Snow White and the Seven Miles North of Dillsboro...

It finally happened. Justin and I both grew up within a stone's throw of the Atlantic coast, so we never got to see much snow when we were kids. When we moved farther north - Justin to Clayton, GA and I to Spartanburg, SC - I think we were both expecting to see snow more often during the winter. But for the last few years, we really haven't had much winter weather other than a light dusting of snow or an icy road...until today!

Well, sort of. In Clayton, it snowed about 3 inches Friday night, but then proceeded to rain on the snow before I got there on Saturday :'( So Justin's yard was pretty, with all the trees draped in icicles, but the conditions were not exactly ideal for sledding and snowman-building...

...so we decided to head north in search of a winter wonderland!

The roads were a little dicey, with mounds of snow up to six feet high in the medians, but the salt trucks kept the roads pretty clear. The dozens of abandoned cars on the side of the road reminded us to remain cautious, though.

We drove just north of Dillsboro, NC (about an hour north of Clayton) before we finally found a suitable place to stop and play in the snow. Our winter wonderland turned out to be the lawn behind a Holiday Inn Express. The snow there was more than six inches deep, but it had obviously been even higher before the rain fell early this morning.

The hard, icy snow was perfect for snowballs and snow angels, but unfortunately it made it difficult to roll balls big enough for a snowman. Oh well, we didn't bring a carrot anyway! We did, however, bring our trash can lids in search of a good sledding hill. We tried a steep hill behind the Holiday Inn, but the grass was a bit too high, so we kept driving north in search of the perfect hill.

We ended up behind a Baptist Church just a few miles away, with a vertigo-inducing 70-foot hill behind it. It was a doozy to climb, but the view was beautiful when we finally dragged ourselves and our makeshift sleds to the top!

We still weren't able to build our snowman, but we had plenty of excitement anyway! I can only imagine how envious the passersby were when they saw the sight captured in this video :)

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I've got drywall dust in my engagement ring....

Can every weekend be a long weekend, please?

I absolutely love long weekends--especially when they are spent taking out authentic 1970's-era fake wood paneling! Whoohoo! For those of you who had the luxury of visiting Justin's humble abode before our weekend project, you most likely will be the only ones who can fully appreciate all of our hard work.

When I arrived in Clayton on Friday night the paneling had already been taken down and the walls were ready to be adorned with drywall...Well, almost... :)

Before we could jump right in and hang drywall, as I make it sound easy, Justin had to do a little rewiring. He had to move a light switch here, add an outlet there. This allowed me to test my ability to interact with him during his fits of frustration. After moving several three-way switches, Justin realized he did not remember which how each had been wired before he unhooked them. He also found a mysterious cord that apparently did not lead to either a switch or an outlet. After trying to reconnect all of the wires and then flipping the switch and still being in the dark, I knew I was about to be tested. I also knew Justin well enough to not try and calm him down with words. I just told him to take a break, clear his mind, and I'd buy him Chinese food! :) Worked like a charm---on our drive to the resturant he figured out the solution! (This means I can give myself credit for him figuring out the problem, right?!)

All day Saturday was spent hanging drywall and mudding the seams. That is some tough work to say the least!  Justin bought both 8' and 12' sheets of drywall in order to minimize the number of seams we would have to mud. I had the easy job; I mudded the screw holes while Justin mudded the seams. Although it took me a little while to catch on to the proper way to mud the screw holes, pretty soon I was on a roll.

After the mud dried I was hand-sanded all of the screw holes while he used an electric sander to sand the seams. As a result of sanding, we spent a couple hours vaccuming, dusting, and washing several loads of clothes. But oh, how it was all worth it!

I am a little hesitant to put a picture up of the living room simply because the picture hardly does it justice. Justin and I agree that the wall color turned out better than we could have ever imagined! Although the living room still needs some work, like finishing up the window, making and putting up the crown molding and baseboards, taking down the wall between the living room and the kitchen (which will be done this coming weekend!), and getting new furniture (I will need to have patience on that last item of business). When Justin gets motivated there is no stopping him! (And I like it! :)

I find it really exciting to be able to help Justin fix up his house---mainly because in 4 months it will be OUR house!

After we finished Justin asked me what I thought his next project should be. I asked if making the hardwood floors would be to big of a project and he said 'No!' :):)  Not to get my hopes up or anything but maybe I'll be able to show you a kitchen with new floors in it before too long....

I will most definitely keep you posted!

One event from Christmas break.....

Just to share a little bit of one of the prettiest places around Pawleys Island...

While Justin was in town I decided that I wanted to take him to a place that I have not been since, oh... probably, a field trip in Kindergarten: Brookgreen Gardens!

