Thursday, January 28, 2010
Pictures! Pictures! Pictures!
To follow up from my extremely long catch up blog, here are the pictures from Thanksgiving Day to Christmas in Florida.
Holiday Craziness
I know it has been a while since I last blogged but hopefully with a new year and new routines I will be able to update more. Things have been very hectic around the Dunlap household the past three months but it looks like things are finally slowing down or at least becoming the norm.
We had a great holiday season with our friends and family. It was filled with tons and tons of travel but all very fun trips. After all the trips, I am glad to say it is good to be home! Since I have not updated since Thanksgiving I will pick up there.
Before Russ and I got married, we talked about how we would do the holidays. We agreed that we were rotate them so we spent equal time between the families. We started off with our first Thanksgiving with Russ' family in Hendersonville then Christmas with my family in Salem, VA. The weekend before Christmas we drove to TN to celebrate with his family. This year we rotated the order, we spent Thanksgiving in Atlanta with my family (Dad, Mom, Kara, and Aunt Jill) then went to Tampa for Christmas with Russ' family.
Thanksgiving was a hard one this year, it was our first holiday without our Uncle Jack. Thanks for family and wonderful neighbors we celebrated Thanksgiving together over a nice meal and enjoyed each others company. Usually that night Mom, Kara, Aunt Jill, and I go to Wal-Mart. I have no idea how that tradition started but it did. We have done that for years, well this year we decided to do something different. We stayed up until midnight so we could go to the North GA Outlets. We drove up there and five miles before we got the outlets it was bumper to bumper traffic, who would have known this many people would be out shopping. Once we finally got the outlets, we had to drive around to find a place to park. Mom dropped us off while she tried to find a spot, people were parking across GA 400 and running across the highway, others were parking on the sidewalks and hills...it was a mad house! We tried to go to some of the stores but there were lines, yes that rights, LINES! The Coach Store had an eight hour wait to get inside. Once we realize this was ridiculous, we decided to leave. It was 3:00 so we had Breakfast at Waffle House then headed to Belk for their opening at 4:00. We were all getting extremely grumpy so decided to head home and sleep until noon. We woke up ate lunch and headed out for more shopping. This time we hit up the areas around my house and got back around 11 PM. That's right everyone we literally shopped til we dropped! We did it again on Saturday :)
The month of December was full of travels, holiday celebrations, and exams. Russ had exams the first two weeks of December so I planned a business trip to Indiana the first week of December. I do that so I stay out of his hair so he can get some studying in. Russ had a hard semester with writing his note for Law Review, working on his brief for Moot Court on top of all of his classes. It paid off though, we got his grades last week and he got straight A's!!!! I hope our children have his smarts but my common sense :)
We had a couple of holiday parties to attend, one with my company at our President's house, which a lot of fun. We had a get together with our friends from church and attended the annual Christmas Cantata. We also had time to go to the Falcons/Saints game! This was Russ' first Falcon's game and I have not been to one since 1995.
The weekend before Christmas we drove to Huntsville to celebrate with my Mom's side of the family. Aunt Jill had her first family get together at her newly renovated home! It is gorgeous and I am so glad she is able to have her dream home. It was so good to spend the weekend with Aunt Jill and all my cousins. Saturday night we went to the Christmas Village with my little cousins, it was nice to see Santa, make gingerbread cookies, see Christmas lights, and see the joy on all the kids' faces. Sunday, the entire family got together and had another wonderful meal together. We all got along and no major fights happened. For those of you who are family or know my family, this is a rare :) I am so glad that even after our Granny being gone and the hard times our family have been through the past two years that we are all able to get together and have a good time. I really miss not having my family closer.
