#71 - CHECK!

Number 71 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to volunteer my time to help out Saint Mark's Disaster Relief team. I had the opportunity to knock this off yesterday! Myself along with Justin, his parents, his sister, and two other church members met up at the church at 7am to drive over to Albertville, AL to help with the tornado damage. For those of you readers that are not in Alabama, a massive tornado hit Albertville this past Saturday and devastated much of the city. It was an F3 tornado and it's only by God's grace that no one was killed.

Justin and his mom went up there on Wednesday also, but didn't do any manual labor. The boys were hoping to do manual labor when we got there yesterday, but no such luck. The City of Albertville needed us for another reason. FEMA needed an estimate on how many hours people were spending on cleaning up damage. This included the owners of the home, any friends or neighbors that helped out, and even any professionals they hired to help clean up their homes. Based on this information, FEMA would know how much money to give to aid Albertville in getting back on its feet. So our jobs was to walk from house to house asking the residents a series of questions to get this information.

Most people were very nice and welcoming, others were a little standoff-ish. I guess I would be too if someone was asking me if I lived alone or how old I was or for a phone number. I remember this one lady the most because she said that so many people were coming by offering their help, but no one had actually stepped up to do anything. She had finally gotten some Baptist Church volunteers to clean and cut up the trees in her yard to put on the side of the street for pickup.

We were trying to help organize things because no one knew where to ask for help or how much more needed to be done to what houses. So that was basically what we did. Our group of 7 people were given about 10 streets of houses to cover between us, so we split up and went door to door seeing if anyone needed any medical supplies or food so that we could get that information to FEMA/Red Cross.











Do you see the curb that was lifted up with this tree?? It is so crazy to me that winds from a tornado can do that!





This is me and my sister-in-law, Jennifer, as we were going house to house. Fun fact: Jen informed me yesterday that she has started a 101 List herself :) I'm hoping to convince her to start a blog, but we'll see how that goes.



Albertville High School got a TON of damage! This pic is of the portables that were completely turned upside down!! P.S. that's Justin and his dad, Gordon, in the picture surveying the damage.



Pictures can't do this one justice. This warehouse had a wall that completely fell over into the street. On the ground you can still see all the bricks lined up in a row in perfect order.



This picture and the one after is of a home that was completely and totally demolished. You can see the wall that had a window on it, the matresses from the bed and even dressers and personal clothing.



It is so hard to imagine what these people are going through until you see it and talk to the people. Guys PLEASE pray for these residents. They still do not have power which means they can't heat up food or keep it refrigerated and they have no air conditioning while the high is in the 80's. We met a few people that, because their home was moved off the foundation, they have to pay for their entire house to be destroyed and re-built. Many of these people do not have home insurance so please please please pray for them. I can't imagine what that must be like. It was a great experience for me and I was only able to do it because my firm allows us volunteer days that do not count against our PTO. I am planning on getting certified to be an official member of our First Response Disaster Relief team so that I can do this again.

On a side note, how happy am I that my sister-in-law is doing a 101 List!?!?! On top of that, I have a follower that said she's been following for a while that has just started a 101 List. I don't know her personally, but I do know her soon-to-be sister-in-law. The link to Brenna's 101 List is here. Follow her and root her on in completing her list! I love how quickly this list is spreading to other people!!!!

Birthday Celebration

On Wednesday, I turned 27 years old. It was a pretty awesome day. I got a gift from my in-laws the night before. They gave me a gift card to REI (best hiking store ever as previously talked about here) along with some Under Armour workout clothes. I also got a very hilarious card from my pal Lauren who lives in Seattle. Justin gave me the sweetest card ever that made me tear up a little bit. When I got to work I had two more cards on my desk. One from one of our administrative professionals at work and another from Melanie (referred to as "Mel Mel"). This year I got a lot of the cards that make noise/sing when you open them. I LOVE THOSE!!!! Melanie was sweet enough to give me pretty much anything that Bath and Body Works makes in Japanese Cherry Blossom scent as a gift along with making me a cake.

At lunch, myself and about 10 others went to eat at Cafe Lazio at Patton Creek. It was DELICIOUS! I'd only been there once before but I remember it being good then too. This time I had a Hawaiian Pizza Calzone. Very yummy! Melanie brought my cake to lunch and it was so good. It was chocolate cake with oreo flavored icing that Melanie made from scratch. She prettied the cake up with some pink icing.





After work, I headed home to change clothes and head to Iguana Grill where Justin and I met all of our friends for dinner. After eating at Iguana Grill, we all headed to Oak Mountain Lanes and went bowling, where Melanie brought the remains of the cake for everyone to snack on. Seriously, I think I gained about 5 pounds on my birthday.



