alive and well

For those of you wondering if we are alive...we are. Very much so.
Our blog isn't the most alive thing ever, but oh well.
We love our blog readers (all 3 of you) and appreciate your love and patience :)

We have been doing all kinds of fun stuff.

To sum it up real quick, we have been going to weddings, traveling a little here and there, working on our house, working at work, learning to actually cook, enjoying friends, missing friends, enjoying family, missing family, missing auburn, enjoying montgomery, yard sale-ing (a spring time favorite in our house), playing with clark, working on getting a pupppyyy (not a german shorthaired pointer anymore...long story), and so much more!

My sweet friend Brittney is getting married June 11th in St. Augustin, FL!!! We are so excited for she and Bo. They are the best. It is going to be so much fun to see everyone. Even my family will be there!

We have been learning a lot. Processing a lot. We are trying to learn how to LEARN. Learn how to study the Word.

I am very blessed to have the husband that I do. He loves and cares for me in miraculous ways. Sometimes I am shocked at how rationally her can respond to me when I am ranting about something ridiculous.

My baby niece Harper turned two in February :) Emma Kate turns FIVE in August. Ah. She is also starting Kindergarten this year. Is this real life? I have a niece in Kindergarten? Seems like just yesterday we were all kids and sitting around the dinner table asking Dad to ask us Bible trivia questions.

A couple weeks ago I got to surprise Mom and Dad at Home and see these little boogers and their sweet Mom! A great time was had by all. We did make up, got nails done (EK's first time!), ate lunch, etc! It was soo fun.












Our friends Jack and Kate got married last weekend. It was beautiful and so much fun. The Lord was glorified and it was just so good. We are so blessed to have them as friends!





We spent the night in Auburn for Jack and Kate's wedding and also got to have lunch with Camilla, Paige, Evan and Eliz! We went to the new Moe's BBQ downtown and it was quite tasty. We got to see Leah too :) What a treat!

Do you like all these random updates??

I also got to travel to San Antonio with three of my best friends (Jamie, Brittney, and Emily!) a couple weekends ago. We got to see Claire and her husband Stephen, see their new cute house, meet their dog and cat, and attend her sister's wedding. It was so so much fun.

Here are a few pictures:






I will leave you with a few random life pictures. I love you all! Have a wondddderful weekend!


















One last thing...this should have been stated first! BJ's brother, Payton, was baptized at church last weekend. It was such a joyous day and we are so thankful for Payt and the way God uses him in so many lives.

Weekenddd. Yes!

So excited about this weekend because these two are coming!!!

And this little girl (em) who is dressed her in Wake Forest outfit GOT INTO WAKE FOREST MEDICAL SCHOOL!

Can't wait to just hang out with them and celebrate Em's huge accomplishment!

Emily has taught us all so much through this whole process. God is so good and is truly faithful! EM IS GOING TO BE A DOCTOR!

Our New Humble Abode!

I know what you are thinking. "Emily, really? Two posts in two days? You can't throw us off like this. We aren't used to this!" Well, folks, maybe 2011 is a new year? Hopefully. My little side blog (Below the Magnolia) is defffinitely taking a hiatus as I am trying to figure out the direction I want to take it. But I would love to keep anyone who is interested in our life (anyone?...Mom? Mrs. Barb? Katie? Camilla? That might be about it....haha that is ok though!!) updated through this blog.
So, in other news, on November 24, 2010 we closed on our first home. The whole process was nothing but God. He just guided out weak little human feet along His path and made Himself clear to us! Thank you, Lord!
Y'all know that BJ and I both love houses and all that jazz so we had been "looking" around at houses for fun since we got married. We just love seeing what all is out there and especially have a thing for older homes! We are always all over this website... www.alamls.com ... it shows the newest listings every day and it a very handy website for people looking around in our area.
One day when we both got home from work BJ said something like, "Em, did you see the house that was listed today?" I actually had not seen it yet so he showed it to me. The owner had only put 2 or 3 pictures up and so I couldn't really get a good feel for it. I just kinda said, "eh..yeah...that is cute." haha. Yikes, Em. I guess it was not love at first sight?? Once I actuallyyy laid eyes on it in real life, it was love at 1st-in-person-not-in-picture-sight. Ok so that weekend they were having an open house. LUCKY US. Who knows if we would have ever set up an appointment to see it! We walk in the house as the owner is walking out (we are geared out in auburn stuff) and he says, "War Eagle!" THAT was a good start. I love knowing that out house was owned by someone in the Auburn family. Is that lame???
Long story short, the open house went great, we loved the house, only down side was it just had one bathroom, I got over that after, it had 3 big bedrooms, a back yard, built in 1930, brick, the agent told us there was a lot of interest in the house (turns out she was telling the truth...and the house was priced to sell so we had to make a move), we get things rolling with the bank/mortgage folks the next week, and put an offer on the house 9 days after it was put on the market. The owner counter offered the next day and we accepted!! It was a decent counter offer...nothing too crazy...so it was definitely worth it to us to go ahead and accept. It was SUCH a great deal for the area and everything, so we were pumped. Also, NONE of this would have been possible without Aunt Jill! She has been in real estate in Montgomery for years and knows all there is to know. She made everything so easy for us and was such a blessing. THANK YOU, AUNT JILL!!

