A January Update

With the new year came some crazy weather- everything from highs in the 70's, to constant rain for almost two weeks, a 4-hour snow storm, and tornadoes. The weather is one of many things I love about Huntsville (even the cold, at times).

 

The view from my driver's seat leaving work, January 17 - snow day.

Aside from that, this month has been busy, as is our usual.

We celebrated the long-awaited engagement of these two fun people.

Our regular Wednesday Bible Study started back up. This semester, I'll be hanging with the adults again. Last semester I tried my hand at working with the middle school girls in our church's youth group. The students were great, but I was severely under-prepared and over-stressed due to work and other commitments.

We had a few celebrations, including birthdays, Residency interviews, and M.D and D.O. interviews.

We rounded out the month with a trip to Nashville to see Keane in concert, getting living room chairs, buying paint for our guest room, getting the markers around the neighborhood for lights and light poles, and playing with Puppy.

 

 

 

Two fun facts:
 

1. The Keane concert- this was mine and Husband's second time trying to see them for this same concert. Last May (June?) we drove to Nashville and stood in the blazing downtown Nashville sun for two hours waiting to get inside the air-conditioned venue (Marathon Music Works). Lo and behold, the venue was not air-conditioned and we were severely dehydrated (while there were windows lining the roof of the venue, none were open. There were four slightly-larger-than-normal ceiling fans not trying too hard above us. And that was it.). The opening band played and were not bad. Then the real act came out. After roughly 5 songs, an electrical fire sparked, everyone was evacuated and the concert was ended. We struggled to push our way through the mass of people exiting the building to purchase a shirt for Husband's brother, who gave us the tickets since he was unable to go. This time, however, the venue was air-conditioned, and no fire erupted. Success!

2. After months (actually, just two months) of trying to find the perfect chairs to match our living room and not overpower it with size or design, we found the chair above. We loved it so much that we bought two of them with reckless abandon assuming all the pieces would fit well together (which had not been our experience thus far with living-room-chair-attempts). The first chair fit together miraculously. When the second chair arrived, three days after the first, we were so excited.. that we waited a full day to open the box. Once we did, however, we discovered that our perfectly chevron-styled gray-and-white lounge chair was, instead, zebra print. It must go back.
 

 

Bonus picture:
 

 

2012 Holidays

The holidays are always a special time of year, and this year was no different. Husband and I were lucky enough to be able to see both of our families to celebrate and relax.

For Thanksgiving, Husband and I flew to Orlando to see Mom and Sister, and some of our extended family- some who live in Orlando, and some who drove from South Florida.

 

Three generations of awesome right here. Mommal and Aunt Elaine,

Mom, Sister, Husband, Mom's brother Timmy and his two daughters,

and a second cousin who loves a photo-op.

 

 

After spending Thanksgiving day with family eating and playing Twister with cousins, Mom, Sister, Husband and I went on our way to Disney's Magic Kingdom! Our visit was two weeks before the official opening of the new Fantasyland, but we still got to walk around some parts of it, including The Beast's Castle where we ate a delicious meal and were awestruck from the painstakingly detailed building- both inside and out. A few pictures of the day follow: 

 

 

Again with
the fanny pack.

 

The Beast has his own new digs at the Magic Kingdom.

 

 

 

Inside the Dining Room of The Beast's Castle.

 

 

 

The rose from the forbidden West Wing.

 

 

 

Of course we can't ignore Cinderella's Castle.

 

 

After a fun and exhausting day spent at Magic Kingdom, we packed up and headed back to the hotel. Saturday, we got up and drove to Tampa to go to Busch Gardens before having to fly out Sunday morning.  Busch Gardens is a giant zoo with rollercoasters strewn about. Here are a few pictures from that:

 

 

The four of us on the safari train. I swear we

didn't color-coordinate on purpose.

 

 

 

The majority of the day was surprisingly cold.

 

 

 

We're in a zebra-drawn sleigh.. going through the sand.

 

 

 

 

Busch Gardens was fun, but it was time to go. Husband and I needed to get some sleep since our flight left pretty early in the morning the next day.

