1 Year Down...

I can't believe it's been a year since we got married. It has seriously flown by, it actually kind of snuck up on us. I guess that's good - time flies when you're having fun?

We kept it low-key for a celebration. We got ourselves a joint anniversary present (see below) and went out to a place called Matthew's for dinner. The Escargot was AH-MAZING - I seriously would've licked the plate if we weren't in public. I even got Kenny to try some and say that it was good, which is most shocking. They gave us a free dessert which was really good and free champagne, as well as an Anniversary card signed by all the staff on duty that night. Really good food and service.

People always asked me right after we got married "How's married life?" and I would answer "Basically the same, except I see him every day." They'd laugh and we'd move on. What I mean by that is we had known each other for 13 years, been good friends for 8 of those years, and in a relationship for 5 of those years before we got married. And those 5 years were all long distance. We learned how to communicate - what else do you have to do when all you have is talking on the phone? Was it hard? Absolutely. Did it suck at (most of) times? Yes. But it helped us to learn how to effectively communicate. With that being said, it's easy for us to be like "hey, can you clean off your dresser of the clean clothes I've folded that have been sitting there for a week?" or "hey, can you move your shoes to farther in the closet so I don't trip on them when I'm trying to find my flight suit at 4 in the morning?" and not have many issues. As they say, communication, communication, communication.

It's nice that sometimes he brings a fountain soda Coke Zero home cause he knows that MY FAVORITE. We've also learned new things - I never knew he didn't like carrots until one night I so rudely put them in his salad. But I mean really? Who doesn't like carrots, they don't taste like anything! It's good that we already had that foundation of knowing each other so well, but we're figuring new stuff out as we go. It's nice to be able to look at him and think that 50 years from now we'll be sitting on the couch just like now but instead of talking about his stinky fuzz head, we'll be talking about our kids and grand kids. Let's be real, he'll still be talking about his stinky fuzz head.

Speaking of fuzz heads...as an anniversary present to ourselves, we adopted a yellow lab puppy this weekend!!

Her name is Maddie. She's a purebred (parents are AKC and everything) but we rescued her from a shelter. Apparently breeders will get requests for puppies when the mom is pregnant, if the mom has more puppies than the request the breeder got, they will give the puppies up to shelters. Because the breeders don't want to pay the costs for the extra puppies - how sad. But a win/win for us cause she has good genes but we got to save a dog from a shelter, which was SO important to me.

We're picking her up tomorrow from her foster mom - so hopefully this will get me motivated to blog more. Instead of annoying everyone of Facebook with 1.3 million pictures, I'll just put them all here :)

Here's the little one - she passed out in my arms when we went to go visit her :)

2012, in review

Please try not to faint because I've posted 3 times within a month. I know it's probably shocking to the system.

Anyways, every year I do a photo book to have a little memento of all the fun times. I use Shutterfly to do them, and have been very pleased with how easy the program is and also the quality of the books themselves. I started with my freshman year of college and have kept up for the past 8 years. And that just made me feel really old writing out that it's been 8 years since I was a freshman...I digress.

I finished 2012's book last week. I've been working on it since November. After struggling on making sure all the pictures look right, and descriptions are spelled correctly...I've learned my lesson. 2013's book will be started early. I'm going to make the pages as the events happen. That way, come December, I won't want to punch thru the computer screen when I haven't saved in 5 minutes and the screen freezes so I lose all the work I did. Moral of the story: save often, always.

I plan to keep this up, well, for forever. But the plans of mice and men...I hope to make books for both myself and the kids (when we have them). That way when they move out on their own, I can be like "Here, here's the memories of your childhood I would like you to remember. Let's forget about that one time I accidentally left you at the grocery store." I kid, I kid...I mean, fingers crossed I don't forget my child at the grocery store.
You can view 2012's Photo book here.

Happy Birthday!

Happy 102nd Birthday to my great grandfather, Pop!

You read that right, he's 102! 

He's seen a lot, done a lot and knows infinitely more than I ever hope to know. 

He's an inspiration and the best human being I know. Happy Birthday, love you!

Jay and Andrea's Wedding

Our close friends, Jay and Andrea, got married this past weekend in Meredith, NH. We all made the trip to celebrate with them.

Kenny and I flew in from Jacksonville on Thursday night. We were worried at first because the weather people originally said there would be 3-5 inches of snow that day/night. Per usual, they are liars and there wasn't even a dusting of snow. So that definitely worked in our favor. What didn't work in our favor was that our bags had "BOS" on them since their final destination was indeed Boston. But we were stopping in DC for the night so we could fly out Friday morning with everyone. We landed at 9:55 (2 hours later than we were supposed to) and made our way to the baggage office. We wanted them to request our bags to be sent out on the baggage claim belt with the rest of the luggage. We get there and they tell us that are bags aren't "back there" so says the guy. They said they must have gotten on a flight to Boston already (they don't necessarily put the bags on the right flight, they just send them on any flight to get them there). Well, the last Boston flight left at 8:55, a whole hour before our plane even landed in DC. Kenny tried to explain this to the baggage ladies, that it was impossible for the bags to be on that flight. They weren't having it, they basically said, sorry about it, you'll see your bags in the morning.

