Car Trouble

On Saturday night, I worked at camp until 10:00. I had a meeting early the next day to prepare for a presentation I am making on Wednesday. My gas light was on, so I decided to go get gas that night. After I pumped my gas, I went to pull out of the parking lot and a message popped up that said "AC powering off due to high engine temps." My thermometer went from the normal range to all the way at "H." I called Matthew, pulled over, and waited for him to rescue me.

When he came to my rescue, he popped my hood and realized there was no coolant in my radiator (I am not sure I am wording these correctly). So off to Wal-Mart we went. About 30-40 minutes later, we were back at my car, coolant in hand, when Matthew removed the lid. That is when we realized that someone had already opened the bottle of coolant because the seal was broken. We didn't want to risk pouring something in my car that was not in fact coolant...so back to Wal-Mart we went. Matthew and I were given a really hard time exchanging it (because a) he threw away the receipt and b) supposedly you cant make exchanges until 7:00 AM). We finally got it worked out and put the coolant in my car. Matt drove my car home while I got to drive his truck (that never happens).

The next day, we decided to go ahead and take my car to the dealership to drop off. I knew that my car needed more coolant because it was leaking so fast. So while Matthew hopped in his truck, I popped my hood to put in more coolant. He got out to help me (I couldn't get the child safety cap off the bottle). I filled it back up, went to put the bottle up, and Matthew tried to put the cap on the radiator....

But the cap fell behind/under the coolant reservoir and despite 2 hours of hard labor using duct tape, hangars, sticks, a car lift, and my little hand/wrist/arm...the cap could not be rescued. We drove to the dealership with a piece of duct tape over my reservoir.

Let the record show that I, Holly, did not drop the reservoir cap.  

Five on Friday-For You, Renn

1. My sister-in-law Renn, told me that she was going to delete our blog from her "Blogs I Follow" section if I did not update it....so this one's for you, Renn.

2. The same sister-in-law thought of getting me a massage at Luna Blue for Christmas! BEST GIFT EVER! I cannot wait to use it :)

3. I am saying goodbye to my tonsils on Wednesday. Can't wait to say goodbye to Strep (hopefully) and all of the other problems that go along with it!

4. Matthew and I are spending the weekend getting the house sparkling, laundry caught up, and freezing meals. Because when I am down and out, he's not going to be able to cook or clean for himself, so I figured I better really prepare so it's not too crazy when I'm healed up. 

5. So far on the list for freezer meals: chicken enchiladas, pizza pasta, spinach and cheese stuffed shells, chicken and broccoli pasta bake, chicken and wild rice casserole, hot ham and cheese sandwiches, and poppy seed chicken. Will share the grocery list, recipes, and how that all went down as soon as I can!

Catching Up

I have been avoiding blogging mine and Matt's life because I feel like I still need to blog Thanksgiving/Christmas/our honeymoon....but in reality those posts probably will never appear until you know, maybe July.

I also wanted to pointed out that we JUST took down our Christmas tree and all decorations a week ago :) We just wanted to enjoy it a little longer since we were gone for so long during Christmas! ha

Matt and I have not been up to anything interesting at all. We have stayed home and enjoyed the past couple of weekends. By enjoyed, I mean we have cleaned our house and done laundry both weekends :) While we have been at home, we have been watching some new shows on DIY and HGTV, Rehab Addict and The Vanilla Ice Project. I LOVE Rehab Addict, and we both actually enjoy watching Vanilla Ice renovate houses. I did not realize that he actually "worked" (a blue collar job) now. I'm pretty sure Matt is ready to hit me because I can't stop singing lyrics from Vanilla Ice songs (well, really just Ice Ice Baby because I don't know any of his other songs).

It snowed this weekend on Saturday, and it was really pretty, but not enough to stick. It was nice to be able to wash dishes and look out the window and see snow! When I moved here I assumed we would have these awesome winters compared to my hometown of Gastonia, NC....but it has ironically snowed more there than here in the mountains.

I am still hoping really hard for a small blizzard and a snow day from school...and we are under a winter weather advisory :) One can hope.

Reality Check

Right before our cruise, the Sandy Hook shooting took place, and I had to go back to school and see all of my happy little first graders smiling at me, while countless thoughts ran through my head about how to keep them safer/how to teach them what to do if something like that happened at our school.

During our cruise, we caught the news one night to see the shooting coverage on the news of the fire fighters who were shot and killed during a fake emergency call.

Throughout both of these horrible things, I've thought "things like that just don't happen where I come from."

Sadly tonight, I was proven wrong. While no one was killed, the first armed robbery that I know of to ever take place in my hometown, took place tonight. Luckily no one was shot and the gun used was only showed to the employees, but the terrifying thought was that my little cousin was working and was one of the employees who saw the gun. The woman who robbed the store wasn't robbing the store for money, but instead prescription narcotics. I am so thankful that no one was hurt/injured during the robbery.

