That yesterday, when I woke up on my 26th birthday, this is what awaited me.
I am married to a good, good man.
I am married to a good, good man.
Showing posts with label celebrations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label celebrations. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Thursday, December 31, 2009
2009 in Review
In keeping with reviews from both 2008 and 2007, the tradition is staying alive.
This afternoon Cliff and I are both headed east, but this New Year's, not together. Hold your horses, it's a good thing, my friends. Cliff and his brother-in-law Brad scored tickets to the Chick-fil-A Bowl to see Tennessee take on Virginia Tech (my two "homestate" teams!) and I am glad for them to get some guy-time in together. Brad has been one of the most influential persons in Cliff's life and anytime they get together is always a grand ol' time.
And as for me? Don't worry. I'm hopping in a car with one of my best friends and heading out to the mountains of North Carolina for a couple of days of - big sigh - skiing. Oh, it's been too many years and Natalie was thoughtful enough to both oblige and include me in some pre-I'm-starting-Grad-School-at-Vanderbilt-on-Monday fun. Just think... snow, mountains, bare trees dancing in cold winds, ice in my hair, my breath visible in front of me, and skis on my feet. My heart just bursts at the thought.
So we'll bring in the New Year separately, and yet, still together. We're looking forward to our mock celebration on Saturday with each other!
What a year this has been... and what a way to celebrate.
So what does our year in review look like? Let me give this a try:
January: We ring in the under starlight by the wild and scenic Obed River. Just a cold night and firelight to mark a new year, and then a couple of days of spontaneous fun in Chattanooga. I facilitated my first Spring Orientation at Belmont - and survived. We sold the Jimmy (oh, how we miss you) and bought the Jeep (oh, how we love you!).
February: I began as an associate-in-training with Gray Photography and ended up taking a bunch of pictures of people in love. Appropriate for the month, I guess. Cliff cooked for me for Valentine's Dinner - Penne a la Betsy, a PW favorite. Cliff went to the UT Recruiting Celebration and saw the Kiff-man live and in person. We started meeting with our men's and women's groups!
March: We take a wonderful trip to Virginia Beach to visit with Mom and Marcus for a couple of days. Make trips to Kitty Hawk and Nags Head, played a couple of games of bowling, and just enjoyed each other's company. Cliff keeps his beard (GASP!) Volunteer for an alternative spring break service trip with a team from Belmont to work with Habitat for Humanity of Cleveland. Stay at the cabin and relished the experience of working all days with your hands to benefit people's lives only to come back to good food and fellowship every night. Became master-siders and tile removers. Bought my 5D! Shot more weddings.
April: Cliff celebrates his second anniversary at Lampo! ELP Department picnic at Jack's new property in the country. I appear in a newspaper ad for Belmont. We buy lots and lots of pretty-baby lenses for my pretty-baby 5D. Town Hall For Hope goes nationwide and is a great night of learning and encouragement. I become officially an Associate with Gray Photography! I visit Birmingham, Atlanta, Knoxville, Cincinatti, and St. Louis for Enrollment Services' BU2U trips for admitted students. We go on our incredible, wonderful, never want to come back trip to San Diego to visit Aaron for Easter. Cliff still has his beard...
May: I celebrate my 25th birthday with Cliff, Natalie, and Ryan over s'mores and later, scrambled eggs, during our first visit to Wildwood (Natalie's dad's place). Ah, and I shoot my first Associate wedding that day as well. Buncha, buncha Gray Photography workshops. Lampo hosts an awesome day for the company and family at Joe C. Davis YMCA camp. We finish planning and booking our July trip to Washington!
June: I could just say Orientation happened and that'd be enough evidence for the reason why not much else happened during June. Except, that wasn't it. We went to visit with my Dad and family in Maryland! Cliff turned a glorious year older - 26. We managed to make it to the lake. And I spent three weeks with an amazing team of students orienting nearly 1000 new students and 1500 of their parents and family members. I subsist mostly on Passion Pit and give up caffeine for most of the month. Cliff goes on a guy's weekend with his men's group to Mammoth Cave where they take a long canoe trip and play in some caves. I have my first slumber party with the women's group since college.
July: Mom, Marcus, and Cee come into town and we ring in a new year of Independence at the lake with everyone. I decompress from June and we gear up for our trip to Washington. We go to Washington and spend a blissful week plus a couple of days taking in lush greens, soft grays, orca whales, good coffee, striking mountains, busy cityscapes, expansive oceans, calming rivers and lake, and so much more. My heart wakes up again. We celebrate two years of marriage!
