Our First Snow Day!

...as you can see, Amanda and I enjoyed "Our First Snow Day" together today. From the time that we first got engaged, we both talked about how excited we were for all our "firsts" that lied ahead in the future. One of these "firsts" that we have been looking forward to was sharing our first snow day together.

If you know anything about North Carolina winters, you'd know that every winter the local weathermen jump the gun, sound the trumpets and every North Carolinian races out the door to their closest neighborhood grocery store to loot the bread aisle.

99.9% of the time, no precipitation.

Here is a picture of me standing up on the back of my truck to clean off the snow.

Yesterday Amanda was jumping around the house, nearly dying with excitement as the forecast ran across the bottom of the television. I told her that we would get a light dusting and we'd wake up to another brown winter morning.


I'm sure this won't be the last time that Amanda tells me "I told you so." And might I add, that when Amanda woke up this morning, she was very excited about saying "I told you so."


Although both of us had to work-from-home today, we were able to take a nice work break to watch the inauguration and watch a movie. If you know me, if I stay inside too long, I typically am prone to come down with severe cases of Cabin Fever. As you can see in the pictures, we ended up getting around 3"-4" inches - which equates to roads, schools and many businesses being closed for the day. Lucky for me, snow or sun, the U.S. Postal Service stays open and Amanda had to send off a couple packages - which meant one thing: I got to test out my truck for the first time.

Tonight, we are planning on going for a walk, starting a fire and perhaps watching another movie. All in all, I think we had an enjoyable first snow day together.

The Holidays

The first part of our holiday season was me finishing and graduating from Peace (Andrew took a picture of me as I left for my last day of school - which is above).  I bought this Peace Alumna sweatshirt with my friend Laura (who also graduated in December) in the summer when it was on sale.  We both saved them to wear to our last final exam, Personal Selling.  I am holding the prettiest bouquet of flowers that were sent to my work as a congrats and welcome to the real world from my parents.  It was a really nice surprise and made my day :)

Andrew took this picture of me putting together our tree for our first Christmas together at our apartment.  It was fun decorating and putting up stockings!

We have done a lot of traveling over this holiday season.  We have been to South Carolina for Thanksgiving, Winston Salem twice to visit my family, Wake Forest twice to visit Andrew's family, and spent Christmas up in Maryland with my family.  Lots of traveling!  We have really enjoyed getting to spend so much time with all of our family.  We are also very thankful that gas prices are so low so we are able to do more traveling and driving!

Below are some pictures from our Christmas spent in Maryland.  Funny hats, reindeer antlers, and elf hats are a part of my family's Christmas traditions to spread Christmas cheer :)  We also go to Christmas Mass together, get Christmas pj's on Christmas Eve night from Santa, and spend Christmas morning with everyone eating breakfast, opening gifts, watching Christmas Vacation, and enjoying the day.  The afternoon is filled with naps, watching new movies, and playing with Grace and her new toys.  

Our first Christmas...

I really love the picture of my grandpa and me below.  We are wearing matching penguin hats made by Amy - very cute!  I was so impressed with how well he is doing health-wise.  He is doing his physical therapy and eating a lot.  It was really great getting to spend time with him :)

Keri always figures out what her presents are!  I like this picture because Keri had no idea my mom had gotten her these cute pink shoes.  She was finally surprised!  

This Christmas trip we enjoyed bowling together!  All the girls were on one lane with gutters (except my mom who played in the boys' lane to even the numbers out though she claimed to still be on the girls team because she was bringing their score down).  It was a fun thing for the entire family to do.   

Yesterday we spent New Year's Day with Andrew's parents in Wake Forest.  No pictures from that but we enjoyed some delicious Maui Burgers on Bill's new grill and other yummy treats along with a relaxing afternoon of napping, watching The Nativity, watching football, and chatting.  One small (but important!) thing that I love about Bill is how we always share snacks together.  If you know me, you know I love snacks!  Bill does too and he made us some hot chocolate and put out bowls of cheddar Chex Mix while we watched football.  It was the perfect afternoon.

We hope all of you enjoyed the holiday season and are having a great 2009 year so far!