Whoops

So, with our busy lives, I put the blog on hold for a few....months. Kristy got on to me this morning about it. So, here goes.

Where we've been ... at work or at dance or asleep. 

We've been really busy the past few months. Our first Christmas Parade was yesterday, which we've been preparing for since October - we performed at the Okra Strut in September, the State Fair in October, and went to Nationals in October and won Overall Senior Team. It's been BUSY.

Then, on top of all of that, we've taken on a new adventure - we are the local directors of the Miss Columbia Scholarship Program. It is a preliminary pageant for the Miss SC/Miss America systems. We're really excited about it! You can check out the info for that on our website. 

Another exciting thing for us is that Britney's new album just came out - Circus. It is awesome - the tickets go on sale tomorrow for her Atlanta show. Cannot wait. Check out the newest video.

In a couple weeks, we'll be heading down to Orlando, for Heather to put in her one day at work this year. We are also going with a couple of good friends of ours, Whitney and Travis. Travis has never been to Disney World, and we are all really excited about having a good time down there. Heather, of course, about the great shopping, too! We'll be heading back on Christmas Eve. 

Today, we're still sitting in bed - really nice! Hardly ever happens. Heather's got to tutor this afternoon, and then at 4 we've got to leave for the Christmas parade tonight in West Columbia. The last one...then we can really start cranking down on this pageant to get it together - it's January 25. 

All of this typing and looking at our schedule has made me tired... 

until next time....

Been awhile

So, it's been awhile since I've written in the blog, and I totally apologize. With school starting up, dance really getting full-swing, and with the rest of life, things have been busy. School's going good so far - enjoying a new class. Dance is busy for the next few months building up to Nationals. We had a 7.5 hour practice yesterday, so I'm pretty tired. Working on entry forms for the next few competitions. Things are just busy busy busy. 

Hope to post some new updates with pictures soon. We're heading to Canada Friday, we're being flown up to headline a festival up there. :) Dancing three shows over the course of three nights. It'll be awesome. Will definitely update afterwards.

Talk later.

Three

I was tagged by my friend Kristy for this one.

3 Joys:
1. Clogging
2. Cars
3. Clean House

3 Fears:
1. Death
2. Lightning
3. Car Crash

3 Goals:
1. That my only job will be the dance studio
2. Have kids!!!
3. To live to be 100 (my Grandma will be 101 in May)

Current obsession:
My Mac computer

Random fact you may not know about me:
I am OCD about lots of things.

That’s your daily dose of me.

Clogging

Alright, so most of you know that clogging is a big part of my life. It's how I met my wife, and what I do with a lot of my spare time - if you can call it spare time.  We own a dance studio in W. Columbia, the Capital City Clogging Co. It's a second full-time job, but we love every minute of it. 

So, most of our time after school and now starting on weekends is devoted to the studio. Our studio competes all over the south, from March until October. We just had the summer off from competitions, but started back this weekend. Sometimes we gripe and complain about how we don't have real lives, and don't get to see our friends that often (which we still hate!) - but yesterday's competition sealed the deal about why we do what we do. 

We enjoy competing, and love performing. We don't always win, but of course it's always nice. Yesterday, we debuted two new dances - both of which we haven't been working on for that long - I guess since July when we started back. 

The day started with our line routine, which was ok - except I flubbed on a turn. We got 3rd. With our second routine, traditional line, we debuted a new dance. We did really well we thought, and I guess so did the judges, too. We won 1st in our age category, and Overall Traditional Line. With Acapella, we won 1st. Then, our last team dance - was Bleeding Love. A new routine, that we brought in a guest choreographer for. Brittany did an awesome job, and we loved working with her, and knew that we had done a good thing by bringing in someone else to do the choreo. The dance was like nothing anyone had seen on stage before. So, we danced it. We started and the place went silent. Halfway through - we all got the chills from the yells from the audience. Then at the end, the place went crazy. It was awesome. We honestly didn't know what to expect, because it wasn't like anything else. We were going to be pleased just to place. Well, we did. We won 1st. Then we won Overall in that category. Then, at the end of the day, when they give out all of the big awards, we won OVERALL FOR THE DAY! You've never seen a group of 20-somethings so excited before in your life. It was awesome. 

