A. Sharpe Life: Catch Up Blog

It has been so long since I last blogged, and since I want this to be like a scrapbook of my life, I feel as if I should get moving and try to catch up! (I’m still on my junior year of high school in my real, non-digital scrapbooks…I don’t have much hope there.) So without further ado, I present to you November 2011.

The first highlight (or should I say darklight) of November were these two furry creatures that Allan and I babysat while his parents were in Budapest. I must admit, I do love these funny, funny dogs (seriously, I wish everyone could experience the ridiculousness that happens with these 2 pups) but do I love them at 4am when they want to pee? Certainly not. Do I love them when they, normally weighing about 8 pounds, all of a sudden weigh about 40 lbs when I am trying to move them from my spot in the bed so I can get in it? Not really. Do I love them when they want to sit with me during a movie and cuddle all sweet? Yes! They were actually fun to have around, although they are majorly obsessed with Allan (meaning, waited for him IN the bathroom while he was in the shower) and I had to compete with that. : ) P.S. Yes, those are sweaters on the dogs.

The second highlight of November belongs to Thanksgiving! I really do love Thanksgiving (not only because of the yummy food) but because it gives me an excuse to go home and see my babies! This year, Allan’s parents were in Budapest, so we spent most of the holiday in Winston-Salem with my family. Lots of baby talk and casserole was had.

This is my brother Blake’s plate. He’s a big fan of the color yellow. His son Kessler kept wanting more Macaroni and Blake kept making him eat his other food. Then Blake walked in with this plate. I don’t really think that was fair : ) Love you Blake!

My mom was also really cute and decorate the black chargers to say “We are thankful for ______ (fill in appropriate name).” It was sweet and special.

I took this picture in case you didn’t know what ADORABLE meant.

Lolli (my mom) made some delicious pilgrim hats and chocolate turkeys for HC and Kessler. Watching them eat them was maybe my favorite part of the whole weekend. Honey proclaimed that it was the best turkey she had ever had (mainly because she had only had the meat kind of turkey) and Kessler took a huge bite out of the reese, closed his eyes, and so genuinely said “so yummy” in the sweetest voice ever. Needless to say, they won my hearts yet again.

The above picture is weird, I know. But it is just meant to show you what the back of my dad’s truck looked like as we all piled in there to go to the Festival of Lights at Tanglewood. 7 adults. 2 toddlers. A queen sized mattress. Lots of blankets. and my dad and mamaw in the cabin of the truck with 2 empty car seats. It looked pretty crazy. But it was fun. Until the kids stepped on you really hard and we got stuck in traffic and my brother Drew kept falling asleep. : ) Just kidding. It was pretty fun the whole time!

I became even more of an official South Carolina resident by finally putting on the SC license plate that had been sitting in my car for over a month. It was a big moment!

After Thanksgiving with my fam, Allan and I made a pit-stop in Raleightown to meet this beautiful little girl! I still cannot believe that Annie is a MOM! A MOM! whhhhat? Sophie is awesome and was so chill (i.e. sleeping) the whole time! I loved getting to hold her and I cannot wait to watch her grow! YAY!

Another highlight of November was when we broke a Guinness World Record. You read that right. We broke a Guinness World Record. One of Allan’s professor’s daughters was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma last November. Her name is Ansley and she is 6 years old. Ansley drew a picture which became the inspiration for this world record breaking experience. It was quite crazy actually. You see, someone figured out how to divide Ansley’s small picture in 500 + ways, then get children from all over Charleston to draw 1 of those 500 sections onto a large white poster, then get those posters in order, then organize 500+ people to come to a soccer field, line up in a certain order, then hold their certain poster board in the air for 10 minutes straight so that the picture could be seen from above. So that is how we broke the world record for the largest mosaic picture held by people (specific, I know, but hey, it’s a record!). It was actually really, really cool and you should read more about it here. Ansley took her last bit of chemo the morning of the record but was there to cheer us on! It was awesome! Below is a picture of the friends who went with us and our pieces of the record!

Since Allan and I just got married, I thought, what better time than now to start our own family traditions? First one: Cut down our own tree! Believe it or not, we were able to do this, not in the mountains, but along the coast realllly close to the beach at this cute little farm called Toogoodoo. Say it outloud. It’s fun.

We went the day after Thanksgiving and I just really loved it! I wasn’t used to the kind of trees that grow along the coast (they are not Fraser firs, which took me some adjusting!) but our tree turned out to be awesome and perfect for our mini-sized apartment! It was quite a search however, we walked allllll over the farm, from corner to corner, taking pictures of different ones to help us chose the best one. And we did choose the best one. Enjoy the photos!