Christmas 2009

WARNING: THIS WILL BE A LONG POST SO SIT TIGHT! (Or don't...I'm not being bossy!)
This year we decided to spread out our Christmas with family. Some of Sam's family has to travel to spend time with other family, so we had our Shrewsbury Christmas a little earlier than normal. We met at Gina and Chris' house to have dinner and spend some time together. It was so much fun to watch Calyn this Christmas because she could communicate and get excited about the gifts that she opened. Eventually, we will learn to give Calyn the clothes and smaller presents first BEFORE the big presents. She always loses interest after the big presents. These are a few pictures of the night:






We went to my mom's brother's house on Christmas Eve. We had some people feeling a little under the weather, but that didn't stop us from having a wonderful time getting to sit and chat with each other.

Christmas Day is a fun-filled, jam packed day but so worth it! We started out Christmas morning together. This is us Christmas morning fresh out of bed. I am amazed that I am willing to put this up, but not everyone can come straight out of bed looking fresh and clean people! :)
We opened our presents from each other and had to start getting ready to leave right after we got finished.

Our first stop was my parents house. We enjoyed a nice breakfast and then opened gifts. After finishing presents, we got together to try to get family pictures. This is easier said then done, especially when you are doing self-timing with 3 different cameras going off at three different times. It makes for quite a laughing filled experience...and pictures! We finally got some good ones after SEVERAL retakes!
The whole family together:

Sisters:

All the kids together now:

On a side note, it even spit some snow at us while we were there, so that was nice to see on Christmas even if it didn't stick!

We left from there and headed to Sam's aunt and uncles house. This is always an enjoyable experience for me! I laugh my head off the entire time I do believe! We had some great food, talks, but then came the Sock Swap Dirty Santa game. This was a hilarious experience!! Grandma Ellis got cat socks..this means a stuffed cat sewn on top of a black sock, not cats printed on socks! I told you funny stuff!These are the socks I speak of:

There were an assortment of socks. Socks with cats, fur, zebra print, hunting, white, black, and sportwear! O yeah and house shoe socks! I got those!

We left and headed to my grandparents house, dad's side this time! Sam was tired of taking pictures by this time can you tell? We spent some time with family and opened some more presents. The three amigo cousins all have matching sweatshirts now! Aren't they just too cute!?!?

By this point in the night, Regina and I started getting a little tired. When we get tired, we start doing slightly silly things. Well, we found out that our cameras can take pictures repeatedly several times, so thought it would be funny to make different faces for every picture. Now that I say that, I just looked through my pictures and I guess I must have been the one who laughed the whole time while Regina took the pictures...I don't have any funny one's on my camera! :( O well still thought I would share that little bit of information!

We had a great Christmas season spending some much needed time with our family and friends. I hope that you all had a wonderful time as well! Now we are heading on to see what God has in store for us for this new year! I know some great things are going to be happening!

To come in 2010:
*A New Niece
*A Diploma
*A Big Girl Job

I'd say that God has some things in store for the Shrewsbury's that for sure!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
(And no your eyes are not deceiving themselves..this post is now over!)

1st Annual Tacky Christmas

As promised this post is about the Tacky Christmas Sweater Party that Sam and I went to on Saturday night at Steve and Amanda's house. It was really fun to all get together with people we have met before and people we just got to meet that night. The interesting thing to me is to see other people interpretations of what exactly is a tacky Christmas sweater. Many of us hit Goodwill in search of the perfect Christmas sweater. This was easier said then done, but all of us found something. Mike found an iron-on Christmas tree with blinking Christmas lights inserted. That is Steve's foot in the picture. Sorry the whole thing is basically covered. Sam and I searched and searched for the perfect sweater and finally Saturday afternoon we hit the motherload (in women's wear). Sam's creation won the overall prize of the most tacky Christmas sweater. He had on a woman's sweater with Minnie and Mickey Mouse sewn in on the sides (complete with candy canes). He had a Santa shirt underneath and to top it off wore a slightly small Santa hat. Now that you can mentally see the picture here's the visual. I wasn't tacky tacky, but I wouldn't wear the sweater normally, so it fit. Other people got creative and made their own. Lindsey attached ornaments to a sweater she's really didn't know how she got and then made John a snowman sweater from cotton balls and tissue paper. Creative I know! Way to go Lindsey. I voted for her to win, but Sam won. I got out voted. Anyways...we all chatted, Elaina got in a box all by herself, we took pictures,
and then came the game. Catchphrase to be exact. This is when the fun happened. It was girls against boys and unfortunately (possible with some cheating mixed in) the boys won 2 out of 3 games. It was a sad defeat, but the girls still had a great time making fun of the boys and the boys had a great time...well..being boys I guess! :)
. The night ended with snow on our cars, but not on the grass or roads. I'll take it though. Snow is snow! It was a great night and a great way to start off the Christmas festivities for the week! Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas if you do not hear from me before then!

