High on Life

I'm linking up for High on Life Thursday!



Today is my grandmother's 90th birthday. She is my mother's mother and the only grandmother I have had in my life for quite some time. My father's mother passed away when I was 6.

She's a tiny lady but she's been a very strong woman all of her life. She has outlived all of her siblings and still lives alone. I admire her will to be independent even as she weakens with age. I look back and I can remember both her 70th and 80th birthdays. I can't believe how old we are all getting! I'm the youngest grandchild on that side of the family. =)

Here are some pictures from her party this past weekend:

Still having my grandmother around makes me high on life!

~Amber

Father's Day and a new do

Hello friends!

I bet you are all spending time with your husbands or fathers today - HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!! =)
I want to give a shout-out to all the dads doing what dads do best. I think it is so easy to get wrapped up in the busyness of life and we forget to acknowledge how much the men in our lives contribute, so go dads!

A little over a week ago I received a pretty serious haircut! I love it! I feel so much lighter now! I have pretty much had long hair all of my life so this is a big difference for me. You know you gotta live a little. I just usually have trouble with the short hair because I have really thick hair and a round face. Tell me what you think, if you dare. =)

Before:

After:

And I have now been to two photography classes. I'm still feeling a little bit overwhelmed and have only been able to practice one time but I'm posting a couple of pictures I took a few days ago. I promise that my photography will get better. I mean it can only get better - I don't see how it could get any worse. ;P

I'm working on some small zipped pouches and a new tote bag. I'll share soon!

~Amber

10 years ago....a reflection

Thomas and I have been together for 10 years today. Squeel! This isn't something we celebrate but when I was watching TV this morning and they mentioned cinco de mayo the wheels started turning in my head and I realized what today was!

This is what I believe to be the first ever picture of us. Wow – I can’t believe I’m sharing this. We were so young. My how we have changed!

During the first couple of years of our relationship it was on again/off again. It wasn’t what I would call smooth. But we were in high school the first year and Thomas was gone at the end of the summer after we graduated.

He went to bootcamp, then school, then California from where he deployed to Iraq almost immediately. Things have been “on again” since shortly after he completed his school in the military. We did not get married until he was a little over halfway done with his military commitment so we had a long-distance relationship for a while.

Once we were married I moved to California. In fact today is also the date we made it to California. Actually, it was late on the 4th but the 5th was when I woke up in California and really saw it. That was 6 years ago. California was a lot of fun. We met a lot of people, made a lot of friends. I love that sites like facebook allow you to stay in contact so easily with friends so far away! I worked while in California and survived a deployment there by myself. I actually enjoyed the time alone – I surely missed my husband but that was the first time in my life that I lived alone and since I knew it would come to an end I enjoyed it. I was a homebody. Boots was the only child we had at the time and we just hung out whenever I wasn’t at work.

We moved back to NC from California in 2007. We had built a house during the last few months we were in California. We were able to move in our house just a couple of months after we returned to NC. This was a time of transition. Obviously the move was a big deal, purchasing our first home, finding jobs, etc. We both began working within one month of moving back here. That was such a blessing because we really needed jobs.

The biggest thing that happened for us in our relationship occurred just a couple of weeks after we returned to NC in 2007. Thomas and I were both saved by the grace of God when we were younger but we knew we weren’t putting God first in our lives. Not by a long shot. We weren’t doing anything bad but were weren’t honoring God either. That sort of existence felt lonely and meaningless. We had talked about going to church in California but I was afraid of how many churches there were and how different they all were. I didn’t have the drive to weed through it all to find anything so I didn’t try. This is something I regret big time! Upon returning, we began going to the church Thomas had grown up in. We attended for nearly two years before we decided it was time to move on. There wasn’t anything to get involved in and we were ready to serve.

We found ourselves at our current church two years ago and we became involved in the youth ministry almost immediately. My life has changed tremendously since getting involved in the church. And our marriage has grown greatly. Life has meaning! =) I’m just so blessed to have such an amazing man to share in my journey and share in his journey and grow together with. As a recent message at our church described we are RICH!

I’m so happy to look back on how far we have come and know that it’s getting better all of the time! I can say there has been a lot more “on again” than off. =)

~Amber

beautiful asheville

For our anniversary we traveled to beautiful Asheville, NC. It took us around 2 1/2 hours to get there - not long at all and we were traveling with our popup camper. I know romantic, right?

