The Start of 2023

2023 is starting off great! January has been a fantastic month filled with lots of family, friends, and fun. What a great combination!

Ryan and I were gifted 4 tickets to the Falcons/Bucs game from our friend, Katie Denis. We were so excited that Jeff and Elizabeth could join us! We always love having a Falcons football adventure with them! We were so excited to be at this game because we got to watch Tom Brady play. Granted, none of us like Brady at all given his unbelievable overtime comeback win against us with the Patriots in Super Bowl 51 (not that we're still bitter about that...) BUT there's a reason he's considered one of the greatest of all time. It's cool that we got to see him play live. Not surprisingly, the Falcons lost today's game, but we still had a ton of fun thanks to being with great friends.

Mia sewed the most adorable little red fox! I love him!

Lily has such a great group of friends!

Mia and all the kids at Brylliant Acting Studio have been working so hard over the last month. Right after Little Mermaid finished in early December, they hit the ground running to prepare for the Junior Theater Competition. They decided to go with Matilda Jr. for their 15 minute show. Unfortunately, they didn't win any awards this year, but that's okay; they had a great time acting together!

Mia split the role of Bruce with another actor. He played the speaking role (Bruce is supposed to be a 5 year old little boy after all) while Mia took the singing role. One of the most famous songs from Matilda is Revolting Children which is led by Bruce. It's a fast-paced and difficult song to sing but Mia killed it! 

Later in the month we were all excited to head over to Samford to watch StepSing. This is always such a fun competition! We had so much fun watching the different shows and placing our bets on who was going to win (none of us got it right).

The next morning, Ryan, Lily, and I went on Lily's first official college tour. Ryan and I have so many great memories of being at Samford. It was a ton of fun for us to walk around campus, think about those memories and people, and see all the improvements that have come along since our time there. Samford is still such a gorgeous campus, and it was the perfect day for walking around!

After the tour the three of us decided to have lunch in the caf. They've got so many different options in here now; it's great! I enjoyed a middle eastern meal (schwarma with rice on naan) while Ryan and Lily both had a good cheeseburger and fries.

Before we left, we drove over to West Campus, so I could show Lily the Zeta house and the sorority quad. We lucked out that a lovely young lady let us in the house so I could show her the chapter room, kitchen, and sitting area. I was a little overwhelmed thinking about the friends I made here, and how thankful I am for them. I think I appreciate them more now than I did then; I think I've learned the value of a good friend since then.

We headed on back to Atlanta, rested at home for just a little bit, and then headed downtown. We all went to see Riverdance in it's 25th anniversary show at the Fox. It was so cool! I always love this Irish dancing, and they did not disappoint. They featured other types of dance too including a Spanish flamenco dancer and two tap dancers. The music is always so beautiful too. This was such a fun evening!

Mia has made Lily two awesome pairs of pajama pants. One is a classic black and white plaid while the other supports our Braves. They're so soft and cozy, and I'm amazed that Mia can do this!

It's always nice when Grandpops comes to visit! We enjoyed having him in town for several days this month. One evening, we all had dinner together with my parents at Rumi's Kitchen. It was delicious!

Mia recently acquired a real digital camera from Grandpops, and she's been having fun honing her photography skills. Decker made a sleepy little model one evening.

Ryan and Lily made a little day trip to Buc-cee's one morning. Lily found lots of cute little items including this beaver face straw. We couldn't stop laughing!

Ryan and I celebrated our 21st anniversary this month! It was definitely more low key this year, but we very much enjoyed our dinner out at Marcel's. It was fun to try a new restaurant together, and the food was wonderful. On another evening, we enjoyed the blueberry pie I ordered as a little anniversary present for both of us via Goldbelly from Two Fat Cats.

Mia was excited to order another Blind Date with a Book on Etsy from a seller she likes. It looked so beautiful when it arrived! These are always so much fun!

It's been a busy but fun month to start out 2023!

2022 Wrap Up

What a fun New Year's Eve! Ryan and I met up with lots of friends at the Battery. We were so glad to be with Luke and Julie Elrod, Josh and Nabile Winkles, Adam and Marie Bishop, and their son, Connor. We are thankful for these friendships which have all sprung up from First Baptist. We started in an escape room called "Gold Rush." We managed to escape with about 13 minutes remaining! It had all sorts of fun puzzles to solve, and it took all of us to put it together.

From there we walked over to Garden & Gun for dinner. None of us had actually tried it before, but we all enjoyed it. We described it as "fancy Southern" and it was a good fit for the evening.

