years ago the time has also flown by in lots of ways. In searching through pictures I have of us over the past year specifically I realized that 1) I've in general not taken as many pictures this year as previous years in my life and 2) we must not ever have our camera with us when we're around other people to have them take a picture for us of the two of us together! While I do have a couple of us I decided to pull these from an email Thomas had taken and sent me after a trip he made to see us this past winter...I think they're a fair representation of the time we've had in marriage so far. Granted, marriage - like most everything else in life - isn't always easy but it is definitely one of the best gifts God has ever granted me. Even when - and especially when - He works through Claude to help refine those things in me which are not pleasing to Him (and I know it though it's hard to accept at the time) and to encourage those things in me which are glorifying. And as an added bonus, in the midst of all of those moments we do have a lot of fun together and spend a lot of time on our better days laughing with one another:) That being said I'll close out with a "for real" picture in front of our GA home!

well my bags (aren't) packed

2010-08-04T21:19:00.002-04:00

...and i'm blogging. what is wrong with me? the sun has long since set and the usual sense of lethargy that comes with it being dark outside after a long day at work has set in:( nonetheless it's been - and will continue to be - a fun couple of days. david and emily stopped in to eat / spend the night at our house last night en route to see friends in nc. why did i not take any pictures? maybe next time...although it was a quick stop we were so glad to see them and had lots of fun being together with a couple of round of spades thrown into the visit. as to the title of this post - i leave tomorrow to go back to ms for what is sure to be a very classy and sweet wedding. my cousin ashley is really and truly one of the dearest and sweetest and most thoughtful people you'll ever meet and i can't wait to get to see her in the next few days! throw in that i get to see other family/friends and have a long weekend break from work and a possible quick stop at the summit on the way through birmingham and it's almost enough to get me packing right now! the only downside is that claude won't be able to go this time but it seems that's unfortunately sometimes the life of a resident:( well i guess i've procrastinated long enough. see some of you soon!!!

2010-07-16T01:00:00.001-04:00

You know full as well as I do the value of sisters' affections to each other; there is nothing like it in this world.

-Charlotte Bronte

happy birthday mir!

the weekend of the 4th

2010-07-13T21:26:00.009-04:00

July is just days away from being half over and I don't even feel like summer's begun. I'm definitely missing that huge "plus" - if you will - of being in/teaching school...summer break! However, even though it doesn't feel like summer everyday we have made a couple of fun summer memories over the past few weeks.

I got an email a couple of weeks back from my friend Catherine's husband, Blake. They were planning on going to Atlanta to go to the aquarium over the long July 4th weekend and he was kind enough to invite us along for the afternoon - and to hopefully surprise Catherine in the process. He must be much better at keeping secrets than I am because apparently she had no idea we were meeting up with them until they pulled up to Ria's Bluebird and we were sitting outside! It was so much fun to eat a delicious lunch with friends who it seemed like forever since we'd seen last:) Then we headed to the aquarium for the next couple of hours where Blake happened to take some excellent pictures - I only took a picture or two in the aquarium and since they look like a 3 year old took them I'll just omit loading them up:) I was a little delinquent on buying a ticket for Claude ahead of time since early on in the week we weren't sure if he was going to be able to make it so he just wandered around, bought a book, and read in a park while we went through the exhibits! After the aquarium we ate a quick bite together again - this time at The Flying Biscuit (which we heard about from David and Emily...we'll occasionally stop by on the way through Atlanta on trips home and back to get some of their awesome biscuits!) - before parting ways. Of course that was again a double bonus because I love to eat great food AND I was so happy to spend as much time hanging out as possible. I really do miss being in the lab with Catherine so much!!! Anyway the only pictures from that trip I'll post are below:

Catherine and Blake

Me and Catherine

Me and Claude

Once we finished up with supper Saturday night we headed back down I20. To be honest since the 4th fell the next day on a Sunday it didn't really seem like the 4th to me for most of the day. Of course that could also be due to the fact that we weren't around our families to cook out with! Regardless we were very thankful to be invited over to watch fireworks with some of our good friends here and some of their family at the house of some friends who live near the river where the city does a show. I took a couple of quick videos on my phone but seem to have a little difficulty loading them. In case they don't go through the following pictures will have to suffice:)

Dressed for the occasion in white, blue, (and we appear to be missing the red!)...

Me and Amy - who's one of my best friends here!

I'll close with the following video...I really hope it works. This is Claude sending out his "happy 4th" message to all our faithful blog followers:)

andalusia

2010-06-30T22:52:00.010-04:00

A couple of Saturdays ago we made a day trip to Milledgeville to visit Andalusia...the home of Flannery O'Connor who happens to be one of Claude's favorite authors. Considering what a voracious reader he is that says a lot in itself and so we were both super excited that the home where she spent her last years living and writing was just an hour or two down the road from us here.

Here's a quick recap of the trip:

I tend to feel like I "live" out of my car sometimes and let's just say my car is typically less pristine than Claude's...we took my car for the day and Claude offered to stop on the way out of town to vacuum it out for me. I told him that wouldn't be necessary (I was ready to get on the road!!!) and I can't remember how exactly he responded but this is my response to him insulting the current state of my car.

I LOVE barbeque and it seems there's less of an abundance of good bbq places around here than in Philly/Jackson. [In particular we sure do miss the Hickory Pit...we definitely had some meals to remember there with Mir, Michael, Candice, Jim, etc.:)] Once we got to Milledgeville it was definitely time to grab lunch and this looked oh so enticing to us walking down the street...

Rest assured I for one left a happy camper having eaten the most delicious smoked pulled chicken sandwich. YUM!

While we were waiting on our meal Claude planned our stops for the day using this brochure he picked up at the visitors center. [Turns out the library at the local college even had a Flannery O'Connor room with some personal belongings of hers - her typewriter, family pictures, paintings, and a collection of books of course.]

Post lunch we drove to the outskirts of town to the main attraction for the day - Andalusia. It was a really nice day and as the house and barn and other buildings were set on a considerable piece of land with pastures around, peacocks in a cage out back, and a pond down the hill from the house it felt like we were in a different world for the day. A lot slower and more peaceful than our everyday lives at work at least:) I'll post a couple of pictures, but considering that I'm not a photographer and that I don't have a super duper DSLR yet you'll have to take my word that it was even more cool than it looks!

There were signs like this all over the property to give background on all the little details of the farm. I'll just post this one...

Claude's most prized picture of the day...standing right where Flannery O'Connor once walked herself!

One of the peacocks mentioned earlier...

A couple of shots from the inside and outside of the house - we both thought it was kept up very well especially to be run by what we imagine is largely volunteer effort:

And lastly the obligatory self portrait:)

In other news around our house today was Claude's last day as an intern and tomorrow begins what will be year two of five! So we're 20% through ... which also means that it's been a whole year (and a week or two) since this happened...

...in case you were wondering this was snapped right after we closed on our house and right before we came in the front door for the first time sans realtor:) The ensuing process of unloading that PACKED Uhaul is something I'm glad I won't have to endure again for at least another 4 years!

Farewell year 1:)

may days

2010-06-14T21:09:00.009-04:00

First of all, let me just say that having a job has definitely put a damper on my blogging! All that said I don't necessarily have a whole lot to blog about that's above and beyond what sometimes seems like a pretty ordinary life so I guess it's fine I sometimes just end up with a wrap-up post:) So here goes May:

I got to make a trip home (yes, I do still refer to MS as "home") to see my little brother graduate - magna cum laude I might add - from Mississippi College. WEIRD! When I left for college Thomas was in junior high, and so I feel old for sure when I realize that he is now a MC alum as well. To brag just a little, he has excelled in so many ways in the last couple of years and we are so very proud of him - and excited to see where his path goes in the next couple of years!

Pappaw rode with me and someone standing nearby took this for us before the ceremony. The pictures with the rest of the fam with Thomas in his regalia are unfortunately on my mom's camera:(

A quick shout-out to Daniel - a great friend to Thomas and a Swannanoa beau to boot!

We went to Bravo for the celebration lunch which was just delicious! Here we are afterwards with my Laurel grandparents.

And here's the group family shot...for the observant readers out there you might notice that there's one person missing from what you'd imagine and one you might not have expected...we were happy to have Niping meet up with us even though we missed Miriam who was out of town for that weekend.

There were also two more birthdays in May that I am ashamed I didn't post back then. So HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Claude and to my dear friend Catherine. Kind of silly but I've always thought it's neat that their birthdays are just two days apart because they both entered into my life in the same season...that sometimes hard, but necessary, season of entering the adult world if you will...being out of college, living on your own and paying your own rent:), starting over in lots of areas of life, and wondering "what do I do with my life now???". I of course, loving school as I do, spent these years still in school but grad school is sure not the same as college! Thankfully, the Lord provided these two gems for me in those years and I can definitely say my life was changed for the better by knowing them both:)

Alrighty, moving onto my next photographed event. Our first Greenjackets game!!! There's a baseball stadium with a local team super close to our house and even though we were here throughout a good part of the season last year we actually never made it to watch a game. Well in true deal fashion we decided to check it out on a two-for-one night...two-for-one tickets and diet cokes:) This was a couple of weeks ago, so though it was warm weather it wasn't blazing yet and it happened to be a beautiful evening. The park was also surprisingly nice for it's size and our team pulled through in the bottom of the ninth for the win. It's a good thing because I don't think we would have been able to last through too many extra innings.

The view from our seats...

Self portrait...believe it or not this might be the "averaged" best one of the two of us from a total of 5 or 6 attempts...sad I know...

