12.25.2011

Merry Christmas!!


Merry, Merry Christmas!!!  

I hope your Christmas is filled with lots of love and all the ones you love!  May you know the real reason we celebrate and experience true joy this season!



Truly He taught us to love one another,
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother.
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
With all our hearts we praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we,
His power and glory ever more proclaim!
His power and glory ever more proclaim!


12.23.2011

Confession Friday: Christmas Edition


It's that time again friends....I have a few Christmas confessions to make so no better time than the present....

1. Brandon & I went ahead and opened our gifts to each other this morning!!!  Oops!  Hah, this is our 3rd Christmas together & we've yet to wait until Christmas to open our gifts with each other!

We'll be with ALL my family this Christmas and it just seems like a lot of pressure to open gifts from one another in front of a crowd.  We didn't get each other anything private, but wanted it to be special and just us.

Look what was hiding under our tree with my name on it!!!!!

Finally!!!  My KitchenAid mixer!!

If you remember this post, I've been wanting a mixer for a while!  Pretty sure I was squealing once I opened it :)

And the cake stand I've been wanting!!!

This was another gift on our registry we never got, but I had been wanting!  Santa did good this year don't ya think!?!

2. I made Mini Chocolate Chip & M&M cookies yesterday!  Don't they look great in the stand above?!?



Pretty sure I ate more of the dough than got cooked.  Soo good!

3. In the midst of all the Christmas shopping I did, I usually walked away with one or two things for myself in addition.  Big oops!!  This happened most recently on a trip to Target...

Exhibit A


And exhibit B


In my defense, it's nearly impossible to not browse the clothing section of Target upon entry.  And this sweater is cute!

4. Speaking of getting things for myself...


These beauties came from Crate & Barrel.  The pictures don't do them justice, but they're gorgeous!  I went in to purchase a gift card & noticed all the ornaments were on sale!  Who can resist a sale?  Not I!  So I nabbed all 3 of these for less than 8 bucks!  I don't know where you're from, but I call that a steal ;)

5. Speaking of our Christmas tree....I just love our Christmas Tree!  It's so pretty, twinkling and sparkling all lit up at night.  Even Benson enjoys it's beauty.


But I'd be a big fat liar if I said I'll be sad to see it go!  Only because the little monster pictured above thinks the tree, it's ornaments, and the presents & bows beneath are his play toys!!

It's like a game: Benson runs and plays in the presents/tree, we yell at/chase him away, Ben runs away, we sit down.  REPEAT!!!  I'm over it!

6. Our tree is looking a little bare underneath since we opened our gifts for each other already.  Guess the big boxes were ours!

7. We've yet to watch Elf this Christmas season.  I'm so sad about this!  I normally watch it about 3 or 12 times.  This will be changed by tomorrow, at the latest!

8. I look forward to seeing what's inside my stocking as much as I look forward to opening gifts!  The stocking is such a fun tease, too, because you can see your gifts peeking out!

9. We don't have children, obviously, but I know there's often a debate on no-Santa vs. Santa.  A friend tweeted this link the other day and I just loved this post!  So yes, we still believe and we will be having Santa in our house one day!

10. Most of my family is either already here or on the way and I'm so excited to see them!!!  They're really the best part of Christmas (well next to Jesus of course!)!!  The festivities begin this afternoon with a fun girly outing to get our nails painted and then dinner with the whole family!!

11. I hope you get to spend your Christmas with all of your loved ones!!  <----That wasn't really a confession, just going with the number thing!

Merry Christmas Eve Eve friends!!!

12.19.2011

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...


Most of the presents are wrapped & when Benson's not being mischievous, all the bows stay attached!!  :)

We had a nice weekend over here!  Friday night was pretty low key.  After a workout, we got some take out & our night was spent with me sleeping & Brandon watching some TV on the couch!  That last week of school 'bout did me in, but I survived!

Saturday morning we slept in, then bravely stepped out to battle the crowds and finish most of our Christmas shopping!  The mall was pure holiday madness, as expected, but we got everyone checked off our list! (Besides the few little things I have left for B)  Afterwards, we came home to wrap.  It looked like Santa's workshop threw up in our living room, but the finished product was a success (see above picture :)!

Saturday night we had a fun little date night: dinner & a movie!  Here was my OOTN (Outfit of the Night)


Living downtown is so conducive to fun little date nights - so many different restaurants are within walking distance as well as the theater at the EpiCenter.  We're definitely spoiled & will miss that convenience whenever we move to suburbia-land!!

