Good ole' York

We spent another few days of our trip celebrating some monumental family occasions in my hometown of York. Every time I go home, I am glad to be reminded of where I "came from" as my dad always says. (Whenever I'd head back to college after a weekend at home, my dad would say "Marg, don't forget where you came from.) It was a lot of fun to be together on the farm. 

My dad caught a 5 foot long black snake in the chicken coop in the midst of eating an egg. Please notice the lump in the middle of the snake which is the egg, and please notice that 3 year old Ev was fearless and literally hugged the snake at one point. Also note that my dad has on shorts and boots and socks pulled halfway up his legs. 

 We always try to eat outside as much as we can when there is a full house to save my mom from having so many dishes and to save my dad from having to vacuum. I swear, the man vacuums 4 times a week.

Thomas continued to hone his Uncle Big Big skills and remains favorite uncle of all time. Sometimes I wonder if my nephews and nieces even know I exist. 

One night all of us girls went to The Brandon House for dinner while the boys had man time celebrating my cousin Martin's graduation and heading off to college. They all shared wisdom about becoming a man over beef tenderloin, green beans, homemade french fries and peach cobber. 

Side note on The Brandon House: it really might be one of my favorite places to eat. If you live within driving distance to York, you'd better stop by. Chef Colin Flynn and his wife Ashley have really brought a spark to downtown York, and their crème brûlée makes me weak in the knees. Plus, he buys most of his produce from my uncle over at The Bush-N-Vine. Hooray for buying local!

 Here is my recently graduated cousin and his dad. That awful wolf t-shirt was given to him as a gift by my brothers+brothers-in-law. Hideous, but it had to be documented.

We made an attempt at taking a picture of all of the cousins. Didn't work out too well, but I do wish we could've filmed myself, my sister, 2 sister-in-law's, and mom all trying to get them to cooperate at the same time. We did this while the guys were celebrating another cousin's bachelor party by playing paint ball. They came home with whelps on every square inch of their bodies. And they were trying to coerce us wives into letting them "invest" in their relationships with each other by buying their own paintball guns. Yeah, right.  

Last but not least, my adopted nephew Shatu was baptized on Sunday and my entire family got to be there for it. It was such a special time! We are so thankful he is such an integral part of our earthly family, but even more thankful to call him our brother in Christ. 

Franklin

After we wrapped it up at the lake we headed to Franklin, NC to visit Thomas' Nana and Poppa who live right across the street from his aunt, uncle and cousin. They've moved since we visited last, and they have a great set up in two awesome houses. It was so good to be with each of them, even though Nana is pretty sassy and tells me what to do. (Nana, I hope you're reading this!) Once, when we were still dating, Nana whacked me on the hand with a knife because I was taking bites from a dish that I was preparing in the kitchen. She got all sassy on me again this time because I didn't like her pickled beets. I thought I politely proclaimed that they tasted like soil, but Nana didn't take too kindly to that. See, she's a sassy Nana, but we love her. 

                             

 Aunt Kim took us on a hike on part of the Appalachian Trail. Sadly, it was a really foggy morning so we couldn't see any of the view, but we saw plenty of wildflowers and we got a good workout in. Thomas was determined to beat Aunt Kim's previous time of one hour up the mountain. (He's not competitive at all) and we made it in 45 minutes. That would explain why we look a little rough in the photos!

We love you all in Franklin! Thanks for hosting us. 

A Decathalon

Our second stop was to the lake with our friends Sarah Kathryn and Jordan. They very generously allowed us to join them and Sarah Kathryn's family for a few days of fun at their lake house. It rained one morning, so Thomas and Jordan decided that we needed to hold a decathlon. By the time they finally decided what ten events we'd do, the rain had stopped so we held the decathlon out of doors. It included going off of the rope swing about a million times, watching Thomas and Jordan do back flips off of the dock, and jumping from the 2nd level of the dock into an inner tube. We had so much fun and it was a wonderful few days of relaxation and activities. We took a LOT of pictures so I'll only include the highlights here.

