Bicycle

"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race"

- H. G. Wells

We had a very lovely Saturday.

We were lucky enough to have our wonderful friends, Josh and Natalie, come see us.

We spent the day talking, eating great Cuban food at Papi's, watching the cyclists race the Omnium at the velodrome and planning future adventures together.

It was a great day!

Mr. and Mrs. Heil

It's a new year and I was so happy to begin 2010 with the wedding of my bf, Summer.

I have known Summer since I was fifteen. She is the sweetest, kindest person I know and I always have the most fun with her. Basically, she is the coolest, and I feel very lucky to have her as my best friend.

She was my Maid of Honor at my wedding and I was thrilled when she asked me to be her Matron of Honor.

She and Greg decided to get married on New Years Day, which I thought was such a fun idea.

The wedding day came around and we had a great morning getting ready and taking pictures, and as always, being silly!

The beautiful bride and her beautiful sister, Sydnah.

The ceremony was lovely and the whole day fit so well with who Summer and Greg are.

I had fun getting to wear a pretty dress and carry pretty flowers.

And my love was kind enough to be my date to the event.

I am so, so happy for my bf!

Love you, Summer!

Christmas 2009

Let me preface this post by saying, this is going to be another long post with lots of pictures. Sorry. This is what happens when you have one of the busiest Christmas seasons EVER. I think we spent more time on the road and partaking in festivities this Christmas than all other Christmases combined! It may have been the busiest Christmas, but it was also one of the best Christmases ever.

That said, we started the holidays off with a little shindig at our new place in East Point. We made lots of yummy treats and had a few good friends over to enjoy some games, some chatting, and as always, lots of laughing.

David's delicious cookies.

Mr. Paul Mitchell, Esquire treated us to a Christmas reading of "Strange Seashells and Their Stories" - a holiday classic. In front of a "roaring" fire, too!

We played a brutal round of boys vs. girls Christmas Win, Lose or Draw and I finally got to break out my $1 Target junk bin reindeer ears that I insisted I must have or my Christmas would not be complete.

Sarah's brilliant representation of "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer". Only, this Christmas, the reindeer decided to really cement the deed and use a truck.

Sarah liked the switch.

. . . and so did Joseph.

We chatted and had fun playing more games.

A party is never a party without Ashlyn and Miles. Love them.

And as always, my love finished the night with a cookie.

After the party, and a week or two of merriment in Atlanta, we headed to the mountains to begin Christmas with our family. We started the fun with a stop at the Niggley's beautiful home in the Cohutta Wilderness. The Niggleys always make the holidays special with great food and great company, and this year, with a great dancing, singing Christmas tree hat!

David with his pretty mom.

The hat, literally dancing off of my head.

Christmas Eve with Grandmom and the Murdocks.

Christmas Eve love.

Christmas morning, awaiting the mayhem of present opening.

Dewey and his new gun. Time to leave.

Christmas Day evening, we found ourselves at my parents' abode, playing more Christmas Win, Lose or Draw. This time it was a little less brutal, but still hilarious.

Our good friend Josh, playing along with the crazy Dunns.

Daddy drawing the best interpretation of "figgy pudding" ever.

Figgy Pudding. The two little blobs at the top that look a little like poo are figs. The bowl and spoon are self-explanatory. But the best is the rectangle with two rows of dashes. Those are Fig Newtons. Brilliant.

No Christmas would be complete without a family dance contest.

I clearly won.

Merry Christmas!

Oh the weather outside is frightful . . .

. . . but the fire is so delightful.

Six more days till Christmas, and less than that till friends, family, and great food.

I can't wait!

Getting Hitched

One of the most wonderful people in the WORLD is getting married on New Year's Day.

My beautiful best friend, Summer is marrying the equally wonderful Greg on the first of January. I couldn't be happier for them, or more excited about the big day, as I have the honor of being Summer's Matron of Honor! Summer's sister, Sydna, is the Maid of Honor and Summer picked wonderful bridesmaid's dresses for us. No horrible pea green monstrosities here, just a beautiful, flattering dress that I can't wait to wear! Over the past few weeks, I've been able to be a part of the wedding festivities, including a shower in Franklin Springs and her fun, and funny bachelorette party in Athens.

The bride and her bridesmaid's with Sydna's wonderful bow bouquet.

Me and my Sum.