 It has over 1,000 scultures by close to 350 sculptors. The main sculptor is Anna Hyatt Huntington who established Brookgreen as a place to protect the native flora and fauna and to display art in its natural setting. 

We had a lot of fun walking around looking at the different sculptures. We walked around for about an hour in the sculpture park and probably did not see even half of them. There were so many! Many were very much realistic, as Anna Huntington liked to sculpt real life.

Although I prefer real life sculptures, I had a hard time understanding why so many of the sculptures had to be naked....and why Justin was so intent on helping only the naked ones keep their balance? Boys. *shaking my head*

There was so much more to Brookgreen than just sculptures. With the beautiful moss covered oaks and walking paths, we almost forgot we were cold!  We had packed our lunch before we left the house and ate lunch in the gardens.

I was especially impressed with the Aviary. As we walked around the aviary and gardens, Justin and I kept comparing Brookgreen to a plantation in Charelston we visited earlier in the year. Everything about Brookgreen was so well-managed, beautifully landscaped, and clean! You could tell several people take part in maintaining the wonderful place!

The price was $10 a person and worth every penny!

We saw plenty of wildlife just hanging around.

 A short story: when we were taking this picture of the geese a car drove by and said, "They're canadian, but you can keep them." As I turned around to see who said it, I noticed the car was from New Brunswick. I couldn't help but laugh.

There was also pretty ironwork all around Brookgreen. I know this isn't a good picture of the gate...but you know I couldn't post something without a picture of Justin and me! :)

The gates reminded me a lot of the gates you can see in Charleston. The attention to detail and elaboration made them beautiful.

When we arrived at the park we first visited the Visitor Center. They told us then that feeding time was around 1pm in the Zoo Area. So we walked around the gardens before and made our way towards the zoo at around 12:45 or so. When we entered we were immediately bombarded by the cutest otters I've ever seen.

I say they were the cutest otters because I do not think I have ever had otters get up from where they were laying, run toward the water, and start swimming and doing tricks right in front of me before. It was so awesome. I assume that since we arrived at around 12:55pm or so, they thought we had food and just got excited.  Either way, I note them as the cutest otters ever.

The zoo at Brookgreen contains animals native to this region of South Carolina. So we saw eagles, hawks, owls, foxes, turkeys, and a few different animals. As we were standing by the fox pen I thought I smelled a skunk. Justin then informed me that I in fact smelling the fox. As you can imagine, I did not find him as cute after that.

If any of you are ever in the area and have time to spend an afternoon at Brookgreen, I really hope you do. Especially if you love the outdoors. Huntington Beach State Park is right across the highway from it and it has a really nice campground!  FYI! :)

Wanna know more about the wedding?

So, the big day is approaching! Only 137 days to go, or for those who need it broken down into months, that is 4 months and 17 days away!

For those who are interested in our wedding and would like a little more information on us, the wedding, our story, and a few activities in the area....please visit: www.weddingwire.com/justinandcasie

We are thankful for all of the wonderful friends and family we have to share events such as these with and look forward to seeing everyone SOON! :)

Welcome, Christmas Break!

*Sigh of relief* Oh how I am thankful for Christmas break to have finally arrived! After a very long and stressful semester, I am glad to be back in the big city of Georgetown, SC! It is sad to admit that all I have felt like doing since I have been back is plopping down on the couch and watching cheezy reruns of One Tree Hill (Lame, I know). Okay, okay, I am not usually this lazy, and for the record I have gotten over a dozen presents wrapped in this amount of time, however, I am plain exhausted from this dreadful semester.

Despite the fact that all of my professors could have all tied for 'The Dumbest Person with a Doctorate' award this semester, I still managed to make all A's! Woohoo! (Sorry, I just had to mention it!)

I looked at my grades the other day and noticed that my over all GPA is a 3.69. This means I am probably going to graduate Cum Laude, while being .01 away from Magna Cum Laude. Since I student teach next semester I will not have an opportunity to increase my GPA because Student Teaching is a Pass/Fail class and affect my GPA any---unless I fail, of course.  This may sound like I am complaining about graduating with just Cum Laude, believe me, I'm not. I am really just happy to be one semester from graduating!

Before I left for Christmas break I was able to make a few last minute wrap ups to the semester, most of these were very exciting.  My favorite experience was meeting my cooperating teacher that I will be with all next semester! I had hoped to meet her earlier in the semester when USC Upstate held a banquet for the student teacher candidates and their cooperating teachers. However, my teacher did not show up to the meeting, which left me slightly worried.  I emailed her after the meeting and explained who I was and made a little note that I was sorry I was unable to meet her that night. She quickly responded to my email and said that she was excited and ready to meet me, sorry she was unable to attend the meeting, but frankly did not even know she was recieving a student teacher. After getting all of our misunderstandings taken care of, we were finally able to meet, and I am far less nervous now! She seems to be so precious, and just so happens to be friends with my cooperating teacher from last semester! :) Ahh, it is amazing how things always fall into place!

