One Year

Today we celebrated our one year anniversary! In some ways it feels like it's flown by, and in other ways, it seems like we've been married for so much longer.

To celebrate, we came home after church and watched our wedding ceremony on DVD. It was great to look back on it and remember what an amazing time it was. It was helpful also to listen back to Kim's sermon, and hear it through the ears of seasoned marriage veterans :) Seeing all of our friends and family who were there was a reminder of how blessed we are. We also saw some people that neither of us recognized! We hope they enjoyed our wedding, and didn't eat too much of the cake...

We drove out to the Fire Hall where we had our second (smaller) reception and tried to get in. The doors were locked so we just looked through the windows at where we had celebrated last year with dinner and dancing. Then we went by Truro and were able to get in, and we walked through the Sanctuary for a few minutes.

For dinner tonight we went to Ruth's Chris steak house. Great food. Great atmosphere. Great service. Great way to spend nearly your entire paycheck :)

And then, to give you an idea of what we're really like, we returned home and ate dessert while watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. You'll be glad to know that Jean Luc Picard was successfully rescued from the Borg, and Earth was spared assimilation thanks to Data's quick thinking and Commander Riker's unorthodox strategies.

So thanks to all of you, our friends and family (and maybe some strangers who went to our wedding and ate some cake). We are so grateful to know you.

Lunch in DC

I drove "downtown" today (Washington, DC) to have lunch with one of the piano players from my church, who is also a good friend. He works directly across Pennsylania Avenue from the White House. I was supposed to meet him at 12:30, but I got there a bit early, so I sat on a bench in Lafayette Park. I watched all of the tourists (a lot of them had fanny packs around their waists), and some of the people in suits to see if I recognized anyone famous. I also noticed how incredibly well guarded the White House is when I walked up to the gate. I suppose that makes sense...

It's still crazy to think that from my office at the church, to this spot where I took this picture (taken from my cell phone, which is why it's a terrible picture), is only 9.8 miles.

Gatlinburg, TN

I think Jamie and I have already written quite a bit about our time in Gatlinburg, but here are some more photos and maybe a little more info.

We set out from Fairfax at about 3:45 pm. MUCH later than we had intended. But it was kind of worth it because we got to have lunch with Andrew...and his help loading our car up with everything we needed for 2 weeks of roadtrip!

Here we are riding along. This was how we looked a lot of the time. :)

The road in Virginia. As you look through these pictures check out the different landscapes we travelled through. I actually think its kind of cool to look at.

A storm that I'm sure was more beautiful in person, but still looks cool as taken through the windshield.

The hotel where we stayed in Gatlinburg. I have to admit that we actually never took advantage of that super sweet slide.

The morning after we arrived in Gatlinburg. My whole family gathered on the porch and Oma and Opa presented us with copies of their (abridged) life stories. Fascinating stuff. I'm so glad we have it! (L-R) Stan, Jon, Francis, Oma, Peter, Matthew

Matthew, Theresa, Zachary, Michael, Opa, Christopher

After chatting with my grandparents on the porch for a while, Jamie and I took a walk down the street to see where his family had vacationed when he was younger. This is the creek he remember playing in. :)

That afternoon the two of us drove around. We found this in a parking lot of a church nearby.

And this up the mountain a couple miles. (Maybe like 30-40 miles of road.)

And when we drove down one road we found this spot. We stopped (in the middle of the deserted road), opened the windows, and there was absolute silence. It was amazing.

The next day we walked around downtown Gatlinburg (pretty tacky) and found this wonderful poster.

And this store that reminded me of Julianna.

Then we went go-carting that night. This is Stan, Bobbi (my cousin), Jon and me.

This is Bobbi, Stan, and Jon getting ready to start.

After go-carting on at least 3 different tracks at least 4 times (altogether, not per track), we headed home and made quesadillas for pretty much all the adults. (They were all up even though it was like midnight.)

The next day was our day to leave. I was sad. We sat and chatted with everyone. Francis made the rounds giving shoulder rubs.

Johnny built a card tower which Jamie photographed while I was out grocery shopping with Oma, Jody, Mom and Jessica.

Jamie and I finally left around lunchtime on Wednesday. We stopped by the creek again.

And then headed out along the back roads to find I-40. Those back roads were cool. One of the major things that fascinated me was the crazy good infrastructure in this country. Look at these power lines heading out into the forest. I can't imagine getting power to all these backwoods places. Jamie and I were trying to figure out whether they were put in during Roosevelt's presidency. Of