Baby Boy Shower

My little sister, Amy, and I drove up to Cincinnati this past weekend to host a baby shower for my older sister, Emily. It's the first baby boy in the family, and my Dad's second grandchild. We are so excited to meet him in just a few weeks!

I had never hosted a baby shower before, let alone even gone to many baby showers. But everything was a hit, and I got a lot of help from Aunt Judy and one of Emily's friends.



He is due on March 1st, and his name has been kept a secret, so we have all been guessing like crazy.

DP3 Reunion

DP3=Disney Princess 3. These two BFFs and I go way back to Freshman year in college, when we decided that we would name our group of 3 "DP3" instead of something typical like "The Three Musketeers." We each tagged ourselves as a Disney princess that we loved and/or resembled. We even started this weird blog that lasted maybe a month, with no purpose other than to make up weird stories and attempt to keep each other updated when Meredith and I studied abroad for a semester during our sophomore year.

This picture is either from freshman or sophomore year. We've come a long way.



We try to keep up with each other (ok, it's not that hard for Meredith and I since we live about 1/2 mile away) by getting together at least once a year. Last weekend, Meredith and I drove to Charlotte for a night and we spent hours talking, laughing, eating cupcakes, and bowling.

I love these girls. DP3 for life. We have often said that we hope our children are BFFs. And if they're not, we'll make them be BFFs.

Last night

Bryce is in Wake Forest again to learn something complicated about cells. He comes home tomorrow. It's lonely in this small house! Especially when you don't feel well! Last night, I came home from class and ate this:

While watching this:


I felt strange. And then all of a sudden was dying to go for a run. But it's cold and there's snowy slush on the ground here. And I'm not feeling great.

While searching the internet for those pictures just now, I found this:

Image

Which makes me think of the TV show, Man vs Food. Does anyone watch that? It is one of the shows on instant Netflix which we occasionally find our non-cable household resorting to on nights when we want to veg out. Put it this way, it's not our top pick of shows to watch, but every now and again we will. The other day, we watched him slurp up almost 200 raw oysters. I don't think we'll be watching it for awhile. We were a little grossed out.

Tonight I watched The Last Song on Netflix and balled my eyes out. I'm sure Bryce is glad he didn't have to watch a Miley Cyrus movie with me. He'll be home tomorrow (YAY!!) and then Friday I get to go to Cinci (nnati) for Emily's baby shower! So excited to have a weekend with the girls (and Tim)!

Amy visits Blacksburg

Amy came to visit us about a week ago. She got to stay for the weekend and we watched movies, went out to eat, went running together, and went up to Mountain Lake to go sledding.



I had high hopes for our "snow boogie" from Walmart. But sledding didn't work out as well as we had planned, since we couldn't find many good sledding hills with snow already packed down. Hopefully we can try it out again this year.

Bryce and I went to the same place back in July.

Snowshoe for the day

On a Tuesday, Bryce heard about this incredible deal on Facebook for 1 night at Snoeshoe Inn and 2 lift tickets for a day. Because we are in a flexible stage of life, we hopped on it and went skiing/snowboarding for a day last week. It felt crazy and spontaneous. It made me a little nervous, but it was fun. AND they got plenty of snow all week, so the conditions were pretty nice.

Savannah for the weekend

We went to Savannah, Georgia for the weekend about two weeks ago. I went for a conference for work, and Bryce tagged along.

It's gorgeous. You should go. We pretty much stayed in the historic district the entire time, which I think is about 2 square miles. It's one of the largest historic districts in the USA of its kind. The eighteenth and nineteenth century architecture and parks are so charming. It's similar to Charleston, South Carolina, in that you walk down the streets and can picture girls in hoop skirted antebellum dresses around town.

The Spanish moss on all the huge oak trees is romantic in a way, thinking of the "Old South," but also a little creepy with all of Savannah's historic ghost stories.


I hear it's even better in the spring because it's not only right on the river, but there are a lot of waterways that are great for canoeing and kayaking. Tybee Island and its beaches are also only a few minutes away.

