Reunited and it feels so good....

Perhaps the thing we were looking most forward to upon coming home was being reunited with our sweet dog Lucy. Yes, we're THOSE people who love our dog that much.... but we also haven't seen her in almost a year. 

My sweet bestest Jamie has been her stand-in mom for the last year, and volunteered to meet us in east TN at my dads to return her to us. She's a peach.  

Oh the anticipation.....

They're here!

Our joyful reunion (From Lucy's perspective... in her best "Up" voice)

"Wait, I knows thems! Is that my master?!?"

"IT IS! MASTER!!"

"Hurry! Gets me off this stupid leash! I gots to see my master!"

"OH I's so excited I can't contains myself...."

{quite literally.... check out the bottom left of the picture... most definitely a stream of pee}

"I's so happy.... I thoughts they forgotted me forever!"

"Oh that's the spot"

"I'm too cute for thems to forgetted me"

Then thems took me to this place called the lake... I'm not real sure how all that water got there, but I got a bit scared cause its kinda likes the biggest bath tub I'ves ever seen.... did not likes that... and then that big floating thing we sat on made lots of loud noises and I was real scared....

 but then I decided I kinda likes it......

cause we went fast and I sure do likes the wind in my face. 

Then we went exploring... apparently my mom grew up on this so-called "lake" big bath tub thing, so she got all nostalgic when we found this place.....

The one on the left used to be their lake house, and then some best friend of hers had one across from hers back in this cove. She sure did love thems places. 

Then they got real crazy.... 

I was pretty nervous when they got on this round floaty thing....

cause my mama was totally dominating dad and I was scared that she was gonna throw him in the water... and I'm real scared of the water. 

Then I got real bored and I was ready to get off of this big loud thing.

Can we go home now!?!?

Thanks for being my mom this year Jamie. Yous the bestest!

Joyfully Reunited, 

A Few of my Favorite Things Friday {December Edition}

It's Been a While since I've done this.... So I thought I'd just give some of my favorite things for the whole month of December (and 7 days of January). 

 Lots of faves....

#1 .....SNOW!!!

It RARELY snows here, and clearly when it does.... it's not so pretty but still.... it's SNOW!

it didn't stick to much..... the ground still looked like this outside our apartment

So as not so magical as it was..... it was wonderful none the less. Hannah & Janessa ran through the streets of our village yelling, "SNOW!!!! SNOW!!!!"

and speaking of snow.......

Fave #2- What consumes a significant part of my thought life right now......

STAYING WARM! 

It got REAL cold all of a sudden..... yes,yes I know that it has been brutally cold across the southeast & midwest US for the last month or so. But I never realized how much I took central heating for granted until I moved here. 

This is how we live in America- We live in homes that have vents that run through them heating every inch of our houses at the touch of a button- it can be as warm as you want it to be. THEN when we do need to venture out, we walk a few dozen feet to our cars or better yet, to our garages and get into our cars that heat up REAL quick. Then we arrive at our destination, and 9 times out of 10, get out, endure 30 seconds of cold and then dash into another centrally heated location. We don't have to endure much cold if we really don't want to. 

Now take away the central heat, the cars with heat, the cars period and you have a COLD house and a COLD means of transportation (on foot), and a COLD non-heated destination. Basically you are COLD! 

Poor Hannah got an indoor/outdoor thermometer from home for Christmas.... and yesterday when she woke up, it was a whopping 43 degrees in her room. Our houses stay somewhere in the 50's during the day. You just really don't get warm unless you are in the bed..... with.....

Your beloved bed warmer. 

This thing is so incredibly essential. It's like an electric blanket but under your sheets. It's rather stylish too huh? Good thing you can't see it. You turn it on before you get into bed and when it is time to head that way, it is nice and toasty. 

and we have dual controls, which is glorious since Adam can't sleep with his on. I usually wake up after a while and turn it off though. 

And then EVERYONE has a warmie.....

This is mine that I got for Christmas. It's a little plush-ish winking bear. 

