Family Photos at the beach

Our family is spread between two states and we are rarely all together.  There are times when we get together and a husband can't come or a sibling can't come or some situation that keeps us from all being together.  Thankfully the past two years because of mine and my brothers wedding, we have all been together.

This year we thought we would seize the moment and capture a few family photos at the beach while we were all together!  I had seen a family photo that I just loved.  Each family unit had their own color so that you could tell who went with who within the large family.  A young man named Isaac Pitman took our pictures and we were so happy with the few that he has sent us.

 By the way it was so hard to find outfits that matched!

 Such a good looking family!

Maybe we aren't the most athletic looking...but we have a good time! ;)

Anniversary Traditions

We had such a great anniversary week!  We had to be in Destin, FL for my brother's wedding so we went down a week before the wedding, spent some time on the beach, relaxed, and hung out with my family. 

 Once the wedding was over we decided to drive half way back and stopped in one of our favorite places, Savannah, GA and have some alone time to celebrate our anniversary! 
We had such a fun night!  We went to a fabulous dinner and ended our evening at a roof top bar overlooking the City Market and just spend time talking!  It was fabulous!

After getting back home we had to dig into our year old cake!  I had no idea my mom even had it!  But she put it in an ice chest and brought it to Florida and
we put it in an ice chest and brought it back to North Carolina! 
I was so happy to have it! 
We also thought we would add a tradition to our Anniversary fun....We decided each year we will open a bottle of wine from the year we were married, 2010.
I hope we can search for the perfect bottle each year through our travels and such.
This year we enjoyed a bottle from a winery we visited in Destin!
I like to think in 30 years we will be enjoying some fine wine. ;)
Like wine, love get's better with age!

 I

I even broke out our wedding cake cutters! HA

 And this...is the last tradition! 
A little background......my sister, Dr. Jill officiated our wedding.  When she began the service she told a little snip-it from the book, The Velveteen Rabbit.  Well for our anniversary Jill and Vicki gave us a copy of The Velveteen Rabbit and The Velveteen Principles. 
It was very thoughtful of them to think of us and give us such a meaningful gift. 
So we thought each year we would read it!  After our 2010 wine, our old cake, and a wonderful vacation...we settled into bed and read about being REAL!

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get all loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."   -The Velveteen Rabbit

This is a Blogger MUST READ!!!

I am writing this to hopefully help you and keep you from making the same mistake that I did.

Last week I noticed all of my pictures were gone. I went back to the very beginning of my blog and where all of my pictures had been there was a placeholder with an "!".  I had been using a new video tool and thought maybe I was out of memory, space, whatever.  I had heard of this before but couldn't understand why I could still create a new post and all my videos were showing up.

I contacted a few friends with blogs running this issue past them and brought it up to a coworker that I like to say is full of "useless knowledge."  He helped me make the connection  between Google+, Picasa, and Blogger.

This is where you want to listen closely...

I recently signed up for Google+.  I noticed that every picture that I had ever posted on my Blogger account had been placed in a Picasa album labeled with my blog name.  I thought...."Well I don't want to start my new profile with all of those pictures....so I'll DELETE them and start fresh."  This was all from my Google+ account. I didn't make the connection that my Blogger was connected.

I have done research and the consensus is that my pictures cannot be recovered.  I don't seem to be alone.  There are other bloggers who did the same thing and are now picture-less on their blog.  Thankfully I do have my pictures saved and can upload them again.  I was/am heart broken.  When  I originally made the connections, I was sick.  But I immediately knew I had to share this so that none of you had the same experience. 

1st Anniversary

I can't believe we have been married a year. It went by so fast and everyday is an adventure!
I thought I would make a little video of some of our wedding pictures so we could recap the day.

Enjoy our wedding day recap...

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com

Tomorrow I'll talk about what we did to celebrate our anniversary and
the new traditions we established!