All about me and the holidays!

I usually never do these, but..... this is for Jessie!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?

Wrapping paper with big ribbons. Bags make it to easy and tempting to peek.

2. Real tree or artificial?

Artificial. Some say this is horrible, but I grew up with artificial. I don't know what I'm missing I guess. Mike and I bought a tall, slim, pre-lit tree our first Christmas. I love it so much!!!

3. When do you put your tree up?

The weekend after Thanksgiving. This is necessary to get the maximum enjoyment!

4. When do you take it down?

Between Christmas and New Years. New Years day at the latest.

5. Hot Chocolate or apple cider?

Hot chocolate most definitely. It must be prepared with the famous Cocomotion!

6. Favorite gift received as a child?

Wow, I don't know. There are so many good ones. Having the swing set all set up Christmas morning was pretty amazing. How did Santa do that?

7. Do you have a Nativity scene?

Yes, a few. My mom loves them and has a ton. She let me take one my first Christmas being married.

8. Hardest person to buy for?

LeGrand. Luckily Mike drew him this year, not me. And I'm not helping!!!

9. Easiest person to buy for?

My sister Rachel. I think I've drawn her name all but one year since we've been drawing. She is so much fun to shop for.

10. Worst Christmas gift ever received?

Coal. Just kidding, I've never received a bad gift that I can remember.

11. Mail or email Christmas cards?

I definitely like receiving mailed Christmas cards with pictures. I don't send any out though. I don't think anyone but our grandparents want a picture of just Mike and I, so I'm holding out until we have a kid.

12. Favorite movie?

A Christmas Story and Christmas Vacation. Both are classics in the Button family.

13. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?

Yes, but only ones from white elephant gift exchanges.

14. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?

My mom's cinnamon rolls. I've already locked in a promise that she'll make them while I'm home, even if she's already made them for the neighbors.

15. Clear or colored lights?

Clear are my favorite.

16. Favorite Christmas song?

Feliz Navidad :)

17. Travel or stay home?

TRAVEL! And going to Arizona to see the fam doesn't cut it. I need I real trip like the ones we used to have. My parents have taken us on so many great holiday trips. I miss it!

18. Can you name all the Santa's reindeer?

Only when singing the song.

19. Angel or Star?

Star. Mine is too heavy for the tree though. So there is a bow on the tree and a star on the entertainment center. Sorry Mom!

20. Favorite Christmas memory?

Christmas in Mexico was by far the best!

I tag the rest of the family (and soon to be family) bloggers: Alisa, Bridget, Brooke, Cheryl, Jana, Paige, Stacey, and Susan. I can't wait to see you all next week!!!

...you may live in North Carolina

Today I went to a tax seminar. The speaker was gracious to occasionally show comics and tell jokes to keep us awake. My favorite was Jeff Foxworthy's take on people who live in North Carolina. So funny. So true!

Here are some that make me laugh:

If someone in a Home Depot store offers you assistance and they don't work there, you may live in North Carolina.

If you are 'fixin' to go anywhere, you may live in North Carolina.

If you've had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed a wrong number, you may live in North Carolina.

If 'Vacation' means going anywhere south of Myrtle Beach for the weekend, you may live in North Carolina.

If you measure distance in hours, you may live in North Carolina.

If you know several people who have hit a deer more than once, you may live in North Carolina.

If you install security lights on your house and garage, but leave both unlocked, you may live in North Carolina.

If you find 60 degrees 'a little chilly', you may live in North Carolina.

If you and all your friends live for basketball season, be it high school, college, or Pro, you may live in North Carolina.

If you know three different recipes for baked beans, and which one to take to a funeral, you may live in North Carolina.

If you think that the tobacco barn out front is part of your home, you may live in North Carolina .

If you actually understand these jokes, and share them with your North Carolina friends and others, you definitely live in North Carolina.

Thanksgiving

Our second Thanksgiving in Winston-Salem was awesome! Amazing food, friends... and this year we added a little family into the mix. Rachel and Daniel were great guests and made our holiday so much fun. Hopefully they thought it worth the flight delays and hours in the airport. Thanks for coming!

Biltmore Estate

It took me a while to get around to posting this, but while Allie was visiting in October we went to the Biltmore Estate. It is in Asheville, North Carolina, was built in 1895 by George Vanderbilt and I believe it is the largest private estate in the United States. It was incredible. We toured the enormous house (although we didn't get to see all 250 rooms, it was still pretty great) and strolled through the colorful gardens.

The Beautiful Blue Ridge Parkway

My friend Allie and her adorable baby Nash took the long trip from Tucson, AZ to Winston-Salem, NC to visit me! I'm a lucky girl to have such a great friend. I tried my best to show them a "big time" (Southern expression) while they were here. One of our many adventures was a Sunday drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The views were so amazing and unfortunately my lacking photography skills don't quite capture just how beautiful it was...

