Merry Christmas!

We had a white Christmas in Roanoke this year! We got quite a bit of snow the weekend before Christmas. Then we headed to Tennessee on Christmas Eve to be with my family. We ended up having a wonderful and quiet day.

Roanoke Valley
Bryce getting excited about his gifts!

He was of course trying to open them immediately.

We had a nice Christmas lunch together. We missed my sister and the rest of the family as well as John's family....

...But we ate plenty for them.... lol.

Bryce and John played all day with all the toys. They put together K-nex cars to race each other!

They had a so much fun just relaxing at the house.

All in all God blessed us with a Merry & safe Christmas.

More Christmas fun as promised!

I am sure that this video is going to be terrible quality. I really don't know how to do it any better.

This is from our visit on Christmas Day to my 'Nannie' Naillon's house (my grandma). AKA Shorty. This is during the madness of opening gifts. There is a sea of little kids and moms (cousins and aunts) opening gifts. My brother is collecting trash with a big black trash bag. John is doing the filming, and I am sitting to his left. Like I said the quality isn't there, but just listening and seeing the people is entertaining!

Goodbye to 2008!!!

It has been a long year! I would definitely say that John and I have been blessed this year. Even through the rough economical times, we were fortunate enough to keep our jobs, each other and stay on top of our economic status. God really blessed us.

Best memory of 2008: getting to spend time at the lake with our friend Andy and having our friends Jeff & Rachel realize how awesome Roanoke is, and get them to move here.

Least favorite memory in 2008: I would say we are fortunate not to have any major concerns. We were very fortunate. I guess if I have to choose something, it would be when John and Andy discovered that it was a relay switch that had prevented my AC from not working the past 3-years! Not the compressor. At least I have a car though!

Best dinner out in 2008: John and I went to Williamsburg, VA to go to Busch Gardens, with our friends Andy and Penny. It was a fun trip. We ate at this nice restaurant next to our hotel. I had Prime Rib for the first time ever! It was amazing. I hope to go there again next time we visit there.

Best date with John in 2008: Honestly, I would rather mention that carpooling with him is best date ever. We get to see each other without much distraction for that little bit of time. I really do cherish it.

2008 was full of weddings as well!

We attended Trista and Allan's wedding in Charleston. It was a fun short little trip. We were unable to stay the night before the wedding due to the Hurricane that was off shore the day/night before. The wedding was absolutely beautiful though, and they couldn't have asked for better weather on their special day!

We also got to be a part of our best friends wedding, Jeff and Rachel. They got married in October. It was one of the best ceremonies I have ever heard. It was fit for them so well. They were blessed to have family from all over come in to visit. John and I will never forget getting to be a part of their magical day.

I am very excited about 2009 and what it holds for John and I as we are in our second year of marriage. I hope it is as blessed as the last and full of laughter and love. We wish the best for all of our family and friends!

I wanted to post a few more pictures of Christmas celebrations from our trip home to see family. It was lots of fun. We got to hang out with friends that we haven't got to see in a while and with my family. I enjoyed getting to spend time with my mom, dad, brother, nephew, niece and my sister. John even took my dad shooting at the range. My dad had never done that and John was happy to have a buddy to do that with.

This is my nephew Bryce, niece Jaden, me and John. We were eating Christmas Eve dinner at my moms.

This is John and me with my niece Jaden. She doesn't really prefer me, but she didn't mind sitting on my lap as long as I was willing to share my food!

This is my niece Jaden with my one of my many second cousins on my moms side of the family. He is adorable he was opening gifts on the floor in front of me, and kept trying to show me everything. There were so many kids. I will post a video if we can figure out how to load it from John's phone. John sent it to his brother who was with his whole family of about 9 people, in Florida. I think they thought we were kidding.

Here I am this past Monday night back at home making chicken noodle soup in my giant new stockpot that my mom and dad got me for Christmas! It was so nice to have a decent large size pot that I wouldn't loose half the noodles to the bottom. (something a lot of cookers understand)

This is the chicken soup I was making for my sick John, in my new pot. (he has strep. lovely.)

I just wanted to brag about what I did. I really wanted to put together a little basket for our friends Pip and Miranda. She is so creative so I had think of something cute and fun. I got a little help from Bed, Bath, and Beyond with their bucket with popcorn and candy. I added to it though. I just had to show the fun little date/movie night bucket! (contains popcorn, candies, pop, and popcorn seasoning)

Everyone stay safe tonight if you are out celebrating New Years Eve! I will be home enjoying shrimp, bacon wrapped water chestnuts, and buffalo wings!

Christmas Weekend!

Jeff, Rachel, John and I will all be heading back to Tennessee to see our families and won't be seeing much of each other this week for the holiday. So we decided to open our gifts to each other on Saturday. We started with a little Christmas dinner of our own. We had a spiral ham that the guys each received from the fire department where they volunteer. We were blessed with an amazing dinner. It was all delicious.

I want to start by saying we all spoiled each other with some amazing gifts, and don't normally splurge this much at all. Big gift for Jeff was a new Wii! John and I chipped in so that Rachel would be able to get it for him. We were all very excited to let the cat out of the bag. It was exhausting keeping such a big secret. Especially for John, who had to hear Jeff talk about wanting one all the time. Rachel also got some awesome gifts from Jeff. She finally got the bedding she had been drooling over. It looks amazing on their bed. John and I got her a few things that she had also had her eye on. A photo serving tray, photo coasters and these fancy gloves from etsy:

John and I got each other a few small things and each picked out one big thing that we will be getting ourselves in January. I got John a few necessities: couple pair of bluejeans, Polo's, a robe, socks, and for fun I got him an 8 gig jump drive. He got me these giant frames that I love from Walmart, a small crock pot, that amazing cookbook that I fell in Love with and blogged about (see post below), a couple shirts, these awesome canvas prints and wall words that I loved, and a pair of these for me:

Jeff and Rachel also got John the knife sharpening kit that John has wanted forever. They also got us the shelf for our office, and a new blender! I am super excited about what was hidden in my stocking. Rachel got me a meat mallet and potato masher! I was so excited about these. I can't wait to use them.

Here's some more pictures from the fun night.

God blessed us this year in so many ways. I hope that everyone is enjoying spending time with friends and family and eating lots of good food this joyous Christmas and holiday season! May God bless you and the ones you love in the year to come!