A Weekend of Firsts..

So I mentioned yesterday that we were on Daisy's first road trip. The past 24 hours have included more "firsts" for Daisy.

She went to that town we don't speak of (Charlottesville) and we ate lunch at our friends Ben & Anna's place. Aunt Lisa, who lives just down the road, also stopped by to say hi.

Yesterday, she attended her first wedding rehearsal and wore her first dress. Everyone thought she was adorable! :)


Back at the hotel, she wore her first pair of pajamas to bed. (Thanks Merlyn!)

Today, she went to the store for the first time (we had to pick up some items at Target off our registry). It was also her first experience as a fan of Hokie football to experience beating Miami! (HOW AWESOME WAS THAT FOOTBALL GAME!)

She wore another dress today, as she attended her first wedding. (This is a dress mommy wore when she was a kid.)

She also had her first dance (with daddy, of course).

Speaking of Daddy, he did a great job officiating Ben & Amy's wedding! (that was a first for him)

Wow - weddings are tiring.


She got to meet a lot of people this weekend for the first time -- too many to name. So many that it wore her out! Here she is snoozing through the reception.

Back at the hotel, it was finally time to relax!

A Wedding Weekend!

We spent the weekend in Marion, Virginia for Jessamyn & JD’s Wedding! For those who don’t know, Jesse has been in our homegroup since her freshman year (Fall 2003) and she’s lived at houseofchinn since July when her lease ran out. I co-officiated the ceremony with Jason Snook, and we had a wonderful time seeing and hanging out with old friends.

Although Saturday was quite a chilly day outside (temperatures in the 40’s during the ceremony), it was a gorgeous place to hold a wedding with the leaves changing. It was a meaningful day for everyone involved, and best of all, Jesse & JD are now married!

Below are some pictures for your enjoyment. Take special note of the flower girl picture. After throwing just 2 petals walking down the aisle, she finally got the hang of it during the ceremony and proceeded to dump her whole basket. ☺

Field Trip!

I'm up late because I had payroll due tonight (the stack of paperwork required for my job -- its usually about 30 pages of notes/logs). Since all our clients are billed through medicaid, we have to complete tedious paperwork for the government that is a colossal waste of paper. And I haven't yet mastered getting a little done each day so here I was again, frantically typing to get it all done.

But this post isn't about paperwork -- it's about my first FIELD TRIP OF THE YEAR!

Tomorrow, we take the 4th graders to Virginia Tech. I should say bring them here because the field trip will be closer to my home than my job is. It's a trip to the barn/animal center where the 4-H extension agent has a bunch of science-related activities set up.

It should be a blast -- and I'll write more soon.

Also, JD & Jesse's wedding is coming up this weekend, so Friday I'll leave straight from work to head to the rehearsal. I'm co-officiating this wedding with Jason Snook, so it should be lots of fun! The wedding is of course on Saturday, so it should be a busy but exciting weekend! I'll try and post pics of that early next week! :)

The Week(s) in Pictures

So I was thinking about a way to share a lot without making the post too long. I have a lot to catch folks up on, and as we all know a pictures is worth a thousand words. So if I just post a bunch of pictures, I can say more with less. Plus anyone who knows me knows that I ramble, so this will keep it concise. ☺

Saturday, September 13-Sunday, September 14

We tailgated for the Georgia Tech game again with David’s coworker’s group. They really know how to do a tailgate right. The theme was Georgia-style food, and we contributed banana bread for the breakfast portion and hushpuppies for the lunch portion. David made a homemade hushpuppy mix, and everyone loved them!




Brent and Katherine were in town for the game, and it was great to visit with them. They joined us at the tailgate for a while, and after the game we met up at Boudreaux’s for dinner. I had never eaten there, and I enjoyed it although it was a little spicy for me to eat there regularly. Annie was also in town, so Sunday morning David made breakfast for everyone and it was like an old school homegroup reunion. Yay for a full house!



Thursday, September 18

Susy, my old co-worker from NRCC who’s become a great friend, needed some help with her router at home. So she treated David and I to dinner at El Gran Rodeo in C’burg and we enjoyed catching up on life. She make me laugh and I always have fun and feel full of life when hanging out with her. I hope we can do it again soon.

Friday, September 19

The nlcf retreat was this past weekend, and the focus was spiritual maturity. I was asked to speak on Friday night about growing in your prayer life. The talk’s not up yet, but eventually it can be found online on our church website.

Saturday, September 20-Sunday, September 21

We couldn’t stay for the whole nlcf retreat because we had to head to northern Virginia for a wedding. David was a groomsman, and the couple, Brandon & Jane, actually met through our homegroup several years ago. They are both graduated now, as were many of the other old homegroup friends we saw at the wedding. It was great to be part of of Brandon & Jane’s special day, and wonderful to visit with old friends for the second weekend in a row!












While David was staying with the groomsmen Saturday night, I stayed with my dear friend Rachel, who was farm-sitting for her parents and was also in town for the wedding. Rach & I had a great time catching up on life since both of us are crazy busy and have a hard time keeping up via phone. (She’s in med school in Richmond and on her way to becoming an amazing doctor.) After eating breakfast (fresh eggs from the farm) we went for a walk to get some exercise. Then we cleaned up and headed into Leesburg so I could run some errands. We ended up at a sports bar to watch the first quarter of the Bears game, and we enjoyed a 25-cent wing bar. We also managed to sneak our way into Costco so we could partake in all the free samples, which were delish.



All in all, the past several weeks have been busy but full of lots of good things. Life is great here at hoc, and as I posted earlier, I plan to try and keep everyone updated sooner!