Christmas: The Sequel

We are one week away from our second Christmas together as a married couple!

As we reach this crazy milestone, I've become more intensely aware of the fact that we are halfway, halfway, through our time in Virginia.
I...I really...I have such mixed feelings. I now truly understand the confusion between belonging to two countries at once (because yes, I consider the east coast to be a different country to the west).

On December 12th, Dusty finished his last final of the semester and we were finally able to go out and spend some time together!
This was a doozy of a finals season. We realized it may be wiser to work a little extra during the semester to avoid two full weeks of all-nighters!
On top of having no sleep, we are in a serious weight-loss competition with Dusty's brother and sister-in-law...it has been neck-in-neck, so dieting + no sleep + stress + law studies = PSYCHOTIC BREAK.
Needless to say, we needed some serious R&R after it was all said and done!

So that Wednesday night, we headed to Isabella's for a you-deserve-bread-and-cheese-and-cream-and-yummy-fats celebration dinner.

We were STUFFED. Mostly because we had been starving for two weeks straight.
Oh and Dusty has a beard now. Courtesy of finals.

On one of the previous nights, we had stolen some time together to decorate the tree in between his study times.
I had put it up a few days before, but didn't want to hang the ornaments alone. It's a big deal to me, which is probably just because of how much my dad has always loved ornaments! Us kids always had our certain ones that we would hang every year.

This year, we had a handful of brand new ornaments from our travels!

We spread out our treasures,

Put on a Christmas episode of Friends, made some hot apple cider, and got to decorating!

Last year was our very first Christmas together. We decorated our little apartment, made some fun little traditions, and even had our own mock Christmas morning to exchange gifts to each other.
In light of being halfway through law school, I have found myself reminiscing on where we were last year around this time, compared to now.

2011

2012

2011

2012

I'd say we got a little carried away with our decorations this year!

2011
Hanging our first ornament!

2012

Last year, we designated the Saturday before we left for Arizona to be our time together, our own "Christmas morning".
It was so fun!

After we made a mess of things and opened all the presents, we had a brilliant idea to have breakfast in our pajamas.
Since we didn't want to make breakfast, we headed to IHOP, pajama-clad and smiling!

This year, we kept the magic alive. But a lot has changed around the apartment!
We even had a "Christmas Eve", where we each got to open one gift.

Christmas Morning came along:

After we opened our presents, I decided to give Dusty an anniversary gift early.

I got him a vintage Guess Who game!
Not wanting to try and figure out a way to pack it and give it to him in Arizona on our actual anniversary, I gave it to him on our "Christmas morning".

Guess Who is one of the silliest and best parts of our dating relationship. For some reason, it was our favorite game to play together. And Dusty always won. 
I know it's hard to believe, but one time, we opened up the game, picked our cards, and he guessed who I had on the first try. He just yelled out a name and it was right.
Trust me. I was there.
In any case, they don't make the 1987 version anymore, so I found it used on Ebay. Now we have our very own! And we may have started a new Christmas morning Guess Who tournament tradition.
Which led to us being famished, and ready for pajama IHOP :)

We leave for Arizona in THREE days. It seems unreal that time has gone by so quickly, and that so much has changed since we first moved here.
We have invested in incredible friendships, creating lifelong relationships and fun memories. We've made our awkward apartment into a comfortable home, that's completely weird and quirky and totally us...we've grown in our relationship, loving and supporting each other in the most difficult of times. And we've gotten fat from food and happiness and silliness (thus enters the weight-loss competition).
But overall, it has been a wonderful year and a half. We are so excited to go celebrate the holidays with our families, and offer up cheers to a brand new year.
Unless the world ends on Friday.
But we'll play it by ear.

Oh yeah, and this is our apartment right now.

That's what happens when Dusty isn't in school anymore.

I don't think I've EVER been as Christmas-spirit-filled as I am this year.


In love,
Cait

Will the Real Summer Lovin' Please Stand Up

This marks the second week of freedom from law school.

Except that it doesn't, because the hubby is taking a horrible intensive, which ends Friday.

So this Friday, we will be able to celebrate all over again that the beginning of (the true) Summer is upon us!!

But that doesn't mean we haven't had some fun this weekend. :)

Friday was an adorable birthday party for a sweet little boy we know named William. His party was straight out of a magazine, which is a tribute to his creative and food-tastic mother, Stephanie.

It was manly and mustache themed :)

"You really tickled our whiskers --
please help yourself to
'the stash'!"

"Man"wiches.

"Wet Your Whiskers".

The photo booth area.

Socializing.

Stephanie (and her husband Josh) really outdid themselves. The menu consisted of delicious mini sandwiches (including a dark bread/brie combo that was melt-in-your-mouth), fruit salad, pasta salad, fruit cones (ice cream cones stuffed with delicious fresh fruit), salt and cracked pepper chips, and individually-cupped veggies and dip. The drinks included water, bottled root beer and minty lemonade.
The sweet treats were some of the best -- chocolate or peanut butter mustaches (see below), animal crackers, gumballs, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate dipped pretzel sticks with sprinkles, and lemon vanilla cake/cupcakes.

Needless to say, we were completely stuffed. But that didn't stop us from filling a few bags to-go!

It was an absolutely gorgeous day. The weather has been top notch for the last few days. Lynchburg had a week or so of really vicious mood swings, going from sunny and hot to windy and rainy. But now that perfection has struck, we can only hope that it will last!

When it came time for cake, we just let the babies take charge. And boy, did they take charge!

CAKE!

"Victory!"

Happy birthday, William. :)

The rest of the evening, we took photo-booth pictures, and played some cornhole. Some healthy competition was going one. :)

We somehow always end up being girls vs. guys...

Aidan really wanted in on it :)

The rest of us just watched, and were on baby-watching duty.
I don't think Dusty minded very much :)

Cuties.


I spent some time with the adorable Pierre, who was very French indeed, down to the cute little puppy bandana.

We discovered Pierre's love of tissue paper.

"J'aime ma famille.
Accessoires tissus et papier sont en haut de ma liste comme bien,
parce que je suis celui qui suis."

The rest of the our weekend went by in a blur.
Saturday consisted of Luna and I in various positions of relaxation.

From this:

To this:

 To this:

And finally, to this:

Eventually we just gave in and told each other "i love you" and went on to other productive activities.
Like this.

Sunday was a haze of movies and coffee.
And a lotta this:

 

My first official craft fair is coming up this weekend, so I've been a busy little bee building up enough inventory for it. I have around 30 pairs of earrings that I finished up this weekend, among other accessories :) I can't wait!
If you're local, come by! It's at Yellow Branch Baptist Church in Rustburg, from 8am to 5pm this Saturday, May 26th.

My crafting movie marathon consisted of:
1. Ever After
2. The Holiday
3. Cast Away
4. Countless episodes of How I Met Your Mother, season 3.

It was a beautiful day outside, so I made sure to have my blinds open. :)


On another note, the hubby and I are doing our own version of a juice cleanse for the next week or two. Wish us luck as we have our fruity oatmeal in the morning, and fresh juice throughout the day. We managed to muster up the courage to visit our resident fitness center (no air-conditioning, which is hopefully just temporary), and plan to make that a regular habit.

AND we found a PARK in our complex!! Who knew!

 I think that's all for my musings and updates. So for now, I'll leave you with this nugget of truth and warning:

If you ever go to a J. Crew (or "insert fancy brand name store here") warehouse sale, wear flip-flops, a tank top, and skinny jeans or shorts. And don't bring your husband.

You have been forewarned.

G'day mate!

In love,
Cait