cruisin' in december

the beginning of december was spent on the FUN ship with a FUN family!

the whole heady crew packed up their bags and headed for charleston to board the carnival fantasy for a week long cruise to exchange the cold weather for sunshine, sand,  and a tan :)

getting settled in our home for the week!

 at our muster station waiting patiently for the emergency practice to be OVER!

what a beautiful view of the arthur ravenel bridge.  not used to seeing it from this direction.  so pretty.

 the sun setting over fort sumter was so gorgeous as we were leaving port!

 the southern patriot!

gair and i as we are pulling out of port and heading towards warmer weather :) that is fort sumter behind us! 

tay and curt at dinner the first night!

after leaving charleston we had 2 fun days at sea ahead of us before arriving at our first port of call.  on the first day we headed up to the pool to see if we could get some sun and it was still quite chilly because we hadn't made it very far from the states yet.  on the ship they have all kinds of fun little game shows and activities going on all the time.  we were sitting right beside the big stage and they were about to start the "hairy chest competition" of course i looked at gair and he immediately says, "absolutely not" but if you know his mom, she wasn't about to let this go! thank goodness...because i wanted him to do it so bad, but since his mom was the one pressuring telling him to do it, i didn't get yelled at in trouble :)  lets be honest it didn't help the situation that he is laying out with his shirt off and the carnival staff is hollering at him to come up on stage to compete! ha!

there were 3 parts to this competition:

1. strip tease dance taking their shirts off (picture before shirt was off)

2. booty shaking competition

3. swinging through the air like tarzan and then hollering like tarzan

(please check out the competition...santa clause on the far left)

....and the winner was.....Santa Clause (with no chest hair)

i was bummed.  but all that booty shakin' paid off because he got a gold medal anyways!

 after the "hairy chest competition" we played a little bit of ping pong before going down to get ready for the captains dinner!

i played some too. and i'm actually really good not bad. surprisingly!

gair and i at dinner the night of the captains dinner.

here is a picture of the stern of the boat from where we were laying out one afternoon

this picture is looking towards the bow of the boat and the swimming pool :)

i had to post this picture because first of all curt's face c.r.a.c.k.s. me up and second of all check out that sky. . . .we had just avoided a bad storm and you can see how dark the sky is.

tay and curt showin' off the mixologist winning drink that was on the menu every day after tay one the competition :)

"skip n' shake"

aren't they one good lookin' couple :)

precious little elliot eating her banana split after dinner :)

such a beautiful family :)

gair and i at dinner! this is one of my new favorite pictures! how handsome is he :)

i just thought this picture was funny! we were walking down the hall back to our room probably to make a drink and then go watch karaoke...where we actually sang attempted to sing!  we sang picture by kid rock and sheryl crow. . . .and r o c k e d it!!!

anywho . . . . check back in a few days and see more from our december cruise and where our FUN ship docked when we woke up the next morning :)

recap: life last month

i know i haven't posted in forever and that is just because i have been so busy with work and this new big girl life i am living :)

i really need to try and get better at writing more often!  since i haven't written in over a month, i am just going to do a quick recap of the past month to catch me up.  hope you enjoy :)

kindergarten has been fabulous and i have actually gotten to know 83 precious little kindergarteners and their many different personalities.  it is so fun to think that i am actually playing a role in shaping these 5 year olds into the learners that they are becoming.  i should start writing down some of the things that they do and say because i will want to remember them for years to come.

besides kindergarten...

 i have been enjoying a lot of gamecock football

we went to the south carolina state fair

i decorated the front door for fall

gair and i spent a wonderful weekend in the mountains with his family.  we visited sky top orchard and picked apples.

taylor on curtis' shoulders reaching all the good apples in the tree.

little elliot helping put the apples in the bucket

triple stacked on top of curtis to reach the apples that were so high :)

gair and i picking apples and having so much fun with everyone!

after picking apples we headed back to the mountain house to watch some football and hang around the house!  carolina was playing florida so we were hoping for a [win] but had to suffer with another loss :(

since carolina wasn't playing too great and the weather was so wonderful we all went outside to play for a bit while gair and big g were working on the new bridge!

this is the view from the top of the mountains. i know i have posted this view before, but i can't get over how beautiful it is.

on the way home from the mountains we stopped in chapin to visit with mummy and dada.  

