My Green Space

Christmas is one of my favorite holidays. Always has been. It has always been one of my favorite times spent with my family. We have created our share of unique Christmas traditions over the years. Everything from seeing how many puzzles we can do in our days together, to our version of Christmas Eve dinner, and one of my all time favorites "Christmas Crunch".

This year is going to be different. For the first time in my life I won't be having Christmas with my family in Meridian. We will be spending Christmas with Eric's family in Nebraska. While I am excited to spend some time with them and get to know them better, I will miss my family terribly and our funny Christmas traditions.

But this has got me thinking about Eric and I creating some Christmas traditions of our own. This being our first Christmas together I don't really know where to start. I have all my Christmas shopping done and Eric is almost done with his. Shopping together has been fun, interesting, but fun. Eric put up lights on the house, the decorations are put up all over, gifts are wrapped under the tree, so it seems like we are pretty much ready. Only a couple things left to do.

All I have left to ask is what kind of traditions do we want to have in our new family. I realize traditions tend to create themselves so we'll have to see what happens. My question for you is, what is your favorite Christmas Tradition?

I love college football. This is not new news to those who know me well. I look forward to the fall season and weekends full of great games to watch. I have two favorite teams that I cheer for, but am a fan of the game in general so enjoy any good match up.

When Eric and I started dating I was excited to discover that he was a fan as well. I had tried to date guys in the past who weren't sports fans and it just didn't work out. Kind of one of those deal breakers for me I guess. As shallow as that may seem.

Anyway . . . all of the sudden I am trying to decide if my obsession is strange. I find that mine and Eric's dinner table conversations have a tendency to be about football, especially on the weekends! We do spend our weekends checking in on games, scores in general, and watching what we can and then talking about it with folks at church. We even scheduled things right on our honeymoon so that we wouldn't miss the Boise State game that Thursday night. Now I didn't really think about this being strange until yesterday morning when Eric and I were talking on the phone. I found a need to update him on the new BCS rankings and of course complain about how ridiculous I think they are.

I realize that it is good for couples to have things in common, but I am starting to wonder if maybe I am too interested in college football. What wife does this? Shouldn't I be the one complaining that my husband watches too much football? (Not that he does because I watch more than he does, I think) Not normal I think. I know i'm not your typical girl, never have been. But does this one make me a little too strange?

Eric spent a lot of time planning a perfect honeymoon. I love the outdoors, I love New England and I love the fall and I got a combination of all three. He planned a sightseeing trip to see New England's beautiful fall color. The day after our wedding we took an early morning flight to Boston. When we got there we headed to Vermont. That night we stayed in Quechee. I had been there once with my family years ago so it was fun to go back. The next day we had a great breakfast at a very cozy restaurant and then went to a Christmas store which always makes me happy. We then went to see Quechee Gorge. Somehow my family missed this when we were there but it was breathtaking. Sorry none of these pictures do justice to what we saw.

There was a short hike along the gorge where we saw a nice lake and a great view of the bridge.

We then went to visit a maple sugar farm and visited some waterfalls along the way. Eric had located quite a few possible hikes and the two that we picked were no more than 100 feet. One was actally closed which was a little dissapointing, but still it was a beautiful drive and we had a lot of fun.

That night we drove north to Burlington, VT. It was a beautiful drive through the Green Mountains. The next day we drove south along Lake Champlaign and took a ferry accross to New York where we visited Fort Tichonderoga. That has to be one of the most amazing reconstructions of a historic site that I have ever seen. It was awesome, it was freezing too so we didn't stay outside for too long.

We then drove up the New York side of Lake Champlaign and decided to cross into Canada just for fun. That turned into quite an adventure. The US Customs officer was not friendly when we tried to cross back into the US. Long story that I don't feel like sharing at the moment. But we did get back onto American soil and drove back to Burlington on the highway that took us along all the islands of Lake Champlaign. It was a beautiful drive especially at sunset.

The next day we headed east to Woodbury and Stowe. The scenic drive that we had planned had a road closure so the drive took about 3 hours longer than we planned. Beautiful though, it had snowed in the mountains the night before. When we arrived back in Woodbury we visited the Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Plant. Eric and I love ice cream so it was something that we couldn't miss.

That night we headed to New Hampshire where we stayed in a small resort town in the middle of the White Mountains. The next day we went to the Flume in Franconian Notch. It was spectacular. Once again a freezing day, but once we got hiking it wasn't too bad.

We then took a tram up a mountain where we could get an awesome view of all the surrounding area. You could see Maine, Vermont, New York, and Canada. The only catch was that it turned into winter when we got to the top.

That night we drove to Bangor, Maine. The next morning we went to visit Acadia National Park. Acadia would be an awesome vacation all on it's own. The only change I would make is to visit in the summer as opposed to the fall. We drove the road through the park and to the top of the bald mountains where the wind was NUTS!! I thought that I was going to blow away.

We had lunch in Bar Harbor and then drove to Portland where we had dinner and then to Boston where we spent the night. It was a lot of driving that day. The next day was our last. We had both been to Boston before so we decided to walk the Freedom Trail. I had not gotten to do that before so it was a lot of fun. Once again a cold day and I was tired, but we had fun.

That afternoon we flew home to Chicago and the trip was over and it was time to get back to real life. Have to admit that real life now is better than real life before. I am loving being married :)

So I know this is old news, in fact I have been married over a month now, but it has been a pretty busy month. Anyway, Eric and I were married on October 10th in the Boise, Idaho Temple. It was a whirlwind of a day, but absolutly wonderful!




My mother and sisters helped me out with pretty much all of the planning and organizing because I was so far away. I know they put in a lot of time and effort and it really paid off. Everything turned out beautiful!



Here are a couple photos that my sister in law Kirstin took for us.

Eric's friends and us.

Fall is my favorite season. This isn't a secret or even anything new. Anyone who has known me for a really long time will know how much I love the fall. So in celebration of the first full day of Autumn here is my top ten reasons I am excited for it to be fall. We'll do this David Letterman style.

I'm getting married in a few weeks. I know that isn't new news, but still . . . it has everything to do with my thoughts the past few days.

I have been single for quite a while now . . . my whole life really, but been on my own for a long time. In fact been living completely alone (minus Cletus) for several years now. In face I bought my house two years ago so that I would have a place to make my own and settle in.

Now I am suddenly realizing that my years of complete independance are almost over. You would think that I knew this when I agreed to get married, but for some reason it didn't really hit me till just now.

We are moving Eric out of his apartment this next weekend. So for the past couple weeks some of his things have been gradually making their way down to my house where we will be living. But it wasn't till yesterday when I came home for lunch and saw my kitchen full of boxes, his clothes in my closet, and other boxes and some furniture in my house that I really got it. I have to admit to having a mild panic attack (I think I am stressed out about way too many things which is probaly the main cause of the panic attack, but still). I kind of freaked out which is totally not like me.

I love Eric and I am very excited to spend the rest of forever with him; I am just coming to realize what a huge adjustment it will be to have somone else in my life and sharing a home. This whole married life thing is going to be quite the change for me.