The Gentrys

This year, our social coordinators really went above and beyond for our Sunday School Christmas party! The theme was Tacky Christmas Karoke. It was a blast! Here are a few of the pictures...more on the Sunday School Blog.

I'm not sure which was more fun...karoke or playing dirty santa exchanging those wedding gifts that you just don't quite know what to do with! There were some truly hilarious gifts!

































Phil was so proud that he won the "Griswold" award for the best tacky outfit!

Sorry these posts will be short...more to come!

I LOVE Christmas Cards! I LOVE checking the mail at Christmas time and finding lots of Christmas cards inside. It's even more fun this year because so many of our friends have used pictures that we have taken for their Christmas cards!

Sadly, we have not gotten around to sending out cards this year and we thought about trying to get some together, but then decided to skip it. Next year we will have a lot more to say in a letter and I promise I am recording everyone's addresses in my address book so you will all get a card from us next year. Please don't take us off your list!

We will be traveling a lot over the holidays, but will also be spending a lot of time working on our house so I should have lots of posts in the coming weeks! Merry Christmas!

Today is my sister Ali's 23rd birthday...yes Ali I had to pause and think about that number for a second before I typed it!

Happy Birthday Ali! Even though she and her hubby moved 8 hours south, we are still the closest of friends and I am so thankful for her (and for mobile to mobile minutes)!

We are having our first ever joint birthday celebration this year. Our birthdays are less than 3 weeks apart so I don't know how we've gone 23 years without doing this, but I am super excited!

Love you Ali and can't wait to see ya'll in a few days!

On Friday, I went for it and had my hair chopped off! I won't post a picture right now because I am at home with Phil today. He is having horrible spasms in his back and we are camping out on the floor today as he can't move without having terrible pain. So say a prayer for him!

The Elliott Family:

We are back into our routine now after our lovely trip to Boston and wonderful time over Thanksgiving with our family. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. I love getting to spend time with our families and my grandmother's/mother's dressing is just about the best thing you've ever tasted! I think I could eat it all day everyday and never be tired of it! Most importantly, it is a perfect time to sit back and reflect on all the things we have to be thankful for. I love what Phil posted last week about being thankful in all things (even Auburn's pitiful performance on Saturday!). But seriously, we have so much to be thankful for and I think we often take it for granted. I know I do. I get so caught up in the renovating of our house that I sometimes forget to stop and thank the Lord for simply a roof over our head.

Living Room Wall After: New Wall from the Outside:The walls have not been painted of course (inside or out). My goal over the Christmas holidays is to finish painting the entire inside of the house. The outside is a bigger project than we can handle so fortunately, Phil's dad has a great friend in Aliceville who is a painter and is giving us a good deal to paint the exterior. We painted the master bedroom this weekend...

...We used Benjamin Moore Wedgewood Grey and love the way it turned out! This picture is pretty dark because it was late at night when we finished painting, but it's a very nice grey/blue color.

So that is where we are with the house. Next project: tile the bathrooms so we can get the toilets off the porch (yes I did say 'toilets' plural...now the other one is on the porch too! AHHH!)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Happy Monday!

Well.....this is the first time I have ever posted on here, but I read a devotion this morning from a friend who is on a year long mission trip to Paris. He writes a devotion every week and emails it out and I thought this one was perfect for Thanksgiving Day. Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving.


