oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree!!!

Merry Christmas!!

we had a blast taking pictures for our christmas card! we headed to the beach with our fake snow, set up the self timer and made it snow!!! ***

it was pretty windy and the snow wouldn't cooperate...

but it made for some great laughs!

we're dreaming of a white christmas and are sooo hoping for some snow when we go to NJ!!!

* * *

Here we are picking out of very first Christmas Tree!!!!

it survived on the roof for the drive home :-)

carrying it in!!!

our tree with twinkle lights. the tree skirt is a piece of fabric my dad brought me back from Africa!

these icicle lights are as cold as it gets here :-)

I came home from work the other day to a surprise package from my mom... ALL MY CHILDHOOD ORNAMENTS!!! We'd get a new one each year, which is a tradition that Davey and I will start too :-)

"trimming the tree" in... SHORTS?!

putting on the star!!! in SHORTS?!

our beautiful 1st tree :-)

our stockings :-) (I sewed our names on them... so martha stewart, haha)

even our indoor plants get decorated!!!

Give thanks

Happy Thanksgiving!!! We're so excited for our 1st Thanksgiving together! and we are just BURSTING with things to be thankful for!

I had to work the day before thanksgiving from 11am-11p. but they let me out early and Davey and I got to start our road trip to Sacramento early!!! we drove up north to spend the week with Davey's family. On the way we had to stop at Bravo Farms... our favorite rest area where you can sample all the cheese! yum!!!

Thanksgiving was wonderful and we had an amazing time together eating good food (especially the pie's Davey's dad made), talking, laughing and enjoying each other's company.

On Saturday, we took a trip to San Francisco and hiked across the golden gate bridge! it was soooo fun... and WINDY!!!

we are so thankful for our families and are LOVING being married during the holiday's!!!

While we were up north, we decided to all celebrate christmas because we are going to NJ this year. We were all abuzz with last minute preparations...

we decorated the Christmas tree...

Julie made the most AMAZING cream puffs...

and Davey and his Dad put up the lights outside,

I loved all the Anderson traditions... open faced sandwiches and cream puffs, and how they usually celebrate on Christmas Eve because his great aunt used to be too excited to wait until Christmas day. Hmmmm... I fit in perfectly with my own impatience :-)

trick or treat

This halloween, we both had to work, but that didn't stop us from dressing up!!!

finding fall

OUR MISSION: to find fall in southern California and go apple picking

Our adventure took us 2 hours inland to the little town of Oak Glen. Although it was too early in the season for the spectacular fall foliage I was hoping for, we did find some pretty amazing apple cider donuts and hot apple cider!

an apple cancels out the donut, right?!

a little bit further down the road, we stopped at another orchard and they didn't have any apple trees, but they sure had a ton of raspberries!!! we picked... and ate... raspberries until our mouths turned red! yummmm!

but we saved some room for apples!!! we found a few trees that still had some apples left and left Oak Glen with our MISSION ACCOPMLISHED!

we even found some yellow leaves!!!

here are the apples to prove it :-)

and my favorite--the apple pie... a la mode of course!!!

p.s. we opted out of picking a $25 pumpkin from the patch at the orchard and got a bunch of $3 pumpkins at home depot instead. if you close your eyes, it's just like being in the pumpkin patch ;-)

and of course we carved them!!!

more autumn adventures to come...

august rush

August was such a fun month! It's been awesome starting out our marriage in the summer...we've had a blast biking, surfing, going on spontaneous trips to golden spoon for ice cream, sitting on the porch, growing tomatoes, relaxing with friends, grilling, going to the beach... and every moment is sweeter because we're together!

For Davey's b-day, we went to Santa Barbara for 2 days and then met our friends, Erik and Julie in Cambria and camped.

we had a BLAST and not only did the boys make us delicious breakfast burritos over the fire, but

we had tons of great conversations and laughs with two AMAZING people who we are so blessed to be friends with!

california reception

since our wedding was in NJ and we live in CA, we had another reception for all of our california friends and family. Good food, great friends, dancing, talking... it was tons of fun! And... I got to wear my dress again!!! thanks to everyone who came and celebrated with us!!!

the flood

we've been married for less than a month and we're LOVING it! this week, we had quite an adventure!!!

on my first day of work, I got a call from Davey that our neighbor's toilet overflowed and leaked into our apt and flooded the bedroom and living room.

For 4 days we lived in a complete disaster, with couches in the kitchen, soggy carpets, plumbers everywhere... we slept in the living room with loud fans blowing under our carpets.

We sailed through this "bad time" with each other and now have a crazy memory of our first month together :-)