Memorial Day Weekend

We had a very busy weekend with Scott's family. Scott picked me up at Callaway on Friday and we drove to Alabaster, AL to meet Scott's parents and sister's family and to visit with his 91 year old grandmother and aunt. We had a great time visiting with them. Here's a picture of some of us after gorging ourself at Lloyd's restaurant.

We left Alabaster on Saturday afternoon to return to Macon with Scott's parents and sister's family. We went to church, had a wonderful lunch then grilled out Sunday evening.

On Memorial Day we packed a picnic and went to one of mine and Scott's favorite places, High Falls State Park. We hiked a couple of trails and then had a wonderful picnic lunch. Scott's family left Monday afternoon and we crashed. All in all, an eventful and fun Memorial Day weekend with family!

Here are some pics from our trip to High Falls.

This is on the Towaliga river trail. Scott, his mom and brother in law, Rick, with our nieces Noel, Jo Anna (on Rick's back) and our nephew, Jacob. The other photo is at on overlook. It's of Scott's sister, Stacey, and her beautiful family!

Callaway and Economic Development...

I attended the Georgia Economic Development Association's Spring Workshop in Callaway Gardens last week. Economic Development and Callaway Gardens go hand in hand (actually they do...tourism is Georgia's second largest industry)

Anyway, here's my last week in pictures.

this is the chapel at Callaway...right at dusk. It was really beautiful on the inside.

this is my favorite photo that I took while I was there. It was taken at the Butterfly conservatory. I was proud that I captured that moment!

A water element at the Butterfly conservatory...

At FDR State Park in Pine Mountain, GA. This is where FDR used to sit and think about the problems of the world and come up with solutions. Maybe this is where he thought up TVA...

It sure had a lovely view! Reminded me of, you guessed it, Chattanooga!

Me with the FDR statue at FDR State Park.

If you haven't been to Pine Mountain or Callaway Gardens in a while, I recommend it. The Lodge and Spa was AMAZING. Every detail was thought out.

We also had a VERY eventful weekend with Scott's family. I'll post more about that later! And I hope to do some photoshopping of my Callaway pics and get them up on my Flickr account.

Fun and Flirty...

Robin: "OMG, someone changed the sign outside!"

Pam: "What?! Who could have gotten the letters?"

Robin: "Oh no, What language they used! They even used the "F" word! Carmen, come check this out!"

I proceed outside as quickly as I could and this is what I saw:

This is on the sign outside our building that is passed by 25,000 cars a day. Oh well, at least my name wasn't on it. Fun and Flirty? They don't know me at all! :)

Then on to lunch at LaFiesta:

This is me and the owner of the restaurant. And they had cake and sang for me at our board meeting tonight. What a great Monday!

Three-Zero

So, I turned the BIG 3-0 today. I woke up at 6:45 and was rubbing my sleepy eyes on my way to the bathroom and a cheerful husband says a loud "Welcome to the Club!" I was so tired that I didn't even comprehend that he was referring to my birthday and entering my 30's. Note to husband and others: Don't crack jokes in the morning and expect me to comprehend.

We had a rather eventful weekend. Friday I worked and when I got home we laid tile in our bathroom most of the night, taking a break only for dinner. I think I'll do a before /after post about our master bath once it's finished. We still want to do a new countertop, mirrors and light fixtures.

Saturday I had a Chamber meeting at 9:00 am . When I got home I made peanut butter pies (yum) for a band/orchestra party Scott had organized for Saturday evening. He had two of his buddies and band mates grilling ribs ALL day. We held it at a local children's home with a great recreation complex and pavilion and playground. We had a great time of food and fellowship. You know how us Baptists are - we love our potlucks!

Today I sang on the praise team at church (which means sound check at 8:00 am followed by two services at 9:30 and 11:00) Afterwards, the student ministry had rented two of the theaters at our local AMstar for an outreach event. The students invited friends for a private viewing of Prince Caspian: The Chronicles of Narnia. Since Scott works with the student bands, we were invited to come. I think we had over 500 kids at this event. What a great way to outreach! I highly recommend the movie- great imagery and symbolism. I got popcorn with butter since it was my birthday.

After the movie I had choir practice... my second soprano sisters sang Happy Birthday to me ! What a great ending to a great birthday. I am also the proud owner of a new ipod 80 GB. Don't ask me how I'm going to fill that up...

