Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Last week we celebrated Jesus's Birthday in Charlotte.  The first Christmas that Sean and I have hosted, mainly on account of my call time at the hospital.  Call time is I guess what I would call a necessary evil in that I knew I would have to work holidays, but it still sucks a little bit to forfeit Christmas in Hilton Head, and to leave family on Christmas morning to go to work.  But still, I'd rather be a nurse than a parent with a sick little one on Christmas and after it was over, life still went on and it was still a great Christmas.  Really, I couldn't ask for more.

On Christmas Eve, we went to church with Sean's family and my mom and then came home and spent the afternoon eating hors d'eouvres (I can't spell that, I know) and celebrating the Holiday.  Later that night, we opened 1 sibling present by the fire, and most of us opened our stockings mainly out of impatience.  Sean and I scored fire pit essentials from Nick and Lyndsey in the form of marshmallow sticks and hot dog roasters, and a date night gift card from Jake.  And our stockings were pretty great too.  And since I like to take pictures of food...

Marcy's pigs in a blanket

Gram's cookies

My cream cheese ball

Mom's shrimp cocktail

Nicholas opening his drive-time sermons to help with improving himself

Part of Nick and Lyndsey's new living room painting

And Mr. Jake Crandall opening his sand volleyball

In the morning, we got up and started the process of going around opening presents one at a time until I had to go to work at 10.  So I had a cinnamon roll (a Crandall tradition that I had heard a TON about, and it WAS a good cinnamon roll), dared Sean to open his presents without me, and went to the hospital. Thus, when I came home, our stacks were sitting by the fire-less fireplace ready to be opened.  So after restoring the Christmas spirit in my house by turning the fire back on, and reinstating the Christmas music, we started working on the presents.  There's two sides to this.  The first being that I was sad that I didn't get to see what everyone got and I missed the circle one-at-a-time thing.  And the other, which is the side that I'm focusing on, that everyone just had to sit there and watch Sean and me open our presents by ourselves since they were all done.

So everyone's happy and hopefully still remembers the reason for the season.  On the 26th, we went to my mom's house to celebrate with Jensen, Laura, my cousin, his girlfriend, my aunt and uncle, and my grandparents.  Everyone left there happy as well, and we headed to Charlotte via Atlanta to see the rest of Sean's family.  Merry Christmas everyone!

A Very Late Post About New England

I'm just now getting around to writing about it, but at the beginning of October, Sean and I went up to New England to see the leaves for our 1 year anniversary since we'd never been and both of us love fall.  There's actually a verb specifically for what we were doing that we didn't know about before-hand.  "Leaf-Peeping" is what it's called, and the people who do it are "Leaf Peepas".  We went up to the White Mountains in New Hampshire to North Conway where we stayed here, at the Farm by the River Bed and Breakfast.  The people who run this place are really nice and it's not far from anything.  We did most of our peeping around North Conway, up the Kangamangus Highway (The Kank, as the locals call it), and up north into the White Mountains.  We did several really pretty hikes through the rain and looked for a moose, which we never found.  As a side note, Sean and I have looked for a wild moose in 4 states and so far have only found one in the Maine injured wildlife park which I'm not sure counts since I had to photograph it through a fence.

After a few days around North Conway, we drove up to Portland, Maine, mainly for the food.  The Food Network cited Portland as the "foodiest town in America", and they were right, there is delicious food :).  While we were around Portland, we went up to Boothbay Harbor to look for a whale, which we found, although with a little less luster than I'd imagined (I was thinking a whale as big as the ship leaping out of the water Shamu style and finishing with a huge flap of his tail that I'd no doubt capture in all it's glory on camera with postcard-like quality).  It was more like a few fins.  But they were whales, so they count.  As a side note, turns out I'm married to quite the naturalist as Sean spotted half of the whales that we saw and pointed them out for the guide.  All while battling some pretty debilitating sea sickness.

The next day, we field-tripped to Freeport and checked out L.L. Bean and Harraseeket Lobster Shack, recommended by Rachel Ray herself.  It was also in Freeport that we tried Lobster Ice Cream.  In addition to finding a Moose, a goal of our trip was to have Lobster in every meal in Maine.  We pretty much succeeded and according to Sean, will be unable to eat Lobster in North Carolina as a result.  Afterwards, we headed up to Gray, Maine where we accepted defeat in our search for a Moose and settled for the captive one.

Some other things about New England that we really liked were: Demillos on the Water in Portland.  Literally a restaurant on a boat in the water.  The Portland Head Light and surrounding park.  Two Lights Lobster Shack and the two actual lights that gave it its name.  The Old Port in Portland.  Two Fat Cats Bakery where, again according to Rachel Ray, the best whoopie pies are made.  And of course, the experience of three New England bed and breakfasts where everyone was super nice.  Yep, that's right.  Nice in New England :)

Anyway, here's some of my favorite pictures of our trip:

I am Grateful.