Carving Party

Happy Halloween!

The Matt Evans Fan Club

We ran a "Walk for the Cure" type event this weekend - although it was not for something as important as curing Rabies (that was a reference to "The Office" for anyone that doesn't get that). It was to raise money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, since my little brother has Type 1 (also known as Juvenile) Diabetes. It was 4.5 miles long and it is probably the first and last time Mike will ever run that far again.

Check out the awesome shirts that Matt made and sent out to us (on the front they say T1DM for Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus and under that, MEFC to show that we are part of the Matt Evans Fan Club):

Mike visualizing his successful run:

Mike putting that visualization to work:

Emily modeling the back of the shirt:

Emily continuing her modeling:

And, this is the video of us after the run:

Did Mike say 4.5 miles in 14 minutes? Nope.
If you think he said that, you didn't hear him right. He really said 40 minutes. It would have been more like 20 minutes without him slowing things down, though.

A Day at the Farmer's Market

So Emily and I have decided to support our local economy and good eating habits by going to the Farmer's Market any Saturday that we can make it. This is our second trip thanks to the afore-blogged-about no smoking letter writer and his wife who first introduced us to our local market. This time we also brought along another med school friend and he is just as excited about the place as we are. We got some grass-fed only beef that was amazing in a stew that Emily made on Sunday. Next trip = grass fed steaks. We also bought some roasted pepper flavored goat cheese which is delicious. The vegetables are cheap and better than anything we can find in the grocery stores around here - so really, we love the place.

Emily and her extremely bored but cute baby friend, Emerson. Don't tell him that he was ever referred to as "cute" when he is older.

The whole group checking out some of the goods.

This is just one half of one of the three huge venues for meat, veggies, plants, etc. at the market. Matt is making a cameo appearance in the photo - on his way to getting suckered in to buying some beans that you are supposed to cook with "fatback". Gotta love Southern cooking. And, for the record, Matt refused to even entertain the idea of cooking them in fatback.

This is a fighting Praying Mantis we tried to rescue from the road. She wasn't too happy. We could tell that it was a "she" because of the close resemblance to Emily when she has to ask me more than once to unload the dishwasher.

We might just buy it...

Smoking Ban at the Hospital

As many of you all know, Emily and I live in the only city that has two cigarette brands named after it (at least the only one I know of). Winston-Salem. So it is pretty difficult to get the smoking bans passed here that many people enjoy in other parts of the country. Anyway, the hospital where I go to school finally enacted a no-smoking policy in July. You could never smoke inside the hospital but there were actually little rooms built outside the hospital just for smokers. Now those are gone. You are no longer allowed to smoke anywhere on hospital property - even if you are in your car. In theory. Since the ban, now all the smoking hospital employees (yeah, I know - how does that happen?) go out to the sidewalk to smoke, making what I describe as a "smoking gauntlet" for people leaving certain areas of the hospital. Continuing the story... A friend of mine (another med student) finally took some initiative and wrote a letter to the dean of the medical school expressing the need to execute the new ban on smoking. So he sent it to me and another friend to make sure it sounded okay. It did sound great, but I told him that I had the perfect solution to the problem. Put Mormon missionaries out in front of the affected areas. That way, people will either leave to avoid them or they would convert - either way, smoking around the medical school would be eradicated. I even took some pictures of the situation before and after the missionaries took over enforcing the ban:

WASUF!

So we were a little disappointed after Wake Forest started the 2007 football season 0-2 to two ranked teams, but we were happy to know that ASU was having a flawless start. Well, since those first two losses, the Demon Deacons have decided to return to their ACC Champion ways of last year and have won the last 4 games, including a win last night over #21 Florida State. ASU has also continued its football dominance and is looking to be 7-0 after tomorrow's game against Washington. So our two favorite schools are a combined 10-2 (soon to be 11-2) halfway through the season. What makes us even happier is that we are not suffering through college football season like BYU or UofA fans, who are combined 5-6 (soon to be 5-8).

Happy Birthday Mike!

For Mike's 27th birthday he got:

Cake

Black eye
Visitors

Happy birthday honey!

Labor Day at Myrtle Beach

We had a fun and relaxing Labor Day weekend at the beach. There was lots of shopping, playing in the ocean, eating "cheeseburgers in paradise", and Mike singing Jimmy Buffet songs non-stop.

Wii love Sushi

Our friends Matt & Sarah had the fabulous idea of a Wii/sushi party. Brilliant! I am new to sushi, but I think I can finally say that I love it. The sushi tower had many varieties and maybe my favorite was the vegetarian with nothing but avocado and rice, but I still think that counts! And who doesn't love the Wii? We think its a blast, especially with a large group. My favorite game is tennis. Here are some pictures of the action: