Party Season

'Tis the season for parties & open houses, and fortunately other people have been hosting them so I haven't had to! True, I do love entertaining, but it really is nice when we can go to other people's houses and enjoy their clean, inviting homes and eat all of their food.

This past Saturday, our neighbors that live on the other side of our ceiling, Currie & Abby, had a fun little gathering. Unfortunately though, only one picture was taken all night, but it's a good one!

Here is Jessica, me, Abby & Joy - all seminary wives. Jess and her husband, BJ, don't live in Atherton yet, but they hope to soon.

Last week we got to go to another party. Technically it wasn't a "Christmas" party, it was actually a going-away party for our dear friends, the Zellners. We are very sad to say good-bye to them. Eric & I worked together at my first job here in St Louis - while I was running errands & doing laundry all day, he got to do all the cleaning - lucky guy! It was great to get to know him, his wife, Susan, and their two precious girls, Olivia & Emma Frances, well over the past 3 1/2 years. Wow, has it been that long?!

18 days until Christmas

We put our Christmas tree up this past weekend and I wanted to show it off.



















Here is our Nativity - notice, the wise men are far away.















Bunny's favorite winter activity is to wreck havoc on the tree skirt so I tried to capture that for all to see. Whenever we start playing with her, she goes directly to the tree skirt and won't play until we come over there.

Winter Storm Hits the Midwest

I really thought I would not make it home from work last night. Give me a foot or two of snow and I can plow right through it, even in my little Altima, but hit us with sleet and freezing rain and two inches of ice, and I'm a wreck (fortunately not literally). My new work hours are 11-8:30 and the sleet began around 9 am, I made it to work just fine, but my drive home last night (fortunately they let me leave at 6:15) was hazardous, to say the least! There was a layer of ice, snow drifts and slush all over the roads, and the lane markers were completely invisible. Every little movement I made, even at 15 mph, my tires were sliding all over the place, and my 9-mile commute took me over an hour - and I drive on some really major roads!

Beyond my experience, here are some highlights of the storm's impact on St Louis:

• 500,000 customers are without power
• one of the major highways here (I-70) was shut down for awhile
• Metrolink (train) was inoperable this morning
• more than 1000 travelers stranded in Lambert Airport
  

Thankfully the sleet stopped sometime during the night and we woke up this morning to a winter wonderland! We were "supposed" to get 6-10 inches of snow, but only got 1-2. Normally I would be disappointed about that, but since there was 2 inches of ice underneath, I was happy with just a little more than a dusting this time. I am grateful now for the pretty sunshine that has come out and given us a relief from the precipitation so that the road crews can catch up and keep my roadways clear!

Every year

I have such a hard time getting in the Christmas spirit. I don't know if it's because I love fall & Thanksgiving so much and it's hard to let go of that season, because there is no snow yet (and it's 70 degrees outside!), or if it's because of the over-commercialization of Christmas that by the time it gets here, I'm sick of seeing Christmas decorations and Christmas songs. But whatever the reason, it happens every year. I don't want to get out the tree, the garland, the lights, the CDs... but I do it anyway, and you know what, the magic of the season eventually gets me and all of a sudden I'm little miss Christmas-girl.

But right now, on November 29th, I'm just not there yet... but then again, I hear snow is on the way... Better start bringing up the boxes from the basement, Bobby!!

Beautiful Day

Thanksgiving day has come and gone, but it was a wonderful celebration. We were fortunate enough to have both sets of parents and Bobby's sister, Mindy, with us as we hosted our first Thanksgiving dinner. We started off the day with a little walk outside - the weather has been sunny & in the 60's all week here in St Louis, then we watched the parade on tv, and started preparations for our feast. The turkey & ham were "smoked" the day before so we just pretty much had to reheat everything (thank you Currie & Abby for letting us use your oven!), but I was more concerned with the decor - and had a lot of fun dressing-up the table. If you're not already hungry, you may be after you read this... our menu consisted of: turkey, ham, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green beans, apple sauce, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, whole wheat rolls, and baked pineapple. And for dessert we had oatmeal-pecan pie (a new recipe - yum!), pumpkin pie, rice pie, ice cream & whipped cream. Following the after-dinner clean-up ritual, we pretty much just sat around and visited until we all fell asleep. What a great day!


Here is Bobby, in his glory, carving the turkey.

Thanksgiving

My favorite holiday (after Veteran's Day) is almost here! I've always loved Thanksgiving - I love the season that it's in, it's near my birthday, it's more laid back and casual than Christmas because there isn't any stress over presents, and everyone gets to sit around, enjoy good food & each other, and reflect on what we're thankful for. So in light of that, I thought I'd take a moment and share what I'm thankful for this year...

