Dave the Minion

Ok, so this is really random but makes me laugh every time.  This is my favorite part of the movie Despicable Me and I find myself saying "what?!?!" like this little guy whenever I can.  It just makes me happy, and makes me giggle.  And I think it's funny that the little minion's name is Dave.

Harvest Family Day

Sunday we had a picnic with our church, Harvest Bible Chapel North Raleigh.  Long name, amazing results church!  Sorry, couldn’t resist.  Check out the link and come visit if you’re looking for a great church in the Raleigh area.

It was a fun time of fellowship, eating and playing in the hot sun.  I love church picnics.  There is always a plethora of yummy eats.  At our church, there is always an abundance of kids too!  We’re known as the baby-making church :) and take the commandment of “be fruitful and multiply” seriously, ha!  Pics are up on facebook here. 

No family day would be complete without a whiplash slide challenge!  Last year, Mike & CJ took each other on.  But because CJ is in Israel two other competitors had to carry the torch in his absence.  Check out Brian & Craig…and Lucas :0).

Ready, Set, Go!

The Many Faces

Oh the many faces of Brian.  He stole my camera one day and I found these when I downloaded my photos.  You wily thing, you.
Add your caption to any one of these in the comments. 

PS: HAPPY GOLDEN birthday to Joey!!  Hope you have a special day and live it up!  You only get one golden birthday!

Who’s Who Answer

Well, thanks for all the guesses.  I admit, I wasn’t 100% confident knowing which one was Becky and which one was me.  But I’m pretty certain now that I’ve got it figured out.  Brian and I debated back and forth and his argument was pretty convincing which is why I’m pretty confident I know the right answers.  Oh, and my mom confirmed that I got it right, so you know it’s right!

Most of you don’t know this, but my right ear is slightly misshapen and when I was a baby the middle of it stuck flat to my head.  What made the first picture difficult is that I couldn’t see the right ears very well.  But from what I could see I can confidently say that:

That’s right.  I’m on the left and Becky is on the right.  You can see Becky's normally shaped right ear and although I can’t see the other right ear the fact that baby on the right’s ear is normal is a dead giveaway. 

The second picture was a lot easier because in my opinion Becky and I were beginning to develop more into what I think we look like now.  So without further ado:

I wonder what my mom or dad was doing that was so funny to make us all look up and smile?  Mom…wanna fill us in? Hehe!

Thanks for playing!  I’ll try to do this every other week or so if I remember :). 

Atlanta Recap

We had a good trip to Atlanta last weekend.  We got in around 10:30 pm and hung out with Dad for a bit before heading to bed.  Saturday was a busy day…

Saturday Brian and I got roped into passing out flyers with my dad to invite people to his church’s VBS.  That was…interesting…because we had to “pass them out” in the parking lot of the local Kroger.  And by pass them out I mean put them under windshield wipers on parked cars.  I was so embarrassed and even nervous!  I was so scared someone was going to come back to their car just as I was slipping a flyer onto their vehicle and demand to know what I was doing.  Not my most favorite way of advertising, but we were happy to help Dad out :0).

After that we went home and got ready to go for a 5 mile run in order to keep up with our 1/2 marathon training.  We convinced Dad (who didn’t take much convincing at all, really) to ride his bike while we jogged along.  He took us to a really pretty park that had a nice greenway.  The run was good and we knocked it out fairly easily and at a good pace.  What’s a bummer is that when I went to upload the data from my Garmin watch I deleted it!  It’s a finicky thing, that watch, when it comes to getting it connected to a power/pc source.  I thought it froze up so I reset it.  Something similar had happened before and Brian reset it.  It didn’t delete the data when he did it so I figured I’d have the same luck.  Nope.

After our run we ate a quick snack for lunch and got ready to head to the Braves game.  When we got to the game I whipped out my camera to start taking some pictures and quickly realized I had left the camera battery in the charger at the house.  And I hadn’t bothered to bring my phone into the game so I was completely camera-less.  Hence the reason this post is lacking photos.  I was pretty sad :(. 

The game was fun.  Unfortunately, a massive storm decided to roll in around the top of the 5th inning creating a 2 hour 15 minute rain delay.  We clamored up to the covered seats to wait it out.  There was quite the lightning show for us.  As the delay stretched on I began growing tired and cold because the 96* day was quickly turning into a cool evening.  After about 2 hours of waiting the heavy rain out we decided to pack up and head home.  But not before stopping at The Varsity and grabbing some burgers & onion rings.  Yum!

