barristers know how to rock and roll

Twelve days ago, we had our second annual Barrister's Ball!
(It was actually on Dusty's birthday, too!)

If you remember this from last year, you know it's a fancy end-of-the-year occasion to dress up, eat a fancy dinner, hear a speaker and hang out with friends!
It's mostly a night aimed at celebrating the 3Ls as they're about to graduate and head off into the world.

Dusty had been in Chicago all week for the National Mediation Tournament, so he spent the majority of his birthday flying back to Lynchburg.
He didn't fly in until that afternoon, so we didn't have much time to hang out and catch up before it was time to leave. But I did manage to prepare the apartment for his return!

Plus, we spent the night having fun pretending that the entire event was in his honor.
Biggest birthday party ever!

This year the ball was held downtown, rather than in the dining area above the football field on campus (which we actually really loved).
This was the last Barrister's for many of our friends, so it was a lovely albeit bittersweet evening in honor of their time at Liberty.

It was really beautifully done.
It's kind of amazing how much effort they put into this event - we always tease that it's basically the women in charge playing make believe in planning their future wedding.

The atmosphere of being downtown was great, being able to see all of the brick buildings and the James River outside the windows.
We were seated with a bunch of fun people at a table called "Nuisance"!
All of the tables were named after law terms, and this was quite fitting for our group. :)

At check-in we got these name tags, attached to little keys.

Dusty also received this engraved gavel via salad plate for being on SBA.

In the back of the main dining area there was a set of stairs that led up to a really pretty space with large windows and little standing tables for hor d'oeuvres and such.
It was a great spot to take pictures!

My lovely friend Stephanie :)

For some reason I think downtown Lynchburg represents the spirit of my time here.

The coffee shop White Hart was my first coffee date, and the farmer's market was one of my very first local experiences, and I soon fell completely in love with everything about downtown.

It has its own unique history, complete with emptied out old brick warehouses (that Dusty and I like to pretend we can buy, and take turns imagining what we could do with them) and treasured little restaurants and expensive boutiques and great local flavor. 

I think I will always love Lynchburg, and when I think of some of my happiest moments here, many of them will be of downtown. 

Once we had finished checking out the upper level (we got there a bit late and missed most of the hor d'oeuvres - a definite note for next year! Get there early!) we went back down to the main party.

My dinner, and my white chocolate raspberry mocha!

One of the BEST things was the full-on espresso bar.
It was "unlimited" (although they ran out of milk), and they were serving mochas and lattes. It was amazing.
I was extremely excited.

That may be one of my favorite pictures of all time, and mostly because it is a completely accurate portrayal of what went down.

The coffee station was catered by a really great coffee shop called The Muse in Wyndhurst, which I really need to start visiting more often now that White Hart is closed down...

As usual, the night consisted of funny law jokes, a heartfelt video, food, candy, candlelight, various speeches and speakers and very important things.
But mostly we just took pictures and looked cute.

Honestly though, because we knew so many 3Ls this year, the entertainment was especially funny to us.

A lot of the people that were featured in the "making fun of" feature (a guy went up and did some special law-school stand-up comedy, haha) we actually knew, and it was great to see how much fun everyone was having just reliving the past year and all the titles people had (like the guy who's always late, the "gunner" who asks too many questions, etc.). 

Our friend Greg was SBA president so he had a big part to play throughout the night, and it was fun to see him up front being teased and/or teasing others. :)

Cutest pregnancy award!

I'm not going to wax on about the importance of Greg and Allison to our little Lynchburg lives.
It has been a topic carefully avoided in our household, save for the occasional breakdown.
They're moving back to Illinois in May, and seeing as that is one month away, it's starting to become all too real and all too soon.
Allison will be having her darling little girl in a matter of days, and their sweet family will be leaving us.
I am not happy about it.
I know how great it will be for them to find a cute house for their cute selves and have a cute life with cute kids and cute furniture and everything but I'm just angry.
I would much rather them focus on having cute friends like us!!
Don't leave us.

I know it's impossible to make all of our favorite people in the world move into a big complex in Arizona and have all of our kids grow up together, but it seems like a pretty great idea to me.

