December: The Christmas Month

December is the one month of the year where the whole month revolves around 1 day! Think about it, we shop, eat, party, and travel all for one special event: Christmas day.

We had several parties to go to this year: Steelworks of the Carolinas (one of QuickDraw's customers), my boss had a Christmas party at his house that we went to, a church dinner and a youth get together. The youth get together was very interesting as we split up into 4 teams and created gingerbread houses. It was a blast! Especially since there were quite a few young kids there. They were very eager to decorate the houses.

We also got to go to the Living Tree this year which is a presentation that a few of the Southern Baptist churches put on in our area. It's a 35 ft. Christmas tree constructed from wood and steel and the choir stands on the tiers. It was a great presentation and we really enjoyed it!

Jonathan's birthday is December 19th, and this year for his birthday we decided to go to the Greenville Symphony Orchestra's Christmas concert: Holiday at Peace. This presentation was held in the Peace Center. Again, it was a great presentation and was most enjoyable!!

It's not quite Christmas yet, but already we've enjoyed many things that revolve around Christmas.

We had our Christmas cantata at church last Sunday night and we will have it again this Sunday night, Christmas Eve. It went really really well last week and we are praying that it will be the same this week.

The cats are just lying around waiting for Christmas to get here so that they can get into the toys that they've been sniffing out around the house. :-)

We're Still Alive

After not seeing any new posts for almost two months, some people might think we just vanished off the end of the world. We didn't; we're still here! It's just that we've just come through the two busiest months of the year.

The past month and a half has simply flown by. I really don't know where it's gone.

We've had birthday parties, youth outings, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Jonathan's birthday, cantata practices and much more.

November was pretty busy: we had two birthday parties, my dad's and Elisabeth's, my youngest sister. OnThanksgiving we went to both of our parents' houses for a little bit. We ate both places, so we were pretty stuffed by the end of the day.

On Black Friday, we ventured out into the madness to get two items: a DVD camcorder and a new digital camera. We did get really good deals on both of them and Jonathan only had to stand in line for 2 1/2 hours to pay for them. :-) While he did that I went to the mall, Walgreen's Old Navy, Shoe Carnival and Wal-mart!

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we went to Dollywood to see the Christmas decorations and Christmas shows. It was beautiful and we really enjoyed the shows. It was a late night getting back, but it was worth it!

New Blogs Coming

Due to the incredible busyness of the past month and a half, we haven't had time to post any blogs or pictures.

However, we are hoping to update our blogspot sometime this week with pictures from Dollywood, Thanksgiving and our house decorated for Christmas.

Please come back in a few days!!!

VOTE!

I just wanted to post a reminder that the elections are only a week away! If you're not very informed on what's going on or who is running for office or what referendums may be on your ballot next Tuesday, YOU ONLY HAVE ONE WEEK!!! You only have a few more days to learn as much as possible about all the issues and make an informed decision. Voting is a right, a privilege, and a duty for every good citizen of the U.S.A. Do your part.

My New Monitor

I didn't mention this in my last post, but something else that happened this month had to do with work. A couple of weeks ago we got a lot of big boxes from Dell in a UPS delivery. I was pleasantly suprised to learn that my two boss men, Gary and Richard, had purchased a new computer for me and THREE 30" Dell monitors!! Each of us got one, so now, Gary and Richard both have side-by-side 30" and 24" monitors and I have side-by-side 30" and 20" monitors. It's so nice and it eliminates a lot of the zooming in and out that we had to do with the smaller monitors. I'll try to take some pictures and post them.

It's Been A Month!!

