March Madness

March is always such a busy month! I'm at work (a TON) but here are a few snapshots of some of the happenings.

Our church had their D-NOW weekend.  The kids seemed to have a lot of fun.  They were split into groups and spent the weekend at host houses with volunteer leaders.  They also did a fun activity park one day with climbing challenges and such.  We were happy to have the high school girls staying at our house; the middle school girls weren't too far away.  They managed to snap this picture of lots of the kids on Sunday morning before too many of them got away!

Ryan and I were so glad the Stonehaven gala came back!  It's been since Oct of 2019.  We always enjoy this evening with friends.  We loved sitting at a dinner table with the Elrods, Teagues, and Schultzs. We were pumped to win a few auction items too: archery lessons for Mia and two friends with Mr. Rickman, an afternoon playing hookey for Lily and a friend with Mrs. Hanbury, and a long weekend getaway for our family to Lake Oconee.

Mia made this awesome picture of Spiderman!

I always appreciate getting encouraging messages like this from Lily when I'm working late.

Lily received a gift card for her birthday from Grandpops and Grandma Jan for an escape room. She was so glad that Mary Preston, Lauren, Liam, Trip, and Timmy could join her for the Art Heist.  They escaped in about 40 minutes (of the 60 minute limit).  We knew this was a smart bunch!

Mia gave an awesome presentation at school one day about her Great-Grandpa Hooks, and his role in WW2. Ryan took Grandpa's medals up to the school so the kids could see them. He was such a neat man, and his stories from this time were pretty incredible. I'm so glad Mia was able to honor him in this way.

Mia got the chance to play with some of the baby chicks at the school one day.

One of my clients gifted me with this toilet paper one day that says "who gives a crap." We were all laughing pretty hard at this one.

Mia went to The Escapery with her acting group one evening for some escape room fun.  They escaped too!

Of course my birthday falls in March too.  My family surprised me with a very fun breakfast sampler from Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen in NC via Goldbelly.  We enjoyed their chicken biscuits for dinner one evening, country ham biscuits for breakfast the next day, and cinnamon rolls the day after that.  I loved this! David and Jan sent me a beautiful floral arrangement which helped brighten my office, and it also came with a box of amazingly delicious chocolate truffles.  The four of us went to dinner at Melting Pot over the weekend near by birthday too which was a lot of fun.  Mom and Dad took Ryan, me, Wayne, and his friend Kristin to Bones for dinner to celebrate Wayne and mine's birthday; that was a delicious and fun evening too! For a middle of tax season birthday, this was a good one!

All sorts of busy things going on in life these days, but it's a good one nonetheless, and I am thankful for it.

February Fun

 February has been a pretty cold month, but that hasn't stopped us from having some fun!

Our most amazing travel agent, Jackie Briggs, sent us a fun Mardi Gras set as a thank you. It came from Gambino's in New Orleans, and man that King Cake was so good! None of us had ever had one before, and we all thought it was tasty. We shared it with the high school girls' discipleship small group that meets at our house. Amanda Evans found the baby!

I was honored to host a baby shower for my friend Rachel Cowart. It was a lovely time to help her (and Jonathan) get ready to welcome their first little one.

Rachel's two sisters hosted with me which was helpful.

Doesn't everyone play the piano with their dad's slipper on their head?

I ordered some Goldbelly for our Valentine's dinner. We started with Lou Malnati's deep dish pizza from Chicago. It was good, but Giordano's still has our heart.

Dessert was courtesy of Elle's Belle's Bakery in Bozeman, MT. These were huckleberry handpies, and they were absolutely amazing, especially with vanilla ice cream. These are one of my favorite things that I've ordered off Goldbelly to date.

I love our family tradition of putting hearts on the girls' doors each night from Feb 1-14 telling them an attribute we admire in each of them. This year we matched it up with Bible verses too which I thought was neat. We are so proud of our girls!

Mia has started playing tennis for Stonehaven's middle school team, and she had her first match recently. She played doubles with Leah Umberger. They lost the match, but it was so cool to watch Mia play! She is a natural athlete with fantastic eye-hand coordination. It's very clear she has a talent at this sport. I hope she'll enjoy it and play for a long time.

Ryan and I enjoyed an Italian evening recently. We just sat in the quiet room talking by the fire while we had the Vin Santo from the San Gimignano farm from our cruise with some biscotti. It took us right back to that wonderful trip and delicious lunch. This was a great evening!

