Tuesday, June 28, 2011

You Just Might Get Whatcha Asked For

You know, sometimes you need to really, REALLY, think about what you ask for before you ask it!

I was talking to my Mama today on the phone because I was so excited and had to tell her all about meeting all my new sweet teacher friends and the school after my first day of Teacher Orientation.

We were talking about different, random things. About the coming 4th weekend, how her work was going, how Chris was liking school, and other miscellanies.

When all of a sudden.....


out of the blue.......


she asked a dreaded question......


"Megan, when are you gonna write about ME in your blog? You write about daddy all the time and you have only mentioned me once!"


My response was, well, if ye ask, than ye shall receive!!

Hummmm.... things I love about my Mama.

1. She WILL always be mama to me. She sometimes even gets the occasional Mommy, but my brother, Matt, always just calls her mom.
I am still a little kid and it is ok for me to still call her Mama and I don't want to hear one peep outa any of yall!

2. Her laughter. My Mama has the best laugh. She has a laughter that is really loud and rolling. She will laugh at the tiniest things and act like they are the funniest things in the world.

The best part, is when my Daddy or Matt make fun of her laughter. I swear those boys can both do the best imitation of her when she laughs. Plus it always makes Mama so mad when they are laughing at her! Which for me, makes it even funnier!



3. Her cooking. Now Say What?? My Mama is notoriously known in all throughout the north Georgia area for her remarkably bad cooking! In fact one of her best friends, Wanda Fay, swears that she is the one who fed me growing up! I love her for her cooking because she sure can throw some stuff up in the pot and make it kinda good! She will open the pantry find a can of green beans, some old spaghetti noodles, and a thing of Manwich and make a meal out of it! You can't blame the woman! She would come home after working all day and slave over the stove to put a fine meal on the table for her kiddos:)


4. Mama always makes everything right. I love my Mama's perspective on things. Whenever I have something funny to say or or a silly story to tell I always tell my Mama because she can add to it and make it even better!
On the other hand, whenever something is wrong she can always make it right! I can call my Mama up anytime of the day and vent, cry, maybe sometimes say some chosen words, and she will always love me and tell me that it is going to be fine. She can always find a solution, and I hate to admit it, but most of the time Mama is right:)

5. Tommy Stories. My Mama can tell the best Tommy Stories. I remember laying in bed, being really little, and she would come in and tell me a Tommy story. Tommy is a little country boy who goes on all kinds of adventures and gets himself in all kinds of trouble. Mama of course just makes them up, but they are really good! She would have my brother and I captivated for a hour or so just listening to her give the good juicy details about Tommy.

(Mama you need to start typing up some of the Tommy Stories! It would be so special to give, ONE DAY, to your grand baby a little notebook with them in it:)

6. There are many reasons as to why I love my sweet mama. But probably most of all, I love her because, she loves the Lord! My mama LOVES to sing. She will sing her little heart out with praise to our king! Her and daddy always got us to Sunday School, Church, and Wednesday night youth activities. She also doesn't have a problem raising her hand up in church or telling others how sweet he is!!

Well, Mama I hope you are satisfied. Now I feel like I went easy on ya in this post. I could have written some awfully embarrassing stuff, but I figured what goes around, comes around, and you could say some equally embarrassing stuff about me right back!!

Love You!!

Monday, June 27, 2011

Things I Love

Saturday I went up to the pool while Chris went out fishin with our friend Brian. I love getting some pool time in.
 I love the little sting of getting just a bit red.
Chris went fishing on Lake Pontchartrain (yes that is the correct spelling) and they didn't catch anything, but he still had a blast!

I loved the view from the pool Saturday. There were kids splashing in it, but I didn't mind. I love the Seminary Kids. These kids have been packed up with their parents to come down here, left their friends and school, and have made the most of the transition.

