Looking Ahead

I am ready and waiting for a fantastic 2010! Overall, 2009 wasn’t a bad year, but it was a sad year for obvious reasons. I have faith that 2010 will be a good one. Here are just a few things I have to look forward to in the coming year…

• Colorado Ski Trip – It’s been almost two years since we visited Matt and Jennifer in Denver, so this time around we’re hoping to go in the next couple of months and do some skiing in Breckenridge.
• My FOURTH wedding anniversary – My, how time flies!
• My 30th birthday – Yes, I’ll be turning the big 3-0 in September, so stay tuned for party plans. ;)
• Baby Ferrell’s birth – If you haven’t heard already, Derek and I will welcome another niece or nephew this summer! Congrats, Neil and Katie!
• Another summer at Eagle Lake – my favorite thing to do during the summer… there’s nowhere else like it.

There’s much, much more to look forward to as we welcome 2010, and I'm anxious to see what all lies ahead in the immediate future. Happy New Year!

Another Wonderful Christmas

We had another absolutely wonderful Christmas on both sides this year. We spent special time with family in Hattiesburg and Vicksburg and feel extraordinarily blessed.

The Christmas holiday started with a trip to Hattiesburg on Wednesday. We spent the night looking at Christmas lights with my parents and eating dinner downtown. Christmas Eve morning we opened presents at my parents' house before heading to Granny and Pap's for Christmas with them.

Some highlights of Hattiesburg Christmas were bongo drums for my mom, some new Wii games for us, pearls from my Granny, a Snuggie (yes, yes, I know you're jealous!), gift cards, tupperware, new sheets and pillows, soap galore and an anniversary trip for my parents, just to name a few. We headed home Christmas Eve night and found that Santa had already made his visit and filled up the stockings for Izzy and Bentley. :)

Christmas Day we woke up early and opened up our presents from each other. I felt very spoiled from my sweet husband but very grateful. Among the presents Derek gave me were his mother's diamond earrings, which are absolutely beautiful. I cried, and as Derek's mom used to say, "It's not Christmas unless somebody cries!" So, Candee, it was a very special Christmas moment, to say the least.

After our presents, we walked across the street to have coffee with Ben and Tina and Baby Brady. We couldn't miss Brady's first Christmas, and he even ate baby food for the first time. He is too precious!

We hit the road to Vicksburg around noon and spent the afternoon playing Scattergories and Trivial Pursuit with Derek's dad and sister before everyone came over to open gifts and eat our Italian-themed Christmas dinner. It was a marathon present-opening evening with Ryan Hadley helping everyone open every present. She didn't want to miss anything. She's big into Disney and princesses this year, so one of the gifts we gave her was a Cinderella wig, pictured below. It's entirely too much fun to shop for an almost 3-year-old. :)

We were spoiled once again with all the wonderful gifts from the Greys, including an apron and oven mits for me, a new gas blower and weedeater for Derek, a gorgeous picture frame, an Eagle Lake cookbook, socks, boxer shorts and much much more.

Saturday we spent playing with our new toys just like kids and staying warm by the fire. It has been an absolutely wonderful holiday, and we feel so very loved and incredibly blessed. And a very special Happy 81st to my Christmas Day Birthday Girl, Granny!

Party Time!

Saturday night we hosted our second annual Christmas party, only this time we made the theme Dirty Santa AND Tacky Christmas. We hosted with five other people and had entirely too much fun (this said after I drank entirely too much eggnog). Here are some pics from the night…

Derek organizing Dirty Santa...

A favorite of the night...

Happy Birthday, John and Claire!

Drew with his mullet and a creepy look on his face... :)

Towards the end of the eggnog...

A fun time was had by all, and we look forward to the THIRD annual party next year!

Because I've procrastinated...

Here is our Christmas card.

Well, this clearly seems to be the year of the photo card... and that being said, you will not be getting a card in the mail from the Greys this year because we did not make a photo card. I don't want to send you a card that you will not put on your mantle or on your fridge. I know what you're thinking... "Of course I would put it on the fridge or the mantle!" Maybe so, but you would be a little disappointed when you opened it and it was not a photo card. Admit it. And besides, it's a week before Christmas, and now I've waited too long. My apologies...

We have said for years that we wouldn't make photo cards until we had kids, but this year clearly we have been outnumbered. So consider this our photo Christmas card. Maybe next year we'll surprise you, who knows...

Until then,

From our house to yours,

Merry Christmas and New Year!!

With Love,

Derek and Lizzie

Christmastime in Cajun Country

Road trip #2 of the holiday season... Natchitoches, La., for the Christmas Festival of Lights. We hit the road around noon on Friday and toured the backroads and swamplands of Louisiana for nearly five hours before arriving at our final destination. This was my third trip to this neat little Louisiana river town (once for work in the newspaper days and once for a long weekend with Drew and Kristin) but my first visit at Christmas.

