Peach Town

Just when you thought you've seen it all! Here in South Carolina we have this great city called Gaffney - it's about half way between Greenville, SC and Charlotte, NC and a very frequent mile marker on our numerous drives to the Charlotte Douglas Airport.

Gaffney is home to the Gaffney Outlet Mall, a new Starbucks (residents didn't know what Starbucks was before they opened this store), a condiment they make called "Peach Salsa", and this amazing water tower. Yes, it is shaped just like a peach, and when you see it for the first time it almost takes your breath away.

Kids Say the Darnest Things

Another classic quote from the darling kids at Sterling Community Center:

5 year old Christen & 4 year old Treasure: "Ms. Merline, why do your hands look like that?"

Ms. Merline: "Well, when you get older you get wrinkles and sometimes you can see your veins easier, and that's why my hands look like this."

Christen & Treasure: "Oh . . . well, the same thing happenin' to your face too!"

Ms. Merline works with the 4 & 5 year olds faithfully every Wednesday. She is a retired school teacher who just loves it so much she can't stop teaching kids how to read. She is extremely patient with her rambunctious little group, and always has positive encouragement ready for them, no matther how discouraging their behavior or attention span. She adores her grandchildren and could tell stories about them all day long. She passed this incident on to me with a chuckle after her tutoring session today.

WinterJam 2006

While Greenville may not be the most up and coming, happening place on the east coast, it is capable of attracting some fun music. On Friday, Danny and I joined every youth group in the Upstate (and if no one will tell you what the heck "Upstate" means, please just call Aunt Sally) at WinterJam 2006. Featured artists included:

*Krystal Myers
*Newsong
*Hawk
*TobyMac
*Newsboys

TobyMac put on the best show, including the most racially diverse band with the best choreography and dance moves. There was also a caged motorcycle stunt show during stage changes. It was a T-I-T-E tiggety tiggety tite night!

Ice Storm

We lived through our first ice storm last week. I have nver seen more trees fall or so many people without power. Praise the Lord our power didn't go out. Check out pictures of the fallen trees and the ice covered terrrain on our Shutterfly website!

May I Present: Jada

This, my friends, is Jada.

She is FIVE years old and yes, she thinks she rules the world.

For the record, she posed like this on her own because this what she does all the time.

To see more picture of the Sterling Community Kids.

Follow this link: http://thestillers.shutterfly.com

(Just a note: After you click on "View Pictures" click on "View as Slideshow" in the top left. Pictures are best viewed at that size)

If a fly lands on her lips . . .

Quote of the Week:

Ms. LaVonda: "If a fly lands on her lips it gonna slide right off, she durn got so much grease on them lips of hers."

Said in response to Jada, a 5 year old pre-K student I tutor at the Sterling Community Center. Jada pranced right in one afternoon sportin' a new striped sweater, cuffed jeans, lip gloss dripping off her pouty lips, and sassy Afropuffs. She poised her hand right on her little hip, stuck it out so far I thought she was going to dislocate something, and informed everyone, "I lookin' GOOOOOOD today!"

She's too cute for words, so look for pictures to come soon.

Our Apartment

Well, thought ya'll might finally like to see where we are living . . . Things have finally come together and our apartment is feeling like a "home." As you'll see we're still missing a few things . . . I'll point those out along the way.

Entry Way

This is what you see when you walk in the front door.

The living room is to the left, kitchen is straight ahead, office is to the right, and bedroom is behind the kitchen.

Eating Area

Here's the kitchen from the front door.

That's our FABULOUS Walnut table we bought with wedding money. We feel like real adults shopping for and purchasing our own furniture.

Living Room
For those of you who saw our end tables & coffee table while we were still in TX - we have painted them off-white and they look much better!

The vertical blinds lead to our porch/balconey which is the current storage place for bikes, an old scooter, an old door, and the "Danny Loves Laura" sign.

Kitchen

For an apartment, the counterspace is AWESOME!

Kitchen/Hallway

This is the view from the living room. Here you can see the beginnings of our cross wall.

Office/Library

Danny sitting at my messy desk. His desk is behind mine. The couch and bookshelves you see in the picture below are to the left of our desks.

Bedroom

Here's our bed with my favorite duvet cover from Pottery Barn. As you can see we're still missing night stands (we're using huge Tupperware boxes). In this picutre you can also see Danny's in-home theater creation at the ceiling above our bed. Humana (Danny's company) gave him a very nice Dell projector to use for work when doing seminars. He has not had to do any seminars so we hung a shelf, found some old computer speakers, and made our own large movie screen on the wall!

Here you can see our "in-home theater" on our wall above our mammoth dresser. Danny keeps his clothes in the drawers on the left and I keep my clothes in the drawers on the right (there's 12 drawers total) and we're happy. You can also see we still don't have any curtains up in the apartment - but that'll come eventually too.

Well, and there you have it. More than you ever wanted to see or know about our little abode. Hope you enjoyed your tour.

NEW pictures of our apartment!

NEW pictures of our apartment are up - check the link to the right to see them! Can you tell which is our porch? Here's a closer look at the Red Neck Porch:


Things are getting settled in and unpacked. I am getting to put pictures on the wall and decorate! I'll try to get pictures of the finished apartment posted in a few days. We have visited two churches, Danny has made more sales here in two weeks than he did in a month in Austin, and I have started the interviewing process for jobs. We celebrated our one month anniversary this week and can't believe where the time goes! We are both growing to rely on the Lord more, as well as each other.

First exciting adventure in our apartment:

It was our first night - we had unpacked both cars and the HUGE U-Haul (by ourselves, up one flight of stairs) and were exhausted. We had not yet shopped for a mattress, so made plans to sleep on the floor amidst our stacks of boxes. I was already crying because I was exhausted, missed my family/friends, and nothing seemed homey (with all the unpacked boxes around). We hadn't been laying down 5 minutes (during which I was still crying) before a big, fat cockroach crawled ACROSS MY FOREHEAD, scaring us both to the point of screaming and jumping around frantically. That just made me cry harder, while Danny ferociously smooshed the crunchy roach. We BOTH then tried to squeeze onto the couch for a good night's sleep (neither of us wanting to sleep on the floor any more), but somewhere along the way I ended up pushing Danny off and he slept on the floor. Needless to say it was an interesting night and a crazy welcome to Greenville. There are more bugs here than in Texas (it's cooler!), much to my chagrin.