Claude staying true to "take me out to the ballgame":

Taking part in the seventh inning stretch:

Well, apparently I could stand to do a little better job on the photodocumentary of our lives these days because these are the only May pics on my camera... We did however have a fun Memorial Day cookout at our house (which was threatened by intermittent rains but conquered in the end thanks to Claude's new gas grill!) with great food (grilled hamburgers, chicken, and corn AND homemade icecream) thanks to Claude and great company - our friends Amy, Michael, Will, Julie, and Taylor and our next door neighbors Jerry and Judy. Next time I'll be sure to capture evidence! As it's getting to be about my bedtime here in the Eastern time zone so I'll close for now... with the best of intentions to post again before the end of June at least:)

birthday season

2010-05-06T21:03:00.005-04:00

With my sincerest apologies for being a day late we want to wish someone special - Claude's mom - a Happy (Belated) Birthday!

This picture is from their last visit to our house and while I meant to blog that a while back it seems all I've been able to blog for the most part lately is birthdays...and even those are sometimes a little late:) As I seem to be the primary blogger between the two of us I'll just attest to how thankful we are that Claude was blessed with such a wonderful mom...and thus that I have had the pleasure of having the best mother-in-law! We hope you had a great day:)

front and center

2010-04-20T22:23:00.004-04:00

Once again I've had to resort to searching facebook for a birthday picture, and so I hope the one I found is okay...I figured it would be a nice and fitting one to wish David a Happy Birthday since he seems to be the focal point in the shot above! Looking at this definitely makes us a little home/family/sick:) We miss you guys and hope that you had a great birthday David!

an unexpected surprise

2010-04-09T22:52:00.008-04:00

Well I guess "unexpected surprise" is a bit redundant considering the definition of surprise but it's exactly what I got Wednesday mid-morning. There happened to be some tickets to a little old golf tournament right down the road for use that day for the lab and I got to go for the morning shift! I felt really bad about going without Claude because we had tried valiantly the day before to get in to no avail. Which is a fairly funny story in restrospective that maybe Claude will tell one day. Anyway, I did try to get in touch with him frantically before setting out for good for my turn with a ticket but due to lack of stellar phone service inside the hospital he didn't get the message til too late:( All that said-if anyone has any tickets over the next 5 years that you're willing to loan out even for a couple of minutes we'll definitely be happy to oblige so Claude can get a chance to experience what it is this city's known worldwide for...and I'd be more than happy to see some more myself! Since it was still part of the practice round portion I did get to take in my camera and get a couple of pictures to prove I was there - I consider myself to be a fairly avid sports fan in general but sadly don't know a whole lot about golf and that includes (not) being able to recognize many of the players. I guess I'll have to study up on the game in the coming year in the hopes that we get a chance to go again:) Aside from really missing Claude I enjoyed my couple of hours there quite a bit: the course was beautiful, there were tons of people, it was a gorgeous day, and the concessions were awesome! That's right - those of you who know me well (or know me at all!) will not be surprised to hear that one of my favorite parts of the day was going through the line at the concession stand. I had heard and read about the pimento cheese sandwiches and got to taste one myself along with a Diet Coke which was followed by an oatmeal raisin cookie and sweet tea. It was definitely as delicious as it sounds in case you were wondering... Alright, back to the golf stuff which I'll close for now with:

another march birthday

2010-03-21T12:55:00.004-04:00

Unfortunately, I'm yet again a day late on a birthday post...nonetheless we want to send a blogging Happy Birthday wish out to my mom who celebrated her birthday yesterday. We actually got to celebrate with her a week early on the tail end of our trip home last week (which I'll blog soon) but wanted to make note of the occasion here as well:)

There's a quote on motherhood posted on a blog I frequent often...anybody guess whose blog that is? Even though I am not in the motherhood stage of life, I remember noticing it a while back and for the occasion it came into my mind - the quote is:

"the fundamental mission of motherhood now is the same as it always was: to nurture, protect, and instruct children, to create a home environment that enables them to learn and grow, to help them develop a heart for God and his purposes, and to send them out into the world prepared to live both fully and meaningfully."

I would dare to say that my mom is many things to many people: wife, daughter, aunt, teacher, friend, etc. but what I personally am most thankful for is that she's my mom and more than that she's been the kind of mom to me (and Miriam and Thomas) that is described above:)

Happy Birthday Mama!

Love, Rachel

the reason why today is a particularly special day -

2010-03-06T00:01:00.001-05:00

it's laura's birthday!

{picture courtesy of laura's facebook}

laura is one of the sweetest people you'll ever meet. she's always up for adventure and has recently become quite the seamstress we hear:) she also had the misfortune - at times - while growing up to be the little sister of at least one brother (claude - who i can speak for) and maybe another (david - i'll let emily or laura comment here...) who inflicted upon her more than her fair share of obstacles / pranks / etc. thankfully she survived to make it through all of those trials to make it to this big day! and i'm so glad she still claims claude because it means i got an awesome sister-in-law. since claude's last week of vacation falls this coming week we're actually going to get to see this gal for a couple of days - and we're just thrilled!

happy birthday laura - we love you!

from: rachel

Happy birthday, Princess, -Claude

(daddy has your pony in the back yard!!!!)

going home

2010-03-03T21:39:00.002-05:00

There's a Sara Groves cd that i have loved for years now. On it there's a song by this title and another one called "What Do I Know" that in the past couple of weeks have become more real to me than before. I lost my first grandparent this past month - my Mammaw passed away mid-February. I am really thankful for the blessing of having her as my grandmother and especially thankful to have been granted so much time to know her and be around her sweet spirit - that's a gift that not every (grand)child gets. Many of my fondest memories of childhood are traced back to their house in the country. For example, I still look back longingly on eating at her table...she made the best roast and potatoes and mashed potatoes on Sundays for lunch and the best pancakes on Saturday mornings when she would feed her crew of grandchildren who spent Friday night:) In recent years as she became limited in what she could do and where she could go she exhibited a graciousness in dealing with what I fear would most likely leave me frustrated and angry. While it's been a very sad time for the ones who loved her that she left behind there is great comfort in knowing that she is no longer bound by pain or a body that began to quit on her too early. One of the lines in one of those songs above is taken largely from Scripture - "for I know that to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord, and from what I know of Him, that must be very good". So in this season I'm thankful to know that the promises of the Lord are true and that He is faithful.

february already?

2010-02-06T22:21:00.023-05:00

Well to look back at the one and only post we made for January you'd think it was pretty uneventful for us... I don't know how true that is but I do know that I did use the "my arm's broken" excuse several times for not getting around to doing this or that. In reality it really did slow me down a bit but as of now I think things are on the mend at last - I have actually started to use my arm a good bit more over the past week at work and at home and am getting back to feeling a little more normal! In fact one of the sure signs of recovery is that I'm back into the couponing groove - I saved 91% in my trip to Kroger this afternoon. I was definitely thankful as I finished up at work yesterday to have two days of a break out in front of me. Claude was not quite as lucky though as he's been on call in the SICU all day today / tonight - he really has been quite a trooper through this intern year. I don't know how he does it but I do know that I'm mighty lucky to have ended up with such a great guy:)

In other news - and kind of linking back to the title - we happened to win a little contest which had been waged with Breck and Laura for who could keep their Christmas tree up the longest. Laura fessed up last week to having already taken theirs down, so now that we've won I decided to go ahead and take down our ornaments tonight (yes it is February the 7th) and pack them back up and away upstairs. It's about time I guess - hoping we can get the tree down tomorrow sometime after Claude recovers from his shift. In keeping with the "December" kind of spirit I just today opened up one of my stocking stuffers from Claude (courtesy of myself in fact)...

I love this lotion - I'm not sure why but since it's seasonal it might have something to do with "absence makes the heart grow fonder." In my case the absence has been due to: 1) my refusal to pay full price for things in general when they'll surely be on sale later and 2) the fact that by the time this scent is on sale the lotion has already been sold out for the past couple of years. In fact my last bottle of this was confiscated in the Salt Lake airport a couple of years ago - anyway, thanks to good old Claude I've got a new bottle.

In the meantime there's been an exciting addition to the blogging world over here. So YAY Emily (and David) for giving me another way to pass the time online:)

the new year so far

2010-01-10T15:58:00.003-05:00

Not only has it been a month since we last posted, it's been a year in a way:) We were actually able to get "home" - as most of you who actually read this probably know - for a couple of days though it still didn't seem quite long enough...at all. We really wish we'd had more time to catch up with friends as the road between Philly and Jackson (and Laurel for me) ate away a little chunk of our time but we were SO thankful to be with our families in our old houses to celebrate Christmas!

Since we've been back and rung in the new year there have already been a couple of changes.

*You might have noticed we have a new look for the blog with a new picture taken by Thomas...he and Mir came for a visit over their break and rode back to MS with us a couple of days before Christmas.

*Claude was nice enough to let us purchase some new furniture for our den - well new to us, technically it's secondhand- but I'm just as happy with it as can be and will put some pictures up of it arranged soon. Why not now you ask? Well we had plans to pick it up midweek last week but went to pick it up last Monday night (post dinner at Moe's) as Claude got off work a little early. In two trips and with not too much trouble we got the pieces into den via the front door and decided to just leave everything to rearrange til the next night but...

*Those plans were interrupted by the next "new" in our list. I have a new accessory...

On my way into work Tuesday morning there was a little accident which landed me a spot in the ER...

I was thankful Claude was able to come down while I got fixed up and will find out more tomorrow at my follow up visit. If I could have had a choice though I think I would have definitely picked the other arm! Life this week with a fracture in my elbow - for lack of the actual correct anatomical term - has gone a little slower for me:) Hopefully it's healing well and I'll get a good report soon!

Well, there's a couple of things I need to attempt to tackle - with my left hand leading of course before the day ends. Will be back sooner than last time we hope!

it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

2009-12-04T22:54:00.009-05:00

...around here. I don't know about where you are, but we actually saw live trees outside of stores the week before Thanksgiving. The proof is below...me amongst the Christmas trees at Kroger after my first day of work!

