Christmas EVE Gift!!!

Merry Christmas and Christmas Eve Gift!!! I hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas season so far. As i write i sit in NC at Tara's dads house where we are soon going to be exchanging gifts and sharing the Christmas excitement together. This year brings a season of change for me personally, this will be the first year ever really that i will have not been at Papa and Nanny's on Christmas Eve. All of my most cherished Christmas memories are there and its weird knowing that I will not be there for tonights activities. The annual UNO game, Little Pigs in a blanket and last years new addition of the Chocolate fountain that was big hit. Those are times and memories that will stay with me forever. Hopefully, If the good Lord is willing me and Tara will at least make it to sleep and wake up at Nanny's house for some good Christmas morning grub. Well, I guess i'm off to enjoy a warm NC Christmas Eve with the family. And since i will not post again before Christmas.... I will go ahead and send you My CHRISTMAS GIFT!! If your not apart of our family that may not make alot of sense but ask us sometime about our Christmas family tradition game that we always play. Merry Christmas to All!

Pretty Lights and Sore Feet!

Merry "Early" Christmas! The Christmas Season is here and in full force. I really do love this time of year for many reasons. No matter what someone's spiritual mindset, I think most everyone looks towards this time of year with hope and a sense of excitement that supersedes the presents and food. I tell myself every year that i'm not going to get caught up in the gifts and the craziness that the month Of December brings. However earlier in the week, me and tara found ourselves in a desperate gift shortage for everyone. We decided that we needed to make a run to Nashville and try to knock everything out in one large adventure. So Tuesday morning we awoke and headed to Nashvegas about 9am hoping to return with no more shopping to do. Our friend Andrew Peterson ushered us along our way setting the mood with his always popular Behold the Lamb Christmas show. We first stopped in Mt. Juliet and browsed target, books a million and a few others i don't remember. At this point in the day I was pretty upbeat about shopping but my love would soon diminish as the steps and hours added up. After about an hour we headed on to Opry Mills to the food court where we would enjoy some bourbon chicken/fried rice from our friends at Kelly's Cajun grill. Flash forward a few hours and what seemed like a million steps my love had faded and I was slowly turning into the Grinch who stole Christmas. About mid afternoon we met up with The Don and Judy who happened to be in Nashville shopping as well. Judy employed me for about 30 minutes to walk the Don around while she slipped off to do some shopping for the big D. If you know the Don you will find a humorous picture in your head of me and Don walking thru Opry mills. We are not what you would call two major shoppers. After that we realized that we had exhausted our Opry Mills honey hole and headed back to Mt. Juliet to pick up a few things we had seen there. Then it was time for a trip to the Big Olive Garden where we used the 'no wait' no smoking bar seating that was actually nice and kind secluded. After about 5 Dr. peppers and raspberry sweet tea's we were off to the Opryland Hotel to see the lights. Tara had never seen the lights and was quite excited to see them for the first time. Just a little bit of advice to the two people who will prob end up reading this. If your gonna go see the lights, bypass the $16 dollar parking and park in the lot of Opry Mills that adjoins the theater in the mall. You can park and walk thru a little walkway right into the back of the hotel. Once again it was quite beautiful and mind boggling thinking about how many lights there were. It was quite relaxing walking along the river and watching the cool lighted water spout show. The flowers were quite amazing too. It was a fun night from a photography stand point as well. I always enjoy fiddling with different settings and trying to get that perfect shot. I have given you a few samples of the photos that we took in the course of the night. If you want to see the rest check out our flicker page for more Christmas light pictures.
I pray that God continues to bless each of you as we draw closer to Christmas and that we don't get blinded by all the pretty lights and big gifts and lose sight of the Birth Of Our Savior Jesus.

Christmas Tree Adventures!!!

Season Greetings to all you readers out in blog land. Everything has been really good since my last blog. (sorry its taken me so long to get another exciting adventure published). I'm just now starting to come out of my turkey coma but i would do it all again in a heart beat. Unfortunately if i keep doing the fried turkey deal I probably won't have many heart beats left. Since our last blog we have spent a weekend with the youth from church at the annual Big House. It was a great weekend just to get away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Our latest adventure has led us to choosing our first Christmas tree together which will hopefully become a tradition that we can experience with our family for many years to come or until we have a child who is deathly allergic to pine trees. Growing up I never developed the love for a real tree inside, rather me and ryan developed a love for a tree that had so many parts that you had to have a algebraic formula to get it put together. It was one of those artificial trees that had separate branches for each level that were color coated for assembly purposes. By year 30, most of the paint was gone and that made putting up the ole tree that much more fun. Christmas time around the Heady home was always full of traditions. The Don had a specific place for each decoration that was never a millimeter off from year to year. Ryan and I over the years developed somewhat of a "tree narrative" with our Tree ornaments in which they were placed at strategic points on the tree to act out a little story or had just developed sentimental value to us over the years. Some how thru all those years decorating the Heady Home tree we always ended up watching Home Alone as it was usually shown the weekend after Thanksgiving. As time moves on and we grow older all those traditions have slipped into memories that I will cherish forever. I'm excited about the new Christmas traditions that will be born over the years with 2007 being the first chapter of mine and Tara's story. I hope some day that our kids will be sitting at their hologram blogger talking about how many strands of lights ole Dad always managed to throw up on the chosen tree and smile when they think of all their silly Christmas traditions. I guess the cool Christmas tree thing of the year is a time lapsed photography of the tree going up. Well we don't do that sort of thing around these parts so I will give you a still shot of our tree so far. She's a beauty even though she is not totally decorated. If your interested in the time lapsed photography or just confused about how the whole Christmas tree assembly process... please check out rhino or bignates blog.



Welcome Solomon Jacob Whittaker!!!!!!

This past week we had a new addition to the family. Tara's brother and sister-in-law welcomed Solomon Jacob into this crazy world. He was born on November 28 around 5 pm. He weighed 5 lbs. 13 oz. and was 19 inches long. Solomon came a little earlier than expected (3 weeks), but all is well with baby and mommy. Scott and Julia are adjusting well to having a little one in the house. We are looking forward to seeing Solomon at Christmas when we visit NC. Isn't he the cutest baby boy you have ever seen!!! (Aunt Tara).

Well I hope you have enjoyed this extended version of blogging. Check back to our flicker page in the next few days for pics from the Turkey Shoot fest, Big House and our recent Tree adventure.