Sometimes when I see these kids I think of my sweet daddy. My Grandpa, Buddy, moved his family out to Texas to Seminary when my daddy was a boy. My daddy would have been one of those kids running around the Seminary with his friends ridding his bicycle trying to see who was brave enough to go fastest down the hill.

I love our doors. I know this is really strange, but I love the doors in our apartment.
Above is not the best picture, but our doors are really sturdy and heavy.I love the old doorknob and big key hole. We don't really have keys to these doors.They remind me of the kind of doors you would find in an old country house.

I sometimes think about who all have been through our door. I wonder about the other families that have lived in our apartment. Yes, are hardwood floors are scratched and rustic, but maybe they were scratched from children playing with toys on the floor. Or scratched from others trying to move in a big sofa. (wink wink Gary, Daddy, and Chris!!)

 I imagine this place being filled with others who were on the same mission as we are. To follow the plan that God has set before them.


I love red velvet cupcakes!
Today was my first day off. I didn't have anywhere I had to be today. No work and no errands. I go for my first day at the Elementary School Tomorrow! I can't wait to meet everybody!

Since I was at home and had all the ingredients
 I made these little babies.

These are Christopher's Nana's SECRET recipe Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting.
We passed these out with little cards to all of our neighbors.

I was super proud of myself! I only ate one cupcake! It was one that was still warm out of the oven and had no icing on it! I made up for the icing later though, I just had to lick a beater from when I made the icing:)

I sure do love this boy!
His schedule for the day was:
Wake up
Study
Eat some Oreos
Study some more
Take a break and eat a PB&J sandwich for lunch
Study
Beat me in a Nintendo Wii Super Mario Brother's match
Beat me AGAIN at another match (meanwhile I stomp off! He always wins!!  not fair haha)
Study
Study
Study
Help me cook some Tilapia for dinner because I have a tendency to burn fish
Study
Help me pass out red velvet cupcakes to all our neighbors
Torment Megan on loosing all of the Nintendo Wii matches
Study some more
Eat some Oreos and a big glass of milk
Go to bed:)

I love all of these things, but most of all, I love my sweet Savior first!

"But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him.
Jeremiah 17:7 NIV

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Little Random Tidbits


Well this is gonna be a random blog post! We have been BUSSSSSSYYYYY!!!
This picture was taken in about 115 degree heat but it felt like it was more like 2 million degrees!! We were at the French Market during some festival:) Oh and we were both sweatin' like pigs!!

This picture is for my mama!!

I had just worked a full, long day at the daycare which was a 7:30 to 5:30 shift and came home to make dinner.
Being the multi-tasker that I am, I was cooking and also running around the house doing little chores and pokin' fun at Chris for some-what-not. Next thing I know our dinner is boiling over!

Now, it was not just boiling over, but it was REALLY BOILING OVER!! This stuff blew off the lid I had on the pot and was spewing out! It was all over my nice, clean stove top!!

PLEASE don't tease me about me in this picture! I was tired, had on no make up, and covered in food!!

I am just like my mama!! You just have to understand my mama and her cooking to truly understand what an impact that statement is!!


This was my cooking fiasco's result! It was a Zatarains box mix and the noodles were crunchy because all my water
boiled outa the dang pot!!

Chris ate it anyway, like he better!! Otherwise I was going to force feed it down his throat! I came home from working and started making him dinner. All he did all day was sit on his butt, and study for like 10 hours straight! haha
Bless his poor heart for puttin up with me!

Now remember I told ya this was a random blog post.
This here de-Vice (you have to read this with a southern accent)

Anyway, this here device is called a Kindel! And it is mine!
 ALL MINE!!! Oh yeah, and it is Christopher's too, but I don't like to share:)

Chris bought it for our Anniversary Gift! I was totally surprised because I actually did not WANT one of these. He is so smart! He bought it because he can download some of his textbooks on it! He has already saved the amount of money it cost and some more by downloading his books on this thing instead of buying the hard edition of the same book!

