Honeymoon Reminiscing

This time last year, we were soaking up every last blissful moment of our wonderful honeymoon in the Dominican Republic. We wish we could go back. And we will someday :) For now, we'll just have to reminisce with this sweet video Andrew made of our honeymoon last year. Love him.

1 Year

Yesterday, Andrew and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary. I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact that an entire year has already gone by. I think I must have turned to Andrew about 50 times yesterday and said "Can you believe it's been a year!?"

I will never understand how time flies by so fast, but all I know is, despite the speed, an abundance of amazing memories are made along the way. I love reflecting back on our past year of marriage and thinking about everything we've done, every where we've visited, every new friend we've made, and every new memory we've created. I love reflecting on how marriage has allowed us to grow in so many ways, and has taught us so much about each other.

I am so thankful to be married to such a wonderful man. And I am so blessed to be able to share this journey of marriage with my best friend, and the ONLY person I know of that could ever put up with me 24/7 for a lifetime.

We started our special day with homemade cinnamon rolls by your truly. I've been on this baking kick lately, so any reason or occasion to bake, I will! Plus, they're Andrew's favs, so what better way to show him I love him :)

We got tickets to go see the Lion King since they were in town on our Anniversary. Ever since I saw Wicked in Chicago, I've been dying to see more shows...and with Andrew. So we finally got to see one together, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of this part of the night since of course you can't take pictures at the show. sad. But we did grab a couple of shots at Andrew's parents house when we dropped Kenzie off! They were kind enough to watch her while we were at the show so she didn't have to be home alone. Such sweet in-laws.

The show was at 6pm, so we planned to just eat a late dinner at Bonefish Grill. I have been dying to eat here (since neither Andrew or I have ever been...crazy, I know), so luckily the Virginia Beach Restaurant didn't close until 10....at least that's what it said online. We pull into the parking lot a little after 9, only to find they had closed...at 9. BOO! So there went our anniversary dinner. sad again. I'm not gonna lie...I was a little bummed out. I had this perfect evening planned out in my head of getting all gussied up, going to a sweet show and then finishing off the night with a nice dinner. Clearly my "planned-in-my-head" perfect evening just took a detour. We decided to just head home and tried to figure out what to do now. We were both starving and everything was pretty much closed.

Then I remembered something. The night of our wedding after we left the reception to go to our hotel, it hit us that we were starving! We had been warned about this before our wedding about bride and grooms being hungry after the wedding since they are so pre-occupied to really even eat. I told myself there was NO way this would happen to me because I was stoked about the food and couldn't wait to eat to my heart's content on the most special night of my life! Let's be honest though...I should have known the first day of my dress fitting that there was no way any food was filling up my stomach with my corset of a dress. I tried to eat at the reception...I really did. But everyone was right...there was just so much excitement, and due to the dress restrictions, I clearly did not eat to my heart's content. So, there we were, hungry after our reception. So what did we do? Why, we picked up a large half cheese, half pepperoni pizza and a side of wings from Chanello's! Chowed down on our king size bed in our hotel suite and finally ate to our heart's content.

So on the Anniversary celebrating the day we got married, we decided why not re-live the same meal we had on our wedding night? Plus, we're not cake people, so didn't save cake from our wedding to eat on our anniversary....pizza is such a better idea.

So yes, Chanello's it was! Large half cheese, half pepperoni with a side of wings.

And it may not be a king size bed, but we had to follow the same eating spot.

So it may not have been the evening I had planned in my head, but it's definitely one we will remember and laugh about. Actually, Andrew enjoyed it so much, he thinks this should just be our annual Anniversary tradition to have Chanello's pizza and wings in bed...We'll see ;) . But last night really did humble me, and made me feel silly for getting so caught up in the "events" of the evening. It reminded me that's it's not about what we do, or where we go, but it's about celebrating the covenant that we made a year ago in front of family, friends, and most importantly God. It's about taking time to cherish and celebrate that special day that we united as one, united families, and started this amazing journey of marriage. I am so grateful for a loving husband to share life with. And I can't wait to celebrate many more anniversaries in years to come...even if we just celebrate with pizza in bed :)

(p.s. For all you Bonefish Grill lovers...no worries, we did reschedule for another night this week. We are still dying to try it. ha.)

Fun Fact.

Brittany's brother, Nick, is a rapper. And he's good. Real Good.

Here is their new video:





Enjoy.

-Andrew

'Tis The Season!

I love Christmas time! Love, love, love it. Believe it or not, when we got married, one of the things I was looking forward to the most was getting a real tree and decorating it for our first Christmas as husband and wife! Yes, I really did get excited about this right after we got married, which was just a week AFTER Christmas.

