Merry WHITE Christmas

I hope everyone had a fabulous Christmas and enjoyed it as much as I did. Who wouldn't have LOVED having a WHITE Christmas......
However, I am thankful to be able to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. God has been so good to me and my family and I can not imagine having my own son  and watching him die on the cross in front of me for all the wrong doings of other people. I know that Mary had strong faith in the Lord and I have realized this Christmas season how much stronger my faith in the Lord needs to me.
I have had such a great food selection this week with all the cookie baking with my Nana and this year, Rhett and I cooked a Honey Baked Ham for his grandparents and it was surprisingly very good. I have enjoyed this Christmas by spending time more time with God, spending time with my love ones, singing Christmas carols, doing some last minute shopping, wrapping presents...perfectly, watching Christmas movies, and most of all reminisicing on the main reason for this Christmas season.

This is why I love Christmas.....

-Decorations-

CVS Pharmacy is where this cute little reindeer came from.

-Ornaments-

Anna and I also have a new sister/daughter Hallmark ornament every year.

-My LOVE-

Christmas Eve, Eve: headed to The Pope Christmas

-Presents and Gift giving-

Rhett got a new pullover to add to his collection.

Our FIRST game for our house...Taboo! We love that game.

-My sister-

-SNOW!!!!-

It was a WHITE Christmas for us in Alabama!!!!!

-Grandparents-

The Farm

-Family-

Merry Christmas from the Pope's!!!!

This was my LAST Christmas at my house. I have spent 21 Christmas's in my house and I cannot believe that it has finally became my last one.No worries, Mom & Dad I will be back next year to collect my gifts from Santa. I know Santa still thinks I live at home so be ready and have that BIG Christmas breakfast prepared for one more person than normal. haha! We can't leave Rhett out.haha!!! I can't wait to decorate my house next year for Christmas, it is by far my favorite holiday. I can't wait to start all those new traditions with my very own family. I have had so much fun and cannot wait to share it with Rhett.

Merry Christmas and God Bless!

 

In The Beginning....

Rhett has officially started on "our" future FIRST house. I am so excited and cannot wait to see the finished product. We decided to start with something small and this first house will eventually be a pool house/workshop for us until little kiddos are in the picture. Since we have been on Christmas break, Rhett has been giving this house 100% of his time and with his hard work I know that this house is going to be absolutely perfect for us.

This is "our" front porch

Winter Vacation

Happy Holidays! I have been out of town this past week to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee with my family. Oh my, was it an adventure. Here, in Alabama we have had bad weather and just think of that times 10 for the weather conditions in the mountains. Last December, my mother and uncle rented a cabin for all of us on my mom's side to stay in and to celebrate my grandparents 50th anniversary. Needless to say, I think it will be an anniversary to remember.
We arrived in Pigeon Forge Monday afternoon, after it being around 15 degrees all day and a nice stop at Cracker Barrel we finally arrived. We plugged in the address to our cabin into the GPS and Rhett led the way up the mountain with the car in 1st drive and my parents, grandparents, and uncle& aunt was behind us. We hit several bad spots in the road that were covered in complete snow and ice. We couldn't make it up the mountain so we turned around and was headed to an Auto part store that sold chains for tires. My uncle and aunt decided to follow us and going back up the mountain got us into some trouble. We slid and my uncle and aunt ran off the road and got stuck in the ditch. Taking pictures didn't even come to my mind, I was a nervous wreck, and I was praying that we all just make it out safely. It was horrible. They finally got a wrecker to pull them out. We all decided to stay in a hotel for the night.

We settled for the lovely and cheap, Comfort Inn. That night we got in the hot tub, stayed up late watching television, and playing board games, like Taboo! It was fun but we all were aching to get up to our cabin.
The 2nd day we finally got a taxi with chains and four wheel drive to take us all up to the cabin, thank goodness for this or we would be staying another night at the Comfort Inn. The cabin was absolutely wonderful. We were stuck up at the cabin for the next three days. I'll let the pictures finish the winter vacation story.

The wonderful taxi that took us to the cabin, thank you Mr. Roger for the lift. He was great!

Anna was posing and I loved waking up to this view every morning.

All of our luggage, haha! Only for 5 days and we had this much. Thank goodness we had all this since we were stuck and couldn't go anywhere so all the cute winter outfits were useless.