We arrived home to the power out.  Yessss.  So we huddled around the storm radio to listen to the end of the game (which was called back on 15 minutes after we left!).  Sadly, after a rousing comeback the Braves finally lost in the bottom of the 10th inning to the Rangers.

These are the only two pictures I was able to capture from the whole weekend.  That’s me and Daddy-O on Father’s Day.  Wonder of wonders Brian was able to make him do a for-real smile for the camera!  WTG!  And wow, Dad, you’re tan!  The second is a picture of Brian enjoying his Sunday morning coffee on our way to visit Blueprint Church in downtown Atlanta.  We enjoyed worshiping at Blueprint and the message from Philippians 1 was very timely for us.  What are you living for if your hope isn’t in Christ?

When we got home from church Dad had smoked a ham on the grill.  I whipped up some homemade mashed potatoes, a nice spinach and avocado salad and some baked beans.  I didn't actually whip up the mashed potatoes b/c I couldn't find Mom’s mixer, so I used a hand masher.  Mmmm.

Well, all good times must come to an end and after lunch we packed up and headed back to Raleigh.  I forgot to mention but to and from Atlanta we enjoyed listening to the Chronicles of Narnia on CD.  We only made it through 2 books and I’ve been enjoying listening to them on my way to and from work and as I drive around to my properties.  If you haven’t read them, you should!

Dad, it was great to see you!  Thanks for letting us crash for the weekend!

Celebrate…

Good times, come on!

Wednesday was a day for celebrating!  The Lowther fam went to the Angus Barn to celebrate multiple things.  It was Sally & David’s 37th wedding anniversary (or as David informed Sally, 444 months of marriage!!)!  It was David’s 30th anniversary working for Big Blue.  And it was a late “Happy Father’s Day” celebration, as well.  Shew!  That’s a lot of celebrating!  I like excuses for getting together with the family and having good times. 

It was my first visit to the Angus Barn.  And Joey’s.
  
  

Brian texted our friend Jason for a recommendation on what to order.  And order he did.  We both thoroughly enjoyed our meals.  Unfortunately (well not so unfortunate because it was so good), I got filled up on the homemade cheese and crackers they provide for you at the beginning of your meal and could only eat about 1/3 of my meal.  No worries, I had yummy leftovers at work the next day!

After the tasty meal we topped off our celebration with some award winning Chocolate Chess Pie (a la mode) and coffee.  Sally & David got a complimentary pound cake for their anniversary!  It was all delicious. 

Aren’t they so cute? :0)  And by they, I mean Sally & David.
   

After dinner we took a tour of the barn and the wine cellar.  Did you know they keep a $13,000.00 bottle of wine in the cellar?  Wow, I wonder how much a glass of that would go for…?  And the Barn can seat up to 700 people.  Party anyone?! 

We love you Sally & David!  Thanks for letting us celebrate with you!

 

Friday Who’s Who?

After an almost 2 year hiatus (think, September 2009) the Friday Who’s Who has returned!  And what better way to kick off my little game again than a blast from the past?!  You think you’re good?  You have two chances to test your skills.

Leave your guess as to who’s who in the comments.  =)  I admit I had a hard time figuring these out myself!

Indeed we were bald until we were about two.  In fact, this picture makes me think of aliens.

Thank you butterflies for making this picture PG-rated :o)  We used to love bath time!

Good Luck!!

ATL!

We're ATL bound for the weekend!  Looking forward to spending a few days with my dad!  Haven't seen him since New Years.  

Mom is in CO hanging out with her SIX sisters.  They've created this club called the "Baa Baa Sisterhood" (sort of like the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, but different) and since their parents. (my grandparents) have passed away they have made it a point to get together and take a sister trip once  a year.  Why Baa Baa you ask?  Well, her maiden name is, I kid you not, GOATS!  Love it!  So, really, my family is just a herd of goats :o).  Will miss getting to see her but was glad she made the trip to NC to visit before she left for her adventures.  Oh, in addition to her six sisters she also has three brothers.  Indeed, they are a herd!

This weekend we're planning to take in a Braves game, maybe play some tennis and just hang out.  Looking forward to a relaxing trip.  I know it's going to go by quick, but relishing the fact that we get to visit.  Brian and I might also checkout Blueprint Church on Sunday.  It's the home church of Christian rapper Lecrae!  We've heard good things about the church from family and I'm pumped to attend and worship there!

I hope everyone has a great weekend!  Anyone got anything interesting/fun planned?

