Christmas Day 2011

This is now my second Christmas married, and I have come to a conclusion about it. It's really profound, so get ready.

Married Christmases are different than single Christmases.

Yep, it's true.

Both lovely in their own way, but adjusting to the change was/is a little challenging.

Last year it took me by surprise. I had no idea how hard it would be to spend Christmas away from my Mom and Dad. I was irrationally emotional and didn't even understand myself what was going on. I totally didn't expect to react that way. But this year I prepared myself a bit better, and best of all, I got to spend Christmas with both sets of my parents :)



It was a wonderfully simple day. We hosted Christmas morning at our house where we had brunch, reflected on why we celebrate Christmas and then opened our gifts.





It was a really special Christmas to me in a couple ways, but the biggest reason was because of the gift we've been given this year that we haven't been able to see yet.

{insert baby's name here}



Oh how I wish I could just say her name! But for some reason, I just don't want to until she's born. However, if you ask me, I'll tell you ;) Most everyone around me knows her by name already!

It seemed as though everyone had put thought into including little miss into this Christmas and it was fun to open a few special presents for her... or for her Daddy ;)





Steve and I each received a very special present this year to remind us of this time in our lives. This is from my Mom and Dad...



and this was from me to Steve {but it was really from the baby ;)}





I had wanted to save this for when the baby was actually born, but decided that Christmas was more than appropriate :)

After Christmas morning wrapped up, we spent the afternoon playing with some new toys and relaxing. Later that evening Steve and his Mom and Dad and I went to my parents house where we had Christmas dinner with them and my brother Dan.

We shared a lot of stories along with favorite Christmas memories and I was really blessed by Steve's Dad's account of his favorite Christmas... the one Steve was born. It really touched me to see and feel how much love we have in our family and I am overflowing with thankfulness that we get to bring this baby into our lives and home where it will be so loved and cherished.

Remembering that Christmas is truly about the Love of Christ is how I reckon myself with the lack of "Christmas Spirit" I felt this year. Somehow, not feeling the "hustle and bustle" so much this year made me realize that the love we have for each other and from God is the best gift we can ever give/receive.

Merry Christmas everyone :)

my mom's a photographer too

I have 3 brothers... all of which have some sort of science degree. I pride myself in the fact that my worst subject in school was chemistry... 2 of the 3 brothers are chemistry majors... um, ya.

So thank goodness for my mom. Because she gets it. She loves photography about as much as I do. My dad too, he's the one who started it all! He taught me how to use his Minolta SLR when I was 14. I'm a good balance of the two of them I think :)

So when I decided I wanted some fall pictures with my new family (hehe :) I asked Mom to help us out! We all worked together, but I couldn't have done this without her. Thanks for these beautiful pics Mom, I am so happy!









and since this is my faaavorite of the bunch it's just gonna have to get up here twice... bw or color, I couldn't decide... I just love it :)

strawberry acres

one would think strawberries would be found at strawberry acres, but not this time of year! At this time of year the whole northeast is picking apples and making scrumptious apple-y baked goodness.

We are no exception.

Steve and I are at his parents' house visiting for the weekend and one of the things we planned was to pick apples and bake a pie.



this is the chop-top school bus that carts people back and forth from the orchard to the main part of the farm. Pretty fantastic huh.











These are my new in-laws! They're really great, I couldn't have asked for better second parents :)





This apple picture is one of my very favorites. I need to print it... yep, definitely print worthy



and this is the yumtastic pie that we made with the apples we picked!

random roadtrips to buy cars

One hot summer morning, last year 2009, I sat at my desk working away when my brother came in and asked if I wanted to go on a road trip to New Hampshire. Ummm, sure...?

Turned out he had been looking for a specific car and finally found one with all the right qualifications but it was in NH and he needed another driver. So away we went! We left about a half hour later and arrived at 9:30pm. The dealer had waited for us to get there and it was raining, but we checked out the car decided it was all he wanted and we closed the deal.

Fast forward to this year, 2010. I get a text from Steve telling me he found the car he wanted to buy. He was almost sure of it. Made a few phone calls to see if my brother in DC would check it out because lo and behold, the car resided in Arlington, VA.

{road trip}

We headed out at 5pm that evening and arrived at Rob and Dyan's house about 11pm. The next morning we were up bright and early to navigate our way through the city and down to Arlington. The car lived up to what we expected and we closed the deal.

Where should we buy a car next summer???

family weekend

Two thursdays ago Steve's mom came into town to finish getting the house ready for closing and also to celebrate Grandma Robinson's 80th birthday!

We had a most excellent dinner of steak, salt potatoes and asparagus... I could live on this meal for quite a while. Soooo tasty. In fact, now that I think about it, I've had steak an awful lot in the last week and a half. This girl's gone back to being a carnivore I guess :P



Here's Mom at dinner, her first one in our house!

The next night was friday, Grandma's official birthday and she wanted to go to Bill Gray's for a fish fry. Two nights of tastiness? Ok, who am I kidding, we eat good food almost every night :) There was about a year that went by for me of eating a lot of pizza and fast food or hardly anything at all, and now that we've settled it's easier to cook.