They are just bags of water, with a little socket that you plug a cord into, that plugs into an outlet. In 10 minutes you have a little hot water bag that you can take everywhere with you. You can even buy warmie carriers- usually a stuff animal with a pouch that you put the warmie into and it can hang around your neck and stick your hands into. Pretty awesome. 

We really are willing to go to great lengths to stay warm.....

.......like filling up buckets of hot water, soaking our feet in them and then when it started to get tepid, we'd dump cup fulls of REALLY hot water into it. 

My next fave..... 

#3- getting pictures of my sweet, sweet puppy Lucy from far, far away (hint, hint, keep em comin!)...

How precious is she?!

I seriously miss this dog more than anything! Adam keeps saying I should change the name of my blog to the joys of life withOUT Lucy. horrible. I'm real thankful for my bestest and her boo welcoming her into their family. Thankkkssss Matt & Jamie!

Fave #4...... Skype Convos with great friends

The holidays provided more opportunities to talk to people at home, which just made me that much more so incredibly thankful for skype. 

I made Betsy promise that Trey wouldn't forget me while we were gone, so I loved that for most of this conversation he kept his face an inch from the camera saying, "I see you Hay-ee!!" and would shush his parents every time they tried to talk.... not so cute to them though. 

THEN a day or 2 later, we got to skype into the Vandy Christmas Party with such fun friends! 

They even sang Christmas carols to us.....

and Catherine & Ashley got into a large dress together for us. 

It was so wonderful to see so many wonderful faces together at the same time. I am SO thankful for skype! 

Fave #5.......Peter's

Peter's is a western restaurant in the really nice large city we often visit, and every time we go I make it my goal in a weekend to eat there no less than 3 times. I have yet to fail at reaching my goal. 

This was one of our first trips with some friends way back in August. 

SO DELISH. Those waffle fries are amazing. 

My faves there: Chicken Chimechangas, Cheeseburger with Waffle Fries, Chicken Fingers with amazing honey mustard, and French Toast. 

AND they have Dr. Pepper. WITH ICE in a mason jar. love. 

I most definitely can't get enough. 

Fave #6.... The "Turkey Bowl"

Every year, a bunch of Americans get together in one city the weekend after Thanksgiving to play in the Turkey Bowl. I'm pretty sure it is the highlight of many-a-guy's fall here. 

It gets a little intense.... full contact on the line... and someone always gets hurt, but they love it. Adam was excited for weeks beforehand. 

And all the girls love coming to watch and cheer them on. Here I am with some of my favorite girls.... most of whom are intense. One not so much. She's real cute though. 

Fave #7.... Fun out of town weekends with friends

I lovelovelove any time we get to go to other cities to hang out with friends, and have so loved getting to know a lot of these girls over the last few months AND look forward to spending a month with many of them very shortly in a very tropical place that I can not get to soon enough! 

Fave #8..... a LEGIT western restaurant. 

You seriously can't fathom the excitement. Seriously. There is a Grandma's kitchen is some really big cities in this country, but I almost had a stroke when I saw this. We still don't even have McDonalds here! (seriously remarkable for a city of 2-3 million people in this country)... the only good western food to be found is at Papa John's (if that says anything), so you can imagine our astonishment

We went to the mall to grab Ice Cream one night in early December and while we were standing around talking I looked up and saw this sign- and screamed out loud. 

It has since opened; Adam & a friend went day before yesterday and had burgers. Yes please. Can't wait to go soon! 

Fave #9..... FUN teachers! 

This is our Reading teacher- He (like huh!) LaoShi. She is so much fun, such a riot at times, and I just love her. I don't mind spending 6 hours a week with her at all.

This was at a banquet for the international department recently. 

AND last and the MOST not least..... Fave #10....

Christmas Of Course. 

We seriously had such a fun Christmas here.... As I've already shared in several posts. Christmas has always been and will always be my favorite. 

That's all for now! Come back next week before I jump on a plane to a tropical {not so} far away land! 

