Nina's Wedding

This is my beautiful sister-friend, Kristina Michelle. I called her "Hill" for two years while we served missions together in Pusan, Korea.

Yesterday, she married Dan Fife. She was stunningly beautiful.

The reception, at Sundance, was sparkly and lovely.

I am a giant when I stand next to her.

Her bleeding armadillo groom's cake!

Me and my mama, all dressed up.

Sorry I've been MIA...

I've been spending quite a bit of time with this sweet man. I only manage to snap pictures of us in the car, it seems. I've got to work on getting my camera out more often.

This was the first day we went to Mint together, a classy Indian food restaurant. It's Delicious! We declared it officially "ours."  Yup. Look at me being all mushy and having a restaurant with someone. This is real, folks.

Give Thanks

Due to a neat twist in the schedule at work, I had a paid flight home for the Thanksgiving holiday, plus ten days to stay and play with my family in Utah.

It was a day of cooking, eating, resting, laughing, singing, talking and rough-housing at Nana's. 

She had eight children. As all of them stayed in the area to raise their own families, we had plenty of cousins to hang out with at family functions. I love going home  and seeing how old everyone is getting (as the oldest grandchild, I always imagine the other kids perpetually young; it surprises me to see them graduating from college and getting married, etc. etc.).

Me with my lovely aunts: Sadie, Michelle, and Melissa. I love these fabulous women. Notice we donned adorable aprons before beginning the mashing of potatoes and whipping of the cream. Nana's kitchen is designed just so we each have enough space to work on all the kitchen tasks simultaneously, as Nana flits around instructing, "Now add a splash of milk and stir it in. Honey, your bread is ready to roll out." 

We had our traditional green jello topped with cheddar cheese, a Montgomery specialty--trust me, it's delicious!

We're a big enough bunch that we had multiple kids' tables scattered throughout the basement.

I spread the yo-yo fever and had several of my younger cousins practicing tricks after dinner. This is Christopher, the most adorable little cowboy. 

Got to see Pixie Rae!!

And my lovely sister, Toad. 

I'm so very grateful for family. These people are my anchors in life; they make me laugh, they pray for me when I'm away, they are a riot of sarcasm and hugs. 

Workin' in Carolina

I drive past neat Carolina scenes on my way to work, different routes every day through the rural parts of NC. Here are a few pictures I managed to snap.

Sundays with NIck

He holds my hand during the prayers at church.

And then he takes me home and makes me lunch.

Masquerade

This post is a quickie, just for the sake of recording a special night. 

Elizabeth threw a masquerade ball at her house. I went.

 I did her hair. I didn't get pictures of the brilliant decor for the party, or of all the guests sweet masks. Instead, I took took a picture of her brushing her teeth while she was waiting for the glue on her fake eyelashes to dry.  

It was a typical, fun night, and I didn't think much of it at the time...

...but that was the night I met a certain gentleman who has since become a very important part of my life. His name is Nick. It was October 19th. 

More to come about him, and me =)

A State Affair

The biggest party in the South? The North Carolina State Fair. Elizabeth and I pulled on our cowboy boots and spent an entire day eating fried food and watching potbelly pig races. We caught two great country concerts during the evenings, as well: Billy Currington and Jake Owen (um, I love Jake Owen now. He was the most precious. He brought a little girl up on stage--she crowd surfed from her father's shoulders to get there--and danced with her during a song. Then he said, "I can't wait 'til I have a little baby just like that." His whole personality was just friendly and available to the entire crowd. I loved it.) Anyway, back to the fair:

We tried to hit all the must-do, traditional state fair things. We ate candied apples and drank pink lemonade.

E grabbed some delicious corn on the cob.

They fry anything and everything. We not only saw fried cookie dough and fried kool-aid for sale, we also heard rumor of a stand offering fried sticks of butter. Gross.

But you can't go to the NC State Fair without eating something fried! So...

...I went for deep-fried Reeses' Peanut Butter Cups.

They were alright. I didn't keel over from a stuffed artery right away, so as long as I hit the gym every day next week, I'll probably be okay. I would have preferred, though, just a nice, melty reeses. Think: Kristen, campout, s'mores with peanut butter cups instead of Hershey chocolate slabs. Okay, back to the fair:

E bought this turkey leg, but it was huge and super salty, so we each tasted a little, but could finish it. Which surprised us because we saw several small children gnawing away at these babies throughout the day. 

Of course, our favorite indulgence of the day was the classic: fresh icecream. Yum!

We also saw great exhibits, from period-dressed actors whittling tools from wood to an educational garden where you could plant and harvest fruit.

Elizabeth offering a caramel apple to the prize-winning steed.

This mama pig was unbelievably massive, and she couldn't get a respite from her squealing babies. This fascinated us for a full five minutes. 

Giant pumpkins.

Giant watermelons.

We caught two of our friends out on a friendly date, waved from across the room, snapped their picture. Whatevs.

At night they had a fantastic fireworks show. We watched it after riding two crazy roller-coaster rides. 

I love this girl. We have so much fun exploring our new home out here. Can't imagine country concerts and fried food on a stick without her!