Announcement!

Today, we announced the wonderful news of our little one to our family. We had both sides of my family gathered so it was the perfect time to share the news of our blessing. This will be the first grandchild for my parents, as well as Jimmy's parents, and the second great-grandchild of my grandparents. Everyone was thrilled and excited about our news, and I think even a few tears were shed.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Jimmy and I love love love Christmastime! We love that everyone is in jolly spirits and we get to see family and eat monkey bread. Since it is our first Christmas as a married couple in our own house, we decided to go all out with a real tree and full-on decor. I even made a wreath for our door. For our first Christmas cards, we enlisted our good friend Kevin Kovaleski to take some shots of us with our tree in the woods. He is a terrific photographer and I recommend you visit his site to view his work. The funny part is that we actually bought the tree at Home Depot for $20 and drove it INTO the woods to take pictures with it. Ha, I'm so lucky to have a husband (and friend) to humor me.

When we were leaving, there were people heading into the woods. They looked at us strangely, and we realized that they probably thought we had actually chopped down a tree in the park and were taking it home! Someone asked if there were any others back there and we had to explain that we had brought the tree with us... to the woods... right.

Some how, this one did not make it onto the Christmas card.

Thanksgiving

Two Thanksgivings! That means two turkeys, two giant bowls of stuffing, two piles of buttered rolls, and two chances to gather will family and friends.

Fall Hiking

Every fall Jimmy goes camping with his buddies Jimmy S and Alex.

Summersville, West Virginia

Summersville, West Virginia

Garden of Love

Our First Home

Chris's Graduation

Honeymoon in Paradise

For our honeymoon, we traveled to beautiful Paradise Island in the Bahamas. Nana and Grandpa were generous enough to let us stay at their time share at the Sunrise Beach Villas. It was a quiet and beautiful collection of condos on their own private beach. A mile away was the uber-hotel, Atlantis where we frequented their fancy restaurants (The $50 buffet was to die for!).

The Wedding

Saturday, May 20, 2006. Cape Henlopen, Delaware. It was a beautiful, sunny day on the beach... a perfect day for a wedding. We were married by our good friend Jimmy Sarakatsannis, and surrounded by our family and friends in the beauty of the brilliant ocean. The ceremony was preceded by Gramps playing the bagpipes as my father walked me down the sandy aisle. We wrote our vows and each chose a reading to make the ceremony more personal. The reception followed with a beach casual atmosphere under a pavilion. It was the perfect way to celebrate our new marriage. For the centerpieces, Jimmy made a total 180 candles from recycled glass jars! ...Enough words, here are some photos!

New Year's Eve

We brought in the new year in our nation's capital.