All the boys played pool, air hockey, Xbox, and cards. Anything they did they had a competition and a bracket for the winners and losers, it was funny! They loved it.

I enjoyed the sauna but every time I got in mom would somehow want a picture, need me upstairs, or etc.

 We got the opportunity to celebrate my Grandparents 50th Anniversary. We surprised them while they were in town. Because on Friday we got to go down and get our vehicles and the weather was warmer and there wasn't anymore snow and ice. They went to breakfast together and shopped a little.

I am so blessed with such wonderful Grandparents. They are such great role models individually and relationships. I can't wait to celebrate 50 years with Rhett. I love you Paw and Nana! God has been so good to us.

We also created a slideshow of pictures of Paw & Nana throughout their life until now. It was so sweet, every shared memories with them.

Having some fun in the kitchen!

Headed back to Alabama... even though we had a GREAT time up in the cabin there is nothing like HOME.

Rhett's the Birthday Boy

Happy 23rd Birthday to my wonderful fiance, Rhett Houston!

Friday was a very special day, it was Rhett's birthday. I am so thankful to have gotten to celebrate another birthday with him. I mean this time next year we will be a married couple, a whole new route to celebrating birthdays together. I called and reserved us a table at the local restaurant, Courtyard Cafe. It is Rhett's favorite place to eat dinner. My family along with his went out to eat and celebrated his 23rd birthday together. I had planned on making him a red velvet cake but my plans had changed that morning, I had to babysit. My dear sweet mother was kind enough to make him one when she got off from work. I had told her I would do the icing so she could get ready, nevertheless mom being "mom" had to go ahead and ice the cake. She did a great job but iced it just a little to early because the cake was still warm; therefore, the icing melted. But who cares about the looks of that cake, it was delicious. Rhett was very pleased with the outcome of the cake and I am pretty sure everyone else was too.

If you want the recipe, just email me: jpope1@jsu.edu (haha) :)

I am looking forward to my future with Rhett. His love for me has guided me even through some stressful times to say the least. I am looking forward to spending the rest of my life with him, I can't wait. He is definitely the best. God has really blessed me with such an amazing guy like Rhett. 

Happy Happy Birthday, Rhett! I love you.

Thankful for Thanksgiving

I have so much to be thankful for and God has really been good to me and I am thankful because of it.

I am thankful for.....

1. My salvation: God has truly blessed me throughout my whole life. I thank him for saving my soul. He is my rock and my redeemer. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound..... oh how I love Jesus! He has been so good me to. He has been with me through it ALL. I cannot express how important my relationship with the Lord is. He helps me each and every day. Thank you, Lord.
2. Family: All the hard work and praying my parents and grandparents have done for me. I am very lucky to have such wonderful Christian parents who have led a good path for me to follow. Their marriage is truly remarkable and I hope to have as good of marriage as they have. My sister, Anna, is the best! She has been my backbone, she has laughed at me when no one else thought I was funny, she has the best closet in the world. I am thankful we can share everything, except when something is new and she has to wear it first before I can, haha!
3. Rhett: I can not believe I have found someone who loves me the way he does. I am thankful for him because he makes me laugh when I need it. He is a provider, hard worker, and I am even thankful for his stubbornness...sometimes!  I look forward to spending the rest of my life with him!
4. Friends: I have the bestest friends! They are there when I need someone to just "talk" too, fabulous shopping buddies, workout partners, wedding helpers/planners, and I know that they pray for me and that is very crucial in a friendship.

"In every thing give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." 1 Thessalonians 5:18

Happy Thanksgiving!

Important Announcement

Rhett and I have been doing ALOT of talking about out future and what all we want in life. That statement brings me to say... we've moved up our wedding date a whole year. Rhett and I will be getting married this May of 2011. First off, I was quite hesitant and I started thinking and realized it's not all about the glitz and glamour it is about our LOVE for each other. We have a vision to what we want our wedding to look like and all I have to say is I have ALOT of planning, shopping, and decorating to do. I am going to try my best to blog as much as I can about the whole wedding process because I know that one day after the wedding is all over I want to go back and read all my older posts and to realize how much time and effort I put in it to see if anything changed or if my plans stayed the same.
Color Scheme: Blush pink, black, silver, white. (Springish)
Here is a few ideas I have in mind:

Bridesmaid Dresses (J.Crew)

Outside Reception

Old Fashion Postcards (Thank You Cards)

Table Ideas

Flower Girls Head piece

Umbrellas (in case of rain)

This is just some ideas I have for the wedding. I ask, you all, to please keep us ALL in your prayers for this wedding. If anyone has any ideas or to where I can find: mason jars, old window pane, and etc. just e-mail at jpope1@jsu.edu. Thanks! Everything is greatly appreciated.

