Merry Christmas!

Jon and I had a great first Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as a married couple.  We spent it here in Baton Rouge.  Just us and the cats.

Jon had to play for his church service yesterday, so we celebrated our first Christmas together in Baton Rouge.

I have been planning the perfect meal for sometime.  I planned on having it for Christmas, but we were invited to my Uncle Ben and Aunt Marsha's in Gonzales for Christmas Day.  Since we accepted the invitation, I decided to make my dinner on Christmas Eve.

I cooked a turkey breast, oyster dressing, spinach Madeline, and mashed potatoes.  We had tea and lemon meringue pie for dessert.

When I got off from work Wednesday night, I cleaned the Christmas china and got the kitchen cleaned and organized.  I wanted everything to be ready in the morning, so things would move smoothly.

I can appreciate the effort that it takes to make a nice Christmas dinner.  It takes a lot of work.  It was my first time doing the cooking, but everything came out perfectly!

We got up this morning and opened up our Christmas gifts.  I am not going to list each gift that Jon have to me.  I got a set of bamboo knitting needles and a knitting book.  I also got a bracelet, a knit hat with cat ears on it, and a Janis Joplin bio.  I got Jon some books, a hoodie, Stephen King's Under the Dome on audio, among other things.

Then I made waffles for breakfast.  They were great! 

Jon and I had a wonderful first Christmas as a married couple.  Full of fun memories!

We look forward to our trip to Virginia for our Christmas visit with Jon's family.  We will be there for the new year.  We leave next week on Wednesday.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Our First Christmas Tree

Last night, Jon and I put up our first Christmas tree!  It was so much fun!  We got a nice big one this year.  The cats have not started to climb the tree, so I am happy.

We decided to put our wedding gifts under the tree, so we can keep them all in one place.  This will allow us organize the other areas, such as closets to make room to store what we are not going to use for a while.  I do not want to unpack all that stuff, since we are not staying in the apartment forever.

Our tree does not have a particular theme.  It is a tree of our memories together.  Most of our ornaments have some special meaning or stories behind them.  I had some of our leftover wedding favors and hung some of those in our tree.

Our First Christmas ornament

Wedding favor

 Wedding Favor

 Bought on our honeymoon!

2009 was a great year!

So that's a few pictures from our first tree.  I will also get to cook our first Christmas dinner, since Jon is playing for church on Christmas eve.  Stay tuned...

First 6-Months of Marriage

Jon and I have been married 6 months, as of yesterday.  Half a year!  Time flies when you are having fun!

 

Our first Thanksgiving was nice.  We were surrounded by our Virginia family.  Jon's siblings have been so great about treating me like part of the family.  They are so much fun!

 

It was a great time.  We will be going back for the New Year's holiday.

 

I could go on about all of the things for which we are thankful, how we are blessed, etc., but I'll spare the reader.  We do have a wonderful life together, but we live in the real world and it isn't always that simple.  I wish more people could acknowledge this fact.  Instead, we get the storybook version.  It gets quite old.

 

We plan on spending our first Christmas here in Baton Rouge, since Jon has to play for the church service on Christmas Eve.

 

I guess I need to start planning my Christmas dinner.  This should be fun.  I really do look forward to it!

 

We will go to Opelousas the weekend before Christmas to visit my family.

 

While in Virginia, I found a Christmas tree.  Artificial trees are very hard to find at good prices.  They can be very pricey.  I try to be environmentally conscious.  I thought that an artificial tree would be a good choice.  After reading up on this, I have learned the opposite.  Well, I do not plan on getting rid of this tree for sometime.

 

I went to a new dentist today, and he is great!  His whole staff is friendly and patient.  I was very pleased.

 

November 20th marked 4 years of being a couple.  Now that we are married, our wedding anniversary will be bigger deal.  It's just nice to remember.