Christmas has begun!

Well the Christmas banquet at church was spectacular! Sunday night it started at 6. We sat at a table with my parents and one couple from our small group Brady and Erin. The guy who did the commercials with us, James, joined us too. We ate a nice dinner or ham and turkey, salad, cheese mashed potatoes, and green beans. Cake for dessert. Kevin's band Freedom or Fire played while everyone ate. They did a wonderful job!
Let me just say one thing - my dad is hilarious. I can't believe as a teenager I didn't think he was but he is simply hysterical. He got up and did the annual "CrossBridge Toast" which consisted of him banging some spatulas on an actual toaster hanging around his neck. He would do the beat, and then sing the words. EX: "bang bang bang (there was an actual beat though) All around the country from coast to coast...bang bang bang.....people always say what do you like most?....bang....I don't wanna brag, I don't wanna boast...bang....I always tell them, I like toast....bang....YEAH TOAST!!
This last part was screamed out into the audience as they clapped along. This song has been around our family for years but its good to see its getting out and the proper recognition from the masses. The banquet continued, some people did some songs, some played instruments, others read funny poems or versions of the Night Before Christmas, and the commercials were shown. Also they showed my music videos I had been working on for hours. Im pretty proud of those things. Not to be cocky or anything I just had so much fun doing it and it took hours to do and I must say, not bad. And yes, I will post them and the commercials on here eventually.

Brady, Erin, Us!our small group!

So the banquet was great, we went home and then watched A Christmas Story - aka, my favorite christmas movie. I LOVE IT. I was telling someone else this, but I think it is one of those movies you had to grow up watching as a kid? and that is why I think it is so funny. I mean, it does have the humorous lines here and there, but the extent that I think its funny, it really isn't that funny.  ...did any of that make sense?...moving on.

We are deciding on paint colors ... we are trying to decide on a color/theme for the guest bedroom. We have had plenty of ideas, but they are either too extravagant or just aren't exactly what we are looking for. Guess we will see what the final reveal is. Today Chad said something about needing to pack for "next week" and I argued for about 3 minutes that we had 2 weeks to go. Nope, its not this weekend but the next. I can't believe it. There is so much to do...I never want to move at Christmas again.

Happy Thanksgiving :)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I have so much to be thankful for...a husband who is my best friend in the world, a family whom I wouldn't trade for anything, a second family I gained in marrying my best friend, a roof over our heads, great jobs for us both, enough financial security to keep us going, my wonderful friends who keep me going, COFFEE, and so, so much more. It just amazes me when I sit and think about it how much God has blessed our lives :)

Last weekend we headed to Memphis Thursday night to begin our Thanksgiving festivities with them. Last year was Thanksgiving with his side, this year was my side. The flip-flop-family travels. We got there Thursday, Friday we waited on Chelsie (while we waited we played bananagrams - a new found game that is basically a personal scrabble) to get home and when she did me, her, and Sherry left and went grocery shopping. Chad left and went to go find Sequence (yes, another new found game we love) and we all met back at the house later. We played Sequence a TON that night, and the rest of the weekend. Everyone loved it! A hit! Friday night we ordered pizza from a place called Mamma Mia and it was great! Sequence and foosball continuously went on that night. I must say, my skills have vastly improved from the first time I have played foosball...I used to barely be able to even kick the ball with the little plastic faceless man but now I am semi-aiming, semi-shooting, semi-blocking. That's right, I know you are impressed.


After the victorious victory we headed to the kitchen to start cooking. We made green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, hash brown casserole, rolls, turkey of course, cranberry sauce, and Jell-O. I can now successfully make most of the casseroles thanks to you Sherry :)

Dinner was spectacular! We had all that along with sparkling grape juice (one of those things I have loved and will always love...add that to the things I am thankful for at the top haha) and it was just so good. We sat around and talked but woofed down everything, and in a matter of minutes everything was gone. Barely any leftovers - that gives you an idea of how good everything was! We cleaned and then Sequence resumed yet again. Sunday was church - so good to see everyone! Chad's old youth minister's wife is pregnant and not too far along, I forget the exact time amount but a couple months, and has the cute little baby bump and she was just so excited when she was talking about it. It's a boy and she was so cute describing everything. A lot of people were in town for Thanksgiving so we got to see more than the normal amount of people still in school. We went to the college class because Doug is teaching it, and everyone was back from school. It mostly made of Freshman and Sophomores with a few older people but it honestly was so weird listening to everyone talk about school and what points in their life they were at. I felt SO old, and in reality age wise I was only a couple years older than them. It was very interesting just listening. I’m an old grown married lady now, guess I should start realizing it!

Leaving is always so hard! We miss them so much :( Wish we could get up there more than we actually do but at least we did get to see them. I am thankful for that!


Thanksgiving in Birmingham was a little different this year - my mom's parents were originally suppose to come down and we were going to have an all day eating fest, but my grandmother ended up going in the hospital the weekend before Thanksgiving. My Mom drove up to Indiana that Monday to be with her and is actually still there! SO for Thanksgiving it was me, Chad, Dad, Kevin, and Kyle. We went over there; I had made a green bean casserole and took that with me. I had planned on taking sweet potato casserole too but guess what, apparently Alabama does not carry the frozen bag of sweet potatoes that you just microwave and mash up. Went to 3 STORES - no one had them. Weird? Yes. I gave up and just took the green bean stuff over instead of both. It turned out good (thank goodness! first time making it) and Dad was preparing the rest of the feast. He did a WONDERFUL turkey, stuffing, rolls, Jell-O, a stir-fry mix of broccoli corn and mushrooms, mashed potatoes, and desserts. How good - I think I gained about 10 pounds. NO exaggeration there :) We ate around 2 ish, stuffed ourselves, cleaned up, and then ... get ready for this...watched Men In Black. Why? No clue, but it’s what everyone wanted to do. Being the only girl, I didn't have a huge say in the matter. I was out numbered by far. So yes, we watched MIB, then played Sequence and hung out, THEN...get ready for THIS...watched Man in Black 2. How in the world this happened I am still pondering. But yes, a new tradition arose, and as weird as it was, it was quite relaxing I must say. Sitting and staring at a screen for sequel movies about aliens. Happy Thanksgiving :)

my green bean casserole :)

So it was different, but we did enjoy ourselves and I do love my family. Buncha crazies but I love them haha

-Besides that I got my haircut short the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Yep, gave in and did it - chop. It’s not too too different but it takes about 12 minutes less to fix in the mornings so I love it.

-Chad and I are preparing for the move this month. We found out it is most likely going to be the weekend before Christmas (ugh haha) but we are both so ready to be out of our apt that it is totally fine with us. We are picking out our final paint colors, and looking around at couches/loveseats so if you know of anyone getting rid of theirs CALL ME!
-Chad and I got to participate in filming (yep) fake commercials to put in our church's Christmas party this weekend. I've got some footage that I’ll put up as soon as I get home today. I must say Chad is just hilarious. Be prepared to laugh. When they get finalized and after the party I’ll put all the commercials up here for you to see. Can't wait! Preview--->

~LTIL~
Sharpie Pens. I LOVE Sharpie pens. 'nuff said.

UNO Retreat

This past weekend we were chaperones on our church's youth group Fall Retreat. It seems kinda weird to be a chaperone...I feel like I'm not old or wise enough to be guiding these kids haha. Especially since my old youth minister was the speaker for the weekend - just like old days.

Friday I slept in a little (THANK GOODNESS) and woke up and packed, did some necessary around-the-house things, and we headed to the retreat around 3:30 ish. We took a bunch of back country roads and finally got there over an hour later haha. We arrived, and suddenly became in charge of the entire group. How? you ask? I have no idea. I had brought papers saying who still owed money, who was in what room, etc. which apparently nominated me for person-in-charge. We set up the registration table, checked in people as they arrived, gave room assignments, collected money....so THIS is why adults aren’t psyched about retreats. Now I understand.
We figured most everything out, went to our theater room, and got started. The weekend was so much fun! All the kids really had a blast. We did fun 'ice-breaker' games, had lessons, did some singing, and had some free time. And of course, the wonderful cafeteria meals - which I must say, were not as bad as you would think. Bravo kitchen.


