The Process of Moving Into Our New Home!!

Well, we are finally in Lil' Yellow and I couldn't be happier.  I absolutely love it here!!  I'm so happy to be in and unpacked.  Below is a slide show that I put together for anyone interested.  You should be able to play it at your own pace by using the buttons to pause and go fwd or back.  Also, if you are interested in a slide, click it to make it bigger.  Or you can click the slideshow and view the pictures in my Picasa Web Album.  

We had a lot of help from a ton of family and friends to get in and get situated.  Jared and I are very blessed and fortunate to be able to have this place and all of the furnishings in it.  It will be a little surprising to see everything in the new house if you've seen our apartment before.

That said, we owe almost everything to our family and friends.  Without their generosity, we would not have a house so well filled.  I also appreciate the financial lessons that I picked up from my family.  My papa always told me, "Spend some, Save some, and You'll Always Have some".

But we all must remember that all of our material blessings come from God Almighty and that they are only temporary.  We have a home in heaven that is much better than any home we could ever make here on earth. 

Taking pictures was so fun, that I decided to take you on a virtual tour and make a video.  Warning - I used my trusty digital camera AGAIN and so you might be in for a bumpy view...

Reminiscing Pictures

Bittersweet:  I sold my very first digital camera in Sandy's yard sale.  It was an ancient little thing.  Pretty powerful in its hay-day (when i was in high school!!)  I saved a few pics and put some of them in a slideshow of when I was at Freed.  My how times flies!!  Most of the pictures I have from college were not digital because my digital batteries would always run down and I just got tired of that and bought a regular camera.  These are a FEW of the many pictures I took while at FHU.

Please know that the "d" on "Saved" in my slideshow header didn't show up.  I guess it was too wordy...

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Time to Post a Few Missed Events

It's been a busy time at the Gott house.  We've been waiting to close on the yellow house.  First we were told, maybe we'd close LAST Thursday.  Then it was for sure Wednesday, for sure Thursday, most likely Friday, probably Monday, and now hopefully early next week!!  The waiting game is hard for us... (like it's easy for anyone else!)  On the bright side, I suppose it's been a good learning experience...  Keeps our expectations low, I guess.  And gives us a lesson in patience.  We know we will get the house, it's just a matter of when.  We should hopefully close next week.  Please say a little prayer that we do; we are suppose to be out of the apartment by the first.  I have a husband, a realtor, and two managers at the loan office pushing our gal along.  Hopefully she won't make anymore mistakes (she's made a lot!!)  Oh, and hopefully I don't get so upset that I decide to call her.  Jared has been handling these matters.  He's a lot calmer than me.  (For that I'm ever so grateful.)

And so now I have time to post the Events that I've meant to post earlier, but didn't...

First Event:

Bobby May's Benefit Brunch...

From Collages

Click on photo to enlarge

Jared and I sponsored a table and had some of our friends and coworkers sit with us at this event.  Bobby was one of my friends my first year and a half at Freed.  We were both in Phi Kappa Alpha together and shared some fun times.  Bobby died in a car wreck on his way home before Christmas in 2002.  Bobby was a great guy with a big heart and an amazing voice.  He was in the Ambassadors (a vocal group at Freed) and now there is a  scholarship in his name that raises money for them.  I'm happy that I was asked to be part of raising money for this year's event.

Makin' Music '09

From Collages

Click on picture to enlarge

Who's who in this from Left to Right:

*Brother in Law was a black in white character in XBX's show!!  

*The crew plus me who came from Gasden, AL to watch the show.  (Jared is missing because he was doing XBX's tunnel talk!)

*My alma mater club, PKA!!! And my cousin Justin was a wizard!

*The winning Makin' Music show!!  Whoo-hoo XBX!! (Let it be known that I will always be part red, BUT I am also biased to XBX since the Gotts are purple and gold)

Extra note that we just learned:  Eric (brother in law) earned a spot as a XBX Makin' Music director for '10!!  "Huzzah!!"

I Love Old Main...

The lighting for my favorite building on campus was just right.  If only I had snapped the tree and not its shadow!!

My Crabs Had a Growth Spurt!

