November?

I feel like I blinked and November happened. I honestly had to go look at the calendar just now to remember what we did. A lot of running is what happened. This marathon training is so time consuming! I've been training since the end of July, and we have eight more weeks to go until the race. One of my biggest accomplishments thus far was running 16 miles last Saturday with Ginna. 

I've also been spending a lot of time meal planning and exploring a new way of eating. After three years of feeling yucky and doctors telling me everything was fine, I finally got some answers. It turns out I have a gluten intolerance and several food sensitivities including soy (soy is in everything!!), egg yolk, canola, sunflower, black beans, quinoa, artichoke, the list goes on... When the doctor told me "you should be gluten free for life," I was a little devastated. I knew my love for baking would have to change. I have been determined to find equally tasty gluten-free recipes, and I have done so successfully! I have been gluten free for almost three months and have also managed to stay away from the foods I'm sensitive to. Traveling and eating out has been a little tricky.. Salads are usually a good choice, but almost all salad dressings either have canola oil or soybean oil in them, so I have learned to go without. It's worth it though because I feel SO MUCH better. I don't have headaches, extreme exhaustion or the other symptoms I used to have. I'm thankful for so many gluten-free options out there! I am determined to find a GF sugar cookie recipe for Christmas! 

Last weekend, I had the privilege of going to the ASHA convention! This is the national conference for speech pathologists and audiologists. It was held in Atlanta this year, so I jumped at the opportunity to go. It was three full days sessions on topics ranging from selective mutism to pediatric swallowing to dysarthria. I get a little dorky about speech pathology when I'm surrounded by other SLPs.. I even bought a mouth puppet to help my students see correct tongue placement for the /r/ sound. It's pretty awesome. 

One of the highlights was hearing Jeri Logemann, the author of my swallowing disorders text book in grad school. I also got to hear one of my old professors from App and one of my sister's current professors at UF. During the conference, I purchased an iPad to use in therapy!  I went to two sessions about apps to download and how to use it successfully in therapy sessions. It has completely changed my life. The options are endless, and the kids are fascinated by it. It's especially great for some of my lower functioning kids who are nonverbal. It has given me a new excitement for my job! I love it!! 

And then we had Thanksgiving break. I picked my mom up from the airport on Monday, and then my dad arrived on Wednesday. Mom's birthday was on Thanksgiving day, so we had pumpkin pancakes (this recipe is AMAZING!) to celebrate, and then headed to Boone! 

 We took a walk at Bass Lake...

 Walked around downtown Blowing Rock...

And then ate Thanksgiving dinner at The Dan'l Boone Inn. The meal was nothing compared to what we would have cooked ourselves (Brian and Dad thought it was great!), but it was easy and required no prep or clean up. It was fun to spend some time back in our old town.

After a little shopping and brunch at Melanie's on Saturday, we headed to Oak Ridge to stay with the Clements. I got to meet Ginna and Jeff's new pup, Leia! She is the sweetest dog ever. Look at that sweet face!!

We got to spend some time with Seth, Katie, Alden, and Blythe that night. It was refreshing to be with old friends. Seth made Ginna sit in a chair and hold pumpkins. It's as if nothing has changed.

The Neel, Clement, Day, Parker clan...

 And the parents!

We drove back to Atlanta on Saturday night, and Dad left on Sunday. My mom flew out on Monday night. While Brian and I were at work on Monday, she folded all of our laundry, changed the sheets on the guest bed, took care of Toby, made homemade soup, and cleaned the kitchen. It was so wonderful to walk into a clean house with the smell of soup on the stove and my mom there to greet me. It's been a fast month, but I'm thankful for so much. 

happy halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone! I hope everyone is enjoying this season as much as we are. This cold weather has made it feel much more like fall lately... We even had to turn on our heat! I can't believe October is already over.. This is my favorite time of year! 

We celebrated Halloween this year with our nephews, Truett and Jack who came to trick-or-treat at our house. This was their first time, so it was pretty exciting. They weren't quite sure what to do when I greeted them at the door with a bowl full of candy. Truett tried to take the whole bowl. Jack wanted to hold the candy in his hands instead of putting it in his bag. I made these rice krispie treat pops to make it even more festive. :)

 Batman and Raphael showing us their muscles!

We had a little celebration with homemade hot chocolate and marshmallows. Toby had a fun time chasing them around the house. And we only had one spill! I consider that a success.

 Truett is wearing Brian's old batman costume that his mom made for him when he was a kid!

Toby isn't used to so much excitement around here! :)

HL Girls weekend!

This weekend we had our annual Hamilton Lakes Girls Weekend. Last year, we headed to Sparta to visit Michelle at her beautiful country home. Last year was special because she announced to all of us at once that she was pregnant! It was so fun to find out all together! This year, Reagan joined in the weekend fun! 

I drove up to Charlotte to ride the rest of the way with Carrie. We hit some bad traffic, but we were still able to make it before Reagan went to bed. We couldn't wait to get our hands on that sweet baby! 

We got to experience bath time! Look at how cute she is!! 

And then the Raleigh/Greensboro car arrived! We all just couldn't take our eyes off of Reagan. She was certainly the star of the weekend. 

We spent the entire evening laughing and catching up on life. The next morning, Michelle made pancakes, and we took our time drinking coffee and passing Reagan around the room. She took her morning nap, and then it was time for a photo shoot!

We dressed her up in this adorable little outfit and propped her up next to pumpkins. She is very photogenic. Just a beautiful happy baby! She only cried a couple of times, and even that was adorable.

 It's fun to have traditions. Here we are this year....

And last year when Reagan was in Michelle's tummy. :)

We took a short drive to an overlook on the parkway. The leaves were beautiful!  

And then it was time to say goodbye. It was a quick trip, but great to see everyone. Especially Reagan. Can't wait until next year!

fall is in the air

We had a big cold front this past weekend, and we are loving the chill in the air! Toby is a huge fan of the cooler weather. He usually prefers to be indoors, but now he loves to lay in the grass and chew on sticks. :)

Brian's best friend Mike flew down from Bloomington for a long weekend visit! From what I saw, it looked like they had the perfect weekend together. Lots of video games, boy movies, junk food, and guitar strumming.

 I have added little touches of fall to our house to make it festive... Nothing big, just little touches.

Adding different colored dry beans to a trifle dish is such an inexpensive center piece. Thanks, pinterest! :)

I got these Chinese lanterns in the dry flower section at Whole Foods. I added them to what I had for a fall touch.

I am OBSESSED with these colorful stacking pumpkins! I stood in front of Home Depot arranging them, figuring out which ones would work best for my space. I could have gone crazy buying them, but I tried to keep it to a minimum.

This makes me happy to come home to!

apple picking!

Today I went apple picking with my friends Kristin and Pam! We drove to Hillcrest Orchards in Ellijay, GA which was about an hour and a half north. It was the perfect way to spend the first day of our three-day weekend. The weather was perfect... with a nice cool autumn breeze in the air, it smelled like fall!

 We were told that there weren't too many apples left on the trees, but we found a few!

There were lots of yucky ones on the ground...

 But still some hanging in the trees!

 Pretty Pam and her pretty apple. :)

This orchard had other activities, one of which was cow milking! None of us had ever milked a cow before, so we did it just so we could say we had done it. Poor cow...

 And we were given stickers that said, "I milked Buttercup at Hillcrest Orchards."

After waiting in a long line for the bathroom so that we could wash our hands, we filled up the rest of our bags with apples that had already been picked. 

Then we munched on apple fritters, apple pie, and homemade ice cream, and were off! It was such a fun and festive day!