WHITE Alabama Christmas!

Harrison and I had a very packed Christmas holiday! Tuesday was our own personal little Christmas in Asheville. We finished Christmas shopping and dressed up for a fancy dinner at the Red Stag within the Grand Bohemian Hotel. Wednesday we headed to Newnan, GA to celebrate Christmas early with Aileen and our nephew (Pilot dad, Andrew, was at work). We had a wonderful time with them; they're getting so big! Thursday we headed to Auburn to spend a day and a half with the Williams/Whatley side of the family. We went out in Auburn Thursday night with many of Harrison's friends from highschool. Thursday we had brunch with Harrison's extended family, then later had people over to shoot hand guns! What else do you do on Christmas Eve in Alabama? I have to say, I'll choose my 20 gauge shotgun any day over a pistol, but we still had a blast.

-- For Christmas, Harrison's parents got him a "Webley" pistol: A British officer's pistol from WWI. He was beyond excited!

Christmas Eve night we took off from Auburn to Gadsden to visit the Cunningham side. Aileen's family didn't come this year, because the boys are getting big enough where they need to have Christmas at their own home. I was so excited to get to see the rest of the family: Mom, Dad, David, Nate, Kellye, and Paige (the newest edition)! Paige is almost two months old now and she's so perfect! We went to mass Christmas morning in the SNOW!!!! Snow in the mountains of NC is expected, but Gadsden is a different story! It was a beautiful white Christmas in Alabama. We opened presents, held Paige, and played fun family board games all night!

Sunday after mass, we had to head back to Asheville. The drive was fine until we hit some treacherous conditions in the mountains. There was about 8 inches of snow on the sides of the interstate, and the snow kept falling. We were confident in the AWD capabilites of our Subaru, but it was still scary! We finally got home to find out that one of our heating units broke for the second time this month! We could see our breath in the air of our bedroom! Thankfully, Aileen had given her heated mattress pad to us for Christmas. That helped us sleep comfortably until maintenance could arrive in the morning.

O Tannenbaum... & Heisman

We bought our Christmas tree from a beautiful farm in Burnsville, NC. Harrison enjoyed strapping it to the top of the Subaru on the first snowy day of the Christmas season.

I don't mean to brag, but we have the BEST spot ever to place a Christmas tree! We're in love with the architectural details of our 1920's downtown Asheville apartment.

This year we have a new tree-topper. It's a lovely angel that my mother-in-law gave us.

Check out Thrifty Decor Chick's Christmas Tree Party to see other lovely trees!

As you can see, the Christmas tree skirt that I made (see the 'Arts and Crafts' section) is around the bottom. It is too small, but I plan to extend it with some green velvet trim and fringe.

I took a few pictures of some of our most prized ornaments. Below you'll see our engagement ornament, our favorite AU ornament, The Constitution, my 2005 nursing school ornament, scrubs: 2006 - I became an RN ornament, 'Tracy's Diary of Christmas Memories" ornament - handcarved by my grandfather, 2006 Asheville ornament (the year we moved here), "6" ornament - for beating Bama 6 times in a row in the Iron Bowl, our 1st Christmas as a married couple ornament, our sorority and fraternity ornaments, camping Santa ornament symbolizing Harrison's 2004 thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail, Harrison's kindergarten school bus ornament, and Harrison's fingerprint snowman.

This year, Harrison and I enjoyed decorating the tree while sipping wine (our favorite: Sangiovese) and watching the Heisman ceremony on ESPN. It was so exciting to see Auburn's own Cam Newton win the prestigious award!

SEC Champions, 2010

WAR EAGLE!

12/4/10

Miracle pass: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D6c50Cfz9Q

Toomer's Corner: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq1dcfvQw94&feature=related

Auburn wins the SEC Championship against South Carolina: 56-17!!!

That's the biggest score difference in SEC Championship history!

Harrison and I were at a friend's wedding with some fellow Auburn fans during the game. We had a wonderful time at Laura and Kenny's wedding. I have to admit that we were all getting game updates on smart-phones during the reception. We were all so excited!

We are really looking forward to playing Oregon in the BCS National Championship on January 10th. Harrison and I want to go, but he has comprehensive exams the following week, and he'll be cramming. I would go with several of our friends, but I'd hate to celebrate a possible National Title without him. We still aren't sure where we'll watch it.

Iron Bowl, 2010: "The Comeback"

Today, I was NOT out shopping on Black Friday. Instead, Harrison and I were sitting at Pack's Tavern in Asheville with part of The Auburn Family, nervously watching the Iron Bowl. Going into the game, Auburn was ranked #2, undefeated, with two more wins needed to secure a spot in the National Championship. However, we were up against last year's National Champs.

The first half was dreadful. It seemed that our players might've eaten too much turkey the day before. About 5 minutes before half-time, the score was 24-0, Bama. Harrison and I were trying to decide if we wanted to cash out and watch the rest at home on 'mute.' However, we decided to stay, knowing that Auburn has been a 'second-half team' over the past year. We also recalled last year's Iron Bowl, where Auburn was winning the entire game, but Bama scored in the last few minutes to defeat us by a tight margin.

Rather than acting like 'fair-weather fans' we decided to keep our spirits up and stay for the remainder. I sure am glad that we did! We held Alabama to 3 points for the rest of the game and CAME BACK by 28 points to win the game 28-27! Sadly, I know from last year how those Bammer fans are feeling today. Next week we play South Carolina in the SEC Championship. One more victory will land us in the National Championship! We're crossing our fingers all week long.

