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.

 

 

Long Time, No Blog

It's been a long time, since I've posted.  I have been busy with work and just living life (or trying). Yesterday, I finally finished a scarf that I had been working on for some time.  I just didn't really dedicate much time to it, and it got left untouched for several months.  I'm glad it is finished, so I can move on to something else.

Work is the same.  Never better, always the same.  I put my foot down and got an extra day off, so I could spend more time in Virginia.  Now we get to stay for two days, instead of one.

I'm really getting screwed this year, since I have to work the weekends after the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.  Just when we had our holiday schedules arranged, they have to go and change things.  Luckily, no airfare has been purchased.  No more taking our holiday time the week before or after.  We have to take it that week, and it can't be on our night scheduled to work.  Well, hell!  Tell me what I should wear and cook for dinner, why don't you!  So I have no idea what it all means, I'm sure it will all be sorted out tomorrow.

Well, I must go and do my 4-mile walk as part of my training for my upcoming half-marathon.

Off For Veterans Day... Yay!

I'm always happy to have a day off! 

I had originally planned for this to be a day of cleaning.  Since I made some progress over the weekend, I decided that I could just have fun today.  That is exactly what I plan on doing.

Jon and I are going to have lunch with a friend.  Having lunch with friends is another favorite activity of mine.

In other news, I have decided to train for a half-marathon.  I have to do some training for it, so I can't do the Baton Rouge Beach Half-Marathon.  Luckily, there is one in New Orleans in February.  It is one from the Rock n' Roll Marathon Series.  I am so excited!  Unfortunately, we are a little late signing up, so we will have to pay more of an entry fee.

Jon is a runner, I am not, so I plan on walking this half-marathon. 

TGIF

I have Saturday and Sunday off!  I will be so glad to not have to be at work.

I think that I will move on to organizing the bathroom this weekend.  It will be nice to have two rooms organized.  I will have the bedrooms, the living area, dining area, and closets left.

We get Veteran's Day off, so I will take advantage of the day off by getting something accomplished.

I am going to see my grandparents in a week.  We are going to drive up on Friday and just visit.  It is so much easier on all of us to do that than try staying over night.

We are meeting with our photographer to talk about the finalization of our wedding album this evening.  We will hopefully also get our wedding images on DVD. 

We are going to Virginia for Thanksgiving.  We just decided to go this a few weeks ago.  I was not allowed Tuesday or Saturday off, so we are going to drive to VA on Wedneday after Jon's class.  We will spend Thanksgiving (Thursday), then drive back on Friday.  Thanks a lot, job!

When Jon gets his Ph.D. and we move, I will be so glad.  Then I can focus more on what is important; family and home life.  I think I was meant to be a full-time homemaker.

We shall see...

First Yoga Class

I went to my first yoga class this morning.  I really enjoyed it and plan to go back.

It is something to do on Tuesday mornings, since I don't feel like working out when I get home on Tuesday nights.

Tuesdays are my night to work, so I don't feel like doing much when I get home.