I Am Thankful...

This year's Thanksgiving left me feeling full and thankful!  I took off of work Tuesday and Wednesday so I could go down to Newnan early and have some time to relax and bake with my mom.  It was a great break filled with lots of family and friends - Mom, Maggie, and I went to LaGrange to visit Tiffany and Hayes and Charley and Molly (first cousins and their children) and almost got caught in a tornado, we celebrated Keith's (Kevin's brother) birthday at Georgia Shrimp Company in Peachtree City (yum!), baked lots of pies and delicious macaroni and cheese (you must make it - http://www.marthastewart.com/271998/perfect-macaroni-and-cheese) and other goodies with my mom, had Thanksgiving lunch at Kevin's grandmother's house with lots of family, Thanksgiving early dinner at my parents' house with my grandparents and a few family members who live in Alabama whom we don't see often, late night visit with Brianna and her family at her parents' house, visited grandparents in Alabama where we got to hang out with my cute almost-two-year-old cousin Reese and watched the GA Tech/Georgia game (darn!) and the Alabama/Auburn game (roll tide!), drove up to Buckhead to serve in Waumba Land and got to hear all about our little 4  year old's Thanksgivings (so sweet!), drove back down to my parents' house to see my cousins whom I hadn't seen in a long time, picked out our Christmas tree in Newnan where Kevin's dad sells them for the Optimist Club, and finally, drove back up to Atlanta and crashed!  I wouldn't exactly say it was restful but it sure was fun :)

At my parents' house we went around in a circle and said what we are thankful for...it is funny how every time this happens with any of my family, everyone is sooo thankful for Kevin!  I love it and it warms my heart but it is kinda humerous.  Finally when it got to my dad's cousin Joe's turn, he said something of the sort "well heck I guess I'm thankful for Kevin!  looks like we need to build him a shrine in the yard!"  Haha...but seriously, I am thankful for him too :)  One thing Kevin said in his "I'm thankful for..." spiel stuck out to me and has been on my heart for the past week - "We have more than we need and I'm thankful for all that we've been blessed with..."  We have more than we need?!  For real?  In the hustle and bustle of saving for a house, saving for a car, saving for Christmas, saving for a trip to Europe, sticking to a budget so that we can save for all these things and not spending too much on eating out, concerts, clothes, make up, ahhhh - it is hard to feel like we have more than we need!  It is something I know is true and certainly need to remind myself of more often.  Thank you Kevin for the reminder!  This Thanksgiving I sure felt like we have more than we need, and I'm thankful for that.

A few pictures to share from Thanksgiving week...

This is my cousin Tiffany's little boy Hayes.  He is sooo cute and such an entertainer.  I must also mention my cousin Charley's little girl Molly that we got to see on our trip to LaGrange who I wish I would have gotten a picture of because she was so cute - we found Charley down in his basement (due to the tornado) which is kinda his man cave with lots of camo and tools and such, so it was pretty cute to walk in to see his little 2 year old Molly sitting on his lap wearing only a blue tutu and nothing else (that is the ONLY thing she will wear these days!).  Fun times visiting the cousins in LaGrange!

Hayes gets his face painted every Tuesday night at Chick-fil-a!  He walks around like he owns the place!

When Hayes realized we were leaving he climbed out of the bath tub and started crying  "Mamie Mamie" which is what he calls my mom...heartbreaking but so cute!

This is at Kevin's grandmother's house.  This was actually last year because I didn't get a picture this year, but it's pretty much the same every year which is great :)  There were 18 of us there this year.

Kevin  hard a work at my parents' house  :)

Appetizers and looking at our wedding book before we ate!

Floyd joined the party too, in his Thanksgiving best

Only about half of all the food!

YUM!  This was on the cover of Southern Living and it was SO good!  Pumpkin cheesecake with candied pecans and praline sauce

The best part...my favorite is the chocolate pie with pecans...

