The Giles Family: June 2009

(* WARNING: THIS IS A VERY LONG BLOG AND MAY NEED TO BE BROKEN UP INTO SEVERAL PARTS BEFORE THE WHOLE THING IS READ. IF YOU FEEL THE NEED TO READ THROUGH IT ALL IN ONE SITTING, MAY WE SUGGEST A PILLOW UNDER YOUR TUSH, A CUP OF COFFEE, AND ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO FOR A GOOD WHILE.)

Welcome, Friends to our humble home! :)

Alrighty, so although Christopher & I have been living together for quite some time now, since we've been married we've spruced our place up a bit -- given it a "face lift," if you will. For many of you, a trip to Milledgeville is too far of a drive, or have had other obligations come up on your free weekends. Nonetheless, here it is: the good. the bad. the ugly. (and the beautiful!).

(Note: If you sent us something home decor-wise, keep your eyes peeled, you just may spot it in a picture!)

The first thing we decided to change in our humble abode is our bedroom. Now, when Chris first moved into this house, they decided to paint the entire thing one neutral color...."Bleh" by Bleh-bleh-bleh-bleh-bleh -- it's really beautiful, you should paint yours this color sometime! ... not so much! You will, however, notice the color when you see the rest of the house. But now (thank goodness!), our bedroom is "Mistletoe" green by Benjamin Moore. It really is beautiful. Our bedroom is HUGE and really needed this boost of confidence to bring out its true beauty. :) We also gave it new blinds (the thick vinyl ones that look like wood), and.... rearranged! Ah!

(* I wish I had some before pictures to show you, but let's just say this... what you pictured in your mind before with the "bleh" description.. it was probably worse!)

These were our blinds before: (all chuckles are completely excusable)

Aren't they just precious? (Sike!) Here are our blinds now: (ahhhhh!)

Much better....right?

We also moved our bed over to the wall across from the window, whereas before, it was against the wall adjacent to the wall with the window. Yes, I know this is the smallest wall, but it really does fit so cozy against it, and just looks like it feels at home. Therefore, I'm leaving it.

(* Please disregard our bedding...it is hot in Milledgeville, and we just sweat the comforter right off the bed every night, therefore, what you see is what you get. Sorry!)

Now for the living room (or "den" as Chris likes to call it... I prefer not to sound like a family of bears, but to each his own...)

If you were to walk in our front door, get to the kitchen and turn around so that you're facing the door again... this is what you'd see:

The furniture is arranged in such a way that it creates a nice entrance way into our home. The beautiful cross picture frame was a wedding gift to us from Mr. & Mrs. Joe Nixon (thank y'all so much!) I really cherish this frame and cannot wait to put pictures of our family in it one day!

(* Please note the thick vinyl imitated-wood blinds we also put up in our family/living room/den... special thank you to his parents & grandparents!)

If then, you were to turn your head slightly to the left of your previous gaze, you would see that on the other side of that window (in between our two windows in the family/living room/den) is another great picture frame that I love!:

I bought this frame at Target right before I transferred schools to North Georgia College & State University. I wanted to hang it above my bed in my "apartment." You can tell this was also shortly after Christopher & I started dating, as every picture in the frame is from our first 2 weeks of dating... :)

(* The picture frame leaning against the right window was given to us as a wedding gift by my sister, Christy. We are hoping to one day soon, take down the picture frame you see, and put up a collage of black-and-white wedding photos with her framed quote in the middle. It says "It's that can't eat, can't sleep, reach for the stars, over the fence, world series kind of love." Perfect for Christopher & I. Thank you, Christy!)

Now, let's imagine you walk directly in front of the two windows in our family/living room/den... (to look at that cute picture frame of course!), and you turned to your left....

This beautiful canvas picture and stand was given to us as a wedding gift from Christopher's aunt & uncle, Rae & Todd Danielson. We love the quote on it, "the roots of a familiy tree begin with two hearts," because our families are both so important to us, and we like to remember that often! :) Next to this lovely print, you will find....

Well, golly-gee-whiz, it's ANOTHER picture frame - :)

(*Note: If you are ever in the position of "hey, I don't know what to get Becca for her birthday/christmas/anniversary..." GET ME A UNIQUE PICTURE FRAME -- I LOVE THEM!)

This one was sweetly given to us as a wedding gift from my dear Aunt Mary and her family. It means so much to us (more importantly, me), as I designed/printed our wedding invitations all on my own and didn't have any left over to keep... when I opened this up - it was the sweetest and most thoughtful gift of all, because not only do I have one now as a keepsake, it is preserved in the most precious way possible -- thank you, Wentlents! :)

Now, imagine you were done looking at our wedding invitation (what?? you don't want to look at it anymore?!??.... eh, just kidding!) and you looked directly to your right. You would see this:

(* Please minus me out of this picture...)

