happy thanksgiving

greetings from hilton head island. jay took this picture as the sun was rising this morning. (i was still in bed.) but i have since been up making blueberry bread for breakfast. (thanks southern living.) the coffee is hot, the ocean is cold, and the sand feels good in between the toes. hope you all have a fantastic weekend.

contest and awareness

hey there everyone. i am sure you have seen the little "button" on the right side of my blog about a "mckmiracle." i have been reading/following a blog and praying for a family whose 4th child was diagnosed in-utero with supraventricular tachycardia and a "fatal" arrhythmia. they were told that their baby would probably die before it was born, or if it lived through delivery, it would die shortly after birth. they began praying and inviting everyone they could to join them in prayer. well, 3 weeks ago, little stellan joined his 2 big brothers, 1 big sister, and his parents and is alive and well and a healthy newborn baby with a healthy heart. prayers do work. it's amazing. you can check out their story on mckmama's blog.

mckmama is having a contest of sorts and is really trying to raise awareness about a great cause, too. the cause is string of pearls, which provides professional photographs for parents who receive a diagnosis of fetal death in utero or a fatal diagnosis post delivery. they provide this service free of charge and run their ministry strictly off of donations.  she is working on a new project on her own of ways to help funding for string of pearls and has enlisted those of us who follow her blog to help her in her cause (with the bribe of a small prize).

so read up on mckmama and baby stellan (and her "msc"... many small children) and the miracle of healing in their lives.  then read up on string of pearls and their ministry to help parents grieve while providing them with beautiful memories of the short time they have with their little ones.  and keep on praying.  (it does work.)

it's snowing.....

it is true...

i cannot help it. i have been spoiled and i cannot convert back to any other grocery store. my heart belongs to publix. jay and i drove down to traveller's rest, sc (which actually is only about a 35 minute drive) and with cooler in tow, did some shopping at publix on sunday. it was worth every penny, too. we also discovered (and were not shocked) that the gas prices in sc are much lower than here. compare theirs at $1.95/gal to our $2.18/gal. so, we have decided that a couple of times a month, i will be driving to traveller's rest to visit my beloved publix and fill up with some cheap gas.

so what is wrong with our grocery stores here? we have ingle's. ingle's is sort of like kroger, but with fewer selections. i would much rather shop at kroger than ingle's. and they are everywhere. (they are based here.) we have a few bi-lo's scattered around (worse than ingle's). we have one harris teeter (too expensive with not nice employees) and some earthfare's and one greenlife. (both with many organic choices and some very "natural" customers. it is great if you have a cold and cannot breathe well when you go there. ok, it isn't that bad all the time. but it can be.) if you have ever been to a publix, or you currently shop there now, then you know what i am talking about. we weren't in publix 5 minutes, and an employee, who was seemingly in a huge hurry with lots of boxes, still slowed down long enought to ask us how we were and were we finding everything we needed. to me, that makes a huge difference. it is what i miss.

and now, we have a solution.

you still have time to...

meet orion.

this sweet baby is orion. he is matt and alicia's new "gsd" (as jay calls him), their german shepherd dog. he is 8 weeks old and, so far, hasn't given them too much trouble. alicia has been wanting a puppy for a long time and jay and i think that after one night with barley a few weeks ago, they just had to get their own! okay. so that probably isn't exactly the way it went, but regardless, they have a sweet new baby. he came over to our house last night to meet the girls while we all ate dinner. he was slowly introduced and cotton and barley demonstrated that they can play easy and gentle with him and cotton even reluctantly shared her tennis ball with him. orion even met dave and seemed curious about the creature he knew wasn't a dog, but was his size. it was a successful meeting, and we can't wait to watch him grow up!

(tired) orion. he really likes the back door. (anyone's back door.)

our three, closely watching. (and getting lots of attention.)

it really did snow!

so last tuesday, after a monday of wind gusting up to 50 mph, we had some snow. i admit that i was sleeping during the snowfall here at our house. jay took these pictures. (i slept late b/c it was my first night going back to work for the week.) it was still very windy last tuesday, so nothing stuck on anything for long down here. however, in the higher elevations, especially in madison county, it accumulated anywhere from 3-8 inches! in october! craziness. and it has been so nice and warm almost since then. here is proof that we did, in fact, have snow on october 28th.

the wind was blowing so hard on monday night the flag was straight out.

i told you we had snow!

our backyard view has changed a bit, too, with the addition of many new homes.

the lot next to us is still empty, and we hope it stays that way for awhile.