Christmas in South Carolina

So I'm finally posting some photos we took over the holidays. (Better late than never!) We got to catch up with a lot of Rob's family in South Carolina and enjoyed seeing everyone for several days. Our nephew, Tallon, was especially fun to be around, particularly when he got excited about his huge, inflatable Christmas gift complete with light show and music that he would proudly proclaim was what "Pop (Robert's dad) got me"! (You'll have to see the photos in the slide show to see what I'm talking about!)

Happy Anniversary!

Robert and I celebrated our first Anniversary the weekend of December 7th - 9th with a wonderful trip to Asheville, North Carolina (my friend Mary Jane worked on this Web site!) I flew to Atlanta from San Antonio after a terrible airport fiasco that involved 12 total travel hours - most of them waiting in the airport, five gate changes, one decommissioned plane, and an awful scare that they lost my luggage. By 9: 30 p.m. I was still in Dallas and on the verge of tears that I was going to miss the first day of our anniversary weekend, but luckily I made it to Atlanta, though it was after midnight when we finally landed.

We stayed Thursday night in Atlanta and then drove to Asheville Friday morning, where we stayed at this neat Bed and Breakfast called the Inn on Main Street in Weaverville, N. C. for the next two nights. That night we went to the Biltmore Estate, America's largest mansion built by George Vanderbilt in 1895. We did the special Candlelight Christmas tour at night. Nearly every room featured a gorgeous Christmas tree, and there was a choir inside singing carols and other musicians playing Christmas music in different rooms. It took us nearly two hours to tour the entire house, which included a bowling ally and indoor swimming pool in the basement - still extravagant luxuries even today.



The next day we returned to tour the gardens and winery before window shopping through downtown Asheville. It's a very different town. For some reason "organic" seems like the best word to describe it. Robert was right when he commented that we weren't "weird enough" (a.k.a. too normal and traditional) to live there. But it was so fun to shop around and experience the city. Robert was great and let me drag him to antique shops and such.

Saturday night we had pizza at this great little pizza place in Weaverville - a suburb of Asheville, before heading home on Sunday. I can't believe we've been married a year. The time has just flown by!

San Antonio

I went to San Antonio a couple of weeks back for the ADRP (Association of Donor Relations Professionals) Annual Conference. I got to meet some really neat development folks from higher education institutions, hospitals, and nonprofits from all over the U.S. and Canada. It was different being in warm San Antonio in December, but the Riverwalk was beautiful with all the large bulb Christmas lights (the old school kind) hanging from the trees. Our hotel, the Hotel La Mansion Del Rio, was a lovely historic hotel right on the Riverwalk. I did get a chance one night to walk down to the Alamo, which appropriately had a nice Christmas wreath on the door. I can't believe I'm about to write this, but I was actually sick of Mexican by the time I flew out!

Christmas Tree Farm

Sara and David, our friends from church, asked us to go with them the Sunday after Thanksgiving to pick out a real Christmas tree at a Christmas tree farm up 65 North. It took a while to get there, and we had to navigate through this super sketchy one-lane tunnel that snuck up on you after a blind curve. But we eventually arrived at Beavers Christmas Tree Farm, and perused for quite a while among the White Pines before eventually finding our perfect Christmas tree. At this point, I was all prepared to get pics of the whole cutting down stage (since they give you a hack saw and you have to cut it down yourself), but my Paul Bunyan like husband had the tree down before I could get a good photo! After carrying our tree to the side of the "road" (I must confess I didn't help a bit with this part), we walked back to the main area to pay while I tractor came by to pick up our tree. After paying, the workers loaded it on top of Rob's car for us, and we headed home (surviving the sketchy tunnel once more) to decorate our first real (as in alive) Christmas tree!

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving with my family in Clay and enjoyed spending three full days with everyone. Big Mama was gracious and let us spend the night at her house and made us a wonderful breakfast every morning. Lots of my extended family on the Haskew side (my mom's) got together for lunch at Big Mama's Thanksgiving Day. Most of my cousins have several kids each running around, so there's always plenty of excitement. This year, mom got very creative with how she would display her turkey, so I've included some pics of the food. Dad didn't fry a turkey this year like usual, but we had more than enough to go around and plenty of leftovers too.

On Friday we arose bright and early for some day-after shopping. I went with mom and my cousin Kristi at about 5:45 a.m. We didn't get back until 2 p.m., when I crashed for a three-hour nap and Robert took off to play racquetball with David, Ryan, and Madhi. Saturday's big event was going with David to get his tattoo - his 18th birthday present. Check out the pics. It was quite the experience. Ryan and I are now the last third of my immediate family not to have our own "ink." I'm not going to talk about the Iron Bowl (Let's just look ahead to next year.), but we did have a fun party with Victoria as our own personal Bama cheerleader. My cousin Eric and his family came by too, along with my Aunt Cathy and Uncle Chris, so it was great to see them. Somehow, I didn't get one photo of my infamous one-armed Canadian uncle who visted for the week.

Savannah

Here are some pics from our trip to Savannah we took a few weeks back. We went to visit Jake, who teaches high school there. Robert's parents drove down from S.C. to meet us for the weekend and J-Go and Ben drove up from Jacksonville, so we were so excited to see our friends and family and have our first visit to Savannah. It's a very neat city.

Happy Birthday!

So, I have to send a big happy birthday to all our siblings and siblings-in-laws who have birthdays this week.

Happy Birthday to Reeves and Mike (Robert's brothers-in-law) on the 18th!

Happy 18th Birthday to my brother David - today!

Happy Birthday to Robert's sis Bec on Friday!

We love you guys!