Our 3rd Anniversary - December 5th

Since we were both going to be busy on the actual day of our anniversary, we just decided to celebrate around it. We went out to a nice dinner the night before, and then this weekend we had the real celebration. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures because I didnt' know I should bring my camera. But I did find a picture on the website of where we stayed so you can see how nice it was.

First of all we decided we would like to have a little "get-away" for our anniversary this year. But there was so much going on in our lives that we needed to be here for that we just couldn't get very far away, so we decided we would just "get-away" in our own town. David was going to try to get a really good deal on a hotel through pricline.com, but it didn't quite work out the way he had hoped.

What happened is he put his bid in and a really ghetto hotel accepted it, but with the nature of the website and service, you are automatically booked there and you can't cancel it. So here I was thinking we are getting away to this not so nice hotel and I wasn't that excited about it. I knew that we would still have a good time, but I was a little disappointed that it wasn't a nicer hotel.

So this whole time I had in my mind that we were going to "that" hotel and I wasn't in a big hurry to get there. David, on the other hand, knew what the real plan was. My sweet, wonderful, amazing husband had surprised me and kept it a secret that he had booked a different hotel and we weren't staying at the ghetto one!

So we arrived at the Ashford Suites instead, and when I got into the room, I nearly jumped up and down with excitement. He had booked a room with a HUGE jacuzzi tub AND a fire-place. I was very surprised!

I thought that was all, but he even went 1 step further, he had a friend of ours sneak into the room while we were at dinner and set it up with the fire going, candles, soft music and a hot bubble bath. He had also brought little chocolates and bottles of water. I was even more surprised! But it was soo nice. We used the bath last night and this morning after a big cooked buffet breakfast at the hotel. Then we went to my parents house and took Dad out for his birthday (which just happens to fall near our anniversary).

It was a wonderful weekend! Thank you so much, David! I love you! It was a very Happy Anniversary!

Here's a picture of the room we stayed in. This looks from the tub through to the bed, and on the other side of the room is the fireplace. We will definitely have to go back there.

A Night at the Theatre

A good friend of mine so graciously gave me 4 free tickets to A Christmas Carol at the High Point Theatre since she would be out of town and unable to use them. Here's me outside the theatre before going in. I met Mom and Dad at their house so we could ride together and meet another friend of mine, Amanda there. Her husband was out of town, so it was perfect for her to spend the evening with us at the theatre.

We got there in perfect timing. Just as we had given them our tickets and walked over to the door, they opened the doors, and we were the very 1st ones in the theatre! So we got to pick whichever seats we wanted. We got the prime seats of the house - about 5 rows from the front in the very center. Before I heard that you weren't supposed to take pictures in the theatre, I snapped this one of the stage before it started. But I didn't try to get anymore during the performance even though I seriously thought about it a few times.

The play turned out to be a delightful musical. All the actors gave an incredible performance. Scrooge was excellent and completely stole the show. There were a couple of really cute kids in the production as well. Tiny Tim was so sweet looking, and then there was this little girl of about 4 who sang all the songs and knew all the words. She was so adorable. I think down the road when I have kids, maybe I'll get them involved in theatre and I will get back into it too. We all thouroughly enjoyed ourselves and had a wonderful evening.

Thanksgiving Weekend

We spent Thanksgiving day with David's mom's side of the family in Knightdale, NC (just outside Raleigh) We of course stuffed ourselves with a delicious dinner and then drove back to our house with David's mom, Jane. It has now become a Thanksgiving tradition that she comes back with us after dinner to spend the weekend in Greensboro. And what has also become a Thanksgiving tradition for us is to go to the movies Thanksgiving night. This time we saw such a cute movie. It's call August Rush and it's all about how this little boy in an orphanage becomes a child music prodigy and "follows the music" to find his family. It has a great score and was a really "feel good" movie. I would definitley recommend it.

