Our First Christmas!

I can't believe our first Christmas has come and gone! The Christmas season snuck up on us this year, and it is my first that I haven't had a month off since I'm not in college/grad school. My two weeks of freedom from speech are quickly fleeing!
We tried to begin our own traditions this year and it was fun figuring out what we wanted to do together. We chose a tree together at the beginning of December and decorated it together with lights and the few ornaments we own. We (or Josh rather) strung lights on our bushes in the front yard, hung up our wreath, and put a few Christmas decorations throughout our house. Decorating is an expensive business and the seasonal decorations are a work in process! We watched Home Alone, baked cookes together, went and looked at Christmas lights, and wrapped presents all on different nights leading up to Christmas. As the years go by, we hope to add more traditions.
We spent Christmas Eve with Josh's parents and enjoyed appetizers and opening up presents! Josh's favorite gift from them was a golf putter and mine was a digital camera printer. Now I just have to figure out how to work it! On Christmas morning we opened up the presents we bought for each other in our home and then headed to Columbia for lunch at my aunt's house. It was a little overwhelming this year--there were probably 20 people there and hardly room to eat! Then we headed to my dad's house to do Christmas with him and Kim and then headed back home to do Christmas with my mom and Banks! It was two full days of family, food, and gifts! Being married and having a set of divorced parents makes Christmas busy with a lot of driving, but we had fun anyway! Christmas night, we continued a family tradition and went to the movies to see "P.S. I love you." None of us were too thrilled with it--it definitely had portions that drug.
I am spending a few days in Lexington with my mom since Josh is working the rest of the week. He's in Savannah (actually a town called Thunderbolt near Savannah) and driving back home today. Mom is going to take me back to Greenville tomorrow. We're going to spend today in Charlotte shopping--our favorite place to go :)
Gracie's been a good sport through all the traveling and people/kids wanting to hold her and pull her tail and drive her nuts! She is finally becoming potty trained and being a "good girl." She got a new toy and a Greenie for Christmas :) Josh is picking her up on the way home from Savannah today to take her back to Greenville. Maggie (my dog from Lexington) does not like it when a new dog has invaded her territory and is not liking having a puppy pawing and barking at her!
I'll post some new pictures later. Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

Clemson football

Wake Forest game
in the back of the Tahoe with matthew staying warm
Josh's face after our car got hit..and we lost the game!

a beautiful sound--tiger rag!

Here are some pictures from some Clemson games. As much as I love football (especially Clemson), I am glad that the season is coming to an end. It consumed nearly every weekend throughout the fall and it is nice to have some time to do other things besides pack up the car and head to Clemson each Saturday.
We went to all of the home football games, minus one for a wedding--and then to Atlanta for the Clemson/Georgia Tech game.
Our season tickets are on the guest side in the upper deck. They actually are great seats--you can see the game really well and how the plays develop on the field, but the heat is intense! The only game where we were somewhat comfortable was the BC game--but instead of heat, it was cold! I am hoping that we'll get to move to the home side next year so the sun will be at our backs instead of our faces.
We didn't end the year in Death Valley on a great note--we lost to BC in a heartbreaker and then disappointed and walking back to our car, we heard a crunch--and saw a white truck clip off the front end of the Tahoe. Needless to say, it wasn't a fun night. It's in the shop right now though getting fixed--so hopefully we'll have it back by tomorrow! In the meantime, I'm driving a rental car and I actually got a nice one! It's made by GMC and it's their new SUV--called an Acadia. It's been kind of fun to drive a new car for a little while!
Well, hope your week is starting off well. I am counting down the days until Winter Break! Seven more!!! :)

Cabo San Lucas

Here are some pictures from our honeymoon! It really was a little like paradise and we had a great time!

us in the air on the way there!

after dinner on the beach one night!
This is from our ATV adventure! This picture always makes us laugh at how rediculous we look!

This is a portion of the diasaster we created the night we got back home in Greenville.

Our New Puppy

looking at the camera :)

Meet Gracie Belle! (Gracie for short!)

This is our new pup-a-lup! We have had her two weeks now and boy, is she a handful! We bought her from a sheltie breeder in Ware Place, SC--she is our little redneck dog! :) She is so wild and full of energy and definitely keeps us laughing. She is an "indoor dog"--which has been interesting, because Josh didn't grow up with an indoor pet. He now calls our carpet the "toilet bowl." She is doing better though with her potty training...we are working on it! slowly, but surely! We're also working on having her sleep through the night--she likes to get up to go outside around 3 in the morning and she doesn't let us ever sleep in! On the bright side, we're always on time for work!
Gracie does the funniest things. She is into chasing her tail and running around the den. She went to the vet today to get her nine week shots and got the stamp of approval of being healthy! She didn't like getting her toenails clipped or take her medicine though and pitched a puppy tantrum! When she came back from getting that done, she looked at me with this pitiful face as if she just when through the most traumatic experience of her life. We will have to work on that :) Anyway--just wanted to show off our new baby! Happy WEEKEND!!!!! Yay! We're having date night at PF Changs and then do some Christmas shopping...it's the most wonderful time of the year :)

Our New Life

a couple of minutes after tying the knot!
My beautiful bridesmaids
The awesome sign Kelli helped make (or actually just made) for us!

Yes, dear friends--you are right in seeing that we now have a blog! Being in Greenville and away from the majority of our friends and family, I thought this would be a good idea to keep in touch with everyone.
We have now officially been married four months! It's incredible that it has already been 1/3 of a year! It has flown by and it's been so much fun! We are loving married life and all that comes with it. It suits us both really well. Our life seems just as busy as it was before marriage though--I am ready for us to slow down a little bit! We have been consumed with Clemson football (of course), getting our home decorated, a couple weddings, and driving to Columbia to visit my family.
I will post some pictures of the last four months as soon as I can. Thank you to everyone who came to the wedding--you are who helped make it so special and meaningful! We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends who were there to celebrate with us. We were so happy with how everything turned out and couldn't dream of our day being any other way. We talk now and wish we could do it all over again (minus the planning part of it!). The pictures were all taken by Clark Berry--if you are getting married, check him out! He is fantastic! That was my favorite part of the whole process!
I will also show off some pictures from our honeymoon! We went to Cabo San Lucas and stayed at the Dreams resort. It was so fun! It was so relaxing and we came back well rested and with a great tan! The heat was intense though, so we spent most of our time by the pool and we didn't leave our resort too many times. We did, however, leave to go ATV riding. This was a HOOT! Those pictures are some of our favorites from the entire week. We ate so well too! I think we both gained weight while being there.
After flying in from Cabo, we had to drive from Charlotte to Greenville. We finally pulled in our driveway around 12:30 in the morning but then we walked in our house and had tons of presents to open--so of course we tore into those and made a huge collossal mess! We made it to sleep around 2 that morning. The next day, I started my new job with Greenville County School District. Needless to say, it's been a whirlwind of the last couple of months.
I will post more on updates later...happy almost Friday!

on the golf course at the country club