Christmas!!

We spent Christmas time traveling a lot back and forth between Cheraw, Apex, and Durham. We started off spending Tues and Wed night with Mark and Renae and going to the UNC vs. Texas game on Wed night. On Thursday we got to meet up with the Moore's and Blalock's and go to Tyler's Taproom for dinner, stopped by Starbucks (of course!) and then go back to the Blalock house and play cards. It was really fun to all be together for Christmas (minus the Ferrell's) BUT we did get to Skype them in to our night for a little while! You were very missed! It was a super fun night filled with lots of laughing as you can see in the pictures below. The theme song for the night is "Sexy and I know it". On Saturday, we spent Christmas Eve Day with my family doing all of our gift exchange and food. It was really fun to have everyone together but unfortunately we had to leave early to come back to Cheraw for our Christmas Eve Service. It was such a fun trip traveling. I love this time of year and having the time off of school.

Feeling Baby B Kick! He sure was movin' after dinner!!

Watching a video of Ashley's friends belly move when she was really pregnant.. it was crazy!

While we played cards we had my phone with pandora playing and it played some pretty random stuff... but of course it was always music we could break it down to. This face is soooo Ashley.

Check out Kevin's face... I totally didn't even know he did that until I looked at these pictures. Sneaky.

Dance Party.

Can't keep it together....

Finally a good one...

Mom's house with everyone hanging out.

Me and my sweet nephew Logan. Hard to believe he is a Kindergartener!

Papa and Mom. Of course he was dressed in a red vest and green pants. With Christmas socks. Love him!

Me and Rich. A half- win. Eyes half-open...

Oh, the attempts of getting this picture. They were funny. I decided to put the final product.

Our church decorated for the Christmas Eve Service. Beautiful.

Kevin (Woship Pastor) Dan (Senior Pastor) and my cute hubby!

Thanksgiving in Roanoke!

Our tradition for Thanksgiving is to go to Roanoke, VA every year. We love spending time with the Harper family! This year it was a little different because we left right after my teacher workday on Wednesday and we were coming from Cheraw instead of Durham. It took a little under 4 hours to get from C to R. On Wednesday we came in to Cheri and TG's house and stayed with them like we always do! It is always so great to see everyone since we don't get to see them very often. The ongoing joke when we arrive is that TG calls me Julie because the first year I came he purposefully called me the wrong name the whole time and it stuck! He also introduced himself the first time we met wearing a gray mullet wig... everyone was cracking up and I had no clue that wasn't his normal hair!!!! We had a wonderful dinner that Cheri cooked with BBQ chicken, ranch chicken, potatoes, green beans, rolls...mmm! It was so good! Marshall and Patrick went to the local gym and acted like they just moved to the area and were thinking about joining... haha (since we've joined the gym in Cheraw and been going he felt he needed to go). While they did that I played cards with Cheri, Katie, Kevin, Ben, Megan, Doug, Karen, and Chase. We played a game called Scum that I've never played before that was a lot of fun! Then we watched the Duke basketball game at 10.

On Thursday, we were super lazy because we didn't end up going to bed until about 1:45 the night before and woke up around 9:30. Cheri cooked a big breakfast and Katie and I helped to make sausage poofs (I think that's what they were called). It was sausage and cream cheese stuffed in crescent rolls into little balls and then baked! They were delicious! We also had biscuits, eggs, bacon, sausage gravy...! Like I said, I was not lacking in the food department!! Thursday night we went over to Inez and Bob's house and had Thanksgiving dinner with the whole fam! Another tradition we have is that everyone brings Black Friday AD's and we all sit around after dinner and look at them and make lists of what to get the next day. It was crazy this year because some of the stores were opening at midnight so we left a little earlier to shop that night instead of the next morning. Marshall and I went to Old Navy at midnight and some people had already been there since 10:30 that night in line!! We got in with the 2nd wave of people and I was able to get a lot of the stuff I was going for! After Old Navy we went back to Cheri's and went to bed until about 7:45 then got up and went to Dick's and back to the mall to the rest of the stores! We got some awesome deals!

