What a difference a year makes

2011:

2012:

2011:

2012:

Goofy little shit.

Thanksgiving 2012

As we express our gratitude,
we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words,
but to live by them.

~John Fitzgerald Kennedy

The last couple years, it's become "tradition" to go over to Brandi and Nichol's for a "homeless" thanksgiving of sorts. Brandi's parents and family come down, and they invite anyone who has no other family in town to come eat. In true pot-luck fashion, everyone brings what they're best at and it's all delicious! Every year there's a slightly different group of people but it's always an awesome time.

We spent a ton of time eating and just hanging out, so there aren't a whole lot of pictures to share - but I managed to take a few!

Joe and I contributed a turkey (Nichol and Brandi had 3 turkeys slaughtered on Tuesday, and we volunteered to roast the big one), stuffed mushrooms, brie en croute, corn, stuffing, apple pie and key lime pie. 

and baked ziti. 

Joe was the only Italian there, and he wanted to contribute baked ziti. Which was very exciting - but HOLY HUGE PAN OF ZITI. It was delicious! And there was SO MUCH food there was tons left over!

Joe making ziti Wednesday night

Post everyone eating the first round, so many leftovers!

The dessert setup

I may not have gotten pictures of the people - but I managed to get a couple of these two stinkers. Mattie is Brandi & Nichol's 4-month old Italian Mastiff - she is rapidly outgrowing Mack, but he loves his girlfriend! You could pretty much guarantee that if they were in the same room - they were engaged in some form of wrestling.

 Late at night, we all sat around the big fire in the back, talking, laughing, drinking. It was a great time!

Mack has spent all of today in some variation of this:

That is one pooped puppy!

We have so, so much to be thankful for. While we sad that we don't get to spend Thanksgiving with our families, we're so grateful to have such amazing friends that take us in and become our Sarasota family for holidays!

Mack

In the days leading up to the wedding, a very special day got mostly overlooked. October 9th our stinky puppy turned 1! We didn't do much, and obviously, he had no idea. But still, momentous, indeed!

Can you believe this little love:

Has turned into this chunk of bulldog?

So happy we brought this little bundle of joy into our lives :)

Adults?

While we wait on wedding pictures, I can update on other happenings!

People were extremely generous with wedding gifts, from cash to crystal - we loved it all! We also quickly realized that we had nothing to display (or protect?) things like fine crystal wine glasses...

Enter: Craigslist!

We found this awesome china cabinet for a mere $350 up in Parrish. With some help from Jim, and moral support from Jess, we got this baby home and all set up - who knew we were old enough for fine china and crystal?! (granted, I don't know that we actually have china?)

We'd also been talking about new couches for a while, the ones we bought when we moved in were sagging and broken. We also knew we needed to deal with it until we recuperated some more from the wedding.

Enter: Drew!

I've always, always loved Drew's couches. And when he moved into his new house and his (pretty much new) couches didn't work in the space - he asked us if we'd like to buy them from him. We jumped at the chance, rented a moving truck and got these new (to us) puppies home! We love them! There's so much space for people to sit down!

3 of the 6 seats recline (including the chaise) - we are in laziness heaven!

You see the little creeper in the corner? He laid claim pretty quickly, too :)

New Blog :)

 

 So we went and did this:

It was an incredible day filled with all of our absolutely favorite people. The day went by SO fast, but it was SO MUCH FUN. There was a lot of this:

Some of this:

And even... some of this:

But mostly, there was a lot of love.

We're supposed to get the professional pictures back tomorrow, and as soon as I can post them, I'll outline all of the events of the weekend. I really can't even begin to put into words how amazing it all was, so I'll let pictures do the talking :).

For now, welcome to our new blog!
We can't wait to take you along as we navigate our newly married life in our sweet home!