For Alisa

My sister-in-law Alisa lives in East Asia. She blogs about her family, too (she's on our blog roll). Since she and her husband and beautiful children cannot join us for the holidays, here are some photos posted just for her!

Alisa,
Johnathan and I both miss and love you. Give hugs and kisses to our niece and nephew for us! You are always in our thoughts and prayers.


Beam grandchildren 2008
4 generations
Baby Blake Cash

Christmas Time is Here!

The holidays start off at my parents' house when my brother and his fiancee, Cameon, arrive from Boone. Christmas Eve we opened gifts there. Check out the ENORMOUS hair my brother managed to develop after a nap....
I have to admit, my mom and I kind of went a little crazy buying gifts for this precious girl this year. We both LOVE her and can't wait to have her as part of our family (she also gets MUCH prayer for agreeing to marry Wes). We managed to hunt down THE bag she saw in a magazine; it's a Jessica Simpson weekend bag. I even got her matching cosmetic bags. The look on her face reminds me of the joy of gift-giving and why I love it so much!!


I also got a gift or two from my adorable husband. IT'S A WII!!!! Christmas morning was very exciting in the little casa de Beam. =0)

And while it's a lot of fun, Christmas day can be exhausting because of so much running around to make it to all the family gatherings. We went to my parents' for brunch then headed out to North Brook to Johnathan's family's Christmas gathering. This is Bryleigh, Johnathan's cousin's cute little girl. It was a great day, and we are very lucky to have families that love us


We both hope you also had very happy holidays!!

Indoor Persecution?!

As I have mentioned before, I work with a high school band program outside of work. This year, the program is expanding to include a competition indoor percussion program. Our group is made up of 20 band students who play a variety of wind instruments in the regular school ensembles, but have chosen to take on learning percussion instruments as part of an extra ensemble. Since I was (am?) a band geek and played mallet percussion in high school, college and in an extra ensemble outside of high school, this is a very exciting development for me!

The title of this post comes from a funny incident earlier in the school year when David was trying to promote the program and get students to sign up if they were interested. As with most schools, announcements are done in the morning when students and teachers are getting ready to start a class. An announcement had been written about the percussion program. The person who reads announcements (ranked first in the senior class) read the following:
"Any student interested in participating in indoor persecution should sign up in the band office"

Check that: it definitely says percussion.

Big difference, huh?


Anyway, we had our first informational meeting with the students last week and gave out music. As instructors, generally David and I don't look forward to listening to kids just "bang out" parts while they try to learn them (we prefer it to be pretty I suppose); this was a completely different experience. It was SO COOL to hear them working on learning a completely new instrument, and even more exciting when they asked me about how to play parts. "Does this sound right?" "Where's the C on this keyboard?" "Ms. Beam, can you come listen to me play?"

That, my friends, is music to my ears.

Holiday Family Time

This is Alex. He is SO cute. Alex is my first cousin (making my total count now 3). Alex and his mom and dad (my uncle John and his wife Jenni) live in Mississippi, so our family had Thanksgiving and Christmas while they were in town in November.
This is my favorite photo from the entire Thanksgiving weekend. How cute are these boys?!
My brother and the other two cousins. These girls are my FAVORITES!! I love both of them to pieces and was SO glad to have everyone in one house even if it was only for one night. What a great time we had!

Going back in time...

Out to dinner for Johnathan's birthday in October (I know the posts are out of sync chronologically, but at least I'm able to upload photos). We traveled to Greensboro to spend the weekend with Matt and Erin. It was such a lovely time!
On his actual birthday, we ventured to Boone to see the leaves during Peak Weekend and spend some time with Wes and Cameon (who I think we saw in all total for maybe an hour). But Boone is so pretty in the fall!
This is the view from Wesley's deck at his townhouse. Check out how blue the sky is!

More Updates

I have filled up our kitchen space with my grandmother's kitchen table that is doubling right now as a buffet-type server. There is now a place to display our formal wedding china on a plate rack. I also took the same baker's rack that was in our rental (it was my aunt's) and painted it a glossy black (it was green). It was almost like getting a brand new piece of furniture for free!!


In the background of this silly photo, you can see the Christmas lights. I hope to have a more formal Christmas photo done in the next week or so for card-sending purposes. We were SO happy that day!!



The MASSIVE tree we have this year. Last year we were taller than the tree (and neither of us are that tall!). So, I'm definitely making up for that this year. We have lots of gifts under the tree for friends and family and that makes this time of year even more exciting!

Visual Cues

FINALLY!! I loaded some photos to Picasa (via Google) and have managed to "trick" blogger into loading my photos without having to go through the whole posting process. So, without any further ado, some new photos of Christmas decor...the images are small, but at least viewable!

The holidays is one of my favorite times and least favorite times of the year. It's been an amazing experience to decorate our own home this year. In fact, rumor has it that my family may actually be coming to our house for some Christmas fun! I can't wait!



I heart my Willow Tree Nativity. Johnathan and I have been working on getting it together for 2 years now. It looks so great on our sofa table!

I was really concerned that we wouldn't have a place to put our stockings this year because of our lack of a fireplace and therefore mantle. It was Mom's idea to hang them here over the newly framed kitchen cutout. We love our UNC stockings!

In the world of Renovation Station, we have FINALLY painted the guest bathroom. It's sage...and gorgeous! Johnathan did a great job getting the painting done so quickly (1 afternoon!).

We also furnished the office after Thanksgiving. It's so nice to have a space to work and have some quiet (or music) to work without so many distractions. It's a bit of our homage to our beloved Alma Mater. You can almost hear the sound of Charles Kuralt's voice...

I am SO excited about what's happening around here. Another post coming soon!

Test from Picasa

Our dining rom table set for Christmas. I LOVE this time of year because of the burst of color!