Turkey Day

This year, we spent Thanksgiving with Robert's family at his grandparent's home.

What else do you do after eating a great meal? Play golf of course! It is starting to become a tradition now on Thanksgiving that we go out and hit the course for a few hours after dinner.

I have to brag, that Robert and I took 1st and 2nd this time in our little tournament we played.

We had a nice Thanksgiving spending it with family. Unfortunately, we were not able to spend too much time together. Robert's finals started right away, so we returned home and Robert began his marathon of studying.

So that left me with a lot of time to...

Sleep and try to pre-occupy myself with craft projects.

I stayed busy making block letters and flowers. I also got all of our Christmas decorations up. It's a good thing I had a lot of things to do because I would have been so bored. Robert literally studied all day long.

Here are a few of my finished products:

Finals are almost over, Robert has one more left!

Tri-Champion

Another semester for Robert is about to draw to a close, but before the studying can begin, Stetson Intramurals have to finish their playoffs.

And so the story of Rob's best semester begins...

Service!

Double trouble.

Robert and his doubles partner Aaron Swift won the Stetson Doubles Tournament, and won a $50 gift card to Sports Authority. (It's good to know our tuition money is well spent).

Batter up!

Apart from playing in the softball league, Robert helped with the umpiring.

Come on ump that was a strike!

Robert lead the team in pitching. MVP :)

They did it! Last year this team lost in the finals, but not this year.

More? Yes, the very next day after the softball finals, Robert's team won football too.

Robert is very proud that he can now say he is a tri-champion.

To cap it all off, Robert was asked to stay on as a permanent intern at Minor League Baseball (MiLB). His dream come true! He will continue to work for MiLB through each semester and summer as a paid intern until he graduates, and he will also be doing a judicial internship with a federal trial court judge.

Then after all that? Well, we hope all that hard work continues to pay off and he can continue to work in the sports field. I am so proud of all his hard work and efforts to pursue his dream.

Do you want to see my Pokemon?

That is all I heard last weekend, "Jo Jo, do you want to see my Pokemons?" I went home last weekend to Georgia, and my two cute nephews wanted to show me and tell me all about their latest interest of Pokemon cards. In case you do not know what these are, and frankly, I still have no clue...I have provided a picture. They are cards with strange creatures with special powers, etc. They never tired of showing them off, and in lieu of their excitement, I have dedicated this post to them. Here are my two favorite Pokemons:

Keatnaz - 130 HP

Has the ability to rock your socks at Toy Story 3 - the video game. Don't be fooled by being his partner in the game, if you are too slow, he may just leave you behind to fend for yourself. He is a sneaky challenger, so watch out!

Special Power: Speed

Kadenog - 120 HP

He destroys and conquers (Bam Bam). He does not give up easily and will challenge any worthy opponent.

Special power: brute strength

After all that Pokemon exposure from the boys, I needed some girl time. My niece Kayla and I had a salon party. Just in time!

First, she gave me the royal treatment, and then painted my fingernails.

I followed up with painting her toes and fingernails as well.

Nothing caps off a party better than eating some brownie mix!

Thanks to Lori and Jason for picking me up, letting me come crash their house, drive their car all around, and for all the yummy food they provided! I had a blast hanging out with you guys all weekend.

So the whole reason why I made a trip up to Georgia was so I could go to Alabama to see the long time high school sweethearts, Kitty and Gavin get married!

The happy couple! It was a beautiful ceremony and reception. Gavin had everyone crying at the wedding. You can definitely tell the love these two share for each other.

At the reception.

It was great to be home. I was able to see lots of friends and spend time with family. I loved being able to get back. I miss the "south" a lot and all the beautiful trees, especially in the fall when they change colors. Florida weather never really changes, although it would have been nice if I could have brought a little warm weather with me as it was a pretty cold day for a wedding. It was a great weekend trip and I am glad I was able to go.

Halloween Fun

Lately, every Thursday night we have been getting together with a group of friends for dinner. We rotate house and food each week. This week it was Danny and Leigh's turn to host. It has been a blast hanging with each other, and we have started to become a group that does everything together. In lieu of Halloween, this week was dinner and pumpkin carving night.

My two closest girl friends in the area Leigh and Kristin.

We also had to make time for the FSU football game going on, as we had two big FSU fans in the house. Dinner was fabulous, our friend Danny smoked us some pork. It was amazing! We love our southern barbecue.

After dinner we got to work on carving our pumpkins.

The best part, not! No one likes cleaning out their pumpkins, but it is worth it in the end. Look at what hard work can turn into:

Our pumpkins now look great on the balcony all lit up, I love how I can see them all day. It definitely adds to the Halloween feel around the house.

Finding That Perfect One

On Monday night, Robert took me out on a fall date to pick out our pumpkins. HA! I wish it felt like fall, we are still in the high 80's, so even though it felt like summer, we tried to pretend. I miss the leaves changing and the temperatures cooling down, so I can crave those warm treats that come out this time of year. Knowing this, Robert tried to create a nice fall atmosphere for me by taking me out to a local pumpkin patch. I love going to pumpkin patches, even though these pumpkins had to be brought in from somewhere since FL's agriculture isn't really conducive to growing pumpkins.

Robert went for more of the bumpy look, so he could make his pumpkin look scary.

We had a fun evening picking out our pumpkins together.

It's important to pick out that perfect one, next step, carving them.

Happy Halloween!

The Boys of Fall

Besides studying, these boys stay busy playing fall flag football.

Team Huddle

Set hike!

It's a good day when you win.

Happy Birthday!

To Robert!

This past weekend we celebrated Robert's 24th birthday. We had to start early since his birthday actually falls on General Conference weekend, so we dragged it out as long as we could. (Click http://new.lds.org/general-conference/watch?lang=eng to find out more about or to watch General Conference and http://www.mormon.org to find out more about the LDS church).

To Start Off:

On Thursday night, we went out to dinner at Macaroni Grill with three other couples from Stetson. It was a blast and dinner was great. Not to mention when they brought out Robert's birthday treat, we were serenaded in Italian by our waiter. It got me excited for our trip to Italy next year. After dinner we headed back to our place for some ping pong, pool, presents, and cake. I made Robert a banana bread cake. I was sad I didn't take any pictures of our night out, so I have re-created it.

On Friday, Robert had the day off from his internship, so he went golfing with a buddy of his from school. That night we went out for ice cream (thanks to my sister and Ben for providing him with a gift card to his favorite ice cream place - Cold Stone Creamery) and a movie. We saw Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, which we highly recommend and enjoyed.

On Saturday, we rolled out of bed had some cinnamon rolls and hung around the house until General Conference started. In between sessions, we went out for some snow cones and played tennis. That night we stayed up watching the endings to the big college football games.

Sunday started out with a delicious breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and bacon. We watched some more General Conference and relaxed. It was such a great weekend, and it felt like it lasted for a long time. We both did not want to get up this morning and start our week again. I think Robert had a fabulous birthday and got completely spoiled, which is how it should be for such a great guy! I am so happy to have him in my life.

Some things you might not know about Robert:

His favorite candy bar is a Butterfinger.

He does not have any cousins.

He longs to throw a baseball around while in a china shop, so watch out!

His nickname in high school was Prep.

He loves animals and wants to own a dog, penguin, squirrel, and tiger.

He has a heart of a child.

He still flexes his muscles for me.

He has a Mickey Mouse shaped birth mark.

He loves to learn about gangs by watching Gangland on the History Channel.