I really enjoyed getting to know a bunch of the kids better- we've been 'CrossTrainers' now for a while but this was the first actual trip that we have been on. On Friday night I was kept up until 2 IN THE MORNING talking with another chaperone and some of the girls on the trip. As much as I hated being exhausted the next day, and semi-getting in trouble for being up so late by others there, that was one of my favorite parts of the weekend. These girls are SO MATURE for their age! It was just incredible hearing these views of 13, 14 year olds and going 'wow, yeah I never thought of that'. So fun :)
Another person I loved hanging out with was David's little girl Charity who is 5 years old. She is just precious and one of those little girls everyone just "aww's" at naturally. We clicked and she even cried one time because she couldn't go on a hike with me. How adorable. Charity's sister Madelyn and I became close friends too. She even gave me one of those animal bracelet things - do you know of these?

Saturday night we all went to a bonfire and Madelyn was right beside me the whole time. She was hilarious and it was a lot of fun getting to hang out with her- we looked at constellations, talked about boys, the normal stuff haha. The bonfire was good; some cried, some laughed, but we all had a good time. I just absolutely love being out in a field when there are no lights around and it is pitch dark and you can look up into the sky and it just seems never-ending. I LOVE that feeling.
SO it’s my duty to create a slide show for the retreat. With my wonderful new computer I’ve been messing around trying to do a bunch of cool different things. Hopefully I’ll have it done soon and everyone can see it.
----
Yesterday Chad and Derek (guy from a couple friend at church) decided to go camping. Where? Cheehaw something? Where is that exactly? I have no idea. They went all out too- the big hiking backpacks, the one cup camping coffee maker, food to cook on the fire, etc. They were so excited haha. I'm waiting to hear how that went....
Meanwhile Derek's wife, Megan, and I decided to hang out and be adventurous too. However, our idea of adventurous wasn't being rugged outdoors and now showering for a day, it involved...sushi. That's right. Both of us liked sushi, but didn't really know all the ins-and-outs of it, so we decided to check out a new place that just opened. We pulled up, and saw there were only 2 cars in the parking lot. Yes, it was Thursday night around 7:30, but 2 cars? That made us both second guess our adventure. However, we were not about to back out or else it wouldn't really count as an adventure, right? We went in and there were only 2 other tables occupied. HA. We sat down, got menus, and were handed - hot towels? What are those for? We said thanks and then both just stared at them. We laughed because neither of us knew what to do. So we did nothing, and there the steaming hot towels sat.
Then came the menu. Like I said, neither of us really knew anything about sushi, just liked the few that we had tried before. We paroozed the menu...saw words we barely knew how to pronounce, saw the word 'raw'...California Roll. YES. We can do that. What else? Shrimp and cucumber. That sounds decent. Done. We ordered and as the waiter took our menu, he lifted up the hot towels and put them in our face asking if we wanted them. I looked at him and just said "no, I’m good" and Megan repeated. He chuckled, and left. We cracked up afterwards thinking of what would have happened if we had taken them. Were you supposed to wipe your hands and hand it back? No idea, better to just leave it alone haha.
The sushi turned out pretty good. Not the best ever, but pretty good. California rolls are still the best...of the 4 kinds I've tried :)


After that we headed to good ol' Cheesecake factory, got some dessert, and went to her apartment and watched a movie. It was really fun to hang out with her - we are a lot alike. And it's always fun to have girl time haha. Sleeping last night was weird - it’s always weird sleeping alone now. Takes forever to actually fall asleep. However, getting ready in the morning takes 1/2 the time because I’m not tip-toeing around and shutting drawers silently, etc. That was nice haha.

This weekend...we don't know what we are doing yet. Many possibilities, what will we choose? Stay tuned...

~*Little Things I Love*~


- this one is kind of weird, but I love when you get a new ball point pen and it has that tiny ball on the end of it that you have to push off before you can use it haha ~

PICTURES!!

Yep, Kevin ripped his pants...

It's beginning to look a lot like ... Thanksgiving?

Lately not too much has gone on, hence the silence the blog has been getting...then all of a sudden, I have the busiest week of my life followed by a trip? What in the world haha isn't that how it works?