It's been over a month since I posted a blog entry!! I can't believe I'm such a slacker. Oh, well. I guess all I can do is just go from here. It has certainly been a busy month. October is one of the slower months of the year... normally. This month has flown by. On the first weekend, we had our monthly youth meeting at church.
The next weekend we spent the morning at the Pumpkin Festival in Pumkintown, SC. It is really growing as a festival. Over the past few years the estimates have been as high as 50,000 in attendance at this one-day festival. We heard an interesting story about the Pumpkin Festival this year. One of our friends, Bro. Merritt, who lives in New York (state, not city), was down here working on a church. He is retired and in a small church helps ministry. He and his wife sing, he preaches, and they remodel or add on to churches. Anyway, they were down here and Heather's dad realized his shirt was from the Pumpkin Festival. He asked him about it and found out the Bro. Merritt had never been to the festival and didn't even know where Pumkintown was even though the church he was working on was only minutes outside of the town. He said that he was at home in NY and needed some work shirts. So he went to the local Goodwill and picked up some shirts. Somehow, a shirt had found its way all the way from rural SC to rural NY!
The next weekend we went to Black Rock State Park in Clayton, GA. It was the five year anniversary of our engagement! It doesn't seem like it's been that long, but here we are: its been five years since engagement and three and a half years since we were married. We took some pictures and maybe next month or after the New Year we'll get around to posting them.
The last weekend in October was funfilled for sure. We started out early in the morning by going to church and getting things set up for our Fall Festival. Then we spent the afternoon with Luke and McKaylah. We took them to the park near our house. We flew a kite and played on the huge playground. It was sprawling playset that had at least 5 slides, several ladders, ropes, monkey bars, zip lines, a rock wall, and it was 3 stories tall!
Well, that catches you up on the weekends of October. It would take a while for me to write all the things we did during the weeks, so I'll just end on this note: we had a great month and will post some pictures it a few days (maybe).

Crazy Sophie

Sophie is a little um...different than Nixon. Actually, other than the fact that they're both cats and share the same parents, they're basically different as night and day! Sophie has always had a little attitude-even since we picked her up and put her in a box to bring her home. Her hair was poofed out and she was hissing at us. In fact, the reason that we got Nixon was because she was just crying and squalling and we decided that she needed a partner. So we went back to where the kittens were and picked up Nixon. He was the smallest little kitten.

Some of Sophie's eccentricities include her phase of putting everything in her water bowl-just to fish it out again (she still does that with some toys). She pulls the water bowl to the middle of the floor if it doesn't have enough water in it-spilling water as she goes. If she feels that I am not giving her enough attention, I'll hear bowls clinking together and sure enough I go to the kitchen and she's splashing water out of her water bowl. She likes to find her favorite toy (a stuffed snake on a string) and then come into the room that were in, holding it in her mouth and meowing all the way. Like "Look what I found for you." I am glad that it's a toy snake and not a mouse or something. She is a bit of a control freak. She likes everything to be exactly the same all the time. If Nixon or she has to go somewhere like the vet or groomers or anywhere, she has a fit for three or four days and punishes Nixon by hissing, growling, and clawing him. (we were told that female cats take out their 'frustrations' on male cats. :-)

Sophie can be sweet sometimes...she likes to get on my lap or come sleep with me if I take a nap or something like that. One thing she does that I think is her motherly side is that she takes her little toys and puts them by her food bowl, it's like she wants them to eat too.

She is a little on the chunky side...she likes to eat all of her food and Nixon's leftover food, too.

Overall, she's a good little cat.

Funny Nixon

Nixon has been sleeping this way all the time recently. It's really funny because he'll just walk into the room, roll on his back, and relax! What's even more interesting is that his eyes come open a good bit of the time.

Charleston Pics

A Weekend in Charleston

Last weekend we took a short "vacation" and went to Charleston Thursday-Saturday. We like Charleston a lot. It's only 3 hours from home and there are so many things to do! We've been there four times now and we've done different things everytime and we still haven't even come close to doing everything!

This time we went to Charles Towne Landing, which is where the settlers first landed in the area and settled, but had to move inland. Today, it's a state park and where there has been a lot of excavating and a lot of artifacts from the time of the settlers have been found. There is a historic trail that shows where the fort was and where some other buildings were and then there is an animal trail that has animals that were in the area when the settlers came over: bobcats, puma, bears, bison, deer, elk, turkeys, otters, wolves, and many different kinds of shore birds. There is also an alligator!

