Matt & Marissa Get Married!

So I am updating the last couple of months because I have been horrible at maintaining the blog! A fairly good indication that we have been busy with really wonderful, happy celebrations!

So back in April - April 10th to be exact - we celebrated Matt and Marissa's wedding down in Austin, Texas. It was a blast - first and foremost, because these two are the perfect match! I have never seen a couple that has so much love and fun all the time. The festivities were beautiful and fun! Selfishly, I loved that I got to hang out with the bride and groom as they live in Austin - so crossing paths in FW is tough. I also got to hang out with friends and family! Even Addi, Chad and Brett showed up for part of the weekend.

Us with the Bensons at the Rehearsal Dinner. I miss these people so much!

Dave, Kristen, Brooke, Grant and Me at the Rehearsal Dinner

Me and the Bride! I was very careful to keep the wine away from her dress. Those of you that know me well know this has been a problem of mine in the past!

It was so fun to have Marianne and Mom and Terry there as well!

These are some of my best friends from home. I love and miss them dearly. I cherish these weekends more than they will ever know. From the left: Whitney, Lindsay (and Nash), Me, Brooke, Kristen, Kathleen and Brooke.

The happy Bride and Groom! Congratulations you two! It was such a special weekend!

moving day

Our moving got under way last Saturday! We always feel like we try to prepare as much as possible, but we never feel ready when the movers arrive. We were so fortunate to have some good friends from work - Cole, Chad and Nick - help us with the big stuff!

These guys are so sweet - they gave up the first sunny day Pittsburgh has had in weeks to help us load up our couch, bed, washer and dryer (always the worst) and all sorts of other odd items we have accumulated. They even appeared to be having fun?! Perhaps just an act! Regardless, they are dear friends and we are so blessed to have them in our lives.

Here is Chad making every load count

Here is Dave and Nick. It is fun because Nick works with Dave in the HBP stuff and his wife, Emily works with me in Title.

Once we got to the new house, Dave and the guys took a much deserved break and started to admire the ice cycles. This is one of the smallest one from our winter storms!

Cole, Nick, Chad and Dave

Probably how they really felt about moving.

Thank you so much guys!!

Instead of packing, I have been....

For Christmas, we do an exchange on Dave's side of the family. It is perfect because the girls get to gift each other and the guys do the same - making it much easier on everyone! So each year, Julie, my sister-in-law, and I exchange. I have been wanting to start reading more, but didn't really have anything specific in mind. Julie is an avid reader - so this year, I decided to hit her up for some of her favorites. She gave me a couple of books by Karen Kingsbury. One is the first book from the Redemption series.

Oh my (to borrow from Julie's son's vocabulary)! These books have me hooked! Thank you Julie!! I usually never read and I can't put these books down! Dave has seen me leave in the evening to walk down to the bookstore to pick up the next one. I am in the fifth/last book of this series and thankfully there are more series with these characters.

They are defined as Christian fiction and to be honest, I wasn't sure what that entailed. But from reading 4 so far, I find them so encouraging and relational. The book centers around one large family and sometimes reminds me of my own. At any given time, different members of the family are dealing with real, raw situations in life. I find them fascinating how they handle those situations, sometimes seeking after the Lord, sometimes not and the results of that. I am honestly not wanting to read anymore for fear I will actually finish them!

So if you are looking for something good to start, I would recommend them to anyone!

Winter Weather

Here are a few more pics of the winter storm effect....

Loved the effort here!

While this is so not funny... Dave and I got a lot of laughs as we drove around. It was unbelievable. We have friends who spent 3-5 hours uncovering their cars and driveways. Crazy!

A car dealership definitely had their work cut out for them...

I can't believe this all occurred in one 12 hour period!

So, I saw this a few weeks ago and have been meaning to stop and take a picture for a while now. Classy!

Hope you are all safe with these winter conditions! Our moving has been slightly altered but we are so thankful to still have power & our vehicles in tact. We have one more evening of heavy snow ahead of us. Stay warm!!

let it snow!

So yesterday, when I drove to work, there was very little snow on the ground, if any. Then, around 3 yesterday, it started to dump down! We were supposed to babysit our little friend Owen - but the roads got so bad, I had to leave my car at their house and have his daddy drive me to meet Dave. I am definitely not used to this kind of winter weather!

While we can't even think about leaving, it is forcing us to pack and get ready for our move. Definitely not a bad thing! Here is the snow this morning....

This is our balcony

This is a view from our balcony. To the left of the tree is a bench - you can barely see it! Good thing I can't get distracted from packing with H&M today. :)

Here is another view from our balcony of the cars down below! Crazy!! I am sure mine looks like this somewhere in front of the Taylor's house. Looks like I won't be needing it for a while anyway.

Old House, New House

David and I are coming up on 1 year in PA! Crazy - we can hardly believe it. We have shared more laughs and tears than I ever thought possible. We have come to really rely on each other for the important things (something everyone said we would cherish upon moving away). Its true!

Still, there is not a day that goes by where I don't think about my family - I think about them a lot, when my girlfriends back home would be having their next pajamas and pancake nights, Monday night dinners with Brett, Aaron and Dan. I miss it all so much!

And yet, I am so thankful for the friends, our PA family, that we have made. We love our church and small group - they keep us laughing and encouraged weekly. Our jobs have been such a blessing and our coworkers make the experience all the more fun. We have met other amazing friends thru work relationships and junior league. We can definitely look back and see God's hand in our move.

So as that one year mark approached, David and I decided we should look into finding a new place to live. We love our current apartment, but could probably use a little more space. :)

Here is what where we have been the last year:

It has been a good little loft. You can see the front door just leads down a hallway of closets, guest bath & study into this open area. Our bedroom overlooks the living area from above.

This is the living room.

Our guest bathroom.

The kitchen.

Our apartment was in kind of a work, eat, play location. It was really fun if we wanted to go to dinner or a movie, but we didn't feel like it was very convenient other than that. So we started to look and last week just happened to stumble upon this:

Our new home for 2010.

In PA, duplexes are often on top of each other instead of side by side. So, we will have the second floor and a very cute young family (wife from Houston :)) will have the bottom.

Here is living room and sunroom - another favorite thing of mine about houses in PA - a lot of them have sunrooms. I have never had one - but I envision lots of time curled up on the couch there begging for some Vitamin D.

The balcony

Master bedroom

Ha! Crazy bathroom. I immediately thought of my two friends named Lindsey and Lindsay. I knew they would know exactly how to decorate in here. I'm thinking lots of white!

Here is the kitchen - I am thinking about changing the hardware if they will let me. Any thoughts on that?

This sink is kind of fun - two diamonds together. I have never seen anything like it. This door is really cool because it goes to the basement of the house where we will have our own storage/laundry.

There is also a door from one of the bedrooms that opens up to this set of stairs. It sounds silly, but I like the secret doors.

So we have a big month ahead of us getting things packed and moved. We are really excited about this next adventure. Oh and any thoughts on decorating you might have would be greatly appreciated!!

Way too long...Happy New Year!

So wow ~ I think I am way overdue for a fresh post! We have been doing a lot of traveling with the holidays. We loved every minute of it, but definitely appreciate being back home and normal schedules, not living out of a suitcase. :) In fact, we had to buy new suitcases because the zippers were done on both of ours by the time we made it back.

So I guess this post will be somewhat of a recap of the last couple of months...Let's see...end of October.

I officially visited my first pumpkin patch this year. If this is something I did as a child, I honestly have no recollection of it (Mom?). So that was really fun! My girlfriend Jen organized the event for Junior League. So Dave and I enjoyed finding the perfect two pumpkins to grace our home.

Below is Jen, Janet, myself and Keri.

While we did pick great pumpkins, they actually never made it to our home. I can't remember why, but for some reason I left them in my car after the picking, where they stayed for a couple of weeks! Whoops! We actually weren't in Pittsburgh for Halloween, but in Lubbock where we watched my Red Raiders play/beat the Kansas Jayhawks. It was a great weekend ~ we had lots of family come to Dad's and Dave's parents and brother drove in for the event. Here is Van, me and Dad.

On Friday, we did our usual pumpkin carving contest and Dave and I won! We may have borrowed an idea or two from our visit to the Pumpkin Patch.

Then, on Saturday we attended the game and it was gorgeous weather. It was really fun to show the Buchanans what game day is like in Lubbock.

Then it was time for a little Halloween bash at my cousin, Heather's home. We were a little bit last minute on our costumes - so ghosts we were. Although, as the night went on, we took on a bit of a Joseph and Mary look. Whatever, it was hilarious and we are all still talking about it.

