End of 2010

It is so hard to believe that it is December 31! This year has flown by!

This Christmas break has been wonderful. Tim and I both enjoyed the break from work/school and the chance to catch up on some stuff around the house. It has been a much needed break! We are spending a quiet New Year's at home. My goal is actually just to stay awake until midnight! We started out the day with a wonderful breakfast at Grits and Groceries. They have the best breakfast; it is totally worth the drive! Unfortunately, we also watched the Clemson bowl game. this afternoon. I think I missed the most exciting part though, because I took a nap towards the end of the game.

2010 has been a busy and fun year (Brent and Whitney's wedding, annual beach trip, finding out we are pregnant, trip to NYC), but we are really excited about what 2011 has in store for us! Hopefully, June will be here before we know it. Actually we are looking forward to February 1 right now! We hope that everyone has a Happy and Safe New Year!

Here are some pictures of memorable moments from 2010.

Hotel Party after Brent and Whitney's wedding. (We wanted to go roll their house.)

Brent and Whitney's Rehearsal Dinner at the Tiger Den.


Mom and me in Central Park

Clemson Homecoming 2010

White Christmas 2010

16 Weeks

Today I am 16 weeks pregnant with only 24 left to go! We are getting closer and closer to the halfway point. I am still really tired. This break has been good for me, but I am going to have difficult time getting back on a schedule. I am used to sleeping until 9:00 and then lounging and napping on the couch!

I have only gained five pounds, but I feel like my weight has redistributed itself to my face, hips, and butt! With most of my clothes, you can't even see the bump yet, but I have definitely started to show in the last week. I can still wear some of my clothes, but I did have to go on a shopping spree!

I go back to the doctor next week, and I am excited about hearing the baby's heartbeat again!

We are going to do some furniture shopping this week and try to decide on a crib. We have also been looking at bedding and paint colors! We are also deciding on names. We like Brooklyn for a girl, but still don't have a boy name.

Here are some bump pictures.

Christmas 2010

We had a wonderful and blessed Christmas this year.

On Christmas Eve, we ate shrimp and grits with my parents and then went to the candlelight service at Midway Presbyterian. We also kept an eye on the weather. They are still calling for snow!

I slept late on Christmas Day (I am enjoying it while I can!)! Tim fixed French toast, scrambled eggs, and grits for breakfast. Then we opened our presents. Because we have some big expenses coming up, we did not buy a lot of gifts for each other. Tim got some cologne and a book, and I got new gloves and a gift card. It was exciting getting to open up present for Baby Van Heule from Tim's parents and Susie. Baby VH will look great in brown and gold! It is hard on Tim being so far away from his family but especially hard during Christmas! Hopefully, the Skype conversations will start soon!


(I can't get these pictures turned the right way!)


Next we went to my parent's house to open Santa presents. Of course my mom did way too much. Please remember that we took a trip to NYC a couple of months ago, and that was supposed to be everyone's Christmas present. We enjoyed opening gifts with my mom and dad, and Brent and Whitney.



Unfortunately, I was not feeling well. I have just been achy and tired, so I did not go with my parents to my aunt and uncle's out at the lake. I hate that I missed seeing everyone, but I napped the entire time they were gone. It started snowing right before my parents got home! I guess the weather people were right!

We headed to Greenville around 5:00 as the snow really tired falling hard! Of course, all of the kids were excited about the snow. It doesn't get much better-snow and Christmas! We usually only get snow once a year, and it never snows on Christmas! This was a really big deal! (The upstate of SC has not had a White Christmas since 1963. That fact was on the news every 5 minutes!) Of course, we ate too much food and Tim's White Elephant gift was the best of the night! Baby VH got more presents tonight! Everyone is thinking that the baby is a boy. Kristi and Ashlyn do the "pencil test", and the pencil went in a circle. That means the baby is a girl! Who knows? I can't decide what I think it is. I have no strong feelings either way. February 1 can't get here fast enough!


It was really snowing on our way home from Greenville! It was hard to see the road sometimes. Thankfully, we made it home safely. There was only one area where we slid (right before we pulled into my parent's neighborhood). We actually had less snow at our house than my parent's did. We probably had 1 1/2 inches. Of course, Splash loved it!



The best part of Christmas is always getting to spend time with family. I am so blessed to have a wonderful husband, loving and supporting parents, a great brother and sister-in-law, Tim's wonderful family, and all of fabulous extended family (love the Griswalds!). Baby VH is going to be one lucky baby having all of these wonderful people in his/her life!

Christmas Eve

I know-two posts in one week! That never happens! We have really enjoyed our first week of vacation. It has been so nice to sleep late! We have been busy trying to clean out the baby's room and rearrange everything. We also took a trip to Commerce to buy some clothes that actually fit me. My problem is that my old pants are too small, and maternity pants are too big! I did get some clothes that I could wear to school, and Tim even found some shoes (He is very picky!). We also took Charlotte, Murphy, and Maria to Hollywild. They loved looking at the lights and seeing all of the animals!
We have a few errands to run today. Then Tim is fixing shrimp and grits before we go to the candlelight service tonight. They have been calling for snow all week long, but now it seems like it will be mostly rain. I guess we will see what happens.

