A Relaxing-ish Weekend

This past weekend was calm. Since we had company the previous 2 weekends we really relished in our peaceful quiet time together. Not that we don't LOVE having friends and family here, we absolutely do, but it's also nice to have quiet time too. ;0)

It technically started on Thursday night when we went over to our friends Jon & Leigh-Ann's place for dinner along with Paul & Bethany. Leigh-Ann had prepared a great meat & salad dinner (carb friendly - woohoo!) and chocolate covered strawberries for dessert - yum! We had so much fun laughing and enjoying each others company...we must do that more often.

Friday night we hung out at home. We watched some TV and went to bed early. I had to take a friend to the airport early Sat am, but David thankfully got much needed sleep, hours and hours of it. He has been working so hard lately with alot of freelance business, for which we are grateful, but has taken a toll on the amount of sleep he has been able to get at night. I would say over the last 3 weeks he's averaged much closer to the 5 hour mark and sometimes not even that each night.

Thankfully he was very well rested and ready for the UTH Scavenger hunt Sat afternoon (I did help plan that. ;) About 25 people, youth and parents from our church got together for this digital scavenger hunt and had a blast, despite the pouring down rain. While he was gone, I worked on getting my scrapbooking stuff organized and watched Fools Gold - it was pretty funny. That night I met my friend Elizabeth for dinner and it's always so nice to get to catch up with her. Plus, we had Mexican, mmmm! Saturday night & Sunday David had a good bit of work to do, but he did get everything done - yeah!

Sunday we had a great service at church and after David got his work done we even had time to sneak a cat nap before dinner. Paul & Bethany came over for dinner and it was great to get to spend some QT with them. It was a lovely weekend.

Tomorrow I head off to Lacey's for the remainder of the week and we have our scrapbooking retreat this weekend - what fun!! ;0)

IDOL Review & Predictions

It's time for another IDOL update, this time with Predictions! The Top 13 hit the stage Tuesday night and it was a decent show. I think everyone brought their A games, except Anoop, Jorge & Jasmine. I was less than thrilled with their song choices mainly. I was pleasantly surprised that Scott did as well as he did with a lesser known Jackson song and I LOVED Danny's performance...even the cornball dancing. I was pleasantly surprised that the rest of America agreed with me. It was unfortunate for Jorge, he does have a great voice...I do think the language barrier was difficult for him, but alas this is AMERICAN Idol and in America we still primarily speak English. Plus, Anoop is fun so we'll see if he can step it up next week.

So my predictions (well, my hopes) for the finals?

Top 6: Adam, Allison, Danny, Lil Rounds, Matt & Scott
(I'd love to see Michael make it to the top 6, but I think his personality and story is better than his voice...)

Final 3: Adam, Danny & Lil Rounds

Winner: Lil Rounds.

While I'd love to see Danny win, I just don't think they'll let a white male win 2 years in a row. Maybe they'll surprise us...time will tell. I did vote though, so at least when I complain I tried to do something about it. =0)

Family Time

Deborah, Blayne & Erin came into town on the 2nd and whisked away my car for their whirlwind family trip in North GA & TN. We had originally made the plans when I was working and carpooling with David, but I didn't mind giving up my freedom for them too much - certainly not enough for them to get a rental car...that's the kind of sister I am. ;0) Thankfully, Bethany let me take her to work and steal her car on Tuesday which was the only day I had anything formal scheduled - Thanks B!

On Friday the 6th, they came back to our place to spend the next few days with us. We had a blast doing simple stuff. We took Erin to the playground twice and she LOVED going down to the base of our backyard, standing on our bridge, throwing leaves, sticks, pine cones & nut shells into the water and cheering for herself "Splash!" It was hysterical! She got to do that a few times too so we definitely got her outdoors in the beautiful 70 degree weather.

Erin at the PlaygroundPlaying on the bridge at our house

David & Blayne did alot of brotherly stuff together. They went to the Wings place that David loves (Clays) for lunch on Saturday while Deb & I hung out at the house while Erin napped. Then Sunday afternoon they went out to Douglasville to play a round of disc golf...which they tied at 12 over par again while Deb & I hung out while Erin napped. Are we good wives or what?!? ;0)

Since they live in Colorado, we don't get to see them very often and I am always sad that I can't be at her parties to make her cakes like I do the rest of our nieces & nephews. Erin's 2nd birthday was Feb 18, so I decided to make her a 3-D Thomas cake and we'd celebrate her birthday here too. She was very excited about this and wanted to blow out the candles over and over again. Each time we took the cake back in the kitchen, re-lit the candles and re-sang Happy Birthday to her - getting faster each time we sang it. She did great and blew them out solo the second two times. She was totally enamored with her Thomas Cake and talked about it ALOT over the weekend. Thankfully they devoured over half of Thomas and I promptly tossed the rest after Erin was out of the house. Deborah has these pictures, I'll post them when I get them from her.

We're all on pretty tight budgets, but we did decide to go out for one meal. One of the girls from our church came over to sit with Erin (Thanks Erica!) while we went out for some adult time...dinner at Pasta Bella & Baskin Robbins for dessert. Can we say lots of coupons?!? In total for the 4 of us to go out at both places it was less than $30. Granted we had to pay a sitter, but still that's pretty dang good.

Sunday night we cooked up a big Mexican feast which was divine. Afterwards, we conned Erin into taking pictures with David & I with gummies - hey you do what you have to do. Deborah got some cute ones, I think. She was pretty disoriented from all the transition in their week long travels, but finally when I dropped them off at the airport she showed me some love and gave me a few hugs and kisses. It was a great visit.