Here is the official police alert for anyone in the Stanley area:

On 12/30/2012 at 5:42pm Stanley Police Department received a call for an armed robbery of the pharmacy at the CVS-Pharmacy at 442 Highway 27 South in Stanley, NC. The suspect is a white female approximately 50-55 years old, 5’5”-5’8” tall, 180-190 lbs with light brown hair, black pants, blue shirt, black and white jacket, black toboggan with blue stripe. It’s possible the suspect was wearing some type of work uniform. A handgun was shown by the suspect but was not used. An undisclosed amount of controlled substance drugs were taken.

If you have any information, please contact Detective Sergeant Smith at 704-263-4778 or Gaston County Crime Stoppers at 704-861-8000.

Please keep my little cousin and her coworkers in your thoughts and prayers while they go through this tough experience.

Dana's Visit & Menu Plan Monday (A Day Late)

One of my beautiful bridesmaids and best friends came to visit us in the mountains this weekend. Dana and I actually lived together in Charlotte for a month while she interned at Anthropology. She lived in the Greensboro area, so we have had a "Long-distance relationship" ever since we met. It was nice when I lived in Charlotte and we had a 2-hour max commute to visit each other, but now it's a lot harder that we're 3-4 hours apart. Luckily, Dana was willing to make the trip this time (it's my turn to drive next) and came to spend the weekend with us!

Friday night we visited Sonic and went to bed by ohhh 10:30. I had actually been napping for 4 hours while she drove ha so it was nice to go to bed early.

Saturday we packed our day full of mountain fun. We started the day at a fabulous cafe/store that's in Hendersonville. After lunch, we picked a peck of apples, had apple donuts, and cider at a local orchard.

Dana and I

Matthew and I

After apple picking, we hunted down the J. Crew warehouse store...only to leave empty handed :( That place is always a hit or miss! After our shopping letdown, we headed up the Blue Ridge Parkway. 

The Holly Pose

Eerily similar outfits...Dana's mom said we were twins separated at birth.

We were super excited to hear this news! :)

While we on the parkway, Matthew and I started talking about places in Asheville where we could eat. We were not panning to go there, but we both mentioned that we had not eaten at Barleys (great pizza downtown) so after talking about how could it would be, we headed there for some pizza. We had a white pie with no sauce, and a pesto pizza...SO GOOD!

Dana was not sure how she felt about Asheville. I told her it was hippie. While we were there...we saw some...interesting outfits to say the least. Like a girl wearing hippie pink glasses, a black belly shirt, grandma sweater, tucked into hot pink gym shorts and brown thigh-high boots..oh Asheville. 

After that, I remembered a place that was a coffee shop on a double-decker bus from my college days, so we headed across the street so I could show Dana. I was very dissapointed to see that you can no longer draw with chalk on the tables (I used to spend hours there with girls from from my sorority decorating the tables). We still got to see some nice views from up top, and our hot chocolate was amazing.

We ended our night early again, and got up early the next day for hiking. It was rainy and slightly chilly, but it ended up being a nice day for hiking because it wasn't too hot or too cold. We went to Triple Falls where the Hunger Games were filmed. 

Triple Falls, North Carolina

I was a good friend and gave Dana my hat.

Then we watched some crazies kayak off the waterfalls...which is illegal, but was fun to watch. Matthew got mad at me because he recorded them going off and you can hear me saying "oh my gosh" and "daaang son" during the entire video. 

After that, we tried to go to World's Edge. This is a neat place that is on the side of the mountain where you can see for miles and miles Sadly, it was too foggy to see anything. Like could not see 5 feet in front of us. So we drowned our sorrows in sushi from Umi.

Then Dana left me for Greensboro again and I was sad....but we've already worked out our next visit to see each other :)

Anyways, I made a menu plan/grocery list for the week so I wouldn't waste anything or spend a lot of money at the store. Here's what we're having this week:

Monday-French bread pizzas (cost less than $10 to make 2 of these meals for us...one for lunch, one for dinner).

Tuesday-Barbecued chicken, rice, and green beans. (Didn't have to buy anythinggggg)

Wednesday-Nachos!

Thursday-Rosemary chicken and basil roasted veggies.

I didn't plan for Friday because most likely we will be headed home to see my grandfather. He has been sick for a while but was doing better, but somehow came in contact with the E. Coli outbreak in our area while in the hospital. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers, along with my sweet grandmother. 

Here he is as a handsome stud back in his Marine Days, right before he served in the Korean war. 

And here is the last picture of him in the orphanage (all the way on the left) with his siblings right before he ran away to Stanley, where he would skip a grade in school by telling a fib to the principal, and meet my grandma. He's quite the character. 

My Happily Ever After

Warning: Picture overload.