We did however hold out on getting a tree until after we returned home from our AL trip and a couple of days past that due to rainy weather and such. On Tuesday night though we set out to find a tree...

would you believe we actually made 4 stops before finding "the one"? [The pictures above are from a lot set up by a Christmas tree farm-they were beautiful trees but a little pricey for our budget:)]When it was all said and done though we were very happy with the Frasier fir we found. Here's Claude tying it atop the car...

By the time we got home and actually got the tree in the stand and straight...which took longer than I had thought it would by the way...we decided to let the tree settle for a day or two. [Which is kind of a joke here as our tree is a pretty skinny tree!] Then last night we went ahead and strung the lights and hung our ornaments while listening to some Christmas music. Claude also gave a little narrative on our 2009 tree...okay scratch that because the video won't upload...here's 2 pictures instead:
Well, now that I think the tree has been sufficiently covered we can move on to another exciting (and more lasting) Christmas decoration. Our new stockings!!! Over Thanksgiving we actually got a Christmas present a little early so that we could enjoy using them this year. We love love love them! Thanks Laura and Breck:)

And last, but definitely not least, comes the picture of our nativity set. My mom actually started me out with the original set as a gift on my 19th (I think) birthday. I know that I was definitely still in the dorms at MC:) Over the years I have really appreciated and grown to enjoy taking it out more and more. A new addition this year is one of the add on sets with a shepherd and some more stable animals that we got last Christmas as a wedding present. I think there are actually a couple more additions that are available so it might still have room to grow. For right now though it's just perfect!

That seems to about cover it for now...hope you all enjoy your weekend!

thankfulness

2009-12-03T22:32:00.004-05:00

thankfulness (n): acknowledgement of having received something good from another
thankful (adj): feeling or expressing gratitude

I know this post is a week past Thanksgiving, but because we have so much to be thankful for it's better late than never, huh? We actually were able to spend the Thanksgiving holidays-including Thursday-with Claude's family in Huntsville. {Which was a real treat when we were expecting the worst schedule with it being Claude's intern year:)} It would go without saying that Claude's grateful for his family (and me for mine) but more than that we are both thankful to be able to count each another's families as our own as well. While I hate that the distances from here to yonder mean that we won't always be able to make it to all the family stops for each holiday it was wonderful to be with the Huntsville H's-and of course those who came from Jackson and Little Rock too! As usual, I forgot to actually pull out my camera until the end (and I mean the end...these are after the house was locked up and right before we all got in our respective cars!) so I only have a couple of pictures...

Claude and I with his grandparents:

Grandchildren pic...Since David and Emily were already gone Laura held the crown up to represent David...

In addition to counting our families as immense blessings in our lives, there are countless other good things that we have received from God's gracious hand. We are thankful for each other, thankful for friends old and new, thankful that Claude matched to this program, thankful for our health, thankful that God provided a job for me, thankful for the church we've found here, thankful for the freedom we have as Americans, thankful for a home we love, and more than anything thankful for the ultimate gift of salvation. And so the list could go on and on...if you're reading this that means you have to be someone we know pretty well and that we're thankful for you too!

happy (belated) birthday brother!

2009-11-25T22:13:00.006-05:00

Well I have once again been found guilty of being tardy to wish a sibling a happy birthday via the blogworld... However, it's no less sincere than had it been on time:) One of the hardest parts about being such a distance from "home" - for me at least - is having to miss out on some of the family times that used to be a given. Thomas, we sure hope you had a great day on the 21st and also sure wish we'd been able to join in on your birthday dinner! Love you lots and hope to see you soon...

lately

2009-11-25T20:28:00.011-05:00

It's apparently been a while since we posted...in fact Claude suggested that I go ahead and write a RIP to the blog entry:) However there's been a good bit going on around here in the last couple of weeks. About three weeks ago I headed to Little Rock to do one last (for a while anyway) Chick fil A campout with Laura. Since the last one I did by myself I was especially glad to be in the presence of good company (Laura, Breck's mom, and the Smith family who are in LR for residency as well) this go round! Claude was especially thrilled that I was one of the first 100 so that our little stockpile of coupons basically doubled:)

Signing in a little less than 24 hrs before opening:

About halfway done...they had Christmas lights on the trees in the distance

Laura, Breck, and Mrs. Richardson around the card table; (also visible is "The Help" which kept me busy reading for a good portion of the 2 days in LR...it came highly recommended by several and after reading it I definitely concur that it was a great read!)

While in Little Rock I also got to eat out with Laura (and Breck) a time or two and chum along with Laura to her afternoon babysitting job where we played some suspenseful rounds of Apples to Apples. An extra treat to the trip was that we made a short trip down to Jackson (and I went to Philly for a day as well) for the weekend. I got to see my family, a couple of friends, go to Mistletoe, and enjoy a Saturday morning muffin at Broad Street among other things.

Pictures from meeting up with Thomas at MC to borrow his truck for Mir for the week:

Then on Monday morning Laura dropped me off at the airport and I was on my return journey. I must say that it was nice to get to fly rather than drive but I won't be getting to attached to that luxury anytime soon. I will say that the local airport was probably my favorite airport ever in terms of ease getting checked in and through etc. The only downside was that the "airport shops" were pretty limited, and by that I mean there was one coffee cart where I was able to get a hot dog for a late lunch while waiting on my ride home from Claude! On the bright spot though it is a very nice airport with a little bit of hometown scenery...

Once back home I decided it was time for me to tackle the task of finishing up a project that had been sitting in our dining room/living room for a couple of weeks. We packed up a couple of shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child and in the previous weeks I'd gotten most of the fun stuff for the boxes but was lacking a couple of toothbrushes/bars of soap/etc. I knew that my new job would be starting pretty soon so I got these packed up and to the drop off site on what actually turned out to be my last day of freedom...I mean unemployment:) It was wonderful to drop these off 1) because I think they're such a wonderful way to share the joy of the gospel of Christmas with little ones around the world and 2) it felt great to actually finally see a project through to completion which as a major procrastinator is something that sometimes takes me a while.

The finished boxes...finally!

In wrapping up, there's actually been one more big change here at our house in the past week or so and that is that I actually have a job now! I started last Thursday-right in time to get to enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday-and have had five work days as of today.

A view of the outside of the building:

And one from my desk to the outside:

The beginning stage of transition is always the hardest time for me but I'm hoping that I'll transition smoothly and quickly...so far everyone in the lab has been super nice and the facilities are pretty new and impressive as well. Any prayers that I would catch on quickly and be able to do my best to the glory of God without being overcome by the jitters would be much appreciated! Hope today's been great wherever you are-

Rachel

our saturday

2009-11-01T15:15:00.006-05:00

Yesterday was a nice day for us...since Claude got off around noon we were actually able to eat lunch together which rarely happens during the week these days. (Big deal you might say, but I got really used to being able to eat lunch together pretty regularly in the good ole' UMC days.) So we headed to a cafe on the riverfront to eat, but when we got there we weren't quite sure if they were open. It was probably around 1 o clock and while the doors were open we didn't see any customers. After walking up to the counter though we saw a couple of people in the kitchen and the girl who took our order proceeded to let us know that the Saturday slowness might be due to the Georgia/Florida game and the fact that it was Halloween. Several more people came in after we ordered though and our sandwiches were quite good. It was kind of overcast when we walked into lunch but pretty and blue skies when we walked out. Once we finished eating we decided to walk down to the sidewalk right beside the river for just a minute...

Self photo on timer.

A train started crossing the bridge downstream from us.

Some of the houses on the SC side.

Claude scouting out the SC shore.

Me smiling in front of the Savannah:) [This picture probably was the "hardest" one to get because I handed Claude the camera after I had put it on the timer...the first shot of me actually cut off my head!]

So those are our post-lunch pictures. Once we got home Claude took a super long nap and I went to Kroger/Walgreens to get a couple of things. When I got home Claude was still asleep so I turned on (with the volume turned down low) the GA/FL game mentioned earlier which was going into halftime. Claude woke up pretty shortly and we commenced-me mainly watching-the carving of our pumpkin.

Claude sketching out the face features.

Claude carving away.

Inspecting the pumpkin with a quizzical face.

Approval of the pumpkin.

Once we got the pumpkin mess cleaned up we got it lit and started on the pumpkin seeds. Claude got them ready and after snacking on several handfuls we bagged the others up. It started raining right after we lit the candle and so we decided to run pick up some supper and movies from Blockbuster. We kind of doubted we'd have any trick-or-treaters...I had some candy just in case...but we ended up having one knock at the door to find two boys making the rounds. So they got most of the candy:)

got saturday plans?

2009-10-23T20:17:00.007-04:00

Claude is on call tonight so it's a pretty good bet that he'll be spend most of tomorrow sleeping once he gets home...but I think I have a plan to kill a couple of those hours. A trip to Barnes and Noble which will be "sweetened" by the free treats I'm hoping to get via this coupon:) I have one or two other things I want to pick up at the mall so I think it will work out nicely! For any of you who will be near a B&N tomorrow just thought you might like to enjoy these sweets as well... If I still have some time after that [and in the case I feel particularly brave] I might even try to make some fall "butters" that I saw earlier today on one of my favorite blogs. If I do and it goes well I'll let you know...if not then mum's the word:)

hooray for company!

