Year Two

It has been an entire year since my last post. Blogging is definitely on the back burner right now. If there is anyone who still may read the blog or subscribe, I thought I'd post a video that I made for Rebekah's second Gotcha Day anniversary. We've had Rebekah for two years now!! It is very hard to believe. She is doing really well and continues to be a great joy! Enjoy the video of the past year!

Summer Highlights

Here are a few pictures of some of the things we have done this summer. I hope this will serve as a good catch up for my slacker blogging!

Zac turned 30! We had some friends and family over to celebrate. Zac had really wanted a surprise party - a surprise party, though, that he knew about. Ha! So, we all pretended to surprise him.

My mom came down for a few days to help/teach me a little about sewing. We made two matching roman shades for my side and back doors. We are planning on getting new doors, so we made the curtains to match that window size. I still wanted to hang them in the meantime, so they're a little small on our current door windows. I really like them and enjoyed learning about sewing. I'd love to learn more!

My sister was in a wedding for one of her friends. I drove up to Birmingham to see her and go to the wedding.

On June 7th, Zac and I celebrated our 6th anniversary. We ate at Amsterdam Cafe and then walked around Samford Hall. Zac proposed to me right in front of Samford Hall all those years ago. While we were there, we ran into Zac's sister and she took our picture!

One of my dear friends from high school and college, Morgan, came to visit for the day. She lives in San Diego now so we don't see each other very much.

On June 13th, Zac participated in his 2nd strongman competition in Douglasville, GA. He did really well! I tried to take some pictures and video of his events. He was also able to make a few new friends.

At the end of June, I went to a reunion with some more of my dear college friends. We try to get together once a year. We went to Lake Martin for a long weekend. It was really great to get to see them!

A few weeks ago my friend Naomi came over for a few hours, and I finally got to meet baby Patrick! He is precious.

For the fourth of July, we went to Birmingham and spent the weekend with my family. We had a lot of fun and also learned a new domino game that we played all weekend.

Last week, Zac and I went to Orange Beach for a few days for a late anniversary trip. It was the first time we have gone to the beach by ourselves. The weather was perfect, and we had a great time relaxing & swimming & laying out. While we were there, we found out our friends Ryan and Mandy and their girls were in Gulf Shores, too. We met them for lunch one day. We feel like this might have been the last time we'll be able to get away for a while (except for when we go to Russia!), because we'll have to stay at home a lot once Fyodor gets here.

Hopefully, my next post we'll be with some news from Russia. Keep praying!

Christmas 2008

I hope that everyone enjoyed a great Christmas. Ours was full of traveling and seeing family. We were also very busy the week of New Years. So, things were a little crazier than we'd prefer, but we had a very good time in the midst of it all. I'll again let the pictures do most of the talking.

We did get a few gifts for "Fyodor" - I'm not sure that I've ever mentioned on the blog that this is our nick-name for our little boy. It's kind of a long story, but Jennifer and I were looking at Russian names one day and this one just stuck out for some reason. I was looking it up today to see the correct spelling and realized for the first time that it means "Gift from God." How perfect! We are not planning to name him this, but this is just what we call him now. Anyways....Jennifer picked out the sweetest book and pair of socks for him. They are precious! The book is called "The Runaway Bunny" and it is just perfect for adoption. I can't wait to read it to him.

My dad and Jennifer at our Christmas Eve lunch.

Jennifer and Me. She had to leave Christmas Eve b/c she had to work on Christmas Day. We were very sad to see her go.

Lunch on Christmas day. My Grandmother came over.

Zac and Me. He did a lot of commuting back and forth from Auburn to Birmingham for work. He looks a little tired in this picture.

Gracie came with us to Birmingham. She had to stay outside on the deck at times so we could all stay sane! Doesn't she have the pitiful look down?

On Saturday, we went to Vernon to see Zac's family. Here are Zac's parents opening up their presents.

Georgia and her coke bottle ornament.

Jack opening a gift.

Zac's sweet mom playing Christmas carols on her new clarinova.

Our stockings...hopefully there will be another stocking hanging there next year.

November

Wow...We still have a blog?? There have been many things that we could have blogged about this month and just didn't. So, in an attempt to catch you up on November, I'm going to let our pictures do most of the talking. So sorry about the lack of blogging. We want to do better!


At the beginning of November we held our last tailgate for the year for Auburn's homecoming game. Zac's parents were in town for it, too, which was added fun. We really enjoyed tailgating for the first time this year and hope to continue the tradition next season (even though we may not have too much to be excited about...sigh). Here is a link to a few pictures we put on facebook.


