For pretty much everyone in the cabin, 2011 was a much “harder” year than 2010.  We were coming with a little bit of baggage per se.  However, when we all arrived this didn’t divide us or send us into corners.  Instead we were able to draw some strength and help each other out.  Isn’t that what friends are for?  I love having a group of people I can count when I need it.  I also enjoy being there for my friends if\when they need it as well.  I typically don’t have any sage advice…but I’ll listen!  I’m not always the greatest at asking but I hope all my friends and family know I’m available for anything when you need it.

Outside of generally catching up with each other we played lots of Yahtzee, Bocce, wii, Karaoke and chopped down about 3 trees worth of wood.  I honestly can’t describe how satisfying it is to chop wood in the cold in the mountains.  There’s nothing more manly than that (excuse me while I burp to complete my statement).  Another awesome thing was the fact we could use our driveway!  Last year a snow storm rolled in a day before we got there and shut down the 1/4 mile drive leading up to the house.  Not having to haul everything up like a pack mule was awesome (although we definitely missed the snow and snowball fight).  If you need picture evidence of the weekend check out the pictures page (link in the toolbar under the top banner).  Happy New Year everyone!

Instead of snail mailing a long letter to everyone we decided to write a blog post instead.  You might just think we’re cheap but we like to think we’re saving the earth.

A Winter of Youth: The winter of 2011 was dominated by our decision to help lead the Youth Group at our church in Charleston (Redeemer Presbyterian).  We had absolutely no idea what we were doing but we managed to have some fun with them without sending anyone to the hospital and only one broken window.  Each Sunday night was awesome to hang out, play dodge ball (usually) and talk about current events.  If you are ever asked to
help out with a youth group, take the offer (by the way, Redeemer is offering right now!).

Hanging out with Youth Group in Marion Square

It was an experience we loved and will hopefully have again here in Charlotte.  Outside of the youth we were also able to take a trip to Grand Rapids to see the Dyksterhouse\Timmer side of the family.  Don’t ask why we chose to travel that far north during the coldest months of the year.

A Spring of Visitors: Spring was marked by the revolving door of visitors in Charleston. Our condo was the first place either of us had with a guest room and our friends\family

A reception long over-due

sure made good use of it.  We loved having a place people felt comfortable staying at and

Brooklyn!

the time with friends\family was great.  Visitors were also a convenient excuse for use to go to 17 North numerous times for some great food.  Outside of people coming into to town we celebrated my old roommate’s marriage with a reception that was about 16 months over due and flew up to Brooklyn (the best part of NYC) to see some college friends.

A Summer of Change: In the summer we said good bye to Charleston.  Our years in Charleston were fantastic and we wouldn’t trade them for anything, but it was time for us to close that chapter and open the Charlotte chapter.  You can get details on this in the blog posts HERE and HERE.  After Jimmy accepted a new position we bought a house and settled into the Queen City.  It wasn’t necessarily the easiest of summer’s but it really made us appreciate our

The Dyksterhouse

friends and family.  We are certainly blessed to have you close to us.  The only non-work traveling done was a wedding in Denver, CO (soon to be renamed Tebowland).

Go Deacs!

A Fall of Football: For better (Jimmy) or worse (Kate) the fall was marked by football season.  We took numerous trips up to Winston to see Wake play and because Wake had so many home games this year about half of our weekends consisted of football games and hanging out with close friends. By the end of the year we were a little footballed out.  We took a weekend trip to Asheville to celebrate our one-year anniversary (Charlotte\Moving got in the way of our previous plans) and had the Dyksterhouse thanksgiving party in Charlotte.

Tailgating like champs.

All in all it was a year of growing and change for us.  We can’t wait to see what 2012 brings us.  We hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and Happy New Years!

Merry Christmas to all!

Nov 18-20: Went to the Maryland game with our tailgating buddies for the final tailgate of the year.  Wake played well and we won big.  Plans are being made to kick our tailgate up some next year (bigger grill, more wake stuff, maybe a TV?).  Get ready WF football.

Thanksgiving:  What a week.  It started out with me getting to work an earlier shift (11-6pm) so I could have dinner with the family Wednesday night before Thanksgiving.  I walked in the front door of our house and was immediately mobbed by all my nieces (6) and nephews (2).  Family time had officially begun (Here’s a picture of all of them lining up to tackle me).  Little did we know that family time would also be cut a little short as….

• My middle brother was sick Thanksgiving day and missed the meal.
• My mom got sick the next morning and went back home early, missing the family dinner the next night.
• I got sick Saturday morning and missed the football game (judging by the final score it sounds like Wake got sick as well).
• One of my nieces got sick on the way home on Sunday.
• The other Charlotte Dyksterhouse’s got sick the following week.