2 weekends ago we had 2 of our friends from Harding come and visit! They are getting married to each other this summer and Chad is a groomsman in the wedding. It is in Colorado - woo hoo!! That means an AWESOME vacation. I absolutely love Colorado. In the summer it is PERFECT. Not too hot during the day and a light jacket weather at night. Scenery is breathtaking. Ah, looking forward to that. We hung out with them all weekend like old times sake at Harding. I must admit, it made me kind of miss Harding that atmosphere. The townhouse we lived in was great, and we had people over all the time. I miss that! Now our place is flooded and boxes are everywhere. Who wants to invite people over to that? ha.
This past week was busy busy busy! Monday night one of my friends from our small group was having some of us over for her Birthday! It (of course) ended up being an incredibly late day at work; I got home at 6:40, changed, and ran out to the parking lot where one of the girls was waiting on me. We drove to another girl’s house that we then carpooled with to Erin's house because it was kind of far out. We got there around 7:30 and I really had a ton of fun. Its great having a group of friends again...as pitiful as that sounds haha. Everyone knows what that means though. We just hung out, ate pizza, ate cheesecake (all the healthy things), opened gifts, and just talked. 9:15 we left and headed home. Great night!


Tuesday we got together with another group from with in our small group. We do it just about every week. Chad had a meeting / presentation for work in Jasper so I went alone this time. We finally got back home, and went to bed.
Wednesday was church and pack as much as you can tonight-night, and Thursday Chad drove me to work in the morning so that he could pick me up and we could head straight for Memphis. We are serious when we go out of town as you can see :) The trip up was great, I wasn't feeling too good but I pushed through it. I was kind of a bum that weekend - bad headaches / nausea. Lots of the fun stuff that doesn't classify you as 'sick' but just makes you a bum to be around haha. The trip to Memphis was so fun though. It had been since FEBRUARY since I had been up there - FEBRUARY!! What kind of daughter-in-law am I? SO yes, wonderful trip- Thursday night we got there around 9 and hung out, played some foosball (which I am pretty bad at, but got better the more we played...yess) and went to bed. Friday morning Chad woke up to go to a meeting with his dad at their new church they are building (Chad's dad is the architect!) and then they went and played golf the whole rest of the afternoon. While that exciting adventure was going on, Sherry and I went to Garden Ridge, and let me just say, that place is spectacular. I probably could have spent an incredible amount of money...but I withheld and showed control haha I was looking for some fall decorations - I have NONE and every decorative pumpkin and ever sparkling fruit basket and leaves I see makes me want something decorative. So we looked at some glass pumpkins that Sherry and Mema had gotten before - and they were half off! WOO HOO! Gotta love sales. I loved them and ended up getting 2! There were also these little basket-like pumpkins on sale for $0.99...and you just cant pass that up (am I my father's daughter or what?). SO now I have successfully started a fall collection!

There they are! So we did that and then headed to a Tea Room for lunch! This is a tradition in Missouri but this time it was in Memphis and just me and Sherry! It was so much fun! It was an old house that had been turned into a tea room/ Christmas Shoppe. Food and Christmas? Some of my favorite things :) I got a turkey a bacon pesto sandwich and it was DELICIOUS! (Bacon again? Can you believe it?) We both got raspberry tea which was equally wonderful. After lunch we looked around the shop and we both got some ornaments! I am SO EXCITED about Christmas!!! Just had to throw that out there :)


After that we headed to some grocery stores to get some stuff for dinner. That night was some great grilled salmon, man do I love that stuff. More foosball that night!


Saturday we went and looked at the new church building. It...is....the most amazing thing. Every room was one of those close-your-mouth-and-quit-saying-WHOA-every-two-seconds kind of room. Can't wait for that first Sunday!


Speaking of church - we got to visit their church that Sunday. It was so good to see everyone! I've gotten to know several people there so it's always good to have people that you know you can talk to and say hey to instead of just awkwardly standing around and smiling ha. We got to visit the youth group, see the youth ministers, chat with the kiddies, and then we headed to lunch. Went to Dixie Cafe and our conversation shifted to how Chad and I started dating, who we dated before each other, how he dated my suite-mate, and I dated his roommate, so on and so forth haha. It was quite hilarious though - I think we have quite a good story.


After lunch we headed back, packed up, and left for b'ham. Chad had a presentation for work to give that night and so we had to get back in time for that. We didn't turn on any music the entire time on the way back! We were talking the entire time - let me just throw this in. I love my husband :) Who does that? I love that he can talk like that! What a man.