The very next weekend we went to Birmingham for my friend Sarah's wedding. Sarah and I went to church together in high school. Many of my other high school friends were in town for her wedding, too, and it was so wonderful to see everyone. It was like a mini-reunion. All of those girls mean so very much to me. It's amazing that we have known each other for so long. It doesn't seem to matter how much time goes by, though; we are always able to pick right back up like no time has passed. It was a very fun evening! Here a link to the pictures.


The weekend before Thanksgiving I went back to Birmingham for my dear friend, Adrian's lingerie shower. She is getting married next weekend. I haven't seen her in three years, so it was so good to catch up. Once again, it seemed as if those three years apart were really just three days. I also got to see my wonderful friend Melissa at the shower, too. The three of us had some very special times together in college and I really enjoyed hanging out with them again. The night was just way too short!


For Thanksgiving we actually stayed home and Zac's family came here. Zac's oldest sister stayed with us and Zac's parents stayed with Natalie. They were here most of last week and it was great fun with lots of chaos, too. We loved seeing our two nephews and our sweet niece that we don't get to see very often. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful second family. Here are two links to more pictures than you'd probably care to see: Zac's and Allison's.

Last, I am not very crafty. But, a couple of my friends got together to make wreaths. I didn't have very high expectations for how mine would turn out, but I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome. It only cost me $13 to make and really not too much time to create and it looks great! I was a little proud of myself so I had to take a picture:



I hope this helps to keep you updated on our life over the past month. Maybe this month we'll be better bloggers. Hope you are having a great beginning to this special Christmas season.

More Savannah Pictures

I'm really trying to do better about blogging more frequently. I realized that we had more pictures that could be shared from our trip to Savannah. Some of them aren't that great because they were taken at night or because we didn't have anyone to take a picture of the two of us together and so we tried the one-handed trick, which never really works well. :)

On Friday night around sunset we took a public carriage tour of downtown Savannah. It was a really fun way to learn the history and other stories about Savannah. It was also a great time to go because it was really cool outside after the sun set.


On Saturday, our official anniversary day, we actually had a wedding to attend. This is really the reason we chose Savannah as our vacation destination. It was neat to get to be at a wedding on our anniversary and a good reminder of the vows we made 5 years prior. We didn't know many people at there, but a gracious lady at the reception took our picture.

We had to leave the reception early to make it to our dinner reservations at The Olde Pink House. We enjoyed the food, but it was a little louder and busier than we expected - not quiet as quaint and romantic as we had thought. It was also Saturday night, so that probably had a lot to do with the busyness. Here we are outside the restaurant waiting to be seated:

We spent the next morning at a nearby beach called Tybee Island. On the island is a very old lighthouse. We were able to climb a winding staircase to the top and walk out on a very small landing to see the view of the beach and the town. I am very afraid of heights and wasn't sure if I could make it to the top, but I did. I couldn't really enjoy the view, though, because I was pretty scared to be up there. The landing was very small, and I just felt like at any minute it was going to break. I've really got to work on this fear!

See how tall it is and look at that very tiny platform!

Here I am at the top - very nervous! I was done at the point, but Zac made me pose for a picture.

Here are a few other pictures that we took - mostly scenic:

The following two pictures we took from the roof-top pool at our hotel.

This was a beautiful park that we walked to one day that had a gorgeous fountain.


Lots of Spanish moss in the trees. This picture reminds me of what most of Savannah looks like.


On our last night in Savannah we sat on a bench and looked out onto the river for a while. It was so peaceful. Savannah really has a great atmosphere.

We are so thankful that the Lord provided this opportunity for us to get away and spend some wonderful time together.

"Hey Ya'll, I'm Paula Deen" - More from Savannah '08

Well I guess it all started Friday morning at the Butter Queen Paula Deen's restaurant The Lady and Sons. We had to get up (sort of) early and walk about a half mile to get our names on the list to come back later. After waiting in the long line we made our reservations for 12:45 pm. So we had a late lunch and it was a good gut filling, nothing too fancy, but good food all around. In addition to the buffet, we ordered the fried green tomatoes because that seemed like a very Savannah thing to do. We ended up boxing them up and taking them back to the hotel due to gluttony. It was the only real meal we ate on Friday and I (zac) drank about two gallons of sweet tea (the best ever by the way). By the time I left I felt like an overfilled cement truck... And was still faced with the task of walking back to the hotel.

On interesting side note , one of Paula 's sons was in the gift shop signing autographs and posing for pictures. I wouldn't have known him from Adam's house cat, but them touristy types can sniff out a D list celebrity a mile away.

All in all I give The Lady and Sons two thumbs up; very friendly staff, remarkable sweet tea, great atmosphere, but unless you get fancy ordering off the menu - as couple from Millbrook that we met at breakfast put it - "If you been to Golden Corral, you been to Paula Deen's".

- More pictures to Come from Savannah - Zac