# 2 Thanksgiving Feast 2010

I went out of order. This post was supposed to go before the one about Florida, but since I got behind uploading pictures we will just go with it. So, this is #2....Thanksgiving Feast. Amy would tell you, "It started with napkins" and it really did. She saw cute Thanksgiving napkins she liked in Hobby Lobby one day and then out of that this was birthed an amazing idea to have a Thanksgiving feast at our house. We bought the plates and napkins, which committed us to the ordeal, sent out invitations and started planning. We decorated the house. I borrowed tables and chairs from Grace and we set them with our fun plates and napkins.


We took on the cooking of the turkey...really Amy did. It was her first turkey and it turned out amazing. Here he is. We lovingly named him Gordo because well, it takes a 21 lb turkey to feed a lot of people and we had a lot of people.

We have planned parties where people were supposed to bring food and nobody really did and we all went a little hungry, but this time people showed up. The food was AMAZING! Everything was so good. Mashed potatoes, green beans, rolls, stuffing, dessert...all delicious.

We even through in Thanksgiving trivia and gave out prizes to the winners. It was so much fun that by the end of the night there was already a request for Christmas Feast 2010. This, of course, can only happen if the proper plates and napkins can be found.

#3- Florida Trip

My grandfather (Mom's dad) has been actively involved in the Boys and Girls club since the 60's. He recently received this award for his work with the club and my family went down to Florida for the ceremony (I referenced this in a previous post). Here are some pictures from the event.

The Whole Gang...
From Left to Right: My Uncle Mike, Mom, Suzanne (my granddad's wife), Granddad, Me, Lauren, Trey

My sister, Mom and I.

My sister and I being goofy of course.

1. Redocorating/Bedroom Shuffle

It started with a list. My roommate and I planned a Thanksgiving Feast (Thing #2 on the list of November happenings) for our group of friends. We sat down to make a list of all the things we wanted/needed to do to get ready for the big event. In the course of making this list we decided that we wanted to turn the extra bedroom into an office and redecorate it. While on the way one day to get things to make this plan happen we decided that my stuff would actually go better in the open bedroom and that my bedroom would make a better office. The room I was in was green and though there are an array of colors in my bedspread, green is not one of them. Moving all of my crap to the new room was now on the already lengthy agenda.

We wanted to put a desk in the office and Amy had seen this desk that she loved that was made out of an old door and 2 file cabinets. My sister had made a desk out of a large piece of glass and two wooden storage cubes she found at Ikea, so we headed to Ikea to see if we could find something we liked. After walking through the whole store finding nothing we could afford we decided to stop into the "As Is" section at the end and we found exactly what we were looking for. It appeared to be a part of a door. It had a white wooden frame, 2 peices of glass and best of all it was $10. We combined that with 2 white cubes from Walmart and below is our masterpiece:

Here are some pictures of the new office..

And of my new bedroom..

We were very pleased with how all of this turned out.

November...An Overview.

The last couple of weeks have been super busy with work things, fun things, holiday things and a lot of eating. I have not been faithful about blogging about these things, mostly because they have all kept me very busy. So here is an overview of all the big happenings of November and individual blog posts will follow:

1. Redecorating/Bedroom Shuffle
2. Thanksgiving Feast 2010
3. Trip to Florida for Pre-Thanksgiving and my Grandfather's Boys and Girl's Club award ceremony
4. Thanksgiving Day Atlanta Half Marathon
5. First Black Friday experience
   
6. Generation Salaam Thanksgiving Feast

a very fun discovery.

Apparently, in Buckhead there is a two story target with a cart escalator! I am not really sure why Target needs two floors, but it is fun none-the-less. You go up one side, while your cart gets its own ride up the middle. Fancy Smancy. I got a cart just for my dog toy and chocolate chips just so I could have the experience! What will they think of next?

crazy tree.

Lauren and I were a little stir crazy today in Florida so we decided to drive down to the beach. On our way we spotted the coolest tree ever and in true Jordan fashion....stopped to climb it. This is a Banyan tree. The tree produces roots that grow from the limbs in the air to the ground and eventually root themselves into the ground and form a new, connected tree.

This is one of the roots that now looks like a connected tree

Not sure what happened here...maybe my finger?

