Accomplishment #1

Keith took advantage of the Black Friday sales and bought a bike. Jennifer brought her childhood bike back from Pat's house earlier in the week, but it took some work to get it operating again. Jennifer borrowed Pat's bike rack, so we used that to bring Keith's bike home. We didn't even sit down in the house before we went riding near our neighborhood! We had a great time!

Keith rode some more later in the day before dark, and we've gone for another ride together after it finally stopped raining in Macon.

Jennifer is pleased with the resurrection of her old bike, and Keith is excited with the purchase of his new bike!  We've accomplished one of the goals that we set last summer to get bikes and go riding together for exercise.  We're already talking about errands we can run by bike and other places we can go after we're in better shape.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope all of you are having a great day!

From the road

We're on the Florida Turnpike right now, and Keith has this amazing broadband service that lets me write an update while we drive.

On Sunday, we made a wonderful discovery: Settlers of Catan free online!  We can play anytime we want, and we can play on the same team instead of playing against each other.  We are hoping to introduce Paul and Jenny to the game this week, but we have the hands-on version to teach them.

I took off for Columbus on Monday, and Pat and I started working on my wedding dress.  We were up until 4am, but I think we got a lot done.

This morning, we left town at 6am, and we're making pretty good time.  We've taken off layers of extra clothes as we head south because it was pretty cool in Macon when we left.

I'm off to play Settlers of Catan!

Pictures from the 5K

PO and MO are picture-taking people, so there is always a digital record of events with them. (Besides the pictures here, you can see us in the line for pancakes after the race on Mercer's website. The address is www.mercer.edu, and you can follow the links to homecoming photo gallery. We're the eighth picture in the pancake breakfast slideshow.)

Our 5K was two laps around Mercer's campus, and PO stayed inside while we were walking 1.5 miles. He came out to take pictures of the end of our first lap and saw us coming around the last turn of the course. It was probably 27 degrees at this point. The sun was bright and coming straight at us because it was only an hour after daybreak, so sunglasses were in order.


What you can't tell is the number of layers we each have on. I don't know about others, but I was wearing knee socks, two pair of pants, three shirts, a windbreaker, two scarves, gloves, an a hat (which I think I made when I was very young).

Below, we are finishing our first lap. My one finger is not because I think we are the best but because we are done with our first lap. My watch said that first one took us 26 minutes, which was a record for us, so I was quite pleased.


I'm kind of impressed with how happy we look. The pictures simply don't do justice to the cold air! Early in our walk, two of us ran into each other, and I joked that we are all a little bit wider than usual with all of our layers on!

As we came around the last turn on the second lap, I asked MO if she wanted to jog to finish the race. She turned me down until April started running behind us. MO would not be beat, so she decided to run then. We finished the race in 52 minutes, and it looks like we were still smiling.



In the middle of the second lap, I told MO, "We're going to do this again....at a different temperature and at a different time." I really did enjoy the 5K, an I liked getting in shape for it.

In other news from yesterday, Thanksgiving with Pat and Ed was fun! There was a TON of food, and no one took any pictures. Pat showed Ed all of the things she made for me in my house. After we ate our fill in dinner, Keith's all-flavored pound cake was a hit! I took it as a good sign that Pat and Ed left later than they meant to.

Inspired by all of this exercising (and eating!), Keith and I have agreed to do situps together several times a week. We both need help sticking to that arrangement. Perhaps we'll get up to 100 at a time, but I don't think it'll be before we're married!

Happy Birthday, Ephram!

Ephram, I remember when my phone rang at 1:30am because your daddy was telling me that you were born! I sure have gotten a kick out of watching you grow in these few years. You're getting strong and smart, and you're learning to share your favorite things and to show love and compassion. Happy birthday, buddy!

We have matching shirts!

Six weeks of training

Jennifer is walking her first 5K with MO on Saturday. They've been walking together a few times each week for about three years, but the serious training started six weeks ago. They've been walking with a group on Mercer's campus twice a week, and they've done some of their own walking on other days. They've averaged about three walks each week, and they hope to finish the 5K in an hour. It's part of Mercer's homecoming celebration.

Think about them on Saturday morning when you wake up in your nice warm bed late in the morning. The walk starts at 8am, and the forecast calls for chilly air!

Thanksgiving plans

We decided a few weeks ago to visit Paul and Jenny in Miami for Thanksgiving. It's somewhat of a tradition for Keith to head down there each year, but it's also a chance for the four of us to spend time together. So, picture it: twin brothers, Paul and Keith, with their wife and fiancee, Jenny and Jennifer. Oh, boy! We'll be away from Wednesday to Sunday of next week.

