Liebster Award!

I have been nominated for a Liebster Award by Sherry at The Sweet Life of the Reeses.  Sherry and I are "old" college friends and she just so happened to marry one of my "old" high school friends!  She has way more experience with me in the blogging world so I want to thank her for including me in this nomination!

Now before family members start alerting the newspapers that I've worn an award let me explain a little bit about what this actually entails.

Liebster is a German word and means, sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing and welcome. The award is given to followers with less than 200 followers.  I definitely meet this criteria since I only have 3!  Now I know I have a lot more followers than that so I need those of you that read our family blog to make it official and become a follower by clicking to the right of this post where it says "Join this site."

The Liebster Award is basically a "tag" by another blogger that shows their appreciation for your blog, gives you the opportunity to tell a little more about yourself, to discover other bloggers you may be interested in following, and nominate other blogs that you love.

The rules:

1: Each person must post 11 things about themselves.

2: Answer the questions the tagger has set for you plus create 11 questions for the people you have tagged to answer.

3: Choose up to 11 people and link them in your post.

4: Go to their page and let them know.

5: Remember no tag backs!

11 Things About Me

1.  I love to read and one of my favorite places to be is in a book store or even the book section of Goodwill.  I am obsessed with books and finding new ones to add to my to-read list.  I started a book club and we have the best conversations and fun at our meetings.

2.  I met my husband on match.com.  Yep, it can really work!

3.  I taught elementary school for 8 years (6 years in 1st grade and 2 years in 4th grade) before I became a stay at home mom to our 9 month old son Kellan.

4.  I love, love, love to travel as much as possible!  My husband and I enjoy taking weekend road trips to places in Virginia where we live, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C.  We went to Moorea and Bora Bora, Tahiti on our honeymoon and have made recent trips to San Diego, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, Seattle, Vancouver, Whistler, the Bahamas, and Anna Maria Island, Florida.  Places I can easily call my favorites  and would love to return to are Hawaii, Savannah, Georgia, and Chicago!

5.  My favorite food is a summer tomato.  Nothing else is better.

6.  I cannot leave the house without makeup.  I physically cannot do it.

7.  When the weather is warm enough you will almost never see me wear any other shoes than a pair of Rainbow flip flops.   They go with everything jeans, shorts, and sundresses.  I buy other shoes but they usually end up sitting in the closet.

8.  I love to eat at new restaurants.  I do not know why I am not seriously overweight because I eat A LOT.  I have a feeling one day it will catch up with me.

9.  #8 leads me to this fact.  I have recently decided to become a runner and have signed up for my first 5k in September, The Color Run in Richmond, VA.  I hope I make it out alive and untrampled.

10.  I am from a small town in North Carolina but moved to a medium sized city, Raleigh, NC, for college and lived there for 10 years.  My husband is from an even smaller town of around 600 people in VA and this is where we currently live.  I am a city girl trapped in a small town.  I love and miss everything about the city!  I miss being able to walk to museums, restaurants, parks, concerts, listening to bands, and shops.  I miss TJ Maxx, Target and the mall being a stop on the way home from work and not something that you have to plan your whole day around.  It is so much more than shopping and eating but putting into words everything that a city has to offer is difficult to do.  HOWEVER, living here has enabled me to stay home with my precious little Kellan so there is a HUGE positive to living here.

11.  My husband and I were elected and sworn in to be members of our town's Town Council this summer and we took office this month.  I can't wait to see what the next 2 years has in store for us!  We look forward to helping our mayor and other council members make decisions for our town.

Here are Sherry's questions for me:

1. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?  My top destinations are Europe, Australia, and Iceland.

2. Who is your best friend in the world and how did you meet him/her?  I actually have 2 best friends and I met them in the same place.  Kimberlee and Jenni both taught first grade with me when I lived in Raleigh.  We worked and lived together and I honestly can not remember a time when we haven't gotten along.  You don't meet friends like them everyday.  They are girls that I know are always there for me even though I can't see them as much as I used to.  It is hard to find people that genuinely want what's best for you and are true best friends but these girls are it!  It is also amazing to have 3 women that are so different but also have so much in common...we have had some crazy fun together and I have learned so much about being a better person from both of them.

