A Most Gorgeous Event

Aside from my trip(s) to Chik-fil-A, the thing I was looking forward to most about my quick trip to Atlanta was celebrating the wedding of Beverly and Dariun. The whole weekend was just beyond words, but I think my favorite part was the actual ceremony. It was so worshipful, and Walter did an amazing job officiating. 

Unfortunately, I set my camera aside "somewhere where I wouldn't forget it" and then promptly lost it until just before I left to come back to England. These photos were taken on my iPad. I'll have to treasure the memories from the rehearsal dinner, reception, and fun times out with friends only in my heart. If you're one of those people who was there and we hung out, will you e-mail me photos? I'd love to have them.

Beverly, you are beautiful inside and out, and this photo only barely begins to reflect your gorgeous soul. I love you!

Thanks for giving me the honor of standing beside you and Dariun on your special day.

Going to the Chapel

Hey-o! Sorry for the slow posting over here in blog land. 

Just a note to say that in just a few days I will be celebrating the creation of a new family with my dear friends Bev and Dariun. I can't wait to stand by them when they say "I do"! There will be so many people I love there, and I'm so pumped to give and receive lots of hugs.

My trip to Atlanta will be a whirlwind - I'll only be there for two full days - so I'm sorry if I can't connect with everyone I'd like to. If you want to just take a chance on finding me, and I'm not with Bev doing wedding things, you should try Chik-Fil-A or Target.

Christmas in Georgia

Nathan finally got to meet his godson, William "Griff" Griffith. He's looking at Nathan like, "Seriously, dudes? You picked this guy to be my life-long spiritual mentor?"

We went to the Georgia governor's mansion with Nathan's mom and dad for a free tour and a looky-loo at the Christmas decorations.

Whoah! Who's that? It's none other than the First Lady of Georgia, Mrs. Deal, welcoming us into her lovely home.

The in-laws, MAD (aka Mom and Dad), and us at the Guv's

If it weren't for the reflection on his glasses, this could have been our Christmas picture. We didn't do one this year for the first time in our married life. I just couldn't get my you-know-what together this holiday season. Maybe a Valentine's Day card is in the future. Y'all already know how I feel about Valentine's Day.

This is Nathan. You know that. But you probs didn't know that his high school alma mater asked him to come be the commencement speaker for their graduation ceremony while we were home. It. was. awesome.

While we were there, he reconnected with his 7th grade shop teacher. Her daughter graduated that day. When he told her who he was in all his silver-foxy glory, she looked at him like she didn't believe she could be old enough to have taught him in middle school. That'll be me next. My first group of kiddos is getting married and having babies already!

We kept it real at Flip Burger and snapped this one with Bev and Dariun, who are ENGAGED!!! Yay!!!

I realize now that I did a terrible job of taking pictures of family and friends in Georgia. That - and I'm depending on other family members to send me some. All my attempts to troll Facebook for posted pics have been a big, fat FAIL. C'mon, Parkers! Get to it! We have no official memories if I can't blog about it! :)

Georgia Christmas Highlights: Part 2

What did we do in Georgia this Christmas? We ate and talked and ate and talked and ate and talked with friends and family. That's what we did. 

Breakfast, lunch, coffee, dinner, breakfast, lunch, coffee, dinner, breakfast, lunch, coffee, dinner... for two straight weeks. It was both tiring and awesome. Chik-fil-A, Starbucks, Willy's, Nuevo Laredo, West Egg, all the usual haunts. Ice cream, barbecue, chili, cornbread, Rigby rolls, loaded mashed potatoes, chicken biscuits, chai lattes, margaritas, guacamole, cheese dip, unlimited chips and salsa. Oh my!

Now Nathan and I are walking 4.3 miles round trip to town every day to make up for our Christmas binge eating.

The Parkers

Perkins/Parker families

He got 250 packets of Dukes mayonnaise. Gross...

Kirby time!

He made me stop and take this picture in North Georgia.

Carter and Will - love these guys!

