Back in the day

While Ben was home, Mamaw made a delicious breakfast. She lives in Rogersville. We couldn't wait!

Beth and I sitting outside, just enjoying the conversations...


And loving the camera... my sister is the best...

Beautiful Mamaw.

I also took Chris on a tour of the area. I lived in Bean Station the first years of my life and it meant a lot that he got to see it.

Family business...

The water tower behind the factory. We used to have horses back there!!! :) Chris, his country music voice, and his love for wearing cowboy boots... there's no wonder why my country self fell head over heels in love with him.

This was one of my FIRST houses! Granted we didn't park in front of it when we lived there (which is a little more red), but it was way fun to see.

Stinky chicken

Our chicken had been in the fridge for a week and a half. Evidently that's not a good thing...

It's also not a good thing to take your bad chicken and put in the large garbage in our garage. Your garage that gets hot during the day. The same garage where you car is located with the windows down. For two days. It was a DISASTER!

Luckily my husband came to the rescue, removed the chicken from its source, and took it far, far away.

The next day, I could still smell the YUCKO chicken:


Secret? My mom says to put the bad chicken in the freezer until garbage day. Brilliant! After this chicken incident, we may be putting ALL of our trash in the freezer! Bahaha!

Benadryl and cotton balls

Update on the "Macinator."

I've talked with the vet. We've tried the Benadryl and cotton balls in her ears. We're not going to do the tranquilizer. **YIKES!**

She did better last Friday. She had 3/4ths of a Benadryl tablet, eaten with cheese, 20 min before we left. I stuffed cotton balls in her ears that lasted about 2/3rds of the way home. We only made it 2/3rds of the way because I would stuff them back in. She sat relatively calmly in her seat if I would pet her. {Calmly = still strong panting, but less snot blowing and no big eyes.} My arm almost fell off.

We're still working with her though. She's not ready to do the drive daily, so we're still going to stick with her coming down on the weekends. That gives her more recovery time between drives. For now, Macy stays with the parentals during the week. They take very, very good care of her and she loves them.

Mom called yesterday though and said she thinks Mace is sad. :( Why wouldn't she be? To a dog, her life has completely changed and she's confused. It's like her "parents" have gotten a divorce. We joke because she now has a dad, but she probably doesn't understand why her house has been turned upside down. It breaks my heart to not have her with us (Chris and I) all the time - we're just trying to do what is best for her, take my emotions out of it. Its always good to see that she wants to go with us... she always jumps in the car to go; it's just not long after that she shows symptoms of a crazy panic attack and symptoms that could lead to a heart attack.

Anyway, Macy is still very loved. If you've got any suggestions, PLEASE pass them on! Hopefully one day soon we'll get to have our little family together all the time.

Here are Bailey and Macy on a drive home. My backseat was still down from the move so they rode in the back. I believe Macy hit her head on that back window a bunch. Bless her.



Here she is in all of her cuteness. Tongue out and big eyes. Normally you don't see the white in her eyes! But, she was wearing a new pretty bow on her "necklace."

Delicious "chicken chips"

Yummmmmmy deliciousness! After my DiGiorno post, I needed to show you a little "COOKED" goodness.



My sweet friend, Amy, offered up this quick recipe last week. After you spend all day at work and you still have the now hour commute home, I am ALL about QUICK! You'll be surprised at just how good what I have dubbed "chicken chips" is:



Chicken tenders, frozen or fresh (If frozen, let thaw.)

One bowl of crushed chips (flavor of your choice. We used Ruffles Original.)

One egg (If you're making more chicken tenders than one package, you may need another egg.)

Preheat oven to 350.

Grease 9x13 pan.

De-vein chicken. (That's a process, but I can't stand the veins! One suggestion: you can hold the end of the vein and then slide a knife up the rest. If you're good, you can pull the vein right out.)

Roll chicken in beaten egg.

Roll chicken with egg in the crushed chips.

Place in pan.

Bake for 45 min to 1 hr.

