Happy Halloween!

Derrick and I took Crosby on a walk through a giant neighborhood tonight to check out all the crazy kids.  Here's the rundown:

Best Costume: Robot kid.  We're talking 3 foot tall kid with 2 giant card board boxes...one for the body and one for the head. He was just waddling around like a top heavy duck.

Best costume runner up: Mrs. Weasley

Cutest Moment: Dad with his little "princess" carrying her from house to house, lifting her up to reach the door bell, and instructing her on "trick-or-treat"

Best Quote: Little girl about Crosby: "I like your puppy. We've seen lots of puppies but she is spectacular!"

Most likely to be left behind: 2 ft. tall Spiderman wandering into the road.

Best decorated house: All of them! I've never seen people decorate so well! We even saw one house that had a grave actually dug into their yard. Cary is a little crazy for Halloween.

Hope everybody has a happy and safe Halloween!!

Today is the day

Wish me luck!

Happy Birthday Dad!!

This past Saturday was my Dad's birthday! Now that everybody is in different cities, we aren't usually able to get together to celebrate but we still manage to conference call in and do our Williams (now Williams/Marcey) tradition. For each birthday, we go around and say what we love about the birthday person. We've been doing it for years and it has become a really special part of our birthdays.

 This year, Mom took Dad up to a winery for a tasting and dinner. Mom sent me a picture of Dad during our conference call so we could see him :) It was hilarious.  Here's Dad on his cell phone with me on speaker phone, Jack called in to Mom's phone and was on speaker phone, Jay was going to face time in on the ipad but he got stuck in a review session in Chicago but he still managed to sneak out and call Derrick's phone so we put him on speaker phone on Derrick's phone and Dad on speaker phone on my phone.  Confused yet?

Our tradition is a true example of the impact that Dad has on our family. He is the most wonderful leader of our family and will go to any length to make sure we know how much he loves each one of us. No matter the distance between us, he never fails to be available when we need him or to just call and check in.  I love you Dad and am so lucky to have you as a father. I hope you had the most wonderful birthday and enjoyed a well deserved date-day with your love :) Derrick and I can't wait to come home and see you in a few weeks. 

Busy Busy Busy

We have lots going on recently and it's been great, but also exhausting. We've been able to catch up with our friends CK and Irene who we haven't been able to see much since the wedding. We're excited for the upcoming changes happening for them!

Derrick has been very busy at work. They are increasing his responsbilities and he is doing great, but yesterday he didn't sit down at his desk until 5:00. I've been going to my real estate class full days Tuesday and Wednesday and working full days on the other days.  It's has been awesome having free weekends though!

I've got my class real estate exam coming up on Wednesday. It's going to be a long weekend of studying but I'm excited to be nearing the end. If I do well enough in the class exam I qualify to take the National exam. So..hopefully I'll be taking the National exam in just a couple of weeks.

Thankfully our evenings have been nice and slow. We've been trying to go on walks through different neighborhoods to get a feel for them. Derrick isn't much of a walker, just to walk, but I am and I think he is starting to come around! It's also good because we need a new way to tire Crosby out now that we don't have practice in the evenings. Winter league starts in a month though!! Can't wait. 

We're looking forward to a visit from Derrick's mom tonight, watching Jack play in his first ultimate tournament next weekend, and planning a vacation for after Christmas. Plans are already in the works!

Pumpkin Time

Warning: Picture Overload!

We met up with the Preeces again last night to carve some pumpkins. Courtney made this delicious chili/soup and we enjoyed some tasty pumpkin beer. Then it was pumpkin carving and s'mores time.  Here's a million pictures of the evening!

The focus in this picture cracks me up. 

Jeff's creepin

We carved a pumpkin for Crosby and a fat, happy one for us :)

Courtney and Jeff's pumpkin was sneaky...just look at that eyebrow

All lit up!

S'mores fire. I almost caught Derrick on fire in an attempt to keep him from catching fire....

She is so proud

State Fair

Wednesday night, Derrick and I met up with Courtney and Jeff to go to the State Fair. It's in town for 10 days and is always crowded, noisy, and greasy. We had a great time! We all got our tickets early at a discounted rate so we were able to walk right in without having to wait in line. Wednesday turned out to be a really good night to go. It was busy but we didn't have to wait in line at all for rides and we had our food in less then 5 minutes! Here's some pictures of the evening!

The craziest new ride at the fair was this ridiculous thing. Basically you throw your kids in these bubble wrap tubes that are floating in a tub of water and you watch them fall all over the place and collide with each other. It was hilarious. 

Our first ride of the day was this gigantic slide. We all raced and Jeff won. I screamed the whole way down. 

The view from the top was pretty awesome though! Excuse the smoky picture. Something went wrong with the camera. 

On the way back from the slide I was totally tempted by this ladder game. It's a long ladder that is just supported by one connection at the top and one connection at the bottom. You have to try and climb up it without falling off or flipping over. I couldn't convince anyone else to do it with me but I did mooch $5 off the hubs and got 2 tries. I did pretty well the first time but was tired on the 2nd attempt and fell off pretty quickly. Here's me getting some tips from the guy. You can see the ladder in the background. 

Here is a picture of the four of us in the animal tent. As usual, this is where the big crowds were. We could hardly get a glimpse at the piglets. Check out those baby donkeys. Aren't they adorable? I keep telling Derrick we're going to have one some day.  He doesn't believe me.....yet. 

I didn't get any pictures of the food we tried but Courtney did. Once she posts about it you can check those out on her blog. Derrick and I shared a funnel cake and a fresh squeezed lemonade. It was delicious!!

Finally, we ended the night with one last ride...the swings!! They are terrifying! I screamed my head off last year and was determined to do better this year. Ha. Those things whip you around so fast and I swore we were going to slam into the roller coaster next to us every time we passed it.  It was cool when the fireworks started just as the ride started though.  

Here we are after the swings, thankful to be alive.

It was an awesome time! We can't wait til next year!!!

17 out of 20

That's how many three point shots Scott Wood made at last Friday's NCSU showcase game! Derrick and I met up with Kevin and Meredith to attend this kick-off to the season. We're supposed to be really good this year. We have one of the best recruiting classes in the nation and Friday we got to meet them!!

The entire lower level of the stadium was PACKed with red and white.

There was a DJ keeping things hyped up. Mr and Mrs. Wuf were there of course. And if you haven't seen this guy, he's become kind of icon of NCSU since the FSU game.  He made an appearance and re-enacted his shirtless dance from the FSU game.

The players entered from the four corners of the stands so they walked right through the fans. We just happened to be sitting in the aisle some of them were coming down.  One of our rookies Tyler Lewis walked down right next to us.  He's 5'11" and 165!! That's pretty much Derrick except 1" shorter.  He looked TINY next to all the other players but he is good! We can't wait to watch him play.  One of our veterans CJ Leslie walked down too and totally blew off Kevin. You can see in the picture below Kevin's arm reaching out for a high five and CJ totally  missing him!

Coach Gottfried flew in from the ceiling!! It was amazing. 

After introducing the players and coaches, there was 3 point contest. Each player got to participate. The top two went head to head to find the best three point shooter. Is anyone surprised it was Scott Wood? He hit 17 out of 20 three pointers back to back. Here he is getting ready to win contest.

It was nice getting to hang out with our good friends Kevin and Meredith! The game was awesome and got us totally hyped up for the season. .

 

Wolfpack Pride!

This past weekend, Derrick and I got to visit with some awesome friends and tailgate at the NCSU vs. FSU football game. Bruner was in town and it was awesome to spend some time with him while he was here. I'm hoping he'll be able to stay in the area for good!  There were delicious snacks, lots of tailgating games, and plenty of pack pride.  It also fell on Jeff's birthday!! Bruner baked a cake and I decorated it.  Unfortunately I only got 2 pictures of the day. 

Tim made Derrick and I this awesome ladder golf set.

Happy Birthday Jeff!! I couldn't fit Happy Birthday Jeff so an enthusiastic Jeff! had to do!