2009-10-21T23:37:00.001-04:00

The weekend before last we were thrilled to get to spend some time with Claude's parents. They were able to stay with us for the weekend and even though we wish they could have stayed even longer, we had a great time over the couple of days they were here! Friday night after Claude gave the tour around the house we ate supper here at our house, and considering my current non-expertise in cooking I guess the food turned out okay... [I promise I'll get lots more practice cooking in before y'alls next visit though so it'll be a little better:) ] Saturday morning Claude headed off to a couple of hours at the hospital for a conference and by the time he got home mid-morning we were all ready to set off on a day of driving around town. Claude's parents actually lived here for a couple of years some years ago and so they actually had more to show us around town than we had to show them! In the midst of touring around we ate lunch at a local inn here which I really enjoyed because I drive by it fairly often and have been wanting to stop in for lunch sometime. After finishing up the day of driving around we made a trip to Lowe's and then came back to the house for a little bit before heading to supper. You might remember that we kept a little dog named Lexi a couple of weeks back. Well not too long after Lexi's parents picked her up we got a sweet thank-you and PF Changs gift certificate in the mail and thought this would be a great time to go eat there. To beat the crowds we got there kind of on the early side which worked out well because we didn't have to wait at all for a table. Supper was great with my personal favorite probably being the banana spring rolls for dessert:)

While the weekend was well-documented on camera overall I only have a couple of pictures on my camera. This picture above was taken after supper...we're all toasting Lexi for our meal out:)

Following supper we walked a little around the mall next door for a bit-I'll leave that excursion to Claude for later because I think he wants to post a couple of his pictures! We got back to the house just in time for the kick-off of the Florida-LSU game and watched that for a while until everyone finally retired for the night. On Sunday morning we all got ready a little earlier to make it to the early church service. Claude and I really enjoyed getting to go to church with his parents again-so that was a real treat. We then headed back to the house one last time so they could finish packing up to get back on the road a pretty long trip back to MS with one last stop for lunch at TGIFridays. Since we were early-birds to church we actually opened the restaurant up for lunch:) Then it was time to say bye...which was sad for us. We miss everybody at home and especially hate to see our families go! One thing's for sure...we can't wait for the next visit!

seaside

2009-10-12T23:16:00.022-04:00

As mentioned in an earlier post Claude and I took a little trip to Seaside a couple of weeks ago as a late summer vacation/anniversary trip. We had a wonderful time and don't think we would mind one bit going back for each and every anniversary:) We'll see about that huh?

It was a fairly long drive down-we started on Monday morning and got to the beach mid-late afternoon. After checking in to our little house Claude had to make a trip right into the ocean...

Because we were planning on going out to eat pretty soon thereafter (and it takes me a good bit longer to get ready to go somewhere) I stayed on dry land as my shadow shows below:

We then headed off to find The Lake Place Restaurant in Santa Rosa Beach. [One really nice thing about going to the beach during the off-season is that it's not all that busy. This was especially nice when we would go out to eat and not have to wait and wait and wait as is sometimes the case... ] Our food was delicious and very artfully presented, but a little meager in portion size...so we just decided to get dessert back in the main Seaside shops. From our honeymoon last year we both quickly remembered treats at the yogurt shop so that decision was easy to make. Claude had the Yobe yogurt (which we haven't found anywhere else but at this shop-any help anyone?) and I had key-lime pie, and these choices actually turned out to be our dessert staples for several nights.

On Tuesday morning we decided to take some books and read while we ate breakfast (french toast and pancakes, yum!) at The Great Southern Cafe which was just a short walk from our house. It was also so nice to get to eat on the outside porch on a pretty day. See Claude below:

After we finished eating we walked around a couple of the shops that were open and headed back to the upstairs porch to read some more...
This is the view from our upstairs porch-we were right across the street from the Seaside Chapel and actually saw 2 bride and groom couples while in the midst of their picture taking during our stay!
During the afternoon we spent a little time on the beach and for supper went to our favorite place from last year...Cafe Thirty-A. It was once again DELICIOUS!!! Definitely not the kind of place we eat at regularly so we thoroughly enjoyed it-and our server there was especially nice. Unfortunately we had to tell him we were too stuffed for dessert but would you believe that once we got back to Seaside again we changed our minds. Claude stayed with his yogurt but I broke down and just had to try a cupcake from a place that just opened this summer. It's Queen Bee Cupcakes-it's a really cute little shop in an airstream trailer with delicious cupcakes-even if they are a bit on the high side:) I can personally recommend the key-lime, vanilla pink, and chocolate pink, haha. After picking up our desserts we would stop by and get a movie from the kiosk-Claude typically got to pick the movie because for some reason I can never seem to stay awake throughout an entire movie! Therefore, I can't really comment on any of the movies we watched because I missed the latter1/4 to 1/2 of them in general:(

On Wednesday our typical routine continued. Reading over breakfast (for me) and coffee (for Claude);

walking around the shops; lunch; beach; tennis; and then dinner/dessert/movie. We ate lunch at the Taco Bar and then walked right down to the beach from there.

We're not the biggest beach bums you'll find so we usually were about beached out after an hour or so. Even with our "limited" beach time per day we did remember to get a beach picture or two while we were out there:

After playing tennis for a set or two, that night we drove down to Grayton Beach and ate at a little restaurant called Gravel Road. It was very quaint and our food was very good there as well. Then back to Seaside.

As Thursday morning rolled around I was starting to get a little sad because our vacation was coming to a close too quickly. We drove to Destin late morning to early afternoon and mainly looked around a little at the outlets. Once we got back we hit the beach and courts for a little bit and then got ready to go eat at Bud and Alley's which we could just walk right over to. We ate there last year and felt we should give it a chance again this year too since it is the main Seaside restaurant. For some reason-maybe we ordered poorly- we weren't all that impressed yet again this year with this restaurant. It was probably our least favorite meal of the trip, but our table had a nice view:) Rather than getting someone to take pictures for us, we attempted self-portraits before we walked over to Bud and Alley's...as I'm posting these pictures below I think next time we should ask someone to snap a couple for us, haha.

try1:try 2:
try 3:
On our ritual stop to the yogurt shop (which actually doubles as a fudge shop as well) we thought this was pretty funny-there were all these blocks in lots of different flavors of fudge and right out front was a block labeled "new flavor"... We were kind of curious why they didn't actually give more detail on the actual flavor and wondered how many takers there would be for "new flavor"!
As the last morning of our full day at the beach dawned we set out to get the most of the day. This of course included making sure to get a shot of where we stayed-Park Place:
And here's a full shot of the chapel which was diagonally across the street from us. To any of our friends who might consider destination weddings in the future we think this would be a beautiful place to get married and would be more than happy to make the trip down for your big day:)

One of my favorite shops in Seaside is Modicas Market-a fairly small grocery with a pretty impressive range of products. If you've ever seen the Truman Show then you've actually seen the inside of Modicas Market! It's also where we went to read over coffee and breakfast several mornings and where we grabbed lunch on Friday. They had a grouper sandwich lunch that was a great way to start wrapping up our trip:
We were very fortunate to have really nice weather all week (it only sprinkled two or three times the whole week that we remember)...especially considering the reports we heard of downpours of rain both back in MS and GA. After enjoying the beach and playing one last round of tennis that afternoon we got ready to go out for our last supper-all week for our meals out we'd been using these fantastic deals from Restaurant.com that I'd spotted and snagged a couple of weeks earlier and we had several left to a couple of different places. After looking them up we decided to try a place called Goatfeathers because it looked like it would be a good place to get a pretty decent "beach" meal. It was a low-key casual restaurant but we got tons of food that was quite tasty. Claude convinced me to get the lobster/steak dinner and so we both got to try a couple of bites of lobster-he in return let me have a taste of his dinner which was some kind of fish I think. Once we got back we decided to go ahead and start packing up a bit so that the next morning wouldn't be so crazy trying to get ready to leave. Saturday morning we went ahead and went for one last quick walk down to the beach.

After rinsing the sand off our feet one last time it was time to pack up the car and check out. This is how Claude felt about it. [This probably has something to do with it being the end of his much-deserved week off as well:)]

Well, it's been said that all good things must come to an end. We hope you've enjoyed our little recap of our beach trip! We definitely had a great time, but were actually happy to get back to our house after a week away:) As we finish up here, we'll leave you with one last shot of the coastline:
Happy Tuesday!

the one year mark

2009-09-27T22:11:00.008-04:00

It's hard to believe in some ways but today was our 1st wedding anniversary! It also happened to be Claude's last day of vacation, a restful Sunday, and a BEAUTIFUL day here so we're thankful that all those things coincided on the 27th of September:) I'm a little late in blogging a couple of events and will get to those soon but today we just wanted to say "thanks" to all of our friends/family for their sweet anniversary wishes and to say that we are truly thankful for how God has provided for us in our first year of marriage.

One year ago today

Our trip to the beach this past week served as our anniversary gift of sorts, but I also wrapped up a little something so that we could have something to go along more on the themes of paper for the 1st year...

cards of course and a cute stamp with our new address (which is still "wrapped" in the picture above). We look forward to stamping many letters home with it:)

bye bye lexi

2009-09-14T12:48:00.004-04:00

It's been a while since we've posted, but that's not to say it's been boring around here the past week...I was enlisted by Claude (who also helped out when he could) to dog-sit for a week for one of the fellows who was going on vacation. I'm attaching a few pictures and a video of Lexi who was overall a great dog to keep. She was well trained and pretty mild for most of the time-we hung out around the house, went on lots of walks, and ventured to take her to a Labor Day cookout as well. We only had problems the couple of times when she was left at the house by herself...hence the chips of paint from our door that are on the floor in the video! Once they picked her back up this weekend, we did allot some time to "cleaning" up a bit after her but I will say I was a little sad to see her go. We have talked some about getting a dog and while it was a really good experience for me on what it might be like to get a dog, I think it was just enough of an experience to help me decide we might not be quite ready just yet. Pictures of our new little friend are below:

no more roman shades!

