A Lot to be Thankful For

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with our family. It was so great to see family members that we haven't seen in a while. Although, we missed our sweet Ryann and of course her parents Mandy and Robert. We must plan a trip to Knoxville to visit you guys! This year we had our Thanksgiving meal at Clint's grandparent's house. As usual, the food was phenominal and I'm still stuffed!

Since I will not be able to travel to Jackson this year for Christmas, I was super excited to have the opportunity to see Margaret (for those who don't know--my favorite cousin) and her bf Jason. They were in town for the UT/UK game. I drove in to meet up with them at Litton's. I love that place and had not been there since Margaret and I were there last. It was a traditional eating place for my family when we were younger. Margaret, my sister and I always got to end the meal with one of their HUGE cookies. It was great chatting and catching up with her. Even though Jason was rooting for UK, he still won my stamp of approval (not as though he needed it)!

I am posting some pictures from our turkey day. I forgot to take any pictures with my camera. All of these pictures are courtsey of Brooke Davis Photography and have been posted with her permission :) Thanks again Brooke for being our family photographer!

We didn't get to see Ryann, this is from Brooke's Knoxville visit. It was too cute not to post!

Cheers!

Autumn, Melissa, Brooke, Me--We are excited THAT Melissa Davis will be having a sweet baby girl in February...not this Melissa Davis :) I'm pulling for Feb. 23rd!

Yum!

Wishbone fun

I think this is a sweet picture

My family!

Beautiful Thanksgiving day on the lake

Okay, couldn't resisit this one either!!

Puppy FYI

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

Since finding out that we purchased Chloe from a puppy mill back in June (click HERE to read about Chloe's story), I have been following many stories that pop up in the news regarding other mills. Today, I read on the Humane Society's website that Petland pet store is "nation's largest retail supporter of puppy mills." Click HERE to learn more about this story and find out what you can do to take action. The main thing is to stop shopping there so that we don't support this cruelty!

An update about the woman who sold us Chloe:
(From Channel 5 news, Aug 08)
"A grand jury charges a woman accused of running the largest puppy mill in Tennessee history. An indictment against Patricia Adkisson includes 24 counts of aggravated animal cruelty, which is a felony. She's also charged with more than a dozen other misdemeanors."

Happy Birthday Rachel!

With Rachel and little Timothy (Thanksgiving 2005)

Us at my wedding events

Yesterday was my best friend Rachel's 26th birthday. (Man, we are getting old!) Rachel has been my very best friend since kindergarten. How many people can say they that! It is hard to think of a childhood memory without Rachel in it. Our friendship has survived many different hardships over the years, some to include her diabetics, my parents divorce, a move across the state, and ultimately the lapses that can occur from long distance friendships. But, through it all we have remained friends. We don't talk as often as either of us would like, but we still send cards and letters to each other and I visit her every time I am in Jackson. Now with e-mail, we are corresponding more and I love it! She has a son Timothy who I count as my own nephew and her parents as my second set. When we were little girls we use to tell everyone we were half-sisters. I think we had her neighbors believing us because if I wasn't at her house then she was at mine. We were inseparable. So, Happy Birthday Rachel! Miss you & I love you lots!

I've been Tagged!

This is fun! I was tagged by Lindsey & now I need to tag 4 people to do the same. Go to your fourth picture folder and then go to the fourth picture in the folder. Write four things about the picture and then tag four other people.





Well, how funny that I'm going to add another 4 to the mix because this is my picture from the 4th of July three years ago.


1) This was our first Independence Day together. We are NERDS! And this picture proves we have been nerds from the beginning!
2)This was one of the first years that I wasn't celebrating the 4th at Hatchie Bottom. (I think it was on a weekday)
3) Joey, Amanda, Clint and I piled up in a car and headed to MTSU's campus to watch the fireworks.
4) I love seeing how long both of our hair was back then. This is actually nothing compared to the length of Clint's hair when I first met him. He had long curly hair. It progressively got shorter and shorter the longer we dated :) But, it gives me hope that maybe our children will get some curls!



The 4 people I tag:
1) Amanda Rice (because you shared in the memory of this picture)
2) Brooke Davis
3) Melanie Blair
4) Delilah Powell-Smith

Not Forgetting Thanksgiving...