Ridiculous news story.

Airbag saves the life of a man choking on a raisin.

blogging in the car.

I am blogging....not from my work or from the comfort of my own home, but from the car....yep, the car. Don't worry, I am not driving. I may break the law from time to time and text while driving, but I draw the line at blogging on a laptop.....just seems unsafe. Anyway, I am on the way to Venice, Florida, which is located here....
on the gulf of Florida. My granddad is getting a major award for his work with the Boys and Girls club and my family is headed down there to support him and have an early Thanksgiving. All of this is really not the point though.....the point is, we have wifi in the car. That is right, internet. Our car is a moving wifi hotspot, an internet cafe cruising at 75 (sometimes much faster) miles per hour. If you know my brother-in-law, guru of all advances the technological world has to offer, you would not find this surprising. But I just think it is neat and that is all this blog post is really about....nothing important to say...nothing deep and life-changing, just a small moment to marvel at the wonders of technology.

LUG

Though my current job is not one that really makes sense to anyone who knows me well enough to know both my heart and my giftings, I took it because I really believed that God was doing some things at Grace Fellowship Church that are truly unique. Two of those things are kids and students. Below is a picture from the most recent LUG.
LUG is the middle school program that Grace does on Wednesday nights that combines fun, high energy music, dynamic teaching and break-out groups lead by adults and LUG heads (high schoolers discipling down). This program intersects the lives of nearly 1000 middle schoolers every single week. The church is exploding with middle schoolers. This past week they saw 25 students respond to the gospel for the first time.

On days that I do not love exactly what it is that I am currently doing, I remind myself that I am blessed to be a part of a place like Grace...a place that really is reaching the Neighborhoods, Nations and Next Generation.

This is AWESOME!

concrete belly flop

I had a car full of things I needed to take inside of the church. I loaded my book bag with things and flung it on my back. I placed a large Bible study DVD set in my arms and a full Operation Christmas child box on top of that. In my right hand I had my coffee mug with yummy peppermint mocha creamer in it that I had yet to fill with coffee. I started walking toward the church offices and am not really sure what happened, but suddenly I was falling and I knew that I wasn't going to be able to stop myself. I went toppling over and slammed into the ground with all of that stuff in my arms and on my back. My right knee hit first, the boxes went cascading out of my arms. Then my right hand slammed down with the coffee cup in, shattering the mug and sending creamer flying into the air and into my face and hair. I laid on the ground in pain looking at all of my crap strewn across the parking lot. I rolled over onto my back moaning and really hoping that nobody just saw me because I am sure that from a distance it just looked like I decided to belly flop myself onto the concrete for the heck of it. Everything was throbbing and I didn't want to get up. I had woken up sick already and at this point I just wanted to go back home and start Thursday over again. (Thursday mornings going wrong has been a pattern this fall) This mom and little boy ran over to help me and see if I was okay. The little boy says, "You have milk all over your face," which made me laugh. They helped me pick up my stuff, while I assessed the damage to my hands and my knee and tried to get up.
I have a swollen knee, small cuts on my hand and a slightly bruised ego to show for myself, but all-in-all I am okay....though I cannot say the same for my favorite coffee cup...

...Sad day, I really liked that cup.

dessert fast.

I like sweets. I really, really, really like ice cream and chocolate chip cookies. I could take or leave candy and cake and pie, but ice cream and homemade cookies....I could consume (and have consumed) until I was sick. Lately, I have been eating a great deal of crap. I have been eating healthy meals, but a lot of dessert before and after and around those healthy meals and although I have been running a ton training in the past months, all of the crap I am eating still makes me feel yuck at times. Yesterday I decided that I would ask my roommate Amy if she wanted to keep each other accountable to not eating crap for a week. I figured since we live together and frequently eat these things together that it would be very helpful to invite her into that process. What is funny is that when I asked her about it last night, the second I got the words out of my mouth she shot back, "10 days...I want to do it for 10 days." Apparently, she had also been thinking about the same thing. So, this Friday begins the torturous "no crap fasting detox" until around Thanksgiving. Though I might be slightly cranky those 10 days about giving up some of my favorite things, I do think it is a good practice leading into the holidays to deny yourself those types of pleasures, especially because the holidays are teeming with dessert and junk food and you could easily find yourself in a sugar induced coma by the New Year...not to mention a larger pant size.

