A Weekend Filled With Goodbyes

The past couple of days have resulted in a lot of goodbyes and new beginnings. Some of the goodbyes were to people, some were to furniture, others to offices, and even cars.

Our first goodbye was to our master bedroom furniture. My sister moved back to college this weekend and needed furniture. She moved into a house with four other college friends at Alabama. We actually were happy to let it go, it did not go with our bedding or decor at all. Mom and Dad bought it for me back when I was in 7th grade with the intentions that I would take it to college so if anything happened to it it was not the end of the world. They paid $250 for a headboard, chest of drawers, dresser, and mirror. This is a very unheard of price but the furniture was not worth much more than that anyways so we were expecting it to fall apart in a couple of years anyways. Well 12 years and six moves later, it is still in tact and won't fall apart. Kara successfully moved it into her house and out of ours!!! Meanwhile, this meant we needed to get new furniture. It arrived on Friday and I am in the process of putting all the clothes back in it and looking for Russ a new nightstand.

The second was for Russ. He completed his 1L internship for the summer on Friday. He learned so much and truly enjoyed what he did at the US Department of Labor. It allowed him to gain experience and test out the field of law. Now he is hitting the books since he is taking the Patent Bar this Friday in Chattanooga. His summer has been jammed packed with stuff. Also, as a follow up to an earlier post, Russ made both Law Review and Moot Court. He also received an A in his Intellectual Property Survey Course this summer, so he has had a very successful summer!

I also had to say goodbye to something work related on Friday. My group is moving to another building. We had to pack up all our desk and office area for us to move down the street to another building. It will be nice to see the new office environment, as they are trying out lot of new and innovative ways of setting up office spaces. Before, if you were a manager or above you had an office that was on the outside of the floor, so along the windows and all the others had high walled cubes and u-shaped desks. Our floor, had three conference rooms and a "breakroom" but all that included was a refrigerator, microwave, fountain machine, and vending machines. Our new space, all the managers offices are on the inside and the workspaces are on the outside with the windows. The workstations have a choice between fixed or free space. You can have the same desk everyday or float around. The workspaces are in groups of four with a table in the middle for collaboration and the desk themselves are L-shaped. They only come up to your high hip so you look around and see all the lights and heads. It also has five conference rooms, along with four other meeting types (hard to explain, will post pictures later). Our breakroom is a cafe style, it has booths and tables, along with hightops. It has a very open atmosphere so they put things in the ceiling for white noise. It will be an interesting, yet fun adjustment. It was sad saying bye to the other people who worked on our floor, we will still see them in the occasional meeting but not everyday like we were used to.

Friday night my parents had a going away party for our neighbors, Jim, Darla, Jordan, Stephen, and Austin. They moved in before Austin was born (I think he is eleven now....) so we grew very close with their family. Kara and I both babysat them over the years. Darla was another Mom to us, running us to doctors appointments, picking us up from school or soccer when Mom and Dad were at work. They were great neighbors and friends. Jim got a new job in Columbus so they are moving down there. It was really sad to say goodbye to them on Friday night. Hopefully, with the world of free long distance, email, and technology (facebook) our families will be able to keep in touch.

My other goodbye for the weekend was to my first car, 1997 Ford Explorer. My parents bought the car in 1996, it was the first of many SUVs for our family. It was good to go to soccer practices and games, beach vacations, trips to VA and TN for holidays, and Dad's weekend trips to Home Depot. Like all cars, Dad gets to drive them first then Mom gets them after about a year because it is nicer than our other car to drive clients around. I didn't get a car when I first turned 16, it was about six months later and actually the car I really got was my Granddaddy's Bonneville. As a teenager, I was not going to be seen in this car so somehow I managed to talk my parents into letting me drive the Explorer. In January 2002 the Explorer became my car. I loved that car. I would wash it every Sunday and it was great for all our adventures around town. I took it off to college, which was great for loading up all my stuff to Tennessee. Dad would still use it on the weekends or when I was home for his weekly trips to Home Depot. When I was in Italy in 2005, Dad was driving my car that summer and it died on him. Of course Mom freaked out and said that she did not want me driving it again so that resulted in me getting the a new car and Dad stuck with the Explorer. It was the alternator that went out. Dad drove that everyday until Christmas this past year when Granddaddy once again gave us his car. Luckily, Granddaddy made the decision to stop driving so our family did not have to go through that battle. He was very generous and gave his car to Dad. The Explorer sat a lone on the driveway from January until August 1st when Dad donated to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. There were many great memories with that car, it was actually sad to see it go. It held up pretty well too!

