Goodbye Old Friend

We are officially saying goodbye to our General Electric 1970's Harvest Gold appliances at Belle Terra Road. As of tonight, we are completely moved into our new condo. Once I get everything out of boxes and decorated I promise I will post some pictures. Our new place is a three bedroom, 2 bath, great condominium with a 2 car garage and brand new appliances!

I will admit that when we said our final goodbye to our first home tonight I was quite emotional. You know us "Smith" girls, we can cry at almost anything. Before we closed the door for the last time Daniel and I prayed together and thanked God for our first home. We have truly been blessed over the past two years and the Lord has always provided for us.

Our first home might not have been the prettiest of places, but we definitely made it a home. I often said there were several things I was never going to miss once we moved: the smell of smoke from the previous owner and our neighbors, camelback crickets, slugs all over our front door after every rain, appliances that were cool 15 years before I was born, spiders, earwigs, and did I mention camelback crickets??? You know, I couldn't stand most of those things while I was living there, but looking back, they sure made for some great memories and I'm actually thankful for them. So many young couples today think they have to have the best of the best to be happy. I can honestly say that we had some great times in the old condo. Even with the earwigs! For instance, one morning Daniel and I both jumped about a mile high when he woke up in bed with a big cricket on his head! It was so funny...NOW we can laugh. I think we are going to have some awesome stories to tell our children one day. Having those things truly makes us appreciate what we have been blessed with now.

When I was so emotional tonight while leaving the Lord reminded me of how temporary our home on this earth truly is. How thankful I am for that truth.

We have so many good memories from our first home and we are looking forward to more at our new place. I am excited to start unpacking and making our new house a home.

"You never really leave a place you love, part of it you take with you, leaving part of yourself behind."

Have a happy Tuesday,

~Beth

Help Fight Hunger

The Pampered Chef has a FREE cookbook download available on their website. For every download, they will donate one meal to Feeding America. The cookbook features some yummy recipes for you to try - all while providing a meal for someone else! If you peruse through the pampered chef catalog and find something that you would like to purchase, you can order through my friend Marcia at this site. So everyone go and download a recipe book and help share some food!

To My Man

7/28/10: Happy Birthday, Daniel.

Top 10 reasons why I love you-
-You love the Lord
-You make me laugh until I cry and have to run to the bathroom
-You are incredibly humble
-You are a diligent provider
-You are truly kind to everyone that you meet
-You are incredibly smart-especially at math, & we KNOW God put you with me to be my
stronger counterpart in this area!
-You love me unconditionally
-You still open all doors for me-including every time we get in the car
-You tell me you love me NUMEROUS times during the day-including every single morning
when you get out of bed
-You can stay calm in the craziest of times and make my world feel grounded



Thank you for all that you do for me and how you love me. You continually make me want to better myself so that I can become all that I was meant to be. You are the greatest compliment to me, & I see that everyday. I am so thankful that God placed you in my life. I can't wait to know you when you are 90!


I LOVE YOU FOREVER,

BETH

I'm Not Lovin' It

I was in a really crafty mood Saturday night and I thought I would attempt another wreath. I don't know what it is with me and wreaths lately but I think it really makes a home feel cozy. So, here is what I ended up with:


All I know is.....I'm not lovin' it. I don't know what it is about it. I think it might be that nothing in our dining room matches it. I am wanting to do a blue/brown theme in our dining room but this is just the start, so it just doesn't go with the decor yet. I am thinking about getting rid of it. What do you think...yes or no?

The Empty Space

Can you guess what this is???



We had an empty space. A skinny tall wall right above our toilet. I've been wanting something to occupy the space but could never decide what would be fitting. I mean, what do you hang over your toilet? After all, it can be "looked at" quite a bit. This is what was hanging over my toilet growing up (this is a weird post and I apologize-it all comes together in the end, I promise):



The pink bonnet girl.

So, I finally figured out what to do. I decided to make an affordable and easy wreath to hang in the empty space. You can never go wrong with a wreath. I took an old book that I had to read for a Sociology class in college titled "Nickel and Dimed". I apologize to the author of this book but it was not worthy of a Pulitzer Prize - actually, not even close. I tore the book apart page by page and started gluing. I ended up with this-I think it turned out rather cute:


Now the empty space if filled, and a book covered in dust is now lovely.