So we ended up stopping at Walmart for some extra underpants and a toothbrush.

After a nice little 3 hour nap, we all got up at 3 am and showered so we could make it to the airport for our 6:30 flight. We met up with Charlie & Heather, Brad & Kaitlin and Bobby and got breakfast at the airport.

The 3 guys wanted to sit next to each other, so Christy, Heather and I ended up in a row together.

The Guys' row

Christy and I, on the plane

Christy & Heather

Brad, Kaitlin and Bobby, awaiting takeoff.

After a pretty uneventful and short flight, we got our bags from the baggage claim (and yes, Kenny and I's bag were indeed on the flight with us), and then took the shuttle to get our rental cars.

Christy, Brad and Kaitlin on the shuttle

Richie and Bobby, sharing a seat on the shuttle

Kenny, Me, Heather and Charlie in the back of the shuttle

After we got the rental car, we decided, since we were in Boston and had time, that we would do something historical for Brad and Kaitlin and then get lunch before driving to New Hampshire. The original plan was to go to Paul Revere's house. We put it in the GPS and headed off. But the GPS got a little confused and we ended up driving around in circles, and through a lot of tunnels before we decided that it just wasn't going to happen. Our back up plan was the Boston Tea Party Museum. We parked at a nearby garage and made our way to the Museum. But once we found out it was $25 a person, we decided it wasn't that worth it. So, onto Plan C.

But looking at the map, I noticed that Paul Revere's house wasn't that far away. We put it in our GPS and decided to walk there. When we first decided to walk there, we originally thought it was only a 10 minute walk, but I think it turned into a 25 minute walk. And it just seemed longer cause it was 20 degrees and windy. But eventually we made it and paid the $3.50 to go in, mainly to get into the heat and out of the wind.

Everyone learning about Paul Revere. And Brad is yelling at me to not take pictures.

After Mr. Revere's house, we started walking back to the water. We stopped in Dunkin Donuts briefly for a hot chocolate to keep us warm for the other half of our walk.

Yummy hot chocolate

We got to The Barking Crab just as it was opening. This was Richie's request for lunch. The place had been on "Man vs. Food" and everything on their menu looked delicious. Richie, Kenny and Heather ended up splitting a HUGE thing of crab legs. I got the Lobster Bisque and Kid's Fish and Chips. Everything was SO good and so fresh.

Christy's wearing the Bib, but she didn't eat any.

Richie was SO excited for the crab legs.

After lunch, we all piled in the cars to make the drive to New Hampshire. It was about a 1.5 drive and it provided a good time for a little nap (except for Kenny who was driving our car, and Brad who was driving the other car). We got to the house, claimed rooms and unpacked. We then made a grocery list and Kenny, Richie, Christy, Heather, Me and Kaitlin went to the grocery store. We decided to save ourselves money from going out to eat for all the meals to get breakfast sandwiches and pizzas. The only night we needed dinner was that night and we got pre-made lasagnas, garlic bread and salad.

We got home from the grocery store and were able to relax a little before it was time for Kenny, Richie and Bobby to go play pond hockey. Jay and Andrea are both into hockey and have played all their lives. So they got all their friends and family together to play a pick up game on the frozen pond. The rest of us had good intentions of going to hang out and cheer people on, but it was 5 degrees. And we said, no thank you. So we waited, hung out, played games and cooked dinner so it was ready when the 3 guys got home. After dinner, we played a couple games of "Mafia" before we all decided it was late and we'd been up for almost 24 hours, so it was bedtime.

Our plans for after breakfast the next morning were to meet up with Jay, Andrea and everyone else who was skiing that day. She was definitely a brave bride, playing hockey and skiing a day before her wedding. But, those plans quickly changed when we realized we didn't know where the ski place was and at what time everyone would be done skiing to hang out. So, Richie got the idea instead to shovel off some of the frozen lake so they could skate around on it. Which basically consisted of Richie, Bobby and Brad shoveling (Brad doing 80% of it), Kenny & Charlie supervising and the girls making everyone take pictures because OMG!FROZEN!LAKE!

Shoveling off the Lake

 

 

Richie took turns giving Christy, Kaitlin and I chair rides around the "ice rink." It didn't end that well for the chair, let's just leave it at that.

Christy's Chair Ride

 

Christy wanted to return the favor to Richie and give him a chair ride. That didn't end well for Christy.