Happy Birthday, Nick!

October 30th was my sister's sweet boyfriend's 21st birthday. First off, I wanted to throw Nick a big birthday bash but it got turned down ever so quickly. My family, Nick's family, and Rhett all got together to eat. We celebrated Nick's 21st at the Courtyard in Gadsden, AL. Best restaurant EVER, hands down! We had a great time celebrating his birthday with his family. Nick is very special to Rhett and I and to my family. My sister and I are very close and having someone to love her, the way we do is special. He is such a great guy and I am thankful that Anna has found her such a great guy like Nick. Hopefully one day Nick and Anna will be together, forever! :)

Nick and Anna

Rhett and I

My parents and Nick's step-dad, Ben (I couldn't take many pictures because I was using Anna's camera.)

Engagement, Part 2

I apologize for waiting so long to post my part 2 but I have been super busy with school.
However let me not keep you waiting.... So after the whole process of Rhett asking me to marry him, I still thought we all were going out to eat that night on our double date. Nevertheless, I was wrong, but yet I don't know it yet. Rhett told me to ride with to his parents house to drop our cars off. (Rhett's truck, my car, and Heather's car...Jason's parents dropped him off at the engagement site.) On the way to Rhett's house, I tried to call my mom and my sister duplicate amount of times. I received no answer. I finally was getting anxious because I wanted them to know so badly. I finally received a phone call back from my mother and she said she was outside watering the flowers and Anna, my sister, was at her boyfriends house and she finally called me back. They were both extremely shocked (they are good actresses, by the way) and wanted to see my ring. Rhett had said they could come up tonight when we got back from eating and they could all see my ring. I knew my parents would wait till later that night to come up because of the Alabama game. I already knew Dad would not want to miss it, being the BIG ALABAMA fan that he is. We soon were arriving up to the Walker's house and Rhett was very touchy to say the least to me. Let me explain, he kept asking me to turn towards him and to give him kisses and that he wanted to see the ring. When we pulled up to Rhett's drive-way he wanted the BIGGEST kiss from me, I thought, awww...he is the sweetest. However, he is the sweetest but yet he was distracting me because when I was opening my door I had noticed that his grandparents on both sides were at his house.

I was showing Neena my beautiful ring. She loved it!!!!!!

My future Mother-in-Law and I

I just thought maybe they came down to eat dinner with Mr. Larry and Mrs. Cathi that night, which isn't unusual at all. I was excited for them to be there though because I got to show them my ring and tell them the story, which they all knew it was happening. Mrs. Cathi told me she had some presents for me in the living room, and oh my goodness it was the greatest presents to receive on your engagement day..... my WHOLE family was in the living room. I was in tears!

This was my reaction when I first saw everyone in the living room.

I was very emotional to say the least. My mom was giving me such great words of love, she was so happy for us.

Showing my Aunt Bonnie and Nana my ring. They were both just as emotional and happy as I was. My Nana and Pawpaw came straight from their vacation in Gatlinburg to Centre, AL to celebrate this day with us. Thank you.

This is my Pawpaw, the most amazing man on this earth. He gives me so much wisdom. I admire him. He is the man, whom I wanted to find a husband like and with the power of God, I did! It was also his 70th birthday as well as my engagement day. I love him, his smile, above else his love towards God and his family.

My sweet parents got me flowers and a balloon. There is my sweet Dad and his beautiful SMILE. He is so happy for his oldest daughter to find such a great guy like Rhett :)

This is my future Father-in-Law, Mr. Larry

My precious Grandaddy Pope, even came to celebrate this special day with us. It saddens me because I wish my Meme was still alive to celebrate this day with us. I know she is happy for us up in Heaven. Oh, how I miss her. 

My family

Rhett's Papa told me that I was going to find my ring in a Cracker Jack box. He's too funny!!!

