April 2012

April was a busy month for me! The first week of April is Masters Week here in Augusta. The Masters is a golf tournament held every year at the National golf course and it brings thousands of people here. Traffic is awful and restaurants are packed but it brings the city a lot of money. All the schools here from elementary through college have spring break this week to encoruage residents to leave town to help balance all the visitors. This is the first year I haven't left town for at least part of the week. It was an interesting experience.

During Masters week, another golf course in town hosts a concert as a fundraiser. There's always a couple of small or local bands and then a "big name band." This year, the 2 bands I went to see were Darius Rucker (previously of Hootie and the Blowfish) and Corey Smith. This is me and Kristen, you can see the big crowd behind us!

And Daniel joined us after work!

Later that week, Daniel and I went to Columbia, SC with 2 other couples to see Red Hot Chili Peppers! This is Sarah, Tina, and me right before we left Augusta:

When we got to Columbia, we walked around downtown and then went to dinner. This is me and Daniel in front of a pretty fountain. I hate that the colors are weird!

And a cute picture at dinner:

Daniel and I also attended our friend Anne Marie's wedding in April. Here is me and the bride:

Anne Marie went to high school with Daniel and I met her in college. Here she is with her groom, Aaron:

Of course Daniel and I had to get a picture together!

The wedding was beautiful and the food was great! We had so much fun! April was a fun month with lots of events! I'm glad I'm not looking as pale as I was in the last few posts. May is up next and that means meeting baby Presley Rose in person!

March 2012

March was a pretty normal month I think. Daniel and I spent a lot of time at the lake, getting things ready for summer and fishing. Here he is with a catfish I think? Fishing is pretty new to me and I think it took until May for me to bait my own hook!

We got the yard landscaped with a Daily Deal thing (its like Groupon). It looked great! I love it when the roof, sidewalk, and driveway are all cleaned off!

Here's a couple pictures from our favorite place, Allie Katz:

These are obviously from different nights but it seemed like we were there every weekend for birthdays and other celebrations.

We also celebrated one of my favorite holidays, St. Patrick's Day! Not sure why I didn't take any pictures? Daniel and I went downtown and watched the parade and then hung out with his family all day. They are part of an Irish-American society, so it was a pretty big deal. We had a great time with great people and awesome food! I think that's pretty much all for March, kind of boring. I guess that's how it is when I can't talk about work and I don't have kids!





January and February 2012

I don't remember much going on in January and I have like 3 pictures for the whole month, so I'm guessing it was pretty uneventful! We had a friend staying with us during her divorce and she brought her 3 cats. Cooper wanted to play with them so badly and they just hissed at him! By the end of the month, they learned to tolerate him though!

February 2012

The 2 big things this month were Valentine's Day and the birth of my first niece! This is me and my friend Kristen from a random night out:

And of course, Daniel was there too:



Here are the beautiful flowers he got me for Valentine's Day:

We had a pretty low-key first Valentine's Day. He brought me flowers and I cooked spaghetti and meatballs and we just hung out at my house.

On February 24, my beautiful niece was born! My brother Philip and his girlfriend named their precious baby Presley Rose and she was 7 pounds, 9 ounces and 20.5 inches long. Here are some pictures from the hospital, proud Daddy already!

Sweet little newborn!

I can't get over how alert she was when it was time to go home!

I'm in love with her already! As I've mentioned before, my brother and Sydney live in Kansas City, MO and it is SO hard to be away from them! Sydney is a little better about sending pictures than Philip is but there is nothing like being able to hold her! My dad went to Kansas City for 8 days before Presley was born. She was due on the 18th and he ended up coming back to Georgia on the 21st, missing her by 3 days!  I think he went back up there for a quick visit a couple weeks later? I can't remember. That's what I get for waiting so long to blog!

That's it for January and February of this year. I would say 2012 started out pretty great! Coming up next: March!

It Has Been Too Long!

I got busy with the holidays and just quit blogging but I miss it and want to get back into it! I still read other people's blogs daily and I want to be a part of the blogging world! I see other people making lifelong friendships through blogging and I hope to be there someday. I guess I'll do a quick re-cap since November...

December 2011

Let's see, in December I turned 26 and started dating my current boyfriend, Daniel. Here we are at my housewarming party on 12.16.12 (2 days before we became "official" and 3 days before my birthday):

And here we are, ready to go out for New Year's Eve:

My dad threw a surprise birthday party for my step-mom. She was so excited and surprised!

 I decorated my own little Christmas tree, pink of course! One of these days, I'll need a bigger tree as my ornament collection grows!

Cooper went and met Santa at PetSmart. He loved him!

My handsome brothers on Christmas morning with Cooper and Lucky, my Grammy's dog:
Don't they look thrilled to be up early?

Cooper (mine), Coco (my parents' dog on top), and Lucky (right, Grammy's dog) after a long Christmas morning. Don't they all look like brothers?

My sisters and I did some Pinterest-inspired Crayon art, mine is the pink one of course!

We also threw my brother, Philip, a baby shower. I can't believe the only picture I took was of him with a baby cigar? He had a great time and got lots of stuff for the baby!





I guess I hit the important pieces of December. I enjoyed it because I got to spend a lot of time at home for my step-mom's birthday and Christmas. I'm thinking it was probably the last Christmas all of us siblings will be able to come home all at the same time. We are growing up and live further away and Philip has started a family now!

Thanksgiving!

I love Thanksgiving! Its so nice to spend time with family and friends and reflect on all the things we have to be thankful for. There is just so much to be thankful for that I could never write it all.

