Thanksgiving Break

Joel and I were lucky enough to be able to spend a week with our family over the Thanksgiving break. During the week, we attended a birthday party, three family celebrations, and plenty of time just hanging out.

Here is the birthday boy, Wynn...turning the big 5 years old!

Here is Rebekah sporting her Mom's sunglasses. She is so stylish!

Sanders is getting so grown up. Here he is right after he got a haircut.

Just the boys. Uncle Joel, Sanders, and Wynn.

Uncle Joel, Aunt Abbi, Sanders, Wynn, and Rebekah.

Joel and I are so blessed with amazing families. We both incredibly enjoy being an Uncle and an Aunt. Every moment we get to spend with these kiddos above and our other nieces and nephews is special to us. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from this past week with our older niece and nephew...I will have to do better at Christmas. Avi Grace is pictured below in her overalls that I blogged about last time. I was very pleased with how well they fit.

Just lounging...

Here is a back shot so you can see how well they fit.

On the way home today, Joel and I stopped at a Chick-Fil-A to get one of their AMAZING milkshakes. My personal favorite is the cookies and cream one. Anyway, while we were waiting for our handspun treat, we got to take a picture with the chick-Fil-A santa cow. Aren't we too cute?

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving break, and that you were able to spend a little time relishing in how much you have been blessed by God. I know I sure did. Now, I am looking forward to the upcoming Christmas season.

What I've been up to lately...

A couple of posts ago I mentioned that I had taken a machine quilting class. I have been practicing my free motion quilting on scraps of fabric. I have a small boy's quilt in mind that I plan to donate to a charity (perhaps Project Linus), so that is why I have been practicing on all of these trucks and cars.

These are in NO way perfect, but it was fun to try out something new. I did the train first, and you can definitely tell it! I think the truck looks the best. By the way, the color in these pictures is awful, but at least you can see the quilting. (It is actually green fabric with white thread.)


Also, I found a good deal on a Burda pattern - 9772 at the local JoAnn's store this week. I decided to go out on a limb and try it! It is the first piece of clothing that I have made that is partially lined. I am proud of it, but most of all I am proud because I didn't have any difficulties while sewing it! I almost always have some sort of major question about what the directions mean or something like that.

I still have to do the buttonholes on the bib and put the buttons on the straps. I thought the fall fabric was too cute.


I hope you are having a good week. It is nasty and rainy here today. We turned on the heat for the first time this weekend. I am about to whip up some waffles, and then maybe we'll watch a movie.

Sunday Afternoon in North Georgia

This afternoon Joel and I took off and headed up to North Georgia. We have been enjoying all the beautiful changing leaves and wanted to see more. These first pictures are from the entrance to our apartment area. The trees are so beautiful right now, and we get to see them every day! It was great to get to see all the pretty fall colors up in the mountains on our drive.

from across the lake

close up
This one is for Joel...he likes the yellow/orange/green ones. I like the red ones the best!

Finally, after I got these pictures taken, we headed to North Georgia. Our destination was a town called Helen. Every year for the entire month of October, Helen, GA, has Oktoberfest festivities. The town is quite interesting in its decor...just see the pictures below. Their specialty during this month is beer and brats. We did not try either, but we did enjoy the beautiful weather and the unique atmosphere.

I hope y'all had a great weekend!

Ok, so it's been forever, literally!

Sorry it has taken me so long to get back on track with blogging. Joel and I have been super busy.

We are really liking our new town, and we have found a great church. I started working with the Cubbies at Awana, and we have 20 - 3 & 4 year olds on the roll. On any given Wednesday night we usually have at least 18! Talk about a crazy night. It has been a lot of fun and has helped me meet other people at church.

Today I had the second (in a 2 part series) beginning machine quilting class at a local quilt shop. I had a great time and learned so much. I got to meet several great ladies, and we talked about different ways to machine quilt and ways to mark the quilt. Also, I got to practice using my new walking foot and free-motion foot. The teacher of the class was super nice, and she brought several beautiful quilts to show us. You should go check out her blog...she does some really beautiful work and some neat things with real pictures printed onto fabric. Hopefully I will have something fun to show you soon.

Joel has been staying super busy with all of his classes, teaching schedule, and the homework that keeps him up late at night! He is really enjoying his classes and learning a lot. He just registered for next semester's classes this week. Only a month and a half left in the semester and then he will get to take a much deserved break for Christmas.

So that's a little about what's been going on with us. Hope everything is going well with you. I will try to do better about blogging in a timely manner (better than I have done since we moved :)).

