2011 Retrospective

So, our internet has sucked big time the last two weeks, so this is a bit late... but, without further ado, I give you 2011 in pictures! (which makes it seem SO much better than it was in real life!)

Snowpocalypse 2011 gave us a chance to hike all over East Atlanta AND a week off of work!

Our friend Rob got tickets to Gaelic Storm for my birthday-- definitely one of the best concerts I've ever been to!

On my birthday, I woke up to a beautiful breakfast and flowers from Jeremy

And then almost 20 of my friends came out to dinner with us at the BEST sushi place around-- Nori Nori!

Over spring break, we taught the kids about the original Olympics-- they built their own hoplite armor and had races!

We got to meet Marcus from Storm Chasers and see the TIV! (Tornado Intercept Vehicle)

On our old porch, we took advantage of the beautiful weather and had everyone over for DIY raviolis-- they were AMAZING!! 

We went to Stone Summit with John, Paige, Nandan, and Anu and had a great time climbing!

I had the honor of participating in the first Southeastern Chapters Recruitment Workshop! <3 AOII!

Thanks to Yelp, we got to go see a great exhibit on Italian Motorcycles that was right up Jeremy's alley! 

In a rare display of sibling concord, Julian passes off some of his Easter Egg Hunt haul to Violet, who mostly spent the time getting distracted and asking Jeremy to carry her.

Our friend Heather got her MBA! (and we had an excuse for a party!)

Caq and I got to see our long lost middle school bestie, Kendra (far right) who moved out to LA and got herself married! We also may or may not have had a little too much fun watching Lewis figure out whether he likes lemons or not... 

Over Memorial Day Weekend we got to go see Krystal and Charles and the kids-- it was loads of fun and we hope to see them more this year!

We also got to see lots of Ana-- I played outside with her with the sidewalk chalk and badminton racquets, and she loved her new sunglasses!

Then, inside, I taught her how to make miso soup

Before we had to head home, we got a picture with her

And she chased Jeremy around the front yard to keep us from leaving

Jeremy got the camp kids hooked on paper airplanes

And then, of course, all of our great field trips! 

Zoo Atlanta

Stone Mountain

High Museum of Art

Georgia Aquarium

Lake Lanier

City of Decatur Police Talk

Spirit Week!

I got to visit a nearby Monastery with the Young at Heart Sunday school class and the Elder Care Pastor (who is one of my favorite people at the church!) 

Nicole, who is on the AAC with me, and her husband Tom came with us to the Zoo

And we fed the parakeets! One of them even hopped up in Tom's hand!

This fall, we were lucky enough to get to the beach to see my Aunt and Uncle, whom we haven't seen since the wedding-- it was so great being back at the beach! Hardly anything has changed, and I miss it so much there!

Thanksgiving was spent with the Clarks, where we got to see Josh and Sarah

Go to the Oliver Winery

and see Grandma Traylor and the horses and dogs!

We had an anniversary party at our place with lots of delicious food!

And for the first time since we've been married, we got to set up our own Christmas Tree!

Yep, things went alright this year, according to the pictures-- but everything that happened between the pictures was... well, a little suspect to be honest.

Here's to 2012! 

Lemongrass Boutique!

So my vision is to have these two businesses that every so often intersect-- Agape Events being my "love this/do it for fun" business that I hope will make money, and Lemongrass Boutique will be the money making venture. I'll sell some bridal/high end jewelry designs, planning binders, and wedding emergency kits on the Wedding Belles ATL site that's linked to Agape, but most of my jewelry and gift sales will go on the Lemongrass site. 

At least, that's the idea... 

I put a bunch of stuff up on the Lemongrass site today and got the ball rolling on that-- my goal is to make at least one item a day and do all of my photography on the weekends. Our dining room makes a fantastic jimmied up studio!

Branch Out Necklace

Opera Necklace

Ballerina Ring

Erin Ring

Janet Ring

There are also several bracelets, but I don't like the pictures for those quite as much ;)

Things have been going pretty well so far in 2012, which pleases me infinitely! My car is broken, but easily fixable, and the internet has sucked a little more than usual, but I've been hired to coordinate at least one wedding and my hair stylist has handed out a billion of my business cards! I'm stoked! Also, an hour after I put some of my stuff up on Etsy, one of my sorority sisters saw a bracelet and it was something she'd been trying to find for years and she's buying one! What a blessing social networking can be!