Rhett's family

My future Sister-in-Law and her husband, Jason! I love these two so much.

Isn't this the cutest cake? Thank you Aunt Mary for this amazing engagement cake.

I just love this picture of Rhett. It shows his true expressions and his happiness. I am so thankful and I look forward to spending the rest of my life with him. I can't wait!!!!

Engagement, Part 1

First, just let me warn you this post might be quite long; however, sit back & enjoy reading how Rhett popped "THE" question. It was on Saturday, September 11, 2010. I had so far a relaxing Saturday cleaning house, doing my chores that I've been doing since like middle school, school work, and catching up on my yoga sessions. Rhett had told me that Heather & Jason were coming home from Auburn to come and visit and Heather also had a Willow House party on that Saturday.Before that day I got a babysitting offer to babysit for one of my professors in college on "that" Saturday. I had told Rhett if we were just going out to eat with Heather & Jason and then watching football for the rest of the night then I was just going to babysit and make a little money. Oh no, Rhett insisted on me going on a double date with them. Oh yeah, the reason I had no idea that he had the RING is because we went down to Auburn the weekend before for the first Auburn game and we had went to Wares Jewelers and looked at rings.

Auburn's 1st game

 Anyways, I just thought maybe it was just me being selfish and wanting a little bit of spending money then to watch football. I ended up turning down the babysitting offer. Well I was getting ready to go to Heather's Willow House party because I haven't been to a party since I have started doing it and I thought I could learn some things from her. For some reason that day it felt like it took hours for me to get ready. I mean, I had to re-wet my hair twice because it had already dried wavy twice and I needed it to be straight. I had my mother who had been shopping that morning, come home and wanted to show me her new clothes that she had bought. Finally, I ended up getting out the door an hour later then I thought I would have. I drove up to Centre to Heather's Willow House party and it was a fun, come and go party. After the party was over Heather and I was going to to go over to Mr. Hyche's (Rhett's former principle)lake house because Rhett had went water skiing with him. Heather's husband, Jason, had been on a dove hunt all morning and he was suppose to meet us over there so we could all combine into one car and drive to Sumo's. (That's where I thought we were going that night, anyways.) I get out of my car and it was sprinkling and I am already worried because I had straightened my hair and if rain hits it then it looks just horrible. Luckily, Rhett had replaced my broken umbrella with a huge red&white one the following week before because I was in desperate need of one if it rained while walking to class. Rhett gets the umbrella out of my car and he told me he needed to show me something he had done.

My mind automatically thinks the worst and I thought he skied into the pier and broke something. I was wrong. He told me to face the lake and I couldn't turn around so still nothing goes through my mind about this is it or anything. He asked me to turn around and he had made me a picture out of an old window pane.

Will (wagonwheel) You (Jessica) Marry (rings) Me(Rhett)?

I was thought well I have been looking for just the right thing to hang up above my bed and that this was the perfect size. He asked me, "Jessica, whats is the left hand corner?"... I said, "Well a wagon wheel." At this point, I am still clueless. He said, "okay, what about the lower left hand corner." I studied the picture pretty hard and then it hit me. My heart started racing, I was like oh my goodness, this is where I had always wish Rhett would purposed to me at because that is where we first met. After I noticed that in that picture, it was a picture of rings, I turned and looked at Rhett and there he was down on one knee.

I still get the butterflies when I think about this. He asked me, JESSICA POPE to marry him. I can't tell you what amazing feeling this is. I mean it's a.... praise report, an answered prayer,..etc,. this is who I am going to spend the rest of my life with. He is an all-around ,amazing guy. Of course, I am balling my eyes out and trying to let the words, Y-E-S to come out of my mouth. 

I just love this picture! Rhett did such a great job with designing the ring. I was highly impressed. Thank you so much for my beautiful ring, Rhett. I love you! Wow I can't believe I actually have a finance' and no longer a boyfriend. It sounds weird when I tell people that I have a finance'... It sounds so growny and  I LOVE it.

Heather, the whole time I thought was sitting in her car waiting on her husband, Jason, but he was being little miss paparazzi. He came down the the pier and congratulated us and then she wanted to take more pictures. I am so thankful to have such a great future sister-in-law who has a magnificent camera and was willing to take tons and tons of pictures and actually captured my whole engagement process.