Here is the house!! ....

Welcome Home!!

Checking out the pantry.

Hallway. 2 bedrooms on the left. Kitchen, bathroom, and 3rd bedroom on the right.

Don't worry, this is not what it looks like. Ha! But, here is our bathroom! (Not our curtains don't panic)

Hallway facing the front of the house.

Guest Bedroom.

Our room.

My closet.

Office/Catch-all room.

Kitchen! Need to get a better picture of this room. Oh and that is the laundry/mud room in the back! You also access the backyard through that room.

Breakfast room/Butler Pantry! Finally have a space for my china :)

Breakfast room! We want to build a booth in here.

Dining room.

Looking into the den from the dining room.

Den.

Dining on left, front door in middle (duh), and den on right!

Fireplace!

Backyard! All that is missing is a dog :)

Front door!

Screened in porch! (not our stuff)

Christmas chaos!! Just wanted you to see some of our furniture in the house. I need to take some updated pictures :)

Clark was really into the Christmas tree! Please forgive the boxes and junk everywhere!

We have LOVED out house so far and I really get excited about it everyday. We have some projects to work on and are hoping to get a lot done in February. Hope you enjoyed the pics! God is good!

2011!

Hey blog friend peeps,

Life is crazy, ain't it?

So much going on. So many good things! So many busy feeling things....but mostly all good things.

Since we spoke last, we have gone to Passion 2011 with 7 amazing high school seniors, my sweet baby sister, and BJ's two AUsome brothers. We stayed at Mom and Dad's and it was a blast. Mom was the best hostess ever as always. All the kids loved Mom, Dad, Camilla, Payton and Austin!

If you have never been to/heard of Passion, it is a Christian conference for 18-25 year olds. Since we are still in that age group (barely), it is kind of funny that we were actually leaders, but we had such a great time. There were TWENTY TWO THOUSAND students there from every state but North Dakota and a tonnnn of different countries!! It is really hard to explain why Passion is such a powerful few days. Camilla put it really well when I was eating lunch with her recently. She said "there just wasn't much fluff." So true. Everything about it is real and good and raw. Sure the stage is big, the music is loud, and everything is on a large scale because of the crazy amount of people, but Passion is just all about carrying the name of Jesus to the whole world.

There were sevvveral opportunities to give financially and prayerfully to the Kingdom. They set of this huge room that is called the "Go Center" and ..... ok..... goodness this is hard to explain...it is on such a large scale and it so amazing....but I'll try....basically they have set up all these exhibits where you can see the way some people really live.....sex trafficking...poverty...no clean water...no medical necessities....etc. Our group got together and purchased some livestock for a family in poverty. They will be able to live off those animals for a long time! You can start businesses through livestock, feed your family, and so much more. We really learned a lot about the world and a lot about the character of God.

The verse that Passion was built around is Isaiah 26:8, "Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your Truth, Your name and Your renown are the desire of our souls."

Can I get an Amen?

There was so much great music. So many great speakers. Francis Chan, Beth Moore, John Piper, Louie Giglio, David Platt, David Crowder, Charlie Hall, Chris Tomlin, Christy Nockels, Kristian Stanfill, Matt Redman, and moooree!! It was wonderful and if you ever have a chance to go, you SHOULD because God will teach you so much!

God was so good to us at Passion, as He is every day. He has really blessed us through our high school senior group and I am so glad we were able to go.

Here is most of our group:

BJ was taking this picture while standing on a seat in front of us on a verrryyyy steep incline. But how cute are these people?

Oh yeah the Auburn Tigers are now the NATIONAL CHAMPIONS. Wow. Really? Our team? OUR AUBURN TIGERS???? #1 ... not figuratively but literally!!! Yes, folks. It is true. It has happened. We have arrived, and we don't plan on leaving any time soon :)

Until next time... War Eagle, y'all. Warrr Eagle.

P.S. I have GOT to do a post about our new house!!