Devin and Mary Morgan



Lauren and Rob



Sam and the V-man. Shelly had to work so she couldn't make it :(



Wade and Mel Mel



Trevor and Tiff. They also gave me a fun singing card and a gift card to ABWA, the place where Justin and I go diving.



Me and Vaughn. Vaughn is OBSESSED with Justin's jeep and kept asking to drive it at dinner. We set him up in the driver side before heading to the bowling alley and he was in HEAVEN. He was really upset when Daddy made him get out :)



Tiffany actually took this. Devin does this weird thing with his leg when he's bolwing and Trevor and Rob are making fun of him while he was actually bowling. It was pretty funny because that was the ONE TIME Devin didn't do the leg thing.

I don't think I've mentioned it on the blog, but I've had to come to a halt on my P90X workout and running. I have been having this constant pain in my left leg and it feels like a pinched nerve. I went to American Family Care (which apparently was a mistake according to bunches of people). They took X-Rays and said it was an inflamed muscle. I've had a pinched nerve before and I swear that's what it is but whatever. The doctor told me to stop activity for a week and take the medication he gave me and if it doesn't get better he'll take an MRI. Needless to say, even if it doesn't get better, I won't be returning. But in an attempt to try to get it to heal quicker, I stopped P90X and bowed out of the UAB Dollars for Scholars 10K I signed up for this weekend (tonight actually). I'm planning on picking back up on P90 either Monday or Tuesday of next week. I'm almost done with Phase 2, so I only have 5 weeks left to be able to knock that off my 101 List.

Good Birthday though. I'm confident that 27 is going to be an excellent year for me :)

The Number 27...

Tomorrow is my 27th birthday! I have been a little resistent lately to becoming "an old fart" (call me crazy, but I want to be 26 forever), but 27 is growing on me. Tomorrow I am going to lunch with a group of my closest friends at work. We're going to Cafe Lazio at Patton Creek and will hopefully be sitting outside in some nice weather :) As of now, there's a zero percent chance of rain with a high of 65 which is kind of perfect!! After work, our close gang (us, the Lobdell's, the Williamson's, the other Morris', Rob and his girlfriend Lauren, Wade and his girlfriend, who I work with and will also be at my Cafe Lazio lunch, Melanie, and Devin and Mary) are eating dinner at Iguana Grill and then going bowling.

Lets talk for a minute about some interesting things that happened on April 28, 1983 and about the significance of the number 27:

• I share this birthday with Jessica Alba, Penelope Cruz, Jorge Garcia (Hurly on Lost - who I absolutely LOVE), Jay Leno, Harper Lee and even the infamous Saddam Hussein.
• This picture graced the cover of Rolling Stones Magazine the day I was born, which is funny because my sisters and I celebrated my 21st birthday at his concert at the BJCC, where I am fairly certain he was wearing this exact same thing:

• 27 is the number 3, cubed. Had to throw some mathematics in there :)
• There are 27 books to the New Testament
• The number 1 song on the Billboard Charts on the day of my birth was "Beat It" by Michael Jackson
• There are 27 bones in the human hand
• 27 is the number of cubes in a Rubik's Cube
• The sun rotates on its axis once in every 27 days
• God creates Male and Female in the 27th verse of Genesis

Thought that was pretty cool :) Maybe 27 won't be too bad.

Bachelor/Bachelorette Extravaganza

This weekend was the joint bachelor/bachelorette party for our friends Bonnie and Andrew. A bunch of us packed up and drove (some flew) down to Orange Beach for the weekend to celebrate the upcoming wedding for Bonnie and Andrew. Justin and I drove my car down on Friday morning at 8am with the Lobdell's and Wade in tow. We got into Orange Beach around 12:30 and checked into the hotel (we stayed at the Perdido Beach Resort) then immediately went out to the beach. We knew that until Sunday came, Friday's weather was the best we were gonna get.



Everybody on the beach hanging out. Bonnie and Andrew had a lot of friends that came down to hang out with them!



Margaret, Tiffany and I enjoying the somewhat decent (although windy) weather



Me and Tiffers

We went to layout for a couple of hours until we retreated inside to get ready for Friday night's festivities. On Friday night the girls did Bonnie's lingerie shower and dinner while the guys did their own thing until we all met up later that evening/the next morning.



Me and the bride :) Isn't she beautiful?!?!



Me and Tiff before heading up to Margaret's room for the lingerie shower.



Two of my favorite boys :) This was after the girls had dinner and we met up with the guys later.