3. Did you have a childhood hero, and if so, who was it? Hmm...I don't really remember having one specific hero.  I idolized most of my elementary school teachers and wanted to be just like them because they made me love school and learning so much.  I would go home and play school to the point of it being obsessive.  I also remember that my teachers would bring a cup of sweet tea back from lunch with them and sit on their desk.  Oh how I wanted a job where I could have a cup of sweet tea on my desk.  And I wanted all of those school supplies...I still have a strange obsession with school supplies. 

4. What is your favorite beverage (alcoholic or not)?  Sweet tea, no question.  I could drink gallons of it and get really annoyed when restaurants don't have it.

5. If you could have a vacation home in a destination of your choice, where would it be?  Tahiti was BEAUTIFUL but such a long flight to get there.  I don't know if I would want a vacation home in just ONE place.  I'd rather put my money into seeing new places each time.  There are so many great places to visit!

6. What is your dream job?  OK this is going to sound so off the wall because I am not qualified for this job in the slightest.  I think it would be SO MUCH FUN to be an interior decorator and old home restorer (my contractor husband is disgusted right now, he believes everything should be new).  I am obsessed with history and also with home decorator shows, stores, and blogs.  I don't know how great at it I would be but I would love every minute of it.  On a totally unrelated topic, I have been making all of Kellan's baby food and my husband has me contemplating a baby food making business.  Can those be any more random choices from an elementary school teacher turned stay at home mom?

7. What is your greatest goal in life? To raise happy, confident, well-educated children that treat other people with respect and kindess.

8. What is your idea of the perfect date?  Dinner at a nice downtown restaurant where you can sit outside...and no cell phones!!  Walking around the city (preferably on some kind of water, river, lake, beach), taking in the sights, people watching, or finding a good band playing somewhere.  And dessert...some kind of chocolate needs to be in there somewhere.  When we were in Seattle we found a new/used book store that was open late at night when we were out walking...that was the BEST.

9. If you could buy anything (just one thing though), what would it be?  An old, historic house in a nice neighborhood within walking distance of a city.

10. Would you rather be able to sing or dance if you could only do one really well?  Oh that's hard.  I think I'm going to have to go with dance because my husband can sing and people are always asking him to sing for EVERYTHING, weddings, funerals, at church, etc.  He doesn't mind (or doesn't act like he does) but I think I would be extremely annoyed or too scared to actually sing in front of people.  Then part of me thinks if I could really sing or dance well I would do both all over the place!  Actually I would probably be too scared to dance in front of people too...but I doubt anyone would ask me to bust a move for their wedding ceremony or church service...maybe I should change my answer... 

11. What color do you wear to make yourself feel better?  Oh gosh, not just one color!  I love, love, love clothes but I enjoy hunting for them.  TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and Ross are some of my favorite stores and I would wear a new dress or a new outfit that I pieced together to make me feel better.  Turquoise is my favorite color in general.

Questions for my nominees:

1. What book, if any, are you currently reading?  Would you recommed it?

2.  What is your favorite place that you have visited?  Why?

3.  Why did you start blogging?

4.  What is your biggest fear?

5.  What is your favorite thing to do when you have free time?

6.  What is your favorite meal to cook?  Or something you can cook well?

7.  What is your most prized possession?

8.  What hobbies do you have or what hobby do you think would be fun to start?

9.  What is your favorite season?  Why?

10.  What is one product/appliance that you could not live without?

11.  What is your favorite holiday and why?

I would like to nominate:

1.  Whitney at Life as a Lankford

2.  Tara at The Dew Family

3.  Renn at Roger, Renn, and Baker

4.  Alison at An Angel and A Pirate
5.  Kimberly at Kimberly's Soapbox and Such
6.  Kelly at Pursuit of Life to the Full

I love all of the blogs by these women and follow them regularly!