 Derrick and I didn't have tickets to the game, so everybody else headed to the stadium and we ran home to turn on the TV.  The game was AWESOME!! It was a HUGE upset.  We won 17-16 and knocked FSU from 3rd in the nation to 12th! Ha!

We can't wait til the next game!

Cinco de Octubre

Five  things I love about Derrick:

1. Those eyes!! yummy

2. He makes me proud. No matter if I'm talking about him with friends, about his frisbee talent, about his success at work. I get all happy when I talk about him.

3.  He asks for seconds.  I make him these weird, never before tried dinners...and he asks for seconds :)

4. He quizzes me on my real estate flashcards...he'll probably know it as well as I will!

5. He is enormously thoughtful. He thinks of the little things, sends me sweet messages throughout the day, and keeps the house clean because he knows I'm a crazy person about it.

Happy 5 months, my Love. I love you tons!

wHagonweel Recap

LONG POST ALERT......

Derrick and I have been extremely blessed to play on our co-ed ultimate team wHagonweel (wHw) for the past three years. We commit close to 9 hours a week, 5-6 full weekends (not including travel time), and a nice chunk of change every June-October to play ultimate frisbee.  For some people it seems crazy. For anyone who doesn't play ultimate it can be hard to understand. Why do we commit so much time to a sport that leaves us exhausted every Sunday evening, makes going to work Monday near impossible due to soreness, leaves us burned to a crisp from the sun, and results in unflattering scars on our hips, knees, and elbows?

Well...here's the thing....

Ultimate is awesome! Derrick and I get to spend 9 hours a week, 5-6 full weekends (not including travel time), and a nice chunk of change every June-October playing ultimate frisbee! We met playing ultimate and then met again playing ultimate. Sorry, I didn't remember you honey :)  Derrick and I have captained 2 losing teams together! Thanks to our friend Joey our teams have become known as "lots of fun, but not much winning." We have competed in multiple leagues, played in several one day hat tournaments, thrown countless honey passes (love to love for you non-ultimate readers), and shared dozens of post practice baked potatoes. We wouldn't change a thing!

For the past three years we have been playing for the triangle area coed team wHagonweel. Derrick and I had an absolutely crazy summer and almost didn't play this year. We didn't want to commit to the team if  we couldn't do it 100%.  After speaking with our captains we decided to go for it and we're so glad we did. We have become so close to everyone involved with wHw both past and present and consider them all family.

This past weekend was Regionals. In it's inaugural year, wHw placed second at regionals and secured a bid to Nationals. This is the ultimate goal of all club teams and it was an amazing experience to have in our first year together. Last year ended in a disappointing performance at Regionals that ultimately comes down to our performance; however, we will share credit with the weather, horrible field conditions, and a heated game with no observers. (I'm not still bitter).

This year also ended just short of a bid to nationals, however, I'm not as bitter this year. We played well this year wHw! The regions were changed this year and NC was moved from the Mid-Atlantic to the Southeast region. We had to travel all the way to Orlando, FL for Regionals...Atlanta would have made too much sense....  Anyways....we came in as the 5 seed. There were essentially 5 teams with a real chance at making it to Nationals and we only had one bid. That meant win it or go home. On Saturday we upset the 1 seed 13-12 but weren't able to topple our sectional rival Cahoots (3 seed).  We ended Saturday 3-1 and headed to quarters on Sunday morning. We had a fairly easy game against N.O.P.P. (New Orleans Party People). They lived up to there name with an underwear point and several shotgunned beers on the sideline. Our semis game was vs. Bucket...the 2 seed but arguably the team to beat.  We put up a good fight but were unable to take them down and lost 12-9.  That was it, we were out...no more Nationals dreams for us.

I'm very proud of our team. Everyone played incredibly hard and didn't give up. We ended our Bucket game with an insanely long point....we're talking 2 time outs in the same point! No one stopped fighting. Derrick and I love this team and love playing for this team. We win and lose together and have highs and lows together. We may not see some of our teammates until next season, but when we do it will be as if nothing ever changed. That's the beauty of ultimate. It's a community and Derrick and I are so blessed to be apart of it.

wHw is coming for you, Nationals!