Due to Inclement Weather...

For the last 2 days, I have been "stuck" at home due to inclement weather - what a shame! Austin Peay State University closed yesterday due to an ice storm and today due to a snow storm that passed through this morning. I am TOTALLY enjoying some free vacation time at home! What's even better is that the base shut down today so Jesse and I have the day off together! I wanted to show you pictures from yesterday and today - quite a change!

Yesterday's Ice Storm

Today's Snow Fall

Welcome to the Family!

This past Sunday, Jesse and I went to Brentwood Baptist in Nashville, TN for church to see my friend Katrina be baptized. Anyone that knows her will understand how much of a milestone this was in her life. I met her over 4 years ago in my Masters program at UTK. In the first class I had with her, she announced that she was an athiest. Gradually, we started to get to know each other and I adopted her as my editor of all my papers. She is incredibly intelligent and thirsts for knowledge so I knew that I needed to be prepared when I talked to her. We started talking more and more about my faith and church and I invited her to come with me one Sunday. She came and started asking even more questions about Christianity. She read many books and sought answers from several Christians. After graduation, she moved to Nashville for a job and had a friend invite her to a Bible study through Brentwood Baptist. Through this outlet, she made the best choice of her life and became a member of the Family of God. It was so amazing to see her come this far and make such a bold statement of faith. What's even better is that her entire family came for the baptism and not one of them believes in God. The seeds were planted! Praise God that He saved her - welcome to the Family Katrina!

What a Difference It Makes

What a difference it makes when you buy a new computer!!! After doing a lot of research and waiting for the right price to come around, we finally bought a new home computer. Both of our current laptops have had it, so it was time. I will have to say that the computer I have been using the past 9 years has been well worth the money. Yep - 9 years old! I had some problems with it the last few years, but the HP laptop my parents bought me for Christmas during college lasted all this time! That is one of the reasons we ended up purchasing another HP laptop. Because of the age of my laptop, you can only imagine how slow it was compared to a current computer. We got an incredible deal - my hubby did a great job on the research! I will have to say that it has one feature that I'm absolutely in love with (and if you know me at all, you will know why I love it) - it has a number keypad included on the keyboard portion of it! I am going to love doing our budget and the bills on this one - it was well worth the big purchase.

Happy New Year (a little late)!

As we get older, staying up late for the ball to drop in Times Square becomes less and less of a priority. We already tried going to bed early and setting the alarm so we wouldn't miss Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years Eve for the ball drop. This year, we thought, "Hey, now that we are in Central Time Zone, we can watch the ball drop at 11pm and go to bed early!" Not so much my friends. The network filled that hour with Sex and the City episodes so we just went on to bed. We woke up cozy in bed to 2009, and we are totally fine with that!

Cragwall Christmas

Disclaimer #1: Due to being sick, I was unable to join Jesse and his extended family for their Christmas celebration in Franklin, TN. SO, there are no pictures on our end from the day.

We went to Knoxville after I got off work Jan. 2nd for the weekend to do Christmas with Jesse's immediate family and to celebrate Karen's (Jesse's mom) birthday - Happy Birthday Karen! We were able to visit with Jesse's best friend Jeff and his wife Lindsay Friday night for some late night dessert at Perkins! Then, we spent the night at Jesse's parents awesome new house. On Saturday, we went over to my best friend Becca's townhouse to visit and do a little Christmas with them. (I'm SUPER happy they have moved to Knoxville!) We then did our Christmas with Jesse's fam that evening - we ate some Cragwall Chili and had birthday cupcakes for dessert. It was great to visit with everyone and watch them open the gifts Jesse and I got for them - that's our favorite part!

Disclaimer #2: Due to the craziness of being back at work before going to Knoxville, I was a bad daughter-in-law and left all of Karen's birthday presents in my closet at home. (Of course, Jesse didn't remember them either so it's not ENTIRELY my fault) SO, she will be getting her presents a little later than usual. Sorry, Karen!

A Country Christmas

A Country Christmas can simply be explained as Christmas in Florida at my parent's house. Mom goes all out with her decor and we do our Hardwick Family Christmas Traditions. Some of those include Christmas Eve with Ron and Connie Scheuchzer where we have soup and sandwiches and open gifts with them. The next morning, we always open stockings from Santa first in the family room while Mom starts the breakfast casserole. Then, we move to the living room where the tree is and open up gifts. Breakfast follows gifts and then everyone goes to take showers and get ready for the day. The girls help mom cook and we just lay around, watching "The Christmas Story" and other holiday movies on TV until it's ready. We have a BIG meal between 1 and 2 and then we lay around bloated for a good while sleeping and watching more Christmas movies. Around 7pm we all end up eating leftovers, including dessert which was an Italian Cream Cake this year! Our other tradition includes shopping the morning after but this year only Jesse and I ventured out into the crowds. Our newest tradition is picking on Lila, my parents new kitty (see below). So there you have it - our Country Christmas in FL!

Our Christmas at Home

Every year, Jesse and I end up going somewhere other than our own home for Christmas so we always do our own little celebration before the craziness of travel begins. We usually do a nice meal at home and then do stockings and presents to each other and of course our kitty, Callie. I wanted to show everyone our decorations this year in our new place, inside and out. Since we were gone to Europe for a large chunk of December, we weren't going to put up any lights. BUT, I couldn't stand it so I put some up on our banisters outside for sanity's sake. We gave Callie a new catnip fish and of course, she couldn't help not laying in the wrapping paper from our gifts!