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.
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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 :)

Big Broiling Bust

I had my first fail at an attempt of a new recipe this week. Granted, I haven't really tried too many new things that require something I've never done before, but still. FAIL. What was it? A simple pecan crusted chicken.

I had printed off a recipe online that sounded wonderful, however, didn't exactly read through the directions (A problem I face more often than I should ha). I just saw that the only extra things I would need to buy from the store were soy sauce and pecans. SIMPLE! Hooray!

As I started making the dish, I realized it said 'in a broiler...' I stared at it and was trying to figure out what to do. What was my solution? ... When in doubt, call Mom. Mom said you could do a home-made version by putting a rack over a cookie sheet to drain. However, the only rack I had was in the toaster oven. I took the oddly shaped rack and placed it on the cake pan (all the cookie sheets were dirty) and admired my DIY broiler. You mix honey and soy sauce for the beginning - that went well...then you dip the chicken in it and proceed to cover with pecans. As I dipped I realized it wasn't quite coating as well as what I thought it should...which continued on to the pecans. A few of them stuck, but looked nothing like what you would see in a magazine...or even close. SO I covered what I could, laid it on the metal concoction, and watched as the pecans slid off the chicken. I grabbed a few and sprinkled them in the naked areas and looked at it as I thought to myself "huh...this is not going to work". I carried on, however, thinking maybe it could possibly turn out somewhat decent.

The next step was to broil on each side of the chicken for 2 minutes. I put it in, set the timer for 1:40, and cleaned up some stuff while I waited. Timer buzzes, I open the oven door, and see my beautiful creation. My beautiful, black, burned creation. Lovely. 2 minutes in the oven and it burned. HA. I took it out to survey the damage - I turned one of the chicken breasts over. It was still raw on the other side. I contemplated " maybe if I pick off the pecans and just made chicken...hm..." and then realized that pecan crusted chicken was not suppose to be chicken with crusty pecans. Therefore the chicken dinner went gladly into the trash can.

It may take me a little while to be brave enough to try to broil something again. Grilled chicken sounds just fine to me :)

There ya have it. The one on the right is what burned and the one on the left is what I turned over to show the raw pecan un-crusted chicken.

By the way! New email - cristy.burris@gmail.com if anyone wants it. I guess the entire world could see that if I wanted so it should be interesting to see what types of emails I get, but I'll take that chance. That one is just mine so that if anything needs to be just between me and you (whoever you may be) it can happen! Chad and I still have the other one though, don't worry :)

Visit from the in-laws / birthday catch up!

had's parents and brother came to visit us! We were so excited because we hadn’t seen them in quite a while. TOO long :) They came on a Thursday night because Sherry works on the weekends starting Saturday so they planned on staying until Saturday afternoon. They arrived and we ordered pizza, showed them our beautiful box-filled home, and then just hung out the rest of the night. We got to catch up on a lot of things! Sherry brought pumpkin bread (YUUUMM!) and it was absolutely delish and made me soo ready for fall! Pumpkin bread = Thanksgiving in my brain because that is always my contribution to the dinner haha.

Friday morning we got up and headed to Atlanta! (We love this place, can you tell? ha). We went to the Marietta Diner first, to share our experience that we had the week before. Apparently, the menu changes between lunch and dinner, so it wasn't the HUGE menu we had, but still big enough to confuse ya. We talked up the spanikopita and then found out they don't serve it at lunch haha, of course. BUT everything everyone got was amazing, and we left full and happy :)

After that it was IKEA TIME!! We spent SEVERAL hours in there - Chad and I were looking for a desk and possibly a dresser but we weren't 100% sure. Needless to say after seeing one dresser, finding out it was out of stock, seeing another dresser, thinking maybe it was too expensive, not liking the other dresser we thought we liked, going back to the one that was maybe too expensive, talking about it, figuring it wasn't too expensive since insurance was paying for it anyways, and looking at it for another thirty minutes making a decision. THAT decision then led to "hmm well these bedside tables go perfectly with the dresser...." and then "well look at that bed! That goes with everything too...we need a bed too I believe" haha. So yes, we got the entire set. Dresser, tables, and bed. And we love it :) We haven't set up the bed but the guys put together the dresser and Chad and I put together the bedside tables. They look so great! Can't wait until they aren't surrounded by boxes so we can actually admire them...

