Trip to Patti's

On Sunday afternoon, George, Courtney, and Clay rolled into Kentucky with two dogs and a car loaded down!  They had been to visit George's mom first in Tennessee and then came to Benton to spend the rest of Christmas week.  George's favorite restaurant is Patti's in Grand Rivers, so we made reservations for late that night.  On the way, we stopped to show them our new house and then got there early to take some pictures.  They always have such pretty decorations and lights everywhere!

 

 Grant and I

 

 Two of my best friends!  Kem and Courtney (Mother-in-law and Sister-in-law)

 

 The whole fam!  This one is a framer :)

 

 Kemy wanted some solo pictures!

 

 Our favorite (and only) nephew, Clay!

 

 George, Courtney, and Clay

 

Bucky!

 

Fun night with family to kick off Christmas week and delicious food as always!  We were so excited to have Courtney, George, and Clay back in town for the holidays!



WE ARE HOMEOWNERS

Friday, December 20th, Grant and I closed on our very first house! YAY!  We are officially owners of a home!

 

Friday morning we still had quite a few things to get together and packed up.  We were both off work, so we woke up early, packed up both of our cars to the brim (literally) and headed to KY to put the finishing touches on a few items before closing.  We ran by the place where we are ordering the hardwood to get a sample, switched all our names over at the gas and water company, got a sample of the tile that I have picked out for the house, did the final walk through with the realtor, and then made it to the bank by 4:00!

We went into the conference room and signed about five million papers, got the garage door openers, the keys, and the house was ours!!  So exciting!  The closing process wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be!  The worst part was definitely handing over the check for the down payment.

We were going to move all of our big furniture on Saturday morning, but it was supposed to be a terrible downpour and flood!  So, Ray got off work early on Friday and he decided they should come on.  While we were signing papers, Kem, Ray and Lane Roberts (a friend that's in high school) drove the trailer to Nashville, loaded all of our stuff, and then brought it back to the house.  Can we say Best In-Laws Ever!!  It was such a big help to not have to drive back on Saturday and try to move in the pouring rain.

After we got the keys, we headed out to house to unload our cars and wait for Kem and Ray to get back.  When we pulled in the driveway, Lisa had snuck over and left us this sign...

Loved it!!  It's so fun to have family and friends just as exited as we are for us to get home!

 

We unpacked our cars, and I dug out our new "M" for the frontdoor.  I had to put it on first thing so everyone would know it was officially ours! :) PS That front door will be getting repainted...

 

Grant's grandparents also came over and we ordered pizza for our first meal in our new home! Once Kem and Ray got back, we unloaded the trailer in the garage.  So, it looks like a tornado came through, but everything is there!  I have a bunch of pictures on my real camera, that I will upload later so that we can keep up with all of the before and afters.

 

Yay for actually having everything in one place for this first time in YEARS!  We are so excited and thankful to our family for all the help that they have done/will do.  I have a feeling we will be keeping everyone pretty busy these next few weeks!

Annual Opryland Date Night

Last Thursday night, Grant and I headed over to Opryland to walk around and look at the Christmas lights and celebrate our 5 year anniversary!  Since we thought things would be a little crazy on our actual anniversary and since we would be in KY, we decided to celebrate a little early! 

 

After we both got off work, we packed a few things in the car for the move, changed clothes, and then went to Opryland!  I love looking at all the Christmas lights!  It is amazing to see how many lights and how much work goes into the display at the hotel!  Luckily, we went on a weeknight, so things weren't too crazy around there, but there were still people everywhere.  We ate dinner at one of the Italian restaurants in the main atrium.  It probably wasn't the best meal we ever had for the price, but the view (and the company) was great!

 

 Thanks Grant for the solo pic at dinner!

 

 Love this tree!

 

My handsome husband!



Happy 5 Years!!

 

We had a great night relaxing, before gearing up to move and close on Friday!  I can't believe it has already been five years...and I really can't believe we actually pulled off a Christmas wedding with all the chaos of the season!  Grant said on our actual anniversary, the 27th, he would cook me dinner in our new house! 

 

Love you, Grant - Happy 5 Years!



FOUR MONTHS

Last night Grant and I cheated and opened one of our Christmas gifts to each other.  I actually can't believe Grant went for it, but he did! Yay!  Usually he has to make me not tell him what I get him for Christmas and birthdays :)  I get a little excited!

 

Grant got me some aloe infused socks that I had been wanting...perfect.  I got Grant this ornament...