They are so big now that I don't really handle them anymore... :o(

Lads to Leaders '09

From Collages

Click on pictures to enlarge

This year was our first year to attend the Lads to Leaders in Nashville.  We attend this event because Jared needs to be there for his job.  During the weekend he sees TONS of prospective students.  I get to go and tag along - what a perk!!

We stayed in the Opryland Hotel and were lucky enough to get a suite sized room!!  Literally it was HUGE!!  The Great Oaks congregation, out of Memphis was staying in the next room.  Ohh, how I love King Sized beds!!  I want one some day.  :o)  The scenery at this hotel is A-MAZ-ING!!  If you've never been, GO!!  Also, eat at Wasabi's!!!  We ate there TWICE!! :o)

The second time our friend, Frank paid..  

Other Noteworthy Tidbits:

Nemo and Sunshine - the guppies - kicked the bucket.  Ohh and one of the neons that we didn't find for days died also.  Actually the neon sorta decomposed.  I new he was missing but was so busy packing I didn't bother to look until I smelt him... Then I asked Jared to look.  Oh, Brave hubby who's nose doesn't work well... you can handle any smell!

At the yellow house, the Irises are just blooming.  I love that there are already flowers and plants in the yard.  I'll try to get a picture of stuff soon.

And the apartment is a disaster zone!  I will definitely update you on that process once we're outta here!!  A documentary, if anyone cares to look at it.  (I know my following is small)

So that's that.

Oh wait - a snapshot of me and Jared at the CrowHop Concert tonight.  We saw Eric Hutchinson perform.  I tried to take pictures but my little digital camera is just not powerful enough for me to post what it took!!  (I'll save it the embarrassment!)

Girls Nite at O'Charleys!!

There were eleven of us who celebrated Bridget's and Allison's birthdays this month at O'Charleys!!  We had so much fun.  I forget how much I love these!!  I don't think I ever want to miss another.  I hardly touched my food; I was talking so much.  I think everyone had a good time.  Conversations could be heard about TV shows like Gilmore Girls, LOST, the Bachelor, guys we've dated (Sandy's weird first date back in college!! HA!), people we've known from school, kids, houses, etc. etc.  Also the waitress almost spilling our food was interesting!!  We had a really fun nite and I can't wait until the next one!  We did miss some gals that couldn't make it.  Maybe next time it will be convenient for more to attend.

My Valentine and Girly Fun!!

A blurb about Valentine's Day:

Jared was great and took me around Jackson shopping and just doing anything I wanted to do.  We went to Target, Hobby Lobby, Best Buy, and Books a Million.  We splurged and bought Guitar Hero 3 for both of us as a Valentine's Day gift to each other.  We weren't really that romantic this year.  With everything that has gone on we didn't secretly shop for each other.  So we just decided to get something we both liked on the day of.  Jared was sweet though.  He made me a card and put it by Grumbles when I was getting ready.  I could have taken a picture, but it was made out of a used red office folder :o) Hee hee.. the outside WAS a heart shape though!!  It didn't look like much but he put a lot of thought into what he wrote and that mattered more to me.

We decided to eat at Olive Garden which was PACKED!!  We were lucky we only had a 30 minute wait because we got there at 4 p.m.  Afterwards we wandered around some more and ended up at Maggie Moo's!!  What a date!! :o)  Won't do one like that for a LONG time, but it was Valentine's day after all!!  I think I gained 5 lbs!! HA!!

 

Ohh and the balloons...  Jared didn't know that I had never received a foil balloon before.  The day after Valentine's Day, Jared was in Wal-mart and picked these up.  I was napping after worship and he tied them to the end of the bed.  I saw them a few minutes later when I woke up and I was so surprised and happy!!!

We used Grumbles in our pictures again.  We were in our PJ's when I wanted to take a picture of our present.  Grumbles decided to be our stand-in!! :o)

Girly Fun at the Movies!!

 

The picture above is of Becky, Me, and Sandy at the FHU movie theatre.  We went there Monday to watch Twilight!  We had a lot of fun and everyone really enjoyed the movie.  It was fun hanging out with these ladies!  They are some of my best friends!  I wish more people could have joined us, but we had fun together.