That is our bedroom set!! ... just use your imagination to how it is set up haha

We also got a desk for Chad to do all his official business work. It is light wood and has2 drawers to the right of it. Looks wonderful - we got that all set up too! We also got a random spatula that we really did need, but you always have to pick up the random kitchen utensil you pass at the very end of IKEA that you know you can't live without. For us - spatula.

We headed back home and the next morning is when setting up the dresser started. With IKEA it’s not just a put-it-together-yourself store, it’s a try-and-figure-out-what-the-directions-with-no-words-mean-while-trying-to-put-it-together-yourself-and-figure-out-what-this-screw-is-for store. Sherry and I just sat back and watched as the men worked hard ha it looks GREAT! and is still holding up :)

Great visit but so sad to see them go! I can't wait until we can go up there again.
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My birthday was this past week! It went really well, thanks so much for all the wonderful cards and calls! It makes me feel so blessed for all the amazing people I have in my life. Yall are spectacular! Chad just couldn't wait until my actual birthday so the Friday before he gave me my gifts. I got an awesome Auburn shirt that I have been eye-ing for quite a while (bravo remembering that!) and then .... drum roll.... a massage package! AHH! Talk about perfect. I have only had one massage my whole life, and it was right after I got done backpacking Europe so my muscles were completely out of whack. I cannot WAIT to get this done. Now, if that wasn't perfect enough, Chad said he would do the couple package with me if that is what I wanted (sorry Chad if you didn't want to tell the entire world this, but everyone will think it is sweet. its ok). And of COURSE I wanted that. That'll be so cute! Like on the movies when there is a montage of everything the couple does together and there is a 5 second clip of them laying on massage tables on the beach looking into each others eyes (cue the aww)...except without the beach and the whole 'being in a movie' part. So sweet :)
I got lots of very very sweet cards too which I always love to save and just randomly look at. I have a whole box of them...No, I'm not a pack rat like my dad. Hush Mom.

The Friday before my birthday my parents took me out to eat. It was a place called Joe's Italian (are you completely shocked it is Italian? I bet you are). I was excited because they had said how good it was, but it was my first time to get to go. We got there early and got seated quick - we saw Joe sittin outside on a bench. The classic old, heavy-set, Italian man that just looked Italian, you know? SO cute! The entire place was just so cute. Half the people there you could tell were family or related somehow. That Italian look was just promintent in a bunch of them. There was even a little old Italian man playing the accordian! He was in the black and white striped shirt and tilted hat and red scarf - just like in Italy! I kept hearing Italian phrases being shouted too. Ah, my heart melted a little. I got alfredo of course and it was spectacular. Just so creamy and perfect! We got bruschetta as an appetizer that was wonderful, except they put a whole lot of garlic on there that we had to scrape off because it was so intense haha. Chad got some Chicken Parmesan that was one of the best I have ever tasted. Simply delicioso! So we were getting close to being done and one of the waiters comes over to me and is clearing my space, and then kind of pushed the table beside us back and just stood there looking around which I thought was a little strange but didn't think anything of it. He then mumbled "as you can see I'm clearning a space" ... and then all the waiters and waitresses were suddenly in that space forming a semi-circle around me. The guy playing the accordian was right behind me - they all started up and sang happy birthday and then continued to clap and dance to a classic Italian song as my face continued to turn red. They placed a huge piece of chocolate cake in front of me (which I wasn't about to turn down, despite how I was complaining I couldn't eat another bite about 2 seconds earlier). So all but 2 people left, but the ones that remained were 'Mama' and another waiter. Mama then proceeded to dance and then motioned for me to stand up and dance with them both. YIKES! haha But I did it! I clapped and bounced a little to the beat. She then motioned to turn around - I did. Motion to shake my hips - I did. haha it was quite hilarious and everyone in the entire place was clapping around and watching. Had the lights been brighter, you would have been able to see that my face was the color of Chad's tomato sauce on his plate. (...that was not a very good description, but gets the point across I suppose). SO needless to say, it was a memorable, enjoyable evening and I have found my new favorite authentic Italian place!