The following day, known as Black Friday, also the biggest shopping day of the year, most people I know elect to stay out of the crowds and don't go into town that day. But not us! We braved the mobs in all the stores and shopped for 9 hours! Yes, I was getting very weary halfway through the day, but Jane just seemed to get more energized with each store we went in. Although we did have fun and got some really great deals too. She bought both me and David all our Christmas gifts in that one day! But one other thing she bought for us that I am excited about is a cute little pre-lit Christmas tree and decorations to go on it! To understand why that would be exciting for me, let me give you some perspective. When David and I got married 3 Decembers ago, I bought us a tiny little tree just to have something for our first Christmas since we were moving and things were so unsettled for a while. Here's that tree that we have made do with for 2 years. Now that's all that I was going to have for the 3rd year until Jane so generously got us the perfect sized tree for our condo. We set it up in the window, so from the street below it actually looks like a really big tree, but even inside it is very pretty. Here it is in all it's glory!So we stayed up and put up the tree and decorated it after shopping all day. But as you can see, it was definitely worth it.

On Saturday, in the past we have done some sort of tour, exhibition, museum etc. This year we decided we would try out the Reynolda House in Winston Salem. Honestly it was ok, but I wasn't very impressed. The house I didn't think was very pretty and wasn't really preserved as a lived in house all over on the inside. The living room was preserved, and the basement with game rooms and bar, but the bedrooms were just turned into art museum rooms. Here are a couple of pictures from it. The prettiest part was the greenhouse.

So since this excursion didn't make the top of the list, I will post a few pictures of where we went last year. We had a blast on our tour of the Chinqua-Penn Plantation last year. The house was very pretty and it was decorated nicely for Christmas (which the Reynolda house was not) Also the grounds were much prettier and there seemed to be much more to see. We had a guided tour around the house and all the rooms were preserved just the way that it had been long ago. Hopefully next year we will find somewhere as nice as this to go for our annual excursion.

But besides the Reynolda house not meeting our expectations, we had a great time anyway. After we left Winston Salem, we went out for a nice dinner followed by tea and dessert at my parents house.

The 3 of us went out for a big breakfast on Sunday morning just before Jane left to head back to the beach. The weekend seemed to fly by, but we definitley had a great time with her. Thanks, Jane! You're the best mother-in-law a girl could ask for! We love you!

Fall Leadership Retreat

David and I just got back from a phenomenal weekend. Our business team pulled a large group of us together for a leadership where not only did we hear from some of the people moving on in business, but we also heard from a hilarious, entertaining, yet very effective marriage and family minister, Joe McGee. We got to do a couple of other really cool things this past weekend too, so I'll just start from the top. First of all, as you probably know by now, I love to "get away", whatever it is we are doing. So it was just nice to have a couple of nights in a nice hotel room away from home and spend time together, but it was also nice to be there with our friends and business partners and spend time with them. The first night before everything got kicked off, we went to a dessert reception just for the leaders. There's me and Kelly catching up. (Notice my new hair cut and color - my fall look for this year :) Then we had some awesome teaching that night and even got to bed relatively early. The next day was jam packed. We had a morning session, then a bunch of us went to the mall for lunch and to stretch our legs. Then it was back to the room for a quick nap before the evening session. However, I also took advantage of the time to visit the room of one of my friends, Karen, who just had her 1st baby 2 weeks ago. Here's me with little Faith Victoria (doesn't she just look like she could be mine :) She was soo cute and very expressive for only 2 weeks old. By expressive I don't mean crying or fussing - she didn't do that at all - but she smiled and squirmed a lot. That was very cool to get to see her - an added bonus.

The evening session was incredible. The marriage/family minister spoke and had us all in stitches while trying to write notes fast enough to keep up with his "speed-talking". If you have never heard Joe McGee speak, you should definitely check him out. He is excellent. You can click here to see his site - http://www.joemcgeeministries.com/. And here he is talking to us.

