Christmas at the cabin

Roderick and I got to enjoy Christmas at his parents new cabin in the mountains. SO much fun! It's at about 9000 ft which is a crazy height for our sea level bodies. The cabin is "in the middle of no where." Pretty much everything has to be brought up the mountains with us. We were able to spend Christmas relaxing and having a good time with most of his family. (His step brother and his wife are expecting a baby boy on Jan 24th-or they hope sooner- and had been given doctors orders not to go that far away from a hospital.)

We woke up to a fresh "dusting" of a few inches of snow the next morning. We went snow shoeing -first time for me! It was so much fun and SO beautiful. Had I not been so bundled up I would have had a lot more gorgeous scenery pictures to share from our new digital camera - Yes, Merry Christmas to us! (Yeah for bonus' and gift cards!!!) I only snowshoed for an hour or two... Roderick went for much longer, but he had a blast.

It was such a fun day! Unfortunately, it ended a little different than expected. We were supposed to spend all day Saturday -today- in the cabin and then come down tomorrow Sunday for church. As previously mentioned our bodies are used to sea level and the 9000 ft plus extreme exersion did not agree with my poor husband. He has a good, or should I say bad, case of altitude sickness. (Despite having drank tons of water and even some special tea that is supposed to help!) The best thing to do with altitude sickness is to get down from that extreme height. He was so sick and needing some sort of relief. Sooo...at midnight we found ourselves creeping down the mountain back to 5000 ft with a Very sick husband. Today he's feeling a little better, despite getting hardly any sleep last night. However, he's still barely speaking, only answering with nods and not really eating. Poor guy!

On the positive side as we were coming down the mountain we got the amazing news that our friends Natalie and Thad had twin boys. (They did not know that they were expecting twins, but she was carrying so big a lot people were wondering.) The boys were really big for twins with both of them well over 6 pounds - almost 14 pounds combined weight! They were also born on different days, one on the 26th the other the 27th! So as soon as we get my husband well we get to go see a couple of newborns!

Hope your Christmas has been fun, and maybe a little less adventurous than ours! I've been taking TONS of pictures so I'm sure there will be several posts on our adventures in the future!

Winter Cruise

This past weekend Roderick and I enjoyed a lunch cruise on the Spirit of Norfolk. This year the seminary winter banquet was actually a two hour cruise. It was a blast! The best part is that it was FREE. Several people donated money to allow seminary students and their spouses to attend at no cost. Roderick and I have been thinking/wanting to go on the Spirit of Norfolk for a little while. Isn't the Lord good to give us even the things we want, but don't need. He definitely supplies all our need and gives us so many extras as well!

Christmas Tour of Homes

Last year I was just getting acquainted with the world of blogging and found Boomama's tour. I thought since it was so much fun last year, I'd join in myself this year. I'm a little late in joining... I'm number 746 in the tour! I've had fun checking out some of the other homes on the list. It's so fun to see how everyone is decorating their homes to celebrate our Savior birth. So.... here's our home. Hope you enjoy the tour. In our house Jesus Christ's birth is the "reason for the season." While we celebrate His birth, His death and His resurrection every day, we enjoy the extra focus we have during Christmas. We rejoice in the best gift ever given to us when Christ died on the cross for ME and for You! Without Christ we are nothing but horrible sinners, with Him we are sinners saved by Grace longing to see our Savior's face. What better reason is there to celebrate!

When you walk in our front door the first thing you'll see is our living room sparkling with lights. The tree is "light switch activated" and its the first thing I turn on when I arrive home for work. I love coming home from work during the holidays and having such a greeting waiting for me. The room is filled mostly with a collection of snowmen I've had for years.

To the right when you enter our apartment you'll find our kitchen, which is also sparkling and shining ready for the Christmas festivities. The lights above cabinet give off a wonderful purple hugh. I just love it! Our bathroom is all decked out in sparkling lights too!

At the end of the hall you'll find our bedroom, complete with the "purple tree" a collaboration of ornaments in my favorite color. The tree itself was a purchase from a garage sale a couple of summers ago for $2.50. You never know what wonderful goodies you'll find at a garage sale. Finally our newest room, the hobby room. I really had fun decorating this room this year. The colors just brighten my day. Although the tree is small, we've loaded it with lots of polka dots and bright colors.

Hope you enjoyed the tour. I don't have any goodies created yet...planned on doing that, but spent too much time creating fun pictures on picnik.com! (After visiting all the other homes on the tour you're probably "sweeted out" any way!) Hopefully tonight we'll have some wonderful goodies to share. Come again! We always love visitors.

**Edit: Just in case you got bored with the hundreds of house over at boomama's blog....I'm finding Boomama is not the only one hosting a tour on the 15th. There are several others including this one:

Wreaths

I've had a couple people ask about Whimsical Welcome wreaths, so I decided to post the remaining ones here for all to see. The Lord is so good...we are now down to only 8!!! We have one more "show" on the 11th, then we are done. A couple of the pictures have already been sold. However, if there is one in particular you like we do have some more supplies and may make one or two more. So feel free to make a request and we may be able to fulfill your request. The price range is $15-$35. Let me know if you're interested and which one! (I'm pretty sure we still have one "purple wreath", but I'm not finding a picture of that one! I also know that we have more purple supplies if your interested.)

