Christmas Festivities

This Christmas was our first as a married couple! We spent the first six days of our Christmas break with my parents in North Carolina and then flew to Minnesota to spend the next six days with Alex's family. We had tons of fun in both states! The Shupes were staying at my parent's house and made the few days before Christmas very exciting and fun (even with the flooding incident). We had the annual Christmas Eve party at our house minus a few very missed guests. Santa came and brought us lots of exciting things. It was a very nice Christmas!!

The pretty tree!


Christmas decorations




Christmas Kitten


We got to meet our new cousin Caleb!


Christmas Eve Party




Some of the cousins


Opening Secret Santa presents


Ryan and his new slippers!


The "Last Gift" game board


Playing for the money






After the party waiting for Santa!


1st Christmas morning!


Presents from Santa for me and Alex!


Santa presents for Moo! Thank you Michele and Dave!!


Moo loves jumping in the boxes.


New PJs!


Moo is happy.


Moo is sleepy.


Moo is mad!


Neat Christmas pork that dad made for dinner!


Tired out from all the Christmas fun!

Tacky Sweater Christmas Party No. 2

Back in North Carolina we went to the annual Tacky Sweater Christmas Party. It was really nice to see everybody again. We ended up with our own gift this year, a twelve pack of Modelo Especial and chips!!! YUM!!

Family Picture


Presents for the Dirty Santa game... we ended up stealing our present back from somebody else!


Ryan, Chrissie, and Jen

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Moo is now an expert traveler. She rode her first train and plane, and sat in a car all in her journey back to North Carolina for Christmas. Alex and I drugged the kitten then stuffed her in her pretty little carrier. After two and a half hours of meowing, she finally fell asleep as we reached our gate at the airport. Unfortunately, the plane woke her back up and we were forced to listen to more meows from the purple bag. After we finally made it home (seven and a half hours later) Ms. Moo was happy and took a little nap :)

We had to walk several blocks in twenty inches of snow to reach the train station. Moo is a champ!


Getting on the train!


Waiting for our plane tickets :) All the other passengers wanted to talk to Moo.


Moo having a panic attack on the plane.


Finally home and snuggling with Zach :)

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Starting around 1 am Saturday morning, it began to snow!! The snow didn't stop until 8 am Sunday and left us with a little over twenty inches!! It was very exciting to see that much snow. Unfortunately, we have two exams on Monday so instead of playing in the snow we had to watch it from Drexel's library :( Alex bought snow boots Friday night for our trip to Minnesota so he was super prepared for the snow.

Saturday morning


Making a snow angel!


The long, cold trek to Drexel


Snow Monkey


Dedication (to our last two exams!)


Studying during the snow storm!


Leaving school for the night


Our stairs (12 more hours of snow fell on them after this picture)


Snow on our window


Car out front


Front yard


Sunday morning

The cold path to school.


Look how deep!!!


Covered car outside of school


Only person at school when I got there :)

Christmas Cookies

Instead of spending the evening in cadaver lab studying the course of the recurrent laryngeal nerve like a good student, I decided to make stained glass cookies! I used the neat cookie cutters mommy got us last year from Williams Sonoma. They would have turned out great if I hadn't put wax paper under them... the candy has permanently stuck to the paper :( Despite the unfortunate taste of wax when biting into the candy part of the cookie, the cookies are really pretty! I think next time when I don't have thoughts of pectinate muscles dancing in my head, I will frost the cookies and make them look even better.

Pre-baking!


The cookies look like stained glass windows!




These were the prettiest!

Let it Snow!

We had our first snow in Philadelphia this past Saturday!! It was very exciting even though it only snowed one inch. I was shadowing in the ER during all of the snow madness and was able to see lots of neat things and even assisted in putting on a cast! It is supposed to snow again Tuesday night and we can't wait!

Tacky Sweater Christmas Party

Last night, we went to a Tacky Sweater Christmas Party downtown. It was part of a Toys for Tots event, although we were bad and didn't bring any toys. It was fun seeing a bunch of Drexel people in their crazy sweaters!

Tacky family picture


Jason, Hilary, Kia, Danielle and me in our tacky sweaters!


Alex and Joseph

We are Getting Coal for Christmas

So Alex and I will be getting coal for Christmas because we have a way-before-Christmas-gift-opening problem... we opened our presents from Janet and Bruce! Turns out, though, it was a totally good decision!!! Alex got a sweet Burton hoodie and I got a North Face jacket!! We love them!! With the upcoming Saturday snow *fingers crossed* it was the perfect time to open these presents. And we think we remember a rumor that we were allowed to open these presents early anyway :)



Moo enjoyed the bag of course

Mr. Scheer, Rm 240

Mr. Scheer's classroom in Philly!! Alex is a math teacher at Philadelphia Job Corps. It is a trade school and also a place for students to earn their GED. Who ever thought Mr. French would be teaching ratios and compound interest calculations?!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

After all of the turkey was eaten and the black Friday shopping was finished, Alex and I bought our first married Christmas tree! It is a little smaller than last year, but perfect none the less. It definitely helps make our apartment more fit for the season!



Moo getting festive


Alex with his NC State ornament and me with my UNC ornament posing with the NC State-UNC football game on in the background of course... we don't have to mention how it ended.


We decided to open one present each on December 1st to get the holiday season started. Alex got an awesome sweater from his parents!!


And my new hubby got me this beautiful gold Coach purse!!

Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving, we went to Aunt Chrissy and Uncle Paul's house. Both of our parents came too (plus Lisa and Grandma)! It was very fun to have both of our families at the same Thanksgiving feast! The tables were beautiful and the food was excellent :)

Mommy and the pretty table


Colin and I at the kid's table


Lisa and Alex