1. First, my gracious and loving Heavenly Father. Each year I grow more and more in my faith and He is there to renew me each day and draw me closer to Him. I am so grateful that He calls me his own and loves me despite all of my flaws & shortcomings.
2. My wonderful and loving husband. Once again he amazes me with his hard work and diligence - he (somehow!) manages to balance school (full-time seminary classes & German), work (UPS and part-time job at Covenant), his internship, several pulpit-filling opportunities, and his family. Through all of this, we have been able to have great health insurance, go on a couple wonderful vacations, and will graduate in May with almost ZERO debt! wow!! And while you may think we never get to see each other, I never feel neglected. He works really hard during the week so we get to enjoy our weekends together - whether we're watching football, shopping at Walmart or going to the movies, our time together is always special!
3. Our families! I am so thankful that we both have such loving and supportive parents, we are truly blessed. And this includes our extended family too - we lean on them so much for support & prayers - we miss them all so much since we are far away from everyone, it seems, and it's so nice when we can get home to see them.
4. The CTS community & our fabulous neighbors. Never would I have guessed that we would make such wonderful friends here in St Louis, especially living in the ghetto! Atherton has been such a great place to live, even though we had our doubts and were disappointed when we couldn't get into Gulf Drive, we never would have changed a thing - except a second bedroom would have been nice... Building #8449 rocks!
5. Bunny & Brooks! My little critters bring me so much joy when I am home by myself - I love watching Bunny throw her toys around and constantly try and sneak into the bedroom (it is her main goal in life) and Brooks is so precious when you walk over to his tank and he swims (& wiggles - you should see Bobby inpersonate him!) just to get some attention. It's the greatest!
6. Email/Internet - without it I wouldn't be able to communicate so well with my dear friends all over the country - especially the one in Virginia who brings so much joy to my day while I'm at work. (yes, I check my email while I'm working... it keeps me sane)
7. This list is getting long so I'll summarize everything else into this last point: shelter, food, cars, HEALTH, safety, heat/air conditioning, cable tv, jobs, Body for Life, email, President Bush, Kirk of the Hills PCA church, Walmart, entertainment (movies, books, music, etc), and everything else that I can't think of right now...

So as you can see, I have a LOT to be thankful for this year!

Random pictures

For some reason my blog only lets me post four pictures per post so I thought I would make a new post just for those couple pictures that I couldn't post earlier... (I tried to see how many times I could put the word "post" in one sentence.)

Here is one of my favorite pictures of Bobby and I - taken at my parent's house a few weeks ago.














Here is a picture of Bobby enjoying the cheese fondue at the Melting Pot last Saturday night. (if it looks like he's tired, it's because we didn't get to eat dinner until 10:30 pm)
















Here is a cute one of our little Bunny laying on "her" pillow.

Birthday celebration 11/11/06

So, many of you know that this past Saturday was my birthday. And what a great day it was! The fun started Friday night when I got home from work and was surprised & greeted by 8 friends and Bobby shouting "Happy Birthday!!!" We enjoyed a huge Dairy Queen birthday cake (my FAVORITE kind of cake!), blueberry sparkling cider, and listened to my new Josh Turner cd. Here are a couple pictures from that night...
















Below is Karen (Abby's friend), Abby, Joy (and baby in utero), and me
















Then Saturday I enjoyed a pancake breakfast in bed, opened quite a few presents from Bobby (thank you UPS for the bonus!), went out and did a little bit of shopping, watched (most of) the OU game, then had dinner at the Melting Pot http://www.meltingpot.com - finally! I've been wanting to go there since we moved here because I LOVE FONDUE! It was delicious!! :-)
































Overall I had a great bday weekend and look forward to all those cards that will be coming in late on Monday because, as always, I never get mail on my birthday... (Veteran's Day + national holiday = no mail)

Football Frenzy

The Griffith's love of football doesn't end with just Bobby and me - Bunny loves it too! And to prove it, we'll show you how cute she looks dressed up in her football gear.

On Saturdays she becomes BUNNY SOONER.
















And on Sundays she is STEELER BUNNY.


















What? Doesn't everyone dress up their pet rabbits?!


No bunnies were hurt in the process of making this blog post. Only annoyed.

Take a little time to enjoy... Elisabeth Hasselbeck

I know it makes my husband very upset that I watch this show, which wasn’t a problem until my shift at work changed and now I’m home in the morning and I’m re-addicted. The show is The View. I really didn’t think I would be that interested now that Rosie is on it, but really, Meredith wasn’t much better. And even though all Rosie talks about is being gay and hating President Bush, it’s really Joy Behar that gets on my nerves the most. Yet, I still keep tuning in… Obviously the person I identify most closely with is Elisabeth Hasselbeck http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_Hasselbeck . We’re both in our late 20s and conservative. I’ve been a fan of hers since she was on Survivor, then I watched her on The Look for Less when she hosted that, and now the View. Everyday when I watch the first portion of the show that they call Hot Topics, I just don’t know how she can stand to be on that show and have to put up with those crazy liberals and I start getting so upset for her, but then I realize why she is there… she is giving all of us who oppose Rosie & Joy a voice, and for that I am very grateful! I mean, basically that is the point of the show, Barbara Walters created it because she wanted a show with woman of different generations, different view points, etc. and she got it, but it seems like it’s everyone vs. Elisabeth most days. Baba Wawa is mostly neutral, but Joy & Rosie completely agree on most everything and they seem to gang up on Elisabeth, which again, makes me think, “Elisabeth, get out there! Quit putting up with them and leave!” But what fun would that be for us, the viewers? Seriously, I am so proud of her and for what she stands for – if there were an Elisabeth Hasselback fan club, I would be in it!