My sweet hubby LOVES to save money, so he just LOVES this thing because boy is it saving us some money!! College books are EXPENSIVE and sure do add up!!

This little snid-bit was on our door one afternoon. It is all about little tips and what-nots of if a hurricane was to come. Some of the tips are:

-When in doubt, Get out!!

- Beware of the LOOTERS!!

- Make sure you have plenty of white towels.
(one might think, uhh... why do you need plenty of white towels, well my friends,
you need them to wave down help, as a sort of surrender, if you happen to get stranded on your rooftops!)

- Eat a good meal! (Cause you probably aint gonna see no more seafood for a while cause of the storm)

- Fill up your tank with some gas!

Last but not least,
- Make sure to take all family pets with you! Or if you are leaving them behind, you need to lock them up in some room with plenty of food/water so that they can not escape!

(I guess that means my pet lizard, Edwardo, is gonna be making a trip to GA with us!! Edwardo is a really
big/little lizard that lives on the outside stairs of our apartment. Every morning Edward says hello as I venture off to work!)

(A little bitty side note, these are not true hurricane tips. I made them up trying to be silly:)



My first easy grader!! This is a teacher saver! It will make my life so much easier for grading papers and such! Every teacher has one of these and this one is mine! I bought it online for only 1 penny and free shipping! Thank You Ebay:)

Oh and the last little tidbit of randomness. This is Chris's dad Gary! He didn't know I was taking his picture. He was talking to us through Skype on the phone:) Skype is our new best friend because it is FREE and it allows us to keep in touch with our wonderful family!!

Hey it actually looks like Gary was saying Cheese in the picture!!

Hope all are having a Wonderful Week!

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Dont Call me Little Baby!

Okay, I do not know what it about the folks down here but they sure do love to say 'little baby.'

Let me break it down for ya.

Walking out of the grocery store and I push my buggy infront of some old guy. I mutter, "Excuse me, I'm sorry."
He mutters back, 'Thats alright little baby.'

Working at the preschool with a lady named Latashrelea (La-tash-re-lia). Some of her favorite sayings to me are:
'Little ba-bay go get me a tissue for this little guys nose'
'Oh little ba-bay you forgot to but diaper cream on her little bottom.'
'Hey, Hey, little baby don't let those kids get near that lizard!'

Going through the drive through at Wendys.
'Do you need any ketchup?'
'No thanks but actualy can I get some barbque sauce?'
'Oh yea no problem little baby'

OKAY DO NOT CALL ME LITTLE BABY!!

I don't like it!! It kind of creeps me out! Since I have told Chris this several times now he has started joking with me and calling me little baby!! Yea... it's so NOT funny!!

It must be a New Orleans thing because back home in GA I would proably hear people saying 'sugar' more often.
"Aww that's okay sugar" or "Come on sugar"

For some reason it is okay to be called sugar but NOT little baby!!
Well, I take that back, I don't an old man to call me sugar either!

Ahh...

Anyways on that note, I got a GRRRREEATTT text this morning!!
It was from sweet Ashley saying that her and Alex are going to try and come to visit us in about the middle of JULY.
I am stoked and already have my hopes up! I really hope they get to come! Chris and I have already been making some plans for their visit!

I want to go on a haunted ghost tour and a horse and buggy ride. Hope their up for it!!

Thursday, June 16, 2011

I'm Drinkin From my Saucer

As the words to the song go,
"I'm Drinkin from my Saucer
Cause my cup has overflown!!"


Tonight at 9:00 (New Orleans time), that's 10:00 GA time,
a little Angel called me!

It was Mrs. Brenda!! I know my GA peeps don't know who Mrs. Brenda is, but let me just clue you in,
she is the assistant principal at a Christian School down here!
She is such, SUCH, a nice sweet lady!!

She called me tonight because she said that she just couldn't wait no longer. She said that she had been needing to call me for the last three days straight!