This is kind of a horrible picture, but it has a funny story. We went to Live Bait with all the girls and guys and Live Bait in Orange Beach is on a bid pond. THERE WAS AN ALLIGATOR IN THE POND!!! It was crazy! We were leaning over the railing just looking at the water and then out of nowhere, this guy pops up!



These are most of the boys on night number 2 when we all went to dinner together at the Shrimp Basket.



Me and my awesome hubster. Justin has been out of town the last three weeks in a row and even though he's home on the weekends, I missed him. It was nice to see him for more than 30 hours :)



After dinner, the entire group went to a piano bar called Rum Runners. Many bachelorette parties are at piano bars and usually they call up the bride to be to sit on the pianos and they sing a song. Well, we made Andrew go up instead. I assure you, he had NO problem doing it :) Andrew was HILARIOUS all night long!



The Lobdell's at Rum Runners

We had a great time while we were there! I was going to use this trip to cross off the "take a couples trip to the beach" from the 101 List, but since it wasn't all couples, I decided against it. Well, that and we decided while we were at the beach this weekend to take a couples trip in September sometime ;)

This week is a pretty awesome week/weekend. My birthday is on Wednesday (I'll be 27...ugh!) and I have close work friends going to lunch at Cafe Lazio for my birthday and then all of our gang is eating dinner at Iguana Grill and then bowling that night. Friday is a 10K that I absolutely dread due to a P90 related injury in my leg that makes it pretty impossible to run fast. Saturday Justin and I are scuba diving at ABWA during the day and then heading to the Tatum's Crawfish Boil that night. The Tatum's are a family (we are friends with their son Matt) that throw a HUGE crawfish boil every year where they have a band and pretty much all of Hoover comes :) Next week is my Friday off work and Justin and I are going camping in Cades Cove...YAY!! Hope everyone has a blessed week!

Recent Purchases

So I think all my readers know that Justin and I are traveling to Africa this December to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and go on a safari (number 48 on my 101 List). Our guides, IMG, have a gear list showing all items that are needed for each person doing the trip. Most of this stuff, luckily, are things that Justin and I already have due to the other winter climbs we've done. Others, however, are rather big purchases and we haven't gotten them yet. One of these bigger purchases was synthetic sleeping bags. One wouldn't think sleeping bags would be considered a "big purchase", but when you have to buy a sleeping bag that will keep you warm in 0-10 degree weather, it can be pricey.

Luckily, Justin and I are REI members. If you are an outdoorsy person and have never heard of REI, you live under a rock. The plus side of me living in Nashville was that there was an REI in Brentwood. Every time Justin came in town to see me, we usually always stopped by REI and made some kind of purchase. The closest REI to us now is in Atlanta, so we don't have the advantage of shopping frequently, but lets face it, that's probably a good thing :)

We have ordered our sleeping bags from REI and they will be shipped this week. Feast your eyes upon our beds for two weeks:



This is Justin's sleeping bag



And this is Marcie's sleeping bag

Kind of looks like a coffin doesn't it?? We are planning a trip to go camping in Cades Cove (number 35 on my 101 List) on the May 7th weekend, so we'll get to use these bad boys for the first time then. I'm so excited about our camping trip. Justin and I will be camping in Cades Cove the entire time and we're taking the mountain bikes to bike the Cades Cove loop in the morning before the road is opened up to car traffic. This will also complete number 87 on my 101 List. Yes I know I'm about to start knocking things off like crazy. I haven't been able to complete very many lately because of busy season. Now that April 15th is right around the corner, I can start checking things off again!!!

Not only are we biking while in Gatlinburg, but we're also hiking. Such a shocker, I know. Get ready for the romantic part...because I'm not a very romantic person. We've decided that instead of hiking a new trail or mountain that we've never done, we're going to go back and hike Mount LeConte. You may or may not remember, probably not because I didn't have the blog until after we did this, but hiking Mount LeConte was the VERY FIRST mountain that Justin and I hiked together and it was that hike that sparked my interest in mountain climbing. Not only was it our first mountain to climb together, but it was our first ever trip together as a couple. We did this back in May 2008, so as an attempt to reminisce about our first trip and first climb together, we will go to the same spot exactly two years later. Here's some pics from that trip:



It started raining about halfway up the mountain



The mountain in the back is LeConte (6,593 feet in elevation)



One of our first pictures together on that trip



This is STILL one of my favorite pictures of us

Weekend Happenings

This weekend was a pretty busy one. Justin cleaned the house on Friday since he didn't have to work which was super nice of him. I LOVE LOVE LOVE coming into a house that smells like a mixture of Windex and Clorox ;) Friday we didn't do much at all, though. We were running a 5K the next morning with the Morris', and there was a dinner at the church Friday night for it, so we met up with Justin's mom and dad and his sister and Aeron and had dinner together, then came home.

