Our Last Post

From Atlanta, Georgia. Tomorrow we pack it up and head to Brandon, Mississippi, where we'll start our new life close to my family and closer to Jeff's. It is a moment we have been planning for for many months, but still doesn't seem quite real. Our house still looks the same - we're only taking what we need this trip. It almost feels like we're headed on an extended vacation, and not moving for good.

I have to share that any reservations or second thoughts I had about this move evaporated this week. Many of you know that we took a huge leap of faith with this move, going into it 4 months ago without a job for Jeff, or any certainty we would sell the house quickly. Amazingly, in the past 2 days, Jeff was presented with, and accepted, a great offer from Wachovia to work in Jackson and we also accepted an offer on the house. It almost seems to good to be true. I realize the house deal is still in the early stages, and could easily fall through, but I still had to speak to God's amazing faithfulness in all of this. For months we have been waiting, and waiting, and waiting, for everything to line up and confirm to us that we were making the right decision. I guess God wanted to make sure we were really serious about everything because He waited until we both quite our job to fill us in on the rest of the plan:) Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining at all, it just never ceases to amaze me how He works, and how I just need to stop worrying and get out of the way and let Him do His work. What a great God we serve!

I've mentioned before that the hardest part about leaving Atlanta is leaving our dear friends behind. Two weeks ago three of our closest couple friends threw us a beautiful farewell party. It was the perfect send off and a great way to celebrate 5 years in Atlanta. Here are a few pictures from the day. I didn't get shots of everyone, but these cover a lot of ground.

What a great sign - thanks Brian!

Boy I'll miss that smile!

Lots of laughs with these two...

Thank you Gina, Brian, Julie, Todd, Mike and Suzanna for a beautiful evening we will never forget!!

A little over a week later, my coworkers threw me a center wide farwell party (the one from a few weeks ago was just our department). It was also a great send-off.

My wonderful coworkers and friends...

The amazing Alana Shepherd of Shepherd Center

To top it all off, a bunch of my coworkers chipped in and bought me a very generous Ann Taylor Gift card to buy some new clothes for my new job. What a treat that will be!

This was also a special month because we celebrated our 5 year anniversary. For those of you who know our story, you know that it is by the grace of God that we are still together today. Although the past 2 years have been great, our first 3 were far from that. Looking back, I can see and appreciate why things happened the way that they did, even though it was hell at the time. But the important thing is we are still together and going strong today, and I feel very lucky to be married to such an amazing man. He even planned a special night for our anniversary up at Glenn Ella Springs - a quaint little bed and breakfast 2 hours north of Atlanta down this dusty old dirt road (literally). It was a beautiful evening. '

Goofing around in the room - there are no tvs up there.

The view from the balcony outside our room.

The restaurant/inn

To top it all off, we wrapped up the trip with a 2 hour horseback ride through the north georgia mountains. I love horseback riding, and I love my husband even more for putting up with it to just for me. We did get a little scare though. On the way down one of the steeper inclines, Jeff realized his saddle wasn't cinched down when is slipped up over his horses' neck. She (the horse) danced around a bit, something I would have done to with 250 pounds hanging around my neck. Fortunately, Jeff was able to get his feet out of the stirrups and roll to the ground relatively quickly. He was a little sore after that, but thankfully not hurt, and like a good cowboy got right back on (after the saddle was tightened) and kept going. Way to go, cowboy!

This past weekend my friend Julie and I hit Whitewater - something I've been wanting to do for years. We had a great time, although I believe they've added one more ride since the last time I went, back in 1996. Here's our one picture from the day. It was a little chilly and windy, but the crowds were small so we weren't complaining.

In summay, it's been a wonderful and memorable 2 weeks. We will miss everyone dearly, but will hopefully be back mid September with the Uhaul, and see some of you again then. I will most likely have sporradic posts between now and the time we get a house in MS, as my parents don't have internet (I know, I know..). But I'll try to keep you all updated on what's going on, I just may not have many pictures.

Much love to all!

