Simple gifts

This year Will & I celebrated Thanksgiving three times!

The first one we had was the Saturday before Thanksgiving with our friends. Emily Conner, one of my close friends from college, hosted it at her parents lake house in Gainesville. Everyone brought their favorite dish. Will & I brought macaroni & cheese and cheese apples - two of my mom's best recipes! The dinner was beautiful & so yummy. It was so great getting to hang out with everyone, too!

Thanksgiving #2 was at our house in Athens with my parents & brothers. My mom came down & spent the night with us the night before Thanksgiving. The next morning we made blueberry muffins for breakfast & then began cooking lunch.

My beautiful table with the dishes we got when we got married (we really do use them ALL the time!)
My little centerpiece with my Publix pilgrim salt & pepper shakers! =)

Mom helping out with the turkey!

Dad carving the finished product!

And the final spread:

Seasoned baked turkey breast

Sweet potato souffle (Mom's specialty)

Macaroni & cheese

Squash caserole

Stuffing

Fried ocra

& Apple pie for dessert!

Thanksgiving #3 was at Erin's house in Gainesville with Will's mom's side of the famliy this past Sunday. This was the first time in a very long time that every single member of the family was together. Everyone pitched in to make a dish. Will & I made my grandmother's squash casserole...yum!

At last!!!

The traditional two-year anniversary gift is cotton! For our anniversary (way back in August) Will told me that he wanted to have a "cotton" quilt made, but he wanted me to pick out the colors and patterns. We found this place online, based out of Southern California, that makes handmade custom quilts:

http://www.cadencecustomquilts.com/

I wanted the quilt to reflect our wedding colors - brown, teal, & ivory. I also found this really adorable double wedding ring design that was popular in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries. "They consisted of rings that could be interlocked (www.womenfolk.com/quilt_pattern_history/wedring.htm)."

Here is the beautiful finished product that just came in today...

The patterns used are some of my favorites - toile & paisley! They spent about 250 hours of careful labor to construct this work of art! All of the arches hand-appliqued and the entire quilt was built to my custom specifications. Kona cotton was used for the background fabric, which is an extremely high quality material & makes for the perfect traditional two-year anniversary gift! I still plan on taking it to be embroidered with our initials and wedding date to give it the perfect finishing touch.

It has been a long 3 months waiting on this gift, but it was well worth the wait! Coincidentally, it came in on the three-year anniversary of the day Will proposed to me! So special!

Take whatcha get!

Will with his little rental car.

He said it was "a piece" but I guess that's what you get when you only have a $30 a day allotment from the insurance company...

(I made him take this picture...if you couldn't already tell!)

It's raining, again...& it poured!

Well...Will totaled HIS car today.

Poor little guy...today was just not his day. He started off today with a wake-up call from a guy at work wondering where he was. He had overslept about an hour & a half (only the 2nd time in 3 years...I think that's pretty good!)

About 45 minutes later I got a call from a number that I didn't recognize (I don't usually answer if I don't know the number.) A few minutes later the same number called back. I thought it was UGA calling about an appointment I had later in the day. It was 8:00 in the morning...I was just going to call them back later. Then they called a THIRD time! I had thoughts running through my head that it might be the police!!! They would never leave me a message saying that my husband had been in a car accident. They would want to talk to me - not my voicemail. So I answered it!

Yep! My husband had been in an accident.

I was relieved to hear that it was Will, himself, calling me & not someone else saying that he was unable to talk or something terrible like that. He told me that he hydroplaned & flipped his car & that he needed me to come get him. I through on my shoes & headed out the door.

When I got there his car looked horrible. Thank God he was wearing his seat belt & that He was looking after Will!!! He could have been seriously hurt. He hydroplaned all the way across the other side of the road, into a ditch, and flipped. He has a black eye from hitting his head on the steering wheel & a scratched up hand & arm. (But when I got there he was covered in blood & dirt & looked a lot worse...it was scary!)

So ontop of being late, the rain, hyroplaneing, & totaling the car...the cop wrote him a ticket for "slick tires". Not to mention the warning for "failure to maintain lane".

Jerk!

Ready ready ready...ready to run!

Got my running shoes today!! A little tacky...but that's what makes runners cool! =)

I got them from the coolest little store in Braselton:

http://www.runnersfit.com/

The guy thats owns this store will watch you walk and determine what your gait is. Then he pulls some shoes according to what you need. Today, Michael & I ran a mile, walked one, ran one, & walked the fourth. I think they still need some breaking in but MUCH better than my other ones! Thanks Dad!