Snow Day!!!

Today, all of Atlanta shut down due to ice and wintery conditions, so I finally have some time to put up pictures from Christmas. We had a wonderful Christmas together, Chris and I. On Christmas eve we went to the candlelight service at church, which Chris did a wonderful job planning. After we got home we had fondue, my favorite meal ever! Christmas morning we slept in, lounged around, and hung out in the kitchen together while we both worked on preparing our Christmas dinner. You can see the menu for the day written on our kitchen chalk board. We had to eat in shifts because I couldn't fit all those 13x9 pans in the oven at once, but it was still great. A few glitches in our meal: accidentally bought healthy choice cream of chicken soup for the poppy seed chicken casserole- DON'T DO THIS, i also forgot the poppy seeds. One highlight from the meal- I added strawberries to the apple crisp which was very delicious. For Christmas dinner we had our friends Dominique, Roseanne, and Cody eating with us. In the afternoon we just played cards and other games and let our food digest. We were blessed with wonderful company on Christmas day.

6th grade girl sleepover

Last weekend I took on a very ambitious endeavor. Thankfully, I wasn't alone, my friends Rachel Roe and Melea Connett helped me host 9 sixth grade girls for a sleepover. To sum up the night, squeals, giggles, and LOTS of silliness. We played games, ate pizza, watched movies, and decorated cupcakes to bring to the firehouse down the road. Me, Rachel, and Melea went to bed around midnight, and I think the girls stayed up till 4. They fell asleep and set their alarms for 30 minutes later because they did not want to waste valuable time on sleep, but unfortunately they slept through their alarm and got a whole 3 hours of sleep. I was very impressed because I got them all to church on time and only one item was left at my house!

Thanks to Chris for a TON of help cleaning up the house. This was the beginning of a week of hotel Chez Nicholson. Thursday and Friday night I had a friend, Carolyn, stay over at our house, while she was there on Friday night our friends Stefan and Ivana arrived (they are from Serbia but have been living in Ohio for 3 months). We had so much fun with them this weekend. We miss them a lot and they made Serbian pancakes for us which were AWESOME. On Friday night my wonderful sister, Anna, her husband, Don, and three boys, Jon David, Luke, and Caleb, are coming to spend the night with us. We love to have people over and it feels good to put our house to good use. If you are coming to atlanta and need a place to stay, you are welcome at our house, but prepare yourself, there is only one bathroom and it is about the size of port-o-potty!

Our Second Christmas

Here are a few pics of our christmas decorations this year. We have one big tree inside, with this year's new additions being lights with GREEN wire (a huge step up I must say), some green and blue wooden flowers, rafia bows, and the wheat stalks at the top. I was going for a natural theme. I think my favorite decoration is the butterfly we got from Callaway Gardens. My plan is to get two more for next year. Chris decorated our little artificial plant and it was so gaudy but it was really cute, and then we had the outdoor tree with big colored bulbs. We inadvertently got led lights which gave a neon feel to the lights (you can see our outdoor lights from 20 houses down).

We took Emory with us to Low's to get Christmas decor, etc. She was quite the hit at the store, but we could only bring her in if she stayed in the cart :)

Emory in action

I was kind of bored tonight and missing Chris so I took this video :)

Friday Night

Last night Chris and I had a super fun date night to an Atlanta Thrashers game. The game was really exciting. We were sitting on the fourth row from the ice (we did not pay full price for these tickets, don't worry, we scalped them, now you might be worried about something else, but that's what we did). Anyway, the game was really exciting. The thrashers scored 4 goals in one minute, and things got really heated. Shortly thereafter, a huge fight erupted involving every person on the rink at that time. Can't say that I enjoyed that very much, but everyone else seemed to. We took MARTA (public transportation) to the game, so getting there and back was an adventure in and of itself, and as always, very entertaining. When we got home I crashed on the bed with Emory... a great way to end a great evening!

Harding Homecoming

I got to go back to Harding this year for homecoming weekend, and I got to spend time with two of my best friends, Lindsay Trotter and Kim Tomlinson. I LOVE being with old friends, and it's even more fun when we get to spend time together at the place we have the most of our memories-Harding! It was so fun to walk around and reminisce our good conversations at Midnight oil, the spot where I was egged while riding a bike, our favorite lunch place. Lenny's, our glory days, etc. I was also blessed to spend time with the Trotter family. They are so much fun to be with and always make me feel like part of the family. Lindsay has an adorable niece and nephew. Since we were there during halloween, we got to see them in their costumes- fairy and train conductor (they were ADORABLE).

What brought me to Searcy this weekend was an invitation to give a talk to the Biology department about the work I've been doing in grad school. Lindsay's parents (Jay and Shelly Trotter) both came to hear me speak, as did my wonderful Aunt Cheri, this made me feel really special. I got to catch up with family (grandma and grandpa, aunt cheri, uncle scott, cousin claire, grams) and this was really wonderful. I love my family so much! I also had some special time to catch up with all my Harding teachers. This was a hugely uplifting time for me. They made me feel like a celebrity! Every once in a while, we all need a little confidence boost :)

Bumble dog

This is us at the church's Trunk'n'treat event. Maybe next year we can dress up a real child :) Don't get excited people, we're not pregnant. Some of the cute little girls got the biggest kick out of calling her bumbledog... pretty creative.



One of our friends was the "discount" girl from progressive. We thought that was a really good idea. She just went around saying "discount!" Wish I would have thought of that;)