While we were in Charleston, we also went to Isle of Palms, the nicer beach part of the Charleston area. It was very nice. It would have been a bit better had we been "prepared" to go to the beach, but it was great anyway!
We also went antique shopping (we didn't buy any) and strolled through the market while we were there.
We had an interesting trip home because though it should only take us 3 hours to get home, it took us about 7! We took a couple of detours, stopping in Springfield, SC where Jonathan's dad was born, and then since it was "only" 45 miles away, we went to August, GA. It was interesting to me because I had never been to the parts of SC that we drove through and I had never been to Augusta. It was a great weekend and and the only thing that could have made it better was for it to have been longer. :-)

Speer Family Reunion



Last weekend was the sixth annual Speer family reunion at Jonathan's parents' house in Marietta, SC. All of the siblings and their families were there, a total of 22 people: 13 adults and 9 children.

Needless to say, the house was full. Above is a picture of the front porch swing. Jonathan and I spent many Sunday afternoons on that porch swing before we got married. :-) But for the family reunion, it was used as a place for many pictures.
In the picture of all the siblings, the girls are portraying hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil using the boys as the "monkeys". :-)

On Monday we took a picnic and went to Jones Gap State Park and did a small hike (very small). McKaylah, Luke and Hannah, the oldest of the grandchildren look like they have conquered Mt. Everest! They did a great job keeping up, and sometimes got ahead of the adults!! On Monday, everyone traveled back to their respective homes...we'll be back next year!

False Photos

I'm sure you've noticed in the news lately all the anti-Isreal propoganda that the mainstream news sources love to show. I've posted this link just for your viewing pleasure and to give you a further glimpse into "Pallywood" and "Hezbollywood." http://www.aish.com/movies/JP/PhotoFraud.asp

A Cold Ride. A Cool Price.

On Saturday, August 12, Joseph and I went on our first motorcycle ride together. I rode my Kawasaki Ninja 250R (see previous post) and he rode his Yamaha FZ6. It is called the Swiss Army knife of Yamaha sport bikes. It is a very versatile bike that can go fast, tour, or just ride around town with no problem. You can see more about his motorcycle at this link: http://www.yamaha-motor.com/sport/products/modelhome/273/0/home.aspx. The blue one on their website is exactly like his. Anyway, it was a cold 69 degrees (relative to our recent 95+ temps). It was also rainy. That isn't a good mix on motorcycles but we still had an hour or so of riding fun. We rode out to Pleasant Ridge State Park lake and then we rode to Jones Gap State Park. The ride to Pleasant Ridge is straight so we got to test our motorcycle speed performance. Needless to say, it was exhilarating. The ride to Jones Gap was more a test of our handling. The road is very twisted, but it was exciting to lean in and feel the G's. Overall it was a good ride, but I can only imagine how fun it will be to go for a group ride in nicer weather.
On a side note, I got to check my mileage for the first time. I rode for two weeks before I had to switch to the reserve tank. I put 233 city miles on it since I have to ride from the East side of Greenville to the West side, where I work. I only had to put 3.5 gallons in the 4.9 gallon capacity tank. That works out to around 67 mpg!! I was VERY glad to see that. Anyway, I'll keep this site up to date on future rides, but for most part I'll be just riding it back and forth to work.

A Full Weekend

We had a good weekend. On Saturday we had a full day of shopping and getting the Bravada serviced. In the evening we went to a youth meeting at our church. It is on the first Saturday of every month. We get together and have a devotion and sing some songs. Then we go outside and play volleyball or ultimate frisbee. If the weather is bad we stay inside and play ping-pong and other indoor games. The grandfather of some of our young people donated the ping-pong table last week, so we are just now getting to use it. Normally we have about 25 young people. Our Sunday services went well and there seemed to be a lot of excitement in the air. Today went fast and a big group from our church went to a Greenville Drive game. We left in the ninth inning to avoid all the traffic, but the Drive was beating the Hagerstown Suns 9-4. That's pretty much a full few days! (You can find more on the Greenville Drive at www.greenvilledrive.com.)