She offered me a position as a First Grade teacher at her sweet Christian School!

On the phone I hesitated..... it took me about 10 seconds to be able to catch my breath enough to mutter a little, squeaky...."yes!"

I start next week looking at curriculum for the next school year and meeting with a lead teacher to learn the ropes!

Oh OHHHH!! HOW I just wish I had a video of Chris and I celebrating after that call! Yall folks would have thought that we were absolutely bonkers!! That's
B-O-N-K-E-R-S!!!!

 I was jumping up and down, tears streaming down my eyes, yelling WHOO HOOO!!! Chris was acting like Rocky, doing carious Karate chops, moves, kicks, and jabs and I also think somewhere in there he did an actual cartwheel!

Our poor neighbors that live downstairs below us probably thought we were INSANE!! Guess tomorrow I'm gonna have to send some cookies or something for the disturbance!

Thank You Lord for Your Blessings on ME!! 

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Anniversary Weekend


Welp, Chris and I celebrated our first Anniversary. We are no longer newlyweds, Sniff Sniff!!

I had given Chris several hints the past week about what I wanted to do to celebrate. I told him that I would love to go on a tour of the city because frankly, we know nothing about New Orleans. I also told him that I knew it was corny but I would love to watch our wedding video!

Chris and I have both been so busy the past year that our wedding video is still unedited! I have downloaded all the clips from my video camera onto my computer, but other than that I haven't done anything to edit it or put it together.

I asked Chris that he put it together because he is much better at that kind of stuff than I am.

On Saturday morning, Chris and I got up and he told me to get ready because he had planned for us to go take a tour! I was super pooper excited! We ended up taking the steamboat tour on the Mississippi River! I was so excited because I had already told him a long time ago that one of the things that I wanted to do before we left was ride on a steamboat!

We rode on the steamboat Natchez which is the last real steamboat on the Mississippi!

We were both really excited and got in the car to drive down to the loading dock for the boat. We didn't take into consideration that the tomato festival was going on in the French Market! We were running way late because all of the parking lots were full and when we finally did find a parking spot it was FOREVER away and we had to RUN what seemed like 3 miles to the boat!

Of course, Silly me, I had to dress cute for our Anniversary cruise! I wore these shoes that I have worn out walking around the city before. They didn't give me a problem last time I wore them, but I didn't think I was going to be running on the hot pavement either.

You have to get the picture in your head to fully understand. Imagine Chris holding me by the hand, with his LONG legs running at top speed, DRAGGING and pulling me behind him with my little legs trying to keep up! Oh yeah, we were swerving among festival people, concerts, shopping booths, and red lights! I remember I was telling Chris, "Slow Down!! I can't keep up!" But he was determined!

When we finally got on the boat and I got to sit down, it hit me! The bottom of my feet were rubbed completely raw! It hurt soooooo bad! I could barely walk! I started crying but didn't want to ruin our celebration so I went to the bathroom.

This is funny, I took a LOT of toilet paper, wet it in the sink, and wrapped it all around my poor swollen feet! It made my feet feel so much better and I was able to hobble around the boat. I slipped my flip flops back on and we enjoyed the Cruise.

Sure I got some really weird stares. People were wondering what the heck I had on my feet! I even had one lady pull my arm and whisper in my ear, 'Sweety you have toilet paper hanging off your foot.' I kindly whispered back, 'Yes mamm, I know, I did it on purpose. The bottom of my feet are burnt.' and then I kept walking embarrassed.



The boat was really cool and the tour guide told us all kinds of facts and information that Chris and I didn't know. We ate lunch and got to go into the engine room!



After we got off the boat this guy was waiting on the dock. He is actually a real guy that just stops still to look like a statue. Of course, the dog was fake, but it looked really cool!

After Chris took me home and I was able to care for my feet, we went back out and walked around the festival. Chris and I shared a grilled shrimp po-boy that was huge from a little food stand and it was so good! It was probably the best shrimp we have eaten since we got here!