Whatever was going around (and apparently is still going around in Mississippi) definitely defeated a majority of our family.  In between all of that, though, it was great to see everyone.  I love Thanksgiving family reunions.  I’m horrible at taking pictures but I’m hoping to get some family ones up on the pictures page soon.

Dec 2-4: Friends from Charleston.  My former roommate and his wife came up to see us and because of a scheduling snafu with the Army we got to see them two nights instead of just one, #winning!  We didn’t do a whole lot other than hang out (we did get a tree!) but that was all fine with me.  It was great to spend some time with them since I hadn’t seen them since we’ve moved.

Dec 9-11: PINEHURST!  We went up to see some good friends as Mrs. Friend’s family is from there.  Really cool town (group of towns).  We walked around in Southern Pines for a little bit and then saw the golf course complex.  I’ve never really really wanted to play expensive courses before but that is a place I would like to go.  Looking out from the clubhouse onto the 18th hole from No. 2 it felt like I was watching US Open coverage.  It would be so cool to play at a place with so much history.  Maybe I’ll head up for a golf weekend and Kate can book a Spa weekend.  That sounds like the best of both worlds.

Well that catches you up and Christmas is upon us.  We’ve decided which Christmas Eve service to go to, our shopping is almost done we’re looking forward to seeing more family.  If you haven’t already, don’t forget to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas to remind yourself what Christmas is all about.

Merry Christmas!

Wake Tailgating vs. Clemson Tailgating:  This isn’t even really a competition. Don’t get me wrong, I love tailgating in the Joel parking lot before games but the sprawl of the Clemson pre-game is exciting in itself.  So many tents, grills, corn hole sets, etc.  We got to the game late (about an hour of half before kickoff) for two reasons; Noon kickoffs stink, and the Wake faithful made traffic crazy because we had so many fans (the second part may be an exaggeration, it may have been due to Clemson fans).

Death Valley vs Groves Stadium: I’m not quite sure how to judge this one.  Obviously Death Valley is bigger and louder than Groves but if you put that stadium in Winston you just end up with an empty stadium.  The big time noise and energy through Death Valley was pretty impressive though.  Definitely a lot of fun to be in, even though I was an opposing fan.  I’ll leave this at a draw because both stadium’s serve their institutions very well and if you trade stadiums both would be woefully inadequate.  Plus, our scoreboard is ridiculously huge.  The picture above is a view from our seats.

Jim Grobe vs Dabo Sweeney:  For me, this isn’t even close either (no offense to Dabo).  Grobe has built a program from one of the worst in the country into an ACC contender.  Granted the ACC isn’t the greatest conference in the country but we were playing yesterday for a 2^nd trip to the ACC Championship in 5 years.  Not only that, we’ve done it the right way.  Grobe doesn’t put up with “knot heads” and doesn’t bend rules whether you are an All-ACC player or a bench warmer.  I also thinks Dabo’s success has more to do with his offensive coordinator than his coaching.

Wake Forest Football vs Clemson Football:  Well the final score says it all doesn’t it?  31-28, Clemson.  We put ourselves in great position to win with an opportunistic defense and blitzkrieg third quarter.  Basically we played above our heads for about 2 quarters, out of our mind for a 5 minutes stretch and it was almost enough.  In the end Clemson fed off the crowd and was able to make a game winning field goal as time expired.  Tough game to take but I’m proud of a team that went into an 80k seat stadium against a top 10 team and punched them in the mouth a few times.  Good job Deacs!

Wake’s Campus vs Clemson’s Campus: Don’t get me wrong, Clemson’s campus is very pretty.  You almost always have a view of the Mountains or Lake Hartwell (or both) and there is a lot of green space.  It beats the pants off of the concrete jungle colleges (South Carolina and NC State come to mind) but it doesn’t come close to Mother So Dear.  One of the main things I like about Wake more is the architecture of the buildings.  A lot of Clemson’s buildings were pretty blah (shoeboxes, some of the science buildings) although their landmark buildings were very nice.  In the end though you can’t beat WF in my mind no matter how hard you try (I’ve heard Stanford and West Point are amazing, though).

So what’s that leave us with?  2-2-1?  Tiebreaker goes to Wake because it’s not our fault we’re awesome. 

This all happened while I was at work (boo) but I was able to come home for some dinner.  Kate bought some small pizza pies so the girls could create their own pizza.  One wouldn’t think this would too messy, however you would be wrong.  Kate and I keep our house pretty clean but after dinner our kitchin looked like a war zone (pictured to the left).  What you can’t see is a stuffed Santa laying just out of the picture and broom\dustpan on the floor.  Who knew pizza would be so messy? Oh well, it tasted good and they had fun.  After dinner we started watching part of Princess Charm School (I don’t know how it didn’t win an academy award) with the youngest niece sitting on my lap.  She could have asked for anything at that moment and I probably would have agreed to buy it for her.

