Trial and Error

Merry Christmas!

November and December are probably two of my favorite months of the whole year b/c I love the time from Thanksgiving to Christmas so much! I love spending tons of time with family and friends, the way the house looks even more homey all decorated for Christmas, and the good mood everyone is in! This year we once again hosted our Christmas party for all our friends. We love nothing more than to have everyone here and fill the house with laughter and great memories. Bryan had the amazing idea of putting a photo booth in our office for everyone to take pictures in. Here are a few pics of the party decor and the photo booth!

Many thanks to the Swartwoods, Whitworths, and Lischkes for arriving early to help with the set-up!! ;)

There was a hot chocolate bar, and it was amazing! I took a total gamble on trying out a brand new recipe the night of the party, and thank goodness it was a big hit.

Easily one of my favorite pics of the night!

Exhuasted.

Bryan's family is headed into town tomorrow, and we are beyond thrilled to be hosting Christmas at our house for the very first time this year! We have a fun day planned for Christmas Eve, and then we're headed over to the Klisch's to wish them well before the big move to Chicago. I know I speak for everyone when I say we'll miss them dearly, but I know I will especially miss them b/c I never grew up with family close by. Though we don't see them all the time, it has always been so nice to know that they're close by. I have really enjoyed seeing David and Jessica grow up as well!! But we do know that we'll be making trips up to visit them in Chicago, and they'll be heading down this way as well. So to the Klisch's - Atlanta will miss you, but Chicago is lucky to have you! ;)

We're going to keep Christmas Day full of what's important - family time and good food! Then it's off to Paris! Needless to say, I'm going to take a bit of a break from blogging until the New Year in order to really enjoy my time off! We hope you and your family have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Midweek confessions

>> Wednesday, December 7, 2011 – Midweek confessions

Week 2 of midweek confessions:

- I'm sitting at a conference right now. Don't worry, my manager isn't even paying attention.

- Said conference is in Las Vegas. Being at a conference in Vegas this close to Christmas makes me feel like I'm in a time warp. Work is on hold, Christmas shopping is on hold, and I don't feel stressed about any of it. I'm just having fun and trying to learn a lot.

- When I fly by myself I freak out that I'm going to get lost in the airport. This is completely ridiculous bc I've flown a lot and know my way around. I guess it just being by myself. Thankfully my husband very patiently listens to my concerns without laughing at my ridiculousness.

I'll blog more about my Vegas trip when I get home. For now I'm going to learn more about improving the tax provision process. Bunch of nerds.

Weekend update

This evening, I'm writing to you from a much higher elevation than normal as I'm on my way to Vegas for training. Apparently the only way they can get people to commit to the tax audit is to send us to Vegas. I'm in! :)

This weekend was crazy busy, but really fun. Friday I had the day off, so Bonney and I met up for a girl's lunch, then I ran some errands before a wonderful date night with the hubs. Nowadays our datenights are comprised of speed decorating (we wanted to get the outside decorations up before we headed out for dinner) followed by a very relaxing dinner at West Egg and then Bridesmaids (hilarious). I wouldn't have it any other way. Saturday morning I felt like I was on some type of hidden camera episode. The goal was for me to head to volunteer at the Season of Giving gift intake while Bryan went to start tailgating. I would then ride MARTA to meet him there for the SEC Championship. Well, the morning was completely chaotic. I managed to set off our alarm when I opened the door to let Keith in first thing in the morning. Great, but we can recover. Then we were running late and didn't have any breakfast - time for a Chick-fil-A run obviously. So we were running around the house trying to get out the door in enough time for me to get to my volunteering destination, and then managed to set off Keith and Mike's alarm when we dropped Bailey off. Awesome. So after a very rushed breakfast at Chick-fil-A I dropped Bryan off at the Decatur MARTA station and headed on to the gift intake. When I arrived everything was already going 90 miles an hour so I just jumped right in. This was my second year helping with the Season of Giving, and I always enjoy the gift intake. It's completely overwhelming to see such generosity by the community. The whole gym was filled with yard bags full of generous donations to children in need.

