My favorite place on Earth!

New Years day tradition for the Martin family is to go down John’s uncles farm and spend time with his mom’s side of the family. We don’t do Christmas with them because there are so many families and other obligations that a long time ago everyone decided that New Years day would be when we all get together for fellowship and food! I am SO glad we were in town this New Years day :D The farm is so incredibly peaceful that words cannot even describe it. It’s quiet, relaxing, and overall just amazing. So this New Years day we made the trek to Fayetteville and headed to the farm! I am always excited for many reasons: 1) It’s my favorite place on Earth- duh :D 2) I LOVE his mom’s side of the family. They are SO sweet and just so much fun to be with. 3) His cousins LOVE to play games (you know John and I are game junkies!) 4) The delicious southern food, of course! 5) And last but NOT least- we get to go shoot John’s guns!! Yes, you heard me right- we shoot guns :D we are not redneck or anything ;D. haha! This year when we got down there we all caught up and played some games. The boys always win, but they always cheat ;D After games we all got some yummy food and then we went shootin’! This year John’s dad brought all their guns. Side story- Johns grandpa had a lot of guns and when he passed away John and his dad inherited a few. This was the first year they actually had possession of them for us to shoot.
Loading up the truck!

So in order for us to shoot the guns, we usually drive out into the farmland and set up some targets to aim at. Then we loaded the guns and started shooting! John has .22rifle and a shotgun! I shot the .22 before, but the shotgun was a new experience! I was terrified it was going to hurt! Of course John ended up talking me into shooting it and of course I was glad he did :D It only jolted some- as you can see from my head snapping back-it's a bit embarrassing. LOL. Of course John took it just fine.

Sorry it's blurry! I was really nervous it was going to hurt!

We also got to shoot a pistol and a 9mm. The 9mm was John’s cousin’s that was in the army and it’s no joke. I don’t know how on the TV shows thugs just drive by and shoot them like they are nothing- that is not true! They are heavy and you have to keep them steady! I will say though, that I am a pretty good shot! When we were finished and went and looked at the damage done, the paint buckets we aimed at with the shotgun were basically gone. It was pretty funny.
John and I with his guns

Dad Martin and the shot gun :D

John aiming his .22

John Ryan and Gretchen

After shooting we went back to the house and ate dinner and talked some more and played games. I may have taken a nap too :D John’s cousin has a little boy- he’s about 2 ½ and he is adorable. Of course he wanted to play so we all played with him too.

John and I decided that to save time on the trip home we would just stay in Fayetteville with his cousins John Ryan and Gretchen. They got married the week before we did and our age, so we all get along pretty well. John and I were exhausted when we got to their house (from the long New Years Eve and day) BUT of course there is always enough energy to play games! They were the ones that introduced us to Settlers of Catan and John and I are addicted to it. Well for Christmas John Ryan got Gretchen an extension of the game and were really excited to try it out with us. Since we were learning as we played it ended up taking us 3 hours to play! We didn’t go to bed until after 1! But it was a great time! I love them :D

John and I decided that we wanted to get home to Miami at a fairly decent time and so we were shooting for 8am to wake up. We figured we could take turns napping and driving. (not at the same time ;D) SO what had happened was there just so happened to be a glitch with the Iphones and the alarm and our alarms never went off! We didn’t wake up until 11am! BAHAHA! We both slept really well though! And then we hopped in the car and took off. We still had a 12 hour drive- not including stops. But we had a really good time. We always do :D