Joyfully Faved Out, 

Naughty Doggie

When I left to go to campus today this bowl was full of whopper eggs....... and when I got back tonight it was empty. Adam left at 6:15 this morning.... so he is not culprit....

That leaves one possibility......

Oooops! Lucy had a nice afternoon snack! I searched the house high and low for "evidence" ("round 2" of the whopper eggs).... but didn't find anything. She must have a stomach of steel. I just hope we don't wake up in the middle of the night to one sick puppy! The joys of life with my Lucy!

The Joys of Life with Lucy

I am obsessed with blogs.

My friend Julianna introduced me to "google reader" after she left to go live in Central Asia last year and I started following her blog. (If you don't use google reader, you must. It's fantastic.) She created a monster. I LOVE logging in a seeing all of the pictures and stories of the lives of everyone from people whom I love dearly to people I've never met before, but aspire to be as creative as they are like this creative lady. I love seeing pictures of my friend's growing children like cute Grady Warren or their growing baby bumps as they await the arrival of little ones like my beautiful friend Bethany; of their creativity in sewing, scrapbooking, crafting and decorating like my friend Brooke. I love reading about the funny things that their children say or their humorous, satirical perspectives on life like my hysterical cousin Lori. Sometime I even go searching on facebook for people who have links to their blogs on their profiles. I can't get enough.

I haven't started a blog myself because I didn't think my life was interesting enough to follow. It's kindof like my recent discovery of Twitter. I vowed for the longest time that I wasn't going to "Tweet". Then I discovered that I could follow the lives of my beloved dancers from "So You Think You Can Dance" and my heroes from "The Biggest Loser" after the shows were over, and that too opened up a can of worms. I have still vowed that I'm not going to follow anyone or anything that would be considered "celebrity drama" and that I wasn't going to tweet myself. Again, who wants to know what I'm doing every 30 minutes throughout the day? I have to say that celebrities feel a whole lot more "normal" when you follow them on Twitter, and I have done a pretty good job of avoiding anything "celebrity gossip" wise. So I have no regrets thus far from "tweeting". Enough about Twitter; you get the picture: my life = not interesting enough for people to "follow" whether on Twitter or a blog. I have said that I'll start blogging when I have kids or when we move to the other side of the world someday.

That all changed this morning, as I was looking at my friend Holly's blog (she is quite the decorator and crafter). Enter into my thought process- I thought to myself, "I would love to put pictures of the scrapbook pages I make on a blog," but then decided that blogging about my scrapbooking would leave posts few and far between. Then I thought, "I don't have to just blog about one thing.... and maybe my life isn't interesting enough by itself to blog about, but I have a lot of friends whose lives are and who are really creative..... and there are other things in my life that might be interesting to follow.... like different projects I take on, or fun things from fun places that I get to go, or books, music, and podcasts that I've found that I really like..... I'm going to start a blog!"

So why "The Joys of Life with Lucy" you ask? If you know me well at all, you know that I am madly in love with a brownish, orangish four legged, "I look like I have the potential to be a vicious attack dog, but instead I'm scared of everything and have the temperament of a sedated cat" mutt named Lucy. I never though a dog could bring as much joy to my life as she does. She has the funniest personality of any animal I've ever met, and anyone who spends any time at our house with her leaves loving her too. So maybe "The Joys of Life with Lucy" describes my life well. Don't worry.... this isn't a blog about my dog. She is just my inspiration :)

Here she is.....

I'm not one of those people who dresses their dog up, but Lucy loves squirrels so much that I couldn't resist buying this costume at Target this past Halloween. Every time someone came over, I made sure she modeled it for them. Adam hated it :)

She was awake... with her squirrel on her face.... and stayed that way for at least an hour....

Here she is sitting on my friend Emma.... like it's no big deal...

So there's Lucy. If you haven't met her yet, you should.

I look forward to letting you into the joys in my life.... whether that be something crafty I've created, something fun about a friend, something interesting I've come across, or something from a fun place I've been. You never know - I might just blog about you and your interesting life, so keep following!

Have a joy-filled day!

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