Music and Moving

John's band, Twelve South, has released their EP album. It is available on CDbaby. The band will be recording their newest songs this Saturday. We have also moved into our new apartment. It is much bigger than our old place. Thomas seems to finally be adjusting to it. He had a rough couple of days when we first got here. John is doing a great job with moving all of the heavy stuff. We have a lot of unpacking left to do.

Changes

The past few months seem to have been very busy. We celebrated Christmas with Catheryne's parents and Grandma Marion. It was perfect. All of the cooking turned out well, and we even had flurries on Christmas day. We also are moving March 6th to a bigger apartment that is A LOT closer to Catheryne's work. This will mean that whenever there is a extra event, she wont have to hang out at the school for 3 hours. January brought snow with it. Tennessee is not really designed to handle any amount of snow. Catheryne has had 5 snow days since January. This last storm actually produced what was predicted. We had about 2-3 inches of snow, with 1/2 an inch of ice on top of it. January also brought with is a 21 day time of fasting and praying for God's direction. We have been praying really hard for John's music career. Anyway, about 2 days into the fast a band called Twelve South called John about playing with them. John had practiced with them once before, but nothing really happened. John is now playing with them and loves it. Catheryne even likes the music as well. The band is having an EP release party on February 28th.

Holiday Season

We are excited to begin the holiday season. We have already put up our tree for Christmas. We have a little black tree. We went to one of Catheryne's favorite stores-The Dollar Tree- and found some really nice looking place-mats, napkins, napkin rings and a table runner. So of course we had to set the table, and because the table was set, we put out the tree. We are spending Thanksgiving alone, which we like. We don't really like the traditional meal, and by spending it alone, we can cook what we want. Catheryne's parents and Grandma Marion are coming for Christmas. This is what has us so excited. It will be the first holiday spend with family since we have been married. We have many exciting things to look forward to besides Christmas. We are moving to a different apartment complex in March-please pray that is goes smoothly. We are looking at a bigger place and it is closer to Catheryne's work. This will make a huge difference for her. She has a lot of after school things that she ends up doing and living closer will make it easier.

September 11th-by Catheryne

September 11th is my birthday. I have had a hard time with this since 2001. I know that it is important to remember the tragedy of that day, but why is it that every year on this day the media feel the need to replay the horrific images? I have had two students who also have this birth date and I wonder how they feel, as a kid, to have to share their special day with the media spewing sorrow. John always does an amazing job making this a special day and I have finally gotten over the quilt of feeling happy on it. I just feel that we must always remember the tragedies we have faced, but we must also focus on our strength. I do not think that the family members want to see this over and over again on 9/11. OK, now I am done ranting.

End of Summer events

Our summer officially ended with our trip to upstate New York to celebrate Catheryne's Grandma's 90th birthday. It was a 12 hour drive through Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. It was our first time going to Ohio and John's first time in Pennsylvania. Driving through counts as going to the state, plus gas stops help with that tally =). We had a great time. We took Belle with us and she loved it! We arrived on Thursday night and left on Sunday. We spent a few hours at the lake on Friday, Belle is a water dog. She loved the smells and stepped right into the lake. We even took her on the boat. We weren't sure how she would take it, but she love it. Friday night was spent getting to know some of the relatives and Saturday was the big party. Over 80 people came to celebrate Grandma's birthday, including her friend from her first year of starting school as a child. It was so wonderful to meet new family member and to revisit with family members that haven't been visited with in a long time.

It's that time...

It has been a few weeks since our last blog. We have since celebrated 4th of July with a good 'ol Southern BBQ at a friend's house. We had a lot of fun at it. We played an awesome game of Scene It, the boys on my team rocked, sadly we still lost. We also survived another youth group car wash. Our youth are going to Gulf Port, Mississippi and they have been working hard to fund raise for their trip. John and I will be going to NY soon to celebrate Grandma Marion's 90th birthday. We are looking forward to meeting family members that we have never met and celebrate with her. I have a laptop conference I am going to in Memphis. We have always driven through Memphis, so this will be the first time I actually get to see the downtown area.

Robin Hood

We are great fans of Netflix. We subscribe to it to help supplement the lack of TV programing. We have the very lowest form of cable so we can watch some TV and get weather updates during a storm. We don't get TV reception without cable. Anyway, through Netflix we are able to catch up on some of our favorite shows that we don't get the channel for. One of our favorites is BBC America's Robin Hood. This series is very well done. We just finished watching season 2 (we thought it was season 3 at first). It was such a dramatic season that has left us waiting for season 3. Very few shows really grab our attention. This has been the highlight of the last few days. John has been working night shifts to help rearrange the store. He is finally done with those, so we can get our life back to normal. It throws things off when one of us is sleeping all day. We had a small scare about Catheryne's job due to some unexpected layoffs at the school, but everything seems to have evened out and it looks like there is no need for us to worry anymore. We have continued to stay busy with the youth group at church. Next week will be the first day the youth group goes to the lake. Catheryne is excited to finally go to the lake, and we don't know if John will have to work that day or not. We are also looking forward to our first 4th of July BBQ at a friend's house.