Our Office Christmas Party

This year for our Christmas party, Dr Bradley took us to the Viking Store in Franklin for a candy making class. Many of us had never made any kind of candy before, and we had a great time learning and spending some time together outside of the office.

Most of our group gathering around for instructions and to enjoy our little bit of savory brunch before the sweets...Yum!

Stella, Pam and Tanya working on our fudge

Dr Bradley and Dr Wilburn

Carol and Debbie mixin' it up!

Dr Bradley and Dr Wilburn again



Pam and Tanya working on our Butter Nut Brittle...I don't think Debbie wanted to be in the picture...Ha!



A before pic of our caramel pecan turtles.....

And after!! We ran out of pecans, so we made some caramel chocolate "patties" with the leftovers. Haha

Breaking up our brittle after it set

Cutting our white chocolate fudge with cherries...I'm not crazy about white chocolate or cherries, but this was really good!!

We all really enjoyed ourselves, and the candy turned out great too!! We also made some double chocolate peppermint bark...not sure why I don't have any pics of that, but it was DE-lish!! This class inspired me to try to make candy for Christmas. I'm going to make the butter nut brittle, double chocolate peppermint bark and fudge, but I'm going to make dark chocolate fudge with raspberry instead of the white with cherry. YUM!!! I will keep my fingers crossed that it all turns out okay!!

Thanksgiving

This year we went to Texas for Thanksgiving. We drove down to Dallas on the Monday before Thanksgiving and stayed with Bailey that night. It was great to get to see her apartment for the first time. It was really cute and she even had her Christmas decorations out since we were coming! :)
The next day we drove the last hour to Keller where Brad's parents live, and we stayed there through Sunday. We really enjoyed our visit. We did a lot of shopping and a lot of eating!! Brad's Aunt Patty came down from Austin and joined us for Thanksgiving dinner. We played a few board games, opened presents and had our Christmas celebration. (Since we don't get to see Brad's family at Christmastime, we always celebrate both holidays when we see them for Thanksgiving.) 
Our visit was great, and hopefully we will get to see them again soon!



O Christmas Tree!



Group Photo

Mr. Jerry

Brian and Annie

Oliver taking a nap on Brad's lap...so sweet!!

Bailey and Oliver

Waiting in line at Old Navy at 1:00am on black Friday

We shopped til we dropped!

Adam Came to See Us

Last weekend Adam was here for his yearly "Adam's Weekend" visit. He usually spends one long weekend with us every year. Normally he comes by himself, but this year mom came too. When Adam found out that she wanted to join him on his special visit, he gave us one rule. Mom and I were NOT allowed to go shopping while they were here. He said that we couldn't take up all of our visiting time with shopping. Haha. He's such a funny little guy. We agreed to his one rule, and they came up for a fun filled weekend.

Friday night when they got here, Adam and I made homemade deep dish pizzas. We made our own crust and then topped them with sauce, cheese and pepperoni. They were quite yummy if I do say so myself.



Chef Adam with our ingredients



Making the crust

Toppings are added...ready for the oven



Fresh, hot, homemade pizza





Time to dig in!! Yummy!!

Saturday we got up and went to the pumpkin patch to pick out some pumpkins. I also bought some mums...sooo pretty!! We went home and carved our pumpkins, played some touch football in the backyard, and then we waited until dark so that we could go to the corn maze at night.
Prepared with our flashlights we tackled the corn maze in about 40 minutes. It wasn't a scary maze thank goodness...I don't handle that scary stuff very well anymore. Ha! Then we went on a hayride, played some corn hole, played a little basketball and warmed up with some hot chocolate. I don't have any pictures from our nighttime activities, but here are a few shots of our pumpkin carving fun.

Working on their masterpieces




He's concentrating so hard! :)

 

Mom's pumpkin

Adam's pumpkin

Brad's pumpkin



My pumpkin

A close up of my mums!!



Sunday was game day!! It was both Adam and mom's first Titans game. We got to the stadium early so that we could watch the guys warm up. It was a great game. The Titans kind of scared us at first, but I'm so glad that they pulled out the win in the end!! We had a great time cheering them on to victory!!



Adam watching warm ups



Mom and Adam down by the field during warm ups

Brad and Adam were really into their pre-game conversation. :) Cute!

Vince Young warming up...he didn't play though

Brad and Adam watching warm ups

Michael Griffin, Jamie Winborn and Chris Johnson

Michael Vick

Time Out

Collins handing off to CJ

What a great weekend!!! I think everyone really enjoyed themselves. I know we did!! :)



Date Day

A couple of Saturdays ago Brad and I had the first "date day" that we have had in a while. We started the day at Nashville's Cheekwood gardens. There was an art exhibit there called Chihuly. I had seen it advertised for months, and thought that it looked kind of interesting so we decided to check it out.This is probably not something Brad and I would usually do, so it was nice to step out of the box and try something different.
Chihuly is actually the name of the artist whose exhibit was on display. He designed huge blown glass sculptures specifically for Cheekwood. They were all really beautiful to look at as we strolled through the gardens, which were also beautiful. Here are a few pictures from our day at Chihuly at Cheekwood.

After we left Cheekwood, we met some friends for dinner at P.F. Chang's, and then went to a Preds game. We always love going to those games. I have to admit that I'm far from completely understanding all of the rules, but the atmosphere is so fun!! Those hockey fans are just as crazy as the players themselves. The Preds wound up losing in overtime, but it was a great game and we had a great time!!