Two Weeks

To pack up 5 years in Atlanta. It doesn't seem like very much time, but in reality will probably end up being about 2 days, as I have a tendency to procrastinate when it comes to moving. I just can't stand the sight of an empty, boxed house, so I know I'll put it off as long as possible - just like I've done for our other 3 moves. This one is a bit unconventional because we won't be taking our furniture with us - that stays until we sell the house because 1. Houses show better with stuff in them and 2. We'll be living with my parents until we sell, so we don't have anywhere to put anything anyway. The good news is we're guaranteed back sometime in the next 6 months (hopefully sooner) to pack up the moving truck. But we still need to get the garage in order (yikes!), clothes boxes and the kitchen packed up before we leave. And those of you who've seen our house know that the garage alone will take at least a day.

I've spent a lot of time over the past three months pondering our decision to move, and whether or not it was the right choice. We possibly picked the WORST time in 20 years to sell our house, and Jeff finding a job in banking is not going to be any piece of cake either. But even though things aren't falling as quickly into place as we'd hoped, somehow I still have this unwavering peace in my heart that MS is where God is leading us. Don't get me wrong, leaving our life here is not going to be easy. You can expect many tears between now and the end of the month, so just get ready. But aside from the normal fears about starting a new job, I'm surprisingly calm about the whole ordeal, which is very unusual for me.

It all started about a year ago, when we both started to experience this growing desire to be closer to family - a far cry from the "We're never moving anywhere close to MS or LA" motto we had a few years ago. So we decided we'd move after 5 years in the house, which would have been 2010. Makes much more sense, right? But that never really felt like a good plan to us, and earlier this year, while dining with some of our wise friends and mentors, they posed the simple question "Why are you waiting to move to MS if you know it's where you want to be?" Well we couldn't stop thinking about that question, and why they posed it. And WHY DID THEY, for crying out loud. It's one of the worst times in the century to move and find a job, aside from the Great Depression of course. But again we couldn't stop thinking about it, and once we started down that path we knew there was no going back. Then I got a job offer, and our minds were made up. MS here we come!! Yes, I'd feel a whole lot better if the house were sold or if Jeff had a job, but my parents have generously opened their home to us, so at least we don't have to worry about 2 house payments. It will all work out, I have complete faith of that. It just may not be how we'd envisioned it ourselves.

Looking back on our 5 years in Atlanta - I'm really pretty ambivalent about the city. It's hot as #@$$ here and the traffic is just as bad as they portray it. My daily commute is 45 minutes one way - typically an hour. That currently amounts to $80 a week in gas for the Volvo. Ouch. I do love where we live, but I've come to the conclusion that I'm just not really a city person. I love visiting the city, but I don't like spending a lot of money on food our entertainment, so that pretty much rules out most of Atlanta's activities. Give me a fun-filled evening at home with friends anytime. And oh our wonderful friends here - that's what's going to kill me to leave. When we first moved to Atlanta, we befriended 5 of the most amazing couples in our newlywed Sunday School Class that we've somehow managed to keep around for the past 5 years. These people know pretty much everything about us, and still love us anyway, which is pretty amazing if you know our story. For the past 5 years we've really done marriage together. And through these 5 couples we've met some other amazing couples that have just made our time here oh so fulfilling. We've also been blessed with great coworkers that are really great friends too, and some of the most amazing neighbors you could ask for. We are so blessed. And why are we leaving you ask?? Good question! Granted I do have some dear, dear college friends in MS that I can't wait to start hanging out with again, and Jeff has connected with some old college buddies in Jackson as well, but it will be a completely different experience because all of these people knew us before we were married. When we moved to Atlanta we knew no one, save my grandparents and their 70+ year old friends, so everyone who knows us here knows us as The Smith Couple, not just Courtney and Jeff who got married. And like I mentioned before many of these people know more about us than our families - all the blood, sweat and tears that come with trying to make a marriage work. I'll be perfectly honest in saying that I'm really nervous about moving back to a place where people don't know us as well as they think. I know God is going to use our marriage, and our testimony, in a great way in MS, but it's scary thinking about that right now. There is a certain level of vulnerability that comes with transparency, and we've been very lucky that we've been so graciously accepted, loved and not judged by our friends here. I hope there is never a day when our candidness pushes someone to say we don't want anything to do with you anymore, but I guess there's always that risk, even here. It just seems like much more of a possibility as we move out of our comfort zone.