how to bake a potato

I am baking potatoes tonight for Bible study and though I was pretty sure you bake them in the oven for an hour, I wanted to be sure. What do you do when you want to be sure about something? You google it. I googled baked potato and I found this very helpful website entitled "How to bake a potato." Who dedicates an entire website to something like this? Who pays for the URL? I mean there aren't even that many steps and they even give you pictures with each step. They tell you to poke holes in it with a fork and then show you a picture demonstrating poking holes in it with a fork as if on your own you would be unable to figure out exactly how that should go. I think this is funny.

a fall back diatribe.

Today is my least favorite day of year. Why? Because tonight when I am on my way to the 5:15 service at Grace, the sun will be setting...and when I get out at 7:00ish it will be pitch black dark outside. I cannot stand this. The days seems so long. At 8pm I feel like its midnight. It seems like you have so much less time to get things done, to be outside, to enjoy anything and everything.

Now, for the sake of not posting something completely negative here are the only 2 good things I can think of that come from this day light savings occurrence:
1. The extra hour of sleep (I often thwart this though by falling back early in my mind and staying up later than I should)
2. It is lighter earlier in the morning....this helps my motivation to get out of bed and get going.

26.2...DONE!

I did it. This past Sunday I finished my first marathon and I didn't die. I really can't believe it. It is by far the most difficult thing I have ever done. 26.2 miles is a VERY long way. I was so nervous. I did not think I would be able to finish at all. I was surrounded by crazy athletes who were WAY more prepared than I was and completely confident in their ability to run the race in times much faster than I could imagine. My friend Amy came up with me and she kept reminding me that I just needed to do it my way and that she knew I could finish...and she was right. I finished in under 5 hours and I managed to run the whole thing without walking. Even though this was a very hard journey with all of the training it took, it was worth it. I had to keep reminding myself that there was a major "why" behind what I was doing. I wasn't just running to say I ran a marathon or to check another thing off my list...I was doing it for my sister, my brother, my dad...to connect with them...for a cure for diabetes.

When I crossed the finish line the first feeling I had was excitement, the second was relief and the third was that everything in my body hurt and I might collapse if I didn't quickly sit down. I was in a great deal of pain for the next 3 days, but feel much better now. It was truly an amazing experience. At this point, I have no "marathon bug." I have no desire to do another one, but it is really neat to be able to say that I have run a marathon. It is really neat to have done it for a cause that is so close to my heart. Thanks to all of you for your support!

a marathon update.

In less than a week I will be running the Marine Corp Marathon in Washington, DC. This will be my first, and probably only, Marathon. I have always wanted to accomplish this, so when the opportunity came up to run with a team and raise money for Diabetes, this was perfect. It has been so much more difficult than I imagined...so much more difficult than training of the half. The time and planning it takes to accomplish the training is just crazy. I have struggled to fit it in with a full-time job and other life things. It is hard to set-aside 3 hours in just one day to run...plus over 4 hours of running on other days.
I also managed to injure myself in my last long run. I ran 18 miles a week and a half ago and hurt my right foot during that run. I didn't do anything to it, like twist it, it just hurt and I could barely walk the next day. I took a week off, did the doctor/X-ray thing to make sure there wasn't a stress fracture and that turned out all clear. But when I attempted to run 5 miles yesterday the pain came back with a vengeance, so something is wrong with it and I am just hoping it will miraculously feel great on race day and that all of this healing time off will not affect the run. I am very doubtful at this point about my ability to run that distance, but I am going to give it a go.
On a more positive note, I have nearly reached my fundraising goal, which is awesome. So we will see how it goes. Click here to see my personal page and hear about why I am running.

A perfect Fall Saturday

If you were to ask me what my idea of a perfect Fall Saturday was, I would tell you that it would have to include; apple picking, a pumpkin patch, a drive through the mountains with the windows down, 73 degree temperatures and a picnic by a river with some fun friends. You would be hard pressed to come up with a better line-up of fall activities than that. This is what this past Saturday consisted of and it was amazing.

