Christmas 2006

Christmas this year was defiantly simpler and more relaxed than in previous years. The holidays always seem different when we aren’t running back and forth between houses. Matt and I made a ham dinner and invited our friends the Beavers over to help us eat all the food. After dinner we frosted some sugar cookies that Amber had made. This activity proved to be quite entertaining due to the ‘men’ deciding it was a serious competition; to see who could be more creative when frosting a sugar cookie. Jacob also got pretty into and there was green frosting and sprinkles EVERYWHERE!! It defiantly was a funny sight to see.

The next morning, Christmas Day, Matt was nice enough to let me sleep in until 5:01, this might not sound like sleeping in to the normal person but believe me it is much later than when he wanted wake up. The rest of the day we just lounged around until we went over to Josh & Amber’s for some dessert that night.

Merry Christmas

This year defiantly was not as exciting as last year, no hurricanes, no freaky bugs and we didn't live in three different states in one year. This year was pretty relaxed compared to last, which was a nice change. At the beginning of 2006 Matt and I (well I guess more me than Matt) purchased our first dog, Roxie. I picked her up from a local shelter when Matt went back to Biloxi for some training that he was unable to finish due to the hurricane. I honestly did not expect to get a dog as soon as he walked out the door but that's basically what happened. He was about three hundred miles away when I called him and asked if he cared if I bought a dog. He said no at the time but I think it was just to hold it over my head that I purchased the last dog and he had free rein with the next. :) Roxie has been a lot of fun but at first she was quite the handful, both Matt and I are extremely pleased with and love that she is now part of our family. We can't wait until you all can meet her because she is quite the character.
As most of you know we moved into a house this year, it just wouldn't be right if we went a whole year without switching something up. :) Matt and I are both very happy with where we live. I love having a larger kitchen and it's really nice to have a backyard for Roxie to play in. Well that's our year in a nutshell we hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and have a happy new year. We miss and love all of you!

Roxie and Matt
Here's some pics of Matt playing with Roxie, she's got quite a jump on her as you can see in the first picture. Matt and I agree that if we had time to train her more in depth she would win first prize in an agility dog show. :) We are so proud.

Thanksgiving 2006
This year we held Thanksgiving at our house and invited some friends over. We had a full house of twelve. Our friend, Lisa, she's the blonde in the picture above, is a great cook and did a great job making all the hard stuff, turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, and much more. I was only in charge of the rolls, jell-o, and pies. Matt had the task of the mashed potatoes and gravy. It turned out to be quite the feast and we had soooo many leftovers. We missed all of you and hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Decorated Pad

As promised here are some pictures on our new home with our furniture in it. There is a picture of our recently purchased table that expands and seats six! We decided we best get a bigger table than a current one since we were hosting Thanksgiving this year. We love almost everything about this house, my main complaint is the small bathroom and Matt's would be that it's not our house. He's so funny, it seems everyday he has a project in mind and I have to reel him back to reality and explain that it's not our house. All in all we are much happier and not as cramped here like we were in our apartment. All of our neighbors are very sweet and it is a very safe neighborhood. Love you and miss you all.

Leaves, Leaves and More Leaves!!!

This year we had the great opportunity to experience first hand how many leaves all the trees in Virginia actually produce. Last year we were living in an apartment and did not have to rake up any leaves during the fall season but we weren't so lucky this year. We were bombarded by leaves and unfortunately we still are raking leaves even in December! Above are some pictures of what believe it not is our front and back yard. The saddest part about these pictures is that just the day before I spent the entire day raking and then a storm came in did this to the yard. If you look in the first picture you will see a bags of leaves that is just to prove how much raking I did the day before!

Happy Halloween!!

This year we went over to our friends Josh and Amber's house to carve pumpkins. The picture above is of Roxie and her best friend, Gracie; they were getting into some mischief as usual. The little boy above and to the right is Josh and Amber's boy, Jacob. He liked carving pumpkins up to the point where he had to stick his hand in it and grab the seeds, after that he was done. :)







This is a picture of all of our pumpkins as you can tell Josh and Amber are a bit more elaborate on the pumpkin carving than we were with our pumpkins. This year instead of candles we put different colored glowsticks in them. We were pretty excited because we got a lot more trick or treaters this year than last year. We hope you all had a great Halloween.

Our New Home













Our lease was up at our apartment this month and Matt and I decided that it was time for a house. We (well mostly me) decided that it wasn't time to buy so we found a cute house to rent.
It has three bedrooms and one bath with a huge kitchen. Well, it's huge when comparing it to our current kitchen, which is a kitchen and a laundry room all in one. My favorite part is the dining room, I've been trying to convince Matt that we need to buy a new table, but he's not sold on that idea quite yet. Matt, of course, loves that there is a shed with power in the backyard, he already has made a list of the tools he can't live without. The backyard is really cute and Roxie is enjoying it more and more everytime she's back there.

Our 2nd Anniversary!
This year we decided to get all dressed up and go to a fancy restaurant for our anniversary, seeing that last year we were driving to Virginia and had Wendy's for dinner. :) We decided to go to Ruth's Chris' Steakhouse down in Virginia Beach, it was a lot of fun. We went there on our honeymoon in San Diego but we didn't know it was so fancy and showed up in t-shirts and shorts, so this time we wanted to do it right. We had a great time and ate a lot of exceptional food.

Our Trip to Washington D.C.
While Matt's parents were visiting in June we all made a trip to our nation's capital, it was quite an emotional experience; to be able to see all the sites that we learned about in school. The picture above and to the left is the Ford's Theatre where President Lincoln was shot and the building where he died is above, as you can see it looks the same as it did then. The following are some pictures of the city and of the different monuments. My favorite monuments were the Lincoln Memorial,World War II Memorial and the Vietnam Memorial.



The picture to the left is the WWII Memorial, this memorial was just recently added and is breathtaking. Something I really enjoyed about the monuments was the layout, they are all very close to eachother. You can see the Lincoln Memorial in the picture above in the distance and also the reflecting pool.
This picture is of the Vietnam memorial it doesn't really show it very well but it's a very somber place. It is a sleek black wall, that starts low to the ground and rises with the hill, each space on the wall is filled with a name of a fallen hero. The Lincoln Memorial was a lot larger than I expected, and the architecture was beautiful but I think the easiest thing to do is go see it all yourself! We had a lot of fun on this trip and are hoping to go up there again soon! Hopefully our friends Nancy and Shane will be meeting us there in October. There is so much to see and do and I think everyone should go at least once. :)

Foamhedge

On our way back from Natural Bridge we stumbled across this life sized replica of the actual Stonehedge and had to stop and check it out. The entire thing is made out of styrofoam, hence the name Foamhedge. Not only was this fun to see but the scenery around the site was gorgeous.