I will be student teaching at Boiling Springs Intermediate School in a 5th and 6th grade resource classroom. I have heard only wonderful things about this school and I am anxious to start my final semester of my undergraduate career! Although some say I am crazy for being excited about teaching in a 5th and 6th grade resource (special education) classroom, I can not help but look on the bright side of things. A benefit to being in her class: she gets an hour and 45 minutes for lunch! WOW! How could I get so lucky?!? There has got to be a catch, right? She is always on duty! :(  I will have to be at the school by 7:20 every morning. Thankfully the school is only 5 minutes away from my apartment, and I am more of a morning person anyway!

I know student teaching is going to be difficult, but I am extremely anxious! I am just ready to dive in and get things started! I have a feeling my nerves will subside after my first lesson, but until then...please pray for me!

Another exciting thing to conclude this semester was when my advisor muttered 6 precious words: "You are all set to graduate!" WOOHOO! That is a phrase that will make any student and their mamma wanna dance!

As I think about how all of my other semesters have flown by, I can't help but realize that this one will too. This is IT! This is my last Christmas break living at my parents' house. (I must mention at this point that I will miss my parents very much at this point next year.) This is my last Christmas break not married (Ahhh, still hard to believe!). This is IT! The wedding is swiftly approaching---and I am getting more and more excited! All of the wedding plans are coming along nicely, I am making all of the deadlines, and praying more persistantly with every passing day that the weather will cooperate on our big day!

Welp, that is it for a few days! I hope everyone is having a fabulous holiday season!

A Very Special Chest....

For most people, the Christmas season always brings lots of traveling. My traveling started this weekend when Justin and I headed down to Tifton, GA for a Christmas gathering with his Granddad's side of the family. It was great to see everyone and meet people I've heard about through stories. It is always a great time to spend time with Justin's family. They never fail to make me laugh! :) As I continue to meet Justin's friends and family the more similarities I am able to identify between his family and mine. :)

Although our main reason for traveling to Tifton was for family, our trip came with two intentions. The second reason for our travels was so Justin could deliver a beautiful cedar blanket chest he built for two of his friends from college.

In October of 2005, two of his good friends from the forestry school lost their home and everything in it in a fire. They were renting an old farmhouse from a professor, and faulting wiring consumed everything they had - most tragically, their two dogs were unable to find their way out. Even their cars, which were parked near the house, were destroyed. The outpouring of support from the forestry school got them back on their feet in no time, but of course there are some things that can never be replaced. One of those things was an old cedar chest that had been in one of the girls' family since the 1800s. Curiously, there happened to be an old cedar tree growing beside the house that was killed by the fire. Justin was able to get his hands on a small 8' log from that tree several months after the fire.

 He had the log sawed into lumber with the intention of making something for his friends. Over the last couple of years, him and his friends finished school and went their separate ways. One of them married another good friend of his from the forestry school. Last year, he called Justin up with a proposition: he wanted him to build a cedar chest to replace the one that burnt in the fire. He didn't even know Justin had lumber from the house fire. (How cool!)This was the push Justin needed to use that lumber to build something beautiful for one of his friends.

Although Justin was given a push, he was not given a very specific date, so he put it off until the last minute. A couple weeks ago Justin recieved another phone call from his friend asking if the chest could be ready by Christmas. Justin agreed, even though he knew it would require many late nights in the shop.

As we know, Justin was scheduled to deliver the chest on Saturday morning. At this point Justin had the body of the chest built, but still had a ways to go...at 8 pm on Friday night.

Once he installed the molding he moved on to oiling the chest before he put the first coat of blonde shellac. 10pm.

This chest required three coats of shellac. Each coat takes an hour to dry, and has to dry before the next coat can be applied. Justin finished up around 1am. That gave him just about 5 hours of sleep before having to get up and make finishing touches.

TA-DA! The finished chest! You can't even tell there is a hidden drawer in the front, can you!?

Justin's friend only had one request, a secret drawer. Justin said that puzzling out and building this drawer almost doubled the amount of time to build the chest. Dovetails still work even if they're not perfect, but everything had to be just right for this drawer to work properly.

Another view of the chest and the drawer.