Just Because

This weekend the family came into Athens for my cousin's wedding. After the wedding we all met back at Mom and Dad's house just to have another hour together. We were spending some time trying to keep Crockett entertained with his "Big Trucks" book. With every page turn we would sing a song about the Big Truck together. As you probably know, once you start something with a little kiddo they want you to continue to do it at least 100 more times. The repertoire-Bulldozer, Mail Truck, and Backhoe. Enjoy!










It's Daniel's birthday week. We are celebrating everyday-tonight we had Totino's and Mayfield French Onion Dip with Kettle Cooked Chips-this is a nostalgic favorite in the Galloway household-Yum! Have a great week! ~Beth

Fourth of July Weekend

I'm sorry it has taken awhile for me to get this post out to you. Daniel and I have both had a stomach virus this week and it's just been awful! But, we are back to normal for the most part and that's why I'm getting this post out now. I know I have blogged about the Farragut parade before, but for those of you who are new readers I will give you a little background info. The Farragut parade is a tradition for us. It always has patriotic dandies like donkeys, dressed up dogs, people who have no reason to be in the parade and just want to walk a little, clowns, and cute little old people! So, basically it's never anything flashy or amazing, it's just good ol' hometown fun and you never know what you are going to see. Here is Benni getting ready for her first parade:


The boy scouts and the Farragut Pep Band- When the piccolos started playing Benni tinkled all over my shirt-I guess she prefers brass

Here is Holly (the Galloway's dog) freaking out when the motorcycle cops came through:




This was Daniel's favorite part of the parade- a cute little puppet on top of a car (this year's parade was lacking a little bit)
Here is Breck (my brother-in-law) representin' Fleenor Security System-He gave us the good candy:

It wouldn't be the Farragut Parade without donkeys!



Here is the Ellis family (Josh, Michelle, Carson and Chloe-Josh works at State Farm-they gave out footballs and snow cones!)



A dog pulling some other dogs in a wagon-makes since right?




And last but not least, nothing says happy fourth of July like a creepy haunted corn maze:






I hope everyone had a safe and happy fourth! It was busy for us, but one of our favorite weekends nonetheless. Get excited, I will be posting our Twilight Party pictures soon. Have a happy Sunday.

Friday night the Tennessee Trombone Project played downtown at Market Square. These boys are incredibly talented and they also go to our church and are in our orchestra. We went with the fam. to show our support and to hear an amazing free concert! The 'TTP' boys are Joe Christian, Brian Jennings (our cousin from Canada), Jon Walton, and....um....Mike....I have no idea what his last name is, so just Mike. Here are some pictures:


Dad Galloway, Matt, and Benni (who stole the show on the cuteness factor downtown):

Some really creepy creature that was walking around. I tried really hard not to look at him so he wouldn't get anywhere near me:


He was seriously chasing people around(poor unsuspecting lady-she has no idea what's coming)


Here are some videos:

"Rocky Top" (see if you can spot Megan Christian's cameos-there are 2, and the creepy monster walking by at the end)



This next one is my favorite video for SEVERAL reasons-
#1-It's a great song that reminds me of John Daker-if you haven't seen this video you HAVE to check it out here
#2- Two little old people in wheelchairs get rolled by at the beginning with the perfect backdrop song and the little old lady is dancing in her chair-watch her fingers-so cute!
#3-Speaking of wheels, towards the end of the video a little boy strolls by on his trike and just stares at the boys in amazement-I don't know how they didn't laugh!



After the concert, we ate dinner outside and wrapped the night up with some Gelati from Rita's.
It truly was a great night. The weather was just perfect, the company was great, and the tunes were the best! Thanks boys for sharing your talents with Knoxville! Stay tuned for Fourth of July Pictures!

God Bless America!

Every Fourth of July Daniel has made an effort to find and wear the tackiest, ugliest, most horrible patriotic t-shirt for the Farragut 4th of July parade. I really don't know when or why this became a tradition, but it truly has become a 'must see' for the holiday. I absolutely can't wait for you to see this year's little patriotic treat. Have a happy 4th!