 

 

I can't believe graduation is 4 MONTHS AWAY!  Just 4 months!!  I think I am more excited than Grant is!  I am so proud of him and I cannot wait to move on to the next phase.  Next Christmas, after he already working, I didn't figure we would be as excited about graduation, so he got the ornament this year!  The front has a graduation cap and says "Happy Graduation!"

 

Yay, Yay, Yay for almost being done!  You're almost there, Grant!



Pharmacy Christmas Party

Sunday night after the Lovett's left, we headed over to Josh and Annie Brown's house for a Christmas party with our close Pharmacy school friends.  A few people were sick and couldn't make it, but we still had a great turn out and a fun time!  Annie and Josh provided the meat and the rest of us made side items.  It was pretty delish!

 

After dinner, we played dirty Santa.  None of the presents were actually things that you would really want, so the game went pretty fast! Ha!  For example, I brought several things from around the house that I didn't want to pack in the move :)

 

We finished the night by playing several rounds of Mafia...in the dark!  Grant and I have played mafia a million times with our youth group, but never heard of the in the dark version.  It was a blast!  I can't wait to take it home and show our youth group.  They are going to love it!!

 

Grant's dirty Santa gift was this nifty screwdriver/knife that fits right on your belt buckle!

 Josh got a six pack (well really four pack) of Sprite!

 Lindsey posing with her delicious salad...you couldn't even tell a few pieces were burnt ;)

 

 Lindsey opening her first present with smore's supplies and soup!  She was apparently excited! 

 

All the girls minus Lisa! - Forgot to get a pic of the boys...whoops

 

Thanks Annie and Josh for hosting such a fun party!  We sure are going to miss our Pharmacy friends!!

 



Eco Christmas Party

Saturday night while Gabbi played her game, Grant and I headed out to my work's Christmas party.  This year they had it at the Marriott Hotel in Cool Springs and the theme was game night!  It was kind of sad, because it was my last work Christmas party.  I really am going to miss my job and everyone that I work with!

 

We played bingo throughout the night for prizes and then they drew individual tickets for the big prizes.  This year they had a WiiU, $500 Best Buy gift card, a couple of iPads, and an iRobot Vacuum as the big prizes.  I won an iPad mini last year, so of course I wasn't lucky enough to win twice in a row!  They also handed out huge bottles of Jack Daniels with our companies logo en scripted on them and toffee at every table.  If you ask me they spent too much on the alcohol and not enough on the prizes this year!  I would much rather have won a prize!!  They also had a photo booth, which we ended up getting some pretty hilarious pictures in!

 Lisa did my hair for the party!  Thanks Lisa :) And she took these photos at our house before we left!



 She said that she couldn't see the tree in the pictures, so we showed her the tree!

Lori, Me, and Anna - practicing our mom pose!

 

 And then out prom pose

Then we got serious!

 

It was a fun night to get out and let Grant meet and spend time with all of the people that I talk about all the time! Eco does always throw a pretty good Christmas party! 

 

It hasn't really sunk in that I won't be working at Eco past March, so for now I'm just going to pretend like that's not happening!  I really am going to miss hanging out with these people everyday!

 

  

Our Last Weekend in Nashville...

This weekend was probably one of our last weekends in Nashville before the big move!  We close on our house this Friday and are moving our big furniture out on Saturday!  Exciting!!!

 

There was no better way to spend our last weekend, than to have family come to visit and Christmas parties!  The Lovett's came to town on Friday night, because Gabbi was in a basketball tournament in Cool Springs.  She played late on Friday, so we grabbed something to eat before and then headed over to the game.  After the game, we headed home, caught up, and stayed up way to late watching a movie!

 

Saturday morning we had our very own waffle house right at the Mathis apartment!  Trent and I cooked bacon, sausage, biscuits, eggs, and pancakes!  Delish! 

(The m&ms were a bonus!)

 



Gabbi didn't play until 9:00 on Saturday night, so that gave us plenty of time to shop! Lisa, Gabbi, and I spent the day going around Brentwood and Cool Springs and finishing up our Christmas shopping!  Gabbi and I took Lisa's debit card and bought her Christmas presents from Trent.  That was a mistake!  Gabbi said this is going to be Lisa's best Christmas she's ever had! haha!  Grant and Trent packed up some loose items around the house, hanging pictures, and who knows what else into Trent and Lisa's van.  They took the van back to Kentucky so Friday night after we get the keys, we can unload and bring it back to Nashville on Saturday!  Thanks Trent and Lisa!