First stop: Apple Picking

We discovered really yummy green apples on the last row. Not sure if we were supposed to pick those, but they were better than the other ones, so we did.

We are really excited about our full bags of apples. Not at all sure what we are going to do with them all, but it was fun times!

The plan was to leave the apple orchard and find a place to hike in the mountains. On the way to do that we saw a sign for Bert's Pumpkin Patch and I went so crazy I almost drove us off of the road....whoops. A friend had just told me about this place the week before and then there we were...accidentally there, so we had to stop. The place was a mad house. Tons of people apparently knew it was there and went there on purpose. Either way, it was amazing. The whole place smelled like the most amazing pumpkin pie you have ever smelled. They had ginormous pumpkins like these...

This is Amy in the wheelbarrow with our pumpkin. We both spotted one at the same time that we liked, so he is the one that came home with us.

The pumpkins we chose.

This is a difficult rule to follow....I mean the second you see a pumpkin as big a Lazy boy chair all you want to do is sit on it. Ever the rule breakers we are.

Who knew there were so many uses for gourds? I certainly did not!

If you have yet to take a day to enjoy the fall and do some activities like the ones above you should. It is, after all, the best time of year!

Fall Party- Pumpkin Carving!

The beginning stages of a beautiful Clemson pumpkin. Not sure what kind of goofy look I have going on here.

Benji hard at work....he is displaying his "tooth." Apparently you should put a tooth in your lid so it is easy to place back on correctly. Not sure a tooth as large as his is necessary, but he was proud of it.

The whole gang and our finished works of fall art. Super fun!

super cute.

My sister finally did it...she got her nose pierced! I keep saying she got a "nose ring" and she keeps correcting me...."It's not a nose ring" she says. Either way....she looks super cute with it!



She keeps telling me I need to get one and I have at least 2 reasons why that is not a good idea....
A) People will finally have something to distinguish us by and I will never hear the end of it if I copy her and do the same. I am still hearing about my haircut and how that has hindered people's ability to tell us apart.
2) I argue that it is cute on her, but would not look cute on me. She disagrees, but I hold strongly to this opinion.

Eyebrow ring?.....NEVER!

This is not okay...

Seriously? It is still 80 degrees outside, Halloween hasn't happened, we are over a month away from Thanksgiving, the time has yet to change, the leaves are still mostly green and I have yet to enjoy fall fully....it is NOT time for stocking stuffers and Frosty yet!

the most bizare thing I have ever seen.

I think that I have probably said a statement like, "The most bizarre thing I have ever seen" on more than one occasion, but this time it really is true. I was sitting outside of church in a meeting and I was listening to what the other person was saying, when all of a sudden something caught my eye. I turned my head to see a person running down the sidewalk (this is some 40-50 yards away) in a black, spandex body suit that looked exactly like this....



It covered their entire body....head and all. From what I could tell, it looked like they wouldn't even be able to see or breathe. They had on tennis shoes and they were running....like out for a jog kind of running. Although for all I know they could also have been a bank robber running from the police and that actually would have made much more sense. They stopped in front of the church, bent over trying to breathe I suppose and then kept running. My coworker and I were in awe....I watched until they were out of sight and it took me a while to regain focus.

I have no idea what that could have been about. There have to be much better ways to increase sweat production if that was the goal. Any thoughts?

pumpkin spice creamer

One of the perks of this time of year is the plethora of yummy seasonal items one can buy and enjoy. Amongst my favorite, is this guy...



I have been stalking the creamer section of Kroger for weeks wondering when it was going to make its appearance and wondering why they were making me wait so long. I got impatient, so last night I looked up the Coffee Mate website to see when it was coming out. They have this feature where you can look up individual flavors, put in your zip code and find the one closest to you! As it turns out, Target was the only place carrying it, so today I stopped by to purchase one. It will be a happy moment when the first taste of that hits my mouth.

Just another reason why Fall is favorite!

in contempt of court.

