an ode to Harley

Happy 1st birthday to our furry first-born!

Thanksgiving recap

We had a great time in Ohio!

Some highlights:

• Both of our bosses let us leave early, so our trip got off to a great start!
• Packing, baking, and eating! I made these, and they were a big hit! Cathy & Jim are making the move down to their house on Sanibel Island, Florida so we had a lot of work to do to get all of David's stuff cleaned out & packed up.
• Dinner at the Crawfords. BEST food and company! I just love David's family.
• Black Friday. I left with Beth and Nicki and 3:30am to hit the stores! We were pretty successful, though David (who left at 4:45 and was back in bed by 5:30) got the best deals.
• Ice skating. We got to spend time with some of the best friends- Hannah, Sara and Raef! I just love those people, and we had a blast.
• Thanksgiving, Part Two. Grandparents, Johnsons & Geyers reconvened for leftovers. It was just as good the second time around and so good to spend time all together again.
• Uhaul. 5x8 trailor packed full. We brought home a lot of goodies from the Geyers, and our garage is still full!

And now, the pictures...

Brianna is obsessed with Tohny. The rest of us = chopped liver.

Back at home our lives were not nearly as exciting (as evidenced by my lack of pictures). We pretty quickly unpacked the trailer and car, though stuff only made it into the garage at first. Patrick & John came over to help Dave move the heavy stuff inside and upstairs, which helped a lot. We ate dinner with the whole Bryant fam (I love it when MS is in town!) and went back to the lake house to watch the Tennessee game slash fall asleep on the couch (cough:me:cough).

By the end of the weekend, we had accomplished quite a bit. All the laundry was done and put away, all of the inherited stuff that had a place was put away (the garage is still full of stuff that will probably have to live in the attic for a while), we saw the movie Blind Side (it was awesome. I cried like a baby.), did the grocery shopping, put up the Christmas tree and most of the decorations, wrapped all of the Christmas presents, and went to bed early. Whew.

Anyone else ready for a weekend?

thankful.

A: Amigos. Hey, we love that place.
B: Blogging.
C: Calvary Chapel Chattanooga.
D: Dunkin Donuts in town!
E: ESPN (this one was David's contribution).
F: Friends that are like family and family that are so great, we chose to be friends with them.
G: Geyers- a great family-in-law.
H: Harley Dog.
I: iMac.
J: Jesus,duh. The fact that He loves me is totally overwhelming.
K: Kraft macaroni and cheese. Still my fav.
L: Lawson Street, and our little abode.
M: Marriage. The greastest gift ever.
N: Nevada. Las Vegas. we're going there next month!
O: Ohio State Buckeyes.
P: Popsicles. My new favorite dessert.
Q: Quiet evenings when I'm home alone. I really have been loving that time lately.
R: Rochas. Our bffs.
S: Sewing machine, and a new found love for craftiness.
T: Technology. I love getting my email on my cell phone.
U: UTC. A job for me to be challenged in, but learn to love.
V: Volkswagen. A job for David to learn more than he ever expected to.
W: Walks around the neighborhood.
X: Xrays at the ER that came back negative. that come back negative (more than once this year).
Y: You for reading my blog.
Z: zzzz. Sleep at the end of a long day. Naps on Sunday afternoons.

my brother: the star

Last weekend Greg was in a play at school called Edges. Unfortunately, we weren't able to see it, but Ashley surprised him and showed up. I'm so glad she filmed parts of the play so I could see it! I'm seriously in awe of my brother's ability and I am so proud of him!

weekend recap

We had a great weekend- and now I'm ready for a vacation!

Fortunately, it's only a 3-day work week (the best kind).

Thursday night the Earleys came to visit! Matt, Arrington and Stevie spent the weekend with us and we loved having them. Friday they went to the Creative Discovery Museum (a Chattanooga must with a little one), and we ate at Amigos for dinner (a Geyer must). Saturday morning we didn't waste any time getting started on our day. We drug everyone out of bed early to hit up some pre-Thanksgiving sales. The big event of the weekend was the Ohio State v. Michigan game. Matt converted Dave into a die hard OSU fan during college, so it was fun to watch the game together. We invited some other fans over and had a great time!

