recap.

Now that fall has officially begun and summer is over, I thought I would leave you guys with some pictures and things that didn't get posted in the past couple months due to my busy schedule of driving to Columbia and back everyday. This is going to have to be in two installments because I'm very indecisive and have like a bajillion pictures to share.

Besides Merebeth's wedding, Nate and I had a pretty good, eventful summer. We spent a good bit of time with the family in Columbia. I finished up two more classes (and I'm now taking my LAST one...YAY!). We had family and friends come up to visit. Jenny and Matt came up to go to Carowinds with us. We celebrated the Fourth with our good friends Steph and Ryan. We cooked some pretty delicious new things. And we got to go to Florida for a few days to visit Nate's grandparents and my old roommate, Cara. I got two part-time jobs (which I LOVE)! Abby and Chloe got their first and second summer haircuts. We finally found a good church home. And we spent a lot of time together as a family (and yes, that includes the dogs) at the park, playing tennis and soccer, running, and just exploring Charlotte. We found our way around the area and spent enough time up here that it finally started to feel like home. All in all, I would say we had a very good summer. :)

And now for some pictures from the past few months...

Chloe nakey after her haircut!

Abby even more nakey after her haircut!

We invented a very special, very yummy wing sauce.

Chloe supporting her Gamecocks after they won the World Series this summer!

Watching the fireworks on July 4th!

Graham at the fireworks :)

Steph and Steph :)

We made homemade pizzas. This one has chicken, roasted tomatoes, basil and mozzarella on it.

My first ever attempt at banana bread.

And I'll leave you with an adorable picture of Abigail! :)

family, food and fun!

We're entering our third month up in Charlotte and...

Things are great here! I'm still job-searching, but there have been a few leads. If I'm not teaching, I will hopefully be subbing and possibly doing ABA therapy part time or full time. No matter what, I will have a job very very soon. Because I'm about to go crazy sitting around here without much of a purpose. Nate, on the other hand, has been very busy at work and has all sorts of great things going on! (Makes me look just a little lazy. =P)

We've worked some more on the apartment - getting things organized and arranged. I have to keep rearranging because I keep finding better ways to do things around here so it's a slow process. But it's coming along very nicely! We found a shelving unit for the porch on Craigslist today and now everything out there is in its place as opposed to the giant pile of random crap we had out there before. We have also been working very hard on our tomatoes, herbs and flowers! Well, Nate has more than me. He's been taking such good care of them and they are HUGE! We already have edible herbs (which we are super excited about using to make homemade pizza and spaghetti sauce!) and the tomatoes will hopefully be ready in the next week or so. I'm not sure how long it takes them to get red? And hopefully soon I will have some beautiful blooms to post pictures of as well!

I've been trying to cook dinner every night since I'm home all day and I've had a lot of fun honing my skills! And finding some pretty yummy recipes!

Yummy Chicken Piccata...our new favorite chicken recipe!

Spaghetti Night!

My FAVORITE.

Nate's favorite!

Wings with our special sauce!

We've also had a good bit of visitors recently. Christiana and Heidi (the sisters) came up for the weekend a couple weeks ago. My wonderful friend Meg came up for dinner and to hang out for the evening. And then my other wonderful friend Mary came up to spend the day and we went shopping and laid out by the pool. It was very nice to see some people from home!

Nate and Heidi

Nate and Christiana

I also cut Nate's hair!!!!! I was SO nervous. But I feel like it turned out pretty well.

And of course, we've made a couple trips back home too. One for Nate's mom's birthday and then one this weekend to see the family and because I had class. It was nice to see everyone and to be back in Columbia! It wasn't nice to spend all of my Saturday morning in class during Memorial Day weekend. But at least it's a distance education course and I can do the rest from the comfort of home.

The "cake" I made...chocolate eclaire...YUM!

Our beautiful niece Alexa.

Nate with his beautiful mom...and the flowers we gave her! Don't you want that pitcher?!?! I wish the store had more than one! :(

The hubby and me. :)  And my new haircut!

We've also spent a lot of time exploring Charlotte. We've found some more good restaurants and things to do. And we've found the most AMAZING park. And we're looking for a new church family, which we will hopefully find soon. It's definitely starting to feel more like home here, which is very nice. God has blessed us so much and we really are so grateful for everything that has happened in the past few months.

Our first year anniversary is next weekend! :) And we didn't think we were going to be able to go anywhere, but Nate has to go up to Nashville to work the Monday through Wednesday after our anniversary so we're going to get to head up there a few days early and spend the weekend in Tennessee together before he has to go into the office. So we will get to celebrate with a trip and then I'll get three days of laying out by the hotel pool and shopping! :) Can't wait! Hopefully we will have lots of pictures!

