Bye Bye PC :)

The brand new HP laptop that I was bragging about in my previous post is no longer. The first one had a major keyboard glitch so we exchanged it for another. The second one had a malfunctioning hard-drive so we returned it last night. We immediately high-tailed it across the street to the Mac store and I'm now the very happy owner of a new MacBook Pro.

I'm still learning all the differences (and trust me, there's a lot of them!) but so far I really like it. I went with the 15" rather than the 17" and it's super light. The battery life is very impressive and I'm in love with the backlit keyboard. I'm sure that I'll encounter a few bumps, but that's why we went ahead and bought 3 years of tech support. I told the salesgirl that I needed a "Mac for Dummies" course!

Once I get the hang of the new computer, I'll upload some of the photos that Brett and I took during our tour of Old Alabama Town last week.

Coming to you live from....

my new home office setup! :)

My wonderful husband surprised me Friday night with a trip to Prattville, Alabama and a Saturday morning shopping session at Mac and More and BestBuy. I had made my mind up on getting a new MacBook, but I couldn't rationalize spending $2800+ on the 17" MacBook Pro. I ended up with a new 17.3" HP Pavilion (which does everything I want it to and more!), a new wireless HP printer, and a new Nikon D5000 DSLR camera. The computer and printer were necessities -- the camera was a pure treat!

I'm hoping that having a much better computer will encourage me to keep up with my blogging and to jump back into my ancestry research with renewed energy.

As a wrap this up to finish installing new software, here a few shots from my new Nikon. These were taken in plain auto mode before I had a chance to tweak the setting to my liking.

Snow Day Part Deux

It was so nice to wake up this morning to a blanket of pure white all over our yard, but alas, it started to melt around 10 this morning and hasn't stopped yet. There is still a considerable amount in the back yard, but it's mostly gone in the front. Tomorrow's high is supposed to be in the mid-50's so the last bit is sure to be gone by then. According to our local weatherman, we have a chance for some light flurries late Sunday night/early Monday morning.

It has been so nice to have Brett home for 3 days in a row. I know he has thoroughly enjoyed it, too. He spent most of the day kicked back and relaxing while I spent most of it on the computer and doing some much needed face masks! It was so relaxing and my face I really enjoyed it! I finally uploaded a few more photos from yesterday and worked on some small genealogy projects since Brett and I may be making a trip back to South Carolina some time in the next week or so.

I'm also going to try to work on a much larger post that has been weighing heavily on my heart for the past few days. In the meantime, here are a few more photos of our snow adventures!

Brett and I trekking through our back horse pasture.

Looking off our front porch

Looking down into the bottom horse pasture

Our neighbor's very cold horses!

Standing in the pine "tunnel" from our barn to the front yard. This was absolutely stunning in person!

Our Camellia bush had already started blooming a week or so before the snowfall.

I adore this little church. It's been abandoned for as long as I can remember, but its simple country charm always warms my heart. This is one of my favorite pictures!

This is what our yard looked like this morning. Brett, my dad, and I took turns riding our 4 wheeler through the snow. The pristine snow didn't stand a chance against us!

Snow Day!

The weatherman was finally right...it snowed in south Alabama! We got an astounding 6" - 7" and have enjoyed every bit of it. This was the largest snowfall in this area since the mid-1970's.

Here are a few pictures from our snow day!

This is probably one of my favorite pictures from today. This is an old sharecroppers cabin that is on the fence line of our old horse pasture. The contrast of the dark wood and the snow is gorgeous!

Round bales covered in snow. How pretty!

Brett in front of the frozen scuppernong vines.

Brett and I in the front yard. The snow was pristine before we took the 4-wheeler out and made a mess!

Part of our backyard covered in snow. We kept the 4-wheeler out of the backyard so we would have some nice pictures!

Brett and I ventured out to go check on our lake property and this was what our road looked like when we pulled out of our driveway.

Our front/side yard out by the road.

The temperatures are supposed to drop considerably tonight and most of the slush on the road is going to turn into ice. I'm very grateful that Brett has this weekend off. The best part of a snow weekend is that I'll have plenty of time to finish my new Sheila Walsh book while Brett is outside tearing things up!

Just a little recap

I've not been blogging much the past few weeks because I've been a little busier than usual.

Our family's business just started an e-commerce site and it kicked off better than we expected! Praise the Lord! I've also started taking on a few genealogy projects again. I was really feeling burned out so I took a two month break. I can honestly say that the break was just what the doctor ordered!

Another reason that I've been blogging less is because, well, how about I just *show you instead?!

Brett and I are soon-to-be owners of one (probably two!) very nice show prospects for me and potential broodmare prospects as investments. The chestnut mare pictured above is a daughter of Magnum Psyche and is out of a Bey Shah daughter. For those of you who go to the Magnum website, see if you can find the celebrity in the photos and then post back here when you do! I want to see who all can find him/her! :)

The second mare is a daughter of Noyz (Bey Shah x Bint Miss Fire). Noyz is a full brother to NV Beau Bey. This photo of me and "Gidgit" was taken back in February 2008, exactly two years before the above photo of me and "Annie". :)

*Please ignore the wet winter coat and mud. It had just rained 4 inches and all the horses were turned out! :)