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Daddy's Girl


I have always been a Daddy's Girl! This song by the Christian Group named Point of Grace is perfect for me and my daddy!




I actually surprised my dad by this being the song that we danced our Daddy- Daughter Dance to at our wedding! It was hard keeping a secret from him, but it was well worth it!

I will never forget doing our 'snow dance' at the end of the song in front of everyone at the wedding. When I was little my daddy and I had a snow dance that only we could do. We would do this special dance to make it snow! And of course it always worked and I would wake up the next morning to snow being on the ground! I thought it was magic!

As the Words of the Song go,
"There's nothing better than being your Girl"
so so soooooooo true:)
As I got older I realized Daddy would only do the snow dance after watching the weather alert! But it will always be magic!

For now my Daddy says the snow dance is retired, but I well know that one day when he has a little grand daughter, the snow dance will make a big reappearance!

Monday, June 6, 2011

Weekend Fun

We had a GREAT weekend!! YippEEE I lurve LURVE good weekends:)
Saturday mornin' we woke up and headed to Rouses, our local Grocery Store.
I took this picture of this man outside the store. He was boilin' 'em some crawfish!
I love how in New Orleans they sure do love their food. These were fresh caught and fresh boiled!



After the Grocery store, we went to the pool on Campus. I wanted to try and lay out to be gettin' my tan on!! haha
Chris lasted on about 30 minutes at the pool. He said he was Hot!! (You have to imagine Chris whining and sounding like a 3 year old, "Megan I'm Hhhhoootttt)
I have to admit it was HOT! Not sure what the temperature was, but the pool water sure did feel gooood!
I lasted at the pool for about 2 hours! That was all I could take! I ended up having more sweat on me than water!
Oh on a neat note the pool is a Salt water pool! I have swam in salt water pools before but I liked this one. It wasn't too salty and it didn't burn your skin when you got in.

Saturday night we ate dinner with Tonya and Brian! We really like them because that are sooo down to Earth! They are really funny and I think we are pretty similar!


After dinner they took us to get some dessert at this Italian place. Of course I had to take a picture of the sign because I knew I would never be able to spell it!
They had really good ice cream! I got some chocolate chip and Chris, of course, got just plain chocolate.
They had all kinds of neat flavors and even had pistachio ice cream! 

Brian bought us a canolli. (I'm not sure on the spelling)
It was filled with different cheeses. I aint gonna lie at first I thought that this thing was going to be gross because he told me it was filled with cheese, but it wasn't so bad!
It was really sweet and very filling! Chris and I shared this one and we weren't able to finish it!


Sunday Mornin we woke up and went to church with Tonya and Brian! We went to Sunday School and then Service. I enjoyed the church service and thought that the sanctuary was very pretty! They have this amazing stain glass window that was so pretty! Sorry I didn't take a picture, I thought it would be rude to whip out my camera and take pictures at a church that I didn't know anybody at!

Brian and Tonya and both pretty busy the next two weeks! We are gonna miss them while they are out on the road!

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Sweet Girl


I got a phone call tonight from my sweet girl, Katie!! Aww it just absolutely made my day!
While Chris was the youth minister at Southside in Fayetteville Ga, I got so attached to all the kiddos.
But I have to admit, I myself got super pooper attached to Katie bug. I have a major soft spot in my heart for this little girl!

Chris called her my 'mini me' because where ever I went, Katie went also. Whatever I did, Katie did also. She usually always wound up with all my necklaces and bracelets on whenever we were together!



She would organize my purse by putting all my makeup, cell phone, nick knacks, in different little pockets of my purse:)

My little sweet girl called me tonight and it totally surprised me! I admit we have been so busy that it did not cross my  mind to give her call. Listening to her sweet voice on the phone telling me about her summer brought a few little tears to my eyes!

Sweet girl also texted me later and told me she was crying and was probably sad and missed us!