See y'all soon!

Steph and Nate :)

adventures in garage sale-ing...

Wow. So it has been quite awhile since this thing has been updated. But life has been crazy! It's the end of the semester so that means EVERYTHING is due and I have been going CRAZYYYYY with all the driving and schoolwork I've had to do. But it's finally slowing down and now I can get back to work on the apartment and relax for a little bit before I start it this all over again in June.

Nate and I have been back to Columbia for the past two weekends, so this is the first full weekend we've really spent at our new home. The weekend before last was my cousin's wedding shower and sister in law's birthday. And then last weekend we had our friends' (ReNee and Josh) wedding. Nate was doing the music so spent the weekend at the rehearsal and then the wedding.

Here he is hard at work at the reception!

This past week was my last week at school with my kids, which was kind of sad. :( I'm definitely going to miss them! But it was a good week! We went to the zoo and had a lot of fun! It was exhausting but a great field trip! This past week was also the week our friends Stephanie and Ryan moved up here. We helped them paint their apartment Thursday and then move everything in today.

Nate and I also woke up early this morning to find some yard sales. And we actually had some success! Nate got a computer for FIVE DOLLARS. And it works great! And it's worth wayyyyy more than that! And he is super excited! And he got his mom a new microwave! And I got some candle holders, a really cute brand new pair of J. Crew khaki shorts, new tennis skirt, and Champion jacket.

Also...I have a few more pictures of the apartment now! We got some cute nesting tables from IKEA that make perfect endtables. So here are some befores and afters...

Me getting ready to tackle the mess...

And there it is!

And here's the living room...

And two of our new tables!

And our makeshift china cabinet!

And our kitchen table!

We also planted lots of plants out on our balcony! We have tomatoes, basil, oregano and flowers. They're growing like crazy and very soon we'll be able to cook using our very on vegetables and herbs! Yummmmmmmm! :)

Our tomatoes and herbs.

My soon to be flowers! :)

So that is all. It's not super interesting but it's our life! And we're loving every minute of our new adventures in our new home! :)

Steph :)

the children.

So the girls seem to be adjusting nicely to apartment life in the big city. Finally. After Abby had panic attacks for a week and Chloe completely regressed in her potty training. With all the pollen Chloe turned from white to yellow and killed my allergies, so she got her first bath in the new place today. During which she proceeded to leap out of the sink, walk across the counters and the stove and completely drench my cell phone. It's a good thing she's cute or she would drive us insane!

It's blurry. That's because she can't seem to sit still for longer than 1 second.

Also, the dogs have a new favorite pasttime. We're storing our mirror in the living room right by their food until we can figure out where we're hanging it. And they've discovered they can see themselves. Well, Abby has anyway. Chloe just sits there and bugs Abby. But basically this is where they spend all their time right now.

Please notice all the socks Chloe has dragged out of the basket into the living room.

She got hedgehog stuck in her mouth today and just laid there with his fur stuck in her teeth for probably 45 minutes before we realized what had happened. Nate had to cut it out with a knife! Very serious surgery. But thank God she made it through and is still just as energetic as ever.

Now we're on the way to my new favorite grocery store - Trader Joe's! Pretty good prices and great specialty items! We're going to get kiwi because Nate read that it has more Vitamin C than oranges and more potassium than bananas. And it helps reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer. It's basically a miracle fruit. And you should eat one every day. So we're starting tonight.

We love and miss everyone!

Steph :)

heaven on earth.

So Nate and I went out to Sunday lunch during our first full weekend in Charlotte. And I really need you to just look at this lasagna we had. It was seriously heaven on earth.

The serving was so big that Nate couldn't even finish it. I'm serious.

Basically, if you come up to visit us anytime in the future, this is probably what we'll be going to get. Because I think this is something everyone needs to try at least once in their life.

I'll be posting pictures of the apartment very soon! I still haven't managed to find the camera. :( But the place is almost completely put together. Hopefully school won't be too crazy this week and I can get it all finished while Nate is at work. We love and miss everyone!

Steph :)

more pictures from the move!

Here are some more pictures I stole from Jen from our first trip up to Charlotte. I'm posting these since I don't have the camera and can't post anything else right now!

Our living area before anything was moved in!

The kitchen area.

Our super tiny bedroom that we managed to fit a king-sized bed in!

Bathroom.

My mom modeling the teeny-tiny washer and dryer.

Our soon-to-be study/guest room.

Nate's sisters and Alexa!

Boxes...ugh.

Making sure the box spring is safe for her Uncle Nate and Aunt Steph!

Bringing in all the furniture!

Jenny and her mommy!

Exhausted.