This past Friday I went shopping with my mom to pick out some boots because I decided to brave up and try that style this year.  We actually found a pair in black and brown that I really liked! I will be showing those off as soon as it gets cool enough to where I'm not sweating at the mere thought of going outside.

This past weekend we took my Dad to his first SEC football game! Auburn vs. Ball State (intense, I know). It was a lot of fun though - it rained almost the entire first half but it wasn't anything unbearable. Chad and I had bought some rain jackets that day just incase - and they were worth every penny, let me tell you. The beginning of the game was a little scary because of how bad we were doing (fumbled in the first 5 seconds) but then, of course, we brought up our game and won it 54-30. Great game! Dad and Kevin both enjoyed it, and it was fun being able to bring them to their first Auburn experience. WAAAAR EAGLE! HEY!

Before we headed down to Auburn we got to go on a shopping spree at Macy's because of a gift card Chad won for work because he broke a sales record! How cool is that? He got 4 new pairs of slacks, 2 new pairs of shoes, a jacket, and we still have a bunch left over. He is blowing everyone away with how well he is doing! I always knew he would be perfect for it :)

Overall life is going great! This week my grandparents (Dad's parents) are stopping by and we get to go to Joe's again! Hooray! No birthday dance this time - and I'm OK with that. This weekend Chad and I were able to get tickets to the Auburn vs. TN game and so we are incredibly pumped about that. Chad's best friend (best man at the wedding) goes to TN so we will get to see him and are excited about that too :)
Upcoming months...I am ALREADY excited about Thanksgiving, and cannot WAIT for Christmas. The minute they start playing the songs on the radio I'm not going to turn it off until December 26th. What I'm even more excited about is getting decorations for fall/winter! I guess we should figure out WHERE we will be living before I get too excited but still. I'm excited.

Picture Time!!

birthday cake from Mom!

Chad and me at Auburn vs. LA Tech

Braves vs. Reds game!

Braves vs. Reds :)

Marietta Diner!!!

Water, Water, EVERYWHERE (continued...)

OK so where did I leave off? Oh yes, suspensfully is where. So here we go.

We had had a week of craziness but finally it was Friday. We had plans for the weekend we were super excited about, and it had been a week since we were out of the flood. Whew. I get to work, doing my job, la-dee-da, and then I get a call from Chad.
Our kitchen was flooded. What? Did you say flooded Cristy? Yes, yes I did. The dishwasher (BRAND NEW DISHWASHER in our BRAND NEW apartment) was broken, and had leaked water all over the kitchen. Lovely. He said it wasn't anything horrible but 'ha-ha' we are flooded again. What luck, right? oh no, that’s not even the worst part...not only had our dishwasher flooded but then our hot water heater broke and our carpet all around that was now soaking wet. Sound familiar? Oh yeah, that happened the WEEK before...


Yep. Chad was sitting in his recliner and all of a sudden heard a trickling noise. He got up to see what it was about and stepped in soggy carpet (I'm getting so sick of that...). The thing had busted and was leaking everywhere. Chad started filling up a frying pan (the only thing close to him to pick up water) and filling it up and dumping it out like a sinking boat. This is when he called me saying "You need to come home. Our apartment is flooding again" and my response was a slight laugh followed by "yeah right" followed by shock followed by anger...and on and on haha.


I leave work, half upset, half laughing at the fact that we are dealing with this again. I called my friend Lauren because we were suppose to meet for lunch, and I said "Ok I'm gonna need to cancel on lunch...our apartment is flooding again" and she had about the same reaction I did. She offered to come to our apartment and see if there was anything we could do because she was already on her way. We all met there and I just laughed. Oh this shall be a great story one day...