The next day we called in the reinforcements known as the grandparents.  We drove up to Raleigh and made the girls watch Signing Time in the car…because it’s awesome.  Their dad was waiting there as well and we went to the Marbles Children’s Museum in downtown Raleigh.  It was an AWESOME museum…for the kids of course.  I…um…they really enjoyed the Lego area where we built a house big enough for the youngest to walk in the front door.  I wish I had a picture of it but I forgot to take one on my phone, blast!   All in all it was a fun weekend (minus the Wake drubbing) and it was great to see the girls again.

On another note…my Nephew is AWESOME!  Guess who got a game ball from Cam Newton after a touchdown?

Blue Ridge Parkway

It’s leaf season in the mountains and if you haven’t lived in Appalachia you probably have no idea what I’m talking about.  Basically, it’s the 2-3 weeks in the Fall where all the leaves are changing colors.  The mountains and trails were beautiful.  I love Charleston but when I lived there I definitely missed the color changes of the mountains and foothills.  We drove on the parkway for about 30-45 minutes before getting off around Mt Pisgah and hiked a short trail.

Downtown Asheville:

They have a really cool downtown and it reminds me a lot of Charleston.  Kate actually described Asheville as a Mountain Charleston because of the similarities.  We were able to walk from the B&B each night to dinner (Zambra’s and Cucina 24).  We also walked around and poked into random shops to see what we could waste our money on.  I got a tobacco candle that smells exactly like a humidor.  It’s awesome.

One rare site we saw on our walk each night was a make shift camp site under the interstate.  Unbeknownst to us  there is an Occupy Asheville movement.  Why is there an occupy camp out in Asheville?  Also, what are you going to change?  One of the signs outside a tent said “This is my job” which probably speaks to the intelligence of the group.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind protests but if you’re going to do it, do it right.  Go somewhere you can actually make a difference such as the capital ,where laws are passed, or Charlotte, where the banks are headquartered.  You don’t have this protest in one of the most non big business\big brother cities in the state.  That’s like going to the RNC to protest President Obama.  Rant over.

Outside of a quick drive up to Grove Park Inn that was basically our trip in a nutshell.  As a heads up, I’ve created a new page for pictures on the blog.  If you hover over the Pictures link near the top of the page, you’ll be able to click Asheville and see some of our vacation.

• I really like my friends. A lot of you don’t know but when I was 10 and my family was driving down to Flo-town, SC from Raleigh to relocate, and on the drive we said through what we wanted to have in Florence. I remember my sister wanting her own bathroom (oops, sorry Sis) and I specifically wanted friends. I went to private school in Raleigh (Friendship Christian Falcons!) and a lot of my friends at school didn’t live near me. Of my “neighborhood” friends, most had recently moved away. So the one thing I wanted when moving to Florence was to meet some peeps my age I could hang out with. Luckily, I did and have been able to meet some awesome people since. I wouldn’t trade my college experience for anything because it could mean that I don’t know those same people that I got to see this weekend.  It was great seeing a lot of them for the first time in quite a while.
• Wake Forest Against the World, pictured below. I love this shirt because it embodies a lot of WF sentiment. We are the smallest D-1 school to offer major conference athletics and I admit that we have a little bit of a Napoleon complex. Can I get a Small. Big. Tall?
• A lot of things have changed since I’ve graduated. I am great friends with people from Wake that I hardly knew while I was there, I’m old and can’t stay up late and Wake Forest football is a contender again (basketball…ehhhh).Unfortunately, the biggest change at the time might be my hairline.  It’ll be interesting to see how much things have changed at the 10 year.
• Seeing Bill Haas standing outside a bar in line to get in was really funny. If you don’t know who he is, check here. $12 Million doesn’t get you into a bar apparently, and I like the fact he apparently didn’t try and play the “I’m a celebrity card”.
• One of my favorite things about living in Charlotte is being close to Winston (we actually looked at living in the dash for a little bit). Being only an hour and a half from campus is really nice for games. I love Charleston but those 5 hours drives to see Wake did get pretty old, especially last year when the games were less than stellar.

All in all it was a great weekend and is the kickoff for a lot of busy times for us. In the next few weeks we’re going to Asheville, Raleigh, a few Wake home games, Clempsun and a big Thanksgiving bash in Charlotte. It should be a lot of fun.

Before the Game

Park Mall to run a quick errand before heading home.  We were on getting ready to take a left onto Tryon to go home when I innocently said “You know, we could take a right here, get some tickets and go to the Panther’s game today.”  Kate replied with, “I’m good with that if you are.” I turned on the right turn signal (To give you some perspective, the last time we did something spontaneous like this included us driving to Ross to look for a dry bar.  That didn’t work so we went to get ice cream, which was closed.  Then we went home.)  We called some friends on the way to get the down low on parking\scalping and the day was off.

