Life As Newlyweds.

Hi Everyone!

It's been a minute or two since the last blog post.  Needless to say the past several months, ok really the past year, has been the most amazing whirlwind.  We finally got settled in to life in Danville, then got to plan our wedding (more details on that later), and now we're enjoying the sweet bliss of married life. It is SO GREAT!!

We've been saying for months that we're excited for things to slow down.  It has always been "after the move when things slow down" or "after the wedding when things slow down" but the truth is that I think we're pretty content with things not slowing down.  We like to be doing things, we love to have projects, and we love planning for our next adventure.

Here is the 'quick and dirty' of our life as newlyweds thus far:

We decided to wait to go on our honeymoon.  We talked about several places that we would love to go and for some reason we always came back to Europe.  I've never been and Brian has been once but it has been years ago.  Brian is finishing up fellowship and I'm still in the emergency department so the option of going to Europe right now was really not in the cards.  We're so excited to take some time to backpack through Europe after Brian finishes fellowship and I quit my job and before we both start working again. We're going for the true backpacking experience...literally!  We're having so much fun planning our trip and we're having a really hard time narrowing down where to go.  We recently purchased 50L packs and have already taken them for a trial run to California.  I was successfully able to fit a weeks worth of stuff, including 4 pairs of shoes, in my pack (they may or may not have been tied to the bottom... whatev!)

We made a trip back to Illinois to see my family.  My parents are now fully embracing retirement as full time Floridians.  They sold the house in Illinois and recently had an auction with proceeds benefiting organ donation.  I went home with the idea of helping Mom get rid of things that we just we don't need... it ended up with me and Mom sitting on the floor of the garage crying over old Christmas decorations.  Now we have a ridiculously large storage unit to hold all of the "memories" that I refused to let Mom get rid of.  I was little to no help in the cleaning out process.

We recently got back from Beverly Hills!  Brian went for a conference and I went for moral support. Packing light was actually REALLY nice. We successfully took our packs, spent a week in Cali, and loved every second.  It was so nice to get away for a few days and it was our first official trip as husband and wife.

I lost the blonde hair and went brunette while we were gone.  Why not, right??

Pennsylvania is gorgeous this time of year and we've been trying to really take advantage of living in this area for the few months that we have left.  We've done a few great hikes and have a weekend getaway planned to the finger lakes in New York.  Wine country of the north... enough said :-)

We made it to a Hogs game!  We met Nathan and Melissa Tyler in New Jersey to watch the Razorbacks/Rutgers game.  We had a very successful tailgate and I, of course, loved making new and creative tailgate food.  If we would have left during the third quarter I would say that the game was great (we took a turn for the worse in the 4th)... we'll get 'em next time!

This pretty much brings you up to date.

We're really enjoying and embracing married life and trying to appreciate every day.  I'm making an effort and so excited to get back to things that I love doing... blogging, cooking, running, etc.  I'm putting blogging back into my regular routine!  I plan on posting photos and recipes on a pretty regular basis.  We've started a new tradition in our house called "Foodie Friday"... though it doesn't always occur on Fridays at this point.

Have you ran in to a rut with your recipes and cooking?  I know I did for a while. Most of my issue was that I felt like I didn't have the time to spend cooking and then I realized we were going out to eat on all of our days off.  I would look at recipes and not know what some of things were or I was intimidated because I didn't know how to prepare them.  Not anymore!  Now I consult my trusty resources... wikipedia and you tube!

Foodie Friday is intended to be a fun cooking day filled with a trip to the grocery store (that isn't rushed!), wine, music, and new recipes that we normally wouldn't try.  Since Brian works on weekdays I pick one and have "Foodie Friday" and then he is able to come home to a really unique (I'm not saying it's always good!) meal... last week was tailgate food and this week was homemade pasta and ravioli.  I'll post some great recipes that we've been trying!  Next week is salmon week... I've always been intimidated of preparing fish.

I'm tossing around the idea of signing up for a marathon!  It's on my bucket list and I feel like now is probably just as good as any other time to do it.  Danville has a half-marathon and full marathon and it's already on the calendar for May 3, 2014.  I brought it up to Brian and he actually sparked a little bit of interest in doing it with me... fingers crossed!  The marathon route goes right past our home and we have the perfect porch for spectators.  Visitors would be warmly welcomed :)

We have a trip to Arkansas coming up which we're both really excited about!  We're so excited to see family and fall in Arkansas is like no other.

We're excited to start putting together the puzzle pieces of our future and will hopefully have some set plans in the near future.  Until then we're just enjoying the days of our new life together.  I know people said that "everything changes" when you get married.  Initially I thought they were crazy.  How much could change, really?  Now I realize that looking at Brian and knowing that he is my husband is definitely a change... it has made life so much sweeter!