Girls Night Out

Sam and I try to have time to spend with just the guys and just the girls. Friday night was that kind of night for me and Monday was the time for him! Girls night first! Our friend Kim invited some girls to her house for an ornament swap and cookie decorating. There were some things that came up that made it where some girls couldn't make it, but we didn't let it stop the party. We had some snacks, chatted, swapped ornaments, and then headed to make some cookies. This was an experience for me because I have never made Christmas sugar cookies. Yes, you heard me right! Never made them. It was slightly messy and thanks to our lack of sugar cookie knowledge the cookies came out very puffy. It was a fun time though regardless of how messy the cookies might have turned out. We all had a great time just relaxing and having some girl time. We ate the dough, got powered sugar all over us and the floor, created some interesting frosting colors, and hung out! We've decided to make this an annual event, but swap up the houses we go to. Next year, the destination is undecided, but we will be making gingerbread houses! Here are some pictures of the night..








This week, Sam is on vacation..at home. He had built up hours, so hey why not take them right before you start a new job?! Sunday, he and John decided that they needed a guy day too. The three boys (Sam, John, and Trav) look off at 4 AM on Monday morning and drove to Indiana to go skiing. They said they had a great time. No waits on the lifts, did some crazy jumps, fell a lot, but had a fun. I think that Sam is a little spoiled after going skiing in the Wyoming. This hills seemed like a piece of cake. Sam did take my camera with him, but he did not take pictures, so I guess we will all just take him at his word! :)

Coming soon: Ugly Christmas Sweater Party

Let's Do A Little Catching Up

It has been forever since I have given everyone an update and we have definitely been up to a lot of stuff. Let's start at the beginning of November...yes a whole month ago. Sam and I volunteer to work with the youth ministry at our church. He co-leads with 8th and 9th grade boys and I co-lead with 6th grade girls. Well, in the beginning of November we took off one weekend with them to Gatlinburg to be a part of Crave. It was a youth retreat...more like a lock in really. We did not sleep too terribly much! We both had a blast, but needed some rest by the time we got home. Here's a few pictures of that weekend...
Everyone was so great and it was nice to get to know each other in a different atmosphere than at Remix on Wednesday nights! Just so you know the 6th grade girls are so much cooler than the 8th and 9th grade boys! :)

So November continued on...I did my field experience placement which went fantastic! I also started on a new business adventure. I will not be able to work when I student teach, so I have been looking for an avenue for making some money while I am student teaching. I thought about cleaning some houses, babysitting, but then an opportunity came for me to be a Thirty-One consultant. It has been fabulous! I love doing this job! If you are ever interested in anything, just let me know. We then came to Thanksgiving, which was on hectic but well worth it day! It started Wednesday night when I was cooking away in the kitchen making Sweet Potato Suffle and Oreo Balls all of which were a hit! We got up and went to my parents house for a Thanksgiving breakfast. We were really excited that we were able to see both of our families on a holiday that is only one day! We went to Sam's grandma's house in TN for lunch and then left late afternoon to travel to West Virginia. It was a long trip, but waking up to snow made it sooo worth it!
We took a little trip to Turkey Spur to look at the gorgeous scenic views of West Virginia.

We spent some quality time with Sam's family over the weekend. And yes, I did miss the Black Friday sales, but the snow made it ok with me.

So here we are. It's now December! We have put our Christmas tree and had plenty of Christmas music being played despite how bad Sam doesn't like it! :) I LOVE Christmas music..Sam not as much! This is Bailey's first Christmas, so we look a few pictures of him with the tree just for fun.

I know he's such a model! :)
Finally, let's get to the great news! I saved the best for last of course! We both have some great changes coming our way! Sam has been offered a new job that will be in Nashville. He will be starting the new job right before Christmas! God is SOOO great! We have been praying for a new job for him for over a year now and after putting our way to the side, an offer came our way! It was so amazing! I also much give credit to our very good friend Lindsey who put Sam's name in the hat for the position! THANK YOU! My big news is that I have made it to the end of the semester. I still have finals, but the schoolwork is complete. I will no longer have assignments and tests and useless classtime that I learn absolutely nothing. I finished my last assignment of my college career tonight and it was an awesome, yet unreal thing. It is amazing that four years ago I was nervous about my first finals ever and moving back home to change schools to Austin Peay. Now, I am done! I am on the downhill slide to graduation. Yes, student teaching will be challenging, but I will be doing what I want to do and not sitting in class doing busy work! That is what I am so excited about! So we want to thank you all for all of your prayers. There have been many people who have been supporting us through prayer and words and we cannot thank you enough! With all that said, I guess I have caught you up on the Shrewsbury Happenings! I should have more time to blog now, so hopefully I won't have so much to do in one post from here on out!

