Teens!!

Tonight we hosted our youth group teens for a Christmas dinner. Afterwards they went to Patrick and Johanna's for dessert and a bonfire. They're a fun group!

My husband is a genius!

I am continually amazed and impressed by John's creativity and skill! He has a vision for our deck and it is coming together so beautifully!! Some of the railings are up already and I can't be any happier!

Is it December already?!

We celebrated Thanksgiving at our neighbors' home. Aunt Charlene and Uncle Tim drove down from Pennsylvania to spend the holiday with us! We had a blast having them here!


This was my Blackberry Cheesecake for Thanksgiving dinner....I forgot to take a picture before we dug in.

Fall Happenings

This past weekend I jet-setted across the country to attend the wedding of a long time friend. It was a fun "reunion" of friends.

I also got to spend time with some of my family (my dad, Aunt Jenifer, and Candice). That time was too short but enjoyed immensely.

As for life in NC...John stays busy completing the deck and finishing the flooring in our guest bathroom. My Aunt Charlene and Uncle Tim moved to Pennsylvania earlier this year and are driving down to spend Thanksgiving with us. We are looking forward to the time together! It actually falls into our "plan"...slowly but surely we'll have everyone moved out to the east coast. **insert evil laugh**






We've made some new friends at our church, Johanna and Patrick (and Avery & Caroline, their daughters). They are the leaders of the high school ministry which we have become involved in also. We have a group of about 10-15 kids each wednesday night, and we have a fun event/outing once a month.


The NASCAR season is one race away from being over. I have been thrilled with the end of the season since Jimmie Johnson has dominated and will most likely take home the Cup (if I didn't just jinx him). I joined a fantasy football league this year with some California friends, in the hopes that I would become more interested in the football season...no such luck.

God continues to bless us daily and we're enjoying life. :) Hope you're all well and enjoying the Fall season!

Our 2008 Fall is Here Dance!!!

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Fall Friends

Kate's gone blog-crazy

More pictures of John skinning trees




This is Kate squirrel hunting...the lazy way. No, she's not shooting straight up. It's just a pellet gun to sting a little and hopefully scare the squirrel family into moving to a different tree, away from the dogs. Otherwise, the dogs howl all day long at this one tree.

Here lizard, lizard, lizard!

Along with the acorn infestation, this appears to be the hatching season for lizards! We find them everywhere! The dogs love to chase them on the back deck and on the trees, so far I don't think they've caught any. We also have to watch where we step on the front porch because amongst the acorns are baby lizards playing hide-and-go-seek with each other. One lizard has found a way into the house. We catch him and put him back outside, but within a few days he has returned. We're pretty sure he's the same one. I really don't mind the lizards in the house at all. Infact, I'm trying to convince John that we should breed them and allow them free roam of the house to eat all the spiders and insects that I so badly despise. ha! I'm kidding...sort of.

The sky is falling!

This year we have been inundated with acorns from our many oak trees. We're pretty sure we didn't have any acorns last year, but this year we have milions...seriously. You can't walk barefoot, and even with shoes on you tend to roll places if you don't step carefully. At night we listen to "plunk", "plink", "doink" as they fall on the roof. But lately, there has been an increase in the "fall rate" and it sounds more like a machine gun. When walking outside, one must take precaution in protecting your head from falling acorns.


This is Kate wanting to spend time on the new deck, but having to protect her face.

Fence posts

Every chance he gets, John heads to the woods with the chainsaw to find his next victims...Poplar trees. The mission is to find the perfect sized Poplar for the posts to our deck. Here is one of many piles



He is becoming quite skilled in skinning logs and the process that goes along with that.


Sorry for the poor pictures, I keep forgetting to take pictures during the daytime and our camera doesn't seem to do well in the dusk lighting.

♥ 4 years ♥

Our 4th wedding anniversary was on Sept 25. We celebrated by going to dinner at our favorite restaurant Smokey Bones in Fayetteville.

Woertman Brothers Construction

Yesterday we spent the day in Apex with the "Other Woertmans", building a fence along the street side of their backyard. Kate stayed at the house to watch the kids while John and Freddy went to Lowe's to pick up materials. (Candy, Jordan, and Caroline were out selling popcorn for Boyscouts so they missed out on the action!)



Woertman Brother's Construction got to work




I was the "aesthetics coordinator"


Then I passed along the duties to Heather


Uncle John put Ashton to work.


Jessica was the babysitter who watched Ricky, but came out to visit occasionally.


Here is Freddy putting on the last board! YAY!!!


And the finished product from the across-the-street view.

Off to the races!

So incase you don't know our story...in 2004 John proposed to me at the NHRA drag races in Sonoma, CA. So as our 4 year wedding anniversary is 2 weeks away, we struggled to come up with a celebration that fits into our newly created budget. God truly works in mysterious ways, even for such simple requests. Last week my friend from work, Joe, emailed me asking if John and I would like tickets to the American Drag Racing League's (ADRL) show in a neighboring county for this coming Saturday. I jumped at the opportunity and the tickets arrived in the mail the next day! Up until Friday night, it was looking as if John was not going to be able to arrange his work schedule to attend the race. But at the last minute someone switched with him and we made our plan: I was up with John at 3:30AM, we drove to Starbucks together, I slept in the truck for awhile, and spent the day hand-stitching things for my etsy store. When John got off work, we headed to the races.

Infront of a modified Chevy.


We walked across the street to The Rockingham Speedway where NASCAR used to race.


awww...the symbolism...


We had a blast! What more can you ask for on a Saturday? Cars that race at 200 MPH!! A place where Chevy, Ford, and Dodge still reign. Not to mention the awesome "people watching" that rivals any event I ever went to in California. :)Unfortunately we were so tired by the time evening came, that we had to come home before the finals and fireworks show. But we had a great time and got to reminisce about our engagement. So, THANK YOU JOE!!!

It's raining, it's pouring...

Well we survived our first "hurricane"! Actually by the time it hit land it had fizzled out and all we got was a good thunderstorm which isn't anything new for us. We were prepared for several days of no power and fortunately the power was only out for a few hours! I didn't even get to use my handy all-in-one "wind-up rechargeable power AM/FM radio, flashlight, emergency alarm, cell phone charger"! (Thanks Erik!! It's in our emergency kit ready to be used!)

I even BBQ'd ("grilled out") in the rain! I'm either a silly Californian who doesn't know better, or a hardcore North Carolinian...you can decide. (No, there was no lightning at the time)


We don't have a lot of updates so here are a few photos just to say we posted something. ha!

This is me on the back deck, on my favorite piece of furniture that we own....my World Market table and benches. One of the benches in on top of the table becuase I was using it for a background for my etsy pictures and hadn't taken it down yet.


And here is my redneck husband, truly fitting in with the southern way of life. Later that day he went Rattlesnake hunting on our property...no luck though. It's still out there somewhere.

Gunner sitting so proper...waiting for the smallest crumb to fall off mommy's pizza.


Gauge looking as cute as ever.