This is my cousin Reese who we got to see when visiting my grandparents in Alabama!  She is quite the entertainer too!

Dogs make great Tech fans! :)

Us with my dad's brother's children who we hadn't seen in way too long!

I am thankful for great in laws!  They got Floyd this scratching post to have at their house because he loves the one at our apartment so much.  He loved this one too!  I didn't even think he could really fit in the top but when we woke up he was sleeping here :)

Hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving...Merry Christmas!!

H.A.M...A weekend that will always remind me of listening to Kanye/Jay Z and stinking up a restaurant...and of course great times with great friends!

The first weekend in November we loaded up the car and headed about an hour north of us to go camping in Dahlonega.  When I say loaded up the car that is an understatement.  Maggie and Ronnie drove up from Newnan and met us at our apartment.  Both of our cars were packed before we even combined all of our stuff into my car so that we could carpool.  We had tents, air mattresses, camping chairs, food, pillows, lots of layers of clothing and LOTS of blankets. Needless to say we sat on blankets and had bags all around our feet and on our laps.  


We got there right as it was getting dark so we had to shine my headlights on the campsite while we set up the tents.

Kevin got our fire going...

And I had the most important job :)

Dinner turned out great!  Chicken and baked potatoes...we were impressed with ourselves :)

Time to relax!

  
The temperature was comfortable while we were around the fire but it got down to about 30 degrees while we were sleeping!  We had lots of blankets and slept in several layers...

haha Brianna go this for me for Christmas last year and it actually came in handy, very warm!

Kevin got up and made us sausage and eggs, yum!!

We had lots of doggie visitors...

Funniest looking dog I've ever seen...he waddled around and looked like a sheep!

Our campsite was right on the river

After breakfast we headed to downtown Dahlonega.  It was such a cute little town!  We got some hot sauce from the General Store, walked through antique stores, bought some beef jerky from the beef jerky store, some chocolate from the chocolate store, and enjoyed the wonderful weather!

Kevin decided on about 10 new hobbies he wants to take up while we were there...glassblowing, lathing (cutting wood), mining for gold, make knives...

Enjoying some beef jerky

We ate at Picnic Cafe...had a nice little soup, salad, and sandwich lunch but nothing too delicious (lunch on Sunday was much more memorable!)

Then we headed to Wolf Mountain Vinyards.  It was beautiful!  The fall leaves were perfect, the weather was great, and the wine was delicious!  

Then we went back to our campsite and made dinner, which was hot dogs, chili, corn, and s'mores for dessert.  Another delicious dinner! 

And now for the stinking up the restaurant story...after dinner and hanging out by the camp fire, we headed back downtown to find somewhere to stay warm for a bit and watch the Alabama/LSU game.  We went to the Back Porch which is a seafood restaurant that looks pretty casual but when we walked in and smelled the food and saw that there were a few people on dates, etc. we realized it was a little nicer than we thought.  In other words our reeking of campfire became more apparent as we walked in!  We were seated in the middle of the restaurant (there was also a bar next to us where people were watching the game so we weren't totally out of place!) and about 30 minutes later Maggie noticed the owner sniffing around and asking some people if they smelled smoke! Maggie knew that it was US that she smelled :)  Then the owner came over to us and asked if we smelled something burning, or something like ham, and we all died laughing and said it was us that she smelled!  She thought it was hilarious.  She came by a few times over the course of the night and got whiffs of us because she said she thought we smelled good!  


The next morning we had sausage and eggs for breakfast again, packed the car back up, and went downtown one last time before heading home.  We ate at Bourbon Street Grille for lunch. We got a nice spot on the upstairs balcony overlooking the square and our food was delicious!  Definitely a nice end to our trip. 

We had a great time with Maggie and Ronnie and I really loved Dahlonega.  Can't believe I'd never been there!  We will definitely go back :)  And I love camping.  I loved it in Yosemite this past September and I loved it again this time.  I hope we do more of it!