In Case You Are Wondering...

..we are still around. To say it's been crazy is a slight understatement. Every little bit of free time I have had has been spent doing homework. It's the homework that never ends, but the end is in sight so I can make it. I want to thank everyone for their prayers and support. I have been holding my head up thanks to you! There's some new stuff going on in our house. Sam's going to start working under another company at his property and I have started my own business. Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you..I am going to be selling purses through Thirty-One. It is a bibically based company that I am really looking forward to get involved in. It's actually me and my friend Amanda that are working together. I am actually working under her, but we will be working together. If you ever want anything or want to see a catalog, let me know!;) Just throwing that out there! I am really excited about what God has in store for this new chapter for us! It's going to be fun.I will start getting really into it once I get out of school in three weeks. On another note, this week is going to slightly stressful for Sam and I so if you think about saying a quick prayer for us that would be great! Sam is meeting the new company and they will be checking everything out. I will be doing a field experience all week teaching in a fifth grade classroom. To get ready to do this has been the biggest pain ever, but hopefully it will get better once we get into the week. I am really nervous about it, but I know everything will be alright. If anything it is a learning opportunity whether things go good or bad! Just wanted to give you all a quick fill in before this week starts! Hope you all have a fabulous pre-Thanksgiving week!

I can do this!

It's less than two months away from when my time as a college student will come to an end. Technically that doesn't happen until May, the 7th to be exact, but I won't be in classes after Dec. I will be doing what I want to do as a career, minus the pay part. I will be planning lessons how I want to plan them. It will be the end of group projects and doing stupid little busy work things. I will be working in a school system that will hopefully soon be the school that I will teach at. I must continue to keep my eye on the goal and trust that God will not give me more than I can handle. At the moment, I feel completely overwhelmed and do not see the end in sight. I have decided that the only way for me to make it through the rest of this awful semester is to have two things: a) a countdown, so that would be 25 more class days from right now and b) prayer. I have never been this confused, frustrated, mad, and any other adjective that you can think that goes along with these. I need prayer! So for the next 25 days (class days) or 1.5 months please pray for patience, understanding, and calmness as I complete this last semester of college classes, because this has been the most difficult semester I have faced. I just needed to vent, but also get some support and be real about how things are going for me at the moment and here is the best place for me to do just that! I know that I can do this, but it will not be done alone!! Thank you so much for your prayers and support for our lives!

Funny Story

As I said in my last post, I went today to observe my teacher that I will be student teaching for in the spring. Well I thought that I would share a funny story from the day. I signed in the office that I always do at every school I go in to. Today was no exception. I talked to the office ladies and went on down to my classroom. Well if you sign in you think to sign out. I go to the office to sign out and find about three different sign out sheets. I get confused and ask the lady I talked to earlier which one I needed to sign out on. She said word for word "The bus bell has already rang. You don't need to sign out." I was in shock, but flashed my little badge because words didn't come. She said "Oh don't worry about it. You're good!" I walked out laughing. I know that I look young, but middle school young!? I haven't gotten that one! Even though I felt slightly belittled on that one, I walked out with pride...my short, young middle school looking self! On the bright side, at this rate when I am 40 I will look about early 30's maybe late 20's! I thought I would share my funny story from today! (Just so you know, I love my teacher and the students! The school is pretty great too! Obviously I fit right in!) :)

Camping Getaway with a Little History Lesson

This weekend is my fall break weekend. Being in the school of education means you don't get a fall break, so Sam and I decided that I would get a fall break weekend instead. I say this because I have to spend my fall break observing the teacher that I will be doing my student teaching with next spring. So Sam and I asked our friends Josh and Kim to come along with us and we headed out Friday to Piney campground. All signs pointed to not going this weekend, but we weren't going to let a little rain, sleet, frost, cold, or anything get in our way. Really all we were missing was the hail and snow and we would've completely met the postman motto! We set up camp Friday and stayed until this afternoon. We had a great, relaxing weekend. We sat by the fire, played Uno, went sightseeing, sat by the fire some more, cooked, ate, played more Uno, and slept. It really was great! Here are some pictures from this weekend.

















The last picture is a candle lit dinner camping style...or just a source of light, but I like to think it was a "candle lit" steak dinner!

On our way home, Sam and I took a little detour and had a quick history lesson. We went to Fort Donelson and took a little drive tour of a Civil War landmark. If you don't know, I love American history, but I love seeing American history more than learning about it in a class. I am a huge Civil War buff you could say! I love visiting all the Forts and landmarks and stuff. I think that started in 4th grade, renewed in 8th grade, and has continued on a little since. So anyways, we saw trenches and an eagle's nest, canons, and other significant things.



It was a fun little detour! We left from there and headed home to watch the embarrassing act the Titans put on today! I told you I would catch up and I sure did! I wouldn't let you down!