Saturday morning, we woke up early and headed to Shades Crest Baptist Church where the race started. In case you didn't know, Bluff Park is VERY HILLY. It was still a cake walk compared to the 15K Justin and I did in Mountain Brook last April (see post here), but it was still a bunch of hills and slightly difficult towards the end. Justin ran the 5K in 23 minutes, a personal best for him!!! He is so freaking fast it's almost unnatural. It got him 2nd place in his age group. I ran it in 31 minutes. I was actually very happy with my time. I usually run a 5K in a little less time than that, but the last 5K I did was the Jingle Bell Run in December and I haven't run AT ALL during busy season, so I'm good with that time. Justin's mom got 3rd place in her age group which is AWESOME!! Debbie and Jenn have gotten into running together a lot lately and it showed in her race time. She did it in 42 minutes, I think. Aeron did it in around 33 minutes, Jenn in 36 minutes and Gordon in about 38 minutes. Justin and I are signed up to do the UAB Dollars For Scholars 10K in downtown Birmingham on April 30th, so I'll need to be running between now and then to be able to do that.



Justin and I after the race.



The Morris' after the race. I actually hate this picture of me because we're facing the sun and I can barely open my eyes (Justin was the only smart one and brought sunglasses), but it's the only picture of the whole family.



Our medal winners. So proud!!

After the race, Justin had a bunch of things to do before leaving town again at 6am on Sunday morning to head to Wisconsin. I left him to that while I took my precious little man to the McWane Center, just him and his Auntie M. I brought my camera, but apparently left my memory card in the computer at home, so I didn't take any pictures. I did manage to get this picture on our way to Gigi's house after our afternoon together...



He's just chillin...

Funny note: on the way to the McWane Center, I asked Anderson what he wanted for lunch and he said he wanted their pepperoni pizza. I said "ok, you and I will split one of their pan pizzas". Anderson replied with "No Auntie M, I want my own pizza". I came back with "well, let's think about it". Anderson replied with "I am thinking about it. And I still want my own pizza". God I love him. I laughed the rest of the way there. On the way back, Timbaland and Justin Timberlake's song came on the radio and I turned it up and said "Ohhhhh I love this song". About halfway through the song Anderson said "I like it too" and I turned around and he was bobbing his head back and forth dancing to it.

I dropped Anderson off at Gigi's and played with Lydia a little bit, then headed back home to watch movies with Justin. He woke up bright and early at 4:28am (my husband doesn't set his alarm for "normal" times. They always have a digit at the end that isn't 5 or 0. I have no idea why). It took me a while to go back to sleep after he woke me up, but eventually I did and slept another couple of hours before getting up and getting ready to head to Gigi's for lunch. Lindsey and Jeff came over and we had a fabulous lunch. Auntie M then hid a TON of Easter eggs in the backyard for Lydia and Anderson to hunt. After about the 10th egg Anderson opened with nothing in it, he realized that there wasn't going to be anything in the eggs and lost his motivation to continue the hunt. Mom - note to self, put stuff in the eggs next time.



Miss Lydia wanted me to wear her hat. That child LOVES her accessories. She is SO GIRLY!!! I love it!



Auntie M stealing a kiss



Anderson says "cheese" everytime a camera is pointed at him (benefit of having a photographer mommy) but he does it so much that it almost makes him look like he's pooping himself ;)



She loves her shades!

It was an awesome, but rather exhausting weekend! I absolutely LOVE my niece and nephew, in case you can't tell :)

#79 - CHECK!

I honestly cannot remember the last time I checked something off my list. First off, how freaking stoked am I that so many people have joined me in the creation of the 101 List?!?!? My friends Tiffany, Stacey, and Allison have all created a 101 List and I've seen other people of their friends create one because they saw their list. It's amazing how fun things spread to us bloggers :)

Anyway, number 79 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to clean out the third bedroom. This bedroom actually use to be a bedroom with a bed in it and everything. When Justin and I got engaged and starting having showers, we used this bedroom to store wedding related items. Here's what it use to look like:



I have turned this room into my "P90X" room. This is where Melanie and I do our DVD's everyday!





Just in case you're curious, the map is there because Justin uses it to keep up with his highpoints and his banks. The red stickers are banks that he audits and the blue stickers (thatyou can't really see) are the highpoints he's completed. When he finds out he's auditing a new bank, he'll come to the map and see where it is to see if it is within a good distance to either a national park or some fun mountain/highpoint.



Let me just say that these shelves were STUFFED with random items and anyone that has ever been to our house (pre-P90) would agree. It took forever to clean all those out!!!! I heart this room now :)