Let cool before devouring.



Tastes a bit like "fried chicken" but it's baked. The chips give it *good* flavor (no need for salting!) and you should definitely enjoy!

DiGiorno

"It's not delivery. It's DiGiorno!"

That wasn't exactly my Darling's response when I brought home DiGiorno for dinner... It was more of a...

"I thought you were going to cook!"

Yeah... about that... We had some errands to run and I was tired after a long day at the office, so I consulted my sister. By her recommendation, I went confidently to the frozen pizza section and picked this wonderful selection:

It's a great, quick treat! But, it's really only for those special occassions when you're really out of time... The Darling definitely enjoyed the dinner, so he was fine that I neglected my "standing by the stove, wearing my apron" wifely duties for the night. (Since then, we've stocked our freezer with two more for a rainy day!)

Thanks to Bethie for the lovely review pre-purchasing! We were very content. Hope you all enjoy!

Chicken Harvest Thursday

At O'Charley's every Thursday, they have a special soup. It's called Chicken Harvest. You know the delicious chicken noodle? It's a creamy twist to that. I wrote this blog about it before..

Very rarely is there a Thursday that goes by that we miss. By we, I mean my sister and I. We are the founding members. Luckily she's dubbed me the President; so I dub her the Vice.

This Thursday was no exception - Beth and I headed to O'Charley's. This time we let her boyfriend, Will, join us. He was great company! (and even bought both of our lunch!)

Will and Beth enjoying a wonderful lunch!

So, next time you're in the mood for a warm, full-filling meal (and it's cheap! water + soup is around $5 with tax. you also get all the rolls you can eat.), head on over to O'Charley's for their chicken harvest. Tell them Julie sent you. They won't care, but it'll be funny anyway. :)

The Macinator Goes to K'ville

Macy comes to Knoxville each weekend, to live with me and her new DAD. We love when she's with us and she loves it too. However, she doesn't love the drive at all. We border on panic attacks the whole way. Soooo, I splurged and bought this DOG SEAT to help keep her contained.

Here she is, ridin' along in the automobile:



Here she is wanting to sit on my lap. This is why she's strapped down for our hour long car ride.

Thank goodness I-40 is open! It shaves about 8/10 minutes off my commute. Love it! Here we are driving under it for the first time. I don't recommend it - driving and picture taking and dog watching would not be approved by my husband.

Mace HATES big trucks with a passion. They're louder and bigger and much, much scarier. They cause great panic attacks. Here we are, facing her fear at a red light.

{Note: tongue out = heavy panting. Which she does for an hour straight. She also blows snot all over the place in the design of fireworks. You can kinda see the sickness on my window in this pic, but the second one from top is the best.}

Shortly after, she tried to strangle herself in the carseat. Amazing that we do this every Friday night and on the way to work each Monday!

I'm calling the vet before the end of this week and requesting drugs for the little one.

More Wedding

There are so many pictures from that day! I want to share them ALL with you. However, by the time night comes and I begin to upload these pictures, I'm exhausted.

After three uploaded pictures tonight, Chris reminded me to come to bed. He knows how I need my sleep. Since wedding planning, I have routinely gotten less sleep. and I feel it. Even on the honeymoon - granted, I got a really good amount, but by 8/9 am I was up! Ready for the day! It's a thing I do on vacation; not wanting to miss out on any part of the beautiful day, the beach, the pool, or my handsome husband.

Since then, we're minus the beach, but he's still my distraction. We plan more to do in our days than we should, but marriage is SO FUN! I want to enjoy it all: Sharing dinner together. Running errands. Doing house chores. Falling asleep beside him. Waking up and kissing his face before I get out of the bed.

He was worth the wait. Every minute of it.

Okay. So if you remember my previous post, you'll know I'm learning a lot. For example, dinner last night. Chris and I had discussed "grilled chicken salad" for dinner. On Sunday, I bought POUCH CHICKEN to put on top. Have you had it? Do you like it? If you do love the fact that you can buy chicken in a pouch, disregard my next statement: IT SMELLS DISGUSTING! I couldn't even try it because I thought I might throw up. Chris agreed. So tonight we had a combination dinner of leftover hamburger casserole, lettuce, and cheese. Oh and ranch dressing.

