Christmas Letter

Hopefully you received our advertisement Christmas card. We decided to direct everyone to our blog since it shows more than just a card. Also, instead of printing out a Christmas letter we thought we would post it here!

This year marks our third Christmas while living in Georgia. We have enjoyed our time here so far and feel that we have been blessed in everything we've done.

Currently the Atlanta Temple is getting refurbished, which means it will be closed for about 18 months, so Joe and I were released as Temple workers in June. We have been sad to lose our two Saturdays a month there, it really was a wonderful experience, but we of course have managed to fill the time with other things.

Our stake was realigned this year and we are now going to a brand new church building that is a bit closer than the last one. We have also moved from being in the smallest ward in the stake to now being in one of the largest wards. It's a lot of fun and we've met some wonderful new friends. I was called to be the second counselor in the Young Women's organization again, and I love it. The women I work with are fantastic and we have a fun group of girls. Joe was called to be one of the Seminary teachers for the ward just before the new school year started in August. They are able to meet at the church and he teaches about 12 kids. He is still really excited about his calling and loves teaching the kids about the Book of Mormon. It's been a really great opportunity for us to study the scriptures together as he prepares his lessons.

We were pleased to welcome Joe's parents in March along with some friends (the Fulmers). They stopped by on their way up to Williamsburg, North Carolina for the week. We met Steve and Sharon later in the week in Williamsburg to finish out their trip and drive them back to the ATL airport. It was fun to see the Revolutionary history of the country and spend time with Steve and Sharon. Here's a little about our trip to Williamsburg.

In April Joe and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary in Savannah, Georgia. Savannah is a beautiful city and we'll definitely be visiting again. You can check out my post about it here: Savanniversary

We took a trip to Charleston, SC in June and it was a lot of fun. It's a fun city with interesting homes and history. Here's my post about our trip: Charleston

Annie finally made it out for a visit in September. She didn't have much in mind for her visit, so Joe and I planned what we wanted to do and drove Annie across the state - literally! We made some stops along the historic highway 441 visiting such exciting places as Athens, Watkinsville, Madison, and Eatonton where you can find Uncle Remus' Cabin. We also stopped by the Georgia Guidestones, I highly recommened it. As well as Tallulah Falls and Gorge. It was fun having Annie visit, and exciting to see some more of what Georgia has to offer. Check out some of my posts about our adventures with Annie

We also took a quick trip to Disney World in December. My sister Becky and her family were there for a week and we joined them on their last day in the parks. It was so much fun to spend the day with them in the Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. Our friends Destiny and Tyler were kind enough to let us stay at their house for the weekend, they were great hosts and it was fun to meet their new son Tyce. I'll do a post soon!

Joe and I still work at the same places, YearOne and Earnest Partners (respectively), and we still enjoy our work. We feel it's a blessing that we both are still employeed as we know the last year has been a rough one for many.

We are looking forward to what the new year will bring. We plan on going on more adventures which you can follow along here on our blog.

Georgia Mountains

On our final day with Annie we decided to take her to the Georgia mountains. We had heard that Tallulah Gorge and Falls was pretty awesome. We didn’t go early enough to get tickets to actually hike in the gorge, they only let about 150 people per day down there, but we still saw plenty.
 
There was this slightly scary suspension bridge that you could use to cross the gorge.
 
At the bottom of about 300 metal steps there was the entrance to the gorge. If you didn’t have a pass you could mill around on a little wood porch they built a little over the river.
     
On the other side of the gorge there was this rock seat that we took a break on. It was nice and cool and we were super hot and exhausted from take about 1000 stairs down one side and up the other of the gorge.
 
Here is the dam.

Joe and Annie finished out the hike by doing a cartwheel, it was great.
There’s a little shop that you can stop by above the gorge that has a nice view. They also have some fun old photographs from early 1900’s.
    

