Away from Home {in North Georgia}

I really want to share this year's Christmas details with you from around our home, but first I have some catching up to do from the past couple of months....

During the week of Thanksgiving, Alan and I traveled to North Georgia for a hiking and camping trip (I'll let the pictures do the talking). 


Our first stop: Amicalola Falls State Park

From there, we headed to the Appalachian Trail, where we set out on a hike.  I was looking forward to the view, but the fog had other ideas.

Come morning, the fog was still lingering, so we packed up camp and headed down the mountain.

Our next stop: Tallulah Gorge State Park

Next, we headed to Helen, GA, which ironically looks exactly like a little German town. Weird and quirky, but great fun! 

We had a delicious pizza for lunch, and I ate quite possibly the most delicious dark chocolate turtle with sea salt.  I really need to try to recreate it! Yep, it sounds odd, but it's delicious. 

From Helen, we drove over to the base of Mt. Yonah and started our hike. I was thankful there wasn't any fog when we finally made it to the top! 

On our way down the mountain, we came across several Ranger platoons in training.  It was fun to watch them tackle the mountain...and, we were thankful to have already made it to the top! 

If you ever get the chance to visit North Georgia, do it!  It's simply beautiful! 

Work Hard, Play Hard

Last week we worked really hard to get this wood pile chopped and split. (And, if you're wondering where all of this came from, I am going to share our backyard summer adventure with you this week. This is only the beginning...).   

This pile has been chopped up and piled high in our backyard from the start of our "backyard adventure". 

So, all we had to do was split it for use in our fireplace. (Yep, we chop wood in the middle of the summer for cold winter days and nights). Thanks to Alice, we were able to use this handy machine. (Thanks for finding the wood splitter, Alice. We broke it in pretty well for you!). 

Once we were finished, we had a pile of firewood as tall as me. (We were happy to be done!)

We are really interested to see if this will last us through the winter. I am sure you're thinking...wait, they live in South Georgia, it doesn't get very cold down there. Why are they chopping wood for the winter?


Well, it actually DOES get cold enough for a short amount of time in the winter months to make fires. Since we don't run our heat in the winter, fires are our main source of heat. Our large wood burning fireplace was one of the reasons why we chose this house. There's nothing like getting cozy by a warm fire when it's chilly outside (and inside). 


We recently had our fireplace and chimney cleaned and inspected, so we are ready to welcome winter weather with open arms and a warm fire (which won't be for a pretty long time). 


We only use down trees for fire wood, or in this year's case, trees that HAD to be chopped down!


After a productive start to last week, we joined our friends at the beach for some fun in the sun. 

We are back home now pondering where we'll store our winter wood supply and what final projects we can finish up before the new school year starts next week. 

Away from Home {at the beach}

This was my view Friday.

Being a teacher means a week long vacation for Alan. Him and some other friends (who are also teachers) enjoyed a week at the beach fishing, and enjoying some needed relaxation. Myself and the other wives (who had to work all week) took Friday off and headed to the beach.  Two dogs, three women, and luggage packed into a rental car was completely worth doing this for a day or so.

Just completely relaxing on the beach.

With our dogs.

At first, Magnus was unsure about his first road trip.  However, he got used to the cool sand...but never got used to the waves chasing him back to shore.

Harley was right there with him, hanging out on the beach...steering clear of the water.

Alan was doing was Alan does, I'll give you one guess

The guys fished day and night, and now Alan is affectionately known as the shark wrangler.

We have returned home and are rejuvenated.  Thank goodness for a relaxing and restful getaway.  

Away From Home {in Savannah}

Last weekend we spent a long weekend in Savannah for my brother's wedding.  Let's just say, it was the most beautiful weekend I have ever spent in this Southern city. (Growing up here, we have experienced a lot of hot weather, gnats, you know, the usual Coastal Georgia things). Not this weekend. The weather was absolutely perfect and family from all over the US enjoyed some sun on their face as they helped Bryan and Laura celebrate their nuptials.

We were lucky enough that Bryan and Laura planned out an amazing weekend for everyone.  We stayed at this beautiful historic home in Downtown Savannah.

With five floors, nine rooms and a carriage house, this was definitely a nice place to relax and really feel at home for the weekend. I could definitely get used to living the Downtown lifestyle.  Steps from restaurants and shops, our home away from home even had a perfect little desk, right in our very own room, to set up my computer and camera gear for the weekend. My perfect vacation office.

The balconies, carriage house, and courtyard were perfectly lit by strings of lights and white lanterns.

The property was immaculately renovated, but I think my favorite part was the balcony ceilings. Every house could use a little punch of color! 

Congratulations to my brother and his beautiful bride.  It's a weekend we won't ever forget!  


Oh yea - I will share a few of the wedding photos once I'm done editing :)  

Away From Home {in NYC}

So sorry for being away from our lil ol' blog for so long.  We promise we didn't give up on this blogging adventure already!

We have been away from home, sharing laughs, great food and holiday cheer with friends.

We have also been traveling and relaxing, a. lot.


We traveled to The Big Apple for our one year anniversary - back to where it all went down a year ago.  (I promise to share our wedding story soon - the short version: we got married in New York City on December 22, 2009). 

We played here all day (the American Museum of Natural History)

We saw the most beautiful Christmas trees (Natural History Origami tree, Rockefeller Center, and The New York Public Library). 

We took a trip to see a very special Lady

And, explored here until the sun went down (Ellis Island)

We ventured back to this beautiful park

That looked much different a year ago

Then, we came in from the cold to see a show here

And, last but not least, we tried, but failed at getting a good picture here

Good thing we have these to look back on

We made it back home to celebrate Christmas, also known as, movie marathon-in our pj's all day, relaxing on the couch Day.  Definitely a tradition we will look forward to keeping for years to come.  


Side-note: Do you have Nexflix? If you don't, you need to get it.  We get Netflix instantly through our Roku (as well as one disc through the mail).  It's at the top of our list of most used/favorite/most affordable purchases. (At $9/month, you can't beat it!)  We have always loved watching movies together, even when we were dating, and we enjoy being able to pick out pretty much any movie (or TV show - Have you seen Dexter? If not, you should) we want instantly from our couch. 

We hope you had a great Christmas with the ones you love and are looking forward to the start of 2011! It's going to be a good year - I can feel it.  We have weddings the first three months of the year already - and what does that mean? Dancing! We love dancing (we need to share a little history lesson on how we met with you all).  Then you will fully understand how much WE LOVE DANCING!


Here's a little preview:

Cheers to love and dancing in 2011!