EastCoastLove

One of my favorite things about Virginia is the four weather seasons you experience there. Each one of the four has its pluses and negatives, and i change my mind as to which one is my favorite. The spring has the lovely flowers and spring breezes, fall has the cool breezes and changing of the leaves, winter makes you want to cuddle and stay home, and summer gives a great environment of fun! Its funny one time i heard someone say that the birth of a new season means an end to another, speaking of weather or life cycles. Its sad to think of something dying, but it has to happen for the next thing to exist. This christmas season is coming to an end to make way for a new year. It was a great christmas and lends for a great new year. With the end of this year the beginning of another starts, 31 years of my life are behind me....who knows how many before me. Each year we get smarter right? haha i would like to think that i have learned from the events in my life, making me wiser. With this ...

Its Tuesday afternoon and i sit in the office and i hear the clock on my wall ticking. That is it. No one else is in the building and its ok with me. Although it would be quite nice if some work places closed down for a week til new years...oh wait they do! just not mine :) (and yes i have used up all my vacation time i am just complaining) So we spent a week in Va with my family! Had a blast at some great food, played in the snow and loved on my sister's family. It was a nice week, it makes it difficult when everything fits so nicely with them to come back all the way out here to texas. We keep trying to talk them all into moving out here, if i get my sis and her husband my mom the rest will follow. But we are thankful for the time we had. I would bore you with all the details but instead i will place highlight pics below....until next blog :)

I have never been a huge fan of TONS of decorations for the house. I had a miniature tree last year, but this year we didn't get one. We tried but it didn't work. So now the picture above shows the extent of our decorations. Stockings, manger scene and door sign. :) Scrooge? I don't think so its just not a huge deal to us to have everything decked out like its the north pole. That may change in the future, but i don't really think so. We celebrate with Kimmel's family tomorrow early morning, then the extended family that night and sunday we fly home to Va to hang with my family for a week! Very excited! :) Hope you have great plans for the holiday week too! I look forward to reading about them as we will be away! I will try to remember to post when we are gone...its hard when you don't have your own stuff :) Merry Christmas! :)

Last night i had my Christmas Piano recital. This sememster i had eight students that i taught. They did really good! It was fun! This time i had two students who were friends play a duet together. They loved it and did a really great job! I try to help the kids have fun with it, not just practice or yucky songs. I rent out a recital hall at Mr. E's Music store for them to play in. There is a grand piano in there for the students to play, which is a treat in my mind. Hopefully they will look back and have fond memories. :)

So yesterday was the big day of celebrating me living for 32 years. The weather was a perfect 71. The sun was shining, the birds were signing as i drove into work. The day goes on like normal. haha Went to home depot for a cheap lunch with the boys from work to 'celebrate' haha. Andrew picked me up when he was done for the day and we headed home where i opened some gifts he had masterfully wrapped. He got me a scarf, winter hat, socks and a pair of vans. He also made a slide show for me on our new computer...it was funny. An original paper story by Kimmel. It was a low key evening that was spent on the couch watching House, and Lie to Me. We ended the night with The Proposal, my new favorite movie. Sandra and Ryan just make me laugh! I guess as the numbers get bigger the celebrations get smaller :) I am grabbing a dessert with some girlfriends tonight so we can laugh and gabb. We are good at that! Kimmel's parents are taking us out to dinner thursday and then we leave on su...

I have a really close friend here who got sick this weekend. Didn't really know what was wrong and needed to go to the ER. I offered our babysitting skills saturday but her hubby wasn't back in from hunting and she was going to wait it out a bit. They have three adorable children that andrew and i would steal if we didnt' thing thing mind! haha So anyway last night her husband asked us to pick up the kids, take them to church so they can go to the hospital after he did some stuff at the church (co-worker) . We said yes what do you need! We arrived at 730 and loaded them up after chatting with my friend for a bit and went to church....it was a great morning and i loved spending time with them. Their ages are 4, 2.5 and 8 months. We did the bad parent trick of drive thru at mcdonalds for lunch after church, nap time, play time and snack time then parents returned. It was fun and exciting to take them to each class and hand them off to their sunday groups, then pick them up an...