We parked by Uptown Cabaret (classy) and walked over to Jimmy John’s to get some lunch.  Unfortunately I brought my umbrella with me.  I say unfortunate because you can’t take it into the stadium (why didn’t I remember that?).  This umbrella would have come in handy later.  We found some tickets outside the stadium through some hard nose bartering.  By hard nose, I mean I bought tickets off a 15 year old for the price he quoted (it was more than 50% off full charge so I was happy).

After the Rain

Everything was going fine and it was a overcast but comfortable day. We were sitting beside another couple who bought tickets from the same person and enjoying a 5-0 lead in the game.  Then we felt a drop.  We thought, no big deal.  The sun is still out and we can handle a little drizzle.  Then we turned around, uh oh.  It started to rain fairly steadily with about 6 minutes left in the second quarter and the couple beside us headed to the concourse to stay dry.  We figured it would pass quickly and we could just wait it out.  Then it started to rain harder…and harder…and harder…before we knew it we were soaked.  Keep in mind, we were still in our church clothes.  Kate’s scarf we were using as an umbrella was of no use and there was a river of water flowing down the seats.  So we did the only logical thing.  Took my dry jacket out of Kate’s purse, wrapped our phones up and put the jacket back in the purse.   We set the purse on a seat beside us (to keep it off the ground), stood up and starting cheering for the home town team.  There were only about 20-30 people left in section 550 at the time but it didn’t matter.  We yelled politically correct obscenities at the refs, “I repectfully disagree with that call, Mr Ref!” and gave high fives to people we didn’t know.  We thought we were living the high life until a long pass was called back, we punted and the Jaguars scored on the final play of the half.

A little deflated, wet and very cold we called it a day and went back to the car, drove home and watched the rest of the game from a friends house (Panther’s Won!).  All in all we lost an umbrella, spent about $60 and came away with an awesome time.  We’ll definitely be back in the stadium to cheer on the team.

Mid-July my boss sent me a project that had been put on the back burner by some other folks to update things on the network.  I didn’t really understand what it entailed or how to update the stuff, but I also didn’t have a choice in taking it.  Through the past week I’ve worked pretty closely with some people I’ve never met and FridayI was CC’d on an email that was sent to my boss about my work on the project.  The co-worker really enjoyed working with me and liked how quickly we were able to knock things out together. Woohoo!  After a month of training, shadowing and aimless wandering it looks like I finally did something right.  Hopefully this means I’m on my way to really settling in and growing in the position.  It’ll be nice to know what I’m doing on a day to day basis, confidently.

In a related note the 1-10pm shift really is not bad at all.  No one is in the office late so I can destroy some busy work while watching TV (Friday was the Bucs\Chiefs game).  Oh the joys of working at a cable company.  Plus Cookout is only 10 minutes away.   Zing!

Victory - Just like Johnny Drama

We closed on our house yesterday and are official residents of Charlotte!  We celebrated by eating pizza on with family as all our belongings sit in our POD outside.  We were able to move dining chairs inside so we could sit on something.  We have movers coming today to help get everything in so when I get back from Denver (go Marty!!!), the house will be a little put together.  I know you like how I planned to be out-of-town the weekend we are closing, pretty smooth stuff.  If you need\want the new address please email me.  I’ll reply there because I’m not about to put everything out on the interwebs.

After dinner I put together an Adirondack chair and we sat on back patio for a little bit enjoying our yard and met our neighbors.  They all seem pretty cool and fun to be around.  6 of them came over from a porch two doors down as they were enjoying drinks on a pretty comfortable night.  I met another neighbor through a fun story.  I was shaving before bed (my beard had gotten to the itchy point, that’s no fun) and Kate was talking on the phone to a friend.  My face was lathered up with Edge when we hear the doorbell (OUR DOORBELL) ring.  I try to clean up and wipe shaving cream off my face (leaving me with a half shaven face) and go answer the door.  Unfortunately I, a) forgot to put on a shirt and b) didn’t wipe all the shaving cream from my face.  I’m sure I made a sweet first impression.  He was letting us know the dome light in Kate’s car on, thanks neighbor!

The best new for you is that we have plenty of room for guests!  The house is a total of 4 bedrooms plus a bonus room (aka Man Cave).  If you are passing through (or get stuck at the airport), give us a ring.  I can’t say it’ll be completely clean or settled right away, but we’ll enjoy the company.  Don’t worry, if we don’t like you, we’ll fake it.  Once I get back the next things on the docket are to buy a TV, Grill, and Blinds.  I finally decided on what to get for the grill and TV (Kate, I’m really sorry for driving you nuts about it) so we just need to go pick them up.  Oh, and pay for them.  I’m really going to enjoy Sept\Oct when we start saving again.

I think the next post will be written by Kate so she can get any fun stories about moving the stuff in from the Pod.  Hopefully the Redeemer Pres Youth and I did a good job packing and there wasn’t too much damage.