have a spirited holiday weekend

What are your plans this weekend? If you said anything other than watching the Georgia game- WRONG! It's okay, I will leave you with the only link necessary to lead you to repentance and bring you to full on UGA Bulldawg spirit :) Have a good weekend! And GOOOOO DAWGS!!!

A song to start off your weekend in the most perfect way possible.



Image found here //

the georgia way

It's here! UGA Football is finally here! This Saturday marks the first game of the season, between the hedges. This video may or may not have made me cry...? Each year that passes, I love my alma mater more and more :)

what's your birthday tradition?

Do you have a go-to birthday celebration? We tend to celebrate a lot of birthdays (and any event in general) at an Athens local Pub & Restaurant, Trapeze. Andrew "surprised" me with a dinner there along with several of our close young married friends. 

Now that we no longer live in Athens, we treasure time spent with these people! It was great to swap funny stories and just be a part of the group once again. 

Three of the girls all gave me gifts from the local shop, Frontier! I always find myself wondering around in there, admiring all the little trinkets and handmade jewelry by local artists. I realized I have never bought anything for myself there, because, as Marilisa puts it, it's the perfect place to buy gifts for other people. So I am glad to have been on the receiving end this time :) (p.s. isn't Alise's baby bump just too precious?!)

I also got a dramatic hair cut, and it is now the shortest it has been since probably middle school! I'm kind of wishing I went shorter though… now that I'm not so attached to my once-Rapunzel length hair, it's fun to mix it up ;)

Thank you to all friends and family for a great 25th celebration! 

have a relaxing weekend xo

flowerland

Drew Barrymore joined instagram the other week and guess where she took her very first picture?!

Yep, that's Athens. This shop sits on the corner of Prince and Milledge Avenue. Not that I'm a huge Drew fan or anything, but still pretty exciting :) Here's the link with the full story!

how 'bout them dawgs?

This past weekend, in case you missed it, UGA beat the gamecocks (USC) 41-30. Its' been 3 years since we won against them, and victory sure is sweet :) (sorry mom and dad!)

We sure missed being in Sanford Stadium, but Andrew and I made up for it by watching the game from our laptop in the Best Western hotel lobby. After the game, the camera ended on the very last shot of the fans running towards the famous hedges, and we caught a glimpse of our friends and their home-made sign, "It takes a real man to be Gurley." (in reference to UGA's running back, Todd Gurley, who is currently one of the top RBs in the country!)

 Within minutes our facebook newsfeed was full of snapshots that people took of their tv screens of our friends. I know this kinda thing isn't that big of a deal, but still so exciting! Five minutes (or 10 seconds) of fame. Have you ever been on tv before?

Maybe the dawgs won especially for us, to give us the energy and excitement we need to finish off strong our last week here ;) I woke up sick today, so we're not sure how our plans will pan out. We'll be using this week to have last minute meetings, pick up a gift or two for people with birthdays back home (shhh), and organizing our new fundraising ideas for OEF. Have a good Monday!

P.S. Read about UGA's win in the New York Times.

xo

saturday in Athens

Today marks the official first saturday in Athens, as the Dawgs will play USC between the hedges! So, of course I have to leave you all with a UGA blog post and a GOOOO DAWGS!!! Even this little cutie is sporting his dawg gear :)

Playing this song on repeat today, in honor of each home game tradition (especially 3 min and 15 seconds into the song)

And also being flooded with nostalgia and love for my alma mater with this video. (Saturday, Saturday, Saturday!)

SIC 'EM!

two month tribute

As of today, we have officially been in Haiti for two months! Our first break home is only a few weeks away (September 16), and riding home in the tap-tap a few days ago...

truly on the map

Remember that post I did a couple weeks ago about Athens and how great it is? I am still seeing so many articles making rounds on Facebook. Now, that might be because the majority of my Facebook friends are current UGA students or alumni, but still. Recently I saw this article, where Forbes names Athens, GA as one of America's prettiest towns. Also, this article has been bouncing around the internet world this week and it gives an excellent description of all the reasons we love this town so much. Maybe it's the UGA Bulldawgs current ranking that is leading to this influx of attention on Athens, GA. Whatever it is, all the hype is making these next 3 and a half weeks in Haiti almost unbearable! We can't wait to be reunited :)

Athens, I love you.

I came across this video a couple days ago (via my friend, Erin) and was reminded again that Athens, GA truly is the greatest town in the world. It really doesn't even begin to capture half of the beauty that is Athens (mostly because it only focuses on downtown Athens)! The food, the music, the fashion and shopping, the history, the campus, the dawgs, the busy-ness of a small college town amidst the serene quiet of a surrounding gorgeous, rural landscape...

Athens has been receiving a lot of press recently. While I am glad that the world is finally beginning to notice just how wonderful this city is and is giving it the credit it deserves, I also hope it can stay under the radar as a small country town and America's best kept secret. I also stumbled across this article written about Athens in The New York Times, and this short video from MTV.

Athens, I love you, and I can't wait to be reunited with you and all of your sights and sounds... oh yeah and the people that you have, too ;)

Update: I finally got to watch the whole MTV video, and realized that Andrew and I are IN the video! Okay not really... but where they talk about The Grit (our favorite restaurant) and they film 3 people talking about it, we are sitting at a table in the bottom left corner. We were there that day watching and listening to everything they were saying, wondering what they were filming. Literally we were so close it was awkward, and we couldn't really have a conversation because we thought the camera would pick it up. Anyways- too cool!

coffee shops make the world go round

We got word that there is an upscale coffee shop in Petionville. So yesterday, we boarded a tap-tap and rode the 10 gourds worth up to PV-- and found a coffee shop!!!

It's called Rebo Expresso, and had A/C, wifi, and toilets that flush! We felt so fancy, and like normal people again. Isn't it pretty?!

I got to FaceTime with my momma, and we caught up on emails while Andrew enjoyed a $1.00 (40 gourds) cup of coffee :)

We left with lifted spirits, feeling like we were back at Walker's in Athens like old times.

missing home today

the last couple of days I have been feeling a little homesick. Missing family and friends, and I've also been craving a movie in an air conditioned movie theater with popcorn and a giant soda :)