On Friday afternoon we got back and watched Christmas Vacation and took some naps and then went out to dinner at Cheddar's with everyone. That night we rented Horrible Bosses and watched it and then the Carolina game. It was such a long and relaxing Thanksgiving break! I always look forward to this time of no-stress, no-school, no-responsibility, and retail therapy through Black Friday! On Saturday, Marshall had been looking forward to going to downtown Roanoke to go to the Roanoke Weenie Stand. I've never been and it had been so long since he'd been that he was excited! Downtown was sooo cute! We walked around all the little vendors downtown and then hit the road back to Che--raw and got back around 5:00... what a wonderful trip! :)

The downtown shops and vendors

The weenie stand...

Look how cute!!!

Downtown area

The Dr. Pepper sign!

My new no-metal watch!!

Cheri and TG's house!

Me and Cheri

Marshall and Bella (or as they call her Meow-Meow... it just happened...)

Gooo Panthers!

I had the wonderful privilege of going to another Panthers game! This was a special game for several reasons: 1) It was Panthers vs. Redskins --I am a Panthers fan and Marshall is a Redskins fan 2) I got to see my mom who I don't get to see as often now that I've moved 3) My cousin Richard was coming to this game who I only get to see like 2 times a year! So, yeah! I was pretty pumped about making the trip to Charlotte! It was a BEAUTIFUL day! High of 70, sunshine... gorgeous! Me, Marshall, Mom, George, Richard, my Aunt Bobetta, and my Uncle Bash all were able to go to the game, which made it so much fun! I loved getting the chance to spend time with my Mom and Richard! We also had an interesting lady sitting in front of us who entertained Marshall, Richard, and I the entire time we were there. Needless to say, every time a song came on the loudspeaker she felt the need to stand up and shake everything she had! HAHA! Luckily, Richard captured this on video and sent it to my phone for me since he, in his words, "thought I might want to have for my personal library" - If anyone is interested in this video, I will be happy to share :) Anyway, here are some pictures from our trip...

Aunt Bobetta (her hair is growing back!), Uncle Bash, Mom

Me and Rich

Life in Cheraw

Well, life in Cheraw. Hmm. Where do I begin? First of all, we L.O.V.E. it here. It is certainly a small town, but there are definitely perks to living here. I think I could drive around and look at the historic houses all day. It never gets old. Next, We LOVE our church family here. They are so welcoming, loving, supportive, caring, fun. I could go on and on. If you have seen Friday Night Lights, I think of our town similar to Dillon, Texas. On Friday nights, everyone is at the high school football game. Yes, I did say THE high school. As in ONE. Yes, there are only a few choices of places to eat and we have to drive into Florence if we want any big restaurants. We do have a GREAT mexican restaurant that everyone just calls "mexican" haha... because it's the only one in town. A couple weeks ago I went and took pictures in our downtown area. It is such a cute little area and reminds me of Boone's downtown streets. Anyway, here is our life through pictures.

Our front door to our rental house. The summer wreath I made via Pinterest (love!) (please excuse myself in the door reflection...)

A view from one side of the downtown area. It's several streets. This is a restaurant called the Rack Shack.
Our favorite restaurant "The Rivers Edge". They make everything homemade to the butter, bread and peanut butter. Y-U-M!

Another view. They say in the Spring when the azalea's are blooming it is beautiful!

Another view outside River's Edge.

NWC

Last week we went to Carowinds and the National Whitewater Center in Charlotte, NC. It was a great trip, especially a great last trip for us with the youth of RBC. You can read more about the whole trip on Brooke's blog. Here are a few of my favorite pics from the white water rafting trip. As she said, I stood on the sidelines and took pics for several reasons. Last time we went to the NWC I went rafting, so I had done it before. On Thursday, I got a wart frozen on my toe (I know TMI) and it had blistered up so I couldn't possibly have stuck my foot under the boat to hold myself in. YIKES! Just thinking about that makes me hurt. Needless to say I consider myself a trooper for walking around Carowinds and the NWC with that giant blister (I have newfound respect for Kevin when he had his massive blisters from sun poisoning!). Anyways, without further adue... here are some of my favs...