January

Soo this month has been incredibly busy!! The first weekend in January we were obviously in Hot Springs.. But after that we were smacked in the face with reality.. The second weekend, was the first competition of the year for all of my new little tumblers. They did a great job and were a bunch of show offs. Stephen stayed home that day since I was only going to be driving there and driving back. That same weekend my upper levels stayed home and participated in a clinic for trampoline. On Sunday we all met back at the gym for a "kick off" party and team pictures. The third weekend we were in Knoxville, TN for another competition. Stephen and I actually LOVE Knoxville and I think, secretly wished we had gone there for college. It is just such a neat city. However the meet was cruel! 13 hours straight of coaching and judging (for Stephen). Basically we got back to the room that night and passed out. Last weekend, we again spent the morning at the gym for Stephen to get his recertification and I had some lessons. Then we drove to Durham to see RENT with Carole Ann and Kristi! It was A M A Z I N G!! I absolutely loved it and could watch it 100 more times.. We then went and had dinner, and then spent a few hours back at Carole Ann's apartment looking for places for her to live when she moves to Chicago in May. :(
Sunday started off with brunch at Holly and Caleb with lots of friends, proceeded and followed by lots of entertainment by Liam! He is just so darn cute! After that we came home and watched a movie and then spent the rest of the afternoon organizing our house and preparing the week. In between weekends, we have been working ALOT and Stephen has started back in school.. Things are busy, busy, busy and we are looking forward to a relaxing weekend sometime in the future!

Ahhh.. Vacation..

Better late than never right.. Here are some pictures from our trip to Hot Springs, Virginia where we celebrated Christmas/New Years with family. Stephen and I had 5 days off in a ROW can you believe and so on New Years Eve, along with Carole Ann and Bella, we drove up to meet Ann, Donna, Ryan and Mark. We had an absolute wonderful time resting, eating, playing card games, eating, playing the Wii (and getting so competitive that we break the overhead light fictures.. hehe Ryan..), hiking, watching movies, did I mention eating. It was so hard to come back to reality afterwards, but sure enough we all had too. Hopefully we will be back up there sooner than later!

Christmas went by almost as quickly as it came. For some reason this December we just couldn't get it together fast enough. While we love the holiday season between sicknesses, work, and school (for Stephen) we didn't get our house decorated until about a week before christmas and even then it was to our normal extent. Oh well, next year we will make up for it. Christmas itself however was busy as normal. We traveled to Wilmington on Tuesday night arriving around 2am. We then spent Christmas Eve at my grandmother Seabock's house as we normally do. Below is a picture of her christmas tree and all of the gifts! It never ceases to surprise me how many there are there. We stayed the night at my mom's house and then woke up christmas morning and did gifts with her.


The day was the spent at Stephen's grandmother's house for lots of gift opening with cousins, and lunch. The pictures below are of Stephen, his grandmother, and his youngest brother Mark. Also a picture of this Christmas' favorite gift, puffy vests!!




After that we went to my grandmother's again for dinner. Whoa! Talk about to much eating. We then finished out the day at my grandma Phelps's house for gifts and some yummy snacks. Yes we literally ate all day. Unfortunately this Christmas was shorter than normal as we had to come back home early Friday morning to be back at work! Bleh!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas holiday! We will be leaving on Wednesday morning to celebrate New Year's in Hot Spings, VA with Stephen's immediate family and we cannot wait!! Wishing you many great things in the coming year!

Christmas is getting so close..

Well it has been quite an interesting past two weeks. Stephen has been really sick, and trying to finish up the semester. Then I got sick and have been moving quite slowly around the house. Needless to say our normal Christmas decorating extravaganza did not happen as normal on the first weekend of December. We did buy our tree as we have the past 6 years, but it hasn't even been decorated this week. I am hoping that we will get everything up and decorated this week!

These are pictures from Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving day was busy as always, but so much fun to be able to see our whole family and spend time together, and eat great food! It may seem like we only went to Stephen's family but my family is just harder to get pictures of.. Hehe!




The day after Thanksgiving was full of shopping. Stephen went out with me at 5am! and then I took him home around 8am, and met up with my aunt and cousin (long time shopping tradition) and my mom (the first time ever she has come out of the day after). We shopped ALL day long until about 4pm when we were ready to crash! However I can say I got alot of my shopping done! Yay!!

Seriously!

Okay.. so everytime I keep saying that I am going to keep up with this.. In fact it has been my post probably more times then anything else.. But with the holidays going on and such, I figured.. I really should keep it up! So tomorrow, I will get on and post pictures and actually begin maintaining my blog!

I'm going to keep up with this!

I have decided, I am going to email the blog address to family and friends and actually KEEP UP with this blog! I enjoy so much reading other people's blogs and learning about what is going on with their lives, and I want everyone to know what is going on with our lives.

I am not sure where to begin, since the real last thing I put in here was at Christmas. Since then, Stephen and I have been working to finish up our spring semester 08 of college. 5 weeks until graduation and counting!! I cannot wait! It couldn't come fast enough.. Speaking of school, I am trying very hard to continue to motivate myself concerning my school work, even though my brain is already starting to check out into graduate mode. Stephen is doing well in school, and keeping the light at the end of the tunnel in focus. He's so much more optimistic about things sometimes than I am. We were talking last night, and he says, "its really not that far away, think about how fast this year went by.." I don't know, it didn't seem to go by very fast to me at all. But I'm glad he is positive!

Stephen and I have both been promoted over the past few months. I am now the head coach of the trampoline and tumbling team at Tumblebees as well as the recreational director for tramp and tumbling. (check out our website http://www.ultimateairtnt.com/) Stephen has gotten promoted to lead supervisor at UPS. He hasn't switched to that position yet but will in the coming few weeks.

Besides work and school, its just finding time to see family and spend time together. As meet season starts to end, school ends for me, and summer schedule at the gym begin hopefully we will be able to do more of the "spending time" that we would like. Stephen will however be in summer school, so who knows..

Anyway, we went to Wilmington this weekend and had a great time, although we always wish we can stay longer. We spent a good amount of time with all sides of our families, as well as got to spend some quality "talking" time together on the way there and back that we haven't had a in while. It was nice to just talk about life. To top it all off, we went by and saw Abigail in Raleigh. She is getting so big, and I so much enjoy seeing her and spending time with Micah and Naomi. The funniest part to all of it, was that when we walked in the door immediately Naomi handed her to Stephen. It was so much fun to watch him hold her, and talk to her. She is just absolutely perfect!

Longing for spring..

Today Stephen and I spent a good deal of time doing some "spring cleaning." Fun, I know.. But necessary.. I was glad to be inside today because the wind outside was terrible! I felt like everything around us was swirling, kind of like the wizard of oz. When we did finally go out, I was FREEZING! So as I sit here now on the computer I am longing and wishing for warm days. Its funny how when the fall comes everyone gets ready and excited for cold weather, and then after a few months we all want the warm weather to return. We've been making all kinds of plans for trips to the beach in Wilmington and Florida, and trips to amusement parks like Busch Gardens and Sea World, all to continue thinking of the warm weather. While its not in the forecast any time soon I'll keep hoping..

**Above are pictures that I found that reminded me of spring.. :)