After dinner we all drove over to the Bishops house to ring in the new year. We had some delicious desserts and lots of laughs as we hung out. We planned on watching the Times Square ball drop but the GA bowl game didn't end until a few seconds after midnight. It was such an exciting game and it sends UGA to the national championship for the second year in a row. This was such a great evening!

I always enjoy looking back over pictures from the year in order to make my "best 9" of the year. This has been an interesting year. I continue to become more and more aware every single day of the many blessings in my life, especially as I see and walk with others through incredibly difficult times. I can't help but thank God for every gift, big and small. Most of all, I'm thankful for the grace and gift of eternal life that God has given me. I look forward to seeing how my life can glorify God in 2023!

Two Exhibits during December

We all enjoy when pop up exhibits come to Atlanta celebrating some of our favorites movies or shows. There are two really great ones in Atlanta right now, and we were excited about both.

The first was the Stranger Things exhibit at Pullman Yards. We planned this as a Christmas countdown item, and each girl was allowed to bring a friend. Mia brought Judson Sampler and Lily brought Lauren Martin; they're both really big fans too!

Once you passed the sign above, you had to put phones up through a 45 minute interactive experience; no pictures were allowed! This part was really fun as you go into the Hawkins lab under the guise of a sleep study. At some point, they find out that you have some really cool powers, so they want to usher you in a different direction. About that time, our favorites from the show appear via video to let us know what's really going on and they want to help us break out. All sorts of interesting items ensue as we seek to break out. It ends with us being in the upside down (wearing 3-D glasses!) where Elle and Max are facing all sorts of horrible creatures that we have to defeat. This was a really fun experience!

When this part was over, you walk out into an area that's designed to look a lot like the Starcourt Mall. They had several sets you could be a part of, food and drink, lots of picture spots, a scavenger hunt, and of course...merch. We spent a ton of time in here taking it all in. Here's some of the fun we had.

We all loved this set from Season 1 when Joyce is trying to connect with Will as he's in the Upside Down.

Mia had fun working at the Family Video store.

Oh no, a demigorg is breaking through!

Mia seems to be a little terrified of Veckna while Lily and Lauren must think he's kinda cute.

We all shared a couple of Surfer Boy pizzas for dinner, and then we were excited to get Scoops Ahoy ice cream for dessert!

What 80's kid didn't play at an arcade?!

We all tried a couple of tasty mocktails from the Upside Down bar. Half of us enjoyed "The Starcourt Special" made up of sparkling orange juice, grenadine, orange slice, and maraschino cherry. The other half of us enjoyed "The Eleven" which was lemon lime soda, cherry lemonade, lemon slice, and maraschino cherry.

Lily and Lauren had fun doing a photo booth session. We all liked seeing some of the costumes from the sets, including this famous one of El's.

Ryan and I had fun doing this too!

This was a fantastically fun evening with friends!

This was outside of the exhibit, and I just loved the picture of Lily in front of it.

One of the family fun gifts that the girls opened on Christmas morning was tickets for the four of us to go to the Harry Potter Exhibit in downtown a few days after Christmas. We couldn't wait to see what all they had here!

After checking in we walked into a big room where they had a Marauder's Map on the wall. As we tapped our wristbands on the way in, our names appeared on the map which was cool to see.

Then it was time to see the Hogwart's Express enter in.

We opened the doors with the help of some magic, and started to walk through. There were lots of "living portraits" hanging on the wall, including the Fat Lady.

We went to our houses. Lily and I are in Ravenclaw while Ryan is a Hufflepuff.

Mia has been re-sorted into Slytherin instead of Gryffindor.

It was neat to see lots of props and outfits along the way. They did a great job of explaining the reasons behind a lot of the details that were chosen for each one of the characters and their outfits.

It was really neat to see the Great Hall with all its floating candles.

We all practiced our Defense Against the Dark Arts with the Riddikulus spell.

Potions was an interesting area as we could see all the different options to use.

We were able successfully brew a few potions ourselves!

Props from the TriWizard Tournament.

It was fun to go into Hagrid's Hut and see just how huge his giant items are!

Mia seeing what it's like to live under the stairs at the Dursley's house, and learning what it's like in Umbridge's office.

We all tried our hand at some Quidditch.

The Black family tapestry.

Outside the chamber of secrets.

With the three deathly hallows; good luck finding the invisibility cloak.

A wand duel at the Battle of Hogwarts.

A memory of Mia in the pensieve and a few items from Dumbledore's office.

There were some fun parts for Fantastic Beasts as well. We all managed to escape into Newt's suitcase!

This was definitely a morning of family fun!