10 for '10

In no particular order, here is a smattering of the notable things that occurred in 2010.

1. We celebrated our second wedding anniversary on Nov. 1. Hurrah for two terrific years of marriage! We have grown a lot this year as a team (see #3 and #5) and I can't wait to see what 2011 brings.

2. We started (and mostly completed) two renovation projects in our house: the master bathroom and the kitchen. On a not-so-awesome note, due to one thing or another, I completely failed at getting good before pictures, thus making these milestones semi-lame in a blogging sense. We love our new kitchen though and will get pictures up soon.

3. We traveled a lot: Colorado, Europe, Northern Africa, Hawaii and various points around the Southeast. Favorite moments include hiking in the Alps; exploring Malaga, Spain; putting together distribution packets in Guillermo's bookstore; celebrating my cousin's wedding in the glorious Colorado sunshine with lots of family; seeing my sister's ohana (apartment) and new workplace; riding on the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad with Thomas' family in the beautiful North Carolina fall; eating at Spago's and many other amazing adventures.


4. We got to see our little nephew Colton go from a helpless newborn to a crawling, verbal little guy that keeps everyone on their toes.

5. We got a dog that we love to pieces!! Sullivan has been so much fun (and so much work) this year and we can't get enough of his goofy antics. He is right around 70 pounds, a destroyer of plush toys, a shredder of paper and a sniffer of epic proportions. He is the perfect family dog and we are thrilled to have him--except maybe at 5 am when he wants to jump on the bed and "snuggle," aka take up more than 1/3 of the bed with his long legs and force his parents into absurd positions.

6. My parents moved to Charleston! We have really enjoyed having them around and are excited to watch them build a life here with church involvement, tennis of course, and maybe even the successful completion of a short sale. They also love Sullivan, and their help with him has been invaluable.

7. I finished graduate school and got a full time job! Tens of thousands of pages, and probably an equal number of miles, and a master's thesis later, I now have a degree that is still sitting unframed on my desk.Ironically, neither the degree nor the job has anything to do with the other, but I am so happy to be done with commuting and to be a part of such a wonderful environment at PCA that the lack of literature in my teaching position doesn't matter.

8. We deepened friendships, church involvement and neighborhood presence (thanks to Sullivan). We attended and took part in six weddings, welcomed a few friends' babies into the world and generally had a blast hanging out with people.

9. We celebrated two snowfalls in Charleston, one in February and one just a few days ago. Yay! I survived another boiling hot summer. Yay!

10. And most importantly, we enjoyed another year of God's grace, mercy and forgiveness in our relationships and everyday lives. This verse was on our Christmas cards and was a sort of theme verse for the year:
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works, so that no one can boast." Eph. 2:8-9

See you in 2011! Maybe I can crack 30 for my number of posts next year...

That sunset looks pretty good right about now...

We got to spend Thanksgiving in Maui this year and it was awesome! Thomas and I flew out for a week of fun in the sun with my parents, sister and grandmother. It was a neat chance for reflection since the last time we were there was on our honeymoon, two short years ago! We got to see Hillary in action at work, walk the beach path, shop, kayak, relax and explore. Thomas got a dive in as well and he is thinking about getting certified. The week flew by but it was definitely a Thanksgiving to remember!

Obviously I'm way behind on my posting and in spite of good blogging months in 2010, I am close to falling short of my goal, which was merely to write more posts than I did in 2009. Doh! 2011, however, will be a different story...

Stay tuned for tomorrow in which I chronicle other bits of Thanksgiving, December and Christmas. Not to mention Charleston's SECOND snowfall of 2010.

11.01.08

TWO YEARS BABY!! Also, 11.01.10 looks cool written out.
Anniversaries are awesome.
Thomas is the coolest husband ever.
And thanks be to God for bringing us together and keeping us together.
Hoping for many more anniversaries with this handsome fellow. *

Can't wait to see what this year brings us!!

*fellow: hopelessly old-fashioned and lame or cool and retro?

I admit it...

...I am a Halloween hater. I love fall/harvest time and all the kitschy decorations that accompany this season. Bring on the pumpkins, the bales of hay and all the warm tones. However, please hold the fake tombstones, spider legs and skeletons coming out of the ground. These I could live without. To prove that my reasons are legitimate, please peruse the following list.

