Learning to be domestic

Hello!
Kirk and I have been busy learning to be domestic! I guess this season has made us feel like making more things from scratch. A few weekends ago, we started off the weekend by going on a Starbucks date, and a dollar theater movie. (Oh yeah, we know how to be big spenders.. hehe) We then woke up on Saturday with an incredibly beautiful dusting of snow. It was our first real snow we've had and it was wonderful!
Then we headed to the store and bought all kinds of supplies. We made homemade chicken noodle soup, and then later about 6-8 dozen sugar cookies. Whew, what a fun but tiring time!

We thought our carrots, celery, and onions looked pretty....



Sugar cookies apparently grow more than you would expect!


Our Christmas tree.. a small but worked for us!
We had a fantastic but exhausting Christmas visiting all of our families we made something like five appearances within two days! We are moving into our two bed room apartment in just 3 weeks! We have started to pack up things slowly, thankfully we do have over two weeks to get moved out of our apartment and into our new one. We welcome any help, especially since with my back, I will not be able to do much of the moving.
Have a happy and wonderful New Year!

Updates

Wow. I must be a pretty bad blogger. It's been well over a month. I had every intention on blogging this past weekend, and over things kept coming up instead!
Christmas is just around the corner now (two weeks from today exactly! Woo-hoo!!) Kirk and I have been decorating our apartment and wrapping presents. We are really looking forward to our first Christmas together - it's been fun to decorate our first tree, have a wreath hanging on our door, and Christmas light wrapped around our deck, and busting out my holly Christmas plates! However, due to our lack of space in our small one bed room apartment, the clutter that comes with this holiday has started to get on my nerves, seeing that with all this new holiday decor, we truly do not have the storage space to put the boxes away. Anyways... we are almost done with our shopping, I will recommend to everyone, start shopping as soon as possible, this year, Kirk and I started on Labor Day - shopping has been much more enjoyable spreading it out over four months!

We've been blessed that Kirk's job continues to be 8-4:30, we don't know when his new schedule will start, but it's looking like he may never work the late hours (11:30a-8p) that he originally agreed to. This is a HUGE blessing for us, because we are able to eat dinner together most every night, and spend lots of time together. Also, this week, he was able to work overtime, due to the blizzard in Des Monies and the Nationwide employees there not being able to come into work. Another huge blessing for us, especially during this season!

Other things we've been up to:
-2 more Ohio State football games, we were able to get tickets to the Iowa game, as well as go to our first Michigan, Ohio State away game - what an experience indeed
-Our weekly Wednesday guys wings night, and girls night continues, we love the chance to have fellowship with our friends weekly
-Went to a UD basketball last weekend to watch our friend Anna's boyfriend who plays for Lehigh University
-We continue to get excited about the NorthChurch plant coming in January 210. We are very excited to see how God is going to work in the community of Olentangy area
-We are moving in the middle of January to a 2 bed and 2 bath apartment! Can't wait - if you are available, let us know, we can use as many hands as we can get!

Posting updated pictures will come soon!

Surprises!

I have always wanted to be in on a great surprise for someone! What better then to do a surprise for my husband?!? Back in late August I started scheming with my dad to help me get some OSU tickets through a great connection that he has. (This was before we had won tickets to the USC game.) My dad pulled through and was able to get us tickets for the New Mexico State game, in A deck, eight rows up! I was so excited, dad sent the tickets to work and I had them sitting in my desk drawer for weeks. Then, I was able to get Kirk's parents in on this as well... they were able to get tickets. His parents and I had Kirk totally fooled that they were coming to celebrate his birthday the week after.
By Friday, October 30, I had just about lost it and was barely able to hold it in anymore! After Kirk left for work, I pulled out lots of pictures from games we had been to in college, and a sign that said "Happy Birthday". Work went incredibly slow as I was anxious to get to see his reaction to something I had been planning for so long!
Everything went so smoothly. Kirk was suspicious with the decorations by the time I got home from work, so I gave him those right away. Then, I just had to stall his desire to make plans for the evening until there was a knock on the door. He was totally blown away and excited to know they had tickets to the game as well.
It turned out to be an awesome weekend, we had a blast at the game, especially with the blow out, and at half time when TBDBITL came out and did a Halloween show, complete with dancing Thriller!!! We feel really blessed to have gotten to spend a great weekend with his parents. I know how loved Kirk felt, and that was my main goal through planning all of this. It was worth every little bit of waiting to tell him!
His real birthday was this past Monday, November 2. After such a great weekend, we continued celebrating by dining at none other than Cap City Diner! One of our most favorite places to eat! Kirk even surprised me with a pretty rose when I got home from work!
I thoroughly enjoy birthdays, and the fact that you get to tell people how much you love them and care about them.
Below is a picture of the four of us at the game! Go Bucks 45-0!!!
Also, a few weeks ago we carved our pumpkins! I forgot how messy that can be and how nasty the orange stuff in the middle is! Ew! We enjoyed them for about a day before they became infested with bugs... even more gorse! Either way, Happy be-lated Halloween!

