I've never done Black Friday before, but I thought it would be fun to go this year! Jordan and I had decided we'd really like a Wii, and we weren't going to brave Walmart, so we went to Sears. We got there at 3 in the morning! I couldn't believe I could even function that early.
We stood in line in front of these 2 really old ladies who had obviously been "doing Black Friday" all night. They were really funny to listen to. Jordan and I played Angry Birds until Sears opened at 4 am. And YES we got our Wii and a few games that were on sale too.
After we did Sears we went over to JCPenny to get a mini donut maker for $10 but I ended up getting a darling mini cake maker.
I'm really excited to use it! We also got Jordan a bunch of dress shirts.
I think something happens to your brain on Black Friday. You feel like you are up so early and making such an effort that you have to buy EVERY great deal you see. It was a little crazy and I'm sure we'll end up taking some stuff back.
However we did realize that we could have bought everything we bought online without waking up early or leaving our house. But it was still an experience and I'm glad I did it at least once.
Thanksgiving morning Jordan and I were driving out to Albany (we kind of live in the "country" of Albany, called Leesburg, for all you non-Georgians) for a ward turkey bowl when I saw a dog sitting in the middle of a baseball field, all alone.
"Turn around! There was an abandoned dog and it looked aussie-esque!" I said to Jordan.
He actually listened to me (he's the most non-whipped husband around) and we went to go check out the dog. We had Lexi with us so we left her in the car.
Upon closer examination, he wasn't very aussie-ish at all. He just had black-tri coloring and a docked tail.. He was sooo skinny it was ridiculously sad. But he came up to us and was so sweet and friendly. We just couldn't leave him there, and all the animal shelters were closed due to it being Thanksgiving, so we ditched the turkey bowl and took him home with us and named him Cooper.
We fed him lots and lots of food and he and Lexi had a great time running around together. We also gave him a flea bath because he was disgusting. Jordan and I debated a lot over whether or not we should keep him if we didn't find his owner (surprisingly, I was the voice of reason). We put him in the corner of the yard on his tie-out during Thanksgiving dinner and he was very sweet to everyone who went over and said hello.
A friend suggested we post his picture on a SW Georgia lost pet site and what do you know, before I left for agility this morning we got a call from a guy who said that Cooper was his dog. He lives about 40 minutes away and Cooper has been missing for 2 months (his real name is Tom but we can't possibly call him that). He's coming to pick him up tomorrow afternoon. Yay!
I'm glad that our dog adventure had a happy ending without us ending up with another dog. I don't think we're quite ready for that yet. But Lexi is sure going to miss Cooper!
This year I hosted my first Thanksgiving dinner. It was way more work than anticipated but I think it turned out okay. Unfortunately I didn't get to take any pictures of actual people during the dinner, but what can you do?
One of the great things about Georgia is that you can enjoy being outside from September to May. We have such a wonderful patio that we decided to set up dinner outside. We borrowed some tables and I decorated them very cutely, in my opinion.
We had 10 adults and 5 kids at dinner. Full house!
Centerpiece
Food serving table
All the families who came brought lots of stuff to help with the dinner. I got to help Jordan fry the turkey, as well as do a spinach dip, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, an apple pie and a chocolate pie.
I got a little fancy with the pies, which I don't think I'll ever do again.
Apple pie--I forgot to take an after-baking picture
Chocolate pie
Injecting the turkey to be marinated. I got to use a needle. Fun!
The food was yummy and the company was great. I hope everyone had a great time!
We woke up at 5:30 this morning to drive down to Florida. Fortunatly it was totally worth it. Jordan even said he had fun!
Let's start by going over our goals:
1. Keep Lexi in the ring. Success! She didn't even try to jump over the fence. 2. Don't make any stupid mistakes like calling her over a jump, waving my hand directly in front of a jump, or touching her or an obstacle. Success! I somehow managed to follow all the rules. 3. At least have her attention focused and ready to go on the first 2 obstacles. After that, I'll understand if she gets confused/distracted. Success! She did get distracted and run away, but not until the fourth obstacle. On both runs. Weird. Oh well, she came back. 4. Keep Lexi from going to the bathroom in the ring. Success! No pottying in the ring. 5. HAVE FUN! And give her lots of love after anything she does well. Success! We both had a great time. And I gave her a ton of love. You can hear me go YAYYYYY! on the video after she completes her runs. I made the biggest fuss over her.
Well, duh. I'm awesome.
Icing on the cake was that she qualified in both runs (meaning she made it through without making a disqualifying mistake, like jumping off an obstacle). Once she has 3 qualifying runs, she has "titled" in that divison, meaning her name would then be U-AG I Cline's Southern Debutante.