The maintenance guy was there fixing/draining/drying everything so we decided to go ahead and go to lunch since we hadn't eaten yet because of all the drama. We went to mellow mushroom and got to hang out with Garrett and Lauren! They were going to look at churches for their wedding (this is the one I'm going to be Married Maid of Honor in...yes, I changed the name. Matron is too old sounding) and so we discussed all their options. Lauren had sheets all organized out with times, prices, places, pro's, con's, etc. Oh the memories :) We did a few things we needed to do and then went back home ...to our apartment. Everything was back in place, or at least looked like it. It had obviously been wet-vac'd but it was STILL soaking wet. Yes. We let out a sigh, looked around at all our boxes, and then packed for our weekend away from it all.
Saturday morning we headed out to go to AUBURN! We had tickets to the first game (vs. LA Tech) and we were staying with my friend Craven at his apt there (his is NOT flooded, don’t worry). We got there and walked around with Craven for a while, went to Tiger Rags (a must...t-shirts, souveniers, etc). I got a T-Shirt because apparently if you sit in the student section, you are supposed to wear orange because of the slogan "All Auburn, All Orange" and I had on a navy Auburn shirt...of course haha. But you know me and t-shirts, I love 'em :)
We went back to Craven's and hung out until game time (actually about 2 hours BEFORE the game, but you have to go early if you want good seats). We went and it was awesome. People were everywhere, pumped up, in their all orange (thank goodness I switched. don't wanna be that girl). The game was amazing. We were yelling all the cheers just like we were true Auburn-goers. Waving our shakers in the air, spelling out A-U-B-U-R-NNNN! Fantastic. We also got to witness the longest play in AU's history. History folks, history. After the game we went back and watched the rest of the Alabama game and then went to the famous Momma Goldberg’s Deli - they've opened a few in Birmingham but there is just nothing like the good ol original. Went back to Craven's and I went to bed (party pooper, I know) and Chad and Craven and his friends stayed up a while longer. The next morning we woke up early (when can I EVER sleep in??) and headed to HOTLANTA again. We had tickets to the Braves game at one and we got there just in time to grab some quick ballpark food (woo hoo!) and take our seats. Now, we walked up to our section, and it was getting filled quickly. The tickets we had for that section were on a 'special' online so EVERYONE had been buying them. We took one look at that section on our left, took one look to the empty section to our right, and had a seat there instead. Turns out that was genius. The left section was PACKED (minus our seats) and our section stayed pretty minimal the whole time. I was even able to stretch out. Wooonderful. The game was a good game to watch, we ended up losing 4-2 but we did see 2 team members collide in outfield which was definitely a first for me. I also saw my first (live) homerun and my first extra base hit. Overall very historical as well! ha. Historical sports weekend in my life for sure.

Side note about baseball the game. I had on a tank top, and had planned on buying a braves t-shirt but couldn’t find one. Anyways I got completely burnt and was miserable sleeping that night haha. My tan line of the scooped neck tank top is hilarious.
After the game we headed to the oh-so-famous Marietta Diner. This place has been raved about by the ingenious food critic, my dad, for quite a while now. Just walking up to the place was impressive. Classic diner look to it. We walked in and got seated quick and then looked at the menu. Now, saying 'menu' doesn't even describe the magnitude of this booklet. Imagine a normal menu, one, maybe two pages, and stick 4 of those together, and that is the ONE menu here at this diner. There is every single type of food you can imagine on there. Breakfast, dinner, desserts, Greek, Italian, burgers, steaks, it goes on and on. Now, being someone who can't even decide what her favorite color is, this was a difficult task for yours truly. I finally decided on the chicken fettuccini alfredo (I really branched out...haha) and Chad got the chicken Florentine. They were both phenomenal!! Ugh...im getting hungry just thinking about it... Before we even got our entrees we got bread and spainikopita which was SO GOOD. Chad almost stole mine from me because he eats so fast and was done with his before I even ate 1/3 of mine.

After that we went to our hotel we had checked into earlier that day (that the apartment complex paid for thank-you!) and decided to rent one of the ridiculously overpriced movies. We rented 'Away We Go' because we had heard it was pretty good. If you have heard this, disregard that and only hear this- that movie was awful. Wouldn't have even been worth renting from a Red Box, let alone paying $14.95 at a hotel. Don't watch it.
Oh yeah, we did take home a piece of cake from the diner. It was called chocolate suicide. Doesn't that just make your mouth water and your heart melt all at once? And it was like 3 times the normal cake size too. No pansy cakes at Marietta Diner, no sir. It was deeelish.