Patrick came, but brought this ugly thing:

We can still be friends with Michigan fans, see??

These sweet girlies had so much fun together!

Too cute!

Saturday afternoon we all had food hangovers and needed some serious nap time! After we rallied the troops, we headed up to Lookout Mountain to Rock City's Enchanted Garden of Lights. Stevie loved it, and even the rest of us had a fun time.

Sunday consisted of church, craft time, rainy day naps (well, for D) and dinner with church friends!

Stevie quotes of the weekend:

• While we were walking Harley on Friday, I told Stevie that she was going to stay at our house for a few days. Her reply: "Yeah, because I brought a lot of panties."
• While the adults were upstairs watching the football game, the little girls watched a movie in our room. At one point, Stevie (who could not remember Adalie's name), came and told Matt "Matt, the little girl is stuck." [Addie had gotten her legs stuck in our baseboard. She was fine though.]

We are SO looking forward to this week. We're leaving Wednesday to drive to Ohio for the Geyer family Thanksgiving events! We can't wait to be there and to see everyone!

confessions

1. Whenever David's Monday night class has gotten out early (which has happened several times this semester), we have met at Amigos for taco night. This was the case Monday night. I had been trying to get a lot of work done around the house, so when he called I wasn't thinking very clearly. I hurriedly put the dog up and ran out of the house. While I was stopped at a stop light (about 3 blocks from Amigos), the man in the car next to me frantically got my attention. I [nervously] rolled down my window only to hear him say "You have about 25 feet of rope hanging from the back of your car- and the car behind you is parked on it!!".
Oops.
At one point in my evening I was working on things outside, so we use this rope to tie the dog to a tree - or in this case- to the hitch on the Trailblazer. In my haste to meet David, I apparently forgot to untie it. At least I untied the dog.

2. Last night David and I divided and conquered to maximize our evening. We were getting the house ready for the Earleys to come (yay! they're here!) and hoping to make it to D's boss's sons's soccer game. He ran to the grocery while I cleaned at home. He called me after a little while to tell me he had forgotten his wallet in his car (he drove the Tblaze to the grocery, but he typically drives the Accord), and I needed to bring it to him. I was annoyed, but got myself together to leave. I quickly called him back and said, "It's going to be hard for me to get there without my keys. They are in my purse in the Tblaze!" Ugh! So, we were both annoyed because we realized that meant David would have to come home and get his wallet.
Or not.
MY purse and wallet was in the Trailblazer! With David!
Duh.
Fortunately he figured it out before he made it all the way home, and we had a hearty laugh about our foolishness.

3. Later that evening (on our way to the soccer game- house clean and groceries put away), David checked in with the Earleys on the road and told Matt that wallet-in-the-wrong-car story. We were still laughing about it (kind of a lot), but Matt didn't react. You know when you don't realize the person on the other end of the call has been disconnected so you just keep on talking? Yep, that happened. We were both hysterical, and Matt didn't even hear the story! It made it that much better :).

On a different note, we watched Javier's son Raul play on the Normal Park soccer team last night, and it was so fun! Despite it being pretty cold and Normal Park losing the game, seeing the look on Raul's face when he realized we were there to watch him was TOTALLY worth it! Javier was equally excited, I think!

sweet little girls

A few weeks ago when my parents came to town, they brought several bins full of my stuff from their attic. They figure I can keep my junk in my own attic now :).

So, of course, I had to look through all of it- reminiscing the whole way. I was able to clean out and consolidate a little. I went from 4 bins to 3! They were mostly full of Holiday Barbies, school work (I'm a pack-rat who keeps all of that stuff) and cheerleading and gymnastics uniforms/medals/ribbons/etc. If you know anyone who wants to be a Calvary Christian School cheerleader for Halloween, I'm your man.

I also found these 4 pictures that are too sweet not to share:

Kimberly McIntosh, Megan Cannon and I were best buddies, and we always took pictures together on Easter (obviously).

A couple of observations:

• Whoa, bangs.
• I hope hats come back in style. I'll probably make my kids wear them- at least for Easter.
• That brown recliner is still in my parent's house. It has been recovered more times than I know! It's blue now.
• In the first picture, Megan looks like my friend Melissa's sweet baby Vale. 

It's so fun to look back on good times. These were good times!