Thanksgiving Break Adventures in Raleigh

Let’s just say we thoroughly enjoyed our Thanksgiving break.  Clint and I were both off  of work Thursday through Sunday.  Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we slept until 10:30am…it was awesome!  We are SO thankful for our jobs that give us time to rest and be together!  So, here is a brief run down on our adventures while we were awake this break…

Thanksgiving Adventure #1: First off we had our Christmas card pictures taken by the very talented Callie Pitts.  She will be a full time photographer with Nancy Ray Photography in May 2013… so she is legit! As some of you know, Clint does not love having his picture made… but he was the best sport and looked handsome!  Here is a taste of a few pictures:

 (Yes, we have a mild obsession with Reynolds... He has a personal photo shoot!)

Thanksgiving adventure #2: We bought a TV during Black Friday sales!  Clint and I did our research and found a deal we couldn’t pass up!  We bought a Samsung 39 inch LED TV.  We learned more then you could imagine about 5000 vs. 5004 series, pixel counts, sound quality, and hertz counts.  After 2 hours in Walmart and calling the Samsung help line, we decided on the perfect TV.  For the first year of marriage Clint and I didn’t have a TV or cable, so Friday night we stayed up until 3:30am fascinated by how clear the TV was.  Did I mention… we still do not have cable, so after our purchase of our brand new HD TV we bought a fine pair of bunny ears! Thank you Santa Claus!

Thanksgiving Adventure #3: Clint and I purchased our Christmas tree from the Garner Optimist Club.  We love our tree and our assortment of Little Boy Clint, NC State, Sea Shells, and Wedding Gift ornaments.  This was so fun to purchase our tree from the Optimist Club because they are SO generous in allowing Garner Young Life to use their facility for club on Thursday nights.  Have you ever heard how AWESOME the town of Garner is?  Well let us tell you....

So.. the tree is up and beautiful... we rearrange our living room for our TV and tree… then we leave for 30 minutes with Reynolds hanging out in the house (not in his crate/home)… when we return home Reynolds has successfully eaten 2 feet of Christmas lights and 3 ornaments.  No worries… Reynolds did not steal Christmas… the tree is fine and Reynolds has an upset stomach.  We are hoping he will grow to love Christmas and not be the Grinch this season.

Thanksgiving Round 2: Goldsboro

Thanksgiving in Goldsboro!  Clint and I have the great gift of having very large and very fun families!  We traveled to Goldsboro Wednesday night to spend Thanksgiving with Clint's parents, sisters, and the Wilkins side of the family.  Hannah Rouse hosted the whole herd of us: 32 hungry people!  We began our Thanksgiving day with the annual Goldsboro Turkey Trot 5K: Clint, Betty Brandt, Jay, Reynolds, and I were the last to finish the race in 53 minutes.  Someone had to be last right?  It was fun to take it slow and have sweet conversations with family! We then stuffed ourselves full with INCREDIBLE Thanksgiving food after burning off a few calories that morning.  It is the Wilkins tradition to eat lunch and then head to Biggie and Betty's house to set up their Christmas Trees.  Biggie and Betty have a Christmas Tree in their front yard for each child, grand child, and great-grand child, the in-laws don't make the cut for a tree... ha ha! This is always fun trying to get the inflatable Santa and Snow Man to be perfectly straight and to have 15 people decide where the trees should go in the yard.  I am so thankful for this fun Wilkins family!

 A few shots of the decorating process at Biggie and Betty's house!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Love,

The Rouse House

Thanksgiving: Round 1

"Give THANKS to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever" Psalm 107:1

Holiday Season is here!  Being married and having several families to see on one holiday is very difficult... so this brings a lot of room for creativity!  We had the chance to celebrate Thanksgiving 1 week early in Statesville with Mary's Dad, Step-mom, step-sisters and their significant others, and Stewart and Karla.  It was such a sweet day to celebrate as a family and to shower Karla and Stewart as they are expecting Phoebe James Kincaid on December 11th!  SO excited!!  We were so thankful that Reynolds got to come with us to see family.  He was intimidated by Ann's 2 Yorkshire Terriers (even though he weighs 70 more pounds then their total weight combined).