Monday was the day to drive home (aww) but we were going to make a stop at Discover Mills (yay!) which is a HUGE mall with tons of stores in it. However, as we were getting ready to leave the parking lot Chad says "Ok, lets get out of the car" after squishing something on his seat. I can only say I semi-freaked at this thought. Now, I'm going to let you in on a secret if you don't already know this fact about me - I am Deathly afraid of ants. Before you make fun of me, I KNOW this is a completely irrational fear. I know. However, I just can't shake it. They absolutely creep me out. Bleh. Ok back to the story. So Chad had squished one ant, only to find a whole army of them in his truck. We spent the net 30 minutes going inside the hotel, getting a cleaning lady, spraying down the truck, and calming my nerves. I'm itching right now thinking of it...ugh.
OK! On our way to Discover Mills! We spent a few hours (yes, hours) at the mall, replacing some tennis shoes and clothes destroyed by the flood. It was a lot of fun. My hubby is such a trooper. Not only does he not complain (too much) when I'm trying on shirt after shirt after shirt after shirt, to only come out and say none of them worked, but he also is glad when I do find something I've been looking for or something that looks pretty good! AND he likes shoes :) HOORAY! The perfect man! haha It’s just nice to not feel like I'm dragging him around while I try and find something :)


Done with my lunch break again! Still have to update everyone on the WONDERFUL IKEA trip we had with the in-laws! Man I love that place! To be continued ... again ...

Water, Water, EVERYWHERE

Good Grief do I have some catching up to do...here we go

OK. So last week we were surrounded by clean up crews, apt managers, other homeless people as we all tried to figure out what to do. I got home from work and the rest of the day was spent simply sorting out all our options. The apartment complex finally offered us another apartment (AFTER offering everyone else one and ignoring the fact that we had no where to live) and so we took some random essential stuff over to it. Now when we first looked at the apartments this exact one is the one we wanted. (weird? and no we did not flood on purpose just to get this one...) It is a corner one, bottom floor, bigger living room, kitchen, dining room, and 2nd bedroom. Yep, we were pretty excited. SO we moved our bed over so we would at least be able to sleep there that night. The next day we woke up about 6:00 AM. ON A SATURDAY. What happened to sleep-in on Saturday? No idea. So we are up and the cleanup crew/packers/movers were suppose to be starting at 7. It was 7 and no one was there yet - shock. We went and picked up some doughnuts for everyone (here is a doughnut! ... don't break our stuff) and then they came a little later. From then until 11 that night we were moving. Mmhm. ALL DAY LONG. They brought in boxes, tape, packing paper and suddenly started pushing everything in boxes. They started with our room and were just flyin. BOOM there goes the lamp, WHOOSH there go our bathroom goodies...our entire closes was covered in plastic ready to be transported, boxes were being carried out continuously after they would finish. They got done with that room and then almost as soon as the last box was out, the demo crew came in and RIPPED up the carpet, sliced out the walls, and our bedroom suddenly looked like no one had lived there, ever.
Mom and I were trying to help pack everything up but the lady 'in charge' of all of that just seemed to gripe at us every time we did.
"Hey what can I help with?"
"you can pack up the dishes if you want"
"alright" ...(packing dishes)
( a few minutes later) " wait wait wait why are you doing that? you have to write the names of blah blah blah on the boxes and write the box amount on my piece of paper!"
...how in the world was I suppose to know that.

So we basically just stood around looking like idiots turning in circles, maybe picking up a box here and there to look like we were helping haha. We did run stuff back and forth to the new apt (which is a few buildings down) so that was good I suppose. I was SO GLAD she was there though because otherwise I would have felt so ridiculous haha. Thanks for being helpless with me mom :)
We finally got all that over with, everything packed up, everything moved, everything final. And we weren't going to have to pay - hallelujah. WHEW, finally done...so we thought (that always ramps up the suspense, doesn't it?)