(more on that in the next blog post)

halloween is always a great time, and this year we had some friends over to the house for dinner and to carve pumpkins.

travis carved the angry bird, gair traced his hand like sign language for "i love you," of course mine is just random shapes (so kindergarten), and carly did the awesome fish bone pumpkin!  i think we did pretty good :)

gair and i decided last minute that we were gonna go downtown with yates to meet up with ashley, mike and brandi.  i found this indian costume, from when i was in the 3rd grade, in my "costume box" that i have in the attic for when i get my own kindergarten classroom.  and yates had this indian costume at his house for gair to wear.  we sure were a cute little indian couple for putting this together so last minute :)

yates went to halloween express and picked out an entire costume get up for ash when she got off work.  what a great surprise.  we had so much fun all dressed up :)

the past month and some has been too wonderful with the beautiful weather, my new job, and having fun with friends :)  looking forward to an even more amazing holiday season!

will post again tomorrow (aren't you surprised?!?!)

coon dog day 2012

this year was my 3rd year going to the coon dog day parade with the heady family!  i am so blessed to have such an awesome family of my own and double blessed that i have this wonderful family in my life as well.

gair and i didn't get to stay in saluda very long on this visit because of course...i had to work :(

(i guess i should start by saying this was the first weekend in july when this took place)

gair and i drove up to saluda on friday night and enjoyed sidestreet pizza and spending time with the family.  saturday morning came very quickly and we all packed up and drove into saluda for the coon dog day parade.  when i say we didn't get to stay long on this visit, i mean we literally had to leave after the first 30 minutes of the parade :(  it was scorching hot outside and we were both sweating like crazy in that short 30 minutes of watching the parade.

you may recognize this picture being similar to the one from coon dog day last year

my good lookin' man :)

the other pictures i got weren't very good...i think because i was so hot, i was trying to fan myself off the entire time.

until next time.

becca tomlinson photography

i am gonna start this post off by saying how {p r o u d} i am of my little sister!

becca has taken her love of photography and turned it into a career.  she has already done several shoots and has done an amazing job.  i wanted to use this blog post to introduce to all of you her photography website.

click here to view her website or type it into your browser
www.beccatomlinson.com

becca and russ

the week prior to june 9, 2012 was a very big week for my little sissy.  it was the week before she became a mrs.  the thursday before i headed down to iop to join my sista and some of her closest friends to finish up the last minute preparations for her big day and of course just have a little girl time before she got hitched!

the beautiful sunset off the back porch on thursday before the big events of the weekend!

on friday morning i had some maid of honor duties that had to be filled.  i had to go pick up the programs and i had to take becca's ring to get it cleaned so it would be all beautiful for the pictures.  after i fulfilled those duties i headed to the salon to meet the bride.to.be and her bridesmaids for manis and pedis.

friday night was the rehearsal and then a gorgeous rehearsal dinner that russ' parents put on for all of the bridal party and our giant families :)

the beautiful bride.to.be with her fun ribbon bouquet i made her from some ribbons that were on presents she had opened from her bridal showers!

sweet lillie and i waiting for our turn to walk down the isle.

our now family of 5 :)

gair and i at the rehearsal dinner! it was such a beautiful location. the rehearsal dinner was at the cooper river room that is located with a beautiful view of the cooper river bridge and obviously an amazing sunset :)

almost all of the bridesmaids. i think lo had just left right before we took this picture.  pretty sure this is an instagram(ed) picture which is why the coloring is weird.

after we left the rehearsal dinner we headed back to mom and dads house for a girls only slumber party :) we had to make sure becca got her beauty sleep since we all know how late she likes to stay up!

saturday morning we all got up and ate breakfast and just kinda took it easy.  thankfully we had everything done and ready for the wedding and all we had to do for the day was get ourselves ready and finish packing becca for the honeymoon :)  we had a very relaxing day listening to some fun music, getting our hair did and playing with makeup.  it didn't seem real. it was just like we were playing dress up, it was hard to believe that at the end of that day my baby sister was going to be married.  you can check out becca's facebook album, oh happy day (part 1) to see pictures before the ceremony took place.  once we were all ready to go we all put our dresses on and hopped in the cars and headed to Seewee Preserve in Awendaw, SC, which is where the wedding was.

bec and i crammed in mom and dads car and i'm not gonna lie, i got a little teary eyed on the way there thinking about that being the last time we would be a family of 4.  of course those tears were of happiness, because i couldn't have been more excited about the new edition to our family :)

i love these pictures so much!

going from a miss to a mrs. in only a few hours.  she might kill me for this one, but i love it.

can't believe it :) so happy for you!

when we arrived at Seewee all of the girls went into this little house to finish getting ready and so bec could get into her dress.  since there are tons of pictures from this, i am just going to post my favorites.

this is one of the signs that i painted to go at the entrance of Seewee.  i painted signs there were all over the property with becca and russ' favorite bible verses.

me and my sissy right when she put her dress on :)

moma getting her all zipped in.

reilly helping moma and me just staring in awe of how beautiful my little sissy looks :)

kisses for the bride-to-be

still couldn't believe that this day was finally here! morgy had to get back there and tie bec's beautiful bow.

so special. my favorite picture.

all of us praying over becca right before it was time to walk down the aisle.

if you want to see pictures from the actual ceremony you can click this link to becca's facebook album, oh happy day (part 2) and even more pictures in this album, oh happy day (part 3).

one last picture that is another one of my favorites (i know i have tons of favorites)

 right after they became mr. and mrs. russ tomlinson :) 

oh happy day!