We'll have to settle for being amazed, happy, grateful, and overwhelmed by the blessing they've been to us in our years here together. We will never forget these friendships. Nay, we shall not.

What if her water broke right now!?

It was an awesome night.
I know that this next year is going to fly by, and before long, it will be our last Barrister's Ball and we will be flipping through our minds for all our favorite memories and be in complete shock that our time in law school is almost through.
But for now, what's the rush?
We cherish each and every moment, even the hard parts, even the sad goodbyes.
Each moment is frozen in time through a picture or a funny story or great food or amazing friends.
That's what these kind of nights mean to me.

family gatherings

What's better than family?

Well, OUR family. We have the best family! I'm not sure how we got so lucky, but we pretty much hit the jackpot. After adding our adorable little niece to the bunch, it has made it increasingly more difficult to be away from all of them.

Which is why our Arizona festivities were that much sweeter! After our time away (just shy of 5 months), a nice reprieve was much needed.

Splitting holiday time between families can be (honestly?) pretty horrible. Luckily for us, this year went smoothly, and everything fell into place without any hassle. We didn't have to torment ourselves over which event or house to choose, hurt feelings, or where to spend which nights and days. There were no family fights or splitting hairs, and in the end, we figured out (to further emphasize my opening statements) that our families are great. And no matter what happens, they help make things easy on us!

Greatest things about Christmastime at home:

Christmas lights!

No matter where you are, there are always great places to drive around and find vibrant displays of Christmas lights. This street in particular is NUTS. We had a lot of fun walking up and down - imagine living in a neighborhood like this! Every garage was themed and expensively decorated, and every house participated in the decked out displays. All in agreement to be fervently awesome.



Number two on the greatest-things-about-Christmastime-at-home list, is pictures.

Kodak moments abound (starting with the tree/wreath shots, which are abundant!):



A little lesser known on the photo op list, is the wrap-blinking-necklaces-around-yourselves-and-smile shot.



There are a million great things about Christmas. While Christmas in Arizona doesn't quite bring to mind drinking hot chocolate by a fireplace (although we HAVE had some cold Christmases in the past, believe it or not), there are other staples. Such as a candlelight Christmas eve service at church.

Or watching dad make caramel popcorn for the millionth time, and it's always just as magical. (I would include the recipe, but there's no way I'm giving that out to the general public. It's sacred. But I'll throw you a bone with some key ingredients.)



While this next issue can be different for everyone, one of the things that was incredible this year was going to restaurants we have REALLY missed, being on the other side of the country! Places like Mi Amigo Ricardos (REAL Mexican food), Little Sombreros, Si Senor (are you seeing a trend here?), as well as Cheesecake Factory and Old Spaghetti Factory.



Now get ready, cause it's baby time. No offense to anyone or anything, but our baby is pretty much the highlight of the world. It is SO fun to be an Aunt and Uncle for the first time, but it's a little hard to do our duties this far away! So we tried to get in as much Abby time as possible. After all, the next time we see her, she will be completely out of this stage...and into the walking/talking stages!



She is so precious. This past Summer, we spent a ton of time with Chris and Amy and little Abby. It's amazing how much she's already changed from that time to now. But it was so fun to be back with them again, and get some game-playing time in, too ;) we had many games of Catan, Dominion and Agricola! (Are we nerds, or what??)



We also got a fabulous new camera for Christmas, so hopefully you can look forward to fun new shots :)

We were really blessed to have so much time at home. I actually wasn't supposed to take off this much time off of work....but it ended up working out okay. Next year, with full vacation days and sick time, we should have a little more leeway! We felt refreshed, and even though we were pining for more time by the time we left, we got to spend a lot of quality time with our families.

Last but not least, we got to spend a very fun New Year's Eve at my parent's house. It was a great way to beckon in the new year, as well as our ONE YEAR anniversary! Hard to believe. We played games, had our annual bonfire, and dad had a giant tray of Sushi ordered (which is kind of awesome, and I think it should be a tradition!) as well as hot wings, and the caramel popcorn balls, of course!



Things got a little crazy, trying to keep the fire going BIG!! People were getting intense.... :)



We then transitioned into fireworks/poppers time!



Our ingenious picture idea:





HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! :)

In love,

Cait