For Jesus.  For the country that I live in that despite it's current economical situation is still richly blessed.  For the freedom that I have to write whatever I want on this blog without persecution.  For my husband who loves Jesus, loves me, and respects the institution of marriage as a mirror for Christ's relationship with the church.  For my marriage in general and God's blessing on it.  For my mom who is still here, is healthy, and has hair.  For my in-laws who cleaned my house this morning.  For FOUR grandparents.  For 5 almost 6 siblings that I'm lucky enough to call my 5 almost 6 closest friends.  For the sister that I prayed for all my life.  For our health.  For animals that have been entrusted to us that have brought us so much joy.  For the children's ministry at Elevation and for the hearts of all of the people who serve in it.  For women in my life that have invested in me in my marriage and for women in my life that have invested in me in my job.  For a job that I love, and for the people who taught me how to do it.  For really smart co-workers.  For God's obvious favor in that I can do my job at all.  For a Clemson University diploma with my name on it and the little letters under my name that let me think that at some point I was reasonably intelligent.  For a house that we love and for the ability to pay our bills.  For cars, clothes, and for all of the material things that make our lives easier.  For a Holiday during which we can consciously acknowledge all of the things in our lives that should make us totally unabashedly grateful.

Living Room Addition

When we bought our house, we started thinking about upgrading to a wall mount TV, but could never decide.  Thus, the old TV has been sitting on an old quilt in our living room for the past 5 months.  So it was time for a longer term solution in the form of a TV stand from Nick and Sean's old room that his parents gave us.  So we repurposed it to fit our current living room's colors and here's the handiwork.

After we took the shelves and doors off

Taking all of the pieces apart

Sanded and Primed

Painted and put back together

And the new World Market knobs that take the place of the old bronze handles

Overall I was pretty happy with this project after it was done, but it did prove to be much more work than I had anticipated thanks to the faux wood taking a LONG time to dry in between layers, and then we couldn't get the shelves back in which ended up being alright because I think I like this piece of furniture without the shelves anyway.

This Great Fall Life: Best of Comfort Food

Since I'm nauseous all of the time thanks to night shift, I don't feel bad about fattening up when I do eat.  Thus, fall's season of comfort food.  Best-of and all-around crowd pleaser?  White chicken chili.  It's like you can't go wrong.  Just put chicken, seasoning, and then all of the things you like into one big pot and pretty much just cook it on low until it's hot.  Our sister-in-law Lyndsey turned me on to this, and it's grown since then.  I like to put it in a dutch oven or crock pot a couple of hours before sean gets home.  It's a good food to make your house smell good, which makes me feel a little Betty-Crocker-like.  It's the little things...

Anyway, here's how I do it, but like I said, I like the idea that you can pretty much put what you want.

Ingredients, sans Lysol.  The Chicken Chili kit is an essential short-cut.

Great Northern and Cannellini Beans

Put 2 cups of water and a can of diced tomatoes with the juice into a dutch oven

Add in spices in the kit, jalapeno, and chopped up boiled chicken

And put it over tortilla chips with shredded monterrey jack cheese with jalapeno

Huge hit in this house.  And super easy.  And of course it's easy to make a lot more and freeze it, which is something I can appreciate.

Four Legged Crandalls :)

I'm going to interrupt any normal sequence of blogging to post some pictures of the four-legged Crandalls...after all, they add a lot to our lives.

Mr. Grady, Nick and Lyndsey's puppy on his first trip to go tailgating in Clemson.  He wouldn't stay still long enough to catch much of his cute Clemson bandana on camera...but just know that he did wear orange.

Rora, our sweet cat back from the brink of death since last month.  Sadly, her brother Oliver wasn't as lucky, but we're glad to have this sweet girl back happy and healthy.

And Mr. Mogatu, fat tabby, the longest-standing member and hands-down most photogenic of the furry variety of Crandalls

This Great Fall Life: Frame Project

I think that one of the easiest and cheapest seasonally decorating options is replacing picture frames with seasonal ones that have seasonal pictures (in this case, I had tons from part of our engagement session in the woods of the Botanical Gardens that our photographer Kim DeLoach marched like a mile down a trail to get to).  Thus, my project of the week: replacing picture frames on our living room bookshelf and kitchen.

Plain wooden frames.  These are like, 2 bucks.

Painted...

Scrapbook flowers and buttons :)

Completed corner

And some brown ribbons

Completed #1

What I like about doing this is that I like painting, and it's easy to collect stuff I already have for them.  Like for these, I had tons of flower petals, leaves, paint, paint pens, wires, burlap, and buttons, so I just collected everything in my box that looked fall colored and put them on frames.  

#2

#3

#4...buttons and wire

You get the point.  Anyway, our living room bookshelf is now welcoming fall in all its glory.  Is it obvious that I love this season?