Easter Weekend

We had a wonderful long weekend. Friday it was cold and rainy here, but it was so nice having a day off. We slept in, went to the gym, I had lunch with my friend Abbie, we piddled for a while and then went to Gram's to help her get some things ready for our big Easter feast.

Saturday morning my mom went with us to Wrights Nursery. Our friends Abbie and Chris have recently opened this nursery in Clemmons. Chris has a landscaping business but now runs this nursery on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. It was the cutest little place and the flowers were beautiful and very reasonable.





We got back home in time to plant some of our new flowers before Paul's parents got here.




On the left is a knock-out yellow rose bush that my mom bought us for Easter.


It should bloom any day now.



We had a nice visit with Paul's parents before heading over to Gram's. We had our Easter dinner on Saturday since Paul's parents had to leave after church on Sunday. Gram did not disappoint with the menu. There is just something about a Greek woman's magic in the kitchen!

I am so glad the boys still love a good Easter egg hunt. I wonder if the reason Gram stuffs them with money is so they will never be too cool for it. Just kidding Gram!


Paul is the master Easter egg hider.




Sunday we went to church. There is a lot of food and fun involved in Easter, but the most important thing is celebrating what this holiday is all about. Jesus not only died on the cross for us, but He defeated death by raising from the dead. You will never hear of better news than that. I am so thankful to worship a God who is alive!

After church we enjoyed a nice lunch with Mom and Dad Hicks before they got on the road. I hated their visit was so short but hopefully we'll be making a trip to the beach to visit them sometime soon.




Today was supposed to be a day off for our school system but instead it was a snow make-up day. I can't complain though because we only have 6 more working Mondays until summer break!

Oh what a night!

Thank God today is my Friday because I stayed up WAY past my bedtime last night ;) But it was so worth it!

Our good friends Katelyn and Derek got engaged yesterday. Paul and I have known about it for about a week or so now and it's been so hard keeping it in and trying not to act weird around them. Katelyn had planned a cookout for Derek's birthday so since their closest family and friends would already be there, Derek thought it would be a perfect time to celebrate their engagement too. Katelyn's best friend Joey is a photographer and she often does photo shoots for their band. Eventually Katelyn and Derek want to just be a duo, so Joey was doing a photo shoot for just the two of them. That was all part of the plan but Katelyn wouldn't have had any reason to think that was out of the ordinary since they had been talking about doing this photo shoot for a while. I will skip the rest of the details, although they are very sweet, and just say that Derek had the perfect proposal and her best friend got it all photographed. All of us were waiting at Katelyn's parent's house when they got there after the proposal. It was such a fun night of sharing in their joy and excitement.


Our good friends Meredith and Chad. You might recognize Chad-he is a reporter for Fox 8 news.





Gettin ALL UP IN IT as Meredith would say.


Love these two!


Paul and I look forward to walking along side of them as they plan the wedding, say I do and enter into the beautiful covenant of marriage.

Weekend recap

I think I need a weekend to recover from my weekend. It was a busy one but a good one.

Friday night we cooked dinner for our friends Katelyn and Derek and then we went to see Soul Surfer. It was SO good! Carrie Underwood's acting was a little cheesy, but otherwise I thought it was a phenomenal movie.

Saturday we went to a big birthday party for some of our favorite youngins, Mason and Landon. The party was planned to be all outside but the weather forecast had other things in mind-like severe storms and tornadoes nearby. It was still a great party and the sun even came out for the last hour or so.

My good friend Abbie made the cake. She has become quite the talented baker! And it tasted as good as it looked.




Landon wasn't too sure of his cake at first.



But Mason was!


This will always be my favorite Mason face.


And Landon is even taking after his big brother.


This was the highlight of Mason's birthday-his very own tractor!


The sun came out just in time for some outside fun!



Saturday evening we took a meal to the Galloways. Baby Ryan is 4 weeks old now and is just precious!


Sunday we went to church at Pinedale. Katelyn and Derek lead worship at the contemporary service there and we'd been wanting to go see them for a while. We have seen their band play so many times but it was so cool to see them in church using their talents to glorify Him.