Here's the video.

Our studio also won a few individual overall awards, and duo/duet grand champion as well. Turned out to be awesome all the way around!

Trying to do better

Ok - so talking with Kristy, I realized she hadn't heard about the new car!!! So, I've got a few updates. Things that span the course of a few months, but might as well get updated on everything. 

So first...we built a pergola over our patio at the beginning of last school year, and this summer painted it white. We also added some sheer curtains to it - thank you IKEA. Check it out.

So, that's that - we also added some plants to the front of our house - the sun has tried it's best to kill them - but we're hoping they hang in there.. this was a fun EARLY morning planting them. hah. Here you go. They were much prettier when first planted - huge white in the back, white on the ground up front, and bright oranges. Will be adding more when the heat goes away a little bit. Remember, our first attempt!

Few more things - I redid the front bedroom while Heather was out of town at AB's bachelorette party. Here's what the room looks like now. Will have to find the before pictures. The photos above the bed, comforter, and curtains also from IKEA.  

Elsa wanted in on the photo taking opportuny!

When clean, it's Heather's scrapbooking desk - we cut out part of the closet and took off the doors. My 100 year old Grandma's high school diploma on the wall.

LASTLY - the new car. Heather's baby - Black Betty. '08 Nissan Altima

Push button start - gotta love it.

Where Have I Been

Alright. Back again. This thing is still new to me. At some pointI'll figure out how to make it part of my weekly routine. So, lots has happened since the last time I posted on here. My sister got married this weekend. It was a beautiful wedding. She looked gorgeous and the food was awesome. The mashed potato bar was by far the best I've had in a long time. 

So the weekend started out with me staying up until 5:30 AM Friday morning working on AB and Drew's slideshow that we showed at the reception. This slideshow wasn't like a regular one, it had video and music and all that stuff in it - pictures that flashed while they were speaking on video. So, I worked my butt off Thursday night into Friday morning getting that ready for the rehearsal dinner. Didn't get a nap at all before the RD, so I was exhausted and probably didn't act myself at the dinner. Saturday came along, and I slept through the guy's lunch - they went to Groucho's ... which makes it even worse that I missed it - I didn't even hear the phone ring, I was so exhausted. Once I finally got up, I had to run AB's dress to the church for my parents, then head back home, get dressed, and head right back to the church for pictures at 3. Needless to say, only 2 of the 9 guys in the wedding were dressed, so we missed taking pictures when we were supposed to. But, that's ok. 

The wedding was really nice - the vocalist, Katie Morton, 

did an amazing job on the songs. Drew was emotional from the beginning - it's nice to 

see guys that don't mind shedding a tear every now and then. Poor guy already had the trembling lip when I was walking down to get to my spot. 

The reception was fun - the band played some good music, and everyone danced until it was time to leave. They left to bubbles which was actually really pretty. And now they are fighting Hurricane Dolly in Mexico!!! I think it's already passed them, but it's still pretty close by. No fun! Hopefully they'll have a great time regardless. 

Wedding Pictures...kind of

So, Heather and I loved our wedding photographer, and hope to continue using them for our family (when we start having one). They asked us to come back down for another photo shoot, so here are the pictures. I cannot copy them, so you'll have to visit the link. If you click the bottom right, you can view the photos by the thumbnail, instead of watching the slideshow.

Hope you like them! Next year, they want Heather to come back to wear a wedding dress (I think the same one) in the ocean. Obviously, most brides wouldn't ruin their dress for that....Heather wouldn't either, but Corrie and James bought the dress Heather has on in these pictures in hopes to eventually ruin it in the ocean. They are awesome, and if you ever need photos, contact them. 

Slideshow

Kristy's Pictures

Wishes Jar on left - flower arrangement back right - invitation front right - party favor (mint) front bottom
detail of mint
back of mint
Made this for the door.

Here are some pictures for Kristy.

Here we go again!

