A Trip to Georgia, A New Addition, and a $5 Home Office

OK, lest the title of this post lead any of you to think otherwise, let me clear the air and state for the record that we are not pregnant!  I'll explain our "new addition" a little later.... :)

Back in May, Anthony and I went to Georgia for 8 days to visit my family.  We had a wonderful time!  We flew to Atlanta where my sister Sarah picked us up and drove us down to Thomasville.  The next day we drove over to Dothan, Alabama to stay with Munna & Papa for a night.  Of course Munna fed us like we were never going to eat again...and we loved it!  We spent the whole next day with Munna & Papa, then stopped by the Friths' on our way out of Dothan.  Chris & Lisa Frith were my youth pastors since I was 14 years old, and they were one of the couples, along with Don & Judy Pearce, who prayed over us with our parents at our wedding.  It was so great to spend some time with Chris & Lisa and their wonderful kids.  Little Grant (who is three and a half) took to Anthony so quickly.  Every time I looked over, Grant was up in Anthony's lap showing him something.

We spent the rest of our trip in Thomasville with my family.  That weekend we had a birthday party for Mimi at our house, and she and my uncles came up and spent the afternoon with us.  Other than that we just hung out at my parents' house, swam in the pool, ate Pool Room hot dogs (my favorite!), watched movies, visited friends, and spent time with everyone.  It was a great trip home, and I hope we get to take another one at the end of the year, but of course we'll have to see what works out.

Emily & me at Mimi's party:

Mimi & me having lunch in Tallahassee:

At dinner with my family on our last night in Georgia:

Shortly after we got married, Anthony started mentioning that he'd like to get a dog someday.  At first I was pretty hesitant about it, but I saw how he'd light up whenever he got the chance to play with other people's dogs, so I started to rethink it.  Finally, a couple of weeks ago we started looking at dogs on Craigslist to just see what we might like.  July 4th weekend we went and saw about a beagle puppy, but didn't really click with him.  Plus, he wasn't a rescue dog, and with so many dogs needing to be rescued it was hard to fall in love with one who was going to have a great home with or without us.  We drove up to the Denton Animal Shelter that afternoon to see a few dogs that we'd seen online.  I had even called that morning to ask if the dogs were still available and was told that they were.  However, when we got there we were told that a no-kill rescue organization had picked them up just a couple of hours earlier.  We were also told that had they not been picked up by that organization, they would have been euthanized before we got there anyway, so it was a blessing in disguise that the dogs were not there when we got there!  Anyway, we contacted the organization and went to go see the dogs on Monday.  The first dog they brought us was a little black & white four-month old spaniel/terrier mix.  Although they brought us two more to look at, we were both pretty taken with the black & white puppy.  She had the sweetest demeanor and just started loving on us right away.  We decided to adopt her and were able to bring her home that day!  We named her Georgia, and she is the newest addition to the Sieben family!

Right after we adopted Georgia:

She's a cuddler:

One of her favorite pastimes:

New toys:

Although this week has been a little demanding, I have to say that having a puppy has been much easier than I'd anticipated.  Georgia has only barked a couple of times, is doing really well with her house-training, is getting used to her crate quickly, and hasn't chewed up our furniture!  She loves to show affection and loves people.  We can't wait for you all to meet her!

OK, this next portion probably won't thrill anybody except for my Mom since she & I share a love of design & decor, so this one's for you, Mom!  For some time now I've wanted to create a home office space for us.  Anthony has a TON of books, plus we just needed a place where we could pay bills, file receipts, and have our printer permanently set up instead of shoved in a corner of a bedroom!  I had been scouring Craigslist looking for a really cheap desk that I could paint and put in our guest room, but Anthony wanted to wait on that project.  So, with my budget now being $0, I needed to get creative!  I read design blogs everyday (like mother, like daughter), so one day it hit me: the hall closet!  It needed a major cleaning out anyway, and it already had shelves.  I realized that I could remove one of the shelves and create an instant workspace, and VOILA!  An office was born.  Now Anthony's books are all organized and accessible, and we finally found a place to hang his Albert Einstein picture that I knew would otherwise never see the light of day in our home if I had anything to do with it! :)  Oh, and the reason the project cost $5 was because we needed an extension cord for the printer.  Little things like this make me happy, and if I could do stuff like this for a living I think I would!

Before:

After:

Anthony and I are coming up on 8 months of marriage!  It's hard to believe!  We are doing great and loving each other more and more everyday.  Marriage is an incredible blessing and a gift from God.  Although it can be difficult at times, we are learning and growing with every challenge.  We are excited about where we are now and excited about the future!