 

Sunday Gabbi played at 11:00 am, so we slept in a little and then headed over to the game.  They won that game to send them to the finals!  So, in between games, of course we headed back to the mall so that Lisa could get a couple more things for Christmas!  The finals were at 4 pm and they won!  Go Magic!

 

It was kind of bittersweet to have the Lovett's here on our last weekend.  They have stayed at our house more than anyone else in our family and lived with us at the apartment for three months while Landon was in the hospital.  We decided that when we moved home we were going to miss them staying with us for tournaments, so when Gabbi has a game in Paducah they can come to our house for the weekend since its closer!

 

Our apartment is starting to look so bare.  There will be lots of packing this week, but we are getting so excited about moving it into our house!

 

 



Emily Mathis Photography

This year since I have purchased my awesome camera (that I love) pretty much everyone in our family has asked for me to take their Christmas Card pictures!  It's been fun to test out my editing and picture taking skills on them.  I'm getting lots of practice for my photography studio I am going to open in my next life! :)

 

This is the Lovett's Christmas card I designed.  Above is the front of the card and below is the back.

 

 Kem and Ray's Christmas Card.  They both liked the "Be Jolly" so everyone is getting the same saying this year!

 

 Kelly designed her own card, but these are some of the pictures I took that she is going to use.

 

 

I've been so busy helping everyone else with their cards, that Grant and I don't even have one yet!  We had planned on taking a picture in front of our new house, but when we spontaneously went to snap it, the owners were still there moving stuff out!  Grant panicked, Kem took the picture, we didn't match, and half of the house ended up getting cut out of the pic! haha.  So, we decided we would wait until we actually have the house and send out a happy new year/here's our new address card.  This was the best picture we got...

 

We have officially set the closing date for the 20th! YAY! 

 



Preds Game

Last Thursday night Grant and I got to go our second Nashville Predators game!  Our friend, Cody, had some tickets that he couldn't use that night, so he gave them to us!  He said they were for Grant's birthday, but really he just couldn't use them!  I don't know hardly anything about hockey, but the Preds games are always so entertaining (maybe it's because there is fighting).  Before the game, we went and got our last meal at Sam's sushi.  Sam's has the cheapest sushi in town and its also really good!  He's closing his shop and moving back to Japan at the first of the year, so that was probably our last chance to enjoy!  We left a few minutes before the game ended, but the Preds were losing 4-2.  Even though we didn't see any fights and the Preds were losing, it was still a fun night to get out and do something different!  Thanks for the tickets, Cody :)

 

 

 



Grant's 27th Birthday!

Poor Grant...his birthday always falls right around Thanksgiving and right around the time everyone is running around crazy shopping or getting ready for Christmas!  This year, his birthday fell on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  All of the women of the family were off Christmas shopping, so it was just me, Grant, and Ray there to celebrate on his actual birthday.  I guess that's what happens when you turn 27!

 

We spent the morning looking around a flooring (again) and then Grant helped Ray fix some metal on the barn that afternoon.  We had plans to go to my twin cousins 16th surprise party that night, so once again poor Grant's birthday was overshadowed! ha!

 

I posted this picture on his birthday...look at how adorable he was as a kid and how much we have aged over the years!!  Let's all be thankful he turned out ok after living through his sister dressing him up in Cheerleading uniforms!

 

Sunday we did go out to eat with the whole family after church and got to celebrate again!  His aunt and his grandparents got him the exact same card!

 

Happy Birthday, Grant!  I love you and hope we get to spend many more birthdays together!

Thanksgiving 2013

We had a wonderful, busy Thanksgiving spent with lots of time with family!  

 

Kem was out of town in Philadelphia with Klein, so it was just Ray, Grant, and I for all of our Thanksgiving festivities.  Klein had been selected to cheer in the Philadelphia Thanksgiving Day parade, and Kem got volunteered to take her!  We had lunch at Ray's brother's house and then dinner with Grant's family.  I was so busy cooking and getting ready, my pictures skills were lacking this Thanksgiving! I did take a few random pictures from Thanksgiving dinner that night...

 

Karson, Me, and Alec

 

Gran holding Lovett

 



Grant and I

 

Sister-in-laws! (We need a tan)

 







After we finished dinner on Thanksgiving night, Grant and I took most of the kids to the movies to see Catching Fire.  We had a little time to kill before the movie started, so we took a trip to the mall to play a game and see who could get the craziest picture.  This was Karson and mine's pic...

 

Just doing some downward dog in the middle of the mall while the man behind Karson is sleeping!  It was hysterical!  We obviously won.

 

The movie was great!!  We got home late that night after a fun-filled Thanksgiving with family.  We have so much to be thankful for this year, and it was great to be able to spend it with all of our family!