Paul was supposed to have a soccer game Sunday but it was cancelled due to the fields being too wet from the storms the day before. So we went to lunch with the Sowers. You know, because we hadn't gotten enough of them this weekend ;)



After lunch we went to meet my good friend Kristen's brand new baby, Grace.



I thought Kristen looked amazing! I hope I look at least half that good after just having a baby.


She was so perfect and it was so sweet to see how much in love her mommy and daddy already are! I have no doubt that they will be wonderful parents.

I love that we are being surrounded by so many precious babies right now. Since it's not quite time to have our own, I am taking full advantage of having the time and energy to love on everyone else's. Plus, a little free practice here and there can't hurt, right?!

Last night we had my family over for dinner and we got started on the home videos from our Disney trip. I know my family will treasure those moments forever and it's so cool to be able to look back on them.

It was a lovely, lovely weekend!

Happy Friday

Welp, it's finally Friday-thank you Lord! This week has been so busy. I am so excited about our weekend plans! This afternoon I get to have some long, overdue QT (that's quality time just in case you're wondering) with my dear friend Alexandra. Then our friends Katelyn and Derek are coming over for dinner and we are going to see Soul Surfer. Much to my surprise, I have heard from several people that it is a really good movie.

Tomorrow my friend Lindsey is having a big birthday party for her two boys. Mason turned 4 yesterday and Landon will be 1 tomorrow. Can't wait to post some pics from the big par-tay.

Tomorrow evening we'll be taking a meal to some friends who recently had this sweet thing...


And Sunday my family is coming over for dinner to watch DVDs that Paul burned of videos from our Disney trip.

Oh, and my good friend Kristen is in labor as we speak so a trip to meet Baby Grace might also be in store for this weekend.

It's gonna be a busy, but good weekend! Happy Friday, y'all!

Disney Finale

Thursday we had severe storms all day. Like, for real storms. Like, tornadoes right around us. So we slept in and hung out at the hotel most of the day. Finally some of us decided we'd rather get wet and take the risk of being struck by lightning (I mean, you only live once right?) than sit in a hotel room at DISNEY WORLD. So me, Bruce, Paul and Gram were off in our ponchos to have some wet Disney fun!


That night we enjoyed a seafood buffet at Disney's Beach Club Resort. We feasted on some all you can eat crab legs and Paul reminisced about falling in love with me the first time he saw me eat crab legs. I guess that's a story for another time. Anywho, it finally stopped raining in time for us to see the Fantasmic show that night at Hollywood Studios. If you ever go to Disney, you won't want to miss that one. It was the best of all that we saw!

Friday was a long day. We missed so much time the day before because of rain so we knew we'd have to hit it long and hard our last day to get everything in that we wanted to do. We got up really early and spent most of the day at Hollywood Studios. My brother and I have some awesome memories from the last time we went there, which was 15 years ago. Gram rode Tower of Terror with us and we thought that was the coolest thing. We were hoping to relive it again, but didn't know if she'd be able to do it. Who were we kidding?



Rockin Roller Coaster was another favorite. The only reason Gram didn't ride that was because of how jerky it was. The first time we rode it, the lady working the height check wouldn't let Bryan on. He was so mad! That boy isn't afraid of anything. Later we went back and he wore my brother's hat and in a not so obvious kind of way, stood on his tip toes just a little and managed to get on!


Here is the whole fam at Hollywood Studios.


After Hollywood Studios we went to Epcot and had dinner in Mexico and stayed for their Illuminations show, another one you won't want to miss if you go to Disney! From there everybody else called it a night and Paul and I headed back to the Magic Kingdom for the electric parade, yet another that we didn't want to miss. It did not disappoint. I'm telling y'all, Disney does everything so perfect!



After the parade we stayed and rode Space Mountain a few more times. It was about 1:30 that morning before we got it bed and we had to get up about 6:00 to load the car and check out. We had one final grand gathering on our last day. It was breakfast at Tony's Town Square. We got to meet and take pictures with Mickey and Cinderella in a private room before breakfast.




Then Minnie, Goofy, Donald and Daffy were all at our breakfast.




Goofy is my favorite. I'm sure you're not surprised.


It was so much fun and such a perfect ending to a wonderful vacation at the happiest place on earth!