Well, I hope you've enjoyed this update on what's going on with us.  We'd love to hear what's going on with all of you.  We love you and hope to see you very soon!

A Birthday & Family Visits

Wow, I apologize that it's been so long since I've blogged!  And I furthermore apologize that there are no pictures of us to accompany this post, so if I hold your attention all the way to the end, you will get a gold star. :)

April 30th was Anthony's birthday.  I had picked out my main gift for Anthony a couple of months earlier, and I was SO excited about giving it to him:

It is a book that contains literally EVERYTHING you could ever want to know about how the film "Star Wars" was made.  He loved it!  In addition to the book, I made Anthony breakfast in bed for his birthday (banana pancakes and eggs), and then he got to build his perfect day.  I wrote down a bunch of free or inexpensive things we could do around Dallas for his birthday on index cards, then he got to build his perfect day with those cards.  The first one he chose was to go watch a Little League baseball game.  Well, despite my best efforts to double check all of the details, we arrived at the ball park and there were NO baseball games going on.  Strike one.  Pun intended.

After our failed attempt to watch a baseball game, we decided to pack up a picnic lunch and go to the Bishop Arts District a few miles from our apartment.  It's a really cute little artsy downtown area very similar to Thomasville's downtown.  We went to the Soda Gallery, which a great little shop with hundreds of bottles of vintage sodas from all over the world.  The way in which Anthony picked his soda reminded me of how he picked his wedding band.  While I was deliberating, overwhelmed by choices, carefully weighing the pros and cons of all my varying options, he pointed to a ring, asked how much it was, and bought it.  Same thing with the cream soda.

Once we finished our picnic, we headed to the nearby tennis courts and played tennis for a couple of hours.  We ended up buying two rackets and some balls with some of his birthday money, and we're hoping to play tennis more often and make it something active that we do together for fun.  Later that night we watched Star Wars Episode Something or Other (I can never remember which one is which!).  

The following Saturday (the day after Anthony's birthday), we drove down to College Station, TX and met up with Scott & Kathy for the day.  Unfortunately Lea & Daniel couldn't make it, but we had a GREAT time hanging out!  We had burgers at the same place we'd gone after Lea got engaged, then we went over to Texas A&M and walked around the campus for awhile.  We finally found a dormitory where we could sit in the A/C and eat some cake together.  The night before I had made Anthony's favorite cake: Tres Leches.  He actually loves the cake from La Duni here in Dallas the best, but since their version requires a blow torch, I settled for the Pioneer Woman's version and he loves it:

After attempting to play a little disc golf on the campus course, we called it a day and headed back to Dallas.  On our way home the melted ice in the cooler leaked into the cake, ruining the remaining cake.  At first I was bummed because it's a pretty labor-intensive cake to make and there was a lot of it left, but it's probably a good thing in the end.  It's pretty easy to lose your self-control around this cake, and let me just state, for the record, that it is NOT low calorie.  Or low fat.  Or low anything.  But it's gooooood.

Last Wednesday Grandma & Grandpa Sieben stopped in Dallas for a short visit on their way home from a wedding.  They got here around 9:00 a.m. and spent some time with Anthony while I was working.  I pulled away from work for a long lunch, and they treated Anthony and me to a great lunch at Saltgrass Steakhouse.  It was wonderful to spend some time with them and to have them see where we live.  

In other news, WE'RE GOING TO GEORGIA IN LESS THAN TWO WEEKS!  I'm a little excited, if you can't tell.  Our original plan was to go in July, but we reevaluated when the Mavericks lost so early in the playoffs, cutting Anthony's job short by a few weeks.  We figured we'd go ahead and make our trip now while he's in between jobs instead of hoping he could get the time off in July.  We'll fly into Atlanta on the 18th and my Mom will pick us up.  We'll be in Thomasville until the 26th.  This will be the first time I've seen my family since the wedding, with the exception of brunch with my parents on the last day of our honeymoon and Sarah's trip out here in March.  And it will be the first trip to Thomasville in a year that hasn't been chock full of wedding preparations.  I will actually be able to relax and enjoy the time with my family and in Thomasville.  I'm really looking forward to it!

Well, if you made it this far, congratulations to you!  Next time I will try to have more pictures.  I'm sure we'll take lots on our trip to Georgia.  I hope you're all doing great and that we get to see each of you very soon!

Much love,

Jenn :)

    

Four Months, The Apartment Reveal, and A Trip to Remember

Today marks 4 months exactly since this:

If I were to draw a bubble of Anthony's thoughts from that picture, it might say, "OH MY GOSH....what did I just DO?"

