Last weekend our family was honored to celebrate Grandmother’s 90th birthday.  We planned a whole weekend of festivities – it was a lot of work and a lot of coordinating, but it was worth every second.  Grandmother loves a good party and definitely enjoys the attention that comes with turning 90.  She was so excited leading up to the weekend and told everyone she saw about her upcoming milestone.

Things kicked off on Friday when several family members from out of state, including my uncle, aunt, and cousins from Indiana, my cousins from Florida, and now me, from South Carolina, arrived.  The Indiana crew picked me up at the Nashville airport on the way down and we all enjoyed dinner out at the Rogersville Chinese buffet.  The next day we’d planned to have a family birthday party/reunion – very casual with plenty of time for “visiting” as Grandmother says. 

Mom, Uncle Richard, and I put together a timeline with pictures from different points in Grandmother’s 90 years.

Kenslee was kind enough to lend Grandmother her Birthday Girl pin for the day.

Speaking of Kenslee, guess who has lost 5 teeth!?! Didn’t stop her from eating ribs though.

Publix did a great job with her birthday cake – exactly what we asked for and tasty:Thanks to one of Phillip’s anniversary presents (a remote for my camera), we were able to get a group photo:After enjoying our lunch, we headed back to one of the lakeside cottages at Joe Wheeler State Park (which are very nice, by the way, if you’re inclined to visit) for more visiting, fishing, and rides on the pontoon boat.  As the afternoon wound down, we piled into the living room to watch football. 

It was so much fun to watch the game with fellow UT fans for a change – at least for the first half.  And that’s all we’ll say about that.

Sunday was Grandmother’s actual birthday (and fun fact, was also her mother’s birthday) and we were up early and hard at work to finish preparing for her birthday party at church.  Much thanks to our good friend Christi for doing another awesome job decorating – we would not have pulled this off without her. 

A suit and sport coat Grandmother made.

If you know my grandmother (or basically any member of our family), you know how much she loves sweets.  She always needs a bite of something sweet after every meal and usually carries an assortment of miniatures or other chocolatey treats in her purse.  In honor of her love of dessert, we decided to only serve sweets at her party (except for the obligatory nuts – there’s no reception without nuts).  We had crockpot candy, cheesecake, key lime pie, Death by Chocolate, a chocolate fountain, Hershey miniatures, and fruit.  For an extra special surprise, Grandmother’s good friend from high school, Doris, came all the way from Gadsden for the party.  Grandmother and Doris were Piedmont High School’s first ever majorettes and both celebrated their 90th birthdays this year.  I hope I look half this good when (if) I’m 90.Grandmother was thrilled that so many people took time to come by.  She got lots of cards (which are her favorite) and at the end of the afternoon, was able to donate over 300 items to Fish & Loaves, a community food bank our church operates. 

It was an amazing weekend for an amazing woman.  Happy Birthday Grandmur!  We love you!

Well, despite my best efforts, it’s finally here.  The beginning of the end…of my 20s.  That’s right, I “celebrated” my 29th birthday on the 10th.  Phillip and I both had to work that Monday, so I declared it present time around 6:00 that morning (before Phillip had to leave for work).  I’d received a few cards and a couple of gifts in the mail, but I refused to open them until my actual birthday.  If you open all of your birthday things before your birthday, what are you supposed to do on your birthday?  I had some nice cards from Phillip’s parents and some friends and family.  My family sent me something I’d been wanting for a long time – Fiestaware!  I now have four place settings, each in a different fun color.  Phillip gave me that iPad I’ve been wanting and I have to admit, I did spend a few hours that morning just playing with the new tech toy.

Last year I spent my birthday on our honeymoon in St. Lucia, which was pretty awesome.  But actually, I enjoyed this year’s birthday much more.  The best part about birthdays to me is being able to talk to my family and friends, which I couldn’t do in St. Lucia since we were committed to being unplugged for the week.  But this year I got to talk to all of “my people” (or at least listen to their voicemails), including having my mom sing all of the birthday songs to me.  I also didn’t have a Facebook birthday last year.  One of my favorite things about Facebook is birthdays – I love getting Facebook birthday wishes.  It’s a gift that keeps on coming all day long.