We ended up seeing The Sitter


Definitely funny!  Stupid funny, in typical Jonah Hill fashion, but still funny!  I would say rent it for a dollar when it's out at RedBox ;)

Sunday we ran a few errands and got a good workout in.  Then Sunday night I had the privilege to meet so many great blog/twitter friends!!

Photo courtesy of Melissa

Rachel hosted a wonderful Charlotte Bloggers/Twitter Ornament Exchange at her gorgeous home!  It was so, so fun to finally meet all these truly awesome women that I've been following and "talking to" for a while now!  A lot of these girls had met before, but it was my first time to meet everyone.  They are all seriously wonderful!!

We had such a great time eating, chatting, exchanging ornaments, eating :)  Thank you so much, Rachel, for putting it altogether & for including me!


Today, I tackled one teacher workday/inservice day & now all that is standing between me and Christmas break - days of sleeping in, family in town, a week in Michigan, gifts, celebrating, and lots of love galore - is 1. more. day.

I think I can....


12.14.2011

Christmas Card Carousel 2011

Today, I'm linking up with Faith's blog for her 4th Annual Christmas Card Carousel!  Last night I shared a picture of our Christmas card holder (from Pier 1 for those that asked!) and its getting full!  I just love coming home to cards from family & friends each day and I was excited to send ours out :)

If you want to link up or check out all the cute cards, head on over to Faith's blog!  


So now, without further adieu....



Above is the front...

...and this was the back!  I loved that I was able to add more of an actual message to the back!  

I used Vistaprint for our cards this year & last year.  We also used them for our wedding save-the-dates, a wedding shower invite, and our rehearsal dinner & my bridesmaid's luncheon invites!  They use good heavy paper, which I like, so needless to say, we're Vistaprint fans!!

As soon as Brandon saw them he said, "Why didn't you include Benson's name!?" and a few other's have asked that, too!  I think I was afraid we'd be judged as the crazy cat family, haha.  (We do love our cat, but the Shucks love all animals!  We're not allowed to have dogs at our apartment - thus we got a cat first!)

Obviously our picture is not of professional quality (notice Benson's glowing eyes I could not correct!), rather more of the set-up-on-the-TV-and-use-the-timer variety :)  

Most likely our pictures continue to be of that variety until we either have a baby, acquire a better camera, better photography skills or friends with a better camera/photography skills!

I still love how it turned out & love the gray and red!

And because I didn't have the blog yet as of last Christmas, here is our 2010 card!  The Wedding edition!



Merry Christmas!!!  From The Shucks - Brandon, Michelle & Benson


12.13.2011

Weekend Update & Counting Down

If you read my last post, you saw that I left in a whirlwind to head to the airport for Michigan!  Literally I pressed publish & linked up to Leslie's blog, grabbed my shoes and jacket and walked out the door - just to have our flight delayed.  Of course!!  But we made our connector & landed in Grand Rapids at about 10 pm.

We'd planned to stay with Brandon's sister & brother-in-law, but Ashley called Friday morning to inform him they had the stomach flu all last week, complete with 2 separate trips to the ER for some fluids!  No thanks - so we opted out of staying with them & stayed in downtown GR.

B texted his best friend from back home, Jordan, while on our layover just to see what he was up to.  Turns out he was headed out to grab a few drinks with friends at a bar very near our hotel.....so we decided to pop in & surprise him!!

I wish you could've seen the look on Jordo's face!  He said he kind of saw me from afar walking in and literally got his phone out to text Brandon "your wife's twin is here!"  And then he realized it was really us!

Surprises are fun!  We had a good time out and it was fun to see some of Brandon's friends while in town, since we didn't originally think we'd be able to!


Saturday morning we slept in and later met B's mom for lunch!  We had a great lunch catching up & then went to check our her new apartment!  Ashley & Casey (B's sis & BIL) recently bought Brandon's mom's house/barn so she's downsized a bit and I'm glad we finally got to see her place!

Afterwards we headed over to Ashley & Casey's to check out the renovations they've started on their house & to place a headstone where they buried Brandon & Ashley's sweet dog, Cody.  They had to put Cody down Thanksgiving day due to a tumor :(



It was super sad (on Thanksgiving no less!)!  Cody was 11 and is just irreplaceable!  He was a gentle giant and the sweetest BIG thing you'd ever meet!  He will definitely be missed!!

After a short visit with Ashley & Casey we were off to B's work Christmas party!  It was about an hour and half away at the Double JJ Ranch - where his company also had the summer party we went to!

This was our cute cabin for the night on the ranch!

All dressed up for the par-tay!

Some of the karaoke fun!