Moving to Atlanta, away from everything and everyone we held dear, was possibly the best decision we ever made as a couple (even though the whole reason we moved never played out - to attend law school). For anyone out there thinking about getting married, I would highly recommend getting a few years under your belt in a new city where you really have to rely on God and the people you meet TOGETHER to get you through things. I don't think we'd be together today if we hadn't ended up here.

Ok enough of the sappiness for today. Since I haven't posted in weeks, here is a brief summary of what we've been up to.

#1 the house - surprise surprise. But the even bigger surprise is that we are finished - save just keeping things clean. We finished up a few porch final touches 2weeks ago.

Jeff hanging the final straps in the rafters (The brown metal pieces).

He also put a sharp looking toe board around the baseboard that matches the swing, and I finally got the grout on the tile sealed.

The first weekend of August was perhaps the busiest one we've had in years. Friday night we enjoyed a delicious meal and fun filled evening with friends Amy, Michael and Bryce. Amy always says she can't cook, but we've yet to have anything less than delicious at their place.

Saturday morning I had the pleasure of hosting a shower for my friend Lisa, wife of my friend and coworker Josh, in honor of the baby girl Lindsey they are expecting in October. It was a very fun girly morning.

Saturday afternoon we worked like madmen to get our house ready for our 1st open house Sunday, knowing we wouldn't have time to work on it that evening or much the next morning

Saturday night my boss hosted a lovely dinner at her house for myself and Jeff, my coworker Nancy and Lynzee (a coworker and honorary member of the Quality department) and her husband Alex. Sue, my boss, is quite the host, and she served more food than I've ever seen - all in honor of me and Jeff. It was a very special evening that I will never forget. I do love my coworkers!!

We didn't get home until after midnight from the dinner, and opted to go to bed and get up early Sunday morning to frantically clean for the open house. As usual, we didn't get up early enough, and barely made it to Dunwoody Baptist in time for Caroline's baby dedication. We were 10 minutes late, walked in during meet and greet, then sat down and she was dedicated. Whew - I would not have forgiven myself if we had missed it! God was certainly watching over us because I didn't get a ticket for driving 75mph down Roswell Road to get there, and normally the baby dedication is 1st on the agenda, but because of a baptism it was pushed back a little. And as an aside, it was a great sermon too - just what we needed to hear. Just as I was sitting there, looking at many of my friends gathered in one place and feeling sorry for myself because none of them would be with us for our baby dedications, the speaker got up and did an entire sermon on moving to Italy. And not just any move, he is a lawyer, his wife is a nurse practitioner, and in 2 weeks now they will be leaving everything and everyone they love and taking their 4 month old daughter they prayed for for 4 years with them to Italy to work with a ministry they feel God is leading them in to. So you see, our little move to MS to be closer to family seems very easy compared to what they will be facing in the next 6 months. Like I said, it was a great sermon and definitely gave me some good perspective on our situation.

And here I am with Madeline at the church. Me and her mom are the best of friends, and often meet for breakfast on Saturdays when Jeff works, but Madeline has been pretty ambivalent about me until lately.

We spent most of Sunday afternoon at the Trices, celebrating Caroline, but headed back to our place for dinner with our old neighbors, Jenny and Jason, that evening after our open house ended. Like I said, it was a very busy weekend.

This past weekend was our first free one in months, and I'll have to say we were a little at lost as to what to do with it. We ended up hiking Stone Mountain and enjoying the lasershow with our friend Karen Saturday, then had my grandparents and friends the McVickers over Sunday night for dinner.

A New Record

For filthiness. Yesterday Jeff and I spent 10 hours in the yard trying to get the whole "curb appeal" thing rolling for our now on-the-market house. I've done a fairly good job of keeping up the yard over the past three years, but there are things I've let slip since we started working on the porch - thus the 10 year marathon to get everything back in order. After an early morning dump run to clean out the garage, I spent the remainder of the day weeding beds, trimming hedges, strategically placing 16 bags of pine nuggets and 7 bales of pine straw, planting flowers, helping Jeff and mowing. Jeff secured the landscaping timbers for me, braced the porch, finished and stained the rest of the lattice and power washed the walkway. Now most of you know, if you spend any amount of time working in the yard you are going to get sweaty and nasty, which we did. But the real filth yesterday came from having to crawl UNDER the porch, amongst all of the spider webs, muddobbers and clay, and shimmy up the hill under the porch on our backs installing 6x10 braces underneath the deck. Jeff I know you get frustrated working with me sometimes, but I daresay you'd find many wives willing to roll around in the clay with you like that. Not to mention work for 10 hours in the yard, then another 2 inside after that. I am my father's daughter when it comes to my work ethic - that's for sure.

Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure, and they really don't do justice to the full extent of our filthiness yesterday.

That brown tint did not come from the sun, mind you.

My trusty tevas - age 15 this summer. I've had them since 7th grade.

But here are the fruits of our labor. Totally worth it if you ask me. Wouldn't you want to buy this place?

As an aside - remember all the rain we had last week? Thankfully it only takes about an hour for the water to retreat after the rain stops. But this is the highest it has gotten since we moved in. Swimming anyone?






Most of you know we've been doing some work on the inside of the house as well, and here are a few pictures of that too. I had Stanley Steamer come out and clean the carpets last week. A little pricey, but completely worth it. I had good advice from a friend that it's worth it to have the professionals do it, because once you pay to rent the machine and buy all of the solution, you really don't save that much. Plus you never get it as clean as they do.

I really think cleaning the carpets, along with polyurethaning our front entryway, has made a huge difference in the look and smell of our home. The carpet in our living room was probably as old as the house, and really needed some freshening up. Couple the new clean with some awesome reed diffusers from Pier One (Citrus Cilantro, for anyone interested) our house smells amazing, fresh and clean. I love it!!




We've also been updating our master bath, although unfortunately I don't have any before pics - I've got to remember to do that next time. Anyway this used to be a gold shower, but we decided to spray paint is instead of paying $500+ for a new one. And was it worth it, you ask? Well I think it looks great, but considering the time and energy it took to disassemble, clean, sand, prime, color, clear coat and put back together - I'd say not so much. It took me well over a month to finish - next time I'll gladly just spend the money, although I'm certainly not complaining that we saved $450 this go around.




I got these great faucets online from home depot for $50 each. That's a steal for oil rubbed bronze - and they're good quality too. We're very happy with them. I did spray paint the light fixture - it was easy update and not a lot of work. I also sprayed the towel rack and TP holder. On everything but a shower, I love spray paint. It's a cheap and easy way to dramatically change the way something looks. And for the most part it holds up pretty well.








All in all we've spent about a thousand dollars sprucing things up around the house, but if it helps us get our asking price it will be well worth it. I know I'm a bit partial, but our house seems much nicer than the others in our neighborhood that are the same model. There are some people that say houses have a certain feeling to them, and I think that can definitely be said of ours. We've had many people share how comfortable, at home and loved they feel the minute they walk through our door. It's no credit to us, however, I truly believe it is because Jeff and I committed our home to the Lord some time ago, and have made it our focus to provide a warm, welcoming and loving environment to anyone at anytime. He has in turn filled our home with His love - and that's what people feel. We're just glad we've had a chance to be a part of it all.

Family Fun and Happy 4th

What a crazy month June was at the Smith house. We had our trip to AK and were home for a little over a week before heading up to Mentone, AL for the annual Smith Family Vacation. Because all of the Smith kids are so scattered and getting everyone together for the holidays is virtually impossible, his parents have planned (and generously paid for) a family vacation for the past 2 years so we can all get together. Last year we vacationed in Galveston, TX, and had a wonderful time, but it was about an 18 hour drive for us, so we were thankful for the closer commute this year - only about 2 hours. We stayed at a beautiful cabin in the woods on a mountain in Mentone. It had a nice big screened porch and hot tub, which we enjoyed almost every night. I can't say it was a very relaxing vacation - I mean for me going from no kids and just a husband, dog and cat to trying to keep up with to 6 kids and cooking and cleaning for 12 - well I'm sure you can imagine it was just a tad bit exhausting. But it's always fun to hang out with the family - especially since we don't get to see them very often. Here are some fun shots from the trip.