 

December was spent mostly preparing for Christmas and New Year's, decorating, playing with Puppy, and attending Christmas parties with friends.

 

 

 

 

 20's and 30's Church Christmas party - a few of the girls posing with their dirty Santa gifts.

 

 

 

 

Also, Puppy's birthday as December 16, so like any loving puppy parent would do, I made her wear a hat.

 

 

 

Christmas highlights include:

1. Cutting down my first real tree
2. Putting lights up on our first house for the first time
3. Hosting our first Family Christmas Eve party
4. Christmas morning in our new house.

All around, a very special Christmas for us.

 

We finished out the year by making ourselves look quite dapper and going to the Palmer's for a New Year's Eve Party.

 

 

 

 

This might be the most epic photobomb yet.

 

 

 

The party-goers.

 

2012 is finally fully updated. Hopefully I'll do better in 2013.

 

 

 

 

Freebie picture:

 

 

Reindeer Puppy.



 

 



 

 

 



2012 Updates

The more I thought about it, the more I realized I missed updating on a lot of fun activities by starting my last post in September. Between January 2012 and September 2012, a lot happened. Here's an additional quick snap-shot of those goings-on.

Husband and I threw his sister a 30th birthday surprise party!

 

I may or may not have made all the guests wear party hats all night.

 

 

I may have also made each one take a picture

with a mustache, using my fish-eye lens.

 

 

Oh, Husband.





 

After Sarah's party, she I went on an adventure. She had a list of 30 items she wanted to complete before her 30th birthday, so we got up at a semi-reasonable hour and went on our way. Our day included two back-to-back dollar movies (Moneyball  and The Help, for those interested), she had sushi for the first (and last) time, dessert for dinner, and we drove to Tennessee to buy lottery tickets and 40's.

 

 

 

Technically, are we in TN since we're in front of the sign?

Either way, we went beyond the sign to get to the most

ghetto gas station to do our duty.

 

 

 

 

I also started at my current job.

 

 

My second day on the job, I brought in my alphabet letters and Mr.

and Mrs. Spud. They're still there, along with a ceramic zebra,

Beauty and The Beast figurines, a birthday party hat, and a glorious picture from

my study abroad trip to Panama.



Puppy got a bath:

 

And looked pathetic doing it.

 



Lindsey and I went to Unclaimed Baggage

 

This puppy kite is bigger than I am. And it's mine now.

 

 

 

I keep telling her to stop licking the decorations, but she just can't help it.

 

 

 

I felt impulsive one day and cut 8" off my hair.

 

 

Husband and I got a free tour of the new Boeing 787- the Dreamliner, we Saran-wrapped a friend's car, I got a new phone, we went to Memphis, and then to Henderson, Kentucky to see a friend of mine from high school.

 

 

It was windy and loud standing beneath the underbelly of the huge plane.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He thought he was invited to attend the tour as a guest. They

didn't tell him he'd have to hold the plane up!

 

 

I helped too, for a bit.

 

 

 

This car has over 100 balloons in it, and at least

3 rolls of Saran Wrap around it. Hooray shenanigans!

 

 

 

New phone, and Husband got me this amazing Etch-A-Sketch case!

 

 

Our trip to Memphis was a lot of fun. We went for our 6-monthiversary.  The first night we met some fun people in the lobby of the hotel and ended up going out with them for a few hours before coming back to our room. The next day we went to the Memphis Zoo, The Pink Palace (which is an educational museum), and BB Kings - just a few of the highlights.

 

 

BB King's Restaurant in Memphis, TN. So good. The music was fun too!

 

 

Visited the zoo.

 

 

 

 

At the end of March, we went to Henderson, Kentucky to meet up with a good friend of mine from high school. How did we land on Henderson, you ask? Well, it's simple. I went to www.meethalfway.com and typed in both mine and Cynthia's zip codes. This website found the location in the exact middle... Which was not Henderson, KY. The city directly between the two of us, with her a little south of Chicago, is Hanson, KY (!). After some googling, I found that there is nothing in Hanson, so we decided to go a little farther north to Henderson, where there were restaurants. And hotels. In Henderson, we went to the Evansville, IN zoo (Husband and I love zoos), then to a random winery/vineyard that took way too long to find. We just happened to be in Kentucky during the end of March Madness where two Kentucky Universities were battling it out just 2 hours away in Louisville.