We also wanted to get a chance to have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with Pat and Ed, so they're coming to Macon this Saturday. It won't be a long visit, but it will be great food! They'll get to see our house painting and yard clean up, too. Oh, one more thing: we'll all get to enjoy Keith's homemade all-flavor pound cake.

In between the Thanksgiving plans with Pat and Ed then Paul and Jenny, Jennifer is going to Columbus where Pat will be working on the alterations for Jennifer's wedding dress.

Let the holiday season begin!

our sand ceremony

Sand ceremonies are not widely included in weddings, but we're excited about having one on April 4. Since they're not terribly popular, we've found ourselves describing them a lot. I'll get to the explanation in a minute, but I want to say first that Mike Blackwell is my hero when it comes to our sand ceremony! We asked Mike to build our container, and he's working hard on it. He also is thinking a lot about the symbols of the ceremony and how it might flow best during our wedding. Mike gets it! In the midst of a wedding with lots of details that people think we're crazy for taking on, this is one detail that someone actually understands and appreciates. I am thrilled!

For those who don't know yet, a sand ceremony serves a lot of the same purposes as a unity candle. We're not doing a unity candle for lots of reasons, some practical and some philosophical, but we want a symbol for the merging of two lives into one story.

So, think of an ant farm. You know, a thin rectangular shape that has glass on the front and back. Keith holds one color of sand, and I'll hold the other. Many of you won't be surprised to learn that we're using blue and white sand. We pour the sand from separate containers into the top of the container. For a long time, the colors never touch. When they do touch, though, they are no longer separable. What you see through the glass is two different colors meeting somewhere in the middle. The line between the colors might even blur as the sands mix a little bit. When we pour the sand, the colors will be more separate, but we'll keep our container through the years and watch as the sands mix and settle just as our lives will mix and settle. On our wedding day, we are making a piece of art that will hang in our home and be a reminder to us of the lives we lived separately and now choose to live together. It will also remind us of the life and story we are creating together because we'll never be able to go back to a day when the colors of our sand are completely separate. Over the years, our container will tip over and mix the sands a little more just like our life together will take spills every now and then. For a long, long time, there will be parts of the container that hold only white sand or only blue sand, and it will remind us that we have not lost our individual identity even as our lives have merged.

Our sand container will be a story for us and for you, and it will begin at our wedding.

video of the plane pull

There's video and another picture of the airplane pull in action at www.13wmaz.com in an article called "Planes Pulled for Charity."

I'm pulling for the Ronald McDonald House of Central Georgia

While Keith and his parents visited in Alexander City this weekend, Jennifer joined 19 of her colleagues to raise money for the Ronald McDonald House. We met at the airport to pull an airplane. PO was there, too, and he took pictures. (My "non-blog-reading PO" says hello to you all readers.)

"On your mark, get set, go!" And, the plane didn't MOVE! The pilot stuck his head out the window of the cockpit to tell us that his foot was on the brake.

"On your mark, get set, go!" And, the timekeeper told us to stop because his timer started too early.

"On your mark, get set, go!" And, we pulled the plane in just over nine seconds.

"Can fifteen of you stay here to help the next team that only has five pullers? They're your competition."

So, we did it again. We pulled the plane in just over eight seconds, and the other team won!

Way to go, Karen!

Karen is right: chenille stems are pipe cleaners. We needed pipe cleaners for some of our reception decorations, and they were packaged as "chenille stems," and we found them on an aisle with the same label.

So, some of you readers want to know: who is Karen?

Karen is one of six girls who became friends with Jennifer in 2001. The six girls lived together in West Palm Beach for college, and Anna was part of that group. (Look back at an early September post for pictures of us that Anna took when we visited her and Shaun and their boys.) The six girls graciously welcomed Jennifer's visits to their apartment multiple times in their last year of college, an they still invite Jennifer to their roommate reunions a few times each year. The seven girls including Jennifer have gone to New Mexico, Tampa, Atlanta, and other places since college. Some of the girls and their families might even be able to come to the wedding in April!

So, Karen was right, and now you know who Karen is.

Wedding trivia time!

Do you know what the common name is for "chenille stems"? Post your ideas in the comments, and only peek at other guesses if you don't want to guess for yourself.

(One day, I'm going to buy stock in the wedding business! I think it's one of the best chances a business has of getting a person's money by appealing to emotions.)