Local Braselton Charm

Like promised, Joe and I took a few pictures of some more run down homes and things. We even didn’t get it all, but we’ll slowly unveil the awesomeness that Georgia has to offer.
This house is amazing. It’s on the way to our friends the Nicolich’s. It’s hard to believe anyone lives there, but you know they do because when it’s warmer out there usually an old man out on the stairs hanging out. If you open the second picture larger you can see that there are a couple refrigerators on the porch. Sometimes the front door is open and you can peak inside while you drive by, it’s a little scary.
  
Here’s the gas station. I think the rusted out signs are totally awesome. If that junky house wasn’t connected to the awning I think it be a pretty awesome spot for some family photos or something.
   
There were several more houses I wanted to take pictures of, but we needed some more time (we were going to PF Chang’s for dinner) and we needed to actually get out of the car and walk to them to get good shots. These were 3 barns all next to each other.
  
The gas station and barns are again on Highway 124, just on the other side of the town center.

Fourth of July

We didn’t do a whole lot on the fourth. We decided to watch the fire works that Publix and the Chateau put on, but we didn’t want to hang out in the Publix parking lot like all the other weirdoes. Instead we went to an empty neighborhood
  I took this picture on a different day, I had to document how this neighborhood has sat like this for over 2 years. The original developer went bankrupt.
We saw some OK fireworks from our vantage point, but it wasn’t amazing.

We decided to create our own show. We invited Bill Nicolich (Emily was out of town) and the Poole’s to join us. Julie and I sat back while the boys got their fill of creating scary situations with things that explode.
 
We did end up making a mess by putting a bunch of flashers into a pickle jar. Apparently the pickle jar couldn’t take the heat.

More Explorations

After visiting the Guidestones we drove down to Athens. I always want more from Athens, but I never get much out of it. It’s a fun college town, it’s home to the University of Georgia. They have a cute shopping district and the campus is nice, but that’s about it. Maybe I’m missing something.
We ate at Five Guys because I wouldn’t let Joe take us to the Grill, which is a disgusting 24 our diner. It’s one of those places that people love, probably out of nostalgia, but I just feel dirty in there.
   
From Athens we made our way to Watkinsville. We were traveling on the route that was saved from burning when Sherman went on his rampage of burning Georgia.
In Watkinsville we stopped by Eagle Tavern which was “the center of social and political life in Watkinsville for more than a hundred years”
 
On our way out we drove by my cousin’s house. They live in a historical home and it looks like they are redoing the entrance to the estate.

We drove to the Elder Mill Covered Bridge which was built in 1897 and is “one of the few covered bridges in Georgia continuing to  to carry traffic without underlying steel beams.”
 
From Watkinsville we stayed on the path and drove down to Madison in Morgan County. Apparently Madison’s claim to fame is that when Sherman came through he couldn’t burn Madison, he apparently said it was too pretty to burn. And really, it was very pretty. I would like to go back and tour some of the homes and spend more time looking around, but we didn’t stay long, we still had to continue the route towards Eatonton.
  
On our way down we saw a sign for Rock Eagle Mound. I originally didn’t want to go, but the entrance to place seemed so large, I decided we should stop by. Rock Eagle Mound is apparently of prehistoric origin. It is a mound of white quartz rocks in the shape of an Eagle. “Only two such configurations discovered East of the Mississippi River, both are in Putnam County.”
 
After this little diversion we finally arrived to our major destination of the day. Uncle Remus’ house! It was constructed from three slave cabins that the author of the Brer stories, Joel Chandler Harris would have heard the stories on the plantation.

Inside the museum there are various pictures from the book and creations of the Brer characters. There is one painting that Walt Disney presented to the museum of the man who played Uncle Remus and the little boy from The Song of the South. I’m sure you know, but Magic Mountain in Disneyland is based on the Brer characters. You can’t buy the movie in America, we got our copy on eBay from Japan. There were also some Civil War things in the museum, like some Confederate money bills and books. It was small, but there was some interesting stuff to look at.
Other than the Uncle Remus' Museum, Eatonton seemed boring.
We drove back home going through Social Circle which has the famous Blue Willow Inn restaurant and Monroe & sunny Winder. It was a thrilling day. Tons of driving, but we saw lots of awesome rural Georgia. I think it was worth it.