The party was lots of fun, B works with a lot of great people!!  They had fun little games planned as well as karaoke!  Each department had to sing a song decided for them.  The outside salesmen (B's group) & their significant others sang "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Clause".  Embarrassing & fun all wrapped into one :)

Sunday morning, we left bright and early to catch our flight.  As I mentioned before, we have the worst flying luck!!!

I posted about our flying woes this summer when coming back from the summer party (in the same link from above) and this trip back was no different!! At least Delta's consistent, right!?!

We were delayed, then re-routed due to the delay & the likelihood of missing our connector, and then finally home about 4 instead of 1!  Unfortunately our bags were not home :(  They got in about 9pm Sunday night so we made the second trip of the day to the airport to grab our bags.

Needless to say, it was a loooong day.  And before we knew it, it was Monday.  

Fortunately though - B was actually home last night :)  We worked out, cooked dinner together, watched some of our shows, & did laundry!  It was a lovely little week night!

This week is super exciting!!

It's the last full week of school before Christmas break!  I'm down to 3 days with the kiddos, Friday is pajama day, & 2 teacher workdays next week!

I'm also super excited for Sunday!  Rachel has put together a Charlotte/Charlotte area Blogger Ornament Exchange!  I can't wait to give & get a beautiful ornament and to meet some sweet bloggers in person!!  My first blogger meet up :)

And, just 12 days left until Christmas!!!!  Ahhh.....I must finish my shopping & all the dreaded wrapping this weekend!!  Or at least that's the goal, may not be truly finished til school's out ;)

Lastly, I leave you with all the wonderful Christmas cards we've received so far this year!  I just love them all!


Tomorrow I'll share ours :)

12.09.2011

Confession Friday: 'Tis the season...

...to be busy, fa la la la la la la la la!!!  (Yes I counted out the correct amount of la's - obviously!)  But I could never be too busy to blog.  Priorities, duh.


I've done a confession post before here, and they're pretty fun!  Leslie over at A Blonde Ambition has been doing them for a while and decided to make them a weekly Friday link up, so today & from time to time in the future you may just be reading some Friday confessions from me :)

Here we go:

1. This week flat out exhausted me!  I've stayed up way too late, but all in the name of holiday hustle and bustle!  And in hindsight, I don't regret it!

2. Wednesday night I was up til 1120 wrapping presents (oh wrapping how I hate you!).  Some of B's presents had arrived and I had to get them wrapped before he came home Thursday.  But I couldn't just wrap his cause then he'd know their size and shape, so I had to wrap a lot!

This is progress my friends!
Please pardon the littler box and fan in the background :)

3. I found this pic on Pintrest and boy does it get my rear in gear!


This is a busy time of year for everyone with holiday parties & trips & eating!! Oh the yummy eating!  So all the more reason to not fall off the band wagon.  Gotta make time to keep in shape!


This is my typical view from the treadmill at my gym.  Not too shabby huh!?  Could be worse.  Since daylight savings started, my view is usually the lit up skyline, but I managed to get a daytime pic this week :)  The pole sticking down is part of the contraption that holds the TV hanging form the ceiling, whoops.

4. I signed up a few weeks ago for a blogger ornament exchange through Faith's blog!  I was paired up with Mia and received some cute sparkle to add to my tree :)


5. Speaking of sparkle, there's been quite a trend lately to add some sparkle to a nail or two.  As it turns out, my friend Andrea and I are always head of the trends and must have started it this past New Year's!


You can't actually tell we have sparkle on our ring fingers, but we do!


Here's my finished product today!  Now I'm definitely ready for B's work Christmas party!!  Sparkle is fun!

6. We have to leave in 5 minutes for the airport to jet set to Michigan for B's party, so after only 5 confessions, I gotta run!!

Happy Weekend friends!!!!




12.07.2011

Chronicles of the Corolla

Ohhh, my Corolla.  Where to begin?  I have a love/hate relationship with my car.  I drive an '06 Toyota Corolla which I bought brand new back in August of '06.

Love the gas milage, the fact that it works and has AC and heat, & gets me from point A to point B!

BUT, I bought it brand new when I was in dire need of a car!  Mistake 1.

My first car, Peter (pronounced pee-tuh in your best British accent), was a '95 Saturn I inherited in from my dad in 2003 upon turning 16 (and learning how to drive stick!) since he was getting a new Saturn (cause he sold them! Ha, not really. Inside joke!). It was 4 door and navy and was a nice little first car to have since it was free!!

Fast forward to blazin' hot August 2006 and poor Peter's clutch was giving out and his AC wasn't so cool anymore.  I was in college, had a job, and figured I could afford a new car instead of the alternative - sinking money into ol' Peter.

So my mom & I went out and scooped up my brand spankin' new, shiny black Toyota Corolla, complete with a stick shift and manual locks and windows!  Obviously, the whole package ;) Mistake 2.