Sunday we unpacked forever, and still barely made a dent in all we have left to do. Boxes are stacked EVERYWHERE. We did get most of the living room and kitchen done but as far as anything else goes...well, boxes still dominate.
The rest of the week went quickly. Monday I didn't feel well when I got home - nothing big just exhausted and a tiny (hence the tiny) fever. So that night instead of unpacking we just chilled and watched a movie because I was just so incredibly tired. The next night we unpacked a little but had no motivation. It is just overwhelming. I mean who really gets excited about that? YAY! BOXES! Ok I can understand setting everything up in a brand new house or at least a new place, but to move a few hundred feet down into basically the same layout? Not very exciting. The next night was church, next night after that was 'Chuck Night' (we get together with some people and eat and watch the show Chuck from ABC), and then there was Friday...

(* I wrote this on my lunch break so i will post again when I get home tonight!! haha or maybe I just wanted to keep the suspense growing...its working isn't it...)

A Rude Awakening...

...literally! This morning around 5:30 we woke up to a knocking at our door. Ok - now let me explain what kind of 'knocking' i mean. We woke up to a cop-knock, you know, the huge "BANG BANG BANG BANG OPEN UP!" kind of knock, not the "hey im your neighbor and have a question" kind of knock. Chad jumped out of bed and I sat straight up thinking someone got murdered or we got framed for something we definitely didn't do ha. From the room I heard the guy say the apartments around us were flooding so we needed to get all our stuff off the floor. 'Weird' was my thought and I got out of bed to put my robe on...left foot hits the ground...SPLASH. I look down and there is water everywhere. It covered my foot but not over my ankle. I couldn't believe it. I put the robe on and then talked to the guy about what happened. Apparently a water line or something broke and just started flooding us and the crawl spaces around us. We quickly started packing everything up and putting it in bags and boxes and moving to higher ground. We had about 7 firemen come in and offer to help. I was in the closet packing up shoes (no I'm not one of those people obsessed with them but its just where I was at the moment so hush) so they offered to help. Now right next to me was our laundry pile. Yep, they got plastic bags and started putting our dirty clothes in bags. How embarrassing. HOWEVER, just about a week ago we had laundry everywhere (literally, everywhere) because we were just saving up to do one day of huge laundry, and all I could think about was how HORRIBLY EMBARRASSING that would have been. Wet, dirty, muddy clothes ALL over the place. Whew.
After we got most of the stuff on 'higher ground' (aka our couches and counter tops ha) then they came in with a ghostbusters-like machine to suck up all the water. They helped with that and then went on their way to the other apts. 2 down from us the guy had water about a foot or more deep. There was mud, rocks, FLOWING water everywhere and he had a brand new MAC book and electric guitars and everything that got absolutely ruined. We were extremely lucky. All the firemen told us that as soon as they came in our place after being at the other guys.
So we spent most of our time looking at what had been damaged, calling our insurance company, talking to our apt manager, etc. We JUST got renter's insurance about a month ago- thank goodness for that, right? We are in the middle of finding out how to go about everything - I had to come to work today so Chad is out there figuring out all the messy details of what needs to happen. We aren't able to stay there tonight for sure, as far as future plans, no idea. We'll be staying in a hotel somewhere and then I guess deciding what to do from there. Who knows where life will take ya, huh! The big man upstairs apparently thought our life was getting too boring and decided to give us a little adventure :)

I'll keep ya informed with updates but for now we have nowhere to live! Hm...haha

Unreal

I'm not gonna lie. I have been dreading writing this blog. Even now I am staring at the screen wondering what I could possibly write about this last week. I guess I'll just start with the facts.

On Thursday August 6th, around 11:30 PM, one of the best men I have had the privilege of knowing in my life passed away. Dan Baxter had gone in the ER that Sunday and they found out he had an aneurysm and an enlarged aorta. This news was reported to us and Monday night Chad and I headed down to the hospital and saw him. He was the same ol Dan just in a hospital bed, not able to really do anything. This fact alone was hard enough on me. I cried as we were leaving the hospital - I have never experienced anyone close to me, or even not close to me, dying or even in the hospital with anything serious. It was just unreal.