The twins, Deborah and Ellen, and their big sister Katherine

Katherine learning to swim

Me and my buddy Ben chilling on the swing

Pop with David and Katherine at one of the waterfalls

I love this shot

Mom and Pop

Jeff getting his workout in

Cousins Chey and Katherine

Amy, Eric and #5 Ben (They're still trying to decide whether or not to go for #6). Can you believe Amy is a mother of 5 - doesn't she look fantastic!

Rock climbing

Touring a local cave

Mom and Chey

More cave pics

A little family fun playing "Imagine If." If you haven't played it already, I would highly recommend it for any type of friend or family gathering. It's a great way to get to know people better. I learned that most of the Smiths think I'm high maintenance (and in all fairness compared to the rest of the Smith women I most definitely am). I also learned that my husband thinks if I was a dog I'd be a Rottweiler - how romantic:) His dad thought I would be a french poodle. Can you imagine me as a french poodle:) Like I said, it was a very fun game.

Sunday before we left Mentone we went to church at this tiny Presbyterian Church in the middle of nowhere. After service I was playing with the kids on the playground, and looked over and lo and behold there was Trent Wilbanks swinging his little girl on the swingset. I went to college with him and his wife, Joy. What a coincidence! Evidentally they live in Fort Payne, which I'd always thought was in south Alabama, and the church we attended was the one they call home. I had no idea they were only 2 hours from us. We'll definitely have to meet up again before the summer is over.

On the way home we stopped in Birmingham so Jeff could visit an old friend - Joseph Martin and his wife Hannah and adorable baby boy Winston.

We spent most of the week after our trip relaxing, but kicked it into high gear for the holiday weekend. Thursday night the 3rd we camped out in downtown Kennesaw with Brian and Gina for some pre-4th fireworks. It was already crowded by the time we pulled in, so we just found a patch of grass off the main thoroughfare and made ourselves right at home. Our Popeyes picnic dinner was delicious, although we did have to fight the ants for the last few pieces of chicken.

I've mentioned before that Brian and Gina are some of our closest friends - and they live just right across the road - literally - so we see them pretty often. We're so close, in fact, that Jeff feels right at home with them when they come over. The picture below was taken right before we left for AK. It was a fun party - can't you tell:)

We started off the 4th with a house project (surprise surprise). After a month of vacations and rainy weekends, we decided to stain the decks off the screen porch. We knew there was a chance of rain, but took the plunge anyway. We didn't realize it would take nearly 6 hours to finish the job, and thank goodness for our patient and understanding friends Josh and Lisa. We were supposed to show up at their house around 5 for dinner and fireworks, but ended up pushing it back until almost 8 pm because if you've ever stained something before, you know that once you get started you have to finish. Now most of you know that Jeff and I are notoriously late for everything, but never that late. To my credit I did call Josh 3 times, and he assured me that later was better for them, so I guess you could say I took him literally. On the way up to their house we drove through a torrential downpour, so I was quite certain our $120 stain job would be washed away by the time we made it back home, but thankfully Marietta stayed dry through today, actually. Thank you Lord!! When we finally showed up we had a lovely, laid back time with Josh, Lisa and Natalie, my favorite kind of party. Unfortunately I forgot my camera, so had no shots from the evening.

Saturday Jeff had to work and I enjoyed a lively brunch at Mimi's house. She was introducing a friend she grew up with in Prattsville, AR to all of her Dunwoody friends. My grandparents, as I've mentioned before, have a million friends and are always doing sometime with somebody. I always try to take notes when I attend their parties.

Saturday evening we met our friends Amy, Michael and Bryce for a dinner at "5 Guys" and then an evening hike. I was a little worried about eating greasy burgers and going back-country, but thankfully all settled well and we had no issues. We met the Whitlarks several years ago through the Trices, but really started hanging out after Amy and I worked on invitations together for Suzanna's baby shower last fall. We share a lot of the same interests, and have really enjoyed hanging out with them over the past 7 months. In fact it feels like we've been friends for years!

The Whitlarks

Funny Jeff

Look - I'm glistening. It was quite a hike!

We wrapped up the holiday weekend some birthday cupcakes for Brian over at their place. Brian is 29 today - HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! We've known Brian and Gina 5 years come September - my how time flies.

Hope everyone had a safe and holiday weekend!