Our Winter Week Away | Part I - Atlanta, Georgia

 Our winter week away fulfilled all of the anticipation we had looking up to it. We spent our week in three different places but no matter where we were we made awesome memories, soaked up sunshine, and built relationships!!  We've decided to split up our week into three different parts starting in Atlanta, Georgia...

We said goodbye to Kenan and Lily early Saturday morning and pulled out with bags packed and excitement rising. We made it to the Knapp residence in decent time and began our week with the new favorite: Live Maffia :). After spending a day of worship with the Atlanta church on Valentines day, we stopped at a local nursing home to sing and pass out cookies! Then we enjoyed an elegant Valentine's dinner back at the Knapps complete with china!!

Monday morning found Mom and Dad at the Atlanta airport ready for their week in Mexico! (stay tuned for an overload of gorgeous pictures coming soon :)). The three of us oldest kids spent our week with the Knapps just jumping into their life and laughing all along the way ;). It was perfect weather almost the whole week - thank-you, Jesus!

On Monday Dana took the three of us girls shopping and out for supper!

We did take some school along, but I didn't accomplish as much as I wanted too... hmm, I wonder why?:) 

The crisp morning air had us all inspired to get out and run/jog/walk to soak up the sunshine! It was really refreshing, although the boys took it to the next level when they turned it into a race... (more on that later).

On Tuesday, Dana and all of the boys ended up being gone over lunch, so us girls decided to go for something fun:). With the help of Pinterest we decided on a gourmet sandwich, fruit smoothie, and salad! 

The sandwich was delicious... just take my word for it. 

One afternoon we used our Starbucks gift cards as an excuse to have some girl/coffee-drink time :).

We spent some time reading as well... (I wish my book was a pretty and as entertaining as yours, Megan! :)) 

The older boys decided to tackle a wood working project while we were there! 

The finished product is for storing their firewood! 

Lexi made cheesecake one night for supper!!

Friday afternoon we had a little down time, so Megan and I decided to come up with a challenge for the boys in the form of a scavenger hunt. It took them all around the property, even to the stop sign down the road! It was pretty fun to put together and watch them solve as teams :).

Running back from retrieving the clue at the stop sign :)

To gain extra points they had to sing a song...

get their picture taken in a trash can..

set the table for supper... and many other things! It was a great way to spend a Friday afternoon! 

Friday evening we took advantage of all of us being home together to play the game Chopped :). We split into four teams and were given Chipped Beef, Dill Pickles, and Horse radish to incorporate into something edible in just 30 minutes. It was an intense half and hour, but all the teams did super well! 

this picture cracks me up!! (sorry Megan... on account of your face, I must have a closed mind :))

our finished dish... and Asian-inspired stir fry! 

this team had me a little worried, but by the end of the judging, they had us all surprised! 

as did this team!! 

Lexi made an Asian-inspired sandwich! 

The judges :) they did a great job! On account of creativity and taste, the boys tied for first place leaving us girls to swallow our pride :). Don't ask me how a team who doesn't even know how to cook pasta or what steak sauce is could win, but we were all pretty impressed!

Thumbs up to Dana for the courage to let us take over her kitchen :). 

Hey, Jared here, stopping by to tell about my favorite parts of my winter week away! It was awesome to be with Knapps again. As always we had late nights and lots of fun!!

my buddies for the week.. minus Caleb

Although Micah half way made me do it, I'm really glad I participated in the game of Chopped! We were first gonna make a sandwich, and then we decided to put all of our fried stuff together on top of little croutons with we seasoned to perfection. When we realized that we were basically just serving lettuce toppings, we decided to add lettuce and make a gourmet salad. 

How we used our chipped beef and pickles: right away, I had the idea of throwing it all into a pan and frying it, which was good because we didn't have much time to decide. We also put in some onions and butter. 

How we used the horseradish: Figuring out how to use this was a little harder, but we finally decided to use it in our croutons. We wanted to toast them but when we realized we didn't have any oil, we didn't know what to do. That's when Micah had the genius idea to use steak sauce instead of oil. As it turned out, we nearly forgot the horseradish since we were so excited with how they were turning out! 

But I'd say what made us win the best was a homemade lime ranch dressing. It was really easy to make and all we used was a little mayonnaise, a little ranch, garlic salt, and some lime juice! That's when we got stuck. It didn't taste quite right - it was too mayonnaise-y. We were trying to find some sour cream or yogurt, but we only had about 1 minute. So we threw in some milk, hoping it would taste ok. Thankfully it did and we tied for first place!! 

(now.. tell me how they got by with all of that and making it taste good?!?)

if I'm right, I believe I'm trying to persuade him to do a lettuce salad...

Almost all of the mornings I spent in Atlanta, Micah and I would go out and jog! It felt so good. But I was a little pressured by the fact that we were going to have a three lap race on Friday. One lap was about 1.3 miles. Me and Micah were a team and Marcus and Seth were a team. I definitely think it would have helped if Marcus and Seth would have stayed as a team like we did, because this week we've been studying all about cooperation and working as a team in our devotions. "Two are better than one. For if the one fall, the other can pick him up." Of course none of us really fell, but we did get pretty close. :) After the second lap we chugged a water bottle and tried to go for the third, but we ended up with terrible cramps. After all, we did win which very rewarding. I have to say, Micah and I must make a great team!!

it was a little cold before we started sweating!

Dana took all of us boys to Chick-fil-a for lunch one day!! 

The highlight of my week was building the 11 foot tree house. It really wasn't that high, but as Dana said, she probably shouldn't have come out to see it and take this picture because it had her all worried:). We first started out trying to build on a tree we later knocked down with hammer. We decided on two sturdy evergreens, and started with a ladder on the right tree. When we got to the top, we realized it was going to be nearly impossible to screw the board onto the left tree, so we had to build a ladder up that one too. When we got the two boards screwed in, we took the ladder back down! It was really unsafe and we were worried one of us would fall on it - that's why. Once we had the steps done, we decided to nail down floor boards on what you could call rafters. 

we spent almost every day out here! 

Thank you so much, Knapp family, for letting me tag along for  a week. I had so much fun and will treasure my memories forever!! -Jared

The week went by so fast but we packed it full with many other things besides what I talked about... mock presidential debates, cleaning church, playing cards, personality tests, live maffia and on and on:). Thank you so much, Knapps, for the awesome memories!! We love you!

stay tuned for more of our winter week away coming soon! (hopefully, mom... :))