Our final goodbye, which isn't necessarily a goodbye, goodbye but it was a goodbye for a couple of weeks or months was to Kara. She went back to college on Saturday to get ready for her sophomore year. Over the past couple of weekends, we spent going all around town looking for decor to her new room and boy did it turn out so cute! Sophomore year was probably one of my best years in college and I hope the same for her!

Birthday Celebrations

Growing up having a summer birthday had its pros and cons. You were always out of school for your birthday and you could have pool parties. I pretty much had some sort of pool party almost every year. Though, having a summer birthday a lot of people forgot about it since you did not have your locker decorated by friends to remind others, the school announcements didn't exist in the summer, and all those other things. Now with facebook, people do not seem to forget it as much. This year my birthday was so nice, not only did I get to celebrate it with lots of friends and family but I had multiple get togethers. I guess it makes up for last year....

To start off my birthday, some of my high school friends (Allison, Tony, Matt, and Summer) came out of Gwinnett County to meet Russ and me for dinner at Noche in the Virgina Highlands. Noche is a tapas restaurant that did $10 all you can eat tapas on Monday night. We had a great time and enjoyed the food, drinks, and atmosphere. We ended the night with water-ice from Ritas!!

Russ, Me, Allison, Tony, Summer, and Matt at Noche

Kara's birthday is six days before mine and Father's Day always falls somewhere during that time or on my birthday so instead of doing three separate celebrations we combined all three this year. Since all of us were actually in town for the weekend before my birthday and Father's Day, Dad planned a trip up to the North GA mountains as a family. We decided to go on a picnic then go hiking up to Amicalola Falls. Mom cooked fried chicken, coleslaw, and pasta salad for the picnic. We enjoyed a beautiful drive up and had a great homemade picnic lunch. Mom decided to stay behind and read while the rest of us hiked. It was a steep hike but the end view was worth it. We had a great family day together, which does not happen very often these days.

Top Picture: Mom, Russ, and I at our picnic
Middle Picture: Kara, Dad, and I at the top of the Falls
Bottom Picture: Russ and I on the way down from the Falls

Jersey Boys came to Atlanta and played at the Fox. I told Russ months ago I wanted to go to it while it was in town. I love going to The Fox let alone to see a musical. It was here during the month of June so we ended up getting tickets for Sunday night which was part of my birthday gift. Thanks to my Coke discount, we got half off the best seats in the theatre! Russ and Ihad our date night for the weekend seeing the show. It was a great show, I highly recommend it if it comes near you!

Outside of the Fox Theatre

Since I was going to be out of town on my actual birthday, Russ cooked me dinner the night before. He made an amazing dinner, Shrimp and Grits, a recipe from Southern Living!! He also remembered how I prefer cookie cake over other desserts so he completed our dinner with a yummy cookie cake.

Thursday (my actual birthday) I spent at work then drove up to Nashville for Sheryl's wedding weekend. On my way to Nashville, everyone called me to wish me a Happy Birthday! I think I only drove 10 minutes out of a 4 hour drive where I was not talking on the phone. It made the trip fly by. When I got to Melinda and Jonathan's we went out and had drinks and Emily Anglin joined us! It was such a great birthday! I spent the rest of the weekend with all my friends from Tennessee, I could not ask for anything better!

