Ron, A. and I enjoyed the first White Christmas in each of our lifetimes in 2010. After another beautiful candlelight Christmas Eve service at AFUMC and Michael family tradition of Christmas morning breakfast pie, the flurries started falling and didn’t stop. Turns out it was the first White Christmas on record in Atlanta since 1882 (128 years for those trying to calculate), so there is a good chance we’ll never experience one again.
No longer 'dreaming' of a White Christmas!
And, a Michael gathering would not be complete without some creative dysfunction fun. So the evening consisted of a delicious prime rib dinner with Shiraz and Brixx chocolate for dessert, adaptive sledding and snowboarding down the front hill, and atrocious caroling in the living room.
Oh, and the creation of this hideous snowman (or woman?)...
January brought more snow and ice to the upstate, and we were out of school/work for an entire week! The week was dubbed ‘Snowmageddon’ by the media, but we were all safe and enjoyed some bonding time as a family at home and with our neighbors in the ‘hood.
Friendly, chilly neighbors.
Riggs and Gunner had the most fun of all.
We got to experience snow again when we traveled to Banner Elk with good friends from our Sunday school class. We spontaneously took a quick weekend trip to enjoy a cozy condo in NC along with some sight-seeing, skiing, and sledding! We enjoyed some quality adult and family fellowship and definitely had a chance to relive those childhood snow days!
The expressions say it all!
Half of this crew mastered 'The Hill' and hope to do it again next year!
Yes, this month of ‘snow ventures’ is one for the books (or blog).
Our First House
It’s not a big secret that moving for any reason evokes feelings of stress and frustration at some point (or many points) during the start to finish process. We bought our house at the top of the market in June 2006 right before we got married, have lived in it for four and a half years, brought our first son into it, and have developed many wonderful friendships and happy memories because of it.
Earlier this year, in the midst of the worst market real estate has seen in a long time, we decided it might be a good time to upgrade a little and see what kind of deals we could find. We found a great foreclosure in a nice neighborhood in Anderson, 7 minutes from where I work, so we decided to put our house on the market to see what would happen. The house we had our eyes on sold in two weeks. So, we found another house we fell in love with in a neighborhood right around the corner, which was apparently another great deal that sold within that month. We opted to take our house off the market and decided we would be content to stay where we were and just wait it out.
Until September, when we found this house:
Almost Home
…which we fell in love with. It’s only three years old, needs very little work, is a perfect next-size-up for us, and happens to be in the neighborhood where Ron grew up and where his parents, uncle, and sister currently live. It also sits on a 2-acre partially wooded lot with a great amount of privacy. So, our house went back on the market and we made an offer on this ‘almost house.’ We negotiated a contract on our current house in December, removed the contingency from the contract on the new house, and we were all set to close on both houses on January 27th.
Just this week, we found out both appraisals went through and were satisfactory for the respective loans, and both home inspections were completed with no issues. We even picked out tile and hardwood stain colors for the ‘almost house’ and then got quotes on paint for all the high ceiling areas. And then today, on our way to the office so we could pick up materials for packing, our agent called to tell us the couple buying our current home is being transferred to Columbia…
So, we sit now with that ‘just got kicked in the gut’ feeling wondering and waiting to find out if we have any other options or potential buyers and hoping we can somehow not lose this ‘almost house.’ However, we have both been praying the whole time asking God to show us what is right for our family and where to go or whether to stay, so I suppose we’ll continue to wait.
I just thought I’d share since we now have no evening plans (we were supposed to be packing up a couple of rooms/closets). In the meantime, if you know of anyone looking for a 3 bedroom ,2 1/2 bath, great first home in the Easley area, let us know 
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And, we’re hoping the 100% chance of snow as predicted for Monday will leave our ‘first home’ looking like it does in Exhibit A above!