 Another secret compartment! :)  The side of the till slides up to reveal it. This is where Justin hopes the owners will store the note he wrote to go along with the chest. It explains where all of the wood came from, how long it took, the maker, and who it was made for.

On the way down to Tifton I asked Justin if we could just keep it and tell his friend that his fiance' just couldn't let it go! :) Justin replied, "this will probably be the hardest thing I'll ever have to give away until I have a daughter."

This Christmas Brings New Traditions

As Justin and I begin to enter into the first Christmas season that we will not be spending with our own parents on both Christmas eve and Christmas day, we are reminded of how our lives are changing. Although this change comes with the price of becoming busy beavers as we scurry from the coast of South Carolina to the middle of Georgia early Christmas morning, we can not help but be so thankful for having two wonderful families to be able to share such a special time with.

Growing up we have both experienced the holidays with our families and have been apart of the traditions our parents and grandparents have created. 

Of course every family celebrates different events in their own unique way. Christmas is no different. So as Justin and I were talking about putting up the Christmas decorations, we began to swap stories of the different traditions our families have started and stuck with over the years. We have some similar traditions, and some...not so similar, but one thing we are in full agreement on is: we LOVE real Christmas trees!

Both our families have always had live trees, so we decided we were not going to break that tradition! Another reason: I love the smell of them!

Our small tree, isn't it cute?!

After reflecting upon different traditions, we decided that we were going to start a tradition of our own. Since we will be decorating the house for Christmas together for the rest of our lives :), we decided that would be a nice time to start a tradition. Justin said his family, on Christmas eve, has finger foods, so that is what we decided to do for our "decorating" tradition. Since Justin will not be at his parents' house on Christmas Eve this year (sorry Mr. Tony and Mrs. Mona ;)) we thought we would play off of a tradition that his family had.

Our finger foods included: homemade apple cider, beanie wienies....

...sausage balls, fruit salad, Hillshire sausage, and chocolate covered pretzels! I promise, we had a lot of left overs! :)

After dinner, we tackled decorating around the house, mainly, the tree! :)

  Three strands of lights, 85 ornaments (including candy canes and our very special Niagara Falls ornament that Justin purchased just a few hours before he proposed!), and a golden angel later, we were in awe. All we could do was sit and stare at our tree for quite a while.  Although we are both in favor of hand crafted and homemade ornaments, especially when little ones start running around, we concluded that it is nice to have a tree where all of the ornaments match!  Now, all that is missing are little red bows! :)

I guess, since I've talked about some of Justin's traditions, I should talk about some things that make my family unique around Christmas time. The first decoration we always put up is the Nativity Scene.  This is my family's way of never getting too wrapped up in all of the hustle and bustle that comes along with the holiday season that we forget the true meaning of Christmas.

Also, since I grew up in a neighborhood, my family and I would always, after decorating and lighting the tree, would go out in the front yard and see how it looked from the road. It may sound silly, but it was a way for us, as a family, to admire our work and get excited about the upcoming events!

I love the traditions I have experienced with my family and I can't wait to be included in those of the Tyson family (I've already been introduced to the infamous Thanksgiving noodles! YUM!), but I am excited about growing with Justin and beginning to build traditions of our own! :)

We just can't sit still...

On beautiful Fall days, it is just crazy to sit inside and fill out save-the-date cards, right? So instead of completing this much needed task, we decided to ditch it and go somewhere!

Since I have been itching to go somewhere and wanting to go to the mountains, we decided to take the Blue Ridge Parkway to Maggie Valley.

We planned to grab a bite to eat for lunch in Maggie and head on out to Cataloochee. However, when we arrived in Maggie, which is a small mountain town, we realized that it pretty much closes down in the off season, leaving us very few options for lunch. We were fortunate enough to find  a Subway, so we got our food to go and were on our way!

Cataloochee is around 17 miles from Maggie Valley, however it took us about an hour to go that distance. As we all know, mountain miles seem ten times longer than low country miles, and it did not help that most of the distance was a single lane, dirt road.

We made it and set up picnic in the hay loft of an old barn.

After lunch we just piddled around Catalooche. We visited old homesteads, schools, and churches. This is a picture of the old school.  Thankfully I will be teaching in a school where the desks can be rearranged and there is heating and air! :)

Since it was still early in the day, Justin and I decided to hike up to an old cemetery. We thought it would be a nice leisure walk, just to pass time. We were wrong! It was a short distance, but the hike was difficult. The trail ventured straight up a mountain, leaving us both (being experienced hikers) gasping for air half way up. We made it to the top, expecting to see a graveyard of really old headstones. No. There were four graves, all from the early 1900's. It was pretty anticlimactic.  ( I regret that we did not take any pictures of this strenuous climb, but to be fair, I was too tired to even begin to think about capturing the experience on camera!)