Updated Apartment Pictures

Here are some updated apartment pictures. Everything has a place to call home now.

I have a sewing area set up in the office/guest bedroom.

Master Bedroom...it is impossible to show the color of the walls in a picture. The color changes depending on if it is natural or lamp light that is shining...I am very pleased with the color though.

Living Room....sorry the blanket isn't folded and the pillows are not where they should be :P

Much needed bathroom storage!

Our tiny kitchen :) So far it has worked out...I have had enough room to do what I need.

Last but not least...our new entry table. It might look familiar...it matches our bookshelves. Joel and I both really loved the look of the bookshelves so we decided to use the same look for an entry table. We are really pleased with the outcome.

DCI

So Joel and I have been quite busy since we moved. We took a week to get all the boxes unpacked and get settled in. After that we headed to Destin to visit with my family for a week. The day we got back from Destin, Michael came to visit. We got back on Friday and Michael met us here in time to go out for my birthday dinner. We ate at Outback, and Michael made sure to have the people at the restaurant sing to me for my birthday.

On Saturday afternoon we headed to Atlanta to see DCI. I have watched DCI on television for several years, but this year was my first time to get to see it live.

Here are just a couple of pictures from 3 (out of 18) corps that performed.

The Cadets about to start their show.

Phantom Regiment getting ready to start.

This show was in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. This is a view of the JumboTron that allowed us to see the forms on the field more clearly because we were sitting on row 5.

The Cavaliers about to start their show.

Cavaliers during their show.

The Cavaliers show this year was about crossing the "Great Divide." You can see the guard dressed as hikers and climbers. At one point in the show the horn line actually acted as a mountain and one of the guard "climbed" up. It was a really neat show.

It was a lot of fun to get to see DCI in person. Overall the weekend was a great success. We had a great time visiting with Michael and getting to see Graham in Atlanta.

Vacation

Joel and I took off last Monday (a week ago) headed to Destin to meet up with my family. We were there for several days, and we really enjoyed the beach, good food, and great family time.

This is the second time that my family has taken a summer trip to the beach. Last year I saw people parasailing and thought it looked like a lot of fun, but I did not get around to doing it (plus I would have had to go by myself.) This year Joel came along to the beach with me. I mentioned how fun it would be to parasail the first day we were there. My sister's decided that would be the perfect birthday present for me (they were right!). So on Thursday morning Joel and I headed off to get on the boat.

Here are some pictures to prove that we did it :) :

Us leaving the boat...
Starting to get higher...in the one on the right you can see how far away we got from the boat. The total length of rope was 800 ft.

Finally coming back to the boat...as they brought us back in we got dunked in the water to about waist level.

Eventually we got all the way back to the boat. It was a lot of fun...we could see so far in every direction when we were all the way up in the air.


The last night that Joel and I were there the whole crew headed down to the beach to take pictures. Here are a couple of shots that we got:

How cute is she?

Here is one of Maddi...how grown up is she getting!He is getting so handsome! About to start 8th grade...hard to believe!


We got them to pose together!
And finally, Joel was nice enough to pose with me for a picture or two :)

New everything...

SO I have obviously been behind on blogging, but I think I have a good excuse (at least for the last week or so!). Joel and I are all moved into our new apartment and are slowly getting everything put in its place.

Here are a few pictures:

View of the living room...the door to the left is the front door. This is the first day we moved in...lots of chaos still.

View of half of the bathroom.

Here is a view of the windows in the living room before curtains were added.

Here are the curtains up...we decided to add a third panel, so it looks a little different now. Try to post up to date pictures sometime soon when everything is finished.

View of half the guest bedroom. This is our multipurpose room...extra bed, computer, and sewing room.

This is our pantry/laundry room. Our kitchen is tiny=not much storage, so Joel and I got one of these shelving units from Lowe's and it has been a lifesaver! This picture was taken not long after we put it up. More stuff is stored on the shelves now...still need to organize it! But seriously without these shelves I don't know where everything would go!

And finally...our much needed bookshelf. We got this bookshelf from Ikea. I will have to do a whole separate post on our trip to Ikea...let's just say we were novices and did not know what we had gotten ourselves into! Once we figured out how to maneuver the store we were good to go!

So far we are very pleased with the storage this bookshelf is providing. The cubbies are deep enough to hold books two deep, which means that we actually had room for all of our books. This is the first shelf we have used that held all of our books.

So that gives you a general idea of the apartment. I will try to post more once we get things more organized. Hope you are enjoying your Wednesday!

Off to do some more organizing.