Fun for our weekend, too

We discovered two good meals this weekend. First, McAllister's where Keith gets a giant baked potato and huge cup of tea and Jennifer gets different things depending on her mood. Second, tacos at home which was SOOO easy to get ready when two of us are working together.

We learned a new game and played some others. Keith bought a $10 game set at Target that has some games we already know but don't own and a couple that we want to learn. So, on Friday night we played chinese checkers twice, checkers, pass out, and tic-tac-toe. We wanted to play backgammon, but the rules weren't clear enough for Jennifer to remember how she played many years ago, so we searched the internet for some rules. We played backgammon on Sunday with the rules that we think we understand.

Exercise/fun also made it into our weekend twice. On Saturday, we walked through a nearby neighborhood checking out houses and learning what makes each other excited about certain houses. We're going to be ready when we decide to buy another house sometime in the future. On Sunday, we walked again at the Indian Mounds.

Last night, we watched a movie called "Finding Forrester," which we've both seen before but we enjoyed again.

At dinner last night, Jennifer looked at Keith and declared, "I love spending weekends with you!" We sure do enjoy our time together.

An extremely productive day

Keith came to Jennifer's house yesterday afternoon with four written invitations. This morning, during "invitation hours," Keith wrote some more while Jennifer put together the ones he wrote yesterday. Then, later in the day, while Jennifer was running wedding errands, Keith wrote more invitations. After ice cream for dinner, we went grocery shopping with a list that we hope will get us through the next two weeks.

Keith even found some quiet time today to read some pages out of a few books he's been checking out. When one of us reads one of the marriage books that we have sitting around, we always have things to talk about that we learned or found interesting. If "quiet time" doesn't sound productive to you, we can assure you that we both thrive on the chance to steal a few moments of down time. It's productive in ways that are not measured in dollars and cents.

Mission accomplished!

As of this very hour, all of the blue squares of paper have been folded into flowers. Jennifer is relieved, proud, happy, and looking toward the next task.

Muscle memory

I (Jennifer) have been wanting to play games (board games, video games, card games, any games) lately, and I got a good Nintendo fix last night!

Since I am writing this post, I'll say in small print that Keith beat me even though I skipped some worlds along the way.

My Nintendo lives at Keith's apartment because his TV is easier to play on and to hook up to. We decided in advance that Super Mario Brothers would be our first priority. We took turns playing--Keith had Mario, and I had Luigi--and we waited for long periods of time at first. Then, we died quicker and quicker as the rounds got harder.

Our adrenaline got going! First it was a dragon in the castle. Then, the turtles were flying. Then, the turtles were throwing hammers. The jumps got harder, and the mushrooms and flowers were hard to find because we couldn't remember where they were like we did when we were younger. Then, we had those gorilla heads and bullets and clouds that throw spiny creatures. Oh, and there were fish in the underwater worlds, and those fish flew later. There were still more dragons, and we only kept fire power once to kill a dragon. We also saw pulleys and trampoline things that make you jump higher. A few times, we had to pause the game just to regain our composure because we were so stressed by the creatures we had to kill so we could progress! It was the best stress we'd experienced in weeks!

It was also a team effort a few times. Keith helped me kill a dragon, and I returned the favor by managing a trampoline and some pulleys.

So, Mama, I'm sorry you don't get to play Tetris anymore since I have the Nintendo now, but we sure did have fun!

Supper on April 3

All wedding invitations will come with an announcement about supper on April 3, the evening before our wedding. We've rented an enclosed pavilion at Lake Tobesofkee. It's informal, but it works. There's a kitchen in the back with working refrigerators, stove, microwave, and industrial ice maker. We'll start gathering at 6pm, and we'll send the first person through the dinner line around 6:30.

You can read about other details for the weekend by clicking on "details" on the menu on the right.

what can we do with an hour?

Here's a sample of things we did in one hour blocks this weekend:

- walk three miles

- cut down the weed trees in the jungle just outside the sliding glass doors

- visit a new church across the street, so we walked

- write two wedding invitations

- fold twenty blue flower tops

- eat Greek salad and chicken noodle soup at Panera Bread

- play several hands of Gin

- browse around Barnes and Noble looking at games, including Settlers of Catan so we can play with Paul and Jenny later this month

- sit on the front porch and talk

- read a book

- eat burgers and LOTS of fries at "Five Guys, Burgers and Fries," which is quickly becoming one of our other favorite places to eat