When we got back Chad headed to the presentation and I headed over to our church's fall festival that was going on. Saw some costumes, ate way too much candy and hot dogs, and saw cocoa as she went crazy because there were so many people around haha it was fun.

For other news...


We have been deciding whether or not to renew our apartment lease, look for another place, etc. With our apartment we are in now, to renew it for however long would actually be cheaper than what we are paying now. BUT, you have to take into consideration 280 (which I grow to hate more and more every day), and the fact that we have flooded twice. SO we decided to just parooze what was around us. We went and looked at a few other apartments but everything else was either way more expensive than what we were paying, or smaller, or something. Nothing seemed right. We had just about given up when I just decided to check around Craigslist. Now, I must say, this was quite sketchy. I emailed a TON of people, half of them came back as scams, the other half was true but then I saw pictures and said "no thanks". There were about 3 that looked decent - 2 houses for rent, and one duplex. All great locations. So I emailed these people and asked if we could see them that weekend. One townhouse and the duplex said yes we could! So, even though I was nervous about this being a scam and us going inside the duplex and being on the news the next morning ("Craigslist listing leads to young couple’s death") we went ahead and said we would at least just check these 2 out. Thank goodness for Chad ha. We pulled up to the townhouse and both of us were just like "look at this! how cute!” and that was just the outside! It was an end unit so it had an extra patch of grass on the end too. We knocked and I held my breath imaging who..or what was about to open the door. And to my surprise, a girl a few years older than me opened it up. Completely normal looking (besides the disgusting Alabama sweatshirt she had on haha) and very friendly. She welcomed us in, and showed us around, and we hung out and talked for a little bit. Turns out her future sister-in-law went to high school with me ha. Small world. Anyways we walked back to our truck, closed the doors, looked at each other, and said 'wow, I loved that!' and there ya go. We called them the next day and said we want it, they said OK, and it’s a done deal! We are renting a townhouse for the next year! One step closer to the real thing haha. They are buying a house and that should be closing around Thanksgiving so as soon as that is over we will paint and move in! We are SO EXCITED. Every day since then I think I have said that. I cannot wait. Only a month to go! YESSS!
SNEAK PEAK...

(yep, that's an Alabama flag...ugh)

So that’s the new exciting news as of late. This weekend for Halloween we aren't sure what we are doing. Guess we should figure that out pretty quick haha. Tonight we are going to eat pizza and play games with the rents! Hasn't happened for a while - it'll be good.


*I'm adding a new little end to these blog posts because I want to...so here it is*


~Little Things I Love~


- I love when you buy a brand new tube of mascara and you dip it in for the very first time so that the brush changes colors. Why? I don't know, but it makes me smile every time :)

Saturday, October 3rd, I woke up at 5 in the morning. 5 IN THE MORNING! Why oh why would I ever do such a thing? For the love of my football team, the Auburn Tigers.

We woke up at 5 to prepare to leave by 6 or 630 which turned into 7 really. The reason for that being that you just HAVE to get a chicken biscuit to start the road trip. We were making the long drive to Knoxville, TN to see the Tigers and Vols duke it out. Chad's best friend lives in Knoxvegas so we had somewhere to stay, which is always nice. We were going to go Friday but I had to work so there was no point in getting there at one in the morning, so we just woke up early Saturday. I hate waking up early, and I hate packing, and I had to do both of these things at the same time. UGH.

We headed out and walked out side and it was COLD! Can you believe it? Alabama? Cold? I know it. It was wonderful. The drive seemed long but it wasn't too bad...of course I was out cold for about an hour of it. We got there about 11:30 and that's when we saw it....drum roll.....Steak and Shake. Now, if you don't know, this is about Chad's favorite burger place, ever. He loves it. So we picked up lunch and headed to Jeremy's (Chad's bff) afterwards. We hung out for a little bit but then headed down to UT to start mingling and tailgating! We parked in some random parking lot and paid some guy who sounded like an elf and went down to a parking lot absolutely covered inch to inch with tailgaters and tents and games and food, etc. We met Jeremy's friends, and then the rest of the afternoon was just chilling. It was PERFECT weather and just a whole lot of fun. I met a girl who I instantly connected with and we basically hung out the whole time so I had a TN buddy so I wasn't just a random Auburn person meandering aimlessly.