2009-09-05T13:57:00.005-04:00

Now that we've been in our house for about three months we've pretty much gotten our basic "need-to" furnishings list checked off. One of the last things we had left to do was find some kind of shade/curtain for our side door with the main problem being finding something that was the right size. After a fair bit of searching I was so excited to find a roman shade online in a natural color for a decent sales price that would be the perfect size. It took a couple of days to arrive and once it did I saw that I might actually need Claude's help to get it up since he had to "install" it to the door so I had to wait until he had a spare couple of hours. Imagine the disappointment when the brackets and some of the hardware were missing, thus a call to customer service. So another week later our replacement hardware arrived and Claude went to work installing the shade. It ended up being a fairly time-consuming process considering his spare time is fairly limited these days, but alas we finally had a shade for the side door. I was definitely pleased until...
we let the shade down and I saw that my measurements were somehow way off! I'm usually fairly meticulous and repetitive about these kinds of details but apparently not this time, huh? After all that hard work though it will stay up until something better comes along. So in case you happen to visit us before that happens this just might be what you see...
In the meantime if any expert curtain designers happen to come across this and have an urge to help us out by fixing us a not-too-short, not-too-long curtain that's more along the lines of a pole pocket "installation" I'll be happy to send you the accurate measurements!

lemonade from scratch

2009-08-27T15:08:00.005-04:00

Claude has been on a real lemonade kick this summer. And not just any lemonade-preferably fresh from the actual lemons lemonade. I have offered a couple of times to make it by the pitcher if he'd let me know about how many lemons and packs of Splenda per volume of water but I don't think he trusts me to do his recipe justice. He did however finally share his method...here it is...

"eat more chikin"

2009-08-22T14:16:00.011-04:00

Before you think that my diplomas from many years of schooling should be taken away let me remind everyone that the motto of the Chick Fil A cow mascots is "eat more chikin"-their spelling complex is one of their trademarks!

Another Chick Fil A story you ask...well yes. But only because I just completed a first 100 campout...which I briefly explained in cow appreciation day. The sad part of this campout was that I had to go alone-since all my campout buddies were either at work, school, or in another state:) However, Laura decided to go to the Oxford campout which was on the same day so we were able to "plan" for our trips together at least...and commiserate about the awful heat in the midst of the campout! [By the way you can read about Laura and her now world-famous camping crew here. ]

As we started the research for the grand openings this past Thursday we started to get a little nervous because these events have apparently gotten a lot more popular. So popular in fact that there have been more than 100 people in line at 6am the morning before the opening. Thus, the institution of a raffle for 100 spots at Wednesday 6am if more than 100 people are already in line. With that possibility looming in front of us we each made plans to get to our respective parking lots by a quarter of six. Maybe we're crazy, huh?

Pending the super early departure time I had my car packed up-tent, cot, sleeping bag, overnight bag, snacks, books, etc.-the night before and headed out at 4:30 am. It was a good thing I did though because when I arrived to the parking lot at 5:40 there were already about 120 people there. By 6 there were probably 150 people in line...and tickets for the raffle were passed out.

Did I get a spot? Yep, and in the first 20 too so I didn't have to sweat too many bullets. Then began the process of signing the rules and setting up in a parking space. Thankfully, throughout the course of the day I met some nice people who helped me set up, charge my phone, etc. so that was nice. The parking lot was full of tents and had multiple passers-by honking all day...my assigned spot was in the far corner and is the tent to the bottom right in the picture.
A couple of hours in, they served breakfast-yum!
Later on through the day we also were fed lunch, icedream in the heat of the day, supper, and a nugget snack at 10 pm. [By which time I was getting a little tired of chicken:) ] For the meals we either walked through the drive-thru:
or actually went in, placed orders, and got to sit down and eat enjoying a couple of minutes of air conditioning:
They are also nice enough at these campouts to have coolers of tea-sweet and unsweet-and water out all day. Here's a shot of my cup-when the lady handed it to me at breakfast she told me to "guard it with my life"...which was perhaps a bit melodramatic.
Another treat during the day was that I got to see Lauren, one of my best friends from college-who happens to live just a couple of hours away now! It was SO wonderful to get to have a friend there for a couple of hours and more importantly to visit with such a dear friend who I've missed seeing for the past couple of years! Maybe next time there's a campout nearby we can do it together! Regret of the day-I didn't think to ask somebody to take a picture of us-story of the blog, huh? Nonetheless, it was a definite bright spot of the day and she did me a huge favor by bringing me some sunscreen before she left town which was greatly appreciated as I'd already burned a good bit.

The day did pass fairly quickly I suppose and though it was super hot, it was a very pretty day of blue skies. I got to read some, won a hula hoop contest, and got a whole day of meals for free. And best of all, around six on Thursday morning I finally got to stand in line one more time (click here to get to a link to video on the local news of the line inside) and received my grand prize-this box full of combo coupons:)

searching for bobby fischer...

2009-08-17T10:03:00.004-04:00

This past weekend was slower for us than usual because Claude was completely off. We went to the movies on Friday night and to a barbeque/lakehouse gathering with his department for most of the day Saturday. Sunday morning we visited another church and then came back to eat hamburgers and potato salad (that we picked up at Fresh Market on the way home) for lunch, yum! It's been a bit of a cloudy/overcast couple of days so it seemed very conducive to an afternoon of reading. [I actually read 2 "for fun" books over the weekend so hopefully I'm on track to pulling out of the lazy slump I've been in when it comes to reading in the past couple of years.] As the day drew to a close though, Claude had a great idea. We'd play a little chess after dinner. It's been a couple of months since we've played and I think that he-as a former president of the chess club at Jackson Prep-thought that would definitely give him an even greater edge to quickly defeating me. Right? Well here's a glance at check-mate from our first match:

Well, looks like he surely accomplished his feat of soundly beating me. 1 king trapped by 4 pawns, 1 rook, 1 knight, 1 bishop, the queen, and king. Except for the fact that those 9 black pieces belonged not to Claude, but to me:)

I must say that I was pretty thrilled with my playing that round. But there was of course a rematch which ended this way:

Thus, Claude did come back to avenge his earlier loss. Technically our record was tied 1-1. However I think the first game was definitely the one I would have rather won:)

So for Claude this past Sunday night, it turns out that Bobby Fischer he was not...Maybe next time!

grocery shopping

2009-08-11T22:04:00.004-04:00

Note: This will be a short, but I think funny, post.

One of the things I did today was swing by Publix to pick up a few items. [By the way, many thanks to Catherine for touting her Huntsville Publix back when we were still in Jackson-it made me eager to shop there myself once we moved here!] My deal of the day was definitely the following...drumroll please...:

this 6 cup box of Luigi's real italian ice for a whopping 50 cents. Not only does this grocery store run some pretty great stuff buy one get one free, they also double coupons up to 50 cents netting me this box of sweet treats for half a dollar. You can't even get a can of Coke for 50 cents!

And then as I was making my way down the aisle to the cash register I saw something which I thought was a bit unusual. Can anyone else spot what was to me a bit out of the ordinary?

Miriam, if no one else gets this, I hope you do...it brings to mind a conversation I think I had with you a couple of weeks ago:)

driving to the drive-in

2009-08-10T22:09:00.014-04:00

Going to a drive-in movie has been on my "want to do" list for some time now so I was so excited when Claude asked if I wanted to go to one not too far away this past weekend on a date! In our true bargainist style we used some coupons at Arby's to eat supper on the way, haha.

It did take about half an hour to get there though and while Claude was happily driving to the tunes of Horse Feathers and others of his favorite groups I got to start reading Don't Waste Your Life-a John Piper book I picked up at a local used and new bookstore this past week. In the first couple of chapters he talks about some of the earlier years in his life-and notes some of the people who proved to be influential in the shaping of the rest of his life from his father to Jonathan Edwards. He included CS Lewis as one of the writers whose work struck a chord with him early on. I enjoy reading anything by this talented author myself, and so I just loved the following section that Piper used to explain how Lewis:

"made me wary of chronological snobbery. That is, he showed me that newness is no virtue and oldness is no vice. Truth and beauty are not determined by when they exist. Nothing is inferior for being old, and nothing is valuable for being modern. This has freed me from the tyranny of novelty and opened for me the wisdom of the ages." -JP

What an apt, convicting, and good reminder to me in a day where "the new" is touted to be right just because it is new. All that said, I'm about half done with the book and am glad I've finally gotten around to reading it:)

Now for the rest of the actual drive-in part of this post.

The drive-in theatre actually was not in the middle of a metropolis if you can imagine but rather a couple of miles down a highway in what seemed to be more of a small town/rural setting. We turned right off the highway and paid for our tickets at a booth which reminded me more of a ticket booth at a high school sporting event than at your local cinema. Much more unique if you ask me, as were the charming tickets. Sorry it's so blurry...:

After getting our 2 tickets we took a sharp left to Screen 2 (they actually had 2 screens) where we proceeded to find a parking spot, only to move so as not to be in the way of the car behind us, and wait for the sun to go down and the movie to start. Here's how light it still was when we arrived:

Before the movie started we made a trip to the concession stand at the back of the field. [As we were walking the message over the PA was clearly expounding on the policy that if you decided to change movies you MUST buy another ticket...they were pretty serious on that subject.] Once again, the concessions reminded me much more of a ballgame concession stand than a movie theater's so here's a pic... Let me also say that these were probably the most awkward ones I took because there were people in line in front, behind, and beside me. I felt a bit "touristy".

With my popcorn and cup of ice in tow we headed back to Claude's car. Along the way we attempted a self-portrait to include the screen behind us, our faces, and the popcorn. Try 1 was a failure, this is Try 2, and while you can't see the screen we decided it was good enough since we were in the middle of a field of strangers who probably thought we'd never been to the movies before:)

It wasn't too much longer until the movie started, but in the meantime we chatted quickly with Claude's parents, Laura, and Breck on the phone and wished ya'll had been there with us in person instead! Here's one last picture from our drive-in adventure. [I tried taking one during the movie but it kept coming out super dark...oh well!]

