2y10

A year ago today, we moved to Virginia from New Orleans. It was different (tons of old english people and swarmed with military) but we set out to make the best of our two and a half months there. We explored from Richmond to Norfolk. I passed the time working at a local hotspot coffee shop in Williamsburg and drank entirely too much coffee.  

We soon found out that Virginia closes down when it snows. Ted standing in our backyard after we walked to the store to stock up on junk food. We spent a lot of time snuggling and watching movies.

March came around and it was busy. Ted graduated from A-school and we went back to New Orleans for a visit, flew to Dallas for Ted's mom's wedding, went back to New Orleans to unload our storage unit and headed to Philadelphia. It was my honor to stand with my sister-in-laws in Ted's mom's wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony and weekend. We helped my mother-in-law move into the house Donald had bought for them and it was wonderful sitting around their new house as a family. We will always treasure those precious moments we had.

April was a whirlwind. Finally, starting to unpack our boxes and get the loft set up in Philadelphia. Sadly, Ted's grandma passed away. We booked our flights to Denver and flew out the next day. I met a lot of my husband's extended family at the funeral and we had a wonderful time meeting our new nephew, Titus. 

We took a small breather in May and enjoyed many evening picnics in the park a few blocks away. We fell in love with Philadelphia and living in the city. I enjoyed not working and cooking many weekly consistent meals. Our evening strolls around the city were my favorite. 

Due to the oil spill, Ted volunteered for deployment to the Gulf. Luckily, he was stationed working out of New Orleans. I was able to meet him down there. We were able to meet our month old little nephew Abel. We celebrated our first anniversary in the city we were wed. Unfortunately, we had to cancel our Disney anniversary plans due to Ted's deployment. Ended up enjoying a luxe suite in a fancy hotel and lavished ourselves with gifts. It's was perfect. Except for the tragic news of our new stepfather passing away unexpectedly.

I was able to celebrate with my bridesmaids for Jessica's birthday in July. We laughed over cheese and wine while we painted. I totally loved hanging out by the pool and taking it easy on my extended vacation to New Orleans. Half way through the month, Ted was sent back to Philly and I followed. 

August rolled in and we took advantage of our close proximity to New York. We sat and talked in Central park, window shopped in Soho, and had that magical New York experience. We walked South Street often to visit our new friends at Art to Save the World which was working with me on helping raise money to send to help fishermen in the Bayou (due to the oil spill).

Here I am sitting at brunch with my family. You can see more pictures of my visit here. A visit to my family in Kentucky and a dear friend's wedding...along with starting a new part time job. (I realized how awesome I had it not working at all for months.) We found a church. Ted switch departments at work which changed his schedule allowing him to be home more often which I have loved since. I scored a part time gig watching a little munchkin and enjoyed my last few weeks off before I started working.

We flew my mother-in-love in for a visit in October. Since, Ted was deployed and we were unable to be there for her through the funeral of our stepdad. We told her that she should visit whenever she found time. She loves reading about the Amish and was overjoyed to go and visit Lancaster. We stopped in a local shop that wasn't swarmed with tourists and scored a gorgeous old trunk. I snatched a photo to document the older amish gent that helped ted load it into our car. October also was especially exciting because I started culinary school at the Art Institute and I'm loving it. (I've been working on posts for a new blog that I plan to day-view in the future of all that I'm learning and all my time in the kitchen lately.)

Birthdays. Birthdays. Birthdays. November is always fun packed with celebrations. We tend to go a bit over board since we share the same birthday along with one of Ted's besties and his mom. We went away into the mountains for some special ( alone time ). We hiked to a waterfall. We talked by a fire. 

Need I remind you, my little brother visited us for a whole 10 days in December. This was by far the highlight of the month. A great way to end the year as well. This was a picture taken on Christmas day when we visited Ted at the Coast Guard. We had lunch and it was surprisingly pretty good. The rest of the day we wandering around then made it to a movie.