Last Week

Wow this week has been so busy that I haven't even had time to blog or even look at my friends' blogs. Hopefully over Thanksgiving break I can keep up, but here are the updates I promised last week.

Last Thursday, 11-13-08 was Molly's Birthday. Molly is an admissions counselor like Jared and she is one of our friends. It was really nice to be invited to her sushi birthday party. Below are some pictures of the group that came. I'm missing 3 people that were there an hour or so earlier. I believe we should have groups that go to Sakura and in general hang out more often!! I loved hanging out with these people. The funniest thing that happened while we were there was that after Molly ordered this banana dessert, Sakura gave her a complimentary birthday dessert and it was the same banana stuff she ordered but without the ice cream! Lucky for the rest of us, she was full of that and we all were able to have some!

I also promised to post the pictures of Jared's wicked wreck. This happened during "Rev it Up" on Friday late morning after chapel. Here is before the wreck shots. Jared is very apprehensive about wrecking and hurting himself....

And here are a couple shots of the wreck... "Why worry, wrecking was the best part of the race!"

I really was worried about him. I was in shock at first because I couldn't believe he actually did wreck!! But after I saw him get up he was laughing and I knew he might be sore, but he'd be okay.

Here is a picture we took before the races (sorry it's out of order). The lion is our buddy, Joe Askew!

Saturday morning we drug ourselves out of bed to go see the clubs do "Pep It Up". It was FREEZING outside. Jared promised me a sausage biscuit from Jacks though so I was a little happier about standing outside in the cold.

The top picture above is of XBX. Jared was once President of XBX and now he's a sponser so we try to go to a lot of their activities. I will claim them too because when I was in school it seemed I had more dates with XBX then PKA guys!! Thus, I went to all their banquets and retreats!! Oh yeah, and I married Jared. : )

Below is MY club and family while at Freed. PKA!!

And the winners of Homecoming!!

PHI KAPPA ALPHA!!! YAYYYYY!!

I was happy Phi Kappa Alpha won. But I remember the days when it was really hard to win anything. My hope is that the club won't let winning go to their heads. Stay humble and proud at the same time guys. OTSS!!

The other noteable winner for this blog goes to the best Homecoming Window ever!! Designed by my brother in law and most special friend - Eric of Gott. Whoo-hoo go XBX for winning this!

And saving the best for last... my favorite part of homecoming is seeing friends and family.

Remembering the memories and good times....

Love you guys and all the other wonderful people I saw during homecoming!!

I hope you enjoyed this week's post. Come back next week and I will try to have posts of my Thanksgiving Break to Gulf Shores!! Fun in the Sun!!!

Happy weekend and upcoming Turkey days to all!

Busy Weekend

7:00 a.m. Saturday Morning.  EARLY FOR THE GOTTS!!  We had a 6 family yard sale today.  It was a little chilly, but overall it was a beautiful day for a yard sale.  Jared and I made a little money and had a lot of fun with friends.  This is a picture of our sale.  

I was so excited when I found another Mushabelly stuffed animal!  Thanks to Leslie, I'm the proud owner of two very cute Mushabellies!  "Grumbles" pig who was my first and favorite Mushabelly from Jared.  And "Barry" who is a Christmas Polar Bear from Leslie.  "One person's junk is another person's treasure!"  I was so excited!  It was a successful yard sale just because I found that! I'll have to post a picture later since I'm babbling on about a silly stuffed animal.

  

Sandy and Maria.  (Notice the ugly cat Maria had)  This was the neighbor's cat that we tried to sell.  Ashley even put a price tag on its head!

 

Me and Ashley.  Freezing and enjoying hot cocoa!  Let it be noted that the girls were outside while the boys stayed inside and watched youtube videos! HA! :0)  The guys did play a big part in entertaining kiddos and Chad cleaned the house for Sandy.  Very cool!

Later that afternoon we drove down to Hamilton, AL to attend XBX's Fall Retreat.  We had a lot of fun.  This is a picture of Jared doing the annual "STARE" at the Talent Show.  After the bonfire we went to the hotel to thaw out for a few hours before getting up and going to the Hamilton Church of Christ for a school visit.  The congregation there was really nice and the lesson was good.  I look forward to going back.  All in all it was a fun and exhausting weekend!!