August: Not much is recorded from this month, as it was a total blur. We spent our last weekend at the Lake to close off our cabin season with Natalie and Ry and had a blast as usual. I stayed pretty busy gearing up for my student leaders to return and all of the new students and their families as well. Had a successful move-in and Welcome Week. We start talking about the prospect of changing our house plans and actually looking at possibly looking at some before the end of the year.
September: Cliff goes to two UT games - one with the guys and one with friends, which I was absent for due to the first visit of a nasty cold. We decided to stay-cate for Labor Day Weekend and that ends up being a fateful choice. In a series of days we meet with our realtor, look at umpteen homes, and make an offer on a beautiful ranch house in Franklin that Monday just before bbq-ing with friends. The couple, after a couple of back and forths, takes the offer. I launch my house. We do all of the stuff you're supposed to do before closing... and then close on the last day of the month! I manage to select the new Orientation Council and host Parent & Family Weekend somewhere in the madness of it all.
October: Another blur, but a beautiful one as we learn the cost not just financially but emotionally of taking a home into your hearts. In a matter of a couple of weeks, every room is re-painted, crown molding is put up, floors are cleaned and buffed, everything is packed up from the apartment and moved over, and we call the place home. We take a quick trip up to Rhode Island and Massachusetts to visit with family and go to my cousin's wedding. We take another quick trip up to Oregon for Cliff to work with the Live Events team for Dave's Portland Event and for us to get our quarterly marriage getaway in. A piece of my heart stays at a bed & breakfast lodge in Hood River and we herd sheep and hike around Mount Hood.
November: Our local friends come over for a housewarming party in our new digs on our fifth meetiversary! I head off to New Orleans for a couple of days for a Photography conference. We celebrate our fifth dativersary. We go to UT-Vandy game with Brad & Wendy. I take my students on a retreat after which, Cliff and I go camping with some friends at Savage Gulf and hike around Stone Door. A short Thanksgiving visit to Cleveland caps off the month.
December: We visit with our family in North Carolina for a weekend and see Ashlynn dance in the Apex parade. Lampo has another INCREDIBLE Christmas party and week of festivities leading up to it! The Benton kids come to visit for a couple of days and we celebrate our third Christmas in Cleveland!
So while were off celebrating today and tomorrow, we wanted to take a chance to say, we hope you have a Happy New Year's!
This afternoon Cliff and I are both headed east, but this New Year's, not together. Hold your horses, it's a good thing, my friends. Cliff and his brother-in-law Brad scored tickets to the Chick-fil-A Bowl to see Tennessee take on Virginia Tech (my two "homestate" teams!) and I am glad for them to get some guy-time in together. Brad has been one of the most influential persons in Cliff's life and anytime they get together is always a grand ol' time.
And as for me? Don't worry. I'm hopping in a car with one of my best friends and heading out to the mountains of North Carolina for a couple of days of - big sigh - skiing. Oh, it's been too many years and Natalie was thoughtful enough to both oblige and include me in some pre-I'm-starting-Grad-School-at-Vanderbilt-on-Monday fun. Just think... snow, mountains, bare trees dancing in cold winds, ice in my hair, my breath visible in front of me, and skis on my feet. My heart just bursts at the thought.
So we'll bring in the New Year separately, and yet, still together. We're looking forward to our mock celebration on Saturday with each other!
What a year this has been... and what a way to celebrate.
So what does our year in review look like? Let me give this a try:
January: We ring in the under starlight by the wild and scenic Obed River. Just a cold night and firelight to mark a new year, and then a couple of days of spontaneous fun in Chattanooga. I facilitated my first Spring Orientation at Belmont - and survived. We sold the Jimmy (oh, how we miss you) and bought the Jeep (oh, how we love you!).
February: I began as an associate-in-training with Gray Photography and ended up taking a bunch of pictures of people in love. Appropriate for the month, I guess. Cliff cooked for me for Valentine's Dinner - Penne a la Betsy, a PW favorite. Cliff went to the UT Recruiting Celebration and saw the Kiff-man live and in person. We started meeting with our men's and women's groups!
March: We take a wonderful trip to Virginia Beach to visit with Mom and Marcus for a couple of days. Make trips to Kitty Hawk and Nags Head, played a couple of games of bowling, and just enjoyed each other's company. Cliff keeps his beard (GASP!) Volunteer for an alternative spring break service trip with a team from Belmont to work with Habitat for Humanity of Cleveland. Stay at the cabin and relished the experience of working all days with your hands to benefit people's lives only to come back to good food and fellowship every night. Became master-siders and tile removers. Bought my 5D! Shot more weddings.