He looks a little more relaxed in this one:

I feel like that picture is me closing one chapter of my life and beginning another one.  The changes and transitions over the past four months have been challenging at times, but the joy of sharing everyday life with my very best friend is amazing.  Anthony and I have grown so much as a couple, and we are really enjoying this season of life.  

Once we got back to Dallas from our honeymoon, I began the project of decorating our apartment.  I LOVE to decorate, especially when I have tons of gift cards!  I had a lot of fun shopping for everything, and Anthony proved his handyman skills by hanging four pairs of curtains and tons of pictures.  

Here are some pictures of our first apartment together:

Our bedroom:

The guest bedroom:

Come see us anytime! :)

Speaking of coming to see us, my sister Sarah came to see us last week during her spring break from UGA.  She flew in on Friday and stayed until Wednesday.  We had a BLAST.  It was so great to see someone from my family....it was the first time I'd seen my family since the wedding.  We stayed up way too late, laughed way too much, and made some really great memories.  And I was glad that she and Anthony got to really know each other a lot more.  Here are a few pictures from our time together:

I miss you already, Sarah!  Come live in Dallas!!! :)

Climate Change has come to Dallas!

The snow in Dallas is unbelievable!  It started around 3:00 a.m. or so Thursday morning and DID NOT let up at all for about 24 hours!  We got close to a foot of snow, judging by the buildup on parked cars.  Being a girl from the Deep South, I have never seen anything like this in my life, and I am LOVING it!  The pictures don't even do it justice for how beautiful it is.  Everything is bright white, and for once, Oak Cliff looks clean!  Anthony went out with some guys yesterday afternoon and played football in the snow, then when I got off work we bundled up and went into the field/woods across the street from our apartment complex.  It felt like we were in a different part of the country!  Anthony tried to say that now he doesn't have to take me on vacation anywhere, but I'm not letting him get off that easily. :)  It really was like another world though.  It felt like a dream!  Here are some pictures from yesterday...enjoy!

Since we said "I do"...

It's been a busy two and a half months since the wedding.  We arrived back in Dallas on a Sunday night after our honeymoon, worked a few days, then went down to Bay City for Thanksgiving with the Siebens. Thanksgiving means two things to my husband: football and overeating.  I mean REALLY overeating...like it's a competitive sport.  The whole family got together at Uncle Shawn & Aunt Monica's house and we had a great time.  We headed back to Dallas the next day because Anthony had work.

We decided to have our own Christmas by ourselves for our first year.  Although it was hard to be away from my family for the first time on Christmas, it really was special for us.  We bought a real Christmas tree and decorated it at the beginning of December.  Here is our lovely first tree together:

If you look very closely, you can see Anthony's "special tree-topper"...my garter. :)

  

Scott, Kathy, Lea, and Daniel came over the morning of Christmas Eve for brunch and exchanging gifts.  We had a great time!

Later that night Anthony and I watched "It's a Wonderful Life".  It is my favorite movie of all time, and I cry every single time I watch it.  I don't watch it except at Christmas-time though, because somehow it doesn't have quite the same effect.  I'd like to make that movie a family tradition of ours throughout the years.  

It snowed on Christmas Eve, so this was the view outside our window on Christmas morning.  Some of it had melted already, but I'll take a white Christmas any way I can get it!

Christmas morning we slept in and then opened our gifts to each other.  We didn't go all out with gifts because we had just had the wedding and we were incredibly blessed with gifts, gift cards, and money.  There wasn't much that we really needed, so we did smaller gifts for each other.  After that we watched our wedding DVD.  It was so great to watch it because the wedding day itself really did fly by.  It was neat to slow down and take in the things that I might have missed before.  That evening we called and spoke to our families while I made Christmas dinner.  

Here is our delicious and juicy roasted chicken:

And the quintessential sweet potato casserole that pretty much equals Thanksgiving and Christmas in my mind, plus green beans with roasted red peppers and bacon (both my Mom's recipes...thanks Mom!):

Anthony is ready to show this meal who's boss:

Our first Christmas dinner together:

All in all, it was a wonderful Christmas!  Anthony had to work on New Year's Eve, but when he got home around 11:00 p.m., I made pancakes (the recipe off the cover of Southern Living....it's heavenly).  We decided that this would be a New Year's family tradition of ours.  

Anthony and I have both been sick a couple of times in the past month or so.  That's been kind of a bummer, but we've just taken it easy and watched 4 seasons of "House" when one of us is under the weather.  Other than that, I've been working on getting the apartment fully set up & decorated, a project which I am basically done with now.  I'll post pictures in my next post.  It has been really fun making our first place feel like a home.  Some other post-wedding projects have been sending thank-you notes and beginning the process of changing my name, etc.  

Well, that's about it for now.  Hope you enjoyed the update! :)