December 2022

 The themes for December 2022 were celebration and travel, two of my favorite things.

I got to visit my friend Jeanne and her mom Betty in Louisville.  We had lunch and drove through Mega Caverns Christmas experience.  It was a lot of fun.

And I joined my friend Lisa and her mom Elizabeth again, this time in North Georgia to tour Blue Ridge, Dahlonega, and Helen Georgia and their Christmas shops.  Although it was a little drizzly, we had a great time!

Our Wine Club celebrated 100 gatherings and 12 years together.  We had a wine tasting / food pairing at Savory Swine.  It was a wonderful night.

David and I went to see the Wallflowers in concert

And then we celebrated our 30th anniversary!

Our friends surprised us with the sign at the Crump.

We experienced our first Christmas without our moms and it was so good to be with family.  Their absences were deeply felt, though.  

Danielle, Thomas, Brennan, Natalie and Grandpa

Natalie braided my hair :)

We had a great time in Canton with so much of our extended family that we had not seen in awhile.  It was wonderful!

Brennan, Sara Brady, Elizabeth, Taylor, Ellie, and Thomas

The whole family.  I took this one.  So glad Daddy could join us!

The "next generation" including Christopher and Daniel.

Carey, Nina, and their 5 grandchildren - Rhett, Harper, Eliza, Curren, and Jane Marie

Our 2023 graduates - Thomas (IUPUI), Elizabeth (VA Tech), Ellie (Starkville HS)

Then it was on to Tylertown.  We celebrated Christmas at Uncle Zack and Aunt Rosemary's house with 28 family members.  Here are some photos we posed for.

Daddy and his two girls and their families

And our 2023 graduates

Hunter (Natalie's boyfriend) and Natalie - Ridgeland HS

Thomas - IUPUI

Noah - Northview HS

After a delicious lunch and opening our Secret Santa gifts, Uncle Zack and Daddy took us out to the family farm.  Many of the cousins and grandkids got to shoot targets.  We had a great time spending a little extra time together.

David, Brennan, and Uncle Zack

Brennan, Thomas, Noah, Danielle, and Keller

On our way back north, we took an extra couple of days to visit Natchez and Vicksburg, which we really hadn't toured before.  It was nice to spend a little extra time with Thomas and Brennan as well.

Natchez

Vicksburg National Military Park - this is definitely worth seeing.

October 2022

 David and I got home from our 30th anniversary trip and 10 days later I left to volunteer at an English Immersion school in southern Germany.  I opted out of going to Germany in January (brrrrrr) and instead took them up on their offer to attend the program as a volunteer in October.  

Unfortunately when I arrived in Munich, I tested positive for Covid.  My symptoms were resolved but I could not be around so many people.  Instead I had to figure out what to do in Germany for a week.  I made it work.  Solo travel in an international country turned out to be OK.  I stayed safe and stayed within my comfort zone, and saw so many amazing places.  I'll put all of that in a separate post sometime when I can really organize it all.  But for now, here is the rest of October 2022 for us!

We enjoyed some great nights out with friends during the beautiful month of October.  The weather was really great all month and the fall colors were just beautiful this year!

(hi Coco!)

David and I took advantage of early voting one day

And we celebrated David's birthday with friends at our book club, and at our go to favorite place in town.  Homemade Black Forest cake - recipe from Germany, I had to translate it first!

That weekend we met up with the boys in the nearby town of Franklin and had lunch, presents, and then the boys came home to see their dogs.  It was a nice weekend to hang out a bit.

We shopped at a sweet bookstore in Franklin (we all love a book store)

And the dogs were very excited that their boys came home.

Speaking of the dogs, they are doing just fine.

Here's little Bailey who is going to be 9 in a couple of months.

And Remy who is just 4 this year.

They protect our backyard, front yard, and neighborhood from threats like UPS and other dogs being walked, even on a rainy day.

David and I went to Brown County Music Center and saw Johnny Depp (!!!) and Jeff Beck in concert.  Crazy night.  Johnny was the only one who sang and neither of them really talked with the crowd much but it was fun to be out on a school night :)

The back of the concert t-shirt

October 24th was a hard day as it would have been my mom's birthday.  We miss her and Carolyn every day.  

I went with Ginger and John to see Broadway's Abby Mueller at the Cabaret at the Commons.  It was a really great concert.  We are so lucky to have so many talented artists coming to our neck of the woods.

Brittany and I promoted our romantic comedy podcast in our community as we were invited to help kick off our local Film Festival.  We had a great time with the promotions and preparing for the festival, which is a fundraiser for a local family center. (Our podcast is RomCom Love and we have recorded 100 episodes!)

We had a nice turnout for our Live event at the theater.  We watched "Something's Gotta Give" and then recorded the 100th episode.  Fun night and we are thankful to Mike and David and so many of our friends for coming out.

Finally - we had a great night on Halloween.  The weather was perfect and there were a lot of families out.  A teacher who lives not too far from us in a different neighborhood said they had 1000 kids!  Halloween is alive and well in Columbus!

Happy Holidays!