Just getting ready for Christmas early! This weekend we put up our Christmas decorations. I know, I know, I've fallen into the retailer's trap. For some reason, I have been itching to decorate our new place for Christmas. (Might this have anything to do with all the Christmas decorations being placed in the store even before Halloween??...possibly!) It's really not like me at all. Normally, I am a stickler for waiting until Thanksgiving is over to even break out the Christmas music. But, not this year. Part of it has to do with the fact that there are only 3 weeks in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Since we were going to have to move around some furniture in the living room to make the tree fit, I wanted to the rearranging to be worth it. I told Clint I wanted to at least have all of the decorations up for a month for us to enjoy. So, it's already Christmas in our home. I will say that Clint was not totally 100% on board. However, after a little nagging on my part he gave in. Wives, you know what I'm talking about and husbands, you understand what I mean :) I think he kinda go into it. I might have even heard him humming a Christmas tune or two!

I wanted to change up our tree just a bit this year. Since we are on a tighter budget than normal (as I assume most of America is now), I had to put on my thinking cap. I'm not really creative, but I was proud of myself for finding things around the house to use instead of spending a ton of money on new decorations. I think you become resourceful when you don't have a job to have extra money to spend!!


So, don't worry, I haven't forgotten Thanksgiving. I'm very much looking forward to seeing some of Clint's family that we only see this time of year.

It was messing up when I loaded these so here are the picture captions:
#1 and 2: Our tree this year with red, green and gold
#3: Chloe's first Christmas
#4: Fireplace downstairs in the "man cave"
#5: My favorite mirror given to me by my grandmother. I think it's so unique!
#6: I call this the "Wedding Gift" centerpiece. Everything used was a wedding present.
#7: This was the little tree I had in my office last year. I added some things from around the house to make it more colorful!

My Latest Obsession

A few months ago Lo introduced me to the Twilight series. There are 4 books in this series: Twilight, New Moon,Eclipse & Breaking Dawn. So far I have read 3 of them. (Thank you Lo and Brooke for letting me borrow them.) I am waiting until Lo finishes the 4th book. I am dying to read it, but no rush Lo!

When I first heard about these books I was a bit skeptical just as I was with the Harry Potter books. If it wasn't for the required reading in my Children's Literature class I probably would have never understood what all the hype was about Harry. Honestly,I really don't get into the sci-fi, mystical, or magical story lines. But, after a few pages of the first book, Twilight, I was hooked on all of Bella's adventures.

If you don't know or haven't heard, these books follow the main character Bella, who moves to Washington State to live with her father and falls in love with Edward who turns out to be a vampire. Yes, I know, I know. Just from that description, I would have never tossed a second glance at the book either. But, just take my word for it. You will find yourself lost in the story and thinking it perfectly normal to be reading about vampires and werewolves.

I'm so excited because this weekend the movie based on the first book will be opening in theaters. Even though he hasn't read the books, Clint has promised to take me to see it. What a good husband he is because I'm sure that is the last movie he wants to watch! We will probably be in the theater surrounded by mostly middle-high school age girls.

These books are a huge hit with the preteen-teenage girl population. (And a few of us older gals!) I was finishing up the third book one day while subbing in high school and few of the girls noticed what I was reading. They instantly came over to me and asked how I liked the book. You would have thought we were talking about real life events the way we got into it all. I have had a few other times when students have asked me if I've heard about the books. When I tell them I've read most of them, they first looks confused/suprised (like why would I be reading these books) and then they get excited because they have someone else to talk about it.

So, if your up for a light read...I highly recommend these books!

Love my Blue Raiders!

This past weekend I got the chance to spend some girl time with two of my favorite gals (Sarah & Bridget) and cheer on my Alma mater to a victory. (At least one of my teams is having a winning season!) On Friday I made my way down to Knoxville and swung by Jessica Vance's house for a couple of hours. So good to see her and catch up. Vance, we must do this more often.

I then stayed the night with Sarah. We got up early Saturday morning to drive to Cleveland to pick up Bridget. We left early so that we could make it to Murfreesboro in time for the morning Homecoming parade. After some lunch at Toot's we did some tailgating before the game. We were all glad to see some of our sorority sisters. (FYI Adpi alums--we are going to organize a tailgating tent for next year. Be on the look out for details!)

It was perfect football weather as we watched the Blue Raiders make the Alumni proud! It was great to be back on campus and see all the changes that have taken place in such a short time. I have to say, it was all very nostalgic. And always a fun time with my girls!

Chloe was so happy I was back home!