This game is epic ...

Happy President's Day! I was inspired to write tonight after hearing a loud and excited voice yell "this game is epic" from the living room. More on that later ...

A lot has happened in the months since Christmas. JC and I took an amazing trip to Hawaii. After two weeks of rest, relaxation and maid service, it has been hard adjusting to life back at home. The 70 degree temperature difference between sunny Hawaii and Northern Virginia has not helped the situation either.

After our recent respite from the "Money Pit," JC and I have decided to get back on the horse and begin to work on the house. We're pretty much resigned to the fact that our home will test our marriage in every way possible. From the leak in the downstairs bathroom to the family of mice living under the kitchen sink, we come home each night hoping that nothing has gone awry during the day. As some of you know, we recently acquired a long-term houseguest. My brother Matthew, a recent college-grad, has moved to Washington to look for a job. Matt has been a great help around the house. He empties the dishwasher, cleans bathrooms and most importantly, waits around for the various handymen that frequent the "Money Pit." It will be a sad day for me when Matt actually finds a job, although I think that it might actually be tougher on JC ... which brings us to the inspiration for this blog entry.

Almost every day this week I have gone to sleep to the sounds of machine guns in my living room. No, JC has not gone out and secured a concealed weapon permit. These are the sweet sounds of games called Ghost Recon and Halo. When I agreed to buy the XBox last year I never thought that it would come to this. It is all consuming. On Saturday, Matt and JC played 4 hours of Ghost Recon, then attempted to cut down a tree in the backyard. I'm wondering what is next ... perhaps the wall in the den will be the next victim of an XBox induced, testosterone-laced project.

Today, JC, Matt and I made a trip to JC's favorite store, Costco. It was my suggestion as I had noticed this morning that we were running out of bottled water. I have come to regret this decision ever since. They are now on hour 3 of a new game, Call of Duty, World at War. Who knew that Costco sold XBox games? This new game inspired the quote uttered by my brother this evening, "this game is epic."

Seriously? Epic? How is that job search going Matt?

Christmas 2008

Happy Holidays!

Thanksgiving in Yuma

This year, JC and I spent Thanksgiving in Yuma, Arizona with the Sandberg family! I had been looking forward to our visit having heard so much about Yuma over the past eight years. Most of JC's stories about Yuma are about how much trouble he and his best friend, Jon, would get themselves into. But I had also been hearing about a place called Chile Pepper, one of JC's favorite restaurants. If you know me, you know that I love food so Chile Pepper was high on my list. Now, I grew up in New England, so my idea of what constitutes Mexican food is a little different from my husband's who grew up about 15 miles from the border. I really don't make the distinction between Tex-Mex and Mexican, much to JC's chagrin. Let me tell you though, there is a difference, and that difference is called LARD. Yep, pig fat. At Chile Pepper they put pig fat in EVERYTHING, refried beans, tortillas, EVERYTHING. As we were driving to Chile Pepper, I asked JC what his favorite thing on the menu was, he answered a bean, rice and cheese burrito. That sounded good, I thought, does it come with any vegetables on it, like tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, I asked? He laughed at me. No vegetables at Chile Pepper!

I only took a few pictures at Thanksgiving, unfortunately. They are all of JC and our nieces and nephews building a fort. Rule #1 for fort building, everyone must wear a hat. As you can see in the picture below, JC is wearing a special hat ... Alexis' tutu. Rule #2, no tooting.

Headline: Married Folks Become Uninteresting

JC and I have been terrible about posting on the blog lately. I'm gearing up to send our our Christmas cards and our blog web address is on the back of them so I thought I had better get some interesting stuff up here. Unfortunately, since we got married, we've become terribly uninteresting. We now spend our weekends doing stuff like picking out paint colors and raking leaves in our front yard!

Our move to the country has been a bit of a tough transition for JC. And if you saw his "Bachelor Pad" before we got married, you'd probably understand why. It was mouse free, bug free, raccoon free and didn't have a leaking roof. There is a bright side to all of this though, packing a pistol in public is perfectly legal in Virginia and JC is ready to protect the homestead.

And that has the potential to make our lives way more interesting!

More Wedding Photos

Our photographer Megan posted more pictures from the wedding this week! This is the last batch that I am going to post from our wedding. I think that Megan should be putting the online gallery up soon. If you are interested in seeing it, let us know and we'll give you the username and password.

Home Alone!

Tonight is my first night home alone as a married lady. How sweet it is! I’m sure that after about 2 hours I’ll wish JC was here with me, but in the meantime, I think that I’ll go get myself some crackers and eat them in bed while typing this out.

So, JC and I have had a busy first week back from the wedding/honeymoon (more on that later)! We’ve had to acclimate to sharing 800 square feet of living space, different sleeping schedules and vastly different television programming preferences. But we’ve also learned a lot about each other too …. apparently I kick in my sleep, who knew?

JC spent most of the week dealing with our new home. Today he did the final walkthrough and the closing, so we officially own the house. After the walk through was complete, he called to tell me that the sellers had left an ENORMOUS pile of trash outside of the house on the curb ... and you all know how JC is about trash. JC hates trash so much that he takes his out nightly. So he was less than impressed with that effort. Luckily the trash people don’t come until Wednesday so there is more than enough time for me to needle him by pointing it out daily, for our new neighbors to develop a bad opinion of us and for me to capture it on film so I can post a photo on the blog. Stay tuned!

Our Amazing Photographer .... Megan Holdsworth

For those of you who attended the wedding or the evening barbeque, you might have seen a beautiful blond lady with a huge smile on her face running around snapping photos. Hopefully some of you got a chance to talk with her, because she is a hoot. Not only is Megan beautiful and fun ... she is one of the most talented ladies I have ever met. I feel extremely lucky to have met Megan through my sister-in-law Nikki and I am so honored that she came all the way from Prescott, Arizona to capture our wedding. But I have to say that the thing I am most thankful for is that she actually got JC to smile like he meant it!!

Below are just a few of her amazing photos. I'm promised that there will be more to come on her blog this weekend and you can find that at www.megaphotoblog.blogspot.com. Maybe I'll even post some of JC too! In all seriousness, I wouldn't normally post pictures of myself but Megan has only posted my bridals so far and I just wanted you all to see what an amazing eye she has.

Thank you so much Megan!

I will have you all know that the above picture was JC's idea. The one below was his idea too, though.

My eyes aren't really that color, but I love Megan's "enhancements."