Randy & Candy come to Wake Forest!

One of our favorite couples from back home came to visit us in September!  We had such a fun time with them! 

 

 Randy is one of the Pastors at our church back home in Knoxville and his wife, Candy is the ultimate pastor's wife.  She is such a smart lady to learn from and I just love her to death!

 

When they got here on Friday night, we took them to Carolina Ale House...because that's where we take pastors!  Ha!  It's actually a delicious restaurant!

 

Here is me and Candy in front of the restaurant:

 

 

Randy & Candy inside...

 

 

and here is Chase, Jon, and me...

 

 

Chase just moved here from Knoxville too and he lives across the street from us!  He and Jon grew up together, so it's pretty neat to have him here now. 

 

The next morning we got up and I made panloafs for everyone.  Panloafs are pancakes on steroids.  They are roughly about the size of a regular dinner plate.  My sister, my friend Hailey, and I might become famous for them one day.

 

 

After breakfast we took Randy & Candy on a tour of the campus.

 

I forget how pretty the campus is every time I get to go up there.

 

Here they are sitting on Jerry & Nancy's bench (Jon's parents). 

 

It really isn't their bench, but we like to think it is.

 

Candy and I found some buckeyes!!

 

Here's the Missions Building:

 

And another buckeye.  They're supposed to bring you good luck so we kept ours.

 

Here's Randy figuring out where everything is...

 

 

We also took them to Shorty's Famous Hot Dogs for lunch.

You haven't been to Wake Forest unless you've been to Shorty's.  It's a hole in the wall joint, but it's quite tasty!

 

I think they liked it!

 

 

After we got done eating lunch, we did a little shopping and caught part of a hockey game that was going on.  None of us were really dressed for the hockey game, but it was fun to watch for a bit.

 

 

It was pretty chilly in there.

 

And then we went to.....

 

Goodberry's!  The best place for frozen custard goodness! 

 

It seems like all we ever do with people when they come to visit us is take them shopping, eat a lot, and play games.  I just have to make sure that they get to experience the maximum amount of things when they are here!  Even if we do eat three square meals a day, shop till we drop, and are play games until we're all exhausted.  What can I say, Chateau J & K aims to please our visitors!  Haha!  :)

 

Later on Saturday night, we might have eaten some more food!  Ha!  I made chicken fajitas for everyone and we snacked on those and some chips and salsa.

 

The rest of the night was spent laughing and playing games.  Randy & Candy taught us a fun, new game called "Greedy". 

 

The next morning we took them to our church and then they hit the road.  :(

 

We had SUCH a fun time with Randy & Candy coming to visit.  I told them that we have to make this into a yearly event now that they will both be retired by the end of the year.

 

Thank you Randy & Candy for coming to visit us!  Thanks for driving out here to see us, bringing us a bag full of goodies, taking us out to eat, and getting me the cutest cupcake candle.  We love you all and can't wait until you come back!

 

And for those of you who are reading this and have never come to visit us, it's time to book your trip!  :)  We love having people from back home come to visit us.  It's like bringing pieces of home to us for the weekend...so special!

 

Hope you enjoyed our fun time!

 

Love,

The Preacher's Wife

 

Next time, I'll tell you about my parent's trip here...

 

My T-Shirt

I had to go through some more training at work a while back.  An ice breaker game we had was to decorate a t-shirt that was all about yourself.  I decided to go all out on my t-shirt. 

Here's everything that I drew (I'm going left to right on my shirt):

I *heart* Pinterest--I really do!  It's so much fun and I'm so glad that I finally caved in and signed up.  I've gotten so many crafty ideas and yummy recipes off of it.

I *heart* my job!--I really do love it!  I'm having such a blast doing what I'm doing!  I'm so glad that I've finally found my calling in life---and that's working with seniors!

Tennessee Volunteers--I wanted my shirt to seem like it was a Tennessee shirt since that's where I'm from, where I went to college, and that's what kind of shirt you can normally find me in on the weekends.