Kirk's pumpkin is on the left, mine is on the right.

Happy Halloween!

Fall in Columbus, Ohio

Well, we will start off by updating everyone from our last blog. Thank you for the prayers, little Reagan has left the hospital! Praise the Lord! She has a long road ahead of her, but she is headed for a new life in South Carolina with her mommy and daddy.

Kirk and I have been thoroughly enjoying the gorgeous fall weather! It always amazes me every season that God continually changes things, and makes sure that we never get bored. I am grateful that our God mixes things up and keeps things interesting, as well as puts beauty into nature by changing colors. It truly is amazing.
With the fall of course comes Ohio State Football! The past few Saturdays we have been able to enjoy having friends over and watching football all day long. To our happiness, the Buckeyes keep winning! Go Bucks!
Going along with the fall fun, we went to purchase pumpkins this past weekend and are planning on carving them soon. Although, I don't know much about pumpkins, that's something my parents always took care of, so how soon should we carve them so they will be ok for Halloween?

This past week, we also celebrated our first six months of marriage! We went to Sapparo Sushi Factory - it was a wonderful date and great sushi! Highly recommend it. Our camera wasn't quite cooperating with us, so the picture is a little pink, but it's from our date last Monday.
Sarah came to Columbus this past week as well. We had a blast and got to see So You Think You Can Dance Live! My friend, Steph, came with us, and not only was it great to see an awesome show, she was also celebrating getting accepted to Optometry School! It was an incredible show, again, highly recommend it to anyone who has the chance to go! It was well worth every penny, and we left so energized it was hard to fall asleep that night!

Steph sporting her awesome glasses as a gift for getting into Optometry School!

Stay tunned for more fall fun updates!

Prayer Requests

The power of prayer is incredible.
We are requesting today specifically for prayer for Holly's cousin, Melissa. She gave birth to a baby girl, Reagan, on Thursday. There have been a lot of complications for Reagan and she has been placed in the NICU while she continues to undergo testing and such. Please pray for Melissa and her husband Joe for strength and wisdom and peace, as well as their precious baby girl, Reagan, for health and healing.

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of the fullness of God. And now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generation, for ever and ever! Amen.
~Ephesians 3:14-21

Weekend in Perrysburg

Kirk and I spent the weekend in Perrysburg visiting his parents. It was very relaxing to spend time with them, chow on 7 layer bean dip that Paulette and I made right before the game! It was also wonderful to see our Buckeyes bounce back with a 38-0 win over Toledo!
Kirk also enjoyed a night of hanging out with his old roommates, Charlie and Blake. I know the boys enjoyed being together, they haven't all seen each other since our wedding.
We've been enjoying seeing some of the leaves start to show some color, but also sad to say good-bye to summer. However, we are still enjoying our pool until it closes on October 4.
Some events that we are looking forward to are; our 6 month anniversary next Monday, and Sarah flying in to watch So You Think You Can Dance Live on Oct. 1! We are VERY excited!!


Stay tuned for more updates!

OSU vs. USC

Ahh... the weekend! We decided it would be fun to go and support a good friend of ours who coaches football at Olentangy Orange High School last night. We had a blast and the team did great and was a really exciting game. It was fun to be able to watch a football game, and not be trying to meet high school kids or coach them. Well, before we went into the game some students were selling raffle tickets to the USC game. Kirk thought, hmm, for $5 for charity, he would buy a ticket. Then during the middle of the 3rd quarter of the game last night, our ticket was called for the OSU vs. USC tickets!! We were so excited and shaking when we went up to claim our prize! Look for us tonight in 15 D- Deck! GO BUCKS!!!!! :)

Last weeks game with Kate! :)

Holly with the USC tickets!

Kirk with the USC tickets!

The Beginning

Well, we've decided to blog. We have no idea what this will look like, but thought it would be fun to look back at and to track all the things we do. 

A quick overview of things we have been up to since March 28:

-Honeymoon in Jamaica 

-Kirk got a GREAT job at Nationwide Insurance

-Purchased a washer and dryer

-Purchased a Wii (so fun- you need to get one... or at least come over and play with us!)

-Purchased a 2006 Honda Accord (pictures to come soon)

We have enjoyed so much the first five months of our marriage and enjoy silly things like chasing each other around the apartment while brushing our teeth at night. It's truly amazing how much fun we have and how much we laugh at one another, and how in the past five months we have fallen more in love with one another. 

Thanks for coming to our blog and hopefully we will update more soon!