The work day finally passed us by and Phillip and I went downtown for drinks and small plates at The Rooftop Bar at the Vendue Inn.  The weather was perfect and the view was great.  We even walked down to the pier afterwards.My 29th birthday wasn’t so bad after all – maybe I’ll have a few more of them.  : )  That’s totally normal, right?

Last weekend was a weekend of firsts – September 1st (Kids Day and the start of my favorite month), the first football games of the season, our first day at the beach since moving to Charleston, and our first wedding anniversary.  Our anniversary/Labor Day weekend got off to a great start with the delivery of these beautiful flowers from my parents.

Happy Anniversary to us!

Phillip was overnight on Friday, but he was still up for a trip to the Charleston Farmers Market on Saturday morning.  We enjoyed crepes and fresh juice for breakfast before roaming about the market and checking out all of the local vendors and fresh produce.  So far, this is one of my favorite things to do in Charleston – there’s just always so much to look at.  And I love the crepes.  : )  After picking up a few gifts, we hit the fresh pasta booth and came home with with “Crazy Lobster” ravioli.  We also got some fresh arugula, one of Phillip’s favorites, which together with the ravioli, made a delicious Saturday lunch.I’d watched my football game on Friday night (looking better this season, Vols!), but Saturday night was the first Alabama game of the season.  We enjoyed a couple of our favorite tailgate snacks while watching the Tide crush Michigan.  Saturday was also Kids Day!  My brother and I made up the holiday when we were kids and we (me, my brother, and Mom) still celebrate it.  This year, Mom sent me some more pretty flowers!On Sunday, Phillip and I decided to finally get out to the beach.  We live so close it’s almost disgraceful that it took us this long to have a beach day.  So we packed up our things and headed out early to Kiawah.  There’s a public park there with a nice beach.  We set up our spot and I got to work playing with my anniversary present from Phillip – a tripod and neutral density filter for my camera!  I was so excited to start learning how to use them.  I needed a tripod to take more landscape shots and the filter to leave my shutter open longer without flooding the camera with too much light during the day.  The pictures didn’t turn out that well since I still have such a LONG way to go with learning how my camera works and how to get the shots I want (and I haven’t even really approached editing yet – can you say overwhelmed?), but it was still fun to play with the new toys.

By leaving my shutter open longer, I can capture the cool misty, fuzzy rolling water effect with the waves.

The water was a little chilly at first, but once it started warming up outside, it was very refreshing.  The sand wasn’t as nice as our Gulf sand, but the water was seaweed and jellyfish free.  People filled in all the blank spots so that by noon, it was actually pretty crowded.  But that just makes for better people-watching, right?  The beach is pet-friendly so there were dogs of all shapes and sizes chasing balls all over the beach – we saw some real swimmers chase balls out into the ocean nearly as far out as we waded!  The most exciting event occurred when an unidentified object was spotted in the water.  Naturally, everyone waded out to try and see what it was.  Seriously, we were all just staring out at this one floating thing in the ocean.  Some braver souls swam out to check it out and discovered that it was a deer, which when it eventually washed up, was immediately surrounded by people.  It was an interesting observation of human curiosity.

It was always just a matter of time before Phillip and I started to burn, so once we hit splotchy, we packed up and headed home.  We applied and reapplied, but both still ended up with random burn patches.  Such is life for pale people.

Monday was our actual anniversary.  It really doesn’t feel like it’s been a whole year.  They say that the first year of marriage is the most difficult, but if that’s true, then Phillip and I can’t wait for the years to come.  It really has been a wonderful year for us and I’m so happy to be able to share this life together.  Despite all this wonderfulness, I am still married to a fellow and he of course had to work overnight on our anniversary.  So we had anniversary lunch and then pulled out the top layer of our wedding cake.  The before picture:And the after picture:A little worse for the wear in looks, but it was still delicious!  In all fairness, it did do quite a bit of traveling over the last year.  All in all, a wonderful weekend of firsts!