With a season focused around THANKFULNESS we are reminded how THANKFUL we are for our Family!  What a gift it is to get to celebrate Thanksgiving with 4 different families.  

A few pictures from our fun THANKSgiving day

 Clint's Favorite.. with sunglasses

 Mary's favorite... without sunglasses

 The Kincaid Family (minus Thom, Margaret, and Carter)

Proud Parents To-Be

(The next picture posted of Stewart and Karla will be with PHOEBE JAMES KINCAID!)

Fall is FULL!

What a fun season: FALL!  Fall football, fall leaves, fall camp, fall clothes, fall busyness!

This Fall has been a busy one!  We have been out of town every weekend of September, October, and November!  Between... Weddings, Young Life trips, birthday parties, baby showers, holidays, sports events... Let's just say it has kept our life FULL!

One thing we do live is FULL life!  FULL of fun activities and FULL of Jesus!  Such a sweet reminder during the "Busy Season" of our life is what Jesus promises in John 10:10:

"... I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL!"

What Joy and Full life we have in Jesus!

This is us last weekend at Windy Gap.  We were head leaders for Western Wake and Asheboro Young Life.  I also got to lead songs during club... Let's just say I was not Pitch Perfect... but had a lot of fun pretending to be Taylor Swift and Ellie Holcomb!

One Day More Video

For your viewing enjoyment!

We did program a few weekends ago and we just put our grand finale on Youtube!  This is a song from "Le Mis" which really has nothing to do with our program theme other then we had 1 more day of camp left to enjoy!  You may recognize some of our friends dressed as characters: Clint, Taylor Blaylock, Julia Kennedy, Courtney Lancaster, Jason Cha, and Greenville & Burlington Young Life Leaders!  Such a fun memory....

Wolfpack Saturday

What a fun weekend!  Being a State Fan you have really happy days and really sad days...Saturday was a Sad Wolfpack Football day.  The sports team was sad, but the company couldn't have been any better!  Clint and I sat with Clint's Mom and Dad!  We enjoyed delicious Chicken Enchilada soup while tailgating and then shivered in the shade for the entire Football game!  No joke, our seats were in the shade the entire time with a constant breeze!  

During half time we thawed out in the sun and met up with 3 of my favorite people on this planet!  Stacey, Anna, and Becca: we lived together all through college (minus Kelly... we missed you!)  With these girls, I laugh the hardest I have in my life!  It was so sweet and refreshing to just be in the presence of my friends!

Santa Clause came early for the Rouses, too!  Hannah and Charlie Rouse gave us our early Christmas present of Basketball season tickets! We are so excited and thankful for this gift! Thank you!  We may get to see the NCAA champions play all year (Let's hope!)  So, to begin basketball season we went straight from the football game to the basketball game vs. Belmont Abbey.  This game then turned Saturday into a Happy Wolfpack day...Thank you Scott Wood, Lorenzo Brown, Richard Howell, and my boy C.J. Leslie.

 Stacey, Anna, and Becca

Shady seats 

Double header of Sports! 

It looked Sunny, but the shade began 2 rows in front of us!  Carter Finley is a super special place in the Rouse House... Clint proposed in the in-zone all the way to the right in this picture.

Program Weekend at Windy Gap

True Life: Adults enjoy to dress up in silly costumes.

With Clint being on Young Life Staff we have fun opportunities to serve at Young Life camp properties around the country.  We have served as Work Crew bosses, Head Leaders, Young Life leaders, and Summer Staff.  Our friends Ryan Eaton (YL area director in Burlington) and Sid Bradshere (YL area director in Greenville, NC) asked us to serve as Program for their Fall Camp weekend at Windy Gap in Weaverville, NC.  We must say, this may have been our favorite weekend EVER at Windy Gap.  It was such a fun experience to allow the JOY of JESUS to flow through us as silly skit characters.  Program is such a fun and unique tool at Young Life camp.  It's purpose is to make kid's laugh, give them inside jokes to bond cabins together, and the most important role is to break down walls and to get kid's leaning in to hear the Gospel.  These are a few pictures for you to enjoy from the weekend...

 This is Cledus, Freeda Love, and Earl 

(Taylor Blaylock, Julia Kennedy, and Clint Rouse)

D.D. Gorgeous and P.L. Dat

(Mary and Clint)

Windy Gap