Girl's Weekend in DC

Last weekend was our annual girls trip! This year we went to visit Becky B in DC... something that we've never done in nine years of getting together. Becky just bought a condo, so we were super excited to see that and the sights in our nation's capital!

We did do the tourist thing on Saturday and went to the Tidal Basin to see the Cherry Blossoms. Not at full peak, but close! It was a pretty nice day to be out and about. After that they fulfilled my request to go to The Container Store. I've only ever been able to shop there online and was dying to see the inside of one! The closest store to me is in Atlanta!


As usual we laughed a lot and played a lot of cards... Nerts to be exact! Next year is 10 years of Girls Weekend! Any suggestions on how to celebrate?!

Grandmom & Granddad's 60th Anniversary

Last weekend we traveled to Jacksonville, Florida to celebrate my grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary! My mom's whole family came together to celebrate. It was fun to have so many of us in the same place for a weekend.

Grandmom & Granddad

We had the whole family and some of grandmom & granddad's church friends and neighbors at the party. The cake above has their wedding picture on it.

After the party, we all headed to the beach for pictures. I haven't seen the "official" ones, but these are some of what we caught with our cameras.

Kelly, me, and mom (who has lost 41 lbs!)

These are 10 of the 13 "original" grand kids (not married in) with grandmom & granddad.

The weekend went by too quickly. Hopefully someone will get married soon so we can all get back together again!

Later this week I'll try and post pictures from girls weekend in Washington, DC!

Dinner With The Girls

The Bible study I'm doing with the girls from church just wrapped up another series. This time we did "No Other Gods" by Kelly Minter. As part of her "Living Room Series" it included recipes to fix each week. We weren't that together, so we thought at the end we'd make a few of those. At first we thought about doing it potluck style, where we'd each make something out of the book. The last week, though, we decided it would be fun to cook together! So here are some pictures from last night!

Our dinner included:
Bowtie Pasta with Chicken & Sun-dried Tomatoes (feta & olives)
Caprese Salad
"Paula's Tossed Salad" (with a rocking dressing!)
& Brownies

It was fun to cook together and everything turned out super well! I think everyone left with leftovers for lunch today too!

I apparently can only work on one blog...

So its been forever since I've blogged... sorry! Apparently, I can only handle one blog in my life and the business one has won out! So I'll do what Marta does when it's been a little while since a post, and recap a bit of the last month or so!

• Getting this business up and running has been time consuming, but we had our first job today! Friends of ours called us, but we're still counting it! Our first ad drops this weekend in Rutherford County, so hopefully the phone will start ringing soon.
• I hosted a fun Tupperware party a few weeks ago! I got it my stuff this weekend and have been playing with it today!
• Jeff's 39th birthday was the 6th of this month! He decided he wanted to go to Hickory Falls for dinner and to see Avatar in 3D. I've never been to a 3D movie and it was unreal! Absolutely stunning to watch! Dinner was yummy too! It was the first date night we've had in a while. Good movie, good food, good time!
• Wednesdays have been dubbed "no tv Wednesdays" here at our house. I'm usually spending time catching up on Bible study and Jeff typically reads. This Wednesday I spent an hour and a half on the phone trying to get the wireless modem I bought Jeff for his birthday working. It works now.
• Beginning yesterday I started volunteering at the Martha O'Bryan Center cleaning out their roughly 2000 sq ft store room. I'm going each Friday until I can get it organized. Good practice for me and something they desperately need done. It was good to see old friends too. One came in and asked what I had done wrong. He thought I had gotten a DUI and had to work off some community service hours. I assured him I was not in trouble and volunteered for the job. I'll post the before and after pictures when I'm finished. I still haven't even cleaned a path to the back 2/3 of the room.
• Last Sunday was the 10th anniversary of me moving to Nashville. Hard to believe it's been so long!!
• We've had more snow here this year than I can remember in the 10 years I have been here. There is more on the way tomorrow and I'm already over it. There are WAY too many hills to navigate around here and my 4Runner is the worst thing I've ever driven in the snow. I want my Civic back! I know I shouldn't complain though as mom & dad have had 70-something inches this winter... 40ish in the last week.

Hopefully you'll forgive me for the lapse in posting. Now that we have the wireless setup at home, I'm sure I'll do better. I just don't like sitting at the desk at home after sitting at a desk at work all day.

Christmas Fun...

(If this post makes no sense, its because I'm watching the VT bowl game while typing!!)

We had a super time celebrating Christmas with the Taylors in Mississippi last week. We left Wednesday morning and headed down. We got there within 30 minutes of everyone else. We really stayed in most of the time we were there, except to go to church on Christmas eve and out to see lights on Saturday night. As usual, Jeff and Abby played pretty hard. Instead of "Uncle Jeff" she called him "my Jeff" the whole time. We also ate lots of good food! The Taylors do fondue on Christmas eve and then they fried a turkey Christmas day. And it's not a holiday without a bunch of yummy pies made by Jeff's dad.

Christmas morning was a blur, but fun. Lots of presents!!! And Abby is now at an age that she can really have fun with it. She got quite a bit of fun stuff. Aunt Becky bought her fingerpaint!! I was kind enough to get the Crayola stuff that only shows up on Crayola paper though! We also introduced her to chalk & chalkboards! A little messy, but cleans up well.

The aftermath...

On Saturday night we drove a little over an hour to Mobile to see the lights at Bellingrath Gardens. We just thought there would be a few lights on some of the trees... not even close! It took us almost two hours to walk through and see everything. It was amazing! Cold, but amazing!

Sunday morning after breakfast we loaded up and headed back. The seven and a half hour trip actually went pretty quick. It was fun to spent that time with everyone.

Things Are Rolling!

We have been working really hard to have the new business up and running by January 1st and I think we'll make it! We still have insurance to get and a way to process credit cards, but that's it! Well, that's not it-- but its all we have to do before we can get cleaning. After that we have web design, advertising, etc.

So pray for us as we begin this journey! I'll still be working full time at my day job. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep working my four day schedule so I can have a day to help Jeff with bookkeeping and scheduling.

In addition to the blog, folks can follow us on Twitter too! www.twitter.com/taylorsolutions

We hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas this year! We're heading to Mississippi to spend Christmas with the Taylors. I'm sure we'll have lots more pictures to post when we get back. We always do when we get to hang out with Abby for a few days!

A Great Thanksgiving!

Jeff and I spent Thanksgiving in Florida this year with my grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousins. Typically when we go to FL, we take it pretty easy. This year we were out and about quite a bit. We left Nashville on Wednesday late afternoon and drove to Macon, GA where I scored an $89 hotel room on Priceline.com for $45! We got to Jacksonville around noon on Thursday. We threw Grandmom & Granddad in the car with the food they made and headed to the Smiths for a yummy Thanksgiving dinner!!! After dinner we went to the movies (a Smith tradition) and saw "Old Dogs".

Friday we got up and headed for the Jacksonville Zoo. It was fun, but pretty chilly for FL. Although it was probably in the 50's, we saw a few people in winter coats. I had to borrow one of Jessi's sweatshirts.

After the zoo, the boys went to the park to play disc golf. I tagged along to take pictures!

We also got to see Josh & Jenn's townhouse that they did a fabulous job fixing up!

Saturday we went to a huge craft fair at the convention center and came home to watch the Hokies kick UVA's butt!

We were sad to leave Sunday, but plan to go back in the spring!

It was great to see everyone!