Allow me to recap the past week! Ryan turned 27 on October 11th, so in natural Katharine fashion I was up the night before working on several aforementioned projects. First off, I felt that it was necessary to have the appropriate signs in place.
On the bathroom mirror:
Down the stairs:
In the kitchen:
A little humor in the laundry room:
And what Birthday would be complete without a little prank??
Getting those balloons in his car at 1:00 am was quite the task. If any of our neighbors happened to be up late that night they would have seen me running around the yard frantically chasing cheerfully colored balloons as the wind picked up, sending about 80% of the balloons flying. My initial plan was to completely fill the car with balloons, but my cheeks started to hurt after blowing up about 35 of them... However, I still think my point was made.
When Ryan got home from work it was time for gifts! Here is my sweet Ryan reading his card, etc. The card contained several "coupons" in it: one promise for me to be quiet for an entire evening, one stating that I would fold the clothes straight out of the dryer to prevent wrinkles, one for me not leaving empty glasses around the house (one of Ryan's pet peeves), etc. There was, however, a fine print at the bottom of the card explaining that the Princess created the coupons and could therefore expire them anytime she wanted. : ) Hehe.
Later that evening we went to Carrabba's in the pouring rain for a lovely dinner and then watched a funny movie at home. It was a great day! I love Ryan so, so much and wanted to make his day very special : )
October 11th also happens to be my grandfather, "Papa" 's Birthday. Here he is with a little something I picked up for his special day from Edible Arrangements : ) I love my grandparents SO, SO MUCH!!!
Unfortunately, Ryan started feeling sick in the days following his Birthday. It started with headaches and chills and got progressively worse until the weekend. On Friday night we had a United Way event at my manager's house. Poor Ryan couldn't go, because he had been running a very high fever. Here is my manager's adorable son, William, teaching me how to play "checkers"- his word for poker.
I came home from the party at around 9:30, since Ryan was so sick with what we thought may be the flu. We were going to initially come home on Friday night for his Mom's birthday, but I tried my best to take good care of him here. I prepared a medicine table for him, complete with all the essentials: a heating pad for his back, a brand new thermometer, courtesy of Walgreens, a multitude of various medications, jello, crackers, etc. On Saturday during the USC game I got a little restless and decided that I wanted to do some yard work. I announced to Ryan that I was going to cut the bushes outside. That was putting it mildly... Ladies and gentlemen, in an effort to take the first step in what will probably turn out to be completely new landscaping, here is stage one of the massacre.
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All of the work was done with brute strength and these little babies…
Titanium…they weren’t kidding!
All throughout my childhood I would come up with outrageous ideas that would come to life if one of my neighbors and best friends, Joy, participated. Many of these were business ventures, perhaps a premonition to my future sales career. Aside from catching bees in jars and trying to sell them as pets and charging a hefty $20 for a coloring book in which there were no marks outside of the lines, I specifically remember creating a list of yard work and prices to offer our eager neighbors. One of those included bush cutting. Well, my friends, this was one of the few times that Joy actually told me no...and perhaps now I understand why.
Sunday was the 120th anniversary of First Baptist Church of Dillon, the church I grew up in and love so much.
Fortunately, Ryan slept through Saturday night with no trouble, so I got up at 5:30 on Sunday morning to drive to Dillon for our Homecoming service. Our speaker, Jimmy Epting (the president of North Greenville University) was nothing short of phenomenal. We had an incredible and motivating message preached to us on Sunday. Afterwards, we all got to enjoy a delicious meal under a big tent!!
Here is Karen, one of my friends since infancy. We literally met while we were in the nursery at First Baptist Church! I have been a source of her entertainment ever since.
Karen got a new car! She, Meagan, and I decided to model it.
I remember our 110th anniversary service in October of 2001 like it was yesterday. Our youth group played the handbells at the beginning of the service. Here are some fun pictures of that day:
First Baptist was such a wonderful spiritual foundation for us, and I will be forever grateful for this church and what it means to me.
I have been absolutely slammed at work this past week, but yesterday evening we invited Jamie and Chris over for some much needed fun!! We decided to make "homemade" pizzas, meaning that we bought the crust, meat, cheese, etc. and simply put it together like the folks at Digiorno, Inc. could have done. In Jamie's defense, she did find a recipe to make our own dough, but I decided that it would have taken too much time and effort. Here is Jamie making the pizza for the "adults" with many foreign items such as peppers, etc. at which I would have turned up my nose.
Here is my choice, the 100% old fashioned American pepperoni pizza. You can't go wrong with this one. Don't judge me because I hate change and branching out. At least I'm consistent!
While we were eating our delicious pizzas (which by the way, we learned that it is essential to put flour on the pizza stone when using crust out of a Pillsbury can…a whole other story in itself…), I began telling Jamie and Chris about a couple of weeks ago when Ryan and I were walking/running around the neighborhood. Ryan is better at the running part. It happened to be dark that evening, so Ryan had this spiffy little light on his headband. However, we discovered that that little gadget also functions as a…”Spider Crime Fighter.” By that I mean that it actually reflects off of the eyes of any spider within 20 feet of you so that you can a) run up and step on it, or b) run screaming. I utilized both of these options on that particular evening. Jamie and Chris thought that was totally cool, so we decided to run outside immediately to conduct an assessment of the spider population in our backyard. Here we are setting out on our excursion.
And here are Chris and a flu-free Ryan, who is most likely wondering why I insist on making a spectacle of everything.
Our backyard adventure lasted all of about five minutes due to the sudden cold weather and wind. We all headed back inside to watch a scary movie and eat these little balls of deliciousness:
I am VERY EXCITED about tonight and this upcoming weekend. Meagan and the gang are coming to stay with me for a fun-filled weekend of State Fair excitement!!! She knows that I always have surprises in store when she comes to see me : ) I can hardly wait to see everyone, and I definitely need a break : D
Until next time…
