Stories from the South

Since Tanner and I have moved to Alabama, we have been surprised that things aren't as different as we thought they would be. Sure, the weather is definitely warmer and more humid, we live next to a lot of large interstates, and a large amount of people have southern accents; but we've settled in relatively easily. There are a couple great moments we've had though that I thought I'd share now.

While my parents and sister were still here with us in the first week of our Alabama adventure, we went to a little southern restaurant called "The White House". It is very southern. Everyone there calls you 'honey' or 'baby', most of the customers and staff have thick southern accents, and the food is delicious home style southern cooking. After we ate our dinner, we went to the cashier to pay for our food. Tanner had ordered extra meat with his meal, but it hadn't been written down on his meal ticket, so he went to explain that to the cashier. All he said was, "I got two meats with my dinner instead of one." She looked at him with a confused expression and said (to be read in your best southern accent), "You mean you got one meat and she got one meat, or you got two meats." Tanner again explained he had ordered extra meat and it had not been written down correctly. The lady smiled and said, "Oh, I couldn't understand you with your thick Yankee accent!" It was the first time Tanner had ever been told he couldn't be understood because of his "accent"!

"The White House"

The other great story happened just this last week. Our neighbor, Don, has become a wonderful friend, and we were telling him we wished we knew some of the other neighbors better. He decided to take us over to visit an older lady that we hadn't met before while she was mowing her lawn. We started talking with this lady, and she first asked us if we went to the Fultondale schools (there are only elementary, junior high, and high schools). We, a little confused that she would think we were that young, explained that Tanner was attending UAB. She was very impressed that he was already in college, and it took her a few more minutes to figure out that I wasn't in high school either. She then kept asking us who else lived in our house, and we explained a few times that we owned the house and were the only ones that lived there. We were confused when she kept asking about what our parents did. Then after about 20 or so minutes of talking, she saw my wedding ring and asked, all surprised, if I was married. I laughed and said of course; I was married to Tanner. We then figured out that she had thought we were brother and sister and lived in the house together with our parents. I guess it's a blessing to have such youthful faces.

Do we look like siblings to you? I can't see it... :) 

On a side note, if anyone knows how to get rid of mushrooms in a yard, I spent half an hour pulling mushrooms out of our yard today and filled a whole grocery sack! Let me know if you have any advice!

I'll keep you posted about all the best from the Godfrey's Southern Living!

The Zoo and Our Backyard Wildlife

This week started out pretty normal. Tanner went to school; I stayed home. I had a few meetings about potential job openings, which was good. (I'll keep you posted about those). I was pretty bored of being home by myself with either rain storms or extreme heat and/or humidity keeping me inside. Luckily we've made some great friends in our new ward, and I was able to play with my friend and her little girl on Thursday. Then she invited me to go to the Birmingham zoo with them on Friday. It was great! Not only was it a beautiful day and I was out of the house, but her almost two-year-old daughter had so much fun at the zoo and was super cute showing "Miss Nicole" all the animals. I didn't get any pictures of the crazy animals (like the alligator and the wild pigs) that I'd never seen before unfortunately, but here are some pictures of some of the normal zoo animals.

Zebras!

The giraffe and its ostrich friends.

The mommy gorilla holding its baby's hand while the baby finished his breakfast.

Tanner's week at school went well, but we were both ready for a break from school. We had fun Saturday attending Fultondale's Founder's Day celebration and picking up some more peaches from the farmer's market. We also experienced a great southern living moment when we went to the grocery store "Aldi's". To get a grocery cart (otherwise known as a "buggy") at this store you have to put a quarter in a slot on the cart then you get your quarter back when you put the cart back. When we went to put our cart back a man came up to us and told us he'd "buy our buggy for a quarter" so he didn't have to go to the trouble of getting a new one out. Great southern moment for us. :)

Us at the car show at Fultondale Founder's Day

Tanner's peach creation of the week -- Peach syrup! Yum!

We had stake conference this weekend, and Elder Christoffel Golden of the First Quorum of the Seventy came to the conference. We really enjoyed all the sessions and felt the spirit strongly throughout the whole weekend. Many speakers talked about how we can draw closer to our Savior and help others feel of His spirit as well. It was a very inspiring conference.

