Pictures

Jennifer's mom gave Keith (and Jennifer?) a digital picture frame for Christmas, and we checked it out today. We love it!

The frame works with both a Mac and a PC, and it is so easy to use. It even has a timer that we set to come on every evening and turn off by itself. We put more than 100 pictures on it already, and we're eager for more.

So, if you're coming to our wedding and plan to take pictures, we'd love to get copies of the files.

We're thinking about getting a large, nice frame that we can devote to wedding pictures. With the success of our first frame, we think we've got a great thing going here!

Some pictures from our Christmas days

We started on Christmas Eve in Hueytown and celebrated with Keith's parents and his brother with his wife and kids.  Here's the family showing off some of the toys they got.  Jennifer harassed Daniel about the age recommendations on his pogo stick: "You have to wait another year because that says you can't play with it until you're nine."  David and Maurine are in the background, and Caroline is holding her tetherball set.

Keith gave gift cards in plastic cups this year, and Daniel guessed what it was!  Here, Maurine is showing off her cup.

Jennifer has a clock at her house that is stuck in one spot.  That doesn't really work for helping us know what time it is.  So, Keith bought her a new clock, which she is showing off here.

One day last week, Keith came home telling Jennifer about the gifts he got other people.  He told her about a puzzle with a picture of a world map that he got for Daniel and Caroline.  "Jennifer, the pieces aren't interlocking because they are the shape of the countries!  And, the oceans have facts about the countries in them!  I might have to get one for myself after Christmas."  Little did Keith know that Jennifer already had the exact same puzzle for Keith.  The picture below is the face Keith had when he realized that he got his own puzzle to put together.

David and Lucy are hardly seen together, so this picture is a priceless one.

On Christmas Day, we celebrated with Jennifer's mom, brother, and her mom's boyfriend and long-time friend.  Here's a picture of the two of them.  Ed is being funny because Keith took out the camera.

Jay and Keith struck a pose, and Jennifer got this picture of them!

Jennifer's mom wanted to have pictures of us so she could send them to her sisters, so we took some group shots.  Here's a rare opportunity for Jennifer, Jay, and their mom.  It's been a long time since we were all together for Christmas.

Jennifer's mom and the kids and soon-to-be son-in-law.  We were all quite shocked to see how much work she did for our Christmas presents!

We used the timer on the camera to get the entire group in a picture.  It didn't turn out as well as we hoped, but we liked it.

Thanks to all of our families for welcoming us to Christmas traditions and celebrations.  We appreciate your hospitality, and we love all of the gifts you gave us.  We also enjoyed seeing your faces when you opened our gifts to you.

Finally, during our Christmas celebration, we see that our countdown here is down to double-digits!  We're excited about getting married, and we've already gotten some things that we can use together.

19 miles!

We rode from Warner Robins down South Houston Lake Road toward Perry to Bear Branch Road across from Houston Lake.  We sat on a bench beside the lake for a little while, then Keith showed Jennifer some houses that he landscaped last year.  Then, we headed back north to Hwy 96 and ate Subway.  We came back toward Keith's apartment and rode around the block.  The total trip was 19 miles, and we're sore in a few spots.

Keith threatens to take Jennifer back out on the hills around the neighborhood tomorrow.  He thinks she's getting spoiled with three flat(ter) rides in a row.

We hope you are having as much fun with these days before Christmas as we are!

Christmas plans

The Christmas celebrations start tomorrow for us. We're combining schedules and traditions, so there will be some new faces for both of us along the way.

Virginia's annual party is tomorrow night, and it's especially exciting because she is well and at home! We're delighted to see another Christmas at her house, and we're glad she can take her place in the front row at our wedding.

Dinner and a Christmas movie with MO and PO is next on our agenda. They just got two kittens, so we're sure to have a great time with them in a few days.

We're spending Christmas Eve at Keith's parents' house with much of the family. We'll head up their way earlier in the day because Keith has to work until the 23rd. Jennifer is looking forward to a new Christmas Eve tradition!

On Christmas Day, we'll pick Jay up and go to Jennifer's mom's house for our first Christmas together in years. Jennifer, Keith, and Jay will get back to Birmingham that night.

We don't know yet how long we'll stay yet, but there's talk of catching up with Paul and Jenny that weekend.

So, that'll get us through the next ten days or so. Let's hope we get all of our shopping done before it's too late!

Can you tell that we like biking?!

Someone told us about Silver Comet Trail, and we plan to go check it out soon. Jennifer loves the maximum 2% incline, and Keith loves that it's nowhere near car traffic. We both love that it's miles and miles outside and still relatively close to home. We can ride segments of it over short weekends, and one day we might ride the whole thing over several days.

Yesterday, Jennifer scored another sweet eBay deal: a bike rack for $23. Since we have to give her mom back the rack we've been using, we knew we needed one so we don't have to ride around our neighborhood all the time. Now we hope the new rack comes in the mail before Christmas so we won't be gone when it arrives.

