Pre-Cruise & Cruise Day 1

We left Friday (2/6... Jeff's Birthday!) after work to head to Birmingham to begin our trip! We met up with Jeff's sister and brother and his family. From there we all drove to Jeff's parent's house in Mississippi on Saturday. We were wondering if our niece Abby would warm up to Jeff this time. At Thanksgiving, she was really leery about him. This time they were best buds from the start of the trip. As you can see below, she had him wrapped around her finger!

For dinner, Jeff's brother Mark seared some yummy steaks for all of us and Jeff's dad made a "bomb" for Jeff's birthday dessert. Its a wonderful homemade ice cream cake with oozy chocolate in the middle! Yum!

Sunday morning we all packed up and drove to New Orleans to board our ship, the Norwegian Spirit! We had an easy time getting there and embarking. We headed straight for the dining room to have lunch and then checked out our staterooms. Then we walked around on the deck to wait for the boat to sail away!

Below is a picture of us sailing away from New Orleans at sunset.

Our first cruise day, Monday, was a day at sea. The water was really rough-- the most rough day I've ever had on a cruise. By evening I was a little green, but managed through it. We spent the day eating good food, catching up on sleep, and learning our way around the ship.

Stay tuned for more...

Laughed so hard, I cried!

30 Hour Trip To Knoxville

This weekend I went to Knoxville to visit old friends from college! Evan & Marta hosted us Hokies for a fun weekend of catching up and eating good food! I stole this picture from her blog because it turned out so great!

In the picture... Marta, Evan, Elizabeth (with my new faux niece Caroline!), Missy, me (with Flat Becky B), Julie, Sharon & Drew. Kate, Evan & Marta's little girl, was asleep when we took the picture.

I had the idea to make a Flat Becky B since Becky Brittain couldn't make it. Marta, the PhotoShop wiz, made it and it was GREAT!!! We got some fun pictures of "Becky" hanging out with us!

This is Caroline (& Flat Becky B)! I stole this picture from her mom's Facebook page! Apparently I've gotten really bad about taking pictures. I think I took two while I was there!

How We Spent $$ This Christmas!

This year we decided to try and buy gifts in which the money would be put back into something worthy. I thought we'd share in case you needed some ideas for gifts this year!

We bought many of the ladies in our family products from Thistle Farms. Located here in Nashville, they take women who are living on the streets and teach them job skills through the making of all natural beauty and household products. Money from these products go back into the nonprofit.

For a few of the men in the family that like to cook, we purchased some soup and spice mixes from the Women's Bean Project in Denver, Colorado. They have all kinds of soup mixes, spice and chili mixes, cookie mixes, etc. As with Thistle Farms, participants in the program make the products and the money goes back into the nonprofit.

Our niece Abby got a "magazine" subscription for toddlers from the National Wildlife Federation! A new Wild Animal Babies board book comes about once a month.

And finally for my grandparents, we "purchased" one month of tutoring for an inner city child through World Vision.

Don't get me wrong... Walmart and Macy's still got a lot of our money, but it was a fun challenge to see if we could go a little nontraditional on the gift giving this year!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

We hope all of our favorite blog readers had a great Christmas. We spent ours in Maryland with the Foys this year. We really didn't do much of anything but get some very much needed rest and relaxation! Unfortunately, a death in the family made things a bit heavy, but it was nice to spend time with everyone.

Here's a picture of Jeff and I at my office. I had to work an event one Saturday night and used some Mexican food to bribe him into going with me.

As for New Year's, its been pretty quiet here. I'm on day 12 of some sort of cold/sinus infection thing that keeps me coughing. So New Year's Eve I was asleep by 9pm thanks to some TheraFlu! We did wake up to some fireworks around 1am, but rolled over and went right back to sleep! Oh well! Maybe next year!

"No Accumulation"

We knew we'd have some flurries on Thursday evening, but the weather people (even weather.com) said there would be no accumulation. Guess they define that a little differently than I do!

At 7:00pm it measured exactly 1" and continued to snow the biggest flakes I've ever seen until 9:00pm.

This is what I saw when I left for work Friday morning. The windy back roads we have to travel to get out to a main road were rough, but most melted by the time we got home Friday evening. There is still some snow in our backyard even today!

I'm On The Radio...

... Well, kind of! Part of my job that I didn't learn about until after I accepted was the fact that I am part of a radio show every Monday morning (unless there's a guest speaker and then I'm off the hook!). The TMA "Green News" is broadcast from WAKM AM950, Franklin's "hometown radio station"! Tom, the on-air personality (they aren't DJ's on talk radio are they?), the Executive Director of our organization, and I are on each Monday morning at 7:40am to talk about the latest environmental news and what's happening in Franklin (Williamson County) as far as its related. I was scared to death last week, but it went okay. I was stuck in traffic so they stalled until I got there! We talked about November being Lung Cancer Awareness Month and how air quality can, in a few cases, lead to cancer and tips to reduce air pollution.

I have a feeling this won't spark any new found radio personality talents deep within, but it makes for interesting conversation. I also feel comfortable talking about it since its only broadcast in Franklin and there is no online streaming!!

We also have a tv show on government access in Williamson County, but I've avoided it so far. I must have a face for radio!