Me, Sheryl, Melinda, and Rachel at Sheryl's Rehearsal Dinner

Thanks everyone for making this past birthday one of the best birthdays!!!

Sleepover at the Dunlaps

Three of my little cousins, Blakely, Amberlyn, and Sydney came to Atlanta for a week to what they called "Camp Aunt Jacki." I was on one of my many business trips so I only got to see them on Friday. Mom took them to the GA Aquarium, American Girl Store and Bistro, Painted Pottery, and went swimming every day. I drove out to Lawrenceville and had dinner with Mom and the girls after work on Friday. We then went to Mom's house to create a scrapbook of their week in Atlanta. I thought it would be fun for them to come to my house and spend the night. So after we completed the scrapbooks, we all went to my house for a sleepover.

When I got off work, I did a little shopping for the girls. I wanted to surprise them with something and what would a sleepover be without matching pajamas? So of course, I get them cute pajamas. They loved them and as soon as I showed them they had to try them on. We proceeded with a photo shoot of them (that was the theme of the week, I was informed) then hung out at the house. Russ was busy writing his paper for Law Review so he was no fun but the girls still managed to go bug him (which he secretly loved).


I finally got them to bed at 3:00 AM, I have no idea how they were able to stay up so late. The next morning they wanted to make Russ breakfast so while I was outside planting plants with Dad they made Russ eggs. Russ entertained them that morning so I could get everything planted. Sydney did help me take out the plants out of their containers for a bit.

Russ took them to the park and of course they got bored in about thirty minutes so Russ took them to lunch. I think Russ enjoyed having them so that he had an excuse to go to McDonald's for lunch!

Landscape Design

Back in May, Russ and I had a landscape designer come out to the house and create a landscape design. Besides the basic yard maintenance and grooming of all the weeds and ivy, we have not done much to the house. The people before us just let every grow so we had to do a lot of cutting back and clean up just to begin making the yard look presentable and we still have a lot to do.

The great thing about a landscape design is you can take pieces of it at a time to implement. A couple of weeks ago, Dad and I had a Father-Daughter Day and went looking at plants for the first phase of our landscape design and concrete pavers for our future patio. After looking at numerous places we finally found a great place, Northside Nursery. They took great care of their plants and the prices were just right!

We bought plants to go underneath the new bay window and couple to go along the front of the house. I was not thinking that I would not have time to plant them since I would be out of town for the next couple of weeks so I had to make sure either Russ or I would water then daily.

We finally got a chance to landscape the front of the house, unfortunately it was during the hottest weekend in Atlanta so far. Dad and I were outside working from 9:30 to 2:00 in over 100 degree weather. Needless to say, we put the remaining landscaping and patio work on hold until September or when it cools down.

I cannot believe the difference it has already made to the house!!! I cannot wait to work on another phase.

Below are pictures of the before and after...

Way Behind

Sorry for the lack of blogs lately. I have been traveling none stop over the past month and have not had time to write a quality blog (basically means, random story with pictures). I am going out of town again this week but once I return I will begin blogging again. Here are some blogs to come:

1) Birthday Celebrations
2) Paschall-Taylor Tennessee Wedding
3) Landscape Design
4) Sleep-over with Russ and Brittany
5) 4th of July Weekend in Gatlinburg

A New Russ - Part 2

In case you were not able to see the differences on Russ here they are:

1) Summer Hair Cut (in everyone's language: he got it cut really short)

2) New Wedding Ring - We finally replaced his wedding band since he lost it a couple of months ago. Though, it is not the exact same one it will do for now.

3) No Facial Hair - That's right he finally shaved off his goatee. Russ is getting ready for internship interviews at the end of July and thought it was time to let go of his "youth."

4) Smart Guy - Russ got his grades for his first year in law school and did an amazing job! (OK, I know that is nothing to do with the "New Russ" but I had to brag for a moment....)

A New Russ

Notice anything different about Russ?