This is for those of you whom we love but because of our personality "quirks" we seldom stay in touch with, and even for those of you whom might rather we didn't stay in quite so frequent touch. -S&M
For Thanksgiving this year, we went to Chateau Elan a little outside of Atlanta. It involved lots of food, family, liquor, fish, and drama. But usually not all at the same time.
The Highlights: getting to spend time with family - having a swedish massage - the two-headed faucet in the shower - outlet shopping - watching Caroline play in the bath - Mark and Jon doing some brother-in-law bonding - free Mayfield ice cream - watching Caroline ride a pony - fireworks - The Georgia Aquarium - Mom telling me my dress was a "Lorelai dress"
The Lowlights: Mark having to leave on Friday morning - dry turkey on Thanksgiving - Karen, Jon and Caroline leaving a day early - The Georgia Aquarium - Atlanta traffic - getting a cold from the munchkin and her mom
As most of you will (hopefully) recognize, Mark and I were Wesley and Buttercup from The Princess Bride for Halloween this year. We got all decked out in our costumes and headed to our favorite bar, Orton's, to celebrate Halloween with our trivia friends. Everyone knew who we were. We had quotes shouted at us as we walked down the street and as we sat in the bar drinking.
We think the costume contest was rigged because Jeff, who runs karaoke every week, picked us to win the contest even though other people got louder applause. But since we looked so good, we couldn't really complain.
I started my new job at Talk PR, a marketing and PR company here in Wilmington, on October 2. So far I love it. I've been writing media alerts, press releases, new hires; I helped plan and successfully execut an Open House event for Wilmington Orthopaedic Group to show off their new offices; budgetting and planning for '07; researching new clients and probably some non-glamorous things too. But it is fun and it keeps me busy and writing. And it is not my old job. I actually feel respected and appreciated at Talk PR. I am also going to get to help in the creative department with some design work when I'm needed! It's so nice to be able to do a lot of things I enjoy doing in such a creative (and gorgeous) atmosphere. I should have business cards and be added to the
website by year's end.
So it's been a year since we got married...and things are still great. Most bills and accounts are under my new name and I'm finally used to signing my name as Crispell ( took a while to make it legible when I was signing something). We're still happy together. Life is good.
So Mom and Karen came this past weekend to visit. The arrived at lunch time on Friday and my boss gave me the afternoon off to spend with them. After lunch we went to my house and I gave Karen all of her birthday presents (the highlight being a collection of Mix CDs that I made from my 11 years of mix tapes with individual scrapped covers) which she was appropriately excited about. I love giving her presents because she is so expressive and it makes me happy to see her so happy. :)
We had dinner at a restaurant on the ICW and then went home to watch a few episodes of Veronica Mars because I love it and I think Karen should love it too. Which, thanks to me, she now does!
Saturday we had Dunkin Donuts for breakfast which we took to eat on the beach. (Brings back so many memories of Destin and The Donut Hole) And we spent almost 2 1/2 hours there before Karen was thoroughly bored and wanted to leave to go shopping. So we left and showered and were out shopping by 1 pm. We did stop to eat and grab margaritas in the middle of it, but we basically spent until 6 pm shopping! My sister wears me out. But I got a pair of Rainbows and two awesome t-shirts of of it (Thanks, Mom!) and lots of Christmas wrapping and gift tags, so it's not like it was a bad day of shopping, just very l-o-n-g. Dinner at Bluewater followed with crabcakes and Blue Moon beer for the three girls and Mark had to get the grouper and a Corona to be different. And then more Veronica along with Karen's birthday cake and wine!
Sunday I didn't have to work at Smudged Pot because Mandy rocks! She worked the shift for me so I could spend the morning with Mom and Karen. We had a nice relaxing morning of breakfast and then coffee and a quick stop at A.C. Moore. And then they were off. (I say that like the leaving town part was quick, but it actually took them a long while to find Mark's Walgreens so they could say bye to him)
So the weekend was a lot of fun. So much quality time crammed into less than two full days, but I think it was worth it. I hope they do too. :)
My one-of-a-kind, original Brent Sanders
For my 25th birthday in April, Mom and Hal gave me money to buy something I wanted but would not normally get for myself. The conditions were I was not allowed to spend the money on bills or for repairs/updates to the house or put the money in savings because Hal wanted me to have something that I could always keep.
So after lots of thinking and talking with Mark about what to do with the money, I decided to have my favorite artist paint a picture of Wilmington for me. Brent Sanders is a Chattanooga artist who does mainly studies of architecture in acrylic, watercolor and inks. If you've been in our house, you've probably seen some of the prints we have of his other work.
Well, my painting came yesterday and I LOVE it! It is of the Oceanic Restaurant and Crystal Pier on Wrightsville Beach where we got married. I sent Brent a picture and told him to use whatever colors he wanted and if I had given him paint samples from our house, he could not have made the painting more perfect to hang on our walls.
Two years ago on July 20 Mark asked me to marry him. And for the second year in a row, we've let it pass by without even knowing. I usually think of it a few weeks before and then I remember a few days after it has passed. I know it is not the most important date to remember in the grand scheme of things, but it is the day he proposed and it deserves to be celebrated. Maybe next year.
After an uneventful Fourth-Mark worked that night and I stayed home and watched House- and a midnight showing of Pirates 2 last Thursday, we had a relaxing weekend with his parents when they came to visit. It involved lots of seafood (yes, I know I actually eat some seafood now), Yhatzee!, and touring Orton Plantation where we saw Screen Gem Studios filming a movie called Hounddog starring Robyn Wright Penn and Dakota Fanning. Mark had to restrain himself from shouting lines of The Princess Bride ("Bow down to the Queen of Garbage...) as Robyn-or who we think was Robyn, walked amongst the trailers.
Now, I'm trying to convince Mom and Karen to come visit sometime in the next few weeks for Karen's birthday (on the 26th!) so I can give her her presents in person because I missed out on Christmas in person. It's so much more fun when I can see her open them. The reactions are always priceless!
So on Friday, Mark and I did something we have not done for way too long. We went to the beach. We just went to take a walk, but that was more than we've done since the fall. It's sad that we live 10 minutes from the beach and we haven't been there in months. The weather was gorgeous, the water was warm. Lots of surfers but no waves. Now that we've started going again, maybe we can make a habit of it, but Mark says we can't schedule time to go to the beach because that defeats the purpose of going to relax. But if we don't make the time to go, we never will. And that is just wrong.
This is a random look at our lives (more frequently mine than Mark's because I seem to have a lot more to say some days). It can-and most likely will-consist of family photos; random snipets of life; completed scrapbook pages; ranting/raving about jobs, stupid people we encounter, the state of the world, and television shows among others. Enjoy :)
This is for those of you whom we love but because of our personality "quirks" we seldom stay in touch with, and for those of you whom might rather we didn't stay in quite so frequent touch.