We purchased a used popup camper from a coworker last August. We are new to the camping world. We thought it only made sense to use the camper for the first time of the season and save some money by not staying in an expensive hotel at the same time. Plus as my coworker would say, "We know who has been sleeping in our bed." and I say, "I know the sheets are clean because I'm the one who washed them and put them on the bed." =)

The camper is nothing fancy but she does the job (I've noticed that I think everything is a she - I wonder if this is indicative of something about me. Hmm, I'm not sure).

Here SHE is. This is the only picture I have of her - I took it at a weird angle as to not get any of the campers around her (yes they were invading her space) in the picture. =)

Upon arrival on Friday evening, we went to eat at Pack's Tavern. It was delish!

It was cold and windy on Friday evening so we didn't hang around much but I did find a friend to take a picture with. I will say sharing pictures of myself will probably be a rarity. I just do not like being in pictures but maybe sharing these will be freeing for me!

Saturday morning we set out to drive around and explore some. We found this cute little waterfall in the Montreat area.

Then we went exploring in downtown Asheville. We had planned to go to The Biltmore House but it didn't work out - no big deal, we have been before.

We stumbled along The Thomas Wolfe House memorial. This was so interesting and it only costs $1 to tour. I mean I think it worked out not getting to go to The Biltmore House in terms of the money! We had a tour guide who was very articulate and shared a wealth of knowledge with us. I really didn't know much about Thomas Wolfe at all but upon leaving the house I purchased his first book, "Look Homeward, Angel." I can't wait to read it! Here are a few pictures. I loved that we were allowed to take pictures inside the house. You can't do that at Biltmore either!

Here are a couple of pictures around the campground. There was a beautiful stream running through it and of course some wildlife.

And here we are on our anniversary.

Have you ever been to Asheville?

~Amber

hey friends

I've been overwhelmingly busy the last few days.

The weekend before last we began Spring cleaning. O don't you just love those words. :( We did get quite a bit done but there is much left. This will be something I will be working on next weekend. Which is also my birthday weekend! =)

Last weekend was our anniversary/Easter. We went to Asheville on Friday and came home on Sunday. It was a great trip - I will share pics very soon!

Which leads me to the fact that we purchased a new camera for our anniversary. This is half the reason I haven't blogged. We don't have the cord yet to load pics on our Mac. But I will be getting it very soon and will be sharing lots of pictures. We purchased a Nikon D3100. I believe that is what it is without looking. =)

This weekend we have done some yard work and planted some pretty new flowers. I love Spring - it is such a pretty time of year! Will share pics of this soon too!

I did watch the royal wedding. Loved both of her dresses!

Today we had to do some cleaning and maintenance on our popup camper - more on this later too and now my husband is working on loads of school work for this last week of school. I can't wait for it to be over with. Plus he starts a new job tomorrow - which is great news! Poor guy - his mind must be going a mile a minute!

And my dad was admitted to the hospital this morning. He has pneumonia. Please say a prayer for him - he is not in the best of health and he does not have a spleen which makes fighting this kind of infection more difficult. Will be leaving to go visit him shortly.

Alright, that's it in a nutshell. I'm sorry for all of the teasing - just wanted to say, "The blogging world hasn't seen the last of me." I can't believe how long it has been since I have posted!

Hope you are all doing very well and please keep my dad in your prayers!

~Amber

Our Wedding Day

Our anniversary is on Apr 24. I don't think I will be around much this weekend so I wanted to go ahead and share a couple of wedding pictures with you today. Hope you enjoy! And if you don't hear from me - have a great Easter!

On our wedding day the weather was overcast and a bit chilly. Temperatures had been in the 80's the week before and cooled down into the 50's. But no rain!

My husband Thomas, was serving in the Marine Corps. He had served a tour in Iraq and returned home in February. We had gotten engaged in October when he was able to come home on leave for 2 weeks. We had been together for almost 4 years when we got married. Yep, we were young!

We went to Charleston, SC on our honeymoon and then promptly moved to San Diego, CA - 2,400 miles away from where I had grown up! We lived in CA for just over 2 years and then we returned home when Thomas's service was over. Thomas served another tour in Iraq while I was in CA. I guess you could say - to be continued - on our story. I'm sure I will be sharing more. =)

xoxo
~Amber