Tuesday we headed back down and took some cookies and things and hung out for a little longer. Dan looked a little more tired, but probably just because he had his glasses on. There were a lot of people in there visiting him. We all sat around, breaking all sorts of rules with out food brought in from everywhere and having about 7 people in the room when you are suppose to only have 2 at a time...whoops :) We were even told to 'keep it down' once. That's when we decided to head out haha. The next few days are still a blur....

They sent him home Wednesday and one doctor had said he needed to schedule surgery asap, one doctor said just sometime within the next 5 years...so we were all telling him to go to UAB for a second opinion and, sorry other hospital, but better care. SO they sent him home, and ended up going to UAB Thursday. Honestly all the details are blurry but what ended up happening was that somehow he went septic, and started going downhill quick. Late Thursday night Mom called me saying they were headed over because he wasn't doing well. I hung up the phone and layed in bed, then asked Chad if we should go. I just felt like we should. We got back out of bed, got dressed, and headed to UAB. As we were walking in my heart started pounding more and more. At one point I had to stop because it was like the possibilities hit me all at once. We turned the corner and my Dad was standing there. He gave us the news. Tears in his eyes he looked at me and told me "he didn't make it". I have never had that type of cry before. It was an emotional experience that I don't want to ever have to relive, but know that is far from reality. The Chaplin nurse came over and asked if I was his daughter - I must have seemed like I was. And in a way, I will always consider him my second dad. That's exactly what he was to me. From the first time I met him I had always had a great respect for him, and he was always the one asking me questions, challenging my faith, and making me think about my life. He was an exceptional man.

I didn't sleep that night, I don't think a lot of people did. The next day was my Friday to work and I went in for about 3 hours and then had to go home. I went in waves of emotions. Over the next several days all of a sudden it would hit me what all this actually meant, and I would burst into tears for a few minutes, and then it would all go away because none of it seemed real. I went back and forth and back and forth with that. Saturday my anger from the entire situation decided to explode out onto Chad after getting completely lost and driving an hour the wrong direction. Everything just poured out but I think that needed to happen. (haha sorry though Chad!) After that I wasn't so much back and forth with the crying, although I did cry several times in the next several days. Church Sunday was tough. We talked about Dan, and sang some songs that were picked out weeks in advance but went perfectly along with the situation. If you know it, we sang 'I Can Only Imagine' which talks all about how it will be in heaven. That is when I balled during church. However, I wasn't crying because I was sad for Dan. I know he is in Heaven, rejoicing, holding his baby Brooke, and singing at the top of his lungs. I know that. I was crying a selfish cry because it is going to be tough for us down here. For his family. For my family. But at the same time, I know he is happy, and I know I will be able to see him again one day.

Tuesday was Dan's funeral. Again, I've never been to one so I had no idea what to expect. My dad was one of the speakers and I know it was incredibly hard on him. Dan is his best friend. They were hilarious together and knew everything about each other. And Dad gave an incredible speech that pointed out every aspect of how great of a man Dan was. He even mentioned how he helped 'interview' Chad as we were dating :) great memories. There were so many people there. So many. Seeing everyone impacted me so much because it made me want to touch that many people in my life like he did. Everyone filled up the entire auditorium and there were people standing in the back because there weren't enough chairs. How awesome. Dan, you lived your life wonderfully.

Afterwards we all went to the grave site and I just have to mention one of the things that happened. It was pouring rain and everyone was under a tent. My Dad started praying and right in the middle of it, right as he said how much we will miss Dan - a HUGE crash of thunder exploded right above us. I just know, no doubt in my mind, that was God. NO doubt.

The days after the funeral have been tough. Everyone else is going about their business, normal activities, etc. It will never be completely 'normal' again for us though. When driving home from work, or going to sleep at night, I think of Dan and really how much he meant to me. And still means. I will never, ever forget him and will love him till the day I see him again in Heaven. And I will do my best to be the kind of person he was. One that shares his faith, shines his spirit, and shows his love for God wherever he goes. Thank you Dan for the impact you had on my life. Thank you so much.