I did make his coffee this am. That turned out "AWESOME," he said.

LUCKILY, we have great families!!! Chris' parents came last week and we got a bunch of the crazy, in desperate need, organization started. Now hopefully, tomorrow, we'll finish! My wonderful mother will be coming on Saturday. I have never seen anyone work the way she does. To top it off, we're bringing in the support team: Angie, a family friend, and my sister. Mom and Angie are an incredible team - let's call them the OCD, Organization Team.

{Side note: when the siblings and I were younger and the OCDOT would get together, our whole house would be rearranged. Just about every weekend. It was not a new thing for us to come home from school one day with our room rearranged. Another example: They once brought a doll cabinet down the stairs. Pretty big feat considering it took three MEN to take the cabinet upstairs. Two women. And no hole in the wall...}

So, the OCDOT will be at our home at 8:30am. Should be fun! Exhausting, but the early rising will come with that wonderful feeling when your home is in order.

More pictures from 5.16.09:

My PMG family. I was so excited to see them all there! They are wonderful blessings in my life.

Amber holding Alexis, Amy holding Anna, Mr. and Mrs., Dena poking through, Danielle, Cindy, and Makenzie

The guys. Outside. Reliving college.

John, Seth, Nathan, Corey, Mr., Billy, and Derek.

Ol' Blue. In all her glory. This was also the best day of her life. For sure, the most important.

More to come! Promise! Thanks for reading.

The Wedding

Pictures from the day we pledged our lives together. There are many more! I'll post asap.

Photos by Jessica Cudzilo, 503 photography. She is wonderfully talented! Pictures are worth a thousand words and she is fantastic. Call her for all your special memories... For more of our wedding pictures, go here to Jessica's blog.

My Daddy walking me down the aisle to my soon-to-be husband.

Ceremony.

During Ward's solo, we had our own private prayer time. Except we couldn't stop looking at or whispering to each other.

THE FIRST KISS as husband and wife. The new Mr. and Mrs.!!!

Making our way out of the sanctuary.

Classic wedding party picture.

Chris' guitar cake! It was delicious! Both cakes were made by Lora Hammond, cake decorator extraordinaire.

My "four" layer divine work of art. I remembered that we needed a cake stand, oh, the day before the wedding. Luckily, Weddings and Party Rentals came through for us!

J. checking out the candle. I love the look of wonder in his little face.

Cake cutting!!! Everything about weddings are so fun! After we had cut the cake, Mrs. Hammond told us that she prays for all of her couples as she bakes their cakes. So there you go. A cake with prayers baked in. A recipe for success if you ask me.

I *adore him. During the reception, we had to keep coming back to each other. This was one moment Jessica was able to catch through her lens. (Told you, totally talented.)

DAD. I couldn't ask for a better one. He's the best.

Stealing a kiss pre-loading up in the car.

Part of the crowd after Chris and I drove away in our decorated, words written all over, cans dragging from behind, sardine filled vehicle.

Thank you all of you who came and shared with us in our joy and celebration. We are so thankful for each of you and honored you would be there! May you love as deep and passion filled.

Here he is, our Marine!

Welcome HOME!

Today is the day!!!! We've been waiting for Ben to come home for almost 7 months now (read this) and it's finally here. Dad, Mom, Beth and I are in Jacksonville, NC anxiously awaiting the Welcome Home Ceremony of the USMC 3/8s Weapons Company. We left home yesterday and headed the 8 hours here. I couldn't tell you (on this blog) that Ben was scheduled to come home today for security reasons, but now, it's really, really here! I can't wait. To see him. To hug him. To kiss his cheeks. To know that he is safe and not in harm's way.

After so many prayers for his safety and protection, all the thanks goes to the Lord for his return...