We spend Christmas in Florida this year. Darren and Mary moved to Florida in August so all of us went down there to see them. We actually stayed at a beach very close to Clearwater and enjoyed a condo overlooking the ocean. I thought it was funny, my family was in Salem with 18 inches of snow and I was on the beach! Mary works for Disney so we went to Disney on Wednesday. I have not been to Disney since I was four so I do not remember much. All I remember is the Dumbo Ride, dinner with Cinderella, and Mickey's Birthday Bash. It was a different experience this time. Since everyone else has been to Disney a lot, they let me pick which park to spend the day in. I chose Magic Kingdom since that is where the castle is and thought I could experience the "true" Disney. It was all decorated for Christmas and they had some great parades. We left at 6:30 AM and didn't get home until 1:30 AM, it was a very busy day but great to see Disney and be with the family. Thursday we saw where Darren goes to school and the area. Grandma and Grandpa Dunlap joined us for Christmas Eve and Christmas,w which was great to see them! Friday, we opened gifts then headed over to Darren and Mary's apartment in Brandon, FL. The highlight of our Christmas was that Russ got a puppy! Ok, maybe not an actual puppy but he got toys and a card saying when we get back we can begin looking for one! We had a great time in Florida with Russ's family. I will have to stay it was very tough not being with my family for Christmas or seeing my Grandparents but that is one part of marriage, compromise! We were able to celebrate Christmas with Mom, Dad, and Kara the Sunday after Christmas.
We did have some sad news during this joyous time. One of my Mom's good friends and neighbor passed away. Mrs. Dianne passed away on Christmas Day, so please continue to have her family in your prayers as it was a very tragic accident. We attended her visitation and funeral in Griffin. Kara and I grew up with her two girls, as we both are the same ages. Mrs. Dianne and her girls were our first friends when we moved to Lawrenceville. She always helped with decorations for our house and a week before she passed away made me a Christmas decoration with my house. That stocking will mean so much more to me than just a stocking decoration now, it will be a part of her with us. She was such a wonderful friend and neighbor!
Russ and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary this past December. We ate at Dominick's which is where we had our rehearsal dinner then I went back to work! We didn't exchange gifts or do anything elaborate as we were heading for New York City the following day and that was our Christmas and Anniversary gifts for each other.
New York was a blast! We went with Aunt Jill and Kara. None of us have been to NYC before besides Kara so we did all the tourist stuff! Our main reason of going was to do New Year's Eve in Time Square. I will have a whole seperate entry on our NYC trip.
So after this long blog and random updates, I am on track to blog about 2010! We have already had a busy 2010 but in a good way! I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday season with all the ones you loved and remember to tell those you love or care about how much they mean to you!
For some reason it won't let me upload pictures to this post, so see the following post for all the fun pictures of our travels in December.
We had a great holiday season with our friends and family. It was filled with tons and tons of travel but all very fun trips. After all the trips, I am glad to say it is good to be home! Since I have not updated since Thanksgiving I will pick up there.
Before Russ and I got married, we talked about how we would do the holidays. We agreed that we were rotate them so we spent equal time between the families. We started off with our first Thanksgiving with Russ' family in Hendersonville then Christmas with my family in Salem, VA. The weekend before Christmas we drove to TN to celebrate with his family. This year we rotated the order, we spent Thanksgiving in Atlanta with my family (Dad, Mom, Kara, and Aunt Jill) then went to Tampa for Christmas with Russ' family.
Thanksgiving was a hard one this year, it was our first holiday without our Uncle Jack. Thanks for family and wonderful neighbors we celebrated Thanksgiving together over a nice meal and enjoyed each others company. Usually that night Mom, Kara, Aunt Jill, and I go to Wal-Mart. I have no idea how that tradition started but it did. We have done that for years, well this year we decided to do something different. We stayed up until midnight so we could go to the North GA Outlets. We drove up there and five miles before we got the outlets it was bumper to bumper traffic, who would have known this many people would be out shopping. Once we finally got the outlets, we had to drive around to find a place to park. Mom dropped us off while she tried to find a spot, people were parking across GA 400 and running across the highway, others were parking on the sidewalks and hills...it was a mad house! We tried to go to some of the stores but there were lines, yes that rights, LINES! The Coach Store had an eight hour wait to get inside. Once we realize this was ridiculous, we decided to leave. It was 3:00 so we had Breakfast at Waffle House then headed to Belk for their opening at 4:00. We were all getting extremely grumpy so decided to head home and sleep until noon. We woke up ate lunch and headed out for more shopping. This time we hit up the areas around my house and got back around 11 PM. That's right everyone we literally shopped til we dropped! We did it again on Saturday :)
The month of December was full of travels, holiday celebrations, and exams. Russ had exams the first two weeks of December so I planned a business trip to Indiana the first week of December. I do that so I stay out of his hair so he can get some studying in. Russ had a hard semester with writing his note for Law Review, working on his brief for Moot Court on top of all of his classes. It paid off though, we got his grades last week and he got straight A's!!!! I hope our children have his smarts but my common sense :)
We had a couple of holiday parties to attend, one with my company at our President's house, which a lot of fun. We had a get together with our friends from church and attended the annual Christmas Cantata. We also had time to go to the Falcons/Saints game! This was Russ' first Falcon's game and I have not been to one since 1995.