When Tanner and I were eating lunch today after arriving home after stake conference, we looked outside to see a fox behind our house! We've seen quite a few large squirrels in the trees around our house, but this was the first fox we've seen. Tanner went outside to see if he could sneak up on it, and he got some great pictures! Here are a few of our backyard wildlife pictures.

So what started out as a rather boring week turned into a great week filled with great friends, awesome church meeting, fun southern experiences, and beautiful wildlife!

Good Food and Thunderstorms

We have had an excellent week of delicious food! It started a couple Saturdays ago when we bought two baskets of peaches from a local farmer's market. We asked when the peach season was in Alabama and the man at the farmer's market told us it goes from June through the end of August! A lot longer than in Utah!

Tanner made a delicious peach dessert (unfortunately we did not get a picture of this one) -- although he decided to make a full batch for just the two of us! Since that was WAY too much for us to eat by ourselves, we decided to share with our wonderful neighbors. I told them we needed help eating our dessert, but then they decided to thank us by bringing our container back with more dessert in it... Peach dessert makes instant friends!

That week I made our homemade granola to eat with our fresh peaches -- which was awesome! It's like eating a treat for breakfast every day! Here's one of Tanner's artistic pictures of our granola.

Another wonderful breakfast treat we made this last week was caramel rolls. I made homemade rolls and covered them in a caramel sauce before baking them. So good! This picture shows our delicious peach basket, some awesome peach freezer jam I made, and the freshly baked caramel rolls -- right before we devoured them!

Our last delicious peach treat of the week was this last Sunday evening. We were invited to go to our friends' house for dinner, and we took dessert. It was my first attempt at a peach pie, and it turned out really well! The only thing with baking pastries here that has been difficult is everything has turned out drier than when I would make it in Utah. I would have thought it would be the other way around, but I will just have to work on figuring out the right proportions of ingredients here! Here's our peach pie...

So no worries to our families and friends -- we are definitely not starving out here on our own. :)

The other crazy thing from this last week or two is we have really got to experience some crazy thunderstorms! I thought I knew what a thunderstorm was, but after last night especially, I realize I hadn't ever heard a truly ginormous thunderclap! Every time it rains here, it pours. Even when it's "sprinkling" the rain is coming down well enough to get you pretty wet. Last night (or this morning) Tanner and I woke up at about 5 a.m. to a HUGE lightening bolt. In my dream I thought it was a camera flash from a professional photographing session. This lightening bolt was followed almost immediately by a large clap of thunder. We didn't just get one huge bolt of lightening and clap of thunder though; it continued for quite a while! There were a few thunderclaps that literally shook our house. One or two times the lightening bolt and thunderclap would happen almost simultaneously! Luckily nothing got struck by lightening (that we know of), and we fell back asleep to the sound of pouring rain.

We're loving Alabama and all our new adventures. And all the peaches!

Moving Down South

Well, we are officially here and settled in Alabama! We've been here a little over a week, and it has been a whirlwind of moving craziness! My parents and sister, Heather, were able to drive down with Tanner and I to help us move everything in and help us with some remodeling. We are SUPER grateful for all of their help! We definitely would not have got hardly any of the things done that we did without them. The biggest thing my family helped us with was remodeling our kitchen. When we moved in the kitchen was usable, but definitely not my favorite part of the house. Here is a before picture:

With the dark colors making me feel closed in and the super teeny tiny oven, we decided to change it up. My dad and Tanner cut out a section of the cabinets in order to make room for a larger oven, and everyone helped paint the cabinets white to lighten up the room. To make the room even better Tanner made an incredible butcher block island. Now our kitchen seems like a work of art! Here are the construction pictures:

And... the finished product!

And the best part about a great kitchen is the great food you can cook for dinner! 

We love our kitchen -- and our whole house! We have great neighbors who have been very friendly and a wonderful ward, and we are very excited about all the adventures we will have in Alabama! We'll keep you posted with all the best from the Godfrey's Southern Living!