The movie was alright-I've already forgotten the name of it-but a little on the long side. The experience as a whole rated as an A for me though and I'm looking forward to going again sometime soon!

sweet summertime

2009-08-09T14:40:00.000-04:00

In a couple of previous posts there’s been a bit about my trip back to MS for a couple of weeks this summer. In addition to the reunion and a quick trip to Laurel to see my Smith grandparents for a bit longer I also made a trip to Little Rock which included the wedding of a college friend and a quick stay with Laura and Breck in their new home!

Miriam, Blair, me, and Ashley. Mir and I were suite-mates of Ashley and Blair at MC-this was taken at a dinner the night of Blair’s wedding which was absolutely beautiful!

Unfortunately I can't seem to find any pictures on my camera with Laura and Breck but the good news is that they have their own blog you can check out...

After getting back to Philly from the Little Rock trip Miriam and I spent some time at the Fair and had the treat of seeing Ashley and Simon and some of their friends… The picture on the porch of the Bailey cabin was taken during a debate on some matter of the secession of Missouri between Simon and his brother. Let me just say it was much more intelligent than any of the debates I've ever had with my siblings! Ashley and Simon were nice enough to help Miriam take her stuff to the cabin the first night she stayed out there. And I appreciated the three of them walking me out to my car since it was pretty late!

Then it was time for me to head back home to GA…since they still had just a couple of days off Miriam and my mom rode back with me. While they were here we went shopping, ate hibachi (and actually sat next to a lady from Jackson-small world, huh), and painted a "vintage" washstand that I have in our room.

Oh...and of course we used our coupon book for a meal...Lunch at My Friend's Place.

It was lots of fun having them here-these are some parting pictures as we dropped them off to pick up their rental car (complete with satellite radio) for their trip home. We actually booked this the night before, so we thought they ended up with the pretty good end of the deal to land this ride for the long drive back!

Although it was sad to see them go, we didn’t have too long to be down because just after Sunday School we headed to meet David and Emily for lunch. They made their way over from an Atlanta trip to spend the afternoon with us. And as usual when the four of us get together there were a couple of fierce Spades rounds:) One of our running Spades jokes is my perpetual desire to go double blind nill. There’s only two problems: 1) we’re not sure it that’s actually possible and 2) Claude is never up for me going any kind of nill. Nonetheless I played “safe” all afternoon.

Well needless to say after all the visiting I was a little “homesick” to wake up the next morning to realize that there were no immediate visits pending anymore. So it was a great surprise to actually have some familiar faces drop in this past Saturday night.

Any Webb reading this will recognize these faces…Stephanie, Susan, Aunt Anna Blanche, Andrew, and Brianna.

I got a message from Stephanie mid-week saying this bunch would be passing through on Saturday. They had been vacationing their last days of summer away in Charleston and we had an impromptu supper of pizza, salad, chips, and brownies. I had such a great time hearing about their summer and upcoming school years-in fact it made my week to see ya’ll! So thanks for coordinating it all Stephanie:)

So as the days of summer start to come to an end I hope you all had a great summer of your own and that you make plans to come see us soon this fall!

Rachel

pickin' berries

2009-08-03T20:43:00.000-04:00

I've never really been a picky eater, but in the past couple of years I have come to love some foods that I once was a little wary of including blueberries. It really is a shame that these weren't one of my favorite snacks early on because they're so good for you (compared to the desserts I usually eat) and because my Grandmama and Granddaddy always seem to have them growing on their line of bushes in abundance. My mom and I carpooled with them on the way home from the reunion and spent the night in Laurel. I hadn't been to their house since the berries started coming in and asked my Granddaddy who rode the last leg with me in my car if he thought there would be any berries left since it was the end of the season. {I partly asked this because I had heard that Sarah, my cousin, and Alex, her beau, did a superb job of picking the bushes clean while they were visiting a week before:) } He was really surprised when my Grandmama went out to check and I believe we were all pleasantly surprised to see the following:

My grandparents-who've been picking the whole summer-could tell that the season was ending but there were still enough berries for us to get about 3.5 pounds, not including the one or two I had fresh off the bush:)

We picked for quite a while and tried to get to all the berries that were ready, hence the stepladder you might have noticed. By the end though there wasn't too much left and as we headed into the house this is how Grandmama closed off their season...

"We're always glad to see the first berries ripen enough so that we can have some with a bowl of cereal and then always glad when we've picked for the last time and decide to leave what's left for the birds."

I'm just glad I beat the birds!

Once we got inside Grandmama got ready to weigh them with her kitchen scales...
We spread them out on a large pan so that we could easily pluck the stems off any berries that still had them and then left them to air out overnight...

While in the end we did come in slightly under the 19 pounds picked by Sarah and Alex (I'm pretty sure that was their total) there were still enough for me to go home with 3 little boxes thanks to my generous grandparents! I have since had them for breakfast on french toast, for snacks, and for a breakfast supper of waffles.

I'm looking forward to the day when we've A) lived somewhere long enough for blueberry bushes we've planted to mature so that we can get stocked up for the year or B) moved in somewhere where we can enjoy the fruits of someone else's foresight to plant a couple bushes. When that day comes we'll need some help picking from time to time...any takers?

reunions

2009-07-30T15:52:00.000-04:00

I feel that I'm way behind for this post but better late than never. Towards the end of my parents' visit two weeks ago my mom and I headed to Camp Sumatanga to meet up with lots of the Smith family for the annual Smith Family Reunion. This is a four-day weekend with a 50+ year history which has been one of the highlights of my year for as far back in my life as I can remember. As a child it was especially wonderful because the reunion for many of those years was held at Young's by the Sea in Gulf Shores...which was like heaven for me and all my little cousins at the time:) Over the years-before those beach days and after-the location has changed but from my experience and to hear those who made the many reunions before I was even born one thing that has remained constant is the fun and fellowship when this family gets together.

I've already posted Miriam's birthday celebration which took place the first night [Thursday] of the reunion. These two guys (Andy and Michael) were there to help her celebrate...and eat cake.

I regret that I don't have any pictures from Friday... For the most part it was a lazy sort of day. A little before lunch, Miriam and I jogged around the lake. So as not to show her up with my athletic fitness I walked the last little stretch back to the retreat center:) Later on that afternoon while Miriam and Michael took a trip to a nearby town to see a movie I played with two of the youngest cousins at the reunion. These little sisters each had a bottle of bubbles and so I got plenty of bubble-blowing practice! Since those were the highlights you can imagine it was a sort of "slow", but nice, day...

On Saturday morning as we were headed out for breakfast I got a phone call from Claude who had a great surprise. He was on his way to the reunion for the day. His great-uncle Charley and wife Evelyn live in AL right along the way to the reunion and so I drove over to meet the three of them for lunch at Beans and Greens. Laura, can you guess how many times I went back through the line? [They had cobbler for dessert if that helps:) ] This was only my third time to eat at the Beans and Greens but I enjoyed it as much as usual and look forward to our next visit!

After lunch we got to sit around and chat for just a little bit before heading back to the Smith reunion but were so thankful for such a pleasant mini-reunion of sorts with some of Claude's family:)

Once we got back to Sumatanga it wasn't too long until supper time followed by one of the big events. The majority of the pictures I took are from this famous ( or perhaps infamous ) Saturday night talent show.

Andy, eating a little pizza before the show...

Hal did a great job as usual emceeing and gave a shout out to his son Davis (..or is it David...) pictured here to the left.

There were of course performances from some of the regulars as well as debut performances.

Some of the regulars... (Patrick, Miriam, and Hailey)

Hula-hoop and yo-yo:

The cutest performance of You Are My
Sunshine you've ever seen:

And a very heart-felt rendering of The Butterbean Song by some truly talented vocalists.
This picture of my Granddaddy was taken during The Butterbean Song because as his grandchildren were growing up he would sing this very song as we sat down to holiday meals featuring what else but butterbeans. The singing of this song was always preceded by strains of "Granddaddy please don't sing that song...don't sing it...are you going to sing it...just don't sing it, please?" and always followed by us crawling under the table and stopping up our ears with our fingers. Just so you won't be too worried most of those grandchildren are today fairly normal and relatively well-adjusted adults so it didn't scar us too badly:)

To round out the end of the show there was a game of Chubby Bunny involving family and general trivia...I don't know who eventually won.

The show did seem to be a bit shorter than usual, but it worked out great because it left more time for 1.) visiting,

The line of people in the background is the swarm that hit the snack table right after the show.

The better looking representatives for Uncle Alan who was working:)
Aunt Gloria, Jennifer, and Corey

With the fabulous Joey
(who just also happens to be
my favorite hairstylist)!

Sweet one-of-a-kind Aunt Libba.

2.) reading,

Who else but my extremely
well-read husband?

and 3.) chocolate cake time with the George Smith group...

Miriam above. Claude and Granddaddy below on the way over from the meeting room.

Andy and Grandmama looking on as Uncle Chris manages his schedule.

The wallflowers.

Andy and Uncle Marty.

Andy crushing his arch-nemesis.Jennifer, me, Jeffrey, Andy, and Miriam.
All of the grandchildren present at this year's reunion. We missed ya'll Sarah, Donny, Thomas, and Jason:)

After eating cake some of us went back over to the meeting room which had become the music room. I left pretty early on to go to sleep but heard that "that Miriam sure could sing." The next morning there was breakfast, a Sunday service, and the packing up of lots of cars headed all different directions. Sadly, it really seems that every year this weekend flies by more quickly. The good news I know it's now only 50 weeks til next time:)

Rachel

2009-07-26T20:56:00.000-04:00

I'd like to be your surgeon:

I'm on call at MCG, and have some time for my inaugural post. My bike chain broke the other day on a ride and I bought a new one. I'd thought I'd done it right, but it was making a "catching" sound when pedaled. I took it to a local bike shop and he found the problem pretty quick. Can you? I bet you can. My superior motor skills and hand coordination make me uniquely qualified to be your surgeon. Never mind the fact that I can't put a chain on the rungs of a bike, and just simply looped it around the guard rail. We fixed it pretty quick. I won't be back there. I'm laying low for now from cycling.

happy (belated) birthday sister

2009-07-25T01:25:00.000-04:00

So how old is she (my lil sister) you may ask?