Merry Christmas!

Wow! It has been a long time!

Wow! I can't believe how long it has been since I have updated! Things have been crazy around here! School and work have kept both of us very busy! It has been a good busy though. All of the Griswalds showed up for the Clemson/NC State game. We were excited that Uncle Dave, Susan, and David also made the trip. We had a great Thanksgiving and enjoyed spending time with family. We also celebrated my mom's birthday. Unfortunately, Clemson lost to Carolina that day. Oh well.


I think that everyone knows our BIG NEWS by not, but we are so excited that Baby Van Heule will be here around June 14! Currently, I am almost 14 weeks (tomorrow). I have been to the doctor three times, had two ultrasounds, and heard the heartbeat three times! Tim has gone with me once and got to see the ultrasound and hear the heartbeat. We can't wait until February 1 when we get to find out if it is a boy or a girl! I have not been that sick just a little nauseous now and then, but I have been really tired! There were some days that I would come home from school, go straight to the couch, and then go straight to bed. I am starting to have more energy. Of course, vacation is probably helping that! I will post pictures as soon as I scan them!

We have been busy getting the house ready for Christmas and cleaning out the baby room. It is hard to believe that this will be our last Christmas without children!

New York 2010

Instead of giving presents for Christmas, we decided that we would take a family trip. We all (Mom, Dad, Brent, Whitney, Tim, and me) spent the weekend in New York. We stayed at the Double Tree in Times Square and had a great view. We went to the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, World Trade Center, Chinatown, Little Italy, Central Park, 5th Avenue, Macy's, Grand Central, and of course we ate! It was great being able to show my parents around.

I love the fast pace in NYC. There is always something to do. Every time I am there I wish that I could move there. In reality, I would not make it during cold weather. It was in the 50s and windy, and I was freezing!

The trip was fun and pretty uneventful until we were getting ready to board our flight home. First, they announce that they are doing a security check on our plane. All of these TSA guys are all around our gate. Some of them went onto the plane. Then the guy at the desk announced that we would be delayed because they were doing an idle engine check and they felt that the there was a 60-70% chance that the plane was good. He also said that if it was not a good plane, they would get us another one. Then they announced that we were boarding the plane and 3 TSA agents walked down to the plane and stood there while everyone got on. It was kind of scary and really makes you think about flying again.

Where did October go?

Wow! I can't believe that October is already gone! We have had a busy month, and I hate that I have not had time to update this lately.

Sadly, my great aunt Barbara passed away after a long battle with lung cancer. We took a weekend trip to Wilmington. The weekend was a beautiful celebration of her life. It was nice to see family that we don't get to see very often. I just hate that was the reason that we got to see them.

School has been very busy for me, and Tim has had lots of trainings. It seems like when we think we get caught up that we get further behind. We have a lot of house projects planned-adding a railing upstairs, painting all of the trim, replacing windows, keeping up with the yard, etc. It never ends!

We went up to Clemson to look at the floats for Homecoming. We have had an unusually warm fall. It has been in the 70s and 80s everyday. I love the the warm weather, but I am ready for cooler weather ( like in the 60s).



We also went to see Darius Rucker at the Peace Center. He put on a really good concert. I love that he played some Hootie and the Blowfish.

Clemson Homecoming

This weekend was Clemson Homecoming. We did not have tickets to the game, but we still headed up there to go downtown and look at the floats. It was a beautiful day! We are finally getting some fall weather.

Jason Mraz

Tim and I went to see Jason Mraz at the Peace Center last week (after a yummy dinner at The Orient in downtown Greenville.) He puts on an awesome concert! The opening act was horrible, but he made up for it! He made sure the audience was involved and into the whole time. He brought some audience members up on stage for one song. The one woman volunteered her husband to go up there and dance. He was terrible! I felt so sorry for him. I couldn't believe his wife would embarrass him that way. Towards the end of the song Jason Mraz asked the wife to come up on stage too. She was even worse than her husband! It was amusing though!

I am excited about our tickets to see Darius Rucker at the end of October! Thanks Tim for being such a wonderful husband and getting us tickets!

Furloughs and Fridays

I have to admit that I was not happy about furloughs at the end of last year. I did not want my check cut yet again! However, now that the school year has started, I am so loving furlough days! We had our second one this past Friday, and I loved every minute of it especially after my Thursday! It was so nice hanging around the house on Friday, getting school stuff done, cleaning up the house, and exercising (the hour Zumba DVD)! I could get used to having 4-day weeks.

We had a busy rest of the weekend. Charlotte and Maria spent Friday night with us, and then we took all of the kids to Greenville on Saturday. We walked down to Linky Stone Children's Garden. it is so pretty and peaceful there. I definitely recommend going there if you haven't. We also took a ride on the trolley. The weather was perfect, and there was a great breeze even if it was 90 degrees. That is the best free entertainment around. The ride is about 30 minutes round trip. The kids loved it!



Sunday brought rain! It has been about a month since we have had any! It was a great day to take a nap and get ready for the upcoming week. I think that summer temperatures are finally gone. It makes me a little sad. I love summer and warm weather. I hate winter and cold weather!