Wordless Wednesday

Going Down

I'm extremely happy to say that I've lost 5 lbs in the past 10 days. I know it's not much, but I'm thrilled. To me it's a very important starting point. I have 26 lbs to go until my first goal so please help pray me there! :)

Things have been pretty calm around here for a change...and I'm LOVING it! Brett turns the big 3-0 next month and I bought him an Xbox 360 for an early birthday present. He's never been a big gamer, but he loves to play the golfing games when we go visit Jim and Mar so I figured it would give him a little something to chill out with after work. I'm also getting pretty handy with some of the racing games, too!

We're officially working on our '67 Camaro again, too. The goal is to have it up and running by July 1. I can't wait!

The joy of boys

These cuties are Shelli Smith's boys and I just utterly adore them. Have you ever seen a more precious bunch of boys?

Beach Trip

Brett and I had a great time down at the beach, but it was too cold to spend much time outside. We didn't even walk down on the beach. :( The upside is that we got to spend a lot of quality time with Jim, Mar, MeMe, and Bubba! We all ate dinner at Tacky Jack's Saturday night, but Brett and I skipped out on the after dinner dancing. We both felt "off" and it turns out that we ended up with sinus infections. What are the chances of that happening?!

Here are a few of the pictures that we took. We didn't take many pictures at all. It was in the lower 60's and sunny, but there was a 30+ mph wind coming in out of the north that made it pure cold.

I think that Brett and I are both over the worst of our sinus infections and starting to feel better. I'm hoping to get outside this afternoon and play around with my camera a bit more.

Life

I'm proud to say that I've finally gotten the hang of my Mac (I think!!) and I plan to get back on the blogging band-wagon. I've mostly spent the past couple of days loading all my software and getting my genealogy information transferred over.

Brett and I took my car to the dealership in Montgomery last Thursday and our wonderful service advisor, James, hooked us up with a loaner so we could go play tourist for the afternoon. I went on a field trip (back in 2nd or 3rd grade!) to Old Alabama Town and wanted to go back as soon as I bought my Nikon. Brett was sweet and obliged me even though it was cold and windy. :)

We had a great time and I'd love to share a few photos that we took.

I hate admitting it, but I had to file my first insurance claim...ever. A rock chipped my windshield last Friday afternoon, but luckily our insurance company has a great glass policy. I have to take it in Thursday morning to get repaired. It's the smallest "starburst" I've ever seen in a windshield. Because of its size and location (right in the center of the windshield, above my Navi) they said it should be very easy to fix.

Next weekend Brett and I will be traveling down to Fort Morgan to spend a few days with Jim, Mar, and her parents. I can't wait for some relaxing time down on the beach with a good book and my camera. I'm loving my Nikon so far. I'd really like to get a couple different lenses for it, but I'm not sure which I need to start with. I'd appreciate any advice! :)

Please pray for Compassion International's Kenya trip that kicked off today. You can catch up on them HERE.

I'm sure that this post has bounced around more than should be allowed so on that note, I'm going to wrap this up and go spend some time with my wonderful hubby. The lemon meringue pie in the kitchen has nothing to do with it. :)

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! :)