Christmas Wrap-Up

This is a little behind schedule, but I want to wrap up the Christmas posts.  We spent most of Christmas day with the Wilson side of the family where we enjoyed lots of delicious food, a round of Dirty Santa, and quite a bit of baby holding (thanks to Jarrod & Jessica Craig)!  It's always fun to catch up with family!


Monday we had Christmas with the Budraitises.  It was my first actual Christmas celebration with them.  It was nice and cozy, just the six of us.  I scored a paddle attachment for my stand mixer and some Premier Designs jewelry, while Jesse came home with drumsticks, some camo, and a new scope for his rifle.  We also received Jenga to add to our game collection, and had to break it out before we left.  Photos below taken by Matthew- hope you don't mind me stealing them! :)

 

Our First (Married) Christmas

Since we are headed home to Luverne for the Christmas weekend, we woke up this morning and exchanged our gifts to each other.  We cranked up some Christmas tunes and opened the presents one by one.  I was thrilled to get two new ceramic-coated NONSTICK (hallelujah!) frying pans and a rotary mat and cutter for my (unknown) upcoming projects! Jesse was excited to get Forza 4 (racing game) and a new machete.  Talk about two completely different fields of interest! Oh, and we couldn't forget about Maggie. She had her own stocking of goodies!

  

Home for Christmas

This weekend held the beginning of Christmas festivities for us.  Thankfully, everything worked out well, and we will be able to spend time with all of our families this year for Christmas.  This Saturday we had Hatcher family Christmas.  Here's a quick recap:

     

     

And here's the whole gang:

I don't see most of these people nearly enough, so I'm very grateful for the time we spend together for Christmas!  I know my mom and Wes are very happy to have us all together.  Christmas time means family time to me. Stay tuned for more gatherings - next up is the Wilson clan!

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

This weekend we got down to business with Christmas!  Jesse had finals last week, which means he has been consumed with projects and studying since Thanksgiving, and we have had no time at all to prepare for Christmas until now.  I could not allow myself to purchase Christmas tree decorations, gifts, or wrapping paper without him on our first Christmas, so I patiently anxiously waited for his semester to be over. Meaning, he was told to meet at Hobby Lobby at 5:00 on Friday (his last day of finals) when I got off from work.  :)    The half of Hobby Lobby that had originally been filled with all things Christmas had been reduced to 4 measly aisles of decor.  We plundered through the leftovers to no avail.  Thankfully Target saved the night, and we returned home to create this little Christmas masterpiece:

(In my fumblings with my camera to take photos in the dark, somehow I managed to make the lights twinkle!)


Saturday morning we had successful Christmas shopping, followed by a night out in Opelika.  Each year the City of Opelika puts on a Victorian Homes Tour before Christmas.  It was fun walking in the streets, looking at all of the beautiful historic homes decorated for the holidays!  It was complete with carolers and apple cider!

 

   

 

Meet Virginia...

This post is a little behind, but we wanted to share our trip to Virginia we took during Thanksgiving break.  It was time for Jesse's last chest check up with his doctor in Norfolk. We knew it would be a LONG trip for such as short visit, so we decided to take a mini vacation!  (Who couldn't use on of those?!)  We stayed three days in Washington, DC and tried to cram as much sight seeing as possible into them!  Here's a few of our favorites sights:

Washington Monument

Wall of Freedom at the WWII Memorial

Lincoln Memorial

Julia Child's Kitchen in the American History Museum

The Smithsonian Institute (Castle)

The Capitol Building

Arlington Cemetery

A fun Toucan at the National Zoo 

The Holocaust Museum

The Museum of Natural History

The White House

DC Cupcakes!!

We had such a great time!  It's a place everyone should go once in their lives.  There are so many sights to be seen that we were constantly taking it all in.  But I felt very honored to stand before and to see such timeless pieces of American history and memorials to those who have fought for our freedom.  

Jesse's check up went well.  The doctor is pleased with the results of surgery since the bars have been removed nearly a year ago.  There have been no changes to appearance since removal, which is good - meaning there should be no chance of relapse whatsoever.  He is very glad that he went through with it.  The initial surgery and recovery was painful and uncomfortable, followed by a somewhat awkward 2 years of feeling bars holding his chest "in place," but he is so pleased with the outcome that it was all worth it! 


We drove back to Alabama for Thanksgiving with these fine folks = a weekend FULL of delicious food made with LOTS of love!

The beginning

Hello everyone!  We wanted to join the blogging world so that many of you could follow along with our lives.  Blogging is a bit intimidating because we don't really consider our life all that exciting or interesting.  We have what everyone does - a daily routine.  School & work, dinner, sleep, repeat.  Every so often a new adventure breaks the ho-hum of day-to-day life.  It's these moments we hope to capture and document for ourselves and share with you!  We hope that you enjoy keeping up with us as we journey through life together!