Last night our church hosted the Shane and Shane christmas tour, with Bethany Dillon and Phil Wickham. It was so much fun! Bethany i know from her first album and she sang a couple songs from it. Phil Wickham absolutely was blown away by! It was just him and the acoustic guitar and he filled the whole 2,000 seat room! OH it was beautiful and it was all about our Savior! A wonderful time of worship! Shane and Shane seem to get better every time i see them. :) They were laid back, funny and sounded amazing! They did a couple of the christmas songs, but the others were my faves! hahah it is funny how that turns out. But if you like shane and shane you'll like seeing them right? They too lead you to the throne room and worshiped! it was great. I suggest you check them out if you don't already love them! All of them! Shane and shane have an amazing selection of CD's. They were selling them all in a 10 pack for $50 last night! My fave lately has been the pages one...check it out...

This morning Andrew dropped me off at Starbucks for my weekly visit with Niki, but it was about a half hour early so i got my drink and hunkered down in a comfy chair to read the Bible. I am reading thru Joshua currently and today was chapter 10. Growing up in church i have heard all the stories at least once in my life but i love how God totally gives you something new as you continue to seek and read his word even if you heard it over and over. Joshua is a book of battles, taking over the promise land then defending it. A great storyline for an epic film it truly is. I mean as i read today about God causing the SUN AND MOON TO STAND STILL IN THE SKY! Together! What? I love how just before it in verse 11 in the NASB it says that "the Lord threw large stones from heaven on them..." and THEN he stops the sun and moon so they can finish the job! Its amazing, surreal and unbelievable, except it is God and i fully believe. When you really think about the sun and moon stopping my...

Right at the start of our 'talking'/dating relationship Andrew brought me a gift from a weekend trip to Abeline to visit his friends at Hardin Simons University. He called and asked me if i was interested in having a cat? I replied what color is it? He said black. To which i quickly said YES PLEASE! :) i don't know where my affection for black cats came from. Sometimes i think it is attributed to the movie Practical Magic with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. Demonic though it is i really liked that film and they cats in it were too cute!! hhaahaha We named her Beckham after the English soccer phenomenon David Beckham. I thought it was appropriate due to our love of the sport and we were playing on a team together at the time. She is a really great cat. We have had our issues, and i declawed her late so some of the furniture has her permanent scares. She is a quirky kitty, but she is a snuggly kitty. I wanted to share some pics cause she is too cute! :) One of the funny q...

So one of my complaints of Texas is that it doesn't have a TRUE fall. Growing up on the east coast i was blessed with a wide colorful array of trees and cold snowy fun in december. Yesterday morning as Andrew and i drove out of our neighborhood i noticed the trees that line the entrance were beautiful maple trees that were brilliant orange and red and something in between! I was excited to see that and thankful that Dad gave me a bit of fall color...and snow yesterday...its crazy how he meets our small lil wants. :) He gave me three beautiful trees by our house that is a block from Beach St. Not quite a beach but he did put me by a beach! hahaha

if you have looked at this blog within the past week i have changed the background like four times. haha i can't seem to find one i really dig, so bear with me. I even picked one that my good friend Christin picked and didn't even notice! I am a space cadet! If you know of great back grounds or like this one give me your opinion and advice :) hahaha Oh boy!

This morning we woke up to a lovely sight! SNOW!! On the second day of december! That is just crazy talk for Texas! I felt like a lil school girl all over again! I made andrew look out the window, and took pictures of our back yard! It was light and fluffy! We loaded up the car and andrew dropped me off at Sbux so i could meet with Niki. As i sat there waiting, reading thru Joshua and journaling, Dad reminded me of the verse in chapter five that says "the manna ceased on the day after they had eaten some of the produce of the land, so that the sons of Israel no longer had manna, but they ate some of the yield of the land of Canaan during the year." I was super excited about the snow this morning and totally loved it. But i live in Texas the hottest state in America, not Chicago or Maine where snow is a daily occurrence. Do the people up north get as excited when they see the first snow fall? Just like the Israelites when they received their first bit of manna, after a while w...