Happy Birthday Ryals!

Its been a fun weekend again! It began with David's MAI dinner on Thursday night, which I have already blogged about. On Friday night, we headed into Atlanta to have dinner with Brince and Laura Lyn at JCT Kitchen. We had a great meal catching up with them. Afterward, we ran into Ryals and Lauren upstairs and got to hang with them for a bit! (Little did Ryals know, but we were going to be seeing him the next night too!)

JCT Kitchen was wonderful!

 On Saturday night, we helped surprise Ryals for his 30th birthday at Prime in Lenox Mall. Lauren was awesome at planning the whole celebration, and we were all so happy to be a part of it. Everyone was waiting at the top of the escalator in the atrium waiting to yell surprise!

Here we are anxiously waiting...

Here they are walking in with Meredith & Johnathan and John and Kelsey...Ryals had no idea!

And once we yelled surprise, we were so excited to get the party going!

Woops! the cake maker thought Lauren said Ryalas! haha!

Our group after dinner! About to head to Johnny's Hideaway!

Johnny's was packed!!!! And so much fun!

Happy Birthday Ryals! I know 30 is going to be great!!!!

Today, we rounded out the weekend with brunch at West Egg with Laura Lyn and Brince again. It was such a fun weekend, but this party girl needs some down time to get over this pesky little bout of bronchitis. I am on the mend though! And we are going to visit our favorite Statesboro Gal - Abs!- this weekend!

David's MAI

Last night, I had the honor of attending David's designation meeting in Atlanta. He recently received his MAI Designation, and the Atlanta chapter of the Appraisal Institute recognizes the new recipients. David's boss, Rob Jaeger, gave a short toast in front of the chapter and presented David with his certificate.

It was definitely official when this packet came in the mail!

He even gets a "pin"!

And these announcements too.

To commemorate his achievement, I found this one-of-a-kind cuff links. They're made of recycled silver and vintage Georgia maps. After all, a map is an appraiser's best friend!

On the big screen!!

After a dinner of chicken and veggies followed by creme brulee, Rob manned the podium to present David's certificate.

**I am so sorry for these blurry pics! There was a photographer there who was surely taking better photos.**

And in true David style, he gave the nicest remarks to the crowd. Really, it was perfect.

David's gracious co-workers drove into Atlanta to celebrate the event too!
L-R: Cliff, Charles, Richard, Rob, David, George, Steve, and Brent
They're all so proud of him!

And here is the man of the night with his proud wife! I am sure he'll think this post is super cheese ball, but I am so proud of him and all of his hard work to reach this goal before 30. Way to go babe! I love you!

Happy Birthday Ben!

Our nephew Ben turns 6 years old today! Over the weekend, we celebrated his big day with family at Lifetime Fitness. My sister in law Amanda is a member there, and Ben loves to hang out there too - there's so much for the kids to do! Here are a few pics from the kids climbing the rock walls....



Ben wasted no time in harnessing up and getting to the top!



And he's a pro at repelling down too!

Rodney was so good at climbing too!

And Lizzy was so proud of her big brother!

Aiden got right on up too!

Miss Riley wasn't afraid either!

We all gathered in the birthday room for pizza, cupcakes, and presents.

Then, the kiddos played in the jumpy house for a bit....

.....before swimming! What a fun party!

 After Ben's celebration, David and I joined our buds in Rome for Lauren and Ryals' engagement party. It was such a fun night, and I only snapped this one pic. But, look out on my friends' blogs for more photos of the night.

Besides the birthday party and engagement celebration, we had a mostly low key weekend. On Friday night, we had Mellow Mushroom and settled in for a movie. We watched both of these this weekend, and they were both so good!!!

Hope you're all dry and warm. It just keeps raining here! But, we want that lake to fill back up asap!

Sorry for no posts lately

This is going to be a fun weekend! Its cold and rainy here now, and I am working from home today. But, tomorrow, we'll be celebrating our favorite kid's birthday - our nephew Ben's 6th birthday party is tomorrow! We love any time we get to spend with him.

And tomorrow night, we'll be heading to Rome with all of our buddies to celebrate Lauren and Ryal's engagement at a cocktail party! Can't wait! xoxox!

Hopefully, I will have a better post to tell you all about it on Monday. Have a great weekend!

Lately...What we've been up to

As I wrote before, we did a lot over the holidays. Here's a funny pic of Bax over the holidays - he loved Ben's new chair too.

This was at Christmas. I think Bax was tuckered out from all the traveling!

 And here are a few pics from our New Year's trip to the beach....

Even during all the traveling, we found time at the beach to enjoy a picnic with these two...

And head to the movies to see this.

 And a few from what we did over this past weekend...


We spent Friday night seeing this movie with our friends....
(I now realize this says THE MOTHERSHIP RETURNS which is clearly not the name of the movie. My apologies to Mr. Cruise)



....after we enjoyed some sushi.

 On Saturday, David and I cleaned out our basement....purging feels so good! We organized, threw away, and took what could be re-used to Potter's House. Later, our friends Colby and Jamie came over before the party we were all headed to. After the party, we had the late-night at our house!

On Saturday night, we enjoyed the JayCees award ceremony where Jamie got this super cool award.....

......and Brian got this one.

 After our dance party in the living room until 3am, we slept in a bit on Sunday.

On Sunday, David and I headed to help Amanda with putting up Ben's new basketball goal from Santa. I supervised from the truck with this little cutie pie!

As you can see, it was raining outside and we were keeping dry!

We've been a little lazy since the holidays...recuperating from all of the activities, and attempting to get my house in order. Hopefully, that'll happen soon. After all, I just took down the tree a few days ago.

Happy 2012 from a muggy, wet Wednesday in Gainesville!