We also had a date night to see The Beatles' Get Back movie which was really cool (just no pictures).  It was so neat to see them actually produce their famous music on the rooftop in London and watch their interactions. So glad we had this chance.

Lily helped Cambridge win the Upper School geography bee recently!

Lily participated in Stonehaven't first mock trial team. She was one of the prosecutors and seemed to enjoy learning this process and competing. It was an interesting event that I'm so glad she tried.

Our family went to see the ASO perform Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I love going to these events. The ASO is so talented, and it's always cool to see them perform to a great movie. What a fun family afternoon.

It's been a good month!

A Litte More to January

A couple more fun things at the end of January:

We drove over to Birmingham on a Friday after school, so we could go see Step Sing.  McKayla got us great tickets right in the middle of the balcony.  It was so much fun to be back at Samford and watch this performance!  Sigma Chi and Zeta both put on great shows, winning men's best and women's best.  We all had a great time!

Way to be a great rookie firefighter McKayla!

Grandpops and Grandma Jan gave Mia an iFly gift card for her and a friend to fly for her birthday last November.  The gift card could be redeemed in January.  Mia couldn't wait to take her friend, Paige Pennington, and fly.  The package was fantastic, and gave them both two flights, one regular and one high flight.  They both had a fantastic time!

I decided to try ordering some Goldbelly foods from states I haven't ordered from yet.  I started January with macadamia nut tarts from Hawaii.  Yum!

What a fun end of the month!

The Best Day

 My favorite Taylor Swift song is called "The Best Day" and it's all about days that Taylor and her mom had together.  I had that "best day" with both of my girls yesterday.  This all started because at Christmas, the girls knew I didn't want more stuff.  Truly, I just want time with them.  They're two of my favorite people! How could I not want more time with them?!  So, they each gave me an experience to enjoy with them, and I cashed those in yesterday.

Mia treated me to lunch at Swan House.  This is the most wonderfully girlie restaurant in Atlanta, and I absolutely love it.  We both ordered the "Swan's Favorite" which is two scoops of chicken salad in timbales, a frozen fruit salad, a simple mixed greens salad, and two cheese straws.  It's so delicious.  She and I had fun playing songs and singing along in the car, shopping around the Swan House, and enjoying one another's company over our meal.

In the evening, Lily and I made one of our favorite dishes together which (somehow) neither Ryan nor Mia seem to enjoy.  It's a shrimp alfredo pasta with spinach, onions, garlic, and bacon.  It's so easy to put together, but absolutely delicious.  Lily shared a lot of Elevation Worship music with me while we cooked.  This is currently one of her favorite groups, and I loved getting to hear more of their music.  We put the dinner in our new pasta bowls from Sorrento and enjoyed a quiet dinner together.  I love getting to talk with her and hear her opinions and thoughts on things.  She's got some good ones!  After dinner, we cleaned up and then went downstairs to watch one of my favorite movies, Instant Family.  It's so fun that we can share movies like this with one another!

One on one time with each girl helps me to see just how amazing they are in their own ways.  I am so incredibly proud to the mom of these two!  I can't thank them enough for giving me "the best day!"

Jan 12, 2022 - 20 Years!

 

I can't believe it's been 20 years since that picture was taken!

Ryan and I celebrated our anniversary with a big trip to Spain and Italy back in the Fall.  It was amazing! We didn't want to let the actual day pass though without doing something special too, so we decided on dinner at Canoe.  This place delivers an excellent meal and experience every single time.  It was a wonderful evening.

It started with a menu personalized to wish us a happy anniversary.  I love this detail!

Ryan started his meal with the peppercorn crusted kangaroo while I started with their smoked salmon on crispy potato cakes with goat cheese.  Both were absolutely delicious.  For our entrees, we both had the special of the evening which was a strip steak.  I had garlic smashed potatoes with mine while Ryan had their pomme frittes.  Both were so yummy.  Of course, we also enjoyed their excellent sourdough bread and butter throughout the meal.

For dessert, Ryan had a pear tart  which was pretty good.  I had their Canoe s'mores.  This was quite the presentation.  They put down a homemade graham cracker, top it with a chocolate mousse, put a marshmallow meringue around that, and then put some dark chocolate croutons on the side.  It's covered in dome that's filled with smoke which they remove at the table, so it has this true tasting campfire taste to it.  Such a fun dessert!