She also got second place in both runs. She was the fastest dog, but got points taken off for mistakes. There was a ridiculously obedient pit bull named Punisher (I know, right?) who got a perfect score so even though he was 4 seconds behind Lexi, he won. Oh well.
Going up to get our ribbons.
Posing with prizes.
Everyone we met was really friendly and all the dogs were very cute. The food was very good and we had a great time!
Is it my turn again soon?
Jordan was a big helper and walked Lexi around for me while I was listening to the judge and wore her out a bit before her turn. He was also nice enough to buy me a professional photo (which will be coming this week!). He discovered that Lexi likes to climb trees and has decided that they should make cross-country agility.
Lexi had a really great time and I hope we'll be trialing more in the future! Probably not till after the New Year though.
My favorite part was the running. Oh, and the bacon that Jamie gave me.
And this new sheep toy I got to pick out. Yum.
Lexi and I are going to our FIRST AGILITY TRIAL on Saturday. Holy cow. I can't believe it's already here. We're going down to Tallahasse for a United Kennel Club trial.
I have no idea how she's going to behave. Absolutely no clue. She could shock me and be really good, or shock me and be really bad. Or somewhere in between. It's impossible to know.
We will be competing in the AG-I trial and we'll get to do two runs. Our goals are:
1. Keep Lexi in the ring.
2. Don't make any stupid mistakes like calling her over a jump, waving my hand directly in front of a jump, or touching her or an obstacle.
3. At least have her attention focused and ready to go on the first 2 obstacles. After that, I'll understand if she gets confused/distracted.
4. Keep Lexi from going to the bathroom in the ring.
5. HAVE FUN! And give her lots of love after anything she does well.
Okay. Well, I'll let you know how those goals go. I'll try to take it pretty easy on Lexi. After all, it's hard to follow in the footsteps of her brother Scout, who won his first 3 jumping classes at his first horse show.
I just really, really hope people are understanding and nice.
PS: I was searching for "first agility trials" online and I found this video...it's pretty hilarious. And it could definately be what Lexi and I look like on Saturday. The run starts at :42. Enjoy!
I'm not quite sure where my love of cute decorations came from. Maybe somewhere in my biological family tree there is a very crafty and creative person. But I was always the one (even from when I was like 6 years old) who wanted to get out the holiday decorations the first day possible. It was probably really annoying for poor Mom, who had lots to do.
This year as I was putting my Halloween stuff away, I realized I had almost nothing for Thanksgiving. I have a few adorable things that my mother-in-law was kind enough to give to all us daughters-in-law, but that is about the range of my Thanksgiving decor. I was talking to Jordan about this and realized that I didn't have anything because I always go decor shopping the day AFTER the holiday to get the good deals--and I NEVER brave Black Friday. Boo. So I was pretty convinced that I would never have cute Thanksgiving stuff.
Since we're having Thanksgiving at my house this year, I decided to run by Hobby Lobby this morning to pick up some fabric to make tableclothes (look how CRAFTY I am, ha ha!). I was absolutely thrilled when I saw that all of their Thanksgiving stuff was 80% off! That's like almost free! So I went a little crazy, but with the fabric (which I got on clearance for $3 a yard) I spent $30.
All of my bounty
I picked these up for my mom. She had been saying she wanted a pilgrim couple,
which they didn't have, but I thought these women were really cute.
Fabric on left is Lexi's bandana. Fabric on right is for tablecloths.
I think we'll put the rolls for dinner in the basket. The pumpkins say "Harvest."
I had been admiring the "C" gourd ever since they put out the
Halloween stuff, but it was $25. I got it for $5!
We are celebrating Thanksgiving in the deep south this year so we have to do a turkey the Southern way...deep-fryin' a turkey!
We did a test run today with Jordan's buddy Derek and our ward's missionaries so that we'd be prepared for the real deal. We learned a lot.
Lesson 1: Marinate the turkey the night before.
Lesson 2: Make sure you have enough oil. We thought 3 gallons of peanut oil would be enough, but it wasn't quite enough. We needed like an inch more of oil. Oh well.
Lesson 3: Make sure the burner is still lit when you put the turkey into the pot. We couldn't figure out why the oil wasn't reheating after we put the turkey in, and the burner had gone out. Whoopsie.
Lesson 4: Don't ever make any other kind of turkey. It's sooo yummy, plus it takes way less time to cook. (Half an hour for a 10 lbs turkey! Sweeeet!)
Last Sunday Jordan and I were taking a walk around our neighborhood and talking about how cute blue houses are. Before we bought ours, we actually went to go look at a few houses just because they were blue. But we ended up buying a yellow house. Neither of us really like yellow, but the house was awesome nonetheless.