Did she finally turn five?

Surely not... She has already achieved a life too full of accomplishments to only be five...I am tempted to list here the highlights of some of both the cool and the dorky aforementioned accomplishments but in an attempt to stay on my sweet sister's good side will refrain from singing her praises right here and now:)

I will however say that since we've cleared our daily junior high squabbles she has proven to be the best sister and friend you might imagine!

On a more serious note, being so far away from the person you've shared the majority of your life with is proving to be a fairly difficult thing so I was ecstatic that Mir's big day fell on the first day of our family reunion...which meant that I actually got to see her on her birthday. Pictures of the celebration provided below:

About to blow out candles on her cake on the big day after finally arriving to the family reunion in AL.
(Note what a great job this gal's mom and sister did of color coordinating her candles with her dress!)

Picking up the candle she blew over...

And now for a couple of sister quotes:

Big sisters are the crab grass in the lawn of life. ~Charles M. Schulz
[I had to include this because I'm currently reading a biography of Schulz & feel that this
must ring true with all little sisters at one time or another:)]

If your sister is in a tearing hurry to go out and cannot catch your eye, she's wearing your best sweater. ~Pam Brown
[Does anyone else know this by heart like I do? :) ]

I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old
clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.
~Author unknown, attributed to a 4-year-old named Lauren

A sister is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost. ~Marion C. Garretty
[ I'm sure hoping this is true! I think it is:) ]

The best thing about having a sister was that I always had a friend. ~Cali Rae Turner

How do people make it through life without a sister? ~Sara Corpening
[I know they do, but I'm thankful that I've got such a great one.]

So, one more time...

HAPPY {belated} BIRTHDAY MIRIAM!

Love you lots,
Rach

waiting on a camera cord!

2009-07-20T22:21:00.000-04:00

Well this post will be super short because as the title mentions I'm waiting on the cord to be able to upload some pics from the jam-packed last week or so. {Claude did me a huge favor today by putting it in the mail, so thanks Claude!!!} I have valiantly tried for the last little bit to somehow just use the SD card but neither of the computers I have access to here at my parents will work with my card and internet simultaneously-go figure... Anyway, all that to say that I have lots to blog...a big birthday, reunionS, and blueberry picking to name a few but they'll probably be infinitely more interesting with images to go alongside them. I think I can probably get at least one of the above covered tomorrow if I can find some wi-fi somewhere around Philly:)
Til then,
Rachel

cow appreciation day

2009-07-10T23:03:00.000-04:00

Today was the 5th annual Cow Appreciation Day (according to the Chick-fil-A website), but it was actually my first time to participate (I think...maybe I went with Mir or Laura last year???). {This might surprise those of you who happen to know that I have camped out in a Chick-fil-A parking lot for a year of free food six times (2 in MS, 2 in LA, 1 in AR, and 1 in AL). Note: Claude himself has camped out at least five, if not six times, himself.}

Participating in Cow Appreciation Day entails dressing like a cow and getting a FREE MEAL at Chick-fil-A, which happens to be a personal favorite for both Claude and me. All that to say when I found out about this special day earlier in the week I definitely marked the calendar for a meal or two today! There are at least three locations which are fairly near our house so I had initially actually thought about hitting different spots for breakfast, lunch, and dinner but figured that might be a little over the edge:) I did however go for both lunch and dinner today and thoroughly enjoyed both experiences...

For lunch, I met up with Asmaa and her two boys. Asmaa's husband is the other intern with Claude this year in their department. It was their first time to go to CFA and definitely the first time to dress up like a cow for a free meal:) I showed up armed and ready to help get them into costume and we pulled it off! At first I'm afraid I probably seemed a little crazy with my "costume bag" but once we got there and saw other people dressed up I think they realized I wasn't the only crazy person there:) As I said earlier, I had a good time and hope they did too. Maybe we can even stop by again for another lunch date later this summer...

Me and Asmaa

After the lunch date, I went to the bookstore and then did some straightening up at the house (in preparation for my parents' upcoming visit...YAY!) About the time I was starting to get antsy about going to eat supper Claude got home and I informed him of what a great chance it was to eat out! Surprisingly (remember this is the guy who has repeatedly camped out himself) Claude was not all that thrilled about dressing up like a cow and even commented that he'd probably rather pay for his meal. Well, I proceeded to retape all my cow spots on and let him know that he could take the remaining spots or pay for his meal... He ended up "dressing" up as little as possible and declined my offer to wear ears. Once we got there he was VERY apprehensive about actually walking in but finally did. Right after we placed our orders the funniest moment of the night occurred. The cashier looked us over and noted that both my head and body were "cow"-ish which would get me the full meal. He then looked at Claude and begin to explain that since only his T-shirt resembled a cow that he could only get the sandwich. Guess who looked like they wanted to cut a hole in the floor? You've got it. Good thing he was rescued by the cashier in the lane next to us who said that he passed for the whole meal:) You better believe we booked it to a table in the corner and kept a low profile as we ate!!! It was nonetheless a fun dining experience:)
And here are our blog pictures as we headed to the car...

Claude, embarassed or disappointed???

Me, proud to be a cow!

This was taken by Claude to document my dorky cow ears.

This is a picture taken while I'm saying, "moo...."

Hope you all enjoyed Cow Appreciation Day as much as I did, but I don't know it that would be possible:)

Rachel

happy birthday to...

2009-07-07T17:59:00.001-04:00

a great dad!

The Lord has truly been gracious to me in many ways throughout my life thus far. One of those blessings has been to have an earthly father who is steadfast in his concern and love for me as his daughter. I know that there are many children who are never granted such a blessing and in light of that I am especially thankful for my daddy:)

We really wish we could be there to help you celebrate but are excited about seeing you soon when you come to visit:) We owe you a birthday dinner for sure...

Now for the pictures.
{The first 3 which are obviously from the wedding last fall were all taken by our amazing photographer Robby Followell. You can see more of his work at www.followellfotography.com!}

Walking me down the aisle.

Miriam, my dad, me, my mom, and Thomas

Michael and my dad after Michael caught the garter:)

And then this is a funny one from the night Thomas was inducted into Mortar Board I had to slip in. Claude and I were really thankful to get the chance to go to the dinner since it was only about a 15 minute drive away at the time.
Can you guess who's missing? {We did leave a space for her though!}

All right. I think birthday wishes will be enough for my post today. Until next time,
Rachel

a little of this and that

2009-07-05T21:56:00.001-04:00

I spent more hours than I had imagined were needed last week painting HALF our room. Thankfully we really do like the paint colors in our house overall and most of the rooms seem to have been painted rather recently. However, several of the rooms are different colors above and below the chair rail going around the room...while both colors in each of the rooms are nice it has had me wanting to paint them all for the sake of symmetry and continuity I guess. Therefore I decided to tackle our room first last week since it seemed to present the smallest challenge. With help [or earlier start times in the mornings:)] I could have probably finished in one day but took my time and spread the task over two days-or was it three? It was three-day one I taped, day two I applied the first coat, and day three saw the second and last coat! Sad to say but it was actually a bit of a workout for me-at least for my pathetic arms:) Here's a before and after:

It's perhaps hard to tell whether it's blue or gray in these pictures but in person it's definitely blue. I love it all the same color-but as I told Claude all that work has kind of quelled my interest in painting our den/dining room for now:) Which happens to be just fine with him. If we do end up painting them I'm going to beg to paint the bottom half which I think would make the job much easier!

Since all that painting wore me out I was thrilled to get a call from Claude around lunch on Friday. Due to the holiday he actually had what amounted to a 1/2 day on Friday and so we went to a nearby Mexican restaurant for lunch. He also found out earlier that day that he had both Saturday and Sunday off and subsequently suggested a day trip to Savannah and Tybee Island. So Saturday morning we packed a beach bag and headed off to celebrate the 4th! Savannah ended up being a little more crowded in some areas and slower in others than we imagine is usual and so we hope to get a chance to visit again soon for a little longer than an hour or two , but we did enjoy our time there. Ironically enough one of the places we passed by was Paula Deen's restaurant, The Lady and Sons. We didn't eat there this time...there was actually a bit of a line it seemed even at 2 in the afternoon...but I did get a shot of Claude with the restaurant in the background:

After walking around several of the more populated blocks we got back on the road and headed for the beach. After a little searching we found a place to park our car and then to park ourselves on the beach! Claude read a good bit of the hour or so we were there and I guess I must have taken a nap...I left my sunglasses in Philly so it was too bright for me to even attempt reading:)

For supper we planned on going to a restaurant recommended by an uncle of Claude's called The Crab Shack. It was an ideal place to go post-beach and we hit it a little early (5ish) so as to hopefully beat what we imagined would be fairly long lines. This was the view out the door right beside our table...

we could also faintly see the water through the small cracks in the boards beneath our feet and joked about hoping the floor wouldn't cave in before we finished eating!

We finished supper fairly quickly and started on the road back...there was a fireworks show on the river that we thought we might make it back for and in a way we did. The fireworks started while we were still driving and so we saw most of the show from the car. At one point as we were driving over the bridge we began to laugh at the mass of people sitting on the right side of the bridge until we looked to the left and saw the view they had obviously come for...fireworks going off over the river with lots of lights below from the boats on the river to boot. My camera is not a professional one so this is the best picture I could get of our view from the bridge, but I assure you it was much better in person!

