Auld Lang Syne

Christmas was pretty sweet.  It was our first married Christmas and I think that both of our families did everything they possibly could to make Aaron and I feel accepted.  It's definitely hard to spend the holidays away from your family - you see the memories and good times everyone around you shares and sometimes you don't really know how to participate.  I think every year it's gets easier and easier and you begin to have your own memories together and old jokes you share.  Embraces grow from awkward to genuine and parting words sound less rehearsed.  It definitely takes time but we are getting there!  We spent Christmas morning with my family and then spent Christmas evening through Saturday with Aaron's family in Gastonia.  Both Aaron and I like to give big for Christmas and we both surprised and thrilled the other.  I gave Aaron a pair of Allen Edmond's Park Avenues.   He loves his Allen Edmond's from the wedding, which are brown, so I knew getting him a pair of the same designer in black would be perfect.  Aaron gave me a fabulous camera, the Canon HX50V.  It's a really nice point and shoot camera that takes super crisp photos.  It's automatic modes are amazing for people like me who want to take pictures in low lighting but are not comfortable working with iso and shutter speeds yet.  I love it!  Plus it connects to wifi, so I can push photos I take to my camera or computer.  Awesome.  I also really enjoyed shopping for my family and friend's this year.  Being married I felt that we could no longer write our names on gifts our mothers buy. :-)  It was fun and we kept it cost conscious too.

Here are some things we're looking forward to in the New Year

-I opened a Roth IRA and am happily saving for retirement

-we plan to get the house's interior professionally painted (we tried this on our own, fail)

-we are planning a trip to South Africa this April - so excited!!!

soon we'll post our New Years resolutions.  We hope all is well with you and your family!

Merry Christmas

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6

October

So, as promised last week, I am going to blog more.  So that means I need to catch up!!!  Here's what we did in October

Our friends, Nick and Erin, got hitched!

Erin's dress was gorgeous

The band, the Casablanca Orchestra, provided an amazing big band sound with such a classy feel - did you I know I was the one who recommended them to Erin? ;-)

I celebrated Halloween with one of my favorite girls, Robin.  

Hope y'all had a Happy Halloween as well!

Savannah

Hello!  I apologize for the lack of posts.  Now I have to  play catch up :-)

In August, Aaron and I went to Savannah.  It's a beautiful city and was an easy trip from North Carolina.

We stayed at the Savannah Inn, more pictures below

The living room

The dining room

Our gorgeous room

Bed and Breakfasts are definitely are preference.  Your room's unique, the breakfast is fabulous and usually it's the same cost of a hotel!

At Forsyth Park

Savannah has a lot of history and a strong civil rights movement

The holes in the floor are in the shape of an African prayer symbol.  What makes them amazing is they are actually holes for fresh air.  Underneath the basement floor was a holding room for escaped slaves.  The church is part of the underground railroad and there is a passage from that room to the Savannah River!  We couldn't go underneath for safety reasons, but it was really amazing.

We also ate amazing food, like the best Southern food ever at Ms. Wilkes

And fried strawberries :-)

DELICIOUS drinks at Jenn & Friends

We even went to the beach at Tybee Island! Only 20 minutes away and they had a Wet Willies!

All and all, we had a great time and recommend anyone go!

Vow Renewal

Our aunt and uncle on Aaron's side decided to renew their vows this August after 5 years of marriage.  They are so in ove and such an inspiration to us.  The ceremony was outside at Trump National Golf Club and afterwards we went inside for dinner and to celebrate.  A great day to spend with family!

Aaron was kind enough to do the music

Life is Crazy

Hello everyone! Sorry for the delay in posts.  Life has been pretty crazy with getting our house together and gifts unpacked, working on millions of thank you cards (yours is coming! eventually), and starting residency at Duke.  So far Aaron has been pretty wonderful...I work long shifts, usually from 7-7 six days a week.  A few days I leave a bit early and try to make it to the gym. Either way, when I come home I'm pretty exhausted and incapable of making dinner.  Which is what Aaron has been wonderful for.  Here's some of the delicious meals he's made me and some tasty stuff I've made as well, a long long ago before I was an intern.

 

Delicious fried chicken

Ribs a la fresca

French Toast

make your own mac & cheese contest between Aaron & I

My turn to cook - bacon wrapped trout stuffed with herbs. Surprisingly easy

Drunken Noodles which I also made-also quite easy

Making my mama proud by preparing fried corn with out homemade bacon <3

 

And sometimes you just have to revert to the classics

Feel free to drop by anytime and have dinner with us! :-)

Makin' Bacon

Maybe it was the fabulous smoker wedding gift, maybe it was the gorgeous weather or most likely it was the just fact that we live in South and love bacon, but Aaron decided to make bacon.  Yay!

Aaron bought a pork belly from Whole Foods, rubbed it down with some tasty spices and covered it in kosher salt to cure it.  Curing meat means drawing the water out and preserving it.  He sealed it with our FoodSaver (another fab wedding gift!) and kept it in the fridge for 7 days, turning it and rubbing it each day.  Remembering the bacon became our biggest responsibility in that short week, turn, rub, turn, rub- it was like our baby, only it didn't cry or whine if we forgot it.  In that way, it was much better than a baby.

 

Bacon sealed and ready for a rubdown on day 1

 

Bacon on day 7-washing off salt and spices

After the week, Aaron rinsed the excess salt and spices off the bacon, chilled it for a day and then placed it on the smoker.  He used Applewood chips to give the bacon a great flavor.

 

yay!

This happened around 11pm last night (because midnight is the best time for bacon).  The bacon smoked for 2 hours and then we let it cool, finally it was time to slice and cook it.

 

getting terribly excited and peep the clock it's 1 am

 

 

and finally!!!

Oh, homemade bacon.  Thick cut and delicious.  Except it was salty, like really salty, like country ham salty.  We thought we misread the recipe-did we use too much salt?  I lamented this on the phone to my mom this morning who is a country girl, born and raised.  She grew up in a time homemade bacon was how you got it, not just what you do kicks.  You dummies, she basically said.  Go soak that bacon before you have a heart attack!  And so soak it we shall.  And we are looking forward to enjoying more of our homemade masterpiece tonight!

Back to Life, Back to Reality

Wedding.  Honeymoon.  Moving In.  Cooking dinner together.  Traveling together.  Our first 3 weeks.

So far, so good.   Aaron suggested we start a blog so our family and friends can see what we are up to!  So what better way to start then with pictures from our honeymoon.  Soon I will share photos of our wedding!

After our wonderful-fabulous-everything-we-could-have-asked-for wedding, we spent the night at the Umstead.  The Umstead Hotel is a hidden gem in Cary, a 5 star hotel right in our town.  It was luxurious and I can't wait to visit for a much needed staycation during my residency.  Then we stopped at my house to visit the fam, then we were off to Asheville!

the lobby of the Grand Bohemian, where we spent a few nights

in front of the Biltmore

Gardens at the Biltmore

if you know me, you know I love flowers <3

Asheville is beautiful

Duck breast at the Admiral - pretty tasty!

we also spent a few nights at the Montford Inn, lovely

I didn't realize it at the time, but the bathroom of our suite is pretty famous!  I guess the builder took many pictures to promote it.  It's all over pinterest :-)

My picture

Pinterest :-)

La Zoom Comedy bus tour :-)

Drinks at Thirsty Monk

Our bling.