April: Cliff celebrates his second anniversary at Lampo! ELP Department picnic at Jack's new property in the country. I appear in a newspaper ad for Belmont. We buy lots and lots of pretty-baby lenses for my pretty-baby 5D. Town Hall For Hope goes nationwide and is a great night of learning and encouragement. I become officially an Associate with Gray Photography! I visit Birmingham, Atlanta, Knoxville, Cincinatti, and St. Louis for Enrollment Services' BU2U trips for admitted students. We go on our incredible, wonderful, never want to come back trip to San Diego to visit Aaron for Easter. Cliff still has his beard...
May: I celebrate my 25th birthday with Cliff, Natalie, and Ryan over s'mores and later, scrambled eggs, during our first visit to Wildwood (Natalie's dad's place). Ah, and I shoot my first Associate wedding that day as well. Buncha, buncha Gray Photography workshops. Lampo hosts an awesome day for the company and family at Joe C. Davis YMCA camp. We finish planning and booking our July trip to Washington!
June: I could just say Orientation happened and that'd be enough evidence for the reason why not much else happened during June. Except, that wasn't it. We went to visit with my Dad and family in Maryland! Cliff turned a glorious year older - 26. We managed to make it to the lake. And I spent three weeks with an amazing team of students orienting nearly 1000 new students and 1500 of their parents and family members. I subsist mostly on Passion Pit and give up caffeine for most of the month. Cliff goes on a guy's weekend with his men's group to Mammoth Cave where they take a long canoe trip and play in some caves. I have my first slumber party with the women's group since college.
July: Mom, Marcus, and Cee come into town and we ring in a new year of Independence at the lake with everyone. I decompress from June and we gear up for our trip to Washington. We go to Washington and spend a blissful week plus a couple of days taking in lush greens, soft grays, orca whales, good coffee, striking mountains, busy cityscapes, expansive oceans, calming rivers and lake, and so much more. My heart wakes up again. We celebrate two years of marriage!
August: Not much is recorded from this month, as it was a total blur. We spent our last weekend at the Lake to close off our cabin season with Natalie and Ry and had a blast as usual. I stayed pretty busy gearing up for my student leaders to return and all of the new students and their families as well. Had a successful move-in and Welcome Week. We start talking about the prospect of changing our house plans and actually looking at possibly looking at some before the end of the year.
September: Cliff goes to two UT games - one with the guys and one with friends, which I was absent for due to the first visit of a nasty cold. We decided to stay-cate for Labor Day Weekend and that ends up being a fateful choice. In a series of days we meet with our realtor, look at umpteen homes, and make an offer on a beautiful ranch house in Franklin that Monday just before bbq-ing with friends. The couple, after a couple of back and forths, takes the offer. I launch my house. We do all of the stuff you're supposed to do before closing... and then close on the last day of the month! I manage to select the new Orientation Council and host Parent & Family Weekend somewhere in the madness of it all.
October: Another blur, but a beautiful one as we learn the cost not just financially but emotionally of taking a home into your hearts. In a matter of a couple of weeks, every room is re-painted, crown molding is put up, floors are cleaned and buffed, everything is packed up from the apartment and moved over, and we call the place home. We take a quick trip up to Rhode Island and Massachusetts to visit with family and go to my cousin's wedding. We take another quick trip up to Oregon for Cliff to work with the Live Events team for Dave's Portland Event and for us to get our quarterly marriage getaway in. A piece of my heart stays at a bed & breakfast lodge in Hood River and we herd sheep and hike around Mount Hood.
November: Our local friends come over for a housewarming party in our new digs on our fifth meetiversary! I head off to New Orleans for a couple of days for a Photography conference. We celebrate our fifth dativersary. We go to UT-Vandy game with Brad & Wendy. I take my students on a retreat after which, Cliff and I go camping with some friends at Savage Gulf and hike around Stone Door. A short Thanksgiving visit to Cleveland caps off the month.
December: We visit with our family in North Carolina for a weekend and see Ashlynn dance in the Apex parade. Lampo has another INCREDIBLE Christmas party and week of festivities leading up to it! The Benton kids come to visit for a couple of days and we celebrate our third Christmas in Cleveland!
So while were off celebrating today and tomorrow, we wanted to take a chance to say, we hope you have a Happy New Year's!
Friday, December 25, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
An Every Morning Celebration
There's nothing like a weekend in the woods to set my mind aright. From a bonding and planning retreat with my students to a time spent camping and hiking with friends, I feel like my heart is in a place it hasn't been in awhile.