1. I grew up in Colorado, a part of the country that many people assume is the land of ice and snow. Denver actually gets about 300 sunny days per year. However, without fail, one of the non-sunny days of the year was Halloween. No skimpy princess outfits for Colorado kids--whatever we came up with had to be "cold-weather adaptable," aka you could bundle up in one of those snowsuits like the little brother in Christmas Story (incidentally, only one more month until Christmas Movie Month!). No wonder a recurring costume for me was being a bag of dog food.* At least I could wear warm clothes underneath.
2. Halloween brings out the tackiest of tacky. You know what I'm talking about. People who otherwise seem relatively normal seem compelled to find the UGLIEST, TACKIEST, WEIRDEST stuff to put in their lawns/cars/offices/whatevertheycanfind. Case in point, our neighbors around the corner have the following in their yard: a) 2 skeletons in adirondacks with drinks in their hands. b) huge monster eyes in the windows. c) a green-faced witch riding a broom between palm trees. d) a birdcage (wait, what?). e)fake cobwebs, orange and white lights, etc. And last but not least, they tape a little black bird to their street sign every year, only this year they decided to "top themselves" (ha, pun intended) and glue a little stuffed mouse to its beak--WHY, PEOPLE, WHY? Admittedly, these people are over the top for every holiday (inflatables at Christmas, Easter eggs in the trees, shamrocks galore) but they really pull out all the stops at Halloween.
3. Halloween costumes. Coming up with a Halloween costume every year was like a Herculean labor for me. The effort to payoff ratio is poor in my opinion. My husband would totally disagree with this, so it's probably just my bitterness at not being creative in this way coming through. Imagine trying to explain American Halloween to someone from Africa. "Well first you spend tons of money and/or time coming up with a costume. If you're an adult female, you should probably try and look as much like a hooker as possible--pirate wench, French maid, sexy cowgirl, etc. Then you put said outfit on and either trick or treat (this part of Halloween is cool) or attend a party for a few hours. You take some pictures and that's it. wah wah wah.
4. Candy overload, leading to sugar glazed kids and fat adults.

So there you have it, Halloween is a terrible holiday. Glad I have my November 1 anniversary to focus on instead!

*I actually wore this outfit for multiple years. Each time we would have to carefully plan out Molly's food so that there would be an empty bag available. I promise that I did, in fact, have friends, though looking back, it's hard to imagine why! See reason #3 for why I liked this costume so much.

Of travelling and home-ing

Just planned out the rest of the year on the calendar--crazy! October, November and December are going to be fun-filled and hopefully a decent balance of travel and home time. Two weddings, a couple of trips, a few holidays...and a partridge in a pear tree.


Thomas commented a few weeks ago that I was a homebody--an observation that I originally did not take kindly to. But upon further reflection, I decided that he was pretty dead on (yikes, 2 sentences in a row ending in prepositions. sorry folks). I love to travel and do interesting things, but I also love to putter around our house and hang out with the terrific friends that we have in this area. Hosting friends and family is always fun, too. We are truly blessed to have the depth and breadth of relationships that we do in Charleston. It's something that I often take for granted but the Lord has truly blessed us beyond measure with wonderful people.

Lately we have been praying for further opportunities to interact with neighbors and cultivate relationships in our own driveway, so to speak. Thanks to our handsome and spastic dog Sullivan, we find ourselves out and about much more often, thereby gaining further "exposure" with fellow dog owners and others who live in our vicinity. Also, there is a little kindergartner from my school who looooooves coming to see me (and Sullivan and Thomas, of course), which has afforded us the opportunity to interact more with his parents and their friends. Pretty cool stuff.
ps) never was a big fan of Mr. Rogers--although thanks to my good friend KPro (KHouse), I now have a deeper appreciation of cardigans

This one's for you, Hillary!

Conversation from our walk tonight:

Ashley: I think we'll have a hard time picking out names for kids.
Thomas: No we won't. We already have the first one picked. It's the perfect unisex name: Laquinta.
Ashley: (silence, then recovery). Maybe if we do that, then our kid can be the spokesperson for the hotel chain and we can stay there for free for the rest of our lives.
Thomas: Well if we're going to aim for that, then let's name him/her Four Seasons instead.

Bathroom Re-Do, Part One

So, I had a blogging fail early this summer when we started our bathroom remodeling and I forgot to take any before pictures. lame, lame, lame. No wonder my little blog just lopes along.
Anyhow, it has been quite a project--light fixtures, faucets, paint, window treatments, art and last but not least: the floor. I scored some sweet deals; my mom and I sweated through some painting projects; Thomas did lighting, plumbing and pretty much everything else (because he is awesome).
Here is a picture of the bare floor (some sort of mortar-covered base level....obviously I am very informed about these things...). Thomas, my dad and our friend Kevin ripped up our old ceramic tile with crowbars. It was manly. It was sweaty. It was awesome. It took them about 4 hours. I did important things like making sure that Sullivan did not get crowbar-ed and that no one died of thirst or hunger.
I look forward to bringing you the second installment of this post: our awesome new stone floors, as well as the story of how we acquired the stone in the first place. whoa. I know you're all pinned to the edge of your seat.