good things to come

"Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come. It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come."
-Jeffrey R. Holland

I really should be studying, but I've seen this message mentioned in a couple different places today and thought I would post it as well. It is, as all of the Mormon Messages are, uplifting and powerful.

You can see the full talk here.

monthly update

Oh, hello there blog world. I'm sure you've been dying to know what we've been up to since it seems I've neglected to post my once-a-month post. Well, let me assure you that you haven't missed much.

Yes, that's a flip flop tan. They're trendy now, didn't you know?

About a month ago we took a short trip to Myrtle Beach and Charleston. While in Charleston we visited Boone Hall Plantation which was really neat (they filmed snippets of The Notebook there and, you know, lots of historical stuff happened there too).




We also attended the strawberry festival in Unicoi, TN to enjoy a little southern culture. We seriously need to take the camera with us everywhere we go because there are some great pictures to be made out here. Yes, you read that right. Out here in Tennessee we get our pictures made, not taken.

If I posted on this thing regularly, I would do a "you know you live in the south when" post once a week but let's be realistic folks, that's not going to happen any time soon.

Oh yeah, Jeff graduated and now is a master of athletic administration! Yay Jeff! And I started school which is another reason why this blog is neglected. I'd like to introduce you to my new best friends:



Actually, I really should've been studying instead of blogging, but procrastination was calling my name. I will leave you with this gem:

oh dear

Dear Spring,

Thank you for gracing us with your presence. We've missed you. Thank you for bringing back the warmth and the beauty into life. I wish you could stay forever.




Dear D.C.,

Thank you for always having things for us to do and see. Riley especially liked being a tourist and checking out the FDR memorial. However, she was not very fond of the gigantor replica of FDR's scotty dog and probably has nightmares about him. Don't worry though, we bribed her with treats in order to snap a picture. She'll thank us later. Also, thank you for the beautiful cherry blossoms. Unfortunately, we missed their peak but we got to see some nonetheless.

Dear girl walking up the stairs, thanks for ruining our picture.
(I took another one but Riley is cuter in this one.)

(The pictures below are Arlington Cemetery which we were able to go see with Jeff's aunt, Cheryl, when she came to visit D.C. in March)

Dear mom and dad,

Thank you for putting up with our nut of a dog when we come to visit. I'm not really sure why she loses control (of her bladder) when she sees new people. She just wants to be loved by everyone. She can be sane at times, I promise (see picture on right below).



p.s. Can you tell we love our dog? She's basically our child (bladder control problems, nuttiness and all).

future plans

Who would've thought?

Jeff got into the MPH, Hospital Administration program for round 2 of grad school. He'll graduate with his master's in athletic administration this spring.

He was also chosen to be a member of the President's Pride which is a "student service/honorary organization unique to East Tennessee State University" (quoted from ETSU's website). Over 100 people are nominated, 50 go on to interview and 25 are chosen.

This weekend he'll be headed to Cincinnati, Ohio for the first round of the NCAA tournament with the women's basketball team cause he's been such a hard working grad assistant. Go Bucs!

I'm so proud of him and all he has accomplished!

(p.s. How cute is this picture?)

I got into ETSU's accelerating nursing program for round 2 of my bachelor's.
(no comments on the picture please. yes, this is me, not a boy in pink overalls)

We'll both (hopefully) be graduating in December 2011. There is light at the end of the tunnel!
Hallelujah.

Riley has been accepted into a treatment program for hound dogs with ADHD and anxiety disorders. Do they make Xanax for dogs? Cause I think they should. Don't be fooled by this picture.

as usual

Well, here we are in the cold dreary months of winter. I’ve decided that I don’t particularly care for cold weather, and what I really mean by that is that I could really just do without the whole dadgum season all together. You know how some people like to have all four seasons and can't wait for colder weather when summer is blazing hot and vice versa? Yeah, I’ve come to the conclusion that I am not one of those people. The thing I do like about Tennessee is that we have days that are in the 50s interspersed among the freezing cold days. Where can we live that has three out of the four seasons? Cause I like the other three just fine.

Anyway, we haven’t done anything blog worthy for awhile, just the same ol’, same ol’.

Jeff has applied to the MPH program; he is finishing up his master’s in sports admin and is working hard as usual.

Lynn has applied to nursing school; she is working and trying not to tear her hair out as usual.

Riley is crazy as usual.

And it’s flippin cold outside.

But these two can always brighten a dreary day. A dog really is a man's best friend...right after his wife of course.

home for the holidays

We spent Christmas this year in Northern Virginia (or NOVA as some locals like to call it, but we try to refrain from using the acronym too much) with part of my family. Christmas isn't quite the same with a bunch of adults and we missed my siblings who have little kids, but I'm glad we got to spend it with family nonetheless.

We started out our visit with a trip to the Kennedy Center to listen to the Washington Chorus. Even though I was hacking up a lung (which I seem to have been quite a bit this year...I blame the nursery kids), it was a wonderful concert and a great way to get in the Christmas spirit.

We headed out to D.C. the next day and went to the Holocaust Museum. I just cannot understand how any human being could think it's okay to do what they did to people. How did they sleep at night? If you ever get a chance to go to D.C., I would definitely recommend this museum, just give yourself plenty of time as there is lots to read and take in.

We then ventured out to Ben's Chili Bowl for some tasty chili.

We celebrated Sam's quarter-of-a-century birthday. If you ever need a haircut and you happen to be in the Rockville area, Sam will hook you up...even though she has never been to hair school nor does she do it as a profession.

And we topped off our stay with a trip to the Washington D.C. temple.

I'm not quite sure how it got to be 2010 but here we are. Hope you all had a great holiday season and here's to another year and new adventures (to warm places!).

Attempt at craftiness

We might have been a little ambitious in our first attempt at craftiness but I should probably tell you that this one little stocking took us all night to make, and by us I mean both Jeff and I because if I had tried to do it myself it would have taken twice, if not three times, as long to do. Maybe perfectionists (on the verge of OCD) aren't meant to be crafty. I'm the one sitting there rereading the instructions a million times and cutting exactly on the line and wanting my stitches to be perfectly straight (which is dang hard to do by the way, especially on that crown part, as you can tell). And Jeff's sitting there saying just do it! He's the one who doesn't even pin the fabric together or read the instructions while I'm saying wait, wait, wait! And of course it turns out just fine. Yes, my husband can cook AND sew. He's very handy and multi-talented really. I won't tell you how long it took just to figure out that dang bobbin (thank you YouTube). Even though it took us forever to do, I think it turned out pretty good for a first attempt at being crafty, and we didn't even have to take anything apart or redo anything (I probably would have if was just me doing it).

Needless to say, we haven't really touched the sewing machine since. I got the idea from our friend Erin's blog (who is crafty). Here's the tutorial if you'd like to try it, just don't tell me how long it takes you to complete. We left off a couple things as you can see, but if I can barely sew in a straight line do you really expect me to know how to applique (or do it in less than a matter of hours)? I didn't think so. Maybe I should try something easier next time, something that only involves sewing in straight lines.



As a side note, you might be wondering why we chose UT fabric as neither of us attend UT. Well, we made this one for our nut of a dog cause the University of Tennessee's mascot looks like her, although she'd rather eat it than anything else (trust me, she already tried). UT's mascot is a Bluetick Coonhound and Riley is a Treeing Walker Coonhound, pretty close though.