President's Day

It was a quiet weekend around the James house. Chad left for an indoor track meet at Clemson University early Friday morning and did not get home until about midnight on Saturday night (Guess what I was doing when he got home? Yes, that's right, I was fast asleep!).

On Friday night I watched The Waitress with Keri Russell. It was a weird movie!

On Saturday I worked on getting some of the house organized, but I sure do have a LONG way to go still. We are still trying to combine/mesh all of our "stuff" and it is really hard. Also, we are trying to decide what color we will paint our kitchen and sitting room. We decided on a sage green, but we have MANY shades to chose from. I narrowed it down to 10 from about 40 or 50. I definitely have a favorite, so I'll have to see if Chad agrees. We are going to paint on our Spring Break so we need to chose a color soon.

On Sunday after going to church we went to visit some friends from college who also go to our church, James and Heidi Drake. They had a baby so we wanted to meet him, James Isaiah Drake, and he is precious! I forgot my camera so I don't have a picture of him. She let me hold him for a long time and I loved every minute of it.

Today I was out of school for President's Day and it's just so nice to have a 3 day weekend. I stayed busy running errands and managed to rest a little.

Tara

Surround Sound Rocks!

We finally hooked our surround sound speakers up last weekend. Instead of running the speaker wires through the walls, we decided to tack them up on the outside of the wall right under the crown molding. Although we thought this was the easy and fast way, it still took us 5 hours. Wow! I guess we will get faster once we learn how to be more handy around the house. It was cheaper and did take a lot less time than running them through the walls. Here are some pics.

Tara

Happy Valentine's Day!

Chad took me out for a nice dinner at The Olive Garden on Tuesday night before Valentine's Day to celebrate. We did not want to wait until Thursday and have to fight the crowds of people. I went to work out and called him when I was finished. He normally isn't finished with practice by that time, but he answered his phone and said he wanted to take me out for a surprise Valentine's Dinner. I went straight home to take a shower and get dressed because I was so excited. He came home later with some pick roses and a very sweet card. We had such a wonderful quiet dinner full of conversation, which we have not had much of lately. I, of course, ordered chicken parmigian, which I LOVE, and ate way too much salad and too many breadsticks. It was so nice!

Here are my roses:On Valentine's Day we decided to have a nice quiet night at home. We made pizza on french bread and watched Survivor, one of our favorite shows. It was even more exciting because we got to watch it with surround sound, which we set up the weekend before. I also made Chad some heart shaped muffins. I gave him a nice white button-down shirt, red tie, and black suit pants to go with his suit jacket I bought him for Christmas. Now he has an entire black suit! Hopefully he will get a chance to wear it soon.

Heart-shaped muffins:

Happy Valentine's Day!

Tara

Getting Old

Chad and I decided we are getting too old to stay up late. We got back from the track meet about midnight on Saturday night and could barely keep our eyes open. I think I was worse than him.

We left on Friday to drive to Nashville with some of the athletes that had to compete early Saturday morning. Chad drove a 15-passenger van and there were 14 of us in it with all our luggage and barely any luggage room. We were pretty packed and I can say I was very glad to be the coach's wife at that time because I got the front seat. I did feel a little bad, but I think I have earned that privilege and REALLY did not want to give it up. I felt better the next day when I talked to Mrs. McWaters (the head coach's wife) and she said she would have done the same thing.

We arrived at the hotel in Nashville about 9:30 pm, had a brief team meeting, and went to sleep because we had to wake up at 5:30am the next morning.

The meet got off to a slow start with just the 1600 M. and some field events starting that morning. After a few hours many other teams began arriving including the rest of the Samford team that left Birmingham on a bus that morning at 6:30 am. I kept busy with brief moments of rest in between Chad asking me to do some "favors" for him. I like to refer to them as "duties", I mean can I really say no?!?

We left the arena about 8:00 pm to drive to the other side of Nashville for dinner. After dinner at Atlanta Bread Company and a little ice cream at Maggie Moo's (Cinnamoo Bun...YUM), we began our trek home in the van with only 6 athletes since some of them decided to ride back on the bus. It was alot more pleasant since we weren't as crowded.

The drive back was pretty rough, I could have been asleep in 2 seconds except for the fact that I did not bring my pillow and I was trying to be a good wife and keep Chad from getting tired. So, I talked to Chad as much as possible and kept looking over at him every 5 seconds to make sure his eyes were open. We finally made it back to Samford to drop the athletes off, got my car, returned the van, and zoomed home as fast as possible to get in bed. Needless to say, we slept really hard that night because it was a LONG day!

On Sunday we each took a nap to finish recuperating from the long day on Saturday. I just don't see how Chad does it every weekend. Luckily, for most of the track trips they take a bus so he doesn't have to drive and can sleep on the way home. Overall, it was a fun trip, but I think I will have to choose just a few meets to go to each season.

Tara

A Coach's Wife

I'm sitting here in the Tennessee State University arena watching Samford's first indoor track meet. It's so great to be a coach's wife, this is now my weekend life. I really do enjoy it because I get to relive the glory days of running and be with Chad, even though he is NOT himself at the meets because he is so focused and busy. I just have to get used to asking him questions at least 3 times before he answers and making sure he is eating and drinking throughout the day so that he does not pass out. Also, I have decided that I am his personal errand runner during the meets. I just do whatever he asks whenever he asks. I was amazed to learn that they have wireless internet access throughout their arena!