The bachelorette party at Cali & Tito's in Athens. So much fun!

So, so, so excited for the New Year for so many reasons, but especially for the beginning of a great marriage.

I love you Summer.

Another Fun Weekend

Janie and Adam came for a quick visit this weekend.

Friday night we went to eat at Fellini's - a great pizza place, where apparently, the love story of Adam and Janie began.

ah, love.

(Janie, I will be sure to mention this time around that in the above photo there is in fact, no pizza on the table yet. Just me and my love, but not on the table, in chairs.)

After yummy pizza we headed to the Braves game.



Adam and Janie usually force us to ingest some form of junk food when they come to visit;) Sometimes it's Dairy Queen and Dunkin Donuts, and other times it's Sonic banana splits and a bag of Reese's Pieces. Friday night happened to be gummy worms, Raisinettes and Krispy Kreme donuts. The boys ate theirs before we made it to the stadium, but I shoved mine in my purse for later. This is what resulted:

flat and delicious!

One sugar coma later, we sat through rounds and rounds of "the wave". A group of kids in our section was intent on generating a successful wave. I'm not sure if this is from round nine or round nine hundred.

We made it all the way to the ninth inning and then the rain came. Lots of rain.


We took cover and the boys were kind enough to walk through the rain to get the car.
What great esposos!

The rest of the night involved more food, lots of laughs and a 3am bedtime.
We love when Adam and Janie come to visit!

In other weekend news . . .

Janie and Adam hung around for a little while on Saturday.

Amy and Nathan came to visit and see the casa.

David and I had a great, cuddly date night including our favorite Mexican joint, a fun movie courtesy of our new favorite place for rentals - Videodrome, and big bowls of chocolate ice cream.

I attempted to run off the ice cream with my first 5 miler of my 1/2 marathon training program.

David's mom came to visit and took me out to lunch while David finished up his studio project.

AND we picked Natalie and Josh up from the airport and had a little midnight birthday party complete with mini strawberry shortcakes for Natalie!

It was another fun weekend amongst the many fun weekends we have when friends and family come to visit!

Friday

Time for friends to come and visit. It looks like a Braves game and general good times are on the agenda. I'm sure pictures will follow!

We Live In Burrrrnesville

We spent our last week before David starts Fall semester visiting the Asheville area with our friends, Jonathan and Milan. Jonathan and his parents were kind enough to let us all stay in their amazing mountain home.

We spent the first day driving to North Carolina. We stopped in Asheville and walked around the downtown area. Asheville's architecture is beautiful.






We had dinner at a great little seafood pub. Then we headed to the mountains.


Jonathan showed us around the community and then took us to the neatest tree house, ever! It's on the top of the mountain.


It's several stories with a little living area at the top. It had a little bed and a little iron stove and little shelves. I was pretty excited.


After the tree house, Jonathan took us to his home where we watched the sun set from the porch.


Day two began with beautiful morning mist.


We lazed around, went for lunch at the mountaintop clubhouse, and then . . . I got to hold Cornelius the albino corn snake in the clubhouse nature center.


After lunch we took a short hike that had to be cut short because of the oncoming downpour.
We spent the rest of the evening looking at the views and playing air hockey and pool in the clubhouse game room.



On day three we spent the morning in a pretty little "secret" park. It had a working water wheel, a little pond full of rainbow trout, and beautiful flowers.


Then we headed back to Asheville and toured the city and had yummy cupcakes!





We did a lot of walking - I was tired.


We decided to take the scenic tour home, on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It's pretty amazing. It has the best views of the Blue Ridge Mountains I've ever seen.


The sunset was unbelievable.


We decided to resume our hike on our final morning.
Milan decided not to go - I think she must have caught wind of some plan Jonathan and David hatched to murder me. The path on the old growth forest loop was the path from hell.
It started out innocently enough.


But then it began to get a little too vertical for me.
This is me about to have a heart attack.
Nice plan, you two.



At least we got to see some amazing views and I counted the hike as one of my runs for the week - I promise, it's not cheating!


We loaded up the cars and headed back to Georgia. These three start school tomorrow. I feel like this was our farewell tour for the next four months. I don't expect to see them between the hours of 8am and 9pm, but maybe I will just have to tag along during studio time like I did this summer. Thanks again Jonathan and Milan for a great weekend!