Texas Tumbleweed

I’m about to share something with you that may or may not make you want to a) not be my friend anymore or b) stop following my blog, if you happen to be one of my few followers.

S0, I encountered a Texas tumbleweed in my house last week.  Seriously.  I can prove it:

Yes.  IT IS what you think!  It’s a picture I drew in 5th grade!!!  Isn’t it awesome?!  Oh, no?  That’s not what you were talking about?
Oh, well yes.  That too is what you think.  Is that not the biggest hairball you’ve ever SEEN?!?!

That, my friends, is what you can scrape off your carpets if you don’t vacuum regularly. But in my defense, my hair is longer these days than it has been in years, and I shed like CRAZY!  But believe me, I’ve learned my lesson.  Does this face not communicate that clearly?  (Disregard the crazy hair and workout clothes…we’re in training people!)

Anyway, back to my drawing.  A few funny observations:
1) You can’t see it but this little piece of art received an Honorable Mention at the Texas Livestock Show & Rodeo.  Yeehawwww!
2) I was obviously still learning the whole concept of depth perception.
3) My cacti can defy the law of gravity; well one of them can anyway.
4) One cactus has an unusually long “arm”!  Looks like it’s trying to sneak his arm around his friend there.
5) Apparently myyyyy clouds are blue.  Must have been a doosey of a storm rolling in…
6) At least all my mountains are shaded on the same side.
Alright, go ahead, what other observations can you make about my awesome artwork?  :0)

Sorry if this post grossed you out!  Tricia, do you remember Vladimir’s wife (can’t pull her name out at the moment) scrubbing the hair out of our carpets??!!  Ewwwww!  My carpet sure feels & looks clean now!

Visitors Welcome!

That’s right.  Our guest room is made up and ready for you to come visit.  We love house guests!  So, if you’re not from around here and are making your way to the RDU area and need a place to stay you’ve got a room here :0). 

The room was a creamy yellow that didn’t really flow with the overall feel of the rest of the house.  We’ve used greys, blues and a sand color in all the other rooms of the house.  Every time I went into the yellow room I would look around and wonder what in the world I could do to begin decorating it.  I couldn’t  decide what accent color to use or even what color or pattern to use on a bed spread.

Here is a before picture: as you can see, it was very mismatched and not very pretty.  The bedside table and lamp are new and were purchased to compliment the new color and other decorations we had planned for the room.

My idea for the room was for it to be quiet, calming, peaceful.  A place of rest for a weary traveler.  A place of comfort and serenity.  I think we achieved that for the most part.

After shots:  The walls appear blue on my screen, but they’re actually a cool, sea-foamy green (Glidden: Gentle Tide)

Don’t mind the cleaning supplies in the last picture (woops).  The lamp and beside table are from World Market.  The bed is from Ikea.  The white bedding and accent pillows are from Target.  The wall art (flowers) came with the furniture from my parents and the white Ikea frames are filled with a couple of cut-outs from some scrapbooking paper I’ve had laying around for years. 

We moved the desk from the room to create more space and put it in the separate guest room (that needs a bit more work).  To update the look of the furniture that’s been in my family since I was in elementary school, we added glass knobs to the top of the dresser (tying it in with the beside table’s glass knobs) and fun cup pulls on the bottom drawers.  We added the same cup pulls to the desk along with more industrial looking knobs on the top drawers.

My mom came up for a visit this past week (Wed-Sat) and was the first guest to utilize our fresh, new room.  She, along with my sister Tracy and Brian helped me with a simple art project to help fill the area above the dresser.  We have plans to put a mirror on the wall, eventually, once we can find one that fits the space and the overall feel of the room.  We got the idea for this project from younghouselove.  I like to peruse that blog now and then for fun decorating/DIY home project ideas.  I am pretty satisfied with the end result.  What do you think?

Three-Peat!

Catching up on some recent activities.

Memorial Day weekend we took part in the annual Kudzu tournament.  A local ultimate tournament where we get to play on a co-ed team made up of several of our good friends. 

I’m happy to say that we defended our title and won the tournament for the 3rd year in a row!

Here are some pictures from the weekend :o)

The following 2 pictures are stolen from Kara.  Thanks for taking good pictures!

Way to go Third Wheel!!!

MIA

the blog has been silent for a few days...ok weeks.  but never fear, we've been busy.  and i have like 3 or 4 posts floating around in my head that i just haven't taken the time to write out and upload.  i'm working on it.  check back in a day or so and you might find some interesting tidbit to read :).

Sorry, I'm a slacker!