I'm at it again. Re-living my life from two years ago following our move to Virginia. Changing our address with every insurance company, magazine, bank, and online organization we've ever signed into. And - here's a fun "did you know": Did you know that Florida's car insurance rates are exorbitantly expensive!? Well they are. (Thanks mom and dad for paying for it for all my life up until marriage. No wonder you couldn't wait to get me off your financial roster! hehe.) I cannot say that I'm surprised at the rates, because people drive like crazy fools around here. They're mostly Gator fans, I've found.
Amidst settling in to our new digs in Jax, we managed to make a trip over to Sylacauga, Alabama last weekend for a little Wilson-Hardy-Starovasnik family fun! We had a good ole' country time celebrating family (and family that is on the way... shoutout to my favorite niece - Kaitlyn - who is gracing us with her presence in ~8 weeks!).
Every time we head to Alabama, I am awakened with stark reality of how southern I am
not. I mean, the fact that I didn't eat grits until age 20 should have been my first red flag. But as I enjoyed some quality time with the Hardy side of our family, I hear in my own head the narration of what I would say if I were to write a book about this experience. I considered it a possibility until I remembered that Reese Witherspoon already starred in a movie with a similar premise. Before I show you the pictures, I'd like to have a brief Southern vocabulary lesson, if you don't mind.
Crick: A small, river-like body of water. Synonymous with "creek". Word origin: phonetic distortion of the /i/ sound into the /I/ sound.
Quit-stick: A toothpick that is found in a 3 layer cake, meant to hold together the layers. Although the ingredients around it are likely the most delicious thing you will ever taste, quit-sticks themselves are not all that tasty (read: don't eat it even if your cousin dares you). Word origin: no idea.
Cooter Brown: Used in the phrase, "Drunk as Cooter Brown"; when asked who Cooter Brown was, my mother-in-law confessed that she did not know. Word origin: probably a guy named Cooter Brown who had one too many beers one too many times and became famous for it.
Heel - The green, rolly things near the bottom of mountains. Make for a lovely and slightly nauseating drive at fast speeds. Not to be confused with the rear portion of a shoe. Otherwise known as a "hill", with an /i/ ("ee" as in "eat" for you non-speechies). Word origin: distortion of the /I/ sound into the /i/ sound.
Making pictures - Synonymous with "taking pictures". Also used in the form of "having your picture made", aka, having your picture taken. Makes non-southerners expect a tangible finished product of some sort.
Okay, okay, now that you've humored my educational piece of this post, here are some photos from our time together.
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| We went out to the "crick" on Saturday. Here are the boys skipping rocks, which later evolved into finding the biggest rocks and chucking them at one another. How pleasant. |
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| While the boys threw rocks at each other, the girls just relaxed on the underwater bridge (a roadway that was in ankle-deep water). |
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| Grandmom and Granddad were there too! |
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| The cute (and yummy!) cake to celebrate the arrival of our niece. |
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| I thought it would be fun to include a few games in the baby shower portion of the weekend since guys rarely get to know the secrets of baby shower agendas. Here's AJ trying out the "guess the smell in the diaper" game. |
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| Granddad (my assistant for this game) holding up "The Price is Right" poster. |
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| Grandmom and the grandma-to-be drawing a portrait of Kaitlyn...on their heads! |
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| Our gift to Lianne: a Vera Bradley baby bag and a few goodies to go with it! |
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| When we weren't eating or opening gifts, here's where you could find the guys. Playing NBA 2K11. (That's Caleb asleep in the middle. Classic.) |
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| Traditional after-church pictures at the Hardy's. "Making pictures" as the Southern folk call it. Which I still can't get over. |
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| Wilsons + Hardys. |
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| Starovasniks + Hardys. |
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| Ham glaze, a new frontier for these guys. |
We had a great time enjoying some quality family time. Between driving 30 miles to go to the "crick", passing Piggly Wiggly after Piggly Wiggly, learning the ins and outs of vegetable gardening, eating some GOOD FOOD, and taking up a whole pew at Sunday church at First Baptist Sylacauga, I'd say we had a good ole Southern time!