Worlds Collide

Just got the bowls I ordered on eBay. That was seriously the fastest customer service I've ever had through the post - ever - not just in England. From "click to purchase" to doorstep, they were here in less than two days. That's the good part. The bad part is that they reeked of cigarette smoke and they're the wrong size. Ugh. I don't even have the money or heart to mail them back. I'll just deal with having three big bowls and three medium bowls. And if you know me, you know that is a big freakin' deal. I'm almost a slave to uniformity. See? I'm growing in grace.


Anyway, we had our guests over last night, and I am excited to finally post that it was a WHITEFIELD GRAD and her English husband. Yeah. Susan is being supervised by the same professor as Nathan, and we all met at the said professor's house for a Christmas lunch he hosted for his students and their significant others. We arrived there and, after taking off our coats, Professor Ryrie looked to Nathan and Susan and said, "I think you both are from Atlanta." 


"What? That's weird. I haven't met anyone in England from Georgia at all," she said.


"Us either! Where abouts are you from?"


"Vinings."


"What? No way! We lived off of South Cobb Drive!"


"Crazy! I went to school off of that exit."


"Wait. Which one?"


"Um... it's a small Christian school. Whitefield Academy?"


Long stunned silence.


Nathan (pointing at me): "SHE TAUGHT THERE FOR FOUR YEARS!!!"


The room fell quiet, and all 12 people were staring at us.


It was pretty wild. What are the odds? It turns out she was in the same class as our friend Liz, which led to the telling of all our best Liz stories, including my personal favorite - the time she sneaked in a nine month pregnant belly's worth of Coke and snacks into the Fox theater using a big shirt and some Ace bandages to hold it all in... and then saw an old boyfriend.


Anyway, we told Susan and James, her husband, (another weird coincidence since my parents-in-law are Susan and James) that we'd have them over after the holidays, and we finally did last night. It got even weirder when, over some apple dessert cake, we discovered that Susan went to a prom hosted by Nathan's old high school with Nathan's brother's good friend. She double dated with Nathan's brother and his date, and they traveled to prom in a limo together. 


"Wait! You're Andrew Parker's brother?" she said, leaning forward with wide eyes.


I just flipped open the coffee table book of our wedding to the page with Nathan and his brothers. Susan stared at it incredulously and then started back at her apple dessert cake, thinking something along the lines of, "I'm so weirded out right now." It went on and on... she camped and worked at Camp Westminster, the same camp that all the Parker kids camped/worked at, she attended church where Nathan "fake attended" when he was in his rebellious years, she shared mutual friends from both places (camp and church), etc.


"Sorry Susan..." I said. "It looks like we've been sent by your past to haunt you."


And then we took some pictures.


Good times.

 The usual pose: Nathan, me, Susan, James

Liz (the blonde, not the Victorian angel) and Susan: high school classmates reunited, if only through a Christmas card.

Tea Towels and Such

I've been a little too excited about all things Cath Kidston lately. They're currently only in England and Japan, but they would be so huge in the US! Check out the website. Here are some of my favorite items from the catalogue I requested be mailed to The North Barn, even though I had absolutely no intentions of buying anything. Everything is too expensive for me, even if the £ sign was changed to the $ sign.

An overnight bag

 Some warm striped pajamas

Some bath towels just for me

 

 A darling Christmas tea towel

Speaking of tea towels... I saw some really, really cute Atlanta tea towels at two different friends' houses (Kay and Anne), and I've been thinking about them ever since.  I did a little research today, and I found that this company makes geographical tea towels (among other things like pillows and glasses and t-shirts and beach towels and and and...) for many cities, all 50 states, countries, national parks, everything...

 Here's the image from the Atlanta tea towel.

And here's the Georgia one. Cute, eh?

They'd make great gifts for so many friends all over the world. I can think of specific dear-to-my-heart faces that would be thrilled to have a tea towel with geographical art from Vancouver, New Mexico, Michigan, Indiana, Arizona, Illinois, Chicago, Florida, Washington D.C., Seattle, Canada, America, Paris, England, California, or Transylvania (no kidding) embroidered on the front. 