 

My Chair Ride

Kaitlin's Chair Ride

Richie and Christy's "Couple Picture" being interrupted by Kenny

The Guys made fun of us for having a photoshoot and then they wanted one too.

Brad was shoveling and Kenny was sweeping the snow right back where Brad took it from. Ah, brotherly love.

Bobby, doing some work while the rest of us goofed off.

Trying to play hockey with a broom?

:)

Brad & Kaitlin's Couple Picture

Charlie and Heather's Couple Picture

Kenny and I were attempting a couple's picture before Brad ran in to tackle us.

<3

Like herding cats, trying to get them all in a picture. But the end result was worth it :)

The Girls picture. The Boys tried to sabotage it for awhile but finally got a good one.

After shoveling, it was time for everyone to come inside to get ready for the Rehearsal Dinner. It was held at a local restaurant called Mame's, and it was very cute and quaint with some really good food. Jay gave his groomsmen a pair of really nice slippers, which Kenny was actually really excited about since he's wanted some for awhile.

Richie also had his first soda in almost a month. It was a bet he and Jay had made over Christmas break. Here's his excitement documented on camera.

Kenny and I at dinner.

Then it was back to the house for some cards games, the game of Mafia and some beer & wine.

Me and My BFFL

At 3 AM, we decided we should probably go get some sleep since tomorrow was wedding day and all the groomsmen were meeting at our house.

The water in the house smelled like farts. No lie. The first thing we all thought when someone turned the water on for dishes the first night was that it was Richie's fault. But no, it was the water. Also, the water heater couldn't handle 9 people showering at once. So by Sunday, we were instructed to take "djibouti" showers, which meant, turn the water on to get wet, turn it off to soap, turn it on to rinse, and on and on. We were also able to spread out the showers, the 3 guys who were groomsmen and needed to be ready first went first. And the rest of us could go later.

After doing some ironing for Kenny, Richie & Jay - the groomsmen took off for the church. The rest of the morning was spent getting ready for the rest of us.

I'm a big idiot and left my camera in the car, so Heather was in charge of getting pictures from the ceremony. But Andrea looked absolutely stunning, it was a beautiful and very moving ceremony. It was awesome to see how happy both of them were and are, and I can't wait to see what is next for them.


After the ceremony, we headed back to the house to hang out for a few minutes before heading over to the hotel for cocktail hour.

The Prindle ladies

The Bevilacqua ladies

After cocktail hour, we moved into the dining room. Their colors were deep purple and green and the dining room looked like a normal dining room but had bookshelves on the back wall along with a fireplace. It looked like a very elegant library, which went along with the New England/winter theme.

The Table & Centerpiece

Jay, Kenny, Richie & Brad used to all play street hockey together when we were in middle school and into high school. Our table name was an homage to those good old days.

For the entrances, Jay assigned songs to the couples based on his relationship with each groomsmen. Kenny walked into "Highway To the Danger Zone" - the Navy/flying reference. Brad walked into TI's "Bring 'Em Out" - Brad likes Rap Music. And Richie came into The Rocky Theme song cause of his love for Philly. Each couple had a different dance or schtick they did.

Kenny and his bridesmaid were "too cool"

Brad had a few beers so he was able to shake his groove thing.

Richie and the Matron of honor had on robes and did some boxing moves.

Jay and Andrea had a hockey face off - which Andrea won of course.

Their first dance was pretty much one of the best I've ever seen. They did a choreographed dance but it was to a more upbeat song, Sugarland's "Stuck on You" and it was awesome. After the first dance it was time for the cake cutting...

Gorgeous and delicious cake!

They were nice to each other.

Aw :)

After the cake, it was time for Mother/Son and Father/Daughter dance.

Jay and his mom

Andrea and her dad

Once all the niceties were done, it was time to get our dance on.

Time to put your hands in the air.

Brad offered to hold my clutch while we were dancing.

Bobby and Brad, being thugs...?

Candid dancing

:)

The Bride, doing her thing.

Haha, this pretty much sums Charlie up :p

The Prindle boys with their significant others.

Jay got thrown on the groomsmens' shoulders.

And then Richie picked up Andrea.

Brad and his sisters :)

Our group of Friends!

All in all, it was a fabulous night and a beautiful wedding for Jay and Andrea!

The next day, we all got up and cleaned the house and finished packing. We made the 2 hour drive back to Boston and turned our rental car in before taking the shuttle to the airport.

Christy and Richie

4 Prindles

We had enough time to eat lunch before getting on the plane. We landed in DC and said goodbye to Charlie, Heather, Richie and Christy. Then Kenny and I waited for our flight to Jacksonville.

It was such a fun weekend, but I've definitely spent this past week recuperating from it! And catching up on sleep.

Congratulations Jeremy and Andrea! :)