The weekend before Christmas we drove to Huntsville to celebrate with my Mom's side of the family. Aunt Jill had her first family get together at her newly renovated home! It is gorgeous and I am so glad she is able to have her dream home. It was so good to spend the weekend with Aunt Jill and all my cousins. Saturday night we went to the Christmas Village with my little cousins, it was nice to see Santa, make gingerbread cookies, see Christmas lights, and see the joy on all the kids' faces. Sunday, the entire family got together and had another wonderful meal together. We all got along and no major fights happened. For those of you who are family or know my family, this is a rare :) I am so glad that even after our Granny being gone and the hard times our family have been through the past two years that we are all able to get together and have a good time. I really miss not having my family closer.
We spend Christmas in Florida this year. Darren and Mary moved to Florida in August so all of us went down there to see them. We actually stayed at a beach very close to Clearwater and enjoyed a condo overlooking the ocean. I thought it was funny, my family was in Salem with 18 inches of snow and I was on the beach! Mary works for Disney so we went to Disney on Wednesday. I have not been to Disney since I was four so I do not remember much. All I remember is the Dumbo Ride, dinner with Cinderella, and Mickey's Birthday Bash. It was a different experience this time. Since everyone else has been to Disney a lot, they let me pick which park to spend the day in. I chose Magic Kingdom since that is where the castle is and thought I could experience the "true" Disney. It was all decorated for Christmas and they had some great parades. We left at 6:30 AM and didn't get home until 1:30 AM, it was a very busy day but great to see Disney and be with the family. Thursday we saw where Darren goes to school and the area. Grandma and Grandpa Dunlap joined us for Christmas Eve and Christmas,w which was great to see them! Friday, we opened gifts then headed over to Darren and Mary's apartment in Brandon, FL. The highlight of our Christmas was that Russ got a puppy! Ok, maybe not an actual puppy but he got toys and a card saying when we get back we can begin looking for one! We had a great time in Florida with Russ's family. I will have to stay it was very tough not being with my family for Christmas or seeing my Grandparents but that is one part of marriage, compromise! We were able to celebrate Christmas with Mom, Dad, and Kara the Sunday after Christmas.
We did have some sad news during this joyous time. One of my Mom's good friends and neighbor passed away. Mrs. Dianne passed away on Christmas Day, so please continue to have her family in your prayers as it was a very tragic accident. We attended her visitation and funeral in Griffin. Kara and I grew up with her two girls, as we both are the same ages. Mrs. Dianne and her girls were our first friends when we moved to Lawrenceville. She always helped with decorations for our house and a week before she passed away made me a Christmas decoration with my house. That stocking will mean so much more to me than just a stocking decoration now, it will be a part of her with us. She was such a wonderful friend and neighbor!
Russ and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary this past December. We ate at Dominick's which is where we had our rehearsal dinner then I went back to work! We didn't exchange gifts or do anything elaborate as we were heading for New York City the following day and that was our Christmas and Anniversary gifts for each other.
New York was a blast! We went with Aunt Jill and Kara. None of us have been to NYC before besides Kara so we did all the tourist stuff! Our main reason of going was to do New Year's Eve in Time Square. I will have a whole seperate entry on our NYC trip.
So after this long blog and random updates, I am on track to blog about 2010! We have already had a busy 2010 but in a good way! I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday season with all the ones you loved and remember to tell those you love or care about how much they mean to you!
For some reason it won't let me upload pictures to this post, so see the following post for all the fun pictures of our travels in December.
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