At noon, Keith relieved me of my duties, and I was off to the SEC Championship with Bryan and the Whitworths. We had the most amazing 3 hour lunch "tailgate" at the Peasant Bistro!! Our waiter even bought us dessert to appologize for how long our lunch took. Please - we were enjoying ourselves!! The ~~SEC championship game~~ first half of the SEC championship game was amazing! We stomped all over those little Tigers. We won't talk abou the second half. I'm still very proud of our Dawgs though, and I have to say - we're going to look pretty good next year if that first half was any indication of our capabilities!

Today was a very productive day at home. We enjoyed a great service at Decatur First United Methodist, and tried a new place in Emory Village for lunch (Bad Dog Taquiera). Bryan did lots of yardwork while I packed for Vegas, we ordered our Christmas cards, and now here I am on a plane. I hope you all have a great week! I'm going to be ~~living it up in Vegas~~ learning lots about taxes.

Midweek Confessions

One of the blogs I read does a Midweek Confessions posting series and I always love it. It may not be original, but it's always honest so here goes nothing....

I haven't been to the gym since before Thanksgiving. Yep - I ate pretty much everything in sight last week and went on and on about how I was going to work it off this week. Nope - haven't even been once. The worst part is that two nights this week I couldn't go bc I had dinner plans after work. Oh well.

I haven't finished decorating for Christmas. We started on Sunday night and there are still boxes all over the house. We actually just had to deal with the mess so that the cleaning lady can do her thing tomorrow.

My gym buddy emails me to tell me when there's good food at work. Today she emailed me to tell me there was peach cobbler, and I blame her for telling me where the froyo and the slushie machines are. I am proud to say I have avoided the later. I eat the former almost daily. With M&Ms.

I have been reading the same book for three months. I just can't find the time to sit down and commit to reading. So it's two pages a night for the next few months.

That's all for now. I feel better. :) Do you have any confessions?

Thanksgiving!!!

>> Monday, November 28, 2011 – family, holidays

I'm back from a little writing hiatus to enjoy the holidays! We spent Thanksgiving with the whole (well almost whole) Stillwagon crew up in Habersham. Originally, I thought it would be really hard to spend Thanksgiving at the mountain house (aka the house I grew up in). And it was, but it was also just overwhelmingly fun and special. It was always just me and my parents sitting around the table growing up. There were a few Thanksgivings where a grandparent or friend would come over, but for the most part it was just the three of us. My mom would cook everything, and my dad and I would eat everything. I would always insist on using the china and crystal (which meant I had to wash it all b/c my mom refused to use anything that wouldn't go in the dishwasher), and this year we used that same china. You could argue there were only a few similarities between my Thanksgivings growing up and this past one. Those similiarities would be the china we dined on, a plethora of good food, and an overwhelming sense of love. I'm pretty sure those three things (okay, the two things - the china isn't really important) are the only things that matter on Thanksgiving. From the outside looking in, there's a huge difference between a little wooden table with three people around it, and two full tables with 12 people talking and laughing, but to me there was no real difference. I was surrounded by people I loved.

This year we had all sorts of things going on. We cooked, we ate, we crafted, we participated in the Thanksgiving Olympics, ate some more, the men built railings while we chatted, we ate again, zip lined, watched football, and played lots of Scattegories while we ate some more. It was a really fun time. Bryan took lots of great pictures as well. Here are a few:

Family time before the eating began.

We had two turkeys....and they were both delicious!!

Grandma Stillwagon looking beautiful as always.

Mia and Bailey were literally drooling over the smell of turkey. Can't say I blamed them.

This was the redneck portion of the day - which I dubbed the Thanksgiving Olympics. Jessica's science project was to test the effects of caffeine on the heart rate. She measured off 40 yards (on the road no less) and we ran it, took our heart rate, chugged a caffeinated beverage and ran again. The results were that your heart rate does in fact go up (and you laugh non-stop at a bunch of rednecks running up and down the road).

Friday morning Bryan and his dad went on an early morning photography expedition. They got some great pictures, but be warned: that waterfall is very slippery. Bryan can tell you all about it. He slid most of the way down. Thankfully he only has a few scrapes and bruises to show for it (and some really cool pictures).

We also went zip lining! Let me correct that - the zip lining place could only take 9 people, so me, Bryan, and his grandma stayed behind to take pictures. Bryan and I had done it before so we wanted everyone else to have the experience. They had a blast, and we had fun watching them at the places where we could meet up.

