bike wreck

James warned me that it would probably happen and it did.

I was so proud of myself at how fast I was going down a hill on a skinny trail in the woods.

That's just about when I lost control and slid down the hill instead.

My arm looks a lot worse than the fall actually was, believe me.

James is even kinda proud of it :)



I felt like a 10 year old every time I had to tell somebody, "Oh that - I fell off my bike."
At least my 2nd graders were impressed.

8 years

October, 2002

my senior year in high school

Jills and I are driving back from our first visit to Starkville and "he" calls.

After some awkward small talk, he finally asks
"I was wondering if you wanted to get lunch sometime"

And the call drops. seriously.

We finally made it to McAlisters later that week.

I got chips and cheese thinking it would be easy to eat but the bell sleeves on my awesome white crochet shirt kept sticking to the chips and pulling them into my lap. awkward. Thank goodness my leather tassel belt was still looking amazing.

Thankfully, it got a lot better after that - Sweet Home Alabama the next Friday and the rest is history.



And while we're reminiscing, check out this fun one:

surprises

Look what I found at the bottom of the stairs this morning!





And since James is so good at putting furniture together (I'm serious - he doesn't even blink at the millions of parts we pulled out of the box and never complains and I'm always impressed), our kitchen was changed from this:




yep, that's our microwave and toaster on top of the stove - I'm pretty sure that might be a fire hazard



into this!



Since our kitchen is so narrow, we needed some strategic, skinny furniture and my mom scouted out the perfect piece! Isn't it so cute? And it's more storage and it's not a fire hazard!



Best part - we can still open the oven (you know - in case I needed to store some pans or something in there :)



Thank you so so much, Mom!! It's perfect! Now come see it in person soon. Love you!

more visitors!

Ok, believe it or not, we had one more visitor from Hattiesburg/Birmingham come and take us out!

(I promise, if you come through Chattanooga, you do not have to take us out to eat :) We just love seeing familiar faces!)

Mr. Troy Gibbons called on Tuesday and said he was in town on business.



So we met him at The Chattanooga Choochoo



and we went to The Station House. We hadn't heard of it before and when Mr. Troy told us that the waiters sing, we didn't really know what to expect.



But really - the waiters sing. Like, they-should-be-in-Nashville-not-waiting-tables-because-they-sing-so-amazingly sing.
It was a blast!! The restaurant has a big stage in the middle and looks a little like an old-timey saloon with a house band and the waiters get up on stage and singing anything you can think of in between waiting on their tables. It was amazing!

This is a terrible picture, but you can get an idea...



Check out Elvis in the corner - apparently he stays in character all night!



It's in The Chattanooga Choochoo's pretty courtyard which is just a cool place to go.



And then, on top of all that, Mr. Troy gave us 3 tickets to the Imax from his company!! Apparently, one is for Grace, so you better get up here :)



I can't tell you how fun it is to see a familiar face! Who knew that would be such a big deal? We got to catch up on sweet friends Logan and Cody and hear all about Kelly and Josie's wedding details (which we're so excited about!!)
It really means the world to us that Mr. Troy would come here and think of us!!
We obviously had a blast.

3 visitors in 1 week - we now have some high expectations :)


On a side note, I've been working on a little Christmas present lately! It's right around the corner, you know!!

visitors

Look who came to see us this week!!


My dad was working in Nashville - well actually he was working in Missouri, Kentucky, Alabama, all over TN, and MS - and made a detour to Chattanooga to see us! I was in a meeting at school and the secretary said there was a 'surprise' waiting in my room. It was the best surprise ever!! My kids did get him mixed up with a knight that was coming to show us his sword fighting on Friday, but he made their week when he started telling them how much trouble I got in at school when I was little :)



Uncle Bill was fishing in West Virginia and made a detour to come see us on Sunday. Since Aunt Brownie and Uncle Bill live in Tallahassee, we don't get to see them often. It made the world to us that he would drive out of his way to see us! He's a bike riding expert, so we got lots of good tips to avoid more wrecks.



I can't tell you how awesome it is to see family! It's so comforting. And it reminds us just how blessed we are with an amazing family.

Plus, it doesn't hurt that we got to eat 2 of the best meals we've had since we've been up here :)

love languages

One of my love languages is gifts.

As much as I really, really love cleaning out, these are the things that I can't get rid of. It's why I still have a pair of Hello Kitty sunglasses in my classroom and a Hello Kitty cd case in my car from my mom, a sequined MSU drink coozie from James in college, a friendship ring from Ireland that Jills gave me in the 8th grade, the last few J post it notes Em gave me forever ago, some dried out flowers from Gracie on the first day of school, a beautiful, long scarf that Mrs. Anne spent months knitting for me, the list could go on and on.

It doesn't matter a bit what it is.
I think about these special people that I love and who love me every time I see these things.

And it's why I've been waiting for this package for the last several days:



Thanks Dad!! I love you!

the weekend

James had an intensive class in Atlanta this weekend, so I rode along with him on Saturday and did a little shopping while he sat in class all day. Of course I had to stop by Ikea.


One of our favorite parts of Ikea are these little, tiny apartments that they have set up in the store with awesome ideas on how to use the space as best as possible.

Since we're living in less than 500 sq feet, they're obviously quite interesting for us.



I love how they use the wall space so well and all the shelves above the doors.

You really can fit a lot into a tiny space!

happy sunday

Labor Day Weekend

Better late than never, right?

For Labor Day Weekend, Mel and Andy invited us to Starkville to celebrate Andy's birthday and go to the first State football game. We had so much fun staying up late and catching up with our sweet friends!




We've missed these sweet boys so much!




Andy's mom and step-dad have been so generous to let us stay at their house in Starkville more than once!



This is a terrible pic of us, but it's the only one I have of the whole weekend! Maybe Mel's turned out better...






Look at all the tents!! It's definitely grown so much even since we left 3 years ago.



We headed over to Aunt Kay's and Uncle John's tent to mooch off of them :)



I get all giddy and sentimental every time we head back to Starkville. Whenever we have kids, I'm going to do just what my dad did with us and drive around campus, showing them all the places I lived and where we'd hang out and, of course, where we got engaged. I love being on campus!




Andy and Mel were so sweet to find us some tickets, so we headed up to our seats and out of 56,000 people, just guess who we were sitting right next to -

Uncle John and Aunt Kay, Blake and Drew!! It was so fun sitting next to them even if Blake was really loud and rowdy and James had to calm him down several times :) (If you know Blake, then you know this isn't totally true)


If only the jumbo tron would have been a little bigger...




On a side note - look at this beautiful blanket the Mel's mom made for Drew! It is so precious!

Check out all that detail sewn by hand! I'm seriously impressed!



Well, we got up on Sunday and figured since we were less than 3 hours from Hattiesburg and we had Monday off, we might as well drive down and surprise the fams and we're so glad we did.




It was so comforting to be home and relax even if it was just for a day.



Mary Brooke is growing up way to much - we'll just keep skyping her so she won't forget us :) Isn't that smile the cutest thing you've ever seen?!


And Nala is also growing up way to fast. I know here momma's proud.


Sweet Grandmother and Mary Brooke - I love watching them together!


We headed back to Chattanooga on Monday in our squeaky clean car (thanks, Gracie!) and are already looking forward to the next trip home in October! Isn't family great?!