I'm hoping to really beef up the offerings on the Lemongrass site once I've had a chance to get to the fabric store-- I'd like to offer some makeup bags, travel bags, fabric covered cuff bracelets (some with embellishments), small card sets, fleece and felt pocket warmers for winter, and eventually some tops and skirts.

It's ambitious, but mom's boyfriend was telling us the other day how one of his co-workers at Home Depot was able to quit her job last week because she was doing so well with Etsy sales! I'm also hoping to be able to sell at the numerous craft fairs and arts festivals in the area. So, the point of all this is... keep your fingers crossed and your prayers and positive vibes coming my way! I'm really hoping to be at minimum down to part time in a "real" job and subsisting mainly on my own stuff by the end of 2012!!

Christmas Day

We went to church with my mom at Oakhurst Baptist last night AND this morning! I love the choir there; some of their members even sing with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra! This is the church where we got married, so I had to get pictures of us in front of the tree. Thanks to mom's friend Renee for playing photographer-- a friend is going to touch up the first one, so I'll re-post when she's done. 

Mom got us a SoniCare toothbrush for Christmas which is pretty exciting-- our dentist says it's the best thing that we could do for our teeth, and we found it on sale for $40 which is nearly half price! I don't know how we would have afforded it otherwise, so THANKS mom! She also gave me some lavender epsom salts, and a little dremel type tool for Jeremy-- he has a big bad one, but this will be good for if he wants to take it to work or on the road so he doesn't have to worry about losing/breaking it. 

I got Jeremy "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig and "Shop Class as Soulcraft" by Matthew Crawford, as well as "Cowboys and Aliens" and a couple of other things that I'm holding off on... he hasn't gotten anything for me, which I don't mind, but he's making himself feel bad about it so I don't want to give him the big surprise and make him feel really bad :\ I'll wait on that one until our first road trip, he'll be thrilled! 

Christmas with the Kids

We went and spent Christmas Eve Morning with the kids since Santa visited them early so they could go to Knoxville and see Michael's sister and her family. Grandma Patty sent more than enough presents, so we helped them figure out which presents went to which child (though Julian opened both of theirs from us and wondered why he got a pink fish!) and Jeremy played the good uncle and took all the packaging off from grandma's presents.

And we're off!

Regan got Violet a little kid laptop! 

"Open it! I play with it now!"

Auntie Margaret put tons of tape on, so I had to help V open them

Michael helps V open a particularly sticky package

Julian making a fish face and Violet liking the sparkles

She was very amused by the nose on the elephant ornament!

We finally got her to rip some of the wrapping paper!

It was a fun morning, and the kids got some really neat stuff. Julian got an Angler fish and when he pretended like it was going to bite Violet SHE bit the FISH! That girl is fearless! She got some more stuff for her play kitchen, and a little dollhouse that goes with a book series, several books, and of course ornaments from me and Jeremy. It will be interesting to see what gets donated and what they end up keeping! (every year, Grandma Patty gets them way too much stuff for their tiny house, so Michael will put some of it up in the attic for when they grow out of their current toys, and some of them go to the thrift stores for other kids to enjoy!) Who knows, maybe next year they'll have a little Clark baby to help open their presents!

Anniversary/Housewarming

We finally had a housewarming party that we combined with our anniversary and Christmas because... well, why not. We're broke and we wanted to throw a party! Because of the time of year, we didn't have a great turnout. I'm really hating our anniversary date right now-- don't ever plan your wedding around someone else, it leads to a lot of bitterness pretty quickly. 

Anyway, the food was delicious-- I made a Greek layer dip, a cheesy bean dip, and some guacamole that turned out really really well! Alexandros brought some amazing cold cuts with him that were just amazing! The sangria was awesome, the punch was great (prosecco + sherbet + grenadine) and my cousin Kim and her husband and little girl came, so it was great to see them!