Merry Christmas!!

We want to wish you all a Merry Christmas.  We are feeling the Christmas spirit today after putting up the tree and decorating the house.  

We also managed to ride 8.6 miles on our bikes at the Ocmulgee National Monument this afternoon.  We finally got our new bikes a little dirty today because we went off road on a trail through the swamp!

This photo is our virtual internet Christmas card for our friends and family!!

Jennifer's new bike!!

Jennifer received her new bike Friday in the mail.  She ordered the bike online from Dick's sporting goods at a discount. Jennifer had to assemble the bike so she now is the resident bike mechanic because she understands the intricacies behind brake cables, chains and derailleurs for the gears. Its a Kawasaki brand bike like the jet ski and it looks and rides very good.  Today we hit the road on our bikes and rode 8.3 miles and had a great time.  Thats the longest trip we have done so far.  It was  kind of a chilly day but we were warm logging all those miles and of course because we bike in Macon, Georgia they were not flat miles!  We will probably hit the road again tomorrow to do some more biking and hopefully it will be a pretty day.

Jennifer's old bike still works good all it needs is a few simple repairs to the chain and brakes which she can fix, so if any of you know a little girl that needs a bike let us know and we can set her up with one.  

Long-term weather predictions

With a wedding in April, we've talked a lot about weather. Already, we've recommended that our guests plan to bring an umbrella (and an extra one for folks who forget to check the weather) since there is no plan B.

This link has some good news and some other news, but nothing here is really a surprise.

Do any readers here have other long-term weather prediction websites that can confirm or challenge this prediction? You can post the link in the comments below.

More biking news

Jennifer's chain locked up again, like it did years ago. Even though it was fixed two weeks ago, there's another spot locked up. Yes, it would be easy to replace the chain for cheap, but we're getting serious about this bike riding. After logging more than 30 miles on the middle school bike, Jennifer shopped online yesterday and bought a bike. It will arrive in the mail next week, and we'll have the adventure of putting it together. We've already agreed that we'll appreciate what we can learn for later. The wheels are larger than Jennifer's bike from middle school days, so she'll get more distance with each turn of the pedals. The gears will also be able to change more easily, too.

Keith's summer idea of bike riding together was a fantastic one that we're both excited about!

Busy weekend, but great one!

We rode our bikes about 14 miles together this weekend, and we've each done four or more additional miles independently. Keith got a speedometer/odometer for his bike today, and he's been working out the kinks throughout the day. Our conversations are veering toward riding to McAllister's next Saturday for lunch.

Keith and Jennifer's mom schemed together on Jennifer's birthday cake, which Keith successfully denied in advance. All three of us listened to a tape of Jennifer at four years old talking with her grandma about Christmas and singing Christmas songs.

Lessons and Carols was excellent at Mercer, and it was good to be with Patrick and several other Mercer friends on Saturday night.

Weekend plans

We're having dinner with MO and PO tonight. We haven't been able to spend a lot of time with them, so this is a good chance to do that.

Pat is coming to town tomorrow, and we're going to give her the closet shelves that we don't need anymore because she loaned them to Jennifer years ago. She also gets the old curtains and their rod. Jennifer's also going to see if she can sew a dress to make it fit better. Pat is getting her bike rack back as well.

Tomorrow night, Patrick is hosting dinner at his house before a Christmas concert. We're going to eat some chili and listen to some Christmas music.

We hope for bike riding, too, sometime this weekend. Maybe there will be games like Rook or Settlers of Catan in the plans, also.

Accomplishment #3

Before....

Even when we try to close the curtains, they don't accomplish the purpose!

After!

The blinds were easier to install than we expected, and we're quite happy with the more modern look.

Accomplishment #2

Another goal of ours has been to get Jennifer's closet under control and make room for Keith's clothes in the master bedroom.  We talked last summer about installing a closet organizer, and Jennifer was quite nervous about the process.

But, as you can see, something needs to be done.

In fact, no matter how close or far away you are, there's just so much unused space.  And, there are lots of clothes....

The worst part, though, is that Jennifer's clothes don't even fit in this closet!  She has two closets on the same wall, and she uses a significant portion of the other closet.

Our mission: put all of these clothes plus some from the dresser into one closet.

  

The concession: the closet on the right is bigger by one foot, so Jennifer gets that one.

We removed the clothes, top shelf, and rod with its hardware.  Then, we started measuring and attempting to locate studs.  We used the 8 foot step ladder to reach the high places.  The directions were pretty good, and it didn't take too long.

Mission: accomplished!

The clothes in the plastic shelves in the middle came from the dresser drawers, and the rest of it came from the two closets.  

Now, check them out together.  It looks like there will be room for Keith in four months after all!