Hindsight is 20/20 & if I could go back I definitely would've sprang for that power package!  (Although, by the time I have kids big enough to roll down a window, they probably won't know why it's called "rolling down a window" in the first place.  All you do is press a button right!?)

Anyways....I was excited to have a brand new car with AC and a working clutch :)

Sadly though, my Corolla has been upon some hard times during our ride together!  You can't really call her a lemon (I guess my Corolla is a girl - she never got a name, though) because lemons have loads of defects. And my Corolla does not have defects to date.


Well, except for maybe the driver. 


Incident 1 - In September or October of '06 (my memory fails me), not long after my big purchase, my roommate at the time was following me to dinner in order to head to her night class afterwards.  As we approached a stop light, I put on my blinker to merge to the left lane and then immediately noticed a State Trooper in that lane.  I didn't want to cut him off, so I did not merge, turned off my blinker, stayed in my lane, and stopped for the light.

Did you hear the crash!?!?  That's right, I got was rear ended and then pushed into the car in front of me!!  By my poor roommate!  Needless to say we didn't make it to dinner and she didn't make it to class!

There was over $6,000 worth of cosmetic damage to my new Corolla!  :(  You do remember me saying it was stripped correct?  So, had the damages been just a little more, it would've been over 1/2 the value of my sweet car and it would've been considered totaled.

But it wasn't!  So I drove around a Dodge Charger for 6ish weeks and got my brand new, fixed car back in early December.

Incident 2 - Just several days later, I proceeded to get my very first speeding ticket!  Ughhh...I drive a black car!!  How did they pick me out!?

At least the ticket didn't hurt the car, though!  And I got a prayer for judgement, so all was well.

And all stayed well for the next 8 or so months.  I drove around incident free, until August 2007.  You guessed it - Incident 3!  When leaving from a friend's parking garage (that I now happen to live in - well not the parking garage, the building attached to it!) I was backing up to my right and did not realize the closeness of my front left end to the large cement beam.  FAIL.

Scratched up bumper!!!  More cosmetic damage.  But only cosmetic damage!  Repair time this go 'round wasn't nearly as long.

Incase you weren't counting, by August '07 in just one short year, my car was now on it's 3rd bumper.


Whoops!!  Are you seeing how the lemon might actually be me!?


Just one month later, in September 2007 while on the way home from Mac's BBQ (YUM!!) with my fam, I was in a less familiar part of Charlotte and was not aware of the speed limit or my speed at the time.

Incident 4 - That would be speeding ticket numero dos.  Cue tears!!  The cop didn't care.  But the insurance people did!!  Especially since I had had that prayer for judgement less than a year ago.  Mom & Dad weren't too excited either!

After that, I took a vow of geezer speed and I'm ok with it.  It's working well so far (knock on wood!) so I'm gonna keep it up!

Fast forward 3 months to December 2007 - I am once again leaving the same parking garage from incident 3, but this time I was parked on a lower level and in a middle spot to steer clear of those dadgum beams!  I was in a bit of a hurry (again, my memory fails me as to why) but I didn't' have time for any of that reverse/backing out nonsense since the space in front of me was open.  So I popped her in first and was just going to pull through to save myself 3.5 seconds!

Well - Incident 5 - there was a low cement wall (I hate you cement!!) right in front of my car, preventing my quick exit.  GINORMOUS FAIL!!!  Broken bumper AGAIN!


Ok, clearly I'm the lemon!


Luckily, my bumper was still fully attached and although some of the grate (or whatever you call it) was broken off and there were some scratches, etc. it did not need immediate fixing.

I really didn't want to tell my parents so I decided I could live with it for a bit.  Again, it was only cosmetic.  I kept in on the DL (down low) and my parents didn't notice until the next March ('08).  At that point they figured it would be coming out of my pocket so it was my prerogative as to when I wanted to fix it.

Needless to say it remained that way for some time!  Hah, and somehow over that time I managed to lose a hub cap.  Ughh....always something!  I wouldn't deem a lost hub cap an "incident", but it definitely contributed to the ghetto look of my car!  Wrecked bumper, 3 hub cabs to my name.

I've hit a few curbs in my day as well (probably how I lost that hub cap!), but none like the one in June of 2008 on stinkin' South Blvd.  Incident 6 - Eating and driving (stick shift) don't mix so well and that curb just kinda hopped up and then my tire just kinda blew out.  Funny how that happens!

I was in a bit of denial though and drove it about 100 more feet to the next turn off the road.  Big mistake. Instead of just my tire, I damaged my rim as well.  That was expensive!  And a bummer!

