Going to the Chapel

My best friend is getting married!! On May 14th, 2011, my best friend Courtney Spears will become Mrs. Courtney Reedy!

I could not be more excited for Brandon and Courtney and we are looking forward to this amazing year leading up to their wedding! Courtney was my Maid of Honor this summer and I am so honored to be her Matron of Honor next summer!

Courtney and Brandon live in Memphis where they are finishing their last year of law school. So we could not be farther away from eachother in the state of TN if we tried!! We are really trying to work on this distance thing for the next stage in our lives. But this weekend I was able to travel to Memphis where we went to Arkansas to Low's Bridal!! Talk about serious wedding wonderland! It is this goregous old, huge house that is full of wedding dresses!! We had the best time and she found the MOST gorgeous dress!!! Brandon isn't going to know what to do with himself!! We had the best time catching up like old times! I truly cherish our friendship and I am so glad that Brandon is going to be part of our family!!

Good Ole Rocky Top!

Football season is officially here! The weekend of the Tennessee vs. Florida game we had the wonderful privilege of continuing our tradition with my sister-in-law Lauren, her husband Neal, and the Rodgers! Everyone arrived Friday afternoon to kick-off a fun filled weekend! We enjoyed a delicious dinner with great company at Chesapeake's with Neal's parents. It was so good and the key lime pie...amazing!! As always game day mornings come early! We loaded up the cars and coolers and headed to campus for a day full of good food, corn hole, and seeing friends that we haven't seen in a while!! We set up our tailgate in front of the Sigma Chi house with our neighbors Kyle & Kristyn and Christina & Adam. Oh how we miss that house!


Even though the game was well, not that good and it might have quite possibly been the hottest day of my life we had the best time!! I just love how Saturdays in Knoxville bring everyone together!! It's just something about the sea of orange and Rocky Top being sung all day that makes you smile!!

Lake Living

After a wonderful weekend in Louisville, KY, we ventured back home to East TN to spend a relaxing Labor Day on the lake with our good friends Tyler & Whitney and their girls, Kyle & Kristyn, and Jad & Jenn and their kids. And you know Nathan just the mention of going on the lake is like offering to take a kid to Disney! Tyler and Whitney invited us up to their "House Boat" on Norris to spend the day with their precious girls wake surfing and playing in the water! If you are like me though you imagine a house boat being this huge boat with a motor that people take out on the lake for the weekend. However that is not the type of house boats unique to Norris in East TN. They are literally houses on docks that are tethered in place with electricity and city water!! If you ask me this is the perfect lake living!!!

We played in the water with the kids jumping off the deck, flipping over the noodles, and laughing as all we heard was "do it again Nate!!" from the kids!! It was so cute!! We then went out for some wake surfing! This was so fun to watch as you are literally surfing the wake behind the boat without a rope! I was quite impressed with Whitney's skills as she can also get up with her little girl on the board too! I was the last to go but managed to get up and on the wake but a little hesitant to let go of the rope. I'll get 'em next year!



We had such a wonderful time and we are so thankful for these awesome relationships we have created here in Knoxville!! I know there will be many more memories to come!!

The Big Day

Well I think that Nathan may have discovered a new hobby... TRIATHLONS!! This weekend was the Tri for Sight Triathlon in Lexington, KY. After the wedding, Nathan and Andy Wicke decided that this was something they wanted to accomplish. Therefore training began! Nathan has been working so hard running, biking, and swimming along with making sure he had all of the right triathlon toys such as goggles, swim cap, the right jersey, gel packs, and the list continues!! However the big weekend had finally arrived. We headed out of town Friday afternoon to meet Andy and Emily in Louisville. The boys rode their bikes and made a last minute run to the triathlon store while the girls shopped, which is what we train for! Ha! Emily and I laughed that we are so thankful that we didn't have to train everyday to come see each other!! Maybe one day! We met one of Andy's friends from dental school named Aaron and loaded up the cars with the bikes, transition bags, and water bottles at 4:30 am!! Yes 4:30 am!! I think the boys were nervous yet excited about what they were about to conquer!


As we arrived at the site it was still dark but they could tell it was going to be a gorgeous day! They took their bikes to the transition site which is where everyone lines their bikes and gear up based upon their race number. The first event is the swim which is an 800 meter swim. The pool was across the street and all they could take with them was their swim cap and goggles. Therefore they had to run back to the transition site to prepare for the bike ride barefoot!! How manly!! We were able to watch them swim and then we headed to the transition site to watch as they took off on their bikes for 18.5 miles! During their bike ride we were able to see that Emily and I were clearly amateur triathlon wives! There were women with chairs, books and coolers as we sat on the pavement starving! We will be better prepared next time for sure!

The Start of Something New...

Ok well I finally did it and I am so excited! I have started a blog in my spare time between school and work! Ha! But I hope you enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed creating it! We also hope this lets you into a little window of our life here on Rocky Top!!!

We have obviously had a very exciting summer!! Our wedding was absolutely everything I had ever dreamed of and we can not thank you ALL enough for making it soo special for us!!! Jamaica was wonderful!! We contemplated not leaving! However the trip started off pretty interesting! Our flight was delayed therefore we were going to miss our connecting flight but thank you Delta for putting us on a new flight and upgrading to FIRST CLASS!! We felt like we had really arrived!! But things were bound to get worse... we arrived in Jamaica with no luggage. We were a little worried by the pop-up desk with the little lady behind it that was guarantying the arrival of our luggage. But willingly we boarded a tiny bus where we met some wonderful friends who were on their 10th wedding anniversary trip. We ventured over the hills with our hands raised as if we were on a roller coster (at times I felt like we were)!! But then in the middle of nowhere appeared our GORGEOUS resort! We had arrived in paradise (while our luggage arrived the next morning)!! The food was incredible and the sun was amazing! We snorkeled, rode the catamaran, played games by the pool with other couples, and enjoyed some interesting shows on the resort! After an amazing week in paradise we arrived back in Nashville to be greeted by our parents with "Welcome Home Olivers!!" signs created by my wonderful sister-in-law Lauren! It was soo nice to be greeted at the airport like celebrities!!






The summer then got a little crazy. Nathan had been offered a wonderful internship with Hawkins Partners on 1st avenue downtown. We knew this was an opportunity that he needed to act on. We were just so thankful for this wonderful opportunity. However I still had my job as a nurse in the Neonatal ICU back in Knoxville. So as you can imagine things got interesting but thankfully as a nurse I can set my schedule a little easier than most!! So I became a traveling wife back and forth from Knoxville to Hendersonville. I-40 and I became good friends this summer! While in Hendersonville we lived in Nathan's great-grandparents house next to his grandmother. We absolutely LOVED it and hope one day to be back permanently. Being next-door to grandmother was amazing and the fresh vegetables from the family garden out back was even better!! Another exciting thing that occurred this summer is my new sister-in-law got married to a wonderful man Neal Heath!! We are soo excited to have him in the family! The wedding was absolutely amazing!! It was such a fun wedding party and we all had a blast together!! We were so honored to be a part of the wedding and we can't wait for the adventures that we are going to experience together!!!