Christopher & I bought this table at Target with some of our wedding giftcards. We needed a table right there close to the door to catch keys, mail, etc. The mirror was already there, and purchased for us by my mom - thanks, mom! We love it! The scroll decoration above the mirror was a wedding gift to us from his great-aunt, Carol. Each one of his family members has one of these in their house - they look great! Another decorating tradition in the Giles family is fake fruit. You can see my plate of it at the bottom.. :) It is a compilation of apples, grapes, and miniature apples gathered from here, there, and yonder all collected on a china platter we received as a wedding gift! :) On top of the table, you will find 5 crystal candle stick holders -- love them! -- and a grouping of treasured items that you can get a better look of here:

The crystal angel on the far left, was a gift Christopher gave to his grandmother, Big Mama. He received it back after she passed away last December. The candle with the scriptive "G" on it, was my first shot at making our own unity candle for our wedding. The Willow Tree couple, "The Promise," was our wedding cake topper. And, the crystal cross was the one thing of his grandmothers that we both really wanted after she passed away. Our faith means a lot to us, and love to have crosses displayed throughout our house to remind us of our constant faith. She was also one of the most christian women I knew, making this a perfect reminder of her spirit and faith as a person. :) I love this part of my home the most, because it holds so many special things to us in one spot!

After you finished taking in the moment I just portrayed for you as you looked at my catch-all table, you could turn to right and step into our kitchen... Now, we're cookin' with gas! (actually, not really, we still have one of those really old stoves that just require you to turn a knob...nothing special. That, and, I would probably catch myself on fire if we had a gas stove... just saying.)

Our kitchen is a compilation of our dining room & kitchen area, and since we haven't upgraded our kitchen lately, you'll just be seeing our "dining room" which looks like this:

Our dining room table & chairs are all about to be upgraded to a bigger set (as of this week), but this is the basic layout. Our placemats were wedding gifts from our dear friends Summer & Daniel Leggat -- thanks y'all! -- and the napkins and napkin rings were bought with giftcards we got for wedding gifts to Target! Our dining room table always looks just like this....because it never gets eaten on! :)

Just beside our table is our....

China cabinet! This was given to me by my Memaw, and I could not love it anymore! Especially now that we have actual fine china to display in it! (In highschool, I used this china cabinet to put my folded laundry in...not so cute!)
If you venture into our guest bathroom (no, really, go ahead, we keep it clean!), you will see we have chosen a "beach" theme for the decor. We both love the beach (Chris a little more than the rest of.... see here). Each year, we try to bring back a souveneir to commemorate our treasured times spent at the beach! :) We hope that by looking at this next picture, you can hear ocean waves in the background and that your blood pressure lowers as you feel a little more relaxed... ;)

This was the pelican we picked up last year at a store called, Shipwreck, in Panama City Beach, Florida, where Chris likes to gamble his quarters at the quarter machines, while I shop to spend the quarters he makes! ;) On the way home, however, its neck snapped in two (awful, I know..) but I was able to save it's life and glue him back together! The little froggy was a tuck-and-run I picked up from my parent's house... don't know where he came from or what purpose he served, but he's made out of seashells, we love frogs, and so, hey -- he fits! :)

Well folks, that was basically our home in a nutshell, because well, let's face it... we're nutty! :) We hope you enjoyed the trip through our home as we documented how our first home once looked, and hopefully you'll be able to see it in person some time! There's lots more to see...but trust us when we say, you'll have to see it to believe it! :)

Love y'all!

Mr. &

Every year, Chris's family takes a week-long trip to a beach in Florida. For years they went to Destin, but ever since I've been going (for the last 3 years), it's been to Panama City Beach. They have some friends they rent a 3 bedroom, 2 bath condo from that is right on the beach and is immaculate! It has tile floors throughout and granite countertops, and the decorating is absolutely superb! It's all the way up on the 12th of 17 floors and so our view is amazing! (The hotel actually doesn't have a 13th floor for superstitious reasons... funny, huh?)

This was Macie's first year to go to the beach, and she did pretty well! It's actually funny, because it was this same trip the year before where they decided she was, in fact, going to be named Macie (up until then, they had been calling her "Emily.")

I was especially excited about going this year, because it gave me a break from school work, and we had our own room! Yes, this may sound silly and unimportant, but for the last 2 years, we've always invited one of his grandmothers to go with us, and we gave the extra room to them, leaving Chris, Jonathan, & I to sleep on the single couch, pushed together chairs & ottoman, or the tile floor.... not fun!

Every morning, we would all get up, have a nice breakfast that our brother-in-law, Wesley would usually fix, and go down to the beach until lunch. Chris & I were especially excited about laying out at the beach this year, because we got these great beach chairs with some of our wedding giftcards to Target (sorry, i can't find a picture of them!). They have footrests, cupholders, gadget pockets, headrests, etc. We were set!

Macie would do great, but since we were in the middle of a heat wave, she didn't cope with the heat as well as everyone else, so in order to keep her happy just a little while longer (so no one had to go up to the condo just minutes after coming down), I decided to share my bag of Blow-Pops I had gotten for the trip down there, and boy did she love them! She is just now starting to want to taste "real food" and as she was watching me lick mine, her little lips and tongue were just a goin' mimicking my motions. She also only has 2 bottom teeth, and was currently getting 2 more in, so knowing she couldn't bite it, I gave her a classic Cherry one for her very first taste at yummy goodness! Boy, oh boy! She was loving it!

I ended up enjoying a lot of my trip down at the pool. It was great! I found a great lounge chair that was in a great location and waiting just for me everyday! It was near the part of the pool that had this great cove where you could sit in the deep in on a step that put that water just at chest high -- so it was away from all the little children learning to swim, and right near my chair! I even made new friends down there -- they loved my little cove too!

All in all, it was a really great trip... I am always ready to come home and get back to reality, Chris however will be sulking for weeks that we're not still there... Bless his heart! We're already looking forward to our next trip, though, to Lake Junaluska, N.C. for the 4th of July with our family! :)

Enjoy these next few pictures of our trip down there...