Returning to our car exhausted, we thought we would just head back home since it was 'too early' to see elk anyway. We decided, just for the heck of it, to drive back down to the other end of Cataloochee one last time. Much to our suprise, this is what we saw:

Dozens of elk! I had been to Cataloochee before with my family to see the elk, however Justin had never been! It was pretty neat. We counted between 35-40, we could never agree on a number, you know how that goes! :)

After standing in awe of how gigantic they really are, we decided to head home happy! As we were pulling out of the park, Mr. Papa Elk decided to pose for the camera. There were actually two, one on either side of the road! ( I was a little concerned when we were stopped in the road. However, they seem to be unusually used to the paparazzi!)

We took our time going home.We stopped at this lookout, which is right outside of Cataloochee's entrance. My parents have a picture of me at this same lookout when I was around 6. So, it I thought it neat to stop there again.

Also on the way home, we stopped in Franklin, NC. We just walked around for a little while, enjoying the weather. We then came across one enormous pumpkin! Justin decided that in order for y'all to fully understand the size of this pumpkin, I needed to sit on it to offer up a comparison. I was impressed with it, so impressed I tried to pick it up and take it home.... needless to say I failed! ;)

We made it home right after sunset. We missed most of the sunset, however we were still served with quite a view.

After dark we decided to make a yummy dinner and just relax. It was a perfect way to spend and end a beautiful Autumn day!

Um Jantar Brasileiro

Maybe there are some benefits of my fiance' going to Brasil after all...

On Wednesday night, Justin decided to make me an awesome authentic Brasilian supper. I will no longer complain about him leaving the country without me if he comes back preparing meals like this one!

He used his handy soapstone cookwear from Brasil to sear calabresa (Brasilian sausage), peppers, and onions for the feijoada. Feijoada is the national dish of Brasil that is cooked with black beans, meat, vegetables (usually peppers and onions), and special seasonings.

The feijoada was served on top of rice that had grilled pineapples mixed in! Oh my goodness. I was a little hesitant at first, not really knowing how the pineapple was going to taste when eaten at the same time as rice and beans, but it smelled so good I was more than willing to try it! The entire dish was topped with farofa, a coarse flour made from yucca root.

To accompany our dinner, Justin invented a new kind of drink: jabuticabarinha. It is made similiarly to the caipirinhas, which is the national drink of Brasil. However, a caipirinha contains crushed lime, sugar, and cachaca, but he substituted jabuticaba and white wine for the cachaca.

To add an interesting fact, jabuticaba is a tree native to the Atlantic rainforest that produces a large, sweet fruit that resembles a muscadine. (Cool, huh?)

A couple things we learned from cooking this dinner:

• We could totally use a bigger soapstone skillet!
• American food tastes bland after being exposed to Brasilian food! 

Hooray!!! Justin's Back!

You would have thought that between classes, clinicals, and planning a wedding I wouldn't have time to miss Justin. And to tell the truth, the two weeks Justin was gone just so happened to be close to the busiest two weeks of the semester, maybe of my entire collegiate career. However, it appears that no matter how busy I am, I can always make time to miss my sweetie!

As most of you know, Justin arrived back in the States on Monday night. We all well aware of how accident-prone he is, so I let out a sigh of relief when he called and told me he had finally landed in Atlanta! Thanks to Emily and Eric, Justin arrived back from Brazil safely!

I know this had to be somewhat of a challenge for them considering:

•  Justin almost got beat up by a Parrot! (I guess I can find some distant relatives in Brazil after all! ;) )

• The enormous amount of caimans in the Pantanal! (I guess it does have to be mentioned that caimans won't even eat the capybara (the largest living rodent in the world) that come around. They just look too much like alligators for my liking!

• Georgie, Justin's horse, was supposedly the wildest one out of the bunch. The tour guide told Justin not to ride in the middle of the pack or else Georgie would start kicking and biting the horses around him. Justin looks mighty protected with the cute little helmet he is wearing, don't you agree? :)

I am glad he made it back, and now I must live in envy of all of the beautiful things he saw and got to do--For example:

Gabs and the Giant Snail on a beach in Rio de Janeiro!

School of fish in Lagoa Azul at Ilha Grande

Another awesome fish at Lagoa Azul. (This picture looks like it came straight out of National Geographic!)

Piranha Fishing!

Piranha's mouth!

Chasing an Anteater!

Gruta de Lago Azul (Blue Lake Cave) at Bonito

But the one thing I miss that I will get to see SOON :) is my future brother- and sister-in-law and their beautiful daughter, Gabriela!