I am quite certain that my wedding day was the most memorable day of my life...and I know for sure that it was the HOTTEST. Our cake melted :) and we had to reinforce it with plastic forks to keep it from sliding off the cake table. The whole day it was one big, happy blur, but these things stick out:

-Our wedding exit music, "The Danger Zone" (yes from Topgun) came on during the middle of the prayer...funniest moment of the day!

-Our cake melted, which I think it actually pretty hilarious (and thought so that day). I thought the littlest thing would make me blow up that day....then I discovered I did not have the slightest care in the world because Matthew and I were finally getting married!

-Traffic was AWFUL that day. The guys thought they would have time to go back to the hotel, shower, & dress after setting up...they ran out of time, skipped their showers, and ended up changing in the parking lot (and I mean stripped down to boxers) in the middle of a random CVS parking lot...hahaha

-A bee crawled on my arm, on my back, then across my face during our vows. The preacher told me it was a bee and luckily it did not sting me when I brushed it off.

-I kept my hairbow on the ENTIRE ceremony. It is crashing all of our pictures on my wrist. Funny thing, this happened during our engagement pictures. 

-Our little nephew Baker, who is like 1 and 1/2, spent the night tearing up the dance floor! I think he enjoyed the music the most :)

-It was the hottest day of my life.

-No one sat in the chairs that we rented, so it looks like we had 0 guests at our wedding. In reality, they all chose to stand in the shade of the trees.

-Our flower girls almost missed the wedding, and came sprinting up to grab their flowers right as we were about to walk down the aisle! We actually held the ceremony until they came!

-We told our preacher if it was hot, to just marry us, and cut the frills. On our wedding video, the time between Matt walking down the aisle at the beginning to the ending where our last bridal part member waked out...was 6 minutes and 26 seconds! I thought it was quick, but thought it was just me...nope we were literally married in less than 5 minutes!

-We heard our cake and food was quite delicious. We did not eat either :) too hot and my dress was tied super tight!

July 28, 2012

Dana did my foundation because I was freaking out because I had ohh about 15 minutes to get done and dressed. 

I handled the rest :) The photographers freaked out because I was using make-up colors that I had not "tested out." I would like to thank that my face came out quite lovely!

 All of my pretty make-up...I just thought this was a neat photo! Sephora would be so proud of all of their free advertisement at my wedding (This was my case that folds into the shape of a Sephora bag)

To die for picture of my dress. My last name sadly would not fit on the hanger, so I had to settled for Mrs, ha!

My best friend from third grade putting on her mascara! 

The hardest thing he had to do was figure out how to tie his tie...and someone else even did that for him!

Sliding on my garter :) last touch!

The programs that Renn, Mrs. M, and I slaved over. Thank goodness they were fans, they were much needed!

This is the moment when I started to panic...

My lovely junior bridesmaid that almost didn't make it :)

I am pretty sure these two could plot to take over the world...they are definitely two of a kind! I can't wait to have Lily up for summers and take her to hang out with Emma :)

 My poor blind father...we were both trying so hard not to trip each other. Looking back, I regret the aisle runner, ha! Luckily no falls or even stumbles :)

The big moment. See my hairbow?

Unity sand. Funny story, Matthew was done pouring his out, and I still had ohhh all of mine left to pour. Also see the little tablecloth on that table? That was made from the material cut off my dress when I had it altered. I had to have ELEVEN inches taken off the bottom. I set a record for Poffie Girls for having the most cut off a dress :) it ended up coming in handy when we needed a tablecloth for that little one!

First kiss!

Laughing because of "The Danger Zone' coming on during the prayer!

Newlyweds!

With my parents. 

With my brothers and sisters. 

With my new family :)

The most beautiful little girls in the world. 

All of my sisters!

My bridesmaids!

Matthew getting kisses from the bridesmaids :)

Me with the groomsmen :) such studs!

Matt and his groomsmen.

Freaking out over the bling! You know making fun of girls and their reactions to engagement/wedding rings :) ha!

I know it is quite inappropriate, but this is the funniest picture ever. Ever. Ever. Everyone who gets married by the lake should do this. 

The whole wonderful wedding party!

Our first dance...we were dying from the heat. 

My hilarious blind father. He was so nervous to dance with me because he was worried he would trip on my dress. We danced to My Girl and he busted out the moves! It was so funny.

He was not pleased with me. For their dance, I picked a Rascal Flatts song...and he hates them :)

Tossing the bouquet!

Tossing the garter!

Our friends that caught the bouquet and garter!

Cutting the cake! We were not sure at all what we were doing.

All of Matthew's high school friends. 

We are so thankful that we did not use sparklers. I love how this picture turned out. And my dress did not catch on fire. 

Place settings with our jars of honey. The honey came from Matthew's parents' bees.

The kids got suckers instead of honey! I loved how cute it looked. 

Best favor :)

Mantle decorations.

Our cake server. Funny story: Matthew was not pleased that his name was placed last instead of first. 

The cake that could not take the heat. Ha. Still pretty!