“…in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. “1 Thessalonians 5:18

When you are studying a new language, you begin to notice every single word that you try to say. With me, I have begun to think more in terms of ideas with English and French words popping into my head here and there thus making me all mixed up. However, this does make one think more about language and the process of communication, and this served me well when I approached this verse.There is one little word in this verse that can sneak by you if you don’t pay attention. It is not a short word, but it can be overlooked. It is this word “everything.” Christians are supposed to give thanks. Of course! We should definitely give thanks. That should go without saying. God has given us so much, we should definitely give thanks. In fact, we have an entire holiday set up to do this called Thanksgiving…Stop. I left out the word. The period should not come after “Christians are supposed to give thanks.” The sentence ought to read, “Christians are supposed to give thanks in everything.” That changes it. That makes it much more radical, much more bold. This changed Thanksgiving from something everyone can do to something that only a Christian can do.This is an intense verse because of what the word “everything” means. There is never a thing that is not included in everything. Things happen to you. Sometimes we call those things good. Sometimes we call those things bad. Regardless of what we call them, we are to give thanks to God for those things, because those things are included under the heading of “everything.”You have had a bad week. Give thanks. Your week has been the best you have ever had. Give thanks. You have a huge family to celebrate Thanksgiving with. Give thanks. You will celebrate Thanksgiving alone. Give thanks. You have enough food to feed an army this week. Give thanks. You go to bed hungry on Thanksgiving. Give thanks. Give thanks in all things, in everything. Why? Because you can know that in all things, God is working for the good of those who love him.Thanksgiving is an exercise in trusting God. It is an opportunity to do something the world cannot do. It is an opportunity to give thanks in everything. No evil force can overpower you when you thank God for what He will do with the worst it can do. Such a person could only be hoping in the eternal. This Thanksgiving, don’t forget to name the hard times you have had this past year, and thank God for them.

We had a beautiful view of the Charles River from the balcony of our hotel room.

After we arrived, we walked a few miles to Harvard to have lunch and explore.

On our way back from the conference one day...it was sooooo cold crossing the bridge!

Later in the week, we walked the Freedom Trail. It hits all of the historic places in the city and is marked by two rows of bricks in the sidewalk.

Phil at the beginning of the Freedom Trail in Boston Commons.

Throughout the whole walk, Phil continued to repeat the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere...yes he still remembers the whole thing!

On a tour of the USS Constitution.

My favorite place in Boston - The Public Gardens. It was beautiful! These are the ducklings from the famous Boston book "Make Way for Ducklings" - I read it as a child and bought it as our souvenir from the trip.

We were so happy to get to spend some time with our friends that moved up to Boston! They took us to the Harvard vs. Yale game...it was an experience we won't forget!

Our trip was wonderful...by far the best week of "work" I've ever had!

This family is absolutely precious and I was so excited about being able to spend the afternoon with them! My sister babysat for these quadruplets all throughout her undergrad years here and they are too cute! I haven't had time to retouch any of these yet, because I've been busy packing for my trip, but I wanted to post a few before we left since we may not be able to post again for a week or two. Here are a few of my favorites:

Aren't they precious?! More to come once I edit. Have a great week! I'm off to Boston!

I am heading to Boston next week for work so it will probably be awhile before I can post again. Have a great week!

Happy Happy Birthday Amy! Hope your day is wonderful! We are so blessed with your friendship!!!

Brant, I am so sorry I forgot to wish you a happy birthday on the blog (I did call though!)...I've added it in the post below!

Look at the detail in that saddle! The pictures really don't do it justice! It was amazing! They are custom made so if you want one built especially for you, I'll get you in touch with him. The only down side is because they are so well built, each one takes approximately 40 hours to build, they cost $600!

Here is the kitchen with half the floors replaced.

And the living room with new subfloor.

And finally, I had to post this, we actually have a toilet on our front porch (thankfully it is more to the side and you can't see our house from the road!) I thought, "You might be a redneck if..." Oh goodness! This has got to get back inside asap! We have to install the tile in the bathrooms before it can go back in so we need to get to work on that!

Happy 25th Birthday to my absolutely perfect, completely wonderful, adorable husband! This picture was from last year when we spent his birthday working at our house in the yard and this weekend we were doing the same thing! It's hard to believe by his next birthday we will have been living there for 6 months!

I won't do a long tribute this time, but Phil, you know I love you with all of my heart and I hope I've been able to make your birthday special! I am so blessed God brought us together and I pray he gives us 75+ more birthdays to share together!

I am playing with some different effects so I may post some more later. Sadly I only have photoshop at work right now and I don' t have much time to use it there. Hopefully soon we will be able to get it at home (hint hint Phil)!