{Traditional Wreaths}

{Small Wreaths}

{Centerpieces}

{Sold}

*our wreath = )

Thanksgiving and Pajama Jam

We spent Thanksgiving with Ulys and Melody's family on both sides. We are so blessed to have friends and their families that take us in as "family" since our families are so far away. It definitely makes the holidays easier. (We LOVE their families, BUT we are very glad to be going to COLORADO for Christmas!!! )

Here's a list of some of the fun things we got to do:

(Warning we were able to do ALOT! Pull up a chair and some hot chocolate!)

1) Eat deep fried turkey for the first time. Ulys injected it with a concoction of Dr. Pepper and Worchestire sauce. I've never heard of such a concoction, but believe me that turkey was good!

2) Stuff ourselves with wonderful southern cooking mad by Melody, her mom (Nelda), and her mother-in-law (Martha).

3) Rested to try to rid my body of a nasty cold.

4) Watched a couple of deer frolicking in the field in front of their house. We all watched for quite awhile as the younger deer sprinted from one end of the field to the other over and over again.

5) Relaxed/Slept in hopes to be awake and feeling good enough to go to Pajama Jam at the Williamsburg outlets from midnight to 6am!

6) Listen to Ulys and his Dad (Ulys Quay) play some Appalachian music.

7) Watched Granny (92 years old) dance and sing along!

8)Played Imaginiff.

9)Wore PJs to the outlet mall in hope to be on of the first 500 shoppers. (We were not, see 11, 12 and 13!)

10)Drove the hour drive to Willimasburg without any trouble till we got within 10-20 minutes from the outlet mall.

11) Since the traffic wasn't moving at all drove through the median to find a new route to the mall.

10) Found another route that was backed up as well, but at least moving.

11) Sat in traffic for an hour and a half!

12) Shopped till we literally dropped 2am t0 noon! But we found some really good deals.

13) Ate a wonderful "breakfast" at IHOP. Food has never tasted so good and it was WONDERFUL to finally sit down for awhile.

14) Felt weird as we headed to Walmart to get some of their deals while I was still in PJs. ( It was 1 in the afternoon!)

15) Headed home for some much need rest.

16) Headed to Target to check out their deals with girls after dinner.

17) Had the best Starbuck Peppermint hot chocolate ever. It even had peppermint flavored whip cream!

18) All of us watched a movie together.

19) Slept long and hard!

Fall in VA

Happy Thanksgiving!

This being the last day before "it's okay to put up the Christmas stuff," I figured I'd post the pictures I've taken of our gorgeous VA fall. Most of the pictures were taken a couple of weeks ago, so the colors are nowhere near as vibrant now. Hope you enjoy a little taste of VA fall around town and our apartment.

A pretty sight right next to our church/seminary.

Views from our porch.

Fall in our apartment

Our thankful pumpkin, a new tradition we started this year. It is now full of strips of paper we filled out during the week leading to Thanksgiving. Today we hope to read all of them together.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful time with friends and family thanking the Lord for all His wonderful gifts!

Weekend away

This weekend Roderick and I spent our first time apart. We have been married for almost a year and a half so that's pretty good! Sure did miss him, but I did have fun. Melody and I went to the East Coast ladies retreat in North Carolina with her Mom and some ladies from her church. There were 1200 ladies in attendance. The conference was very encouraging with the main speaker being John Bishop. He is a preacher who lost complete memory in 1995 after a bout with Meningitis. His wife had to teach him EVERYTHING...eating, walking, talking, reading... What a lady and what a story. He is now completely blind from further complications from the disease. However, he is one of the funniest and real speaker I've ever heard. On Friday night we crammed 5 ladies into a small hotel room. (Everything else was booked even though they tried to book a hotel "early.") I sure wish I had a picture! We were able to sell some of our Whimsical Welcome creations during the breaks...about 5 different times. AND we really did sell stuff this time! YEA!! Not everything, but a lot. It was really fun.

Saturday after the conference we went to visit Melody's grandma. She amazes me. She's 91 years old, lives on her own in a good sized house, still drives.... and made me some homemade applesauce!!! She gave me lots of hugs and reminded me of my Great Grandpa so much it brought tears to my eyes! Again, I don't have a picture of this wonderful lady, but I sure wish I did.

Saturday night we spent the night at Melody's house. We tried on formals, ate at Cracker Barrel, shopped, talked, and generally had a great time. Sunday we went to Melody's home church. In Sunday school we talked about Jehovah Witness', their beliefs and how to witness to them. It was very interesting and informative. The message was about money's affect on our relationship with Christ... Easier for a Camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich person to know Christ.

After the sermon we went to Bojangles's for a little snack and then some shopping. (I know ironic after the sermon!) It was Christmas open house in an area known as Arlington village. All the stores with full of Christmas shoppers and lots of goodies to eat. (Hence the little snack instead of a full meal.) I definitely fell in love with a little shop called Tickled Pink. Polka dots everywhere... I could have bought a lot in that store. Amazingly I walked out without buying a thing. My favorite was all their polka dot luggage in all different sizes a colors. They are definitely on my wish list, especially the carry-on sizes! I also really enjoyed another store called Pizzaz. It also had a lot of bright polka dots, but no luggage. It did, however, have a whole section of awesome ribbon and yes, I did purchase some. It was SO much fun!

The best part of the whole weekend was coming back home to my wonderful husband!! Who had straightened the whole house, vacuumed, folded all the laundry I didn't quite finish, plus wash a few more loads. He also had some flowers waiting for me. (I love flowers and thought I knew a lot about them, but I've never seen these ones before. I do love them though!! Anyone know their name?) I was happy just to see my husband again, but all the work he did made the reunion even sweeter!

Hope you had a wonderful weekend!!