I had them throw in a hub cap while they were at it.  I didn't end up getting that bumper fixed, though, until August 2009!  Bumper number 4 for the count!!

Since then, I've been pretty much incident free except for a random nail in the tire here or there, and those were just plugged right up.  Incident-less until this August, that is.  (There's something about August and my car I'm noticing!)

I was visiting my family in Virginia to go wedding dress shopping with my cousin, Erin!  My husband was headed to Charleston, SC that weekend for a bachelor party and we thought for sure he was the one headed into Hurricane Irene!

Wrong!  Incident 7 - Irene struck the coast of NC, VA and inland VA waaay more than predicted!!  Turns out I was the one in the torrential down pours, heavy gusts of wind, loss of power, etc.

A few heavy branches decided the roof of my car would be a good spot to land!  Really there were just a few good dents, nothing too outrageous, but since it was due to a natural disaster (and not me!), and my premium is manageable, I got her all fixed up!

No more dents, some new paint - good as new!  Well, good as 5 years old with a few previous cosmetic procedures, anyway!

I've been living in my apartment building going on 19 months now and I've been driving in and out of my garage (yes the afore mentioned garage!) that once was my nemesis, not once, but TWO times before, without incident!

I was overdue apparently.  Last Monday, while pulling through the second gate, another car was coming around the curve.  I pulled to the right to allow them some more room and wait for them to get fully out of my way.  Incident 8 - I pulled a little too far to the right and as I began to pull forward, the back right side of my car, just around my tire, scraped another huge cement beam :(  Oh how I loathe you cement!!

I was slightly afraid to spill the beans to my husband.  If you recall, I just had some painting done (although not in that area), so I knew he would be less than thrilled with me, the lemon.  Since he travels, I had a few days to work up the nerve.

My prediction was correct, he was definitely less than thrilled.  But it's just a car so he got over it rather quickly.  We know of a guy, so hopefully he'll be able to buff that baby out, slap some new paint on her, and we'll call it a day.

Finally, the moral of the chronicles of the Corolla, ever long as they may be, is that - As it turns out, I'm definitely the lemon!  :(  A defective driver sounds so dreadful.  I prefer to think of myself as a rather ungraceful driver, instead.  Sounds a little more poetic anyways.

In my defense (if there is one), I've never claimed to be the best driver.  In fact, I've never even claimed to *like* driving!!

I always heard bad things happen in 3s, but I'm up to 8 now.  I think I either need a new car or my car needs a new driver.  Wonder what the going rate for drivers is these days!?


12.05.2011

Fun Little Weekend

We had a super fun weekend over here!!  Why can't they just be a little longer....!?!

Friday night, once a few friends got in town we walked a block up to a gem of a local bar that we'd seen, but never tried out!  It's called Corner Pub (appropriately so) on the corner of Graham and 7th St and its your perfect friendly neighborhood bar.  The boys played some darts, we had a few drinks and planned a ski trip for February, haha!  Corner Pub, we will definitely be coming back!

Before heading to the tailgate Saturday, we grabbed a family lunch for my grandmother's 78th birthday coming up this Wednesday!  We got some delicious Mexican and just before noon this happened....

Mmmm!  Getting tailgate ready :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEMAW!!!


Obviously, sombreros are WAY fun!! :)

After lunch, we added another layer or two and headed to the tailgate!!  Except for the extremely unfortunate porta-potty lines (and leaving my camera on the kitchen counter!  Come on, are you really surprised!?), the tailgate was a blast!!!

Aaron & Justin

These are some of my MOST favorite people, y'all!!!  (Minus, Justin, where were you!?)
Seriously though, these friendships make me so happy!!!

Ladies :)

Hunter & I in the dreadful potty line (with old man Clemson in the background! Ha)

Time for the turtle furr to come out :)

Duke Tower (Sadly with non VT colors)

We scalped some pretty good seats, club level!  Unfortunately, it was not a Hokie win this year.  And I cannot tell a lie, we didn't stay to see that end result.  But win or lose, it was still a fun experience and so great to spend time with friends!!

Sunday, we kissed our friends goodbye and were thankful we weren't the ones driving :) haha!  We love having a full house apartment and having friends visit, but we couldn't help but dream of having a full HOUSE one day with more than one bathroom and actual doors!  (We live in a lofty style apartment, so doors are....not so much there!)

We spent some time on the couch and snuggled with this sweet thing while attempting to mentally prepare for another week.


I don't think I did a very good job of mentally preparing as I laid wide awake at 440 waiting for my alarm in less than an hour....yuck!

1 day down though, 4 days to go for the week!  And 11 work days til Christmas break!!  I think I can....



 
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