 

Happy Thanksgiving!



 



 

 



Nashville Flea Market

This weekend Grant and I stayed in Nashville and did a little looking around and shopping for the new house!  Friday night after work, we were both exhausted from a long week.  So, we grabbed a bite to eat at Pei Wei and then headed home to relax for the night!

 

Saturday morning we woke up and got ready to go to the Nashville Flea Market!  The Flea Market happens every fourth weekend, and surprisingly this was my first time to go!  We made it there around 9:00 and got to work!  Some of the booths reminded me of Tater Day (a fair in KY) but we ended up finding some really good things!  I've got a few projects going for the house (that sound good in my head, so I hope they turn out ok) and I was on the hunt to see if I could find anything to use.  I didn't realize the fair was so big and it was freezzziinnnggg, but it was worth the trip!

 

 

These old window panes and empty frames we found for two of my projects!

 

And this old door for another project! Grant's grandmother on his dad's side passed away a couple of years ago.  We were going through her barn and found an old door that I thought would be neat to fix up and put in our house somewhere.  I've got a project in my head for using three doors, so I need to find one more!

 

After the flea market, we headed to a few different stores to check out hardwood and compare prices.  We are going to redo the flooring in basically the entire downstairs, so we were just trying to get an idea of what all is out there.  We finished off the day eating at Carrabba's, because we had a gift card. Yummy!  Such a fun day shopping around town with Grant looking at things for our house!! 

 

Sunday morning we went to Church and were dismissed early to go to the grocery and buy whatever we could to help the hungry people around Nashville.  It was awesome to see the grocery stores full of people from church!  They loaded it up in UHauls and seeing some of the pictures throughout the day on Instagram, it looks like they collected a lot of food!!

 

We finished the weekend by laying on the couch, catching up around the house, wrapping some Christmas presents, and watching football!  Thank goodness it's a short week and we are headed to Kentucky on Wednesday night for Thanksgiving!

 

Happy Thanksgiving Week!



Celebrating Landon

This time last year were some one of the hardest few days that Grant's family has ever had to go through.  Wednesday marked the one year anniversary of Landon going to be with Jesus.  It's so hard to believe it has already been a year, but it feels like its been an eternity in so many ways.  I will never forget the pain of that day.  Seeing a mother and father, brother and sister, grandparents, family, and friends say goodbye to a fun, loving, smart, 19 year old girl, was something I never imagined we would have to do.  As we gathered around her bed and Grant led a prayer before the hospital staff was going take her away, I couldn't help but question why in the world did we have to do this?  Why did God have to make Trent and Lisa suffer so much?  None of it made much sense.  The six months that she was in the hospital were a complete blur and the three months that Trent and Lisa lived with us is even fuzzier. 

 

Over the course of this last year, though, I can definitely see glimpses of God's plan in taking Landon.  It was her time, and he has used her to bring our family even closer to each other and to Him.  I've watch Trent and Lisa hold their family together by being strong and trusting God.  I've watched them grow spiritually throughout this year and be awesome examples of faith!  I've watch her brother and sister grow and mature to young adults.  It's brought a community together, and its reminded us that no matter what happens or what God's plan might be, we are never in it alone.

 

Although it is a sad time and something that I never want to have to go through again, I know God has a plan.  He always knows what he's doing.  If there is one thing I have learned in life so far, its that life isn't fair.  It just isn't.  That's why we have Jesus and the hope of one day spending eternity with him...without the pain, without the tears, and without worry.  We are one year closer to seeing Landon again, and one year closer to getting to spend eternity with Jesus and those that have already gone on.  I can't wait to be able to hug some of these people again!  Lisa posted the below on Facebook on Wednesday.  I wanted to put it on here so that people can see how awesome she is!  She's been through so much this past year, but she's made me look up to her even more!

 

 We love and miss you, Landon!  Can't wait to see you soon!

 

 



Pharmacy Thanksmus

It's hard to believe that last night was our 4th Thanksmus with the College of Pharmacy at Lipscomb!  Every year before Thanksgiving break, the whole college and their families get together to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Since all of Grant's class has been in rotations and not in the classroom, it was fun to get everyone back together and catch up!

 

The whole crew!  So Thankful Grant has had so many great people to go through school with.  We sure are going to miss these guys!

 

My Nashvegas BFF :)

 

My P4!  Almost there!

 

Only one week left until Thanksgiving, and we have so much to be thankful for this year!  Can't wait for some time off from work and spending time with family!

 

Happy Thanksmus!