Gentlemen - she's single and ready to mingle. That would be Amy, not Jessica. :) Sorry Amy for trying to set you up with the zip lining tour guides. Actually, I'm not sorry - it was fun!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your families!! We're decorating for Christmas now. It is the most wonderful time of the year after all. :)

Thankful

>> Thursday, November 10, 2011 – family, friends, thankful

November is a month for gratitude, and lately all the social media sites have been buzzing with everyone's daily declaration of thanks. Personally, I'm a little too grateful for my free time to blog about what I'm thankful for on a daily basis, but I would like to spend some time on those things for which I am the most thankful.

For starters, there's nothing that makes me feel more thankful than this man.

From the moment I met him I knew there was something so different about him. My dad would always call him my soulmate. At the time I don't think I could fully grasp what that meant, and I certainly don't even fully understand that now, but everyday I learn a little bit more about what exactly he meant. I don't think there's anyone else on this earth who could have loved me, supported me, challenged me, and comforted me in the ways that he has. I can be in a horrible mood (one of those that women get in sometimes for no apparent reason) and he can actually talk me out of my bad mood. I mean, who knew that was even possible?? I couldn't imagine any better person to experience this wonderful journey called life with.

Okay, enough of the love fest. There are so many other things I am thankful for as well. I'm thankful for family. Not just the kind you're related to by blood b/c Lord knows I'm running short on those. But the kind that you get to pick. Growing up an only child, I have always considered my girlfriends my sisters, and words cannot express how thankful I am for each and every one of them. I am thankful to have the friend who's there to counsel me (quite literally sometimes) through the ups and downs of life, the friend who I can talk to for hours about nothing and everything all at the same time, the friend who encourages me to be a stronger woman, the friend who prays for me without me even having to ask, and the friends who I'm just now getting to know at work. It's those friendships that make me feel loved and supported. I am thankful that Bryan and I have so many couple friends who we treasure spending time with. I am thankful for having in-laws who I actually want to come visit us, and who I enjoy spending time with. I'm thankful for a sister-in-law who's way more sister and way less in-law. I'm thankful for my new job and the additional free time I have. I'm thankful for our home, and our 'hood. The best part of our 'hood is our amazing neighbors for which I am incredibly thankful, and incredibly indebted to! I'm thankful for this stage of life I'm in and all the exciting things that are still in store for all the stages to come. I'm thankful for the time I had with my parents. There are people who live their whole life without the kind of relationship that I had with my parents. For that I am incredibly thankful. I am thankful for a God who gave me the ability to be optimistic, and the grace and strength to withstand life's storms.

This picture actually captures almost all of our closest friends (we missed you Swartwoods)!

And last but most certainly not least - I am thankful for the best dog in the whole wide world.

The list goes on and on. There isn't much in life I'm not grateful for. Because without the hard times we wouldn't appreciate the good times. I hope everyone has a blessed weekend. I have a fun girl's night tomorrow night with Bonney (aka my counselor), and then we're spending our weekend with those in-laws that I may have mentioned earlier. Stay warm!

GA/FL - It's all about tradition

>> Wednesday, November 2, 2011 – football, friends

As we were sitting at our traditional post GA/FL Steak N Shake dinner, Kirsten pointed out that this was our 7th GA/FL game together. Wow. My junior year of college Bryan and I started dating, and along with dating we also started going to UGA games together (isn't that what every diehard UGA couple does?). Bryan took me to my first GA/FL game, and of course I brought along my sorority sister and her boyfriend. Ever since then the four of us haven't missed a game together. Along the way there have been a lot of other people who have come down for a year or two, but it's always been the four of us. A few years ago the Whitworths joined us, and I'm pretty sure the six of us will be doing this for quite a few years to come.

The Stillwagon GA/FL tradition began when Bryan was a freshman. Back in college, it was always a big crew that made the trip. The Friday night low country boil was the highlight of the trip (unless of course the Dawgs pulled out a win). As I started to look back through the pics I was reminded of what a special trip this always is. Granted, it's gone from leaving Athens on Wednesday afternoon to leaving after work on Friday and arriving in Brunswick at 11:30. But regardless of where life has taken us, we still make it down.