I have had my share of traffic violations in my short driving experience. About a month and a half ago I was on my way to work to unlock doors for Bible studies and I got in this really long line of traffic in front of a school. It was the week school started and it was about 7:45am so traffic was horrendous. There are 2 lanes that go straight and one that turns right. I needed to turn right, so I got into the far right lane and started heading up, but apparently I got into that lane too early and unfortunately for me there was a police man sitting there who kindly pulled me over to inform me of my mistake. I will argue this intersection is confusing because the turn lane is very long, but apparently there are certain points where you can only turn into shopping centers and you cannot go straight. There is old paint on the ground that use to indicate this and there use to be yellow pylons that wouldn't even allow you to go straight, but those are all gone now. Anyway, this seems to be a common mistake and since I got pulled I have watched tons of cars do the exact same thing I did. After sitting in the parking lot for 30 minutes, I was finally issued my ticket and set free. The damage was $116.50 and/or a court date to plead my case.

I knew the court date was the first week of October. Up until the night before the court date my plan was to go to the court hearing and plead my case and then I decided I was too busy so I would just pay it. I got home, sat down on the couch with all the info and the ticket said you could pay up until midnight the day before your case. My case was Thursday, October 6th, so I sat down to pay the ticket and the website said that paying the ticket online was already closed. Now this irritated me since it was 10pm....a whole 2 hours before online payment was supposed to end and this meant I would have to spend my valuable time in court the next morning and I didn't want to do that. I just happened to look at my calendar and that is when I realized that TODAY (Wednesday) was OCTOBER 6th....NOT TOMORROW! I had missed my court date! I had failed to pay my ticket and I had just totally missed my court date because I'm a moron. I wasn't busy...I wasn't dead...I was sitting at Panera that morning enjoying a cinnamon crunch bagel and coffee, while all the while my name was being called in a Snellville courtroom and I was being held in contempt of court! I might have almost had a heart attack. The document said that failure to appear in court may result in the suspension of your license and/or a warrant being issued for your arrest! YIKES! My roommates tried to focus my panicked attention on the "and/or" part of that phrase, but I was unconvinced. A WARRANT! Seriously! I work for a church and there is a warrant out for my arrest simply because I am an idiot, didn't pay attention to detail and all day long thought it was Oct. 5th. Whoops! A very big whoops!
So, the next morning I drove slowly, careful to obey all traffic laws, pulled up at the Snellville City Hall the moment it opened and 15 minutes and nearly $200 dollars later walked out, not in handcuffs and not having to hail a cab. Apparently it is expensive to be held in contempt. My blunder cost my an extra $70. The court clerk said I could get a new court date, explain to the judge what happened and maybe he would wave the extra fees. What would I say?....."Umm, judge, well, what had happened was....I wasn't here because I was eating a bagel." I hope the city of Snellville buys themselves something nice with my cash.

The Wests

When I look back over the course of my life there are people who I have met who just stand out over the rest and have had a significant impact on my life. The Wests are two of those people. I met them in May of 2006. They were on my M-fuge Nashville camp staff. I met them just 6 days before my dad died. Carrie and I had been paired up as prayer partners for the summer and I remember how much time she spent praying with me and for me...for my family...just sitting with me and listening. I might not have made it through that summer if it wasn't for them. I have seen them from time-to-time over the years since then, but last year, when I moved to Houston, they happened to live 10 minutes from where I did off of the same exit. It was a huge blessing to be so near them again, if for only 8 months. They ended up moving last November, right before I did, and are now in Missouri.
They both came into town yesterday for the Catalyst conference, so I got to spend a few hours just eating with them and catching up on life. They truly are amazing people, who love the Lord and who have loved me well over the years I have known them. I am thankful for their presence in my life.

first signs of fall...

Well Fall is here. Yay! I can't tell you how excited this makes me. I have this smile that rises up from inside when I walk out into the 60 degree temperatures and I can't make it stop. I LOVE IT! A couple of fall activities/first signs of fall have happened already and there are many more to come, I am sure.
This is one of them...


...Cali and I found this on our walk the other day and were very excited about it.

I have also eaten pumpkin spice pancakes (recipe found here), worn a hoodie, drank a few pumpkin spice latte and been to a Clemson football game (well tried to go to a game, couldn't get in....this will be a separate post story).

Tonight is also a very special occasion. My roommate and I are having a "We Love Fall Party" at our house. The evening will be full of fall food, fall treats and fall activities, including but not limited to; pumpkin carving. We are excited about it. Should be fun times.....with many more fun fall times to come!