Oh Katie girl, no tears!! NO TEARS!! DID YOU HEAR ME I SAID NO TEARS!!!!

Cause when I think of that sweet little face with tears in her eyes it breaks my heart!




Love you my Sweet Girl!! Miss You and I Pray for all my AMAZING Southside Kiddies every night that they are all doing well and that they remember that if they put the Lord first in their lives, then everything else will fall into place!






Friday, June 3, 2011

Date Night


Date Night! Whoop Whoop! Date Night in New Orleans is not just limited to the whole 'dinner and a movie' theme. Tonight Chris and I decided to go out and eat at a restaurant we had never eaten at before and then roam around the city.



When we arrived at NOBTS (which is shorthand for New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary) we received a packet of all kinds of different information. Included was a pamphlet on a survey that was conducted of the professors favorite restaurants to eat at. At the top of the list was called Deanies.


This was definitely a place where local NewOrleaneons come to eat! They were a little shack off the side of the road that only had parking for about 7 cars. Chris ordered the seafood platter, which was huge, and I ordered a bowl of seafood gumbo.


Christopher's seafood platter was pretty good. It had all kinds of fried and stuffed seafood. Of course I ate some of his!
My seafood gumbo was definitely an original recipe from Deanies. Inside my bowl was a whole CRAB! I mean they just put the entire crab right into the soup. The shell, meat, and all! So in my bowl of gumbo I had shrimp, oysters, craw fish, and a whole stinkin crab! It kind of wigged me out when I first found the crab because I lifted my spoon up to my mouth and all I saw was one of the claws that had fallen off of the body! It was good and spicy with lots of rice and seafood!

After Leaving Deanies Chris and I decided that it was good and that we liked to local atmosphere, Landrys (the place we ate at with our parents when they moved us in) was definitely better!


After dinner we were both stuffed but Chris took me to go eat at dessert at Cafe Du Monde. We had tried to eat here with my parents but the line was ridiculous so we didn't get to. I wanted to try a beignet. So we made the 15 minute drive from our restaurant up to the French Market and bought two order of beignets. In each order are three little french doughnuts. They were actually pretty cheap and Chris and I were able to spend less than $5 on our little dessert!


We got our beignets at the to go order line and walked up to the bank of the Mississippi River. I actually took a picture of the bag because I knew that I was going to blog about Date Night and I needed to make sure that I spelled Beignet correct!


Located in this little bag are three little beignets and about a pound of powered sugar. It was hard to even reach in to pull one out without getting sugar all over the place.


This is what one looks like. It tastes just like a regular doughnut, without a whole in the middle, and with a LOT of powered sugar on top.


This is a picture of Chris eating his beignet. You can see we sat in the actual grass on the bank of the Mississippi River.


This was our view.


You can see my feet in this picture. To the left of us down the bank was a man who was a big time hippy. He was wearing a flowered skirt and was preforming yoga exercise moves on the river bank. While we were sitting here we actually saw him go down to the rocks and stick his feet in the water. Chris and I joked about him falling in. The strange man also filled a little tube up with water from the river and then put the tube on a necklace and hung it around his neck. He was definitely a character. I love New Orleans because all you need for entertainment is a good place to sit so you can just watch the people walking by! You can people watch and see all sorts of strange characters!

I was trying to feed this bird a bite. He actually came closer to me than this picture shows. I was terrified that if I made a sudden movement then the bird was going to attack me!! I did NOT want to have to go to the doctor for a tetanus shot from getting attacked from a bird!








On our way back to the apartment we stopped at a red light and this guy was standing at the corner. I immediately grabbed my phone and took a picture. His HAIR was so gross and so long!!
Uhh.. Only in New Orleans!!haha

After we got home I did a load of laundry and cleaned the kitchen. We haven't washed dishes all week and they were starting to pile up. We had a great Date Night and I loved sitting on the grass on the bank of the Mississippi River!