Savannah and Photos

Hey guys,
I promised you a blog about my trip to Savannah. I know you have been sitting on the edge of your office chair waiting with baited breath for the update. My boss and I ventured down to the beautiful city of Savannah to try to "pitch" our industrial park to the Economic Development officials there. Our industrial park is 972 acres and the entire north corridor is served with direct rail to the Port of Savannah, and with gas prices the way they are, this is a huge selling point for future industrial prospects. Here's some useless facts for you: The Port of Savannah is the 4th busiest port in the U.S. after L.A., Long Beach, New York - then little Savannah. It's grown by double digits over the last ten years and 70% of the product coming through the port is from Asia.

Anyway, we had to mix a little fun in with the trip, so Thursday afternoon we walked around downtown Savannah and ended up at Forsyth Park, a gorgeous city park with a fountain. Here is one of my pictures of the fountain.

We also visited the Wormsloe State Historic site, the road of which was featured in Forrest Gump. Remember when Forrest was getting picked on and Jenny told him to "Run, Forrest, Run!" Here's my picture of the road into Wormsloe: And the picture of Forrest Gump running!

I also wanted to let you guys know that I have started a flickr account. I'll post it on the side of my blog as well. I'll post the more "creative" photos that I've been taking and you can witness as I learn and improve. Thanks so my parents: I got a 50mm f 1/8 lens for my birthday, so I look forward to taking lots of photos in the near future! Click Here for my flickr account.

Crazy Week...

What's it like to be without power for 60+ hours? Ask me tomorrow, because we will be experiencing it.

It's been a crazy few days at the Copeland house. I left on Thursday for Savannah (aww, shucks) for a tour of the Port of Savannah... which deserves a post in itself. I'll post some pics of Forsyth Park and the Wormsloe State Historic Site later. Then Saturday I left for Chattanooga to attend a wedding for a friend from high school. As is custom, Scott was unable to attend (I swear that none of my friends believe I'm really married! This is what happens when you marry someone it the ministry...they can't attend Saturday night weddings!) It was nice to see some old friends and get to spend much of Mother's Day with my mom.

Scott calls me Sunday morning at 9:15 and tells me that Macon was practically leveled with storms early that morning. Scott posted about Macon taking a "smackdown" in his blog, and how they cancelled church (meaning, he could have gone to the wedding, oh well.) Well, we thought that we had escaped unscathed- we had power, cable, phones, everything UNTIL 2:45 p.m. I called Georgia Power about 6:30 p.m. to kindly ask them why we didn't lose power with the storm, but were without power now. The explained that they had to shut down the substation that serves our area to work on some other lines, but that our power would be up later that night. Soooo... later that night (around 9:30 p.m.) I call them and they began to explain that it would midnight Monday evening before the power would be back on. Great... we have absolutely no emergency preparations whatsoever. So we suffered through the evening (what did we DO before electricity!) and went our respective ways this morning. It's 6:30 p.m on Monday and I'm still at my job (because they have power and wi-fi) and Scott calls to tell me that he had called Georgia Power (and was not as kind) and that it is now going to be midnight Tuesday night before it's back up! Needless to say, I'm sure you'll see a funny post from Scott once he gets power again. I hope you guys are having a better week than us and the poor Georgia Power customer service reps and crews are! For pics of the damage in Macon go here

It's official...

It's official. I am a professional vocalist now. Scott plays lots of weddings at Ingleside because his talent is on display every Sunday morning for more than 2,200 people. A recent bride, who had contracted his services ,asked him if I could sing at her wedding based on my performance at Easter. Saturday was the wedding and I sang "How Beautiful" during the seating of the mothers and Scott and I sang a duet called "We Will Dance" by Steven Curtis Chapman. This was the easiest money I have ever made. I like being a professional vocalist. :)

What's weird about this whole situation is that I have never been known as a singer. Many of you have known me since I was a child, and I was always known as a "jock" or a "brain"- not a singer. My parents are not musical and did not encourage us in this arena at all. I have always had an interest in music and singing, but never felt like I had the talent or measured up to the vocalists who had been singing since birth.

When I married Scott, he noticed that I had a "natural" talent and encouraged me to explore that talent whenever he could. He put me on his praise team at our little church in Nashville and I learned from the other singers to hear and pick out harmonies. Soon I was singing every week and singing different harmony parts. At one point it was like Scott had Wilson Phillips backing him up at church each Sunday.

Now we attend Ingleside and I have been a "singer" since we came here almost three years ago. People KNOW me as that. In fact, it's one of my defining characteristics. And I know that from now on, wherever Scott and I move, people are going to meet me and know me as a singer. What about you guys? Is there something that "defines" who you are now that would baffle your friends from childhood?