Bye Bye 2009, Hello 2010!

This will be me and Justin's second New Year's together, and our second one in Tennessee! Last year we went to Gatlinburg with our friends the Lobdell's and this year we're going to....



NASHVEGAS!!!

I haven't been to Nashville since I moved from there in August 2008. Oh how I have missed the beautiful city :) Not that I regret moving home at all by any means, I just didn't realize I would miss Nashville as much as I do. Anyway, the whole reason we're going to Nashville is to ring in the New Year with an exchange of "I Do's" between these two wonderful people...



Lillian and Craig are getting married on January 2, 2010. Justin and I are driving up early on New Year's eve so that we can hang out with my old Nashville roomie, Edria, and another girl I danced with at Alabama, Arrah, and her husband. We will have our child in tow, yes, Rob is coming with us :) Rob's parents live in Nashville, so he figured since we were going down that he'd join in. The very first trip Justin and I ever went on together was with Rob and Edria to Gatlinburg. I think about the hilariousness (is that a word?) of that trip and it makes me excited to see what tonight will bring.

As for New Years resolutions...I think I have finally picked mine. I hate resolutions. Most people say things like "workout more" or "take a fun trip". These are things that Justin and I do all the time so it's not something I would ever make my resolution. However, there is one thing I do not do enough that I should do, and that is drink water. I know it seems like a small resolution, but mine is to drink 2-3 bottles of water per day. As of now, I only drink 1 or at most 2 on days that I workout. Maybe if I can actually get use to drinking that much water I can finally start getting off my Diet Mountain Dew :)

Hope everyone has a safe weekend and WONDERFUL start to 2010!!

A Very Merry Christmas

Justin and I both had a very amazing Christmas this year! We started off by exchanging one gift from each of us on Christmas Eve right before bed. I opened a beautiful watch that I somehow managed not to get a picture of and Justin opened a book I gave him.



I knew that as soon as he started reading the book he would have more trips planned for us. Shockingly, we have both done many things that are listed in the book. There is a page dedicated to climbing Kilimanjaro in Africa, which is something we plan to do in 2011 along with a safari in the Serengeti for a week (both on my 101 list). After seeing the spread in the book, Justin got all excited and started looking things up for us to climb the mountain. We aren't sure of the exact dates since the guides don't post them that far in advance, but we know that it will consist of us leaving sometime around December 20th and returning after the New Year. So we will be celebrating Christmas and New Years in Africa, which is pretty awesome! The trip is usually completely booked up 8 months in advance so we've already started saving for it. Justin and I are both hoping to convince his dad to come climb the mountain with us. Anyways, I'll talk more about that in a later blog. For now, back to Christmas...

We went to the 11pm service at church on Christmas Eve night and, as tradition, to waffle house afterwards. The "kids" go to the waffle house by the church on Columbiana and the adults go to the waffle house by the Days Inn on Hwy 31. The next morning we woke up and finished exchanging gifts between the two of us.



Justin got me a new Zune. I had an Ipod before, but I like this much better!!



He also got me the collection of the "old school" Christmas movies along with the funniest movie ever made, The Hangover. I didn't take pictures of my gifts to Justin, but they all were related to the jeep.

After opening gifts from eachother we went to the Morris' house to have Christmas.



The Morris Christmas tree.



My awesome stocking that Debbie made me. She's so talented!



Debbie, Gordon, Jennifer and Aeron all opening gifts. And Gizmo was front and center :)

I got so much from the Morris'! Justin and I both got some Alabama and Auburn ornaments from Debbie and from Jennifer. Jenn and Aeron got me some pretty awesome stationary, a 5 ingrediants or less cookbook (perfect for me), and a few other things. Debbie and Gordon got me some new running shoes (well needed since my current ones are about to have to retire before the half-marathon in April), more of our china, gift cards to the movies, TONS of candy, some storage containers for ornaments (also well needed), a few scuba diving toys, and a bunch of other things too. Justin naturally got a TON of stuff for his jeep. It was basically all he wanted for Christmas.



This was one of my favorite things they got me. It's a Diver's Down beach towel for scuba divers. Love it :)

After eating a wonderful lunch at the Morris', we left to take the Giz home and restock the car with gifts for my mom's family.



Me and my awesome hubby in front of my mom's tree!



Anderson was super excited about his Batman ATV from me and Justin. He's all into Batman these days!



My mom gave me a nativity scene which I was NOT expecting. I absolutely LOVE it!!! I was seriously telling Justin on the way to my mom's that next year I needed to buy a nativity because we didn't have one. I had never even mentioned it to my mom. Thanks momma!!!

After leaving my mom's we met back up with Justin's family for their tradition of movie night on Christmas night. We all went to see It's Complicated with Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin. It was cute, but I expected it to be funnier than it was.

I hope everyone had as awesome of a Christmas as we had. Happy Birthday Jesus!

New Book

I actually have more to blog about, but this will do for now. I just bought the book Manhunt by James L. Swanson. Bonnie's future husband told me about this book while we were all in Washington D.C. and I have been meaning to buy it ever since. I got sidetracked when I started reading The Lovely Bones (which comes out in theaters everywhere in January) but now that I am done reading that book, it's time to start another one. I was at Barnes and Noble getting a last minute Christmas gift for Justin and saw the book. Naturally I bought it :) It is about the 12 day "manhunt" for John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln's murderer. He ran from Ford's Theater all the way to a farmhouse in Virgina. I can't wait to read it!!