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! :)

Wedding & Honeymoon

It's been two and a half months since our wedding, and I have to say that I'm still processing it.  I had prepared myself beforehand for mishaps and near-catastrophes, and I had decided that I wouldn't let them steal my joy that day.  What I wasn't anticipating was that the day would be absolutely perfect.  As I look back on it, I really wouldn't have changed anything.  The day was more than I had even dreamed of, and I felt like the most blessed, loved person in the world.  I am so glad we have pictures and video though, because it is totally true what they say about it being a blur.  I think I blinked twice and the ceremony was over.  But it was perfect.


I'm putting a few of my favorite pictures below, but if you'd like to access our online gallery & printroom, here is the link: http://redfly.printroom.com/ViewGallery.asp?userid=redfly&gallery_id=1879170.  From there you can view all of our pictures and place your order.

Our honeymoon was amazing.  We spent our first night in Tallahassee, then drove down to Watersound the following day (and bumped into the Siebens at a gas station off I-10!).  We rented a house in the resort for 6 nights.  This is the house we stayed in:

We had a blast enjoying the beautiful beach and neighborhood.  Although it was November, the weather was perfect (mid 70's everyday, no rain) and we spent a lot of time riding bikes, playing putt-putt, getting a couples' massage, shopping, relaxing, and eating out.  Without the summer crowd, we basically had everything at our fingertips.  There were no lines at the restaurants, hardly any traffic, and it was so quiet.  It was really wonderful.  Here are a few more pictures from our honeymoon:

On our way out of town, we met up for breakfast with Mom & Dad.  We ate at Another Broken Egg Cafe, which is where we all ate the morning after our engagement back in May.  Mom & Dad drove down a U-Haul full of furniture for us, so we switched cars.  It was so great to have that time with them to just catch up and talk about the wedding, etc.  We also celebrated Mom's 50th birthday a little early since Anthony & I would miss her actual birthday.  Here is a picture from that morning:

All in all, our wedding & honeymoon were just so wonderful.  I couldn't have asked for anything more and I'm so grateful.  

I hope you enjoyed this post!  My next one will recap the holidays and what we've been up to since the wedding.  Love you all!

Gettin' on the Blog Train

OK, so I know that blogs have been around for awhile and aren't necessarily "the wave of the future", but I've never had one before other than when I had to do one for a class in college. I love reading other people's blogs, but I've just never wanted to share that much about myself online. My thoughts toward blogging have changed in the past three months though. Even though I've lived in Dallas for six years now (I cannot BELIEVE it's been that long), because I was single I always felt like it was a somewhat temporary thing---that hypothetically at any moment I could pick up and move back closer to my family if I was so inclined. But now that I'm married, I've come to the realization that my life is here now. Anthony and I see ourselves in Dallas for the next few years, so this blog is my way of sharing our life with my family back home. I hope to be fairly diligent in posting updates about what is going on with us, as well as pictures of our life in the Big D. Enjoy!