Chris and little Corinn flutter by the house on Halloween

I hope you all had a safe Halloween. This one was special for me, seeing as how my niece experienced her very first dress up holiday as a butterfly! She and her mommy are so beautiful! I'm soooo glad they came by!





Corinn is getting more beautiful by the day. Maybe one of these days she'll have an Akridge cousin to play with!








We had a blast watching the 1979 version of Dracula, which I must say is the best version out there, while answering the swarm of trick-or-treaters we had this year. It must have been a record!

Carv'n Pun'kins

My neighbor invited me several times to carve pumpkins with her and her family and friends before I finally relented to put my hand in the guts of the slimy things. To my pleasant surprise, it was a blast! None of us knew what we would carve before we started but it didn't matter. This was last year.

Thanks to some interesting circumstances, we held our own pumpkin carving this year. My aunt and I headed down to the pumpkin patch to pick out the wartiest, most perfect pumpkin of the hundreds on the ground.

April and Rob really made Aunt Lita and Whitney's first pumpkin carving experience complete with Halloween music, spider rings, fun carving tools, and a HUGE guts bucket! I was hoping to cook a bunch from the fruit of our labor, but work seemed to get in the way. I only managed to crank out one loaf of pumpkin bread and currently two batches of seeds.

Lady Katherine

One of my favorite people in the world came to visit, Lady Katherine Cremeens. Yes, she does own land in the British Isles (all 1 square foot of it), making her a true Lady! We had her regular meal–the meal we seem to cook every time she comes over: pork tenderloin, garlic mash potatoes, and asparagus. Oh so good.

Zack snapped this one while making her laugh. He'd make a great photographer if music wasn't his first love!


Kat is senior designer now at Porter Design in Lawrenceville. It was great to hear of all the new things she's learning there, including increasing production with the new Adobe Creative Suite CS3. I can't wait to invest!

Soap and Studs: Will gets a bath!

I spent the afternoon and evening with new mama, Professor Grem. She graded papers while I worked on a wedding album at what used to be my favorite coffee shop in Athens called Blue Sky but runs by the new name of Walkers. It's not a bad change, but definitely not the coffee shop I miss so much. Jenna, we have to do this again sometime!

We ran home so the other Professor Grem could go to his first practice with a new band while Jenna bathed the little W. Grem. Here's some pictures I caught during one of his favorite times of the day, his bath.

Compassion in Action

Through an organization of churches called Unite!, help is being brought to so many places across North Atlanta, crossing denominational, racial, and socio-economic lines. Hands On Atlanta helped organize this massive effort while the churches responded with volunteers, logistics, and time. Driveways were made, school yards were cleaned up, bathrooms painted, treat bags made for teachers in appreciation, houses cleaned, as well as many many more projects all across Gwinnett and Fulton counties.


At Norcross High School, teams of volunteers from all different churches worked together to lay straw, pick up trash, blow debris off sidewalks and driveways, as well as paint bathrooms.



Father and son working together.



In the cafeteria, goodie bags were made in appreciation for the teachers of Norcross High School. Many families showed up to work side by side like this little girl and her dad.



At Wellspring, a transitional house for women, a sidewalk and driveway were poured (that's hard work) while women and teens painted and deep cleaned the inside.



They didn't forget one part of the house, including the shutters!

Postcard Invite

Perimeter Church, a leading church in the Southeast, hosts a covered-dish dinner once a month to tell the basic story of where they've been as well give a tour of the facility for those unfamiliar with it. They call it Taste of Perimeter. Soon they'll be focusing each Taste of Perimeter on a target age group. The first will be the young professionals 18-35 whose ministry they call the Gathering. Here is the postcard they'll be sending out promoting the evening.



This is the mailable side.



You can check out their website at www.perimeter.org/gathering. It's real clean, geometric, and contemporary–a really good look for them.