After the fish fry we went back to Grandma's house and had some delicious carrot cake... {yum}



Saturday Steve and I headed over to the old house to pick up a few things and he wanted to wash his car. *sniff sniff* last car washing there :(



Then Sunday we went to Macaroni Grill! That place is such fantastically amazing food I just can't even express how I feel about this place. This is Grandma and Uncle Dan (her twin brother) just after dinner.



We returned to her house for birthday cake after that



The whole weekend was a little deja vous for me. I was reminded of my Grandma Boss's 80th birthday TWENTY years ago! She would have been 100 this March. And then again, the whole day flashed me back to Grandma Boss's 88th birthday... not sure why, but it did. I also can't get over the fact that I have a grandma again :)



It's a terrific feeling... and I am constantly reminded just how much I miss my first grandparents... but makes me appreciate the ones I have now all the more :)

Stuff I did over Christmas

I had good intentions of writing a detailed post about my travels with Steve over Christmas, but seeing as how it's almost 2 months in the past now I am going to skip over the bulk of it and just share the pictures I had already prepared for a post.

At first glance, all the plans we had made for Christmas break seemed so exciting... But when broken down day by day it quickly became an awful lot. and most definitely taught Steve and I a thing or two about what it will be like to live together all the time once we're married.

We spent actual Christmas day at my parents' house with my younger brother and one of my older brothers and his family. The day after Christmas we drove to PA to help Steve's parent finish moving from here to there. His dad got laid off of his 20+ year job here in Rochester just this past august but quickly got a new one in PA. So he moved pretty much right away and had been living by himself until about the end of November when Steve's mom finally was able to move down there with him. So, currently they are still trying to sell their house that's here, but are planning to move into a new town house that's being built in a few weeks.



Anyways, we stayed there overnight and then headed down to MD and stayed a few nights with my Aunt Sally and Uncle Ron. While we were there we spent a day at the Naval Academy where my uncle gave us a nice tour. I had been there many times before as my brother attended there when I was much younger but it was Steve's first time going.





This is the Navy Cathedral, so beautiful. I could only imagine how amazing a wedding would be in here.





Steve took this, I love the reflection of light on the wall.



When I was a little girl, we would come often to visit my brother at the Acedemy, and this is one of the things I remember most clearly. Tecumseh. I have a picture of when I was little next to him, so I wanted one when I was all grown up ;)

The next day we went to DC where we pretty much froze our butts off. We didn't stay long because it was just ridiculous.



I tried to stay warm, but it just wasn't working!

At that point we moved to my brother's house and stayed for a few days through New Years and then drove to NYC to spend the day with Steve's grandma, mom and dad and sister. We did as much sightseeing in the city as we really could but it was so unbearably cold that we didn't do nearly as much as we would have liked.



Elmo and Cookie look innocent enough, but I assure you, they are dirty little men in those outfits. But I wanted a picture with them so I endured ha!

So that was my Christmas vacation... oh so late, but this blog is as much for my own journaling purposes than for anything else and I'd hate to not remember things just because the timing was off. I so enjoy going back in my blog and re-reading things from the past. Especially blogs from the same month it is right now. It is often very encouraging to see that I'm either going through the same feelings or possibly doing better than I was then, which is always nice to find out :)

family reunion part 3

Today is the day.

What, I don't sound excited?

Let me try again...

TODAY IS THE DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

as soon as church is over today, we will be on the road on our way to Wilmington for almost a week of freakhogstupendousnessfesting! That word is what the name of this vacation has come to be known by in case you were wondering...

Anyways, it turns out I will have my computer with me... although I'm not sure how much I'll be on it. It would be nice to get some live updates and pictures, but honestly, it's time consuming! Especially on my laptop... my workflow isn't nearly as nice as I have it set up in my office.

Looking back a couple days, our last day with my brother Jay's family was spent at Stonybrook. When we arrived at the park, the water temperature was posted at 58 degrees. I don't really care how hot it is outside, 58 degree water is not my idea of a good time. So when we all decided to hike up the gorge, I was more than happy to leave behind the frigid water and begin!



Somehow, the water wasn't as cold upstream... or maybe it's just that sitting under a waterfall is way cooler than dunking yourself in an arctic pool. I can do that in my own backyard thankyouverymuch.

Thanks to my brother Jay, and my niece Raelynn for all the pictures in this post. I took a bunch as well, but I always like when I'm actually in the pictures :D

In the falls picture from left to right is my niece Natalie, me, my brother Dan.



This kinda stuff is soooo worth getting wet in super cold water and almost killing yourself on slippery rocks... after this adventure, and realizing just how much I enjoyed it and would like to do more hiking like this, I invested in a pair of super fantabulous water shoes obtained by my brother as he works at EMS and got them on clearance for me!



It became even clearer to me that my family is bent toward photography with each shot I went through. Like I said earlier, Jay took the first and last in the post, Raelynn took the middle shot.

There were a lot of shots like this last one from Jay, and it just goes to show ya that the eye is more important than anything! Everything else can be learned... at least that's what I think ;)

Although the family reunion is coming to a close, we will always have the memories made and shared this last week. I'm excited to get on the road this afternoon and begin making new ones!