We arrived on the day of our anniversary and Sarah Kathryn and her mom had worked really hard to make our room look like a resort, complete with rose petals all the way down the hall. 

Thomas was an expert at the rope swing and I only chose a few of the poses he did for the camera. I, on the other hand, just screamed the entire time with my eyes closed.

I had the pleasure of living in Clemson with two of the Williams sisters! They were both faithful workout partners and good friends to me. 

Thomas stepped right through the flooring on their boat. Thankfully it was a little rotten so it wasn't technically his fault. 

I'm thankful that I lived through this tubing experience to tell the story. I was a little terrified that 300 pounds falling off of the tube on top of me would kill me, but it didn't. 

Thomas and Jordan really love each other and were sad to leave. 

Thanks for having us!

Beach Week 2011

The first leg of our journey we spent a few days at the beach with my mom's side of the family. 50+ years ago, my grandfather began organizing beach trips among all of their friends from their hometown. They'd go to a South Carolina beach for two weeks in which he'd plan crabbing, games, skit night, a bonfire on the beach, huge meals and lots of togetherness. Not a whole lot has changed through the years besides the attendees. Thomas absolutely loves the chaos of it all (sometimes I think I married a version of my grandfather), and while I do love the time with family, it pales in comparison to his passion for Beach Week. This year did not disappoint, and a wonderful time was had by all. 

We designate who is in charge of meals each night, and Thomas and I made tacos one night. Here is my cousin with a gigantic plate of tacos. He can almost eat as much as Thomas. Not kidding. 

 On one of the nights we have a bonfire on the beach and cook s'mores and hot dogs. Is it illegal to have a bonfire on the beach? Probably. Do we care? Nope.

Here is a photo of the beloved sectional. We've rented this house two years in a row just because we love the sectional so much. I'm kind of kidding, but not really. It holds at least 12 people (comfortably) and is a highlight of our trip. We were playing a really fun game called Pit in this picture. Thomas looks angry in the photo because he'd been winning for a few hands and my dad convinced the rest of us to gang up on him and not let him win. It didn't end well.....

Here we all are celebrating my grandparent's 60th anniversary. We don't usually all wear matching t-shirts, but it makes my grandfather happy when we wear our Beach Week t-shirts at least once during the week. 

Thomas and our friend Tyler participated in Skit night by rapping a Shai Linne song. In matching "soli deo gloria" t-shirts. It was priceless. 

If you ask me, being on the beach in the late afternoon is the absolute best time of day. The boys especially enjoyed riding the waves and playing football together. 

I couldn't help but include this picture. I asked my nephew to pull the kayak out into the water. He tried...and tried....and tried. It made my day. 

On our last night, Thomas' sister Bekah had a few hours she could be away from Campus Outreach so we took her to dinner and to Costco. If you want to feel like you've really made someone's day, take a college student to Costco. The sheer joy that Bekah expressed was gratifying. We were thankful to get to spend a little time with her! 

On the road again

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. We've been traveling down South for almost 2 weeks, and we've got another week to go. We started out at the McCreight family Beach Week, and we've got some time to kill before Thomas is in another.......you guessed it....WEDDING! Thankfully I had this time off from work, so we've had plenty of time to travel from one end of South Carolina to the other. We went to the beach with my mom's entire family (40+ people=chaos), spent an afteroon with Thomas' sister Bekah who is ministering with Campus Outreach in Myrtle Beach, to my parent's house for the night of 4th of July, went to the lake with our dear friends Jordan and Sarah Kathryn (which is conveniently located close to Clemson so that Thomas could work out every day), to Franklin, NC to see Thomas' aunt, uncle, grandparents and cousin, and now we're back at my parent's to see my oldest nephew get baptized on Sunday. THEN we'll head to Thomas' former hometown for 4 days for him to workout and be in another wedding.

Whew. It is fun to see everyone, but a tad tiring. I'll post pictures when I can actually think again!