Of course I'm thankful for the normal things like food, clothing, shelter, family, friends, etc. But since I've started working for Child Protective Services, I have really started to reflect on my life and what a great childhood I had. Of course I suffered a major loss with my mom passing, but overall I had it pretty good. We had a nice house, drug-free parents, and although we weren't rich, we never went without.

Wednesday, I worked at the pharmacy (2nd job) for a few hours. I'm a nationally certified pharmacy technician and i have been working in pharmacies since I was 16. I enjoy it, so I work every other Sunday and sometimes when I have days off at my regular job. Anyway, I worked Wednesday and then packed the car and headed home to Peachtree City! That night, I went to a little get together with my parents and got to see a lot of my friends's parents and catch up.

Thursday, we had Thanksgiving lunch at home. At home, my dad, stepmom, sister, stepbrother, stepsister, baby brother, and Grammy (stepgrandmother) were there. My brother, Philip, couldn't make the trip from Kansas City, so we Skyped with him and his girlfriend. I miss him and hope he can make it home for Christmas! We had a great meal with yummy ham, turkey, mashed potatoes, corn, green bean casserole, squash, and dressing. That night, we all watched a movie and went to bed.

Friday, my dad worked on my car putting on new brakes and doing a "tune up." So nice that he can do that kind of stuff and I don't have to pay expensive labor charges at a mechanic. He spent a lot of time on it and I'm so thankful he did that. My brakes were pretty bad and squeaking alot, so I feel much safer now! After he finished, I headed back to Augusta.

It was a nice visit at home. Everyone pretty much got along, even the 3 dogs! I wish I had taken pictures so this wasn't such a boring post. I think my dad got some, so I will have to borrow his camera next time I am there to upload photos.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and that everyone took some time out of their day to say "thanks!"

Grandma's Memorial Services Continued

So I left off with Saturday's church services...

Sunday, we did more visiting with family, my stepmom flew home, and my dad, sister, brother, and I drove to Gilman, Iowa. It is a small, sweet little farming town that Grandma grew up in. My Grandpa George is buried there and Grandma wanted to be buried next to him.

The Iowa part of the family joined us at a cute little hotel that night and we did more visiting and more showing of the slideshow. We usually only see the Iowa family in July during our family reunions, so this year was a bonus to see everyone twice, even if it was a sad occassion.

Monday morning, we had the graveside service and buried Grandma's ashes next to Grandpa and said out final goodbyes. It was beautiful weather. The cemetary was so nice and incredibly old. We saw many graves from the 1500s and earlier! After the service, we went to a local church and had lunch. The ladies from the church were so sweet and cute and they kept saying how much they enjoyed making our family lunch. So cute!

These are some of Grandma's grandchildren: Andy, his wife Colleen, Mary, Ella, Hannah, Sean, and me at the church.

Some of the Iowa cousins and us: Daniel, his son Harris, Andy, Colleen, Mary, Ella, Sean, Hannah, me, Katie, and Christian. It was so nice seeing everyone twice in one year!

After lunch, we headed back to Kansas City to do more visiting :) Tuesday we flew back to Atlanta and I headed back to Augusta and worked Wednesday.

It was such a nice trip seeing friends and family, especially my brother Philip. We miss him here in Georgia and can't wait to see him and our new niece in February!

Grandma's Memorial Services

Way back on Columbus Day weekend (October 5-11), I went to Kansas City again...this time for Grandma's memorial services. My dad, sister Hannah, brother Sean, and I flew into Kansas City on Wednesday night. It was really late when we got there, so we went to my grandparents house and went to bed!

Thursday, my stepmom Debbie flew into town and we all did a little shopping. That night, we had the best pizza in the world (Pizza Shoppe) at my brother's girlfriend's family's house. My brother has moved in with Sydney, her parents, and sisters because they are having a baby. That's right, my first niece is on the way :) Hannah and I had met Sydney and her family in July, but the parents have never met each other. The dinner was very nice and we felt welcome and comfortable for what could have been a very awkward situation!

Friday, we did a little more shopping, visiting with friends and family, and just hanging out at my grandparents house. I don't really remember anything special about that day, so I guess it was uneventful. Makes me wish I would have blogged about this trip sooner!

Saturday morning, we had the church funeral for Grandma. Yes, this is the same Grandma who passed away in July. She was cremated and we scheduled the funeral for a holiday weekend so that everyone could travel to Kansas City. Grandma's daughters live in Texas and her sons live in Oregon. We live in Georgia and the rest of the family lives in Misourri and Iowa. The service was beautiful. My stepmom made a slideshow of photos from Grandma's 87 years on Earth. I think she is going to put it on a website...if she does, I will be sure to come back and put the link in. After the service, everyone went to my favorite Mexican restaurant ever, Mannys!

We all had a great time visiting, laughing, and remembering Grandma. We had the slideshow playing there as well and people really enjoyed looking at the pictures.

Here is Sydney, Philip, and Hannah (the twins) at lunch. I know you can't see Sydney's belly, but she looks great for being almost 6 months pregnant here!

Here is me and Aunt Emilie at lunch. Aunt Emilie is such a great person! She has lived with Grandma for about 10 years taking care of her and her house. Aunt Emilie and Grandma even moved to Georgia after my mom died to help my dad take care of us. It was so nice having family, especially my mom's mom and sister because it was like having a little part of Mom still with us. They moved to Texas in 2006 after I went to college, the twins were in high school, and my dad was remarried.

Here is my dad, brother Sean, brother Philip, Grandpa Tom (dad's dad), and Uncle Kent (dad's brother). My dad met my Grandma back when he was 16 years old, and his parents were friends with Grandma since then as well. It was so nice that so many family members from my dad's side came to remember Grandma, very sweet.

Saturday was a great day, good weather, and a wonderful service to remember Grandma. Next up...the rest of our visit to Kansas City!