"Steel Magnolias" was filmed here (the Steel Magnolias B&B is pictured above), and it's like a city set back in time. The Christmas lights stay strung over the brick streets year-round but when they actually turn the lights on, it's truly breathtaking. No camera will do it justice, but we tried to get a few good shots anyways.



It was ugly weather all weekend long, but Friday night we had dinner downtown and then spent all day Saturday shopping and sight-seeing. We rented some wheelchairs from a local pharmacy to make it easier for Granny and Pap to get around, and I think they really enjoyed the "free ride." :) We ate some famous Natchitoches meat pies at Lasyone's and then walked around at the carnival down by the river, which is where the picture with the baby gator was taken above.

It was a trip Granny had wanted to take for years now, and I'm so glad we got to experience it as a family. It was worth the long drive and the cold, ugly weather. It really puts you in the Christmas spirit. :)

Move That Bus!

ABC's "Extreme Home Makeover" crew has been in Hattiesburg all week building a house for a family in need. The Heathcock family has three children and is struggling to make ends meet while the the father/husband, Sherman Heathcock, serves in Iraq.

When he's not oversees, Sherman works several jobs around town for extra money including working as a sheriff's deputy, a SWAT team leader, a grocery store security guard, a neighborhood watch group organizer, and volunteers his time to provide security for his kids’ school and coach his son’s football and baseball teams. His wife, Gina, works part-time as a paralegal.

The Heathcocks' house, which is exactly one block away from the house I grew up in on 17th Avenue, suffered some damage from Hurricane Katrina while Sherman was oversees during his first tour of duty. This poor family has just a long run of bad luck and is very deserving of this makeover.

The cool part is that the WHOLE city has come together to get this project done. It really is how you see it on TV. Volunteers, including my parents who have kept the website up and running for sponsors/volunteer sign-up/donations, etc., have been working around the clock.

Today is the "Move That Bus!" day as the project comes to a close, and I would loooove to be there. This two-hour episode is set to air during the first round of TV sweeps during February. I can't wait! It's a great thing for Hattiesburg, for all who have been involved, and especially the Heathcock family. I think it's pretty cool.

For more information about the project, visit the website - courtesy of Bice Advertising :) - at http://www.extremehattiesburg.com/.

Holiday Road

Road trip #1 of the holiday season… Florence, Ala., for the Bice family mini-reunion to visit Grandma. It was a loooong drive (about 6 ½ hours), but we made it all in one piece. Road trips with my parents make me pretty nostalgic. I feel like I’m 13 years old again, listening to Ace of Base on my Discman and reading R.L. Stine books in the backseat.

It was great to get most of the Bice clan together again – Grandma, my parents, Uncle Frank, Aunt Helen, cousin Gef, his wife Stephanie and their two girls, Bella and Ainsley, cousin Lisa and her two kids, Kayden and Reed, and cousin Julie with Baby Burks on the way. Derek stayed home, as did Julie’s husband, Greg. Even without the two husbands, we were 14 strong everywhere we went! Here is Grandma with the grandkids...

And here are my "little" cousins...

Saturday we got out and about for some good, old-fashioned sight-seeing. We started at the Rosenbaum house, one of famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s houses built in the early 1940s. It was actually a lot cooler than I thought it was going to be, and I had a special appreciation for the house since it really was the beginning of the “ranch” style that we live in today.

Then we headed over to Tuscumbia, Ala., where my dad went to elementary school. We rode by his old house, and then even stopped by Helen Keller’s birthplace. It was a very educational day! Here's Helen Keller's house...

And my dad's old house...

We ended the day with a great dinner at the hotel restaurant and then with a pretty in-depth genealogy lesson from cousin Gef. Apparently my heritage is Dutch, and we can be traced back to some famous Dutchman named “Jan the Soldier” whose dad was a mayor in Amsterdam. Who knew?

Here’s one of my favorite pictures from the weekend…

This was about midway through Grandma’s story about how she was on a double date with another boy, her sister Bet and Grandpa (he was the one on the date with Bet, Grandma was with the other boy) and Grandpa turned around in the car and kissed her in the middle of his date with another girl!!! Clearly it all worked out for the best though. They were engaged three days later while Grandpa was on leave from the war and were married for more than 60 years. Now THAT’s a love story. :)

The most wonderful time of year!

I know I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again… this is my FAVORITE time of year! I just love it! I love the smell of Christmas in the air when I walk in the door, the warmth of a fire burning in the fireplace, the glow of the Christmas lights on the tree and on the mantle, all the presents under the tree… I don’t think there’s anything I don’t like about this month.

It’s only December 3rd, and I already have 99% of my shopping done (Izzy was happy we decided to use raffia on all our presents) and have already watched every single cheesy Christmas movie that has come on Lifetime or ABC Family. Don’t judge… I’m in the holiday spirit. Last night we watched “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” That one never gets old.

Usually with December comes holiday craziness, and this year is no exception. There’s just SO much going on. Between family road trips, Christmas parties, etc., I’ll be worn out by the time the month is over, but that’s what it’s all about! Fit as much in as possible during the 31 best days in the year! :)