Joe

This is Joe. He's on his way to Charleston. He is in the Air Force Reserves and is single. 

Sophie & Nixon: Our Cats

These are our two cats: Sophie and Nixon. The names are a little different, I know. Sophie was the name Heather's grandmother suggested and it stuck right away. We went for about two weeks and still didn't have a name for her brother. During that time, it was big news that Deep Throat, Bob Woodward's man inside the Nixon administration who brought the Watergate scandal to public attention, had been unmasked after nearly 30 years of hiding his identity. Well, I wasn't going to name him Throat! Anyway, Sophie is the girl and Nixon is the boy (just to clear that up). Three photos are from the first day we got them. Thy are actually sitting in a little dish pan that we used for a litter box. They were so small when we got them. One picture is of Nixon on my shoulder. One is of them sleeping together. They never sleep together like that now. The last picture is of them now as full grown cats. Sophie is a little more full grown than Nixon, if you know what I mean (she's overweight for those of you who didn't know what I meant). 

Stone Mountain: Picasa Style

This is the same pic as the one below, but I've manipulated it in Picasa. It is really cool software and it makes blogging so convenient! 

My New Ride

This is my new Kawasaki Ninja 250R. It is a commuter sportbike that gets approximately 75 miles per gallon!! I've been riding it around and having fun. I'll be using it as much as possible to ride back and forth to work. Both of my boss men have Honda Magna cruisers. The Ninja is used and has a few dings, but it is a 2002 and only had 850 miles on it when I got it. It also had a hole in the gas tank, but I fixed that yesterday. Overall it is a good bike that rides comfortably and will help buffer the cost of gas. 

Sunday School Trip to Stone Mountain

On Saturday, July 29, 2006 our Sunday school class went to Stone Mountain, Georgia. We had a great time of fun and fellowship. We got to ride the big river boat on the lake and ride the gondola to the top of the mountain. We also took in a 4D movie that was a nice cool break in the middle of the day. There was a water main break in Gwinnett county so none of the water fountains were useable because of the water boiling advisory. Needless to say we spent a lot of money on bottled water and other cool foods like Italian ice and frozen lemonade. We started watching the laser show but instead of the usual patriotic and historic show, it was basically a rock'n'roll concert with laser visual effects. It was very poorly done and of the 6,000 plus people there to see the show, none were even clapping or cheering in between songs. We decided to leave after the fifth song and we realized they weren't going to have much of a decent show. It was a good thing, too. Just as we got to our vehicles the bottom fell out of a huge rain storm. We were so fortunate to have already gathered our stuff and loaded into our vans and gotten on the road. There was no warning of a deluge and we got a little wet getting in the van, but it was just another adventure to talk about later. We got to sing some songs on the way home and talk and have a good time of Christian fellowship with other young couples. Overall, it was a really good day with enough excitement and fun to last at least a few weeks until our next outing! 

Ravenel Bridge, Charleston, SC

Here's an old story. It's from July of last year. This is us in Charleston the first day the new Ravenel Bridge was open to foot traffic. The only vehicles allowed on the bridge this day were the buses that were bringing handicapped people up (and tired and hot people down). We got a call the night before and were told we had a room we could stay in for free if we wanted to come look at the new bridge. We spontaneously packed a bag and got down to Charleston around 2 in the morning!! It was a good trip though and we had a lot of fun. Here is a picture of us next to the huge support cable anchoring plates. If you notice how dark my jeans are, I didn't lose control; I was just sweating so much. It was about 140 (really about 90) degrees and 99.99999% humidity there and we had walked about a mile and a half up the bridge when we asked a man to take this picture of us.

Washington, D.C. Trip

We were only in the capital for approximately 4 hours but we got to see every monument on the mall. We really walked a lot very quickly. It was a lot of fun and we are planning a return trip to Washington in the next year or two. The picture of the Iwo Jima Monument was taken when we visited Arlinton National Cemetary that evening.