Master Closet Renovation

So over the last few weeks I have been working on our Master Bedroom closet. David has helped me take down the closet maid system that existed previously and install the new stuff we created. I painted, put everything together and loaded everything in. So, since I forgot to take a "before" picture, I included a picture of what it looked like when we bought the house. We only took down the peg board and had clothes along the back wall.

We still have to put up the new light fixture, but other than that it's done and we love it! I'm amazed by how much extra space we have. We're planning no buying mirror doors for each of the shelving units, but they weren't on sale so we didn't get them. For now it looks very tidy to have our pants folded on them so we're totally ok with it.

Before pictures (previous owners stuff)
Closet - holes are patched, before the paintWith the new silver-grey paintEverything moved back in - love it!

A weekend with friends

This past weekend our dear friends Cory & Courtney came down for a visit along with their 2 kids...Addi is almost 4 and Gage will be 1 in June. They are friends from Norfolk who now live in Greenville, SC and while we only see them a few times a year, when we do get together it's like no time has lapsed. It was so great to get to spend some time with them. We didn't do anything special, just hang out. We did get in some Wii time in while the kids were sleeping.

Gage in his Johnny Jump Up - he loves this thing!Cory & Courtney - I love this picture!Playing tug of war with the cat toyMore tug of warThe clear winner...Addi - she's so photogenic!Addi wanted to do "cirque di sole" where she climbs up no Cory's back, then gets to a standing position while he gets up on his knees with no hands or help - very impressive!Taking their much deserved bow - "tank" you very much, she said...to cute!Flip time! Daddy & his boyWhere Martin spends his weekends when little ones are in the house...

Sunday we decided to head out to Church of the Redeemer where our friend Ewan (who was our pastor in Norfolk - he was the one who led us through our pre-marital counseling) is now the head pastor. Despite the downpour of rain, we made it on time and after getting Gage settled in the nursery, we decided sit in the row behind Ewan. It was pretty funny when at one point he turned around and there was a row of Norfolk people sitting behind him. ;0) Halfway through the service, it started to snow really hard. After the service we collected the kids and visited with Ewan & Heather a bit before Cory & Court decided to go ahead and head out early.

We had planned to eat out, so we decided to head to Fuddruckers with the Kennedy family as well as a few couples from their church. While we wanted for them to wrap up their Sunday morning duties, David & their 3 boys (Calvin, their oldest son who is now 12 was our ring bearer - how time flies!) got into a major snowball fight. They were all wet before we piled into the cars to head over to the restaurant. It was so nice to get to visit with them. They've been here for just over a year and we haven't had nearly enough time to get together. One thing I can say is how comfortable it is to be with them. I think part of it is that Ewan knows David & I individually & as a couple, he's probably the only person on this planet who knows us so well. It was such an enjoyable time. It's been a long time since we heard Ewan preach and spending time with them and chatting & catching up with Heather was just awesome. It was a fantastic weekend!

Our annual Church Retreat

February 20-22, 2008 we headed up to Rome, GA for our annual church retreat. It is always alot of fun and relaxing with lots of bonding time with our church family. David & I always splurge on the nice King Size suites up at the Winshape Retreat Center where we enjoy good quality sleep so we don't come home exhausted - which is always nice. ;0)

My leg had been bothering me so I chilled most of the weekend and enjoyed lots of girly time with some of the ladies I don't know so well at church. After hanging out with them, I am looking forward to more of that in the days to come! I also got to spend alot of time chatting with Leigh-Ann (she is the wife in the couple that lived with us 2 summers ago) which was also really nice. It was great to catch up without the husbands.

David spent most of his time playing sports with the guys and youth and did the rock climbing wall on Saturday afternoon. Since I was in full gab mode at that point I didn't venture over to watch, but from what I heard everyone had a great time. Saturday night a full on game of Bunco ensued led by Leigh-Ann & Anthony...I took pictures of all the fun. Here's just a few highlights for you to enjoy from the weekend.

Family Worship TimeLydia CrabbJim, our fearless leader?...maybe

our Friend & Pastor...definitelyMy friend Elizabeth (and Jim's wife ;0) - I love this picture of her!Leigh-Ann & IDavid playing Bunco

The theme of the weekend was Faith, Hope & Love. Our speaker was Mark Taylor and he did a great job of teaching us about our relationships, both with the Lord & each other. On Saturday he gave us a chart with 5 circles similar to this one I (very roughly) recreated:

We were to categorize our relationships from people we had connected with over the last week or so into the appropriate circle. The outer circle was for strangers, and moving towards the center: acquaintances, friendship, personal & finally intimate in the center. After we had completed that portion, he posed this question: "Would the people on your chart put you into the same categories?" That was easy to answer for the most part, but there were several friends that I had to carefully examine.

Last week was particularly difficult as I struggled through this task. I have consistently been classified by my friends as giving and caring. I try to be a good friend and I carefully (probably more so than I actually should) select those I welcome into my personal circle. I have been burned alot over my lifetime by broken trust, so it takes me a while to move a friendship into a more personal realm. I hate to say it like this, but I start with small things and work my way up testing to make sure I can trust them. It can take a long time for someone to move into my "inner circle". What pains me is when someone moves out, often without my knowing, into an "outer circle". It is really hard for me to see relationships change that I long to keep. I can see the friendship slipping away and the distance growing, but I'm helpless to stop it. The coffin was closed on one such relationship last week and I had a hard time letting go. I don't begrudge someone the opportunity to move on, but it doesn't make it any less difficult when they choose to go and you have to let them.

So that was me last week. I'm still working through the hurt and disappointment, but it will pass as time goes on.