 

 

Would you believe if I told you that after not seeing each

other for almost two years, we showed up that night, in

the rain and hail, wearing the same shirt?

 

 

 

 

 

Cynthia and I at the vineyard.

 

 

The three of us.

 

 

 

 

 

After two fun days with Cynthia, it was time to go

back home. I did this to make the ride more interesting. Husband

laughed for a good 1-2 minutes. Which is

about right, since this isn't very funny.

 

 

Since I am a huge Hanson fan, we had to stop in Hanson, KY on the way back home.

 

 

Husband wearing his Hanson shirt in Hanson, KY.



 

With April came Easter, and with Easter, came my mom and sister.

 



Sister taught Husband how to make flan! He loved it!

 

 

 

I played with my fish-eye lens some more and attacked Mom with a surprise hug.

 

 

The photo pops were a huge hit. I loved them.

 

Also in April, I had to take a trip up to my work headquarters in Piscataway, NJ for some training. The campus is pretty.

And the food was good.

 

Hand-dipped strawberries and pretzels. Right in front of me.

 

Memorial Day weekend brought the Alabama Jubilee Hot Air Balloon Festival in Decatur.

 

 



 

 

Then in June, Husband decided he was tired of being healthy and got sick.

 

 

He got better.

 

Also in June, BFFE came to town and we hit up a random carnival in the Old Time Pottery parking lot, then we went to Six Flags in Atlanta.

 

 

Super random carnival.

 

For Six Flags, we decided we had to be super colorful. Go big or go home, right?

 

 

Check out that slammin' fanny pack.

 

The red overalls and purple tights were an excellent touch.

I got this gem of a picture:

Still again in June, Puppy meets Sister's puppy over FaceTime.

 

This was fun.

 

 

We went to the beach with friends and saw family as a bonus:

 

 

Aunt Linda and Uncle Jerry were so hospitable and

let us bunk at their house the first night, so we could visit with

Dave's grandmother who lived down the road the next

morning before heading to the beach with friends.

 

 

 

Memaw

 

 

Everyone except Micah.

 

 

We had a miniature golf outing back home and got some fun pictures. Husband won.

 

 

Here he's dancing to Michael Jackson's Rock With You.

 

 

I decided I wanted to be stealthy in my pictures.

 

Keep looking.

 

Then we had a heatwave and Husband got a really bad, crooked, fluffy mohawk.

 

 

July brought Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-Fil-A, Six Flags in Atlanta with Mom, Sister, and Lou, whitewater rafting, my birthday, complete with decorations, and living-room-camping.

 

That's our work-in-progress house in the background.

 

 

 

Melissa shows enough enthusiasm for the both of them, luckily.

 

Mom wonders why I made her stand next to the Duck.

 

 

 

 

 

Spoiler alert: no one was ejected, drowned or

unhappy by the time we reached the end of the river.

 

 

 

 

 

We take camping very seriously.

 

Then August came and went and not much happened.

 

Except for some serious staring contests.

 

 

 

Early September brought The Color Run, my first 5K, with friends Alex and Sarah. While Sarah,her friends, Alex and I got soaked to the bone, frozen, thawed and amazingly colorful, Husband remained "dry," "clean," and "uncolorful." Except that he tried tirelessly and failed, because it poured and poured on September 2nd in Birmingham, there were color packets being opened and enjoyed everywhere, and no man, not even Husband, was immune to it.

 

 

Can you tell that Alex confused Sarah and I?

 

 

 

Again with the fanny pack.

 

 

 

Alex

 

 

 

Me after the race.

 

 

 

Sarah after the race.

 

 

 

Alex after the race

 

 

 

Husband after the race. Totally uncolorful. But wait..

 

 

 

The Color got him too! (Either that, or his feet were

turning blue from the icy rain and wind.)

 



Now I think that just about covers the highlights of 2012 before the holiday season. 

 

Til next time.