Jon *heart*--I love my husband so very much!  I've always said that if I ever got a tattoo that I'd get something with his name on it...and possibly a heart, and arrow, and angel wings, and his face, and the saying "My Baby" under all of it.  Unfortunately, I'm not a gifted artist and I couldn't draw it on my t-shirt.  Not to mention I didn't have that much time.  My husband is extremely handsome so I think it'd take me or anyone a long time to draw his strikingly, good looking face.  :)

 

*heart* Friends--I do love my friends!  I have many special people in my life that I'm blessed to call friends.  Some close by and some far away, but no matter what, I know that they would always be there for me and I'd always be there for them in a pinch.

 

I *heart* my Family--I drew the whole family on there!  Me, Preacher Man, my Mom & Dad, my sister, his Mom & Dad,  his sister and her hubby, their two kids, and Preacher Man's grandmother, Ma.  I even drew my Mom's dog on there since she calls him my brother.  Ha!  I do love our family so very much!  Jon and I are so blessed when it comes to the family department....so blessed that I felt it necessary to draw everyone on there because I love them all so much.  :)

 

The Cross--Jesus is my Savior and I'm nothing without Him and the sacrifice that He made on the cross.  My relationship with the Lord is the most important thing in my life.  I try daily to put God first, family second, others third, and myself last.  I hope that I can show His glory in everything that I do.  Although I know I fail daily, I am thankful for His grace and mercy! 

 

I *heart* sports--I do love some good sports!  I'd say basketball and tennis are my favorites!  I'm a football fan, too!  I'm not the most athletic, but I'm pretty good at a game of horse....fortunately for me, I married Mr. Most Athletic....so he's helping me get better.  Although, I will say that I can spank him in some tennis!  Ha!

 

Fish--I love fishing with my husband....however, I will NEVER love it more than he does.  He could do it morning, noon, and night.  I enjoy it and I love getting to go out on the water with him.  Sometimes I just like watching him fish because he's in his element....and he's pretty stinkin' cute!  :)

 

I *heart* baking--Oh, how I love to bake!  Baking is my stress reliever.  I don't know what it is about it, but I love it.  And I love to feed people so it works out pretty well for me.

 

I *heart* board games--For people who know me really well, they know I love a good board game.  As a matter of fact, I have a different name when I play games.  Her name is Kathleen.  Kathleen is a very competitive lady.  She sometimes gets a temper when she plays (not a bad one--a fun loving, fun spirited, sweet-trash talking person).  I just really enjoy games, and I like to win--especially against my husband and my sister.

 

Duke--I love the Blue Devils!  I started watching them when I was in high school and I've been a fan ever since.  I think Coach K is one of the greatest basketball coaches ever, aside from Pat Summit.  I wear Duke Blue, NOT Carolina Blue, like my husband does.

 

So that's a lot about me that you might not know. 

 

Can't wait to share with you a few more things that have been going on.  We've had two sets of visitors come stay at Chateau J & K recently.  This past weekend my parent's came and we had such a good time together.  I'll be sure to post about their trip here soon!

 

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!  We're rooting for Tennessee to beat Bama!!

 

Go Vols!

 

Love,

The Preacher's Wife

The Crazy Lady in the Grocery Story

 

I bought a few balls at the grocery store the other day.  I just couldn't help myself!  They were 38 cents each so I decided to pile my buggy full!  And I got a few stares in the store.

 

And of course after I piled my buggy full I remember ten things that I needed to get.  So there went the crazy lady pushing her cart full of balls across the store ten times.  Haha!

 

I do have a reason why I bought them...work!  Oh how I love my job!  :)

 

Happy Saturday!

 

Love,

The Preacher's Wife

She's Having a Baby...

BOY!

 

One of my sweet friends Jodi is having a baby boy and we couldn't be more excited for her and her husband Chad!

 

Above is a picture of me and Jodi trying to use old wives tales to try and figure out the sex of her baby.  I wish you could have seen her face when I told her to lay down and hand me her wedding ring!  Hahaha!  This particular test said to put her wedding ring on a string and hold it above her belly.  If the ring started going in a circle she was having a boy and if it started moving back and forth it was a girl.

 

  None of our tests seemed to be very accurate.  Half of them pointed to a girl and half pointed to a boy.  However, this one test told us she was going to have a boy and this just happens to be the one quiz that we took a picture of!  Haha!  I still don't think they tell you anything but it was pretty fun to ask her all of the random questions that the quizzes online have.