Fresh Squeezed Saturday

I LOVE Saturdays. Especially Saturdays when you have nothing planned. You know what I mean....the day that you plan to sleep in until you absolutely can't stand to stay in the bed any longer, the day that the sun coming through your window wakes you up (not your buzzing alarm in the dark), and the day you put off taking a shower.... yes-I'm talking about THAT day. Well, this past Saturday was exactly that! I deemed it "Pajama Saturday" in the Galloway household. Daniel and I have been so busy the past few weekends that we decided to stay in the house for the majority of the day. I didn't get out of the bed until 9:00 a.m.- it was amazing! Then I moseyed my way down to the kitchen (still in my pajamas) and whipped up a homemade breakfast: Mama Jan's hash brown casserole, biscuits, sausage, scrambled eggs, eggs over medium, bacon, and orange juice. We sat down at the table around 10:30 a.m. and enjoyed a "cracker barrel" style breakfast in our pj's at home. It was great. Here is the spread-


After breakfast we retired to our movie room and enjoyed some Saturday t.v. together. Around 2:30 (still in pajamas) we watched the World Cup tournament. Yes, the ENTIRE thing. I think I might have taken a little nap somewhere in there (there was a little 'dark spot' in the game). We ended our day with getting out of the house. I will be the first to admit that even on Pajama Saturday I get a little cabin fever. We went to see "How to Train Your Dragon". It was so great! You have to see this movie. All in all it was a great day. What did you do this past Saturday?

(This picture is Daniel's contribution to the blog post)

Here is a cute picture for you just because:
Have a happy week!

Saturday In The Park (I think it was the 4th of July!)

A couple of weekends ago it was absolutely gorgeous outside. It had rained nearly all week long and we finally received some much needed sunshine. I decided it would be fun for our little family of three (we just got a puppy) to go to the park for a picnic. I packed a light lunch of turkey paninis, pita chips, and grapes and we headed to the park. Benni loved eating sticks:


Daniel took the opportunity to catch up on some much needed sleep

And I took some time to read some non-school related material

Benni rested too


Seriously...look at those cute legs!

So Cute

Wrap Up #2

Daniel and I celebrated our first anniversary on December 20, 2009! It truly has been an amazing first year together and it is so hard to believe that a year has already gone by! It seems like just yesterday we were enjoying our big day!
We had high hopes of going somewhere amazing for our first anniversary together. However, our church decided to have its Christmas event(The Living Christmas Tree) on December 19,20, and 21 of this year. It usually is around the first weekend of December but this year there was a scheduling conflict and we had to move it to a later date. The Living Christmas Tree is an amazing witnessing opportunity for our church. If you are in the Knoxville area you should come next year. You can check it out here. Daniel is in the choir and I am in the orchestra and so we decided that we would not miss being a part of "the Tree" even though it fell on our anniversary. We celebrated the weekend before by renting a cabin in Gatlinburg just to get away for a couple of nights. So, with no further adieu...welcome to the land of tacky stores and funnel cake dreams...

We stayed in the cutest little cabin called Got Moose:


It was decorated for Christmas inside (which you know made me happy):










We had great views from our 2 balconies:


When we were looking for a place to stay, the description we read about this cabin said to enjoy amazing barbecuing outside on their grill. There was only one problem, we searched high and low for a gas grill and it was no where to be seen. Then we found the amazing grill by the front door...

Needless to say, we didn't do any barbecuing.

On Saturday we hit the town. After looking for the bar-b-que grill for so long we decided that bar-b-que sounded good for lunch:

We ordered a yummy appetizer of onion rings...my favorite:

After lunch we went to The Christmas place since Christmas is my favorite thing ever (even besides onion rings-and that's saying a lot):

(Do you see Santa's reindeer rounding the corner above?)After The Christmas Place Daniel let me play a game of SkiBall...I don't know where this attraction came from but I LOVE SkiBall!


Daniel played Frogger
And that was enough Arcading for me.

We found a store with some great masks. We considered buying them for next year's Halloween but my mask was $26 and Daniel's was $40. Maybe the Phantom of the Opera pays that much for a mask but not this ol' girl!
They were pretty fun though:

For those of you who know my husband you know that he HATES spiders. So you can imagine his reaction when he turned around and saw this:

After some window shopping we ended the evening by eating at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.


And a trip to Gatlinburg is not complete without one of these:

On our actual anniversary we didn't get home from our performance until around midnight. We were so tired, but we cut our top layer of wedding cake and took time to remember our wonderful day together one year ago.

Looking forward to year #2!