Jordan pointed out that we really didn't have much siding on our house--most of it was brick, so if we wanted to paint the house, it really wouldn't be that time consuming or expensive. In fact, it would only take us a gallon of paint to do our whole house.
Jordan had the day off on Friday (lucky duck) so we picked out paint on Thursday and got to work. We really like the outcome!
Before
After
Here are a few pictures from our painting adventure.
I refused to do anything really high--I'm a little scared
of ladders--so Jordan had to do the tippy-tops.
What are you guys doing out here? Can I help?
I am a BLUE merle, after all.
I've been doing the Thankful thing on Facebook, and I just wanted to post my first few. I really am so blessed, although lately it's been hard for me to see that. Focusing on a specific thing that I'm thankful for each day has really helped my attitude.
Nov 1: Today I am thankful that my husband supports all the silly little things that make me happy. (I wrote that because I was thrilled about my new discounted Halloween decor and Jordan pretended to be excited too)
Nov 2: I am really thankful that my preschool kids took it easy on me today. Well, relatively easy. And I'm also thankful that I have a job and don't have to stay home bored out of my skull anymore.
Nov 3: Today I am thankful for a home to live in, plenty of food to eat, and clothes to wear. Things that I take for granted every day, but my life would be very difficult without!
Nov 4: I'm grateful today for MUSIC and musicals. I'm so excited to go see Madeline Sauls and Isabella Sauls and Victoria Baker tonight in Suessical! I love you girls!
Nov 5 & Nov 6: I didn't get to do my thankful thing yesterday because I was away from my computer ALL DAY. So I will do 2: I am thankful for my awesome husband who will dance like a dork with me at youth dances. I am also thankful for the extra hour I got to sleep in this morning. YAY!
Nov 7: Today I am thankful for good friends and laughter.
Nov 8: I am thankful for my dear sweet puppy Lexi. I'm so happy she is always thrilled to see me when I get home. It makes me feel so special!
Our king-sized bed arrived last Thursday and it was super exciting. I feel like a real grown up now, ha ha! But one of the most awesome things about getting the new bed was that I was forced to clean out the front bedroom to make room for the queen bed.
I wish I'd taken a before picture, because our extra bedrooms had basically become dumping grounds for stuff. They were extremely cluttered, but Jordan and I finally cleared them out on Sunday and now we have a darling little guest bedroom!
I am really excited to use the quilt that Jordan's Grandma Cline made us for our wedding. It's so lovely, and it's my favorite color!
She made the quilted accent pillow, too. Laurie and I made the light green pillows for my family room a couple years ago but I thought they looked great with the colors in the quilt.
This is my attempt to be artsy. Is it working?
Here's our desk with our diplomas.
And I framed and hung up a couple of my favorite articles that I've written. It's cheap art, and kind of cool, in my opinion.
This was an article from the Sept/Oct Southwest Georgia Living magazine
And this was the feature article from LDS Living in April 2010
I think it turned out very cute. Any and all are welcome to come and be our very first guests! :)
We cleaned out the back bedroom too, but I didn't take any pictures because it's pretty boring. All it's got in it is a dresser, the projector screen, and our internet set up. Ha ha. But at least it's decluttered.
We had a good, quiet Halloween this year. We didn't get many trick or treaters, which was disappointing, but we still had a fun time together.
For Halloween this year Lexi was a sheep...dog. She hated the hood but she was happy enough to wear the costume with the hood flopping behind her. I dressed up as an insomniac (okay, I just wore pajamas) and Lexi was my counting sheep.
1 sheep 2 sheep red sheep blue sheep?
We had mummy meatloaf for dinner which was...okay. I much prefer my meatloaf without the cheese. But oh well. It was still festive.
Jordan and I carved pumpkins, as usual, although we almost didn't. On Saturday we drove ALL around (and we went to four or five stores) and they were ALL sold out of pumpkins. It was really disappointed. Fortunately there were a couple left over from the combined activity.
Jordan's is Jack and mine is a kid in bed with an
eye looking through the window...can you tell?
Jordan and I put on Pandora's Monster Mash station and danced while we waited for the trick or treaters that were few and far between (yes, the windows were closed...that's not the reason for no trick or treaters!). We are silly, but we have fun!
I went shopping this morning at Target and got some awesome deals on outside decor, since Jordan insisted we need some creepy stuff to go outside. I only spent $24 and I got a ton of stuff, including Lexi's costume for next year. Mission accomplished, but I'm not going to spoil the surprise and tell y'all what I got. You'll just have to wait!
Happy Halloween! Bring on Thanksgiving and a deep-fried turkey!