Auburn fans, get pumped up:
http://www.auburn.edu/communications_marketing/ironbowl10.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKY9FhpJbSE&feature=player_embedded

Happy '90's Sitcom' Thanksgiving!

For Thanksgiving this year, we decided to stay in Asheville rather than visit with family in Georgia and Alabama. Harrison found himself swamped with three 20-page papers due the week after, so we were pretty tied down to home. It actually worked out pretty well though since several of our other friends also stayed in town. We decided to throw a pot-luck Thanksgiving dinner at Christen's apartment and all dress up like characters from 90's sitcoms (because theme parties/dressing up = "Stuff White People Like"). I dressed up as Rachel from "Friends," Harrison was Zack from "Saved by the Bell," Christen was Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, Katie Anne was Alex Mac, Melissa was the white version of Rudy from "The Cosby Show," and Renee was the mom from "Family Ties."

We started with appetizers that included shrimp cocktail and champagne with fresh sqeezed cranberries (this is a tradition in Christen's family, and one that I may have to adopt). Our meal was fantastic: Carrot curry soup, cranberry/blue cheese salad, roasted asparagus and red peppers, green bean casserole, cheesy mashed potatoes, fantastic turkey and stuffing, pumpkin pie, apple crumble, and cookies! We were all about to pop. We spent the rest of the night playing board games. Harrison and Christen drove around downtown looking to give our leftovers to the homeless, but had no luck! They put the leftovers in the bus station but they were still there the next day!

Possibly the best part of the night was when the gravy congealed and Melissa acted like she was going to pour it on Renee. We took a few pictures of her doing this, since it was funny that even when turning the gravy upside-down, it wouldn't move. Eventually, it did. Renee (and Christen's couch) got covered in congealed gravy! I haven't laughed that hard in a while!

Paige Audrey Cunningham

We have a NIECE!!! Nate and Kellye had their first child on Friday, 11.5.10 around 5:45 PM. She weighed in at 7lb 11oz and 19.5 inches long.

Because Kellye was induced in the morning and this was her first, I thought I could work until around 3pm, drive 3 hours to Marietta and make it on time for the big announcement (gender was a surprise). Unfortunately, it was Dr. Anderson's day off, and Bill, the PA, was out sick. The girls did a fantastic job adjusting my schedule so that I could try to leave early and not have to take on all of Bill's schedule as well. Unfortunately my last two patients could not be rescheduled so I didn't get to leave the office until 5:30.

My family was still very excited for me to get to the hospital, so they all stuck around to see Nate announce to me that they'd had a beautiful baby girl! I'm so exited! Nephews are awesome, but now I'm really looking forward to buying all kinds of dainty frills to spoil Paige!

Big day of financial transactions

Today Harrison and I woke up early to drop our new Subaru off at a body shop to get the deep scratches out of it. Two weeks after we bought our car, some punk keyed it in our apartment's parking lot. They also tagged about seven other cars in the lot. Unfortunately, several hundreds of dollars worth of damage was done to our car's paint.

After dropping the car off, we went out to take a look at a canoe that Harrison spotted on Craigslist. Ever since I've known him he's talked endlessly about wanting to own a Mad River 14' tandem canoe. He's searched all over for the perfect boat, and today we found it. He's beyond excited. We can't wait to take it out on the French Broad River! Since we didn't have the Outback today, we had to load it on the Corolla which looked a little funny.

This afternoon, Harrison sold his truck to a friend, so now we don't feel nearly as guilty for spending so much money this morning! Tonight we're looking forward to eating a free dinner (courtesy of Marquis Imaging) at Obama's favorite Asheville restaurant, 12 Bones. I guess the company's supposed to show us pictures of their new facility so they can convince me to send all of my patients to them for MRIs, CTs, etc. I just might do so if they keep feeding us!

Kellye & Nate's baby shower 9/19/10

Kellye and Nate's Baby Shower 9/19/10

Baby C (my niece or nephew) is expected to arrive around Thanksgiving!

My mom, sister, and I threw my brother and sister-in-law a baby shower in Marietta since they're expecting their first little one. For decorations I made streamers that were hung from the columns in the pavilion. I made them using Jute string and colorful rectangles of fabric scraps. I folded each recangle over the string and glued the fabric sides together. It really brought a lot of color to the party. For centerpieces we used hurricane glasses and filled them with baby blocks that the future parents could use as learning toys. In addition, we placed stacks of baby books on the tables and tied them in tulle. We also had a few cute plants in Peter Rabbit planters. We're so excited for them!

And so it begins...

I have today off work, and I'm procrastinating cleaning the apartment, so I decided to create a blog. Since I don't really enjoy talking on the phone, I figured that blogging could be a good way to keep friends and family updated (if they're interested).
Now that I'm FINALLY finished with school, I have a lot of extra time on my hands. I've started shopping way too much, have enjoyed learning to cook, have been dabbling in various arts and crafts projects, reading for pleasure, and spending some time at the gym. These are all things I was almost never able to do in the last seven years that I've spent in college. With this newfound freedom comes boredom, so I'm trying to find various fun new hobbies. This blog will focus on our favorite recipes, my craft endeavors, and little anecdotes about our life.