So that brings this recap up to today. We visited another church this morning and really enjoyed both Sunday School and worship there. After lunch at our house we just worked on different projects around the house. Late afternoon I started on a baking project I've been so anxious to try-petit fours which were featured on one of my favorite blogs. They didn't quite look like perfection and for a number of reasons I decided to only really ice about half of the squares this time but overall I enjoyed trying them and will probably give them another shot once I get a better cooling rack. Most of the ones I ended up with this time were kind of uneven in shape but I tasted one already tonight and while they are SUPER sweet they didn't taste all that bad even though they looked lopsided. With a practice round under my belt I'll do better on presentation next time. I just wish I had some of my sweet tooth friends here to help me eat the few I did ice because I don't think Claude will be eating them since they've got a bit too much sugar for his taste:)

Well I've got several other tasks for this week-some of which include finishing up some of the rooms here-and so I'll post some more of those pictures this week hopefully. Hope you all had a great weekend!

Rachel

expiration dates

2009-07-01T11:00:00.000-04:00

Any of you who know me (Rachel) know that I am all about coupons. Coupons from circulars, coupon books, online coupons, coupon codes, and so on. Well, several years ago [I think it was actually the year we first started dating] I gave Claude a little homemade coupon book of sorts. In retrospect, I now realize that I made a huge mistake with that book...I forgot to include expiration dates. This realization came yesterday when this 3+ year old coupon appeared on our refrigerator:

In case it's not glaringly obvious this coupon seems to have been modified a bit since issued, but since I love to bake and wanted to lighten the mood of Claude's impending month of doom I happily obliged.

I myself snuck a few of these cookies (which were supposed to be "just for Claude") and if I do say so they were pretty good. That probably has to do with the fact that they're a Paula Deen recipe...which Claude protested when he found out. Since they're oatmeal raisin I think they're still relatively not as unhealthy as most of those recipes but I told him I'll cut some better next time:)

I'm off to start painting the top 1/2 of our room to match the bottom 1/2. Wish me luck and a steady hand!

Rachel

road trip weekend

2009-06-30T21:58:00.001-04:00

Every day that goes by without posting here causes me to be more hesitant about posting again...because it seems if a week goes by with nothing the something you put up ought to be good. I don't know if that will pan out here, but it will be a little bit of meandering to get me back on track with all the (exciting) details of our life here:)

Last Thursday was Claude's final day of orientation so about mid afternoon when he got home we started packing up the car for our "last" trip back to our true MS homes for a while. "Last" is in parentheses there because I'll be back in less than a month, but come tomorrow Claude will be more geographically confined! [Speaking of, you all can pray for us both through his intern year in what is still our first year of being married.] I'd gotten an oil change AND filled up the gas tank that morning so once we got in the car, we were set...except for the fact that we had to take a detour backwards to even get on the interstate. We stopped in Birmingham for good old Chipotle-which seems to be becoming tradition on both routes of the trip-and after taking back roads on the last leg of the journey finally pulled into Philly around 10:30.

Friday morning Claude, my mom, and I met my dad to pick some tomatoes who informed us that these would be the first "good" tomatoes picked of the year. For anyone who doesn't know, my dad is a phenomenal gardener-and his tomato plants are no exception. We picked about three very full box tops before heading back to the house to get ready for lunch at...
Peggy's. It was fried chicken today so it as well was phenomenal as any of you Philadelphians might suspect! After lunch Claude and I stayed a little longer at my parents and then began the next leg of the trip to Jackson, stopping first in the country to see Mammaw and Pappaw briefly on the way.

Once in Jackson, we dropped off some fresh tomatoes at Claude's parents and then met up with Ashley and Simon [the absolute sweetest newly engaged couple:)] and Miriam and Michael for sushi at Nagoya. I regret overall that I don't have any more pictures from this weekend than I do, but one of the few I have will be inserted here. Long story short, there's a family joke of sorts in my immediate family that has recently gotten a bit of attention from Mr. Medlin. My dad therefore sent him an official letter to clear things up via Claude and me. Here is Michael opening up said letter...

Don't worry-Miriam also got a similar letter so as not to be left out of the fun. After we all ate supper, I rode with Miriam and we met Simon and Ashley at Maggie Moo's to get a chance to see them a little longer. After parting ways with them we headed back to the apartment to "camp out" since all the furniture was gone. Unfortunately I have a lot of stuff and therefore still had a bit to clean out of the apartment over the weekend:(

Saturday morning Miriam and I ran some errands before she had to leave for LA to sing in a wedding. Once she was gone Claude helped me to begin packing up what remained...fortunately we took a lunch break with friends. After lunch it was back to the less than fun task of cleaning up. Laura and Breck stopped by for a while to help cart some of the stuff away. After deciding to wrap up for the day with the cleaning we headed to Claude's parents for the night. There was an unusually eventful session of making homemade ice cream and Skippy got plenty of exercise as well:) After eating supper we all went walking and tried-to no avail-to call Emily and David while they were on an airport layover.

Sunday morning we went to 1st Pres and heard a great message on the mortification of sin. There's a book that was mentioned on the subject that Claude has ordered and once it gets here I imagine it'll take me forever to get through it but I'm looking forward to reading something so challenging. After church we ate again with Claude's family for lunch and then drove back to Jackson for frisbee/the last touches of cleaning out the apt. Following a successful run at both of these activities we finished loading up the car at Claude's parents to get started on the first leg of our journey back to our new home. There were pictures taken at this point, just not by me since I was buried underneath a couple of bags for the next 1 1/2:) On the way to Philly we picked up some sandwiches and stopped for supper with Mammaw and Pappaw. It was a short but very sweet visit and we managed to actually leave their house with yet another bag...of fresh corn from their garden. After saying "good nights" we got back into town for the last night of our short trip home. We had heard rumor that a real treat might be waiting on Claude but it turned out that he had to wait a little longer...

Flash forward to Monday morning. Shortly after getting up, Claude walks into the kitchen to find my mom bringing in both fresh and canned salsa from Gina. Why is this important you may ask? Well, it's because Claude loves this salsa so much he ate half the first bowl for breakfast. Note the time on the clock to his right!

[Since we've been home he's gone through 1 1/2 more bowls with a little help from me.]
Post salsa drop off, we spent a little more time repacking the car and then pulled out on the last LONG leg of the return trip. Hours and hours later we finally pulled into our driveway. Only to have to unload the car and water our very thirsty tomato/basil/okra/blueberry plants.

Whew...I didn't really mean to post such a long recap of our little road trip home, but at least this way I don't think I missed much of what happened for those of you who enjoy the minute details:) I promise to post quicker so that it won't drag out so long next time!

Rachel

christmas trees in june

2009-06-22T22:47:00.001-04:00

This is a post for Laura and Breck...

and all other pranksters who are familiar with "black ice":)

we love our dads!

2009-06-21T20:26:00.000-04:00

Alright, so I'm fairly positive this is not at all an original post for today but we just wanted to say how thankful we are for our fathers and grandfathers. Our lives would not be nearly as rich were it not for the blessing of growing up with dads and granddads like you. Words are surely not enough to say thanks, but for now it's about all we've got:)

With our fathers and their fathers at graduation, May 2009.

With my mom's dad (and mom) at their house, March 2009

Hoping that today you'll remember how much...

we

you!!!

starting off

2009-06-17T23:06:00.000-04:00

Well the past couple of days have held several "firsts" in our lives. We have moved out of our first apartment, closed on our first home, moved ourselves by way of a UHaul and fully loaded cars hundreds of miles to the first home, and are now entering the blog world via our first post. It goes without saying that we already dearly miss our family and friends...and I mean really miss you guys:) We are also excited though because we believe the next months and years of our life together will be full of good times which will in time become great memories. Of course we hope that some of those times will include our friends and family who come to see us and who we come visit...hint, hint.

Just to get this show on the road we'll post some pictures of the past couple of days...

Claude beginning to load his library of books.

We had several lunches and dinners with friends before leaving town. These are pictures from two of those meals-the first from PF Changs with Niping and Sangwon and the second from Bonsai with Silu.

This was our last trip to Philly before the big move. We went to pick up a table that I (Rachel) am fairly attached to and that Claude is less attached to:) Maybe it'll grow on him... We also all ate lunch together at Peggy's.

We also, of course, ate with our families on the last two days we were in town. After loading up cars and the truck all day on Saturday we got to a stopping point and headed to eat supper with my family at Sal and Phils. Instead of getting someone to take a picture of all of us, I just took one of each side of the table. And you might notice we're missing someone...Thomas is working at Lake Forest this summer and so he wasn't able to make it :(

Sunday morning we went to early church at Redeemer and then started trying to wrap up the loading. (It took a lot longer than Claude had anticipated...) While Claude went for one last afternoon of Jackson frisbee, Claire and Niping helped me load up some last boxes into my car which was very helpful.

Then Miriam came over as well to help with the last bit of stuff to be done. She stayed until we actually left the apartment and took a picture of us in front of the door to our first apartment...

And we then took a self portrait before getting into our separate cars...which was probably the saddest moment of the whole weekend for me!

Then off to our final stop for a great dinner with all of Claude's family. To make sure we would all be there this was planned weeks (I think) in advance-and was well worth it:)
To get a picture with everybody at once we had 3 cameras set on self-timers. You can imagine that this process took a couple of minutes. You can see Laura posing and Emily thinking in the first one and then all of us in the one below...

And after a very, very, very early morning start we finally arrived to our new house-here's Claude unlocking the front door:

All right, so that's probably enough for now but we'll leave off with several pictures of Claude, the expert mover, who I've encouraged to hire out to move others in all his upcoming spare time:)

Our UHaul when we pulled in the new driveway hundreds of miles away packed full with everything still in place and then a couple of hours later as the last bookcase is moved off!

If you're reading this far, you're most likely 1) our parents, 2) our siblings, or 3) really good friends. As the days pass, we'll try to keep this updated with the more interesting parts of our lives:)

Rachel and Claude