Game time came and we headed to Neyland Stadium. This is in the top 5 biggest stadiums in the US - 102,037 seats. Now yes, it was incredibly HUGE but we found out how they fit so many seats in there very quickly as we headed to our own. We got to our section, and proceeded to head almost literally STRAIGHT UP as we climbed the stairs. Then, getting to our seats, saw that the numbered seating gives everyone about 5 inches per person (ok, it may be a little more than that but that is what it felt like). As you are sitting in your personal 5 inch space, you CONSTANTLY are getting up and down to let others go to their seats because there was only one entrance on our section. Our seats were 3 from the very end, so anyone from seats 26-1 got to walk by us. As you stand up to let someone else by, you realize there really is no room at all to let that person by, therefore causing you to curve your knees over the bench seat like a v as the rest of your body counts on your knees not to give out as you teeter back and forth.. Then there was the whole fact that if you leaned even an inch forward you felt like you were going to plummet to your death on the field down below because of how steep it was. To make it more interesting, a guy who had just torn his ACL sat right behind us, crutches, brace, and all. Our backs still have bruises...

It seemed like ALL of the students who actually chanted and cheered were about 3 sections down from us. We had the geriatric Auburn section. At first we were a little bummed but we have many interesting stories because of it. For example, I sat next to a guy who HAS to be an older twin of a guy I know (don't question the fact that you can't be twins and be older, just take that at what it is) It was almost like I knew him already. They left at half time and then I was sitting by a lady about 80 years old. She was a lively ol gal - she got so into the game that on every play she would flail her arms over to me or hold my leg as if she was waiting to see a crash. It was hilarious - we were cheering and yelling the whole time. Way to go geriatric section.

We ended up winning the game 26-22 and the last 6 points on TN's end were scored at the last 2 seconds of the game, and that’s not an exaggeration. We should have blown them out of the water, but at least we won. We are now undefeated, ranked 17th, which is both good and bad. Good that we are doing so well, bad that we might now be seen as a threat, but ya know, what happens happens. We are awesome though. WAR EAGLE baby!

After the game we walked proudly among all the depressed vols fans and went back to Jeremy's apartment. We talked and watched an episode of something called Top Gear which was quite hilarious - take into consideration though that it was about 2 in the morning at this point, so I'll need to see another episode to correctly judge how funny this show actually was.

We went to sleep around 3 (I actually lasted the whole day - that my friends, is a miracle) and then woke up the next morning around 10? Someone was blasting a sermon from their truck outside...not sure if that is just an "easy" way to do church for some people or if the guy who owned the truck was doing it for all the people most likely passed out drunk from the night before. Either way, interesting way to wake up haha. We laid there for a little while longer (on our new air mattress) and then finally got up, packed up, and headed out. On the way out I mentioned maybe we should get breakfast at a place Jeremy had been meaning to go. (Yes, I suggested breakfast...I have changed so much over the years). We found it and pulled up - it was ADORABLE! It was a house that they had turned into a restaurant. We walked inside, I think I said "aww look at that!" seven times as we were seated. We looked at the menu (quite large and many choices) and I found what I wanted pretty quick...and then about 4 other things that sounded good to go with it. That’s how it normally goes. Both of us ended up getting chocolate chip pancakes and hash browns, and then I got a side of bacon to go with it (Yes mom, I did get bacon. Can you believe it?). We both got coffee too. The meal was SPECTACULAR. We both said best chocolate chip pancakes we've ever had. We will be going again next Knoxville trip, for sure.

Thats us sad to leave Knoxville. Well, I'm sad. Chad just looks tired/indifferent.

Best place to go!!!

After that we drove the long trip back home and got home about an hour before we went to out small group Sunday. Group was great as usual, we really like everyone there. Everyone gets along great and it’s always a weekly pick-me-up.

This week so far has been looooooooong. Its only Wednesday, and I feel like it should be Friday. I hate when that happens. Just drags everything out. I also got sneezed on in the face by a 2 year old that is sick when I was helping him take his shoes off. Now that’s exciting. If my next post is about me being sick, we know who to blame :)