Not one that's necessarily better, persay, just simpler. More grounded, less distracted, more focused and intent. It makes everything different and offers perspective. Perspective that takes what has felt like a string of months of busy mornings to one of calm - peace - reflection - and wonder. One that gave me the ability to see this day and its importance in a way I could not have just a couple of days ago.
Today, my mom and I celebrate our twelfth "spiritual" birthday. November 16th marks the day the two of us sat on metal folding chairs in a tiny Sunday school room in our church at the time and became believers. In that moment, we asked to give up everything we knew on our own to take the fullness that is a relationship with an incredibly relational God.
Not one that's necessarily better, persay, just simpler. More grounded, less distracted, more focused and intent. It makes everything different and offers perspective. Perspective that takes what has felt like a string of months of busy mornings to one of calm - peace - reflection - and wonder. One that gave me the ability to see this day and its importance in a way I could not have just a couple of days ago.
Today, my mom and I celebrate our twelfth "spiritual" birthday. November 16th marks the day the two of us sat on metal folding chairs in a tiny Sunday school room in our church at the time and became believers. In that moment, we asked to give up everything we knew on our own to take the fullness that is a relationship with an incredibly relational God.
It's been a journey for the both of us individually, and I am thankful for every bit of it and namely that I share it with the woman who brought me into the world. That my rebirth, if you will, is shared with her is something I couldn't have asked the Lord to do more perfectly.
And so I celebrated, with a cup of tea, my favorite breakfast scramble, and some time spent studying in Ephesians. Sounds like a grand ole' party, doesn't it? Well to me, it does. It's the kind of habit I want every day to start with, seeing the beauty in simplicity and recognizing how everything must start in the place I know to be most secure, most true, and most present.
Call it an every morning celebration, if you will.
Monday, May 25, 2009
So Far, I'm Liking It
I am 25 now and have been for a whole day or so.
And it's not all that weird, save the part about being closer now to 30 than I am to 20.
Apart from not being with family this weekend, I couldn't have imagined a more appropriate way to celebrate than to do exactly what I did this weekend. From Friday night until now, I have been lavishly blessed with reminders of all of the good and wonderful things God has given me in the last quarter-century and all that is yet to come.
I can barely put into words everything these last three days have meant to me. And the most astonishing thing is that nothing has been grand or lavish about them. I think it's really the small moments that have left the most lasting impressions...
Laying in a hammock with one of your best friends and reading a timeless and favorite book for the third time, while the sun filters through leaves littering the sky above you. Being out on the water. Sitting around a fire with three people I absolutely love with all of my heart, listening to the flames snap and crackle as the scattered raindrops fall, mixing with them the scent of honeysuckle, viburnum, and smoke. Blowing out the first of two candles placed ever so craftily in a just-perfect S'more. Being able to do what I've come to really love to do here in the last year or so. Receiving messages and calls from people who really, really love and care about me. Opening up handmade cards from afar. Eating not just one but two fabulous birthday dinners with my best man, one of which was at one of our most favorite restaurants around.
These twenty-five years have been very well-spent. It's nice to look back, even on the handful or two (or five) of years I've been around, and to see the patterns - see the places where God has been working all along and continues to do so.
And for everyone who's thought to ask, "So how's it feel to be 25?"
So far, I'm liking it.
And it's not all that weird, save the part about being closer now to 30 than I am to 20.
Apart from not being with family this weekend, I couldn't have imagined a more appropriate way to celebrate than to do exactly what I did this weekend. From Friday night until now, I have been lavishly blessed with reminders of all of the good and wonderful things God has given me in the last quarter-century and all that is yet to come.
I can barely put into words everything these last three days have meant to me. And the most astonishing thing is that nothing has been grand or lavish about them. I think it's really the small moments that have left the most lasting impressions...
Laying in a hammock with one of your best friends and reading a timeless and favorite book for the third time, while the sun filters through leaves littering the sky above you. Being out on the water. Sitting around a fire with three people I absolutely love with all of my heart, listening to the flames snap and crackle as the scattered raindrops fall, mixing with them the scent of honeysuckle, viburnum, and smoke. Blowing out the first of two candles placed ever so craftily in a just-perfect S'more. Being able to do what I've come to really love to do here in the last year or so. Receiving messages and calls from people who really, really love and care about me. Opening up handmade cards from afar. Eating not just one but two fabulous birthday dinners with my best man, one of which was at one of our most favorite restaurants around.
These twenty-five years have been very well-spent. It's nice to look back, even on the handful or two (or five) of years I've been around, and to see the patterns - see the places where God has been working all along and continues to do so.
And for everyone who's thought to ask, "So how's it feel to be 25?"
So far, I'm liking it.
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