Ryan surprised me with two dozen beautiful roses too.  Look at this brilliant color!

It was a wonderful evening as we reflected on the past 20 years and dreamed about ones still to come.

There's really no good way to sum up how thankful I am for Ryan and these 20 married years we've shared.  There are too many memories and blessings to count.  We've had some hard times, but most of our days are really quite wonderful.  I am thankful for how he leads our home.  I hope that our girls will one day have marriages as great as ours.  I pray that our marriage reflects Christ and His bride, and that it can be an encouragement to others.  I look forward to our days ahead with one another.

The First Month of 2022

 Our new year has started off well!  Here's a few of the fun things we've been up to.

Mia has been working so hard all Fall semester with her drama group for the Junior Theater Festival which was a couple of weekends ago.  All the groups perform 15 minutes of their show for this competition.  Mia's group is performing High School Musical Jr, and she has the role of Kelsi.  The group did really well and was recognized for excellence in choreography.  Mia thoroughly enjoyed performing with this group of friends who love drama too!  Now they are rehearsing to learn the whole show which they'll perform in the Spring.

I felt so gourmet one day when I topped my vanilla ice cream with this fruity balsamic vinegar that Ryan and I bought in Sorrento.  It's so good!

I am so thankful that I got to meet up with my friend, Joy Hill, one morning at Rev before the rush of tax season truly gets going.  I'm so thankful for friends.

I love it when the girls are creative.  Look how cool these paintings turned out.  Lily did the paint by number Harry Potter scene while Mia made this Captain America tribute.

Ryan and I both love Spanish tapas.  There are a few restaurants around here that serve it and we enjoy.  Of course, we really enjoyed it when we were in Spain in November.  I was so excited to find that Chef Jose Andres ships a delicious tapas meal via Goldbelly!  I got this for Ryan as a Christmas present.  It arrived a few days after Christmas so we enjoyed it on New Year's Day.  Seems like a great way to start the year!  The tapas included iberico ham, salchichon iberico de bellota, choirzo iberico, Manchego cheese, chicken croquetas, a loaf of Pan de Cristal, olive oil, and fresh tomato paste to make pan con tomate.  This was such a fun surprise and meal!

I also ordered the chef's Burnt Basque Cheesecake.  We did not actually have this when we were in Basque Country, but I thought it would compliment the tapas well.  I was right! It's such an unusually creamy cheesecake; it was way creamier than any others I've tried.  The "burnt" part on top actually gives it this delicious caramel-nutty flavor.  This was a delicious treat.

There are a couple of other items in other posts, but these are a few of the more "ordinary" items we've done so far.  What a great way to start the year!

End of 2021 Wrap Up

What a year 2021 ended up being! Covid was still a concern so that altered plans throughout the year.  We were always mindful of that being an issue.  We cancelled one trip to Turks & Caicos.  However, we kept reminding ourselves how thankful we are to be healthy and able to do most "normal" things again.  Ryan and I certainly still enjoyed our early 20th anniversary trip to Italy and Spain; Covid wasn't going to dampen that!  While it was a second pretty quiet year, we truly have so much to be thankful for.  A God who loves us, family, friends, our health, our church, and our dog are just a few of the highlights.

We celebrated New Year's Eve with the Pennington family.  We are so thankful for them.  Jeff leads our church so well with Ali by his side.  They are such a wonderful and lovely couple.  Their girls are friends with our girls too, so that's always fun to have them all together.  I made this big charcuterie platter to hold us over for awhile.

Ryan smoked us a delicious brisket to enjoy as the meal which is always fantastic.  That's quite possibly my favorite thing that he makes.  Round it out with some yummy sides, and we had a wonderful meal! We finished it off with some vanilla ice cream to top a marionberry pie ordered from Willamette Valley Pie Company via Goldbelly.  It was so good!

After dinner we all enjoyed playing Cards Against Humanity Family Edition and hanging out.  This is one of our favorite families to be with! They left around 10, and we had a quiet rest of the evening until Midnight.  We rang it in together.  There's no one I'd rather be with to start out the new year than these three!

While this was another unusual year, I will continue to give thanks for all the many blessings in my life and look forward to the days ahead.  Cheers to a great 2022!