Then, in November, we got a special visit from our dear friends Ashley and Grayson. They had a hard trip getting here, but we so cherished the sweet time we had together. We always love getting stay up late with them talking about marriage, family, work, friends, well anything really.

Grayson went to Notre Dame for grad school and so it worked perfectly for them to come up for the Pitt-Notre Dame game. We had yet to go to a Pitt game and they are really neat because they play in the Steeler's stadium (Heinz Field). It has an awesome view of Pittsburgh, so that was a great way to show Ashley and Grayson our new town.

We also got a little shopping in! Ashley and I found these woven coffee sleeves at Carribou. I shockingly use mine mostly everyday because I take my coffee to work in paper cups. So while most people think I bought my sleeve to help the environment, they have no idea about my paper cup abuse. A New Year's resolution perhaps. Nonetheless, the sleeves are really cute and work great.

Before Thanksgiving, our friends Andy and McKenzie got married in Kansas City! We are so happy for them and excited for their new marriage. Their wedding was so much fun! The ceremony was so thoughtful and heartwarming. Their reception was a blast with yummy food, great dancing! She looked stunning and it was so special for us to see all of Dave's friends from KU and their spouses and girlfriends. They are such a sweet group and I always love getting to catch up when we can.

Dave and me

From Kansas City, we worked our way to Wichita stopping over for a night to spend some time with Dave's parents and Julie, Jerry, Grayson and Carter. It worked out perfectly to get see them before Thanksgiving. Then, we headed down to Fort Worth for the rest of the week to celebrate Thanksgiving with my mom's side. We loved our time there because it was so relaxing! I got to see my girlfriends early in the week before we all parted ways to travel for the holiday.

I also got to hang out with my mom's parents and several of my nieces ~ Lexie, Hannah (newest addition) and Addi. Unfortunately, I think I tried to fit too much in and was under the weather for the last couple of days. Praise God for the invention of the z-pack! (I am furiously looking for pictures of this week on my computer and can't seem to find them...I must ask mom for them...will update later!)

We started off December with a brother/sister trip to NYC! It was a hilarious, fun trip that I hope to do again soon! Brett and Marianne met us there on a Friday and we played very hard for the entire weekend. We shopped, walked around and ate like our lives depended on it. Very little sleep was had and it was perfect. :)

The tree!

Us back at the tree when it was turned off in the middle of the night - Dave was not happy.

We had delicious food! On Friday night we went to Megu and cooked our own steak strips on lava rocks.

On Saturday, I made everyone go to Tavern on the Green since it closed on December 31st. While it is definitely a little dated, everyone was kind of enough to humor me and go. We actually had good food and lots of laughs!

I can't even explain this...

One last pizza at Serafina's - near end to a wonderful trip!

Christmas! Here is our tree from this year....

It was a little bare...but served its purpose. :) We loved all the Christmas cards! Such a fun way to celebrate the season and feel closer to those who may be far away!

This year, we celebrated Christmas with Dave's family in Wichita. I was really excited as this was my first Christmas with his side of the family. It is always fun and interesting to see new traditions at the holidays. We had a great time! The weather was freezing and I was quite concerned about our Christmas Eve 6 am flight from Pitt to Chicago to Wichita. We were incredibly blessed that we had no delays or cancellations as the next flight to Wichita from Chicago was in fact cancelled. So good job Dave on scheduling that flight!

We had so much fun hanging out with Dave's parents, Brett, Julie, Jerry, Grayson and Carter. The boys seem to get bigger even in the short intervals between our visits. I got a new camera for Christmas and I couldn't capture them enough.

The cold weather kept us holed up inside for most of the trip, but that was great because we loved catching up with Julie and Jerry and helping Brett pick out furniture for his new home.

It was a certainly a wonderful, white Christmas! You can see how deep it is as Grayson jumps into the snow!

Unfortunately, all the white kept my mom and stepdad from driving up for the weekend. We were hoping they could come to hang out and Terry could hunt with Jerry. Maybe next time ~ the roads were in no condition to be driving on. But I so missed the opportunity to see them! However, those of you who know my mom also know that if we had a short layover in DFW on Sunday, she was going to be there to give us a Christmas hug. So thankfully, we did get to see her! A little shorter time than we expected, but a visit nonetheless!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season! We were so blessed with time with family and friends. We look forward to the next time we see you!