Anyways, it's finally that time of year again! We went down to Charleston, SC to spend the weekend after Thanksgiving with Andrew's family, so you can bet getting our tree was the first thing we did when we got back on Sunday night. I mean, I've only waited ALL year for this!

I'd say Andrew was pretty excited about our tree also

Stringing the lights...and look at precious Kenzie passed out. bahaha.

Almost there...

... The finished tree!

Of course, I had to bake some sugar cookies to compliment the fresh pine smell we now had in our apartment....Sugar cookies and Pine...the 2 ultimate Christmas scents. And don't mind the orange sprinkles. They were left over from halloween and the only sprinkles I had. Oh well.

Just felt like throwing in this sweet, adorable picture of our little girl. Isn't she just the cutest!?

Next was setting up this sweet Nativity that my mother-in-law lent us. This is the Nativity that she put up every year when Andrew and his brother were growing up. She also mentioned how they loved to hide baby Jesus...

Well I guess some things never change. Notice what's missing? Yes...baby Jesus. Andrew decided to be a little kid again, and hide baby Jesus...again.

The first weekend in December, The City Center in Newport News always has their annual Hollydazzle. I went last year with my family for the first time, and it was by far the best fireworks show I have ever seen. Thankfully, Andrew was with me this year (he worked that night last year...when he worked at good ol' Captn. G's! ha) and was able to see for himself how amazing the fireworks were.

Two days later was Grand Illumination in Colonial Williamsburg, where we got to watch yet another amazing fireworks show. On the way in, we stumbled upon the same little house/area that our amazing wedding photographers, Grant and Deb, shot our engagement pictures! So of course, we had to snap a quick one.

Andrew's parents joined us, along with my parents! It was so great being there with both of our families.

And one more super cute picture of our sweet girl...just because. Melts your heart, doesn't she?

Hope everyone is enjoying this oh-so wonderful time of the year!

A lot can happen in a year...

I know people always say "a lot can happen in a year", but the term "a lot" is always very subjective. As we are approaching our 1 year (CRAZY!) I'm thinking back to everything that has happened this past year, and I CAN NOT believe it. "A lot" would be an understatement. Let me give you a little recap.

From one year ago today, this is all that has happened:

-I was back at school finishing up my last couple of weeks as a college student, and preparing for graduation.

-Andrew and I were finishing (in a frantic/scrambling kind of way) planning the wedding.

-I had already accepted the job with Kohl's in Milwaukee, and we were preparing to uproot our lives and head to the midwest.

-We got married, went on an amazing honeymoon, and made the big move to Milwaukee 24 hours after getting back from our honeymoon.

-We settled into our new Wisconsin home, and I started my job 4 days later.

- We got acclimated to Milwaukee, met some great new people, made an addition to our family (our sweet Kenzie), and also became workaholics.

- 10 months after being in Milwaukee, Andrew gets his new job offer, and we decide/find out we are moving home

- We pack our lives up YET again, and make the 17 hr trek back to the good ol' VA, and just in time for Thanksgiving.

-We gain a 3rd residence in 1 year, and no prepare for Christmas and our 1 year anniversary! (Eek!)

-Instead of being workaholics now, Andrew is in a job he enjoys, and I am living the life of a stay-at-home wife (aka, unemployed) until I figure out what I should be doing now.

WHOA. I think we should get some award for going through the most change in a year.

But in all, it has been a great year, despite all the change. Andrew and I definitely had some challenges with everything above, but we have also grown so much through it all. We are so thankful for all of our amazing family and friends that have helped us, and supported us through everything, for without them, I don't know if we would have kept our sanity through it all. We have also had to learn to be much more faithful and trusting in Him, as many of these changes caused us to have to make big decisions, and we did not want these decisions to be ours. Because we knew they weren't ours to be made. We knew He had a plan, and we wanted to make sure we were hearing and following what His plan was. And we are so thankful for His love, and for keeping his hand over us throughout all of it. He is so great! :)

Also, here is a quick recap in picture form of this past year. Enjoy!

Wedding Day!

Honeymoon in Punta Cana, DR

Last night in Virginia. With our new snow shovel which is usually necessary for WI weather. But thankfully we never had to use it. ha!

Our first weekend in Milwaukee.

The day we got our precious girl, Kenzie

My sweet co-workers/Milwaukee friends. Miss them!

After crossing the VA state line on our way home. We've missed these mountains and weather!

Thanksgiving with family

Next post, you'll get to see a little more of thanksgiving and our tree! :)

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