Once the evening session was over a group of us went out to a local restaurant for some late night pizza and discussion of the weekend so far. We did get a late night that night, but it was defintely worth it. Plus we got to sleep in a little and got up for a big buffet breakfast before the church service.

< - Random side note - Tonia and I definitely have good taste in jewelry and color schemes - here we are as almost twins : ) - >

The service was awesome. It started out with praise and worship playing over the sound system, but accompanied by a rather famous violinist. (unfortunately I didn't get any pictures because of the lighting) She was absolutely amazing!!! Her music was so moving that at times I could hardly sing. It just made me cry. If you are into violin music, or even if you aren't, you should check out her site. http://www.lorijeansmith.com/. I had to get one of her cd's before we left. Wow! It's good.

Anyway, Joe McGee spoke again Sunday morning and was excellent again. But one of the coolest parts is that we got to have a special luncheon again with just the leaders and Joe McGee and his wife. After we had all eaten our fill of the delicious food, we had an extra hour with him that the rest of the people in the conference room didn't get. That was a another added blessing.

Here are some of us having fun at the luncheon and Joe McGee talking to us there.

We finished up the weekend at about 3 o'clock, and then came home for another nap. Then that evening, we had a couple of guys over and talked and watched the movie, The Ultimate Gift. Now, if you haven't seen that, it is defintely a "must see" (after you read the book, of course).

All in all, we had an awesome weekend.

A Freedom Celebration

We just got back from an awesome weekend, the annual Business Conference and Freedom Celebration. We spent 3 days in this packed coliseum in Greensboro, NC learning from great business owners and celebrating with the ones who have achieved a milestone of sucess in their business. As you can see in this picture, there was an 8' red carpet roped off on either side that the business owners being recognized for their accomplishments walked down with nearly 12,000 people cheering for them. It was a ceremony similar to the Grammy or Emmy Awards. We all dressed up for the occasion in suits and dresses and shared in the joy of the couples accomplishments. We learned a lot and had an awesome time. Here are a couple of pictures of some of us ladies on that special Saturday night.

Maize Adventure

Tonight we decided we would try something new and different. We took 2 friends with us and went down the road to a cornfield that they had made a maze out of. Now I have actually been to a maize maze 1 time before, but it was somewhere else several years ago. I remember it being really cool though. We had gotten so lost in the corn and couldn't see anything but the path we were on and corn all around us. So I anticipated that this maize adventure would be very similar. Unfortunately it was not because we have had a terrible drought here this year and most of the corn died while the rest of it didn't grow very tall. So what they did instead is made it a scavenger hunt for the pirate's treasure. I'm sure this would have been a blast for a little kid, but we made it fun for us too. We all got litte punch cards, and we had to go all around the corn maze to find these little boxes in the ground with X's marked on them. Once we got all 6 we had to find our way back out and then we got a prize! We finished the hunt in record time (less than 1/2 an hour) and did have a good time.

Here are the guys having fun in the maize maze. We will have to try it again next year and hope for a better corn crop so that it will be a real maze next time.

Me and my brother at Daniel Gomez's Wedding

Here's an old friend of the family's, Daniel Gomez, and his new bride, Tia. It was a beautiful wedding. My whole family was invited, but just my brother, Michael, and I were able to attend.

Daniel and Tia met taking dance lessons, so they had their instructor do the reception and give dance lessons before the bridal party arrived.

Michael has spent a little bit of time around Daniel and Tia while in college at NC State, since they both live in Raleigh, and he has actually taken some dance lessons too. He and his friends like to go out dancing on the weekends. I actaully had a chance to visit him and go with them once. It was so much fun.

Here is Michael dancing with his good friend, Julia. I also got to dance with him a little. He is a pretty good dancer. I, on the other hand, am not so good. I love to dance, and I have a great time dancing, but I think I need more lessons. : )

Anyway, I was just excited that I was able to get some nice, up to date, photos of Michael and me together. We had a really good time hanging out at the wedding and I look forward to more fun times we can spend together. I love you, bro!