If I had the moolah, I would collect all 50 states as well as towels for Atlanta... and England... and Yosemite. However, they're $20 each though, and they don't ship to the UK. What would I do with them, you ask? Not sure... I definitely wouldn't use them on the dishes though. 

Which ones would you fall for? Leave a comment and qualify for a prize from Scotland!

Georgia Aquarium

After our "Tour de Georgia" day (taxidermist, Stone Mountain, Varsity, Georgia State), we finished up at the Georgia Aquarium. Our neighbor, Craig, volunteers there by diving and cleaning the tanks and feeding the big fish. Cool! Here we are in a tunnel with a big ol' fish over my dad's head.

Hello, big ol' fish!

Nathan, Craig, and my dad looking at the salt water tank.

Here's Craig and an alligator who'd taken an interest in him.

Hello, alligator! Or is it a crocodile? I can never tell...

The Varsity

My mom would have hated this place. Nothing healthy here. Nothing healthy at all. The Varsity was perfect place to take dad. When the cat's in California...

Another "of course" picture.

Stone Mountain, Mt. Rushmore for Southerners

After our trip to the taxidermist, Dad, Nathan, and I went straight to another Southern staple, Stone Mountain. On the side of the huge granite mountain are the figures of three heroes of the Confederacy, Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis.

We went on a misty Friday, so there weren't a lot of people there. Whew! In the summer, the lawn behind us is usually filled with people waiting for the laser light show. I think they have fireworks too. :)


We took a cable car up to the car instead of walking up over a thousand feet (memories of the Snake Path at Masada made me sweat), and the top looked like the moon!

Of course.

My First Braves Game

A friend from church, Mary Lou, took me to my first Braves game this week. It couldn't have been more perfect: perfect weather, amazing seats (row 2 behind home plate?!), great ball park food, superb company, and the Braves won in extra innings. :) Thanks Mary Lou!

A Weekend Away

Last weekend Nathan decided to go camping in lieu of our trip to Europe, an obviously cheaper option. We took a leisurely drive through the North Georgia mountains looking for a campsite. Six hours and four campgrounds later, we found one! The pictures above and below are of us outside of full campground number three. It was pretty, but as you can probably tell by our faces, we were OVER IT and ready to settle in.


Yay! We finally found a place! It was the second-to-last spot, and we were thrilled!

The next morning, we drove to a small little town in search for food, and Nathan said to me, "Let's look for a little hole in the wall restaurant with some seating outside." As we rounded a corner about 10 seconds later, I said dryly, "There's one... literally." And here's my picture to prove it.

Big Canoe with the Kijankos

This is a picture of Nathan and his $5 grocery bag full of books and videos. We happened to be in Big Canoe during the Tour of Homes (my treat) and annual used book sale (his treat). These were actually the spoils after round two through the book sale area. If you couldn't already tell, the bag was about to break.

This is the trunk of our Matrix (Reloaded) filled with books! What are we going to do with all of these?! Among them are lots of theological heavyweights next to the movie Commando, with Arnold (The Governator). I picked three books and a movie (You've Got Mail).


We had some good time with Tony and Dee Kijanko, who were mentors of mine in college. They led a missions trip I went on to Trinidad and Tobago in 2002. Dee is the vision of the hostess I'd like to be someday. It was awesome!

Another River Walk

Nathan and I went back to the river on Sunday. Atlanta has just been beautiful this last week!



This is in the car on the way to the river. I've been on a sweet tea kick lately. A Southern belle phase, if you will. I think I look like a greasy frog in this picture, but I am rarely seen without my Whitefield cup and sweet tea this days.

Nathan figured out the timer on the camera, and we took this picture right outside of the parking lot to the river. You have to pay $3 to park in the lot, and we're kind of cheap, so we walked the extra 500 yards to the reserve. Besides, there were pretty azaleas on the street. :)

Giant lizard! We totally would have missed this if we had parked in the lot, right Nathan?


Nathan reminds me of Gaston from "Beauty and the Beast" when we take these kinds of pictures. :)




Atlas comes out by the river! Is the gym... this way... or that way?