Ok - so, it seems that I end up updating this thing during the wee hours of the morning. I'm actually exhausted tonight - dance started back up this week, we had a rehearsal dinner tonight for Amanda's wedding, and we've got a bunch of stuff to do before the wedding tomorrow. AnnaBell gets married next weekend, too, so things have been crazy. Will definitely update tomorrow night or Sunday sometime. Talk soon.

Clay

Third

Alright - so we're back from Florida AGAIN. This was our second trip this summer, and Heather is probably heading down again at the end of July. Heather loved the new bedroom - she was in complete awe of it when she got home. We've got a few finishing touches, and then it'll be like we want it. Hopefully we'll get that taken care of in the next day or so, and then we'll update some pictures. 

I told Heather about my surprise trip for her to Atlanta yesterday. She's known for about a month we were going somewhere, but didn't know where. The whole time we've been together she's been wanting to go to Atlanta - and we just have never had the time to go. So, we'll be staying at the Ritz Carlton tomorrow night in downtown ATL! We're heading to a Braves game, the Coke museum, and the GA Aquarium. She's really excited - and is trying to find Braves attire so that she'll be ready! haha. 

I wish the trip could be longer, but we have to leave Sunday afternoon for Boone, NC for a summer clogging camp that we're teaching at. We'll be making the 5 hour trek hopefully in time to meet her Nana and Papaw for dinner. Then, Monday we've got the summer camp, and then we'll be heading straight to our dance studio from Boone, because our new classes start up Monday, too! 

This is pretty typical of our lives! The rest of the summer, though, should be pretty easy. We do have a class we're taking in July for a week, but other than that, hopefully we'll have some time out by the pool. 

Keep you updated on how that goes!

More later.

Second One

So... I've already slacked off a little. But, I guess no one really wants to read about every moment in your life. Since the last post,  a few exciting things have happened... I guess they're exciting.

Back up a few weeks, when Heather and I were in Orlando. Heather works seasonally at Disney, and we happen to have to head down twice a year. So, we rarely do the touristy things. Heather likes to spend most of our time shopping - we finally got to spend an afternoon at the pool this go around, which was nice. Back to the original point. We shopped all over Orlando the last time we were there, and went to an IKEA. I've never been - and if you haven't, you need to find one close by and go. They are building one in Charlotte. It is awesome.

So, we're in IKEA and see these prints that we both liked a lot. Well, in order to use them, we'd need to redo our front bedroom. This weekend, my project (while Heather was gone on AB's bachelorette weekend) was to take our front bedroom from burnt orange to light light green. Well, I finally finished it up tonight - just a little bit ago. Pictures will definitely follow. 

Tomorrow morning (well today actually) - I'm heading down to Savannah to pick Heather up and to head back to Orlando. Yes, we're headed there again. Normally, we don't go twice in the summer, but it was a big mix up with many different people, and hopefully she'll get to work a little this time while we're down.

Will do my best to post more than once a week if possible. Eyes shutting as we speak. Talk later.

Clay 

First Timer

Alright - so after much deliberation, my good friend Kristy has talked me into starting a blog.

 

To tell you a little bit about why I'm doing this - my wife, Heather and I, are tremendously busy. We both teach full time, and run a dance studio, clogging only, at night. During the school year, we rarely have one night completely to ourselves! We've been married for almost 2 years, and have a little girl (dog) named Elsa. I'll use this to keep some of you that I don't get to see or talk to up to date on what's going on in our lives. 

Heather and I took the Disney Cruise this summer - she works seasonally for Disney, so naturally it was the cruise of choice. It was awesome - all of the adult stuff was located away from most of the kids' stuff, so we rarely realized we were on a ship loaded with kids. 

The rest of the summer is devoted to dance! We dance ALL the time. We just finished our Summer Clogging Camp, and have tryouts on Tuesday for teams. Then, on Thursday, we have registration and Open House. And classes start back July 7!

Alright - so, it's going on 12 AM - and I've been up past 2 the last few nights, so I'm ready to head to bed. Until next time...

Clay

OH! And the title of the blog - it's supposed to be like I'm keeping you guessing what's coming next. VERY CORNY - but Kristy approved. Heather was asleep on the couch like usual, so I couldn't ask her opinion! haha.