 

 Chad and Jodi are going to have a sweet baby boy and we can't wait to meet little Brayden come February.

 

Let me know if you need any links to those old wives tales!  I think we looked up every quiz that there was out there! 

 

Have a fantastic Friday!

 

Love,

The Preacher's Wife

Wedding Weekend in TN

So this post is a little after the fact, like many of my previous ones, but it's still going to get published.  :)

 

In August we went home for a wedding for our friends Kendall and Erin.  Jon has grown up with Kendall and his brother Andrew almost his entire life.  The guys are basically like brothers. 

 

Here is our fun weekend from the wedding filled with the wedding, rehearsal dinner, friends, and the groom's cake made by one of my best friends, Amie. 

 

Enjoy! 

 

 

Love,

The Preacher's Wife

Weekend Getaway to Wilmington

Our 2 year wedding anniversary was at the end of the month this past July.

 

We decided to get away for the weekend and head out to Wrightsville Beach and to Wilmington.

 

We had a great time!  We enjoyed the beach, downtown Wilmington, our cute little bed and breakfast that we stayed in, good food, and getting out of Wake Forest for a bit.

 

Here are some pictures from the weekend...

 

We started the day out on the beach with a picnic and enjoyed watching others on the beach.

 

Neither one of us got in the ocean either--which is very rare especially for my husband, but not for me.  He did test out the waters to see how cold it was.

 

 

I also read Southern Living while I was on the beach and came across two wonderful ideas!

 

The first idea was for my Dad to buy some chickens!  Southern Living had a huge spread in their magazine about families who owned chickens and loved having them as pets and also for their eggs.  My Dad just retired and I thought this would keep him entertained since he's not working anymore.  I'm still trying to talk him into it.  I think it'd be great!  I also found the idea to make watermelons on a stick!  I tested this out at work and it was a huge hit!  They were super cute!

 

We also explored downtown Wilmington where our Bed & Breakfast was located.  We were within enough walking distance to walk downtown and see the battleship and check out some shops.

 

We also liked the pier.  It was a cute little place to walk around.  It ended up raining on us when we went out to dinner but that didn't stop us from waiting it out.  We ended up swinging on the front porch at our Bed & Breakfast until it passed.

 

I'll have to say that I felt pretty special when we got back to our room and they turned down our sheets for us.  Too bad we didn't have any chocolates on our pillows.  :(

 

It's the little things that I get so excited over!  :)

 

The next morning we had a great breakfast with some other couples that were staying  there.  The breakfast was good and I was proud of my husband for eating French Toast with Cranberry Syrup all over it!  :)  He still didn't touch the fruit on his plate.  :(

 

We topped off our weekend by coming back home and eating at The Cheesecake Factory!  We love that place!  And the best part about our experience there, aside from the Mac and Cheese Balls, was that we got a $10 off coupon for our next visit!  Whoo hooo!!!

 

We had a fun weekend getting away and I can't wait to go back again!

 

If you ever get the chance to visit Wilmington, I'd highly recommend it.

 

Love,

The Preacher's Wife

It's Football Time in Tennessee (& in North Carolina)

It's finally Football Time in Tennessee!!

 

And here in North Carolina, too!

 

We've had a great weekend so far!  Last night we had friends over to watch the Tennessee game and had some yummy football food.  Preacher Man says that it is 100% football season now that he's eaten little smokies.  :)  Of course. 

 

Friday Night Football...check.

 

Moving on to Saturday...

 

I was able to surprise my honey with some NC football tickets.  We had a Silent Auction at work and I was able to score these tickets and a parking pass for an awesome deal.

 

And I was able to surprise my husband, too!

 

 

And yes, you're seeing that right.  I put them on the toilet seat!  Ha!  I knew he'd find them there!

 

We headed off to the game today expecting to have a fun time.  I was expecting to be sitting in the bleachers and probably in the hot sun, but I was mostly excited because Jon was excited.

 

Here he is with the tickets...

 

 

 

On the way to the stadium we were wandering what our seats would be like.  We just figured we might have padded seats or something like that.

 

Boy were we wrong. 

 

We parked right beside the stadium with the parking pass that we had.

Once we got closer to the stadium we saw that the Upper Club Section (the tickets that we had were the Upper Club) has a special entrance.  Fancy.  :)

 

We both started to get a little more excited!

 

If you look really close and hard you might could read that it says Upper Club to the right off my honey below:

So we get through the gate and we got into the entry way where the Upper Club is. 

 

And we discover that we have to take an elevator to get to our seats.

 

Hello!  :)

 

We continued to have so many sweet people greet us and tell us to enjoy the game.  We even had a lady that pushed the button for us on the elevator. 

 This was a bit foreign to us country folks.  :)

 

Once we arrived to the "Upper Club" the angels started singing.

 

We walked into a huge air conditioned club filled with buffets galore and a ton of flat screen TVs floating everywhere with every football game on of the day.

 

We tried to contain our excitement and act like we were used to this kind of stuff.

 

But of course we got to our seats and this was our view...

 

 

And then I called my parents and told them that we had all kinds of free food and padded seats and that we were on the front row and we parked right by the stadium and that we were just so excited!

 

And I said it just like that and then I'm pretty sure I don't remember anything else that I said.

 

And then we tried to take it all in and calm down...and act like normal people.  :)

So we took a few pictures...

 

Here are the padded seats...

They were comfy too!

 

Here we are proud of our passes.  We were still in shock at what we had gotten for the price we paid for the tickets.

 

Here is the stadium...

 

And would you believe that my husband said..."This is nice, but it's not Neyland Stadium."

 

My heart melted.  :)

 

I just love him!

 

Once we got our excitement under control (or so we thought we had) we went upstairs to check out the grub...

 

You name it, they had it.  Fruit, Hamburgers, Hot Dogs, Nachos, Salad, Wraps, Baked Beans, Coleslaw, BBQ Pork, Grilled Chicken, Brisket, Cookies, Ice Cream, Candy Bars, Popcorn, etc.

 

It was AMAZING! 

 

I tried to sample at little bit of everything...seriously.  :)

 

Here are our pre-game plates:

 

I didn't have anything that I didn't like.  And we didn't have to eat supper tonight either!

 

I will let you know that we never cleaned our plates with the stuff that we got.  :)

 

You better believe we hit this cooler up!

 

And Preacher Man had his popcorn too!  I might have had a few hand fulls.  :)

 

And would you believe they had complimentary programs, fans, and pom-poms for everyone?

 

 Yeah, we got one. 

 

Here is the club area.  We tried not to act like crazy people from the sticks that had never eaten good food or felt air conditioning before while we were in there.  :)

 

Some of the pictures are blurry because we tried to not act like paparazzi.

 

Here is Preacher Man enjoying an dreamsicle while we sat in the club watching the 3rd Quarter.  Why, you might ask?   Because we could!

 

And of course we sampled a little more food...

 

I forgot to mention that we did watch football while we were there!

 

Here is the band during pre-game:

 

They didn't have a "T" to run through so they split the N and the C and the guys ran out from that.

 

But first they wheeled out a bell and chimed in the hour for the game...

 

and then they got the crowd amped up...

 

and I was doing cartwheels by this point.  (you know what I was really doing if you know what my love for Carolina is like.)

 

and then they blew smoke out....

 

and they finally came out.

 

And here's the other team...Elon University.

 

 

I have to be honest...I only clapped one time during the ENTIRE football game.  I clapped for some ROTC gentlemen that were going into the Air Force.  And that was it.  But I still had a great time...and not just because of the food.  :)

 

Here is the kick-off:

 

and some more football...

And here are the cool seats that were located behind us in the Upper Club.  These seats had TVs located between every two chairs!  It was unreal!  You could change the channel to keep up with other games that were on TV.  We even saw one guy checking out golf too!

 

We had an awesome time at the Carolina Football Game.  Even though I'm not a Carolina fan it was still fun to go to a football game.

 

And you know what one of my other favorite parts was aside from our fancy experience and food?

 

The catering company's name:

 

It just made the day a little more sweeter.  Never too much Rocky Top for this gal!  :)

 

Hope you enjoyed our experience as much as we did!

 

Have a great rest of the weekend!

 

Love,

The Preacher's Wife