While shopping we went to a really chic store called The Paris Market. I think I wanted everything in the store including the old cameras.


On Saturday night, we went to a delicious tapas bar and a lively piano bar.

Hello 2011!

We went to West Virginia for New Years weekend to visit the Whiteds.

We had a crazy New Years party!

(I couldn't remember the last time I did a puzzle!)

Christmas 2010 Recap

On Christmas day, growing up in our family, none of the Christmas presents were put under the tree (except the ones that the kids bought) until night, when everyone was asleep. In the morning, we were not allowed to leave our rooms (or look over the balcony) until Mom and Dad were ready with the cameras and all the kids were up and ready. We always woke up really early with eager anticipation. This year was not much different, other than the fact that the "kids" are all adults and we have 1 child, Abby. Bryce thinks this is ridiculous and strange, especially the whole not-sleeping-in part.

All Abby wanted was a dollhouse. She kept saying that Santa will not come down the chimney because her dollhouse will be too big, so he'll come through the front door.

"Santa" did not disappoint. She was busy playing house and inviting everyone to play with her ALL week. I love that she has such a big imagination.



The days after Christmas, we watched football, went shopping, relaxed, cooked, watched it snow, and played Settlers of Catan.






And we played with new toys. Abby got a set of Tinker Toys, Bryce made a guitar and microphone, and they rocked out.



Although it looks like they are singing Metallica or something of that nature, they were actually "rocking out" to Jesus Loves Me.

We went to the Bodies Revealed Exhibit at the Natural Science Center. It was fascinating.

Emily's birthday is on the 29th, so we made reservations at one of our all time favorite restaurants, the Melting Pot. We hadn't been there in a long time. If you've never been, you should try it out. We enjoyed four courses including cheese fondue, salad, meat (that you cook at your table), and chocolate fondue.


The day before we left, Amy, Aaron, Bryce, and I went out to the shooting range.

Oh, and there were magical carpet rides.

See more pictures here.

Christmas Eve

At the Adams family house in North Carolina.

We went down on Wednesday before Christmas. Amy, Aaron, and Dad were in town, and Emily, Tim, and Abby arrived on Thursday. Bryce, Amy, Aaron, and I went down road and bought one of the last Christmas trees standing on the 23rd.

On Christmas Eve, we went to the church service, and then as usual, we went out for Chinese food. We really wanted to go to Phoenix (similar to PF Changs), but it was too crowded, so we went to King House across the street. Same difference right? ...Not so much, but it was still Chinese, and still pretty good. Note to self: make reservations next time.



Emily is due in late February/early March. Soooo excited for the little boy to arrive!



Every family has traditions. We always try to decorate the tree together as a family. It's usually not fancy, but it is special, with homemade ornaments and others that we have collected over the years. Each kid has a box of their ornaments. We also have a collection of needle point ornaments made by our Great Aunt Clara.





On Christmas Eve, it's always been to go to church, eat Chinese, each open one Christmas present (from a sibling), then leave Santa treats and a note. Through the last few years, Amy has been the faithful note writer. She helped Abby write her first note.



The Adams/Brereton/Whited family hopes you had a Merry Christmas.

Running

Since our half marathon in the OBX in November, we have been running. Actually, training. I never thought I'd say this... I am training for a marathon with Bryce.

I still think it is crazy. But the truth is, after such a fun time running in the Outer Banks, I thought, "I just ran 13 miles, I'm half way there in my training for a marathon, if I'm ever going to do it, now is the time." After a few days wondering if I should commit, I finally did. I am just now starting to feel okay with the idea that I'm going to try to run 26.2 miles in one day.

A couple weeks ago, it was freezing. And we were still running. One of the coldest days we went out for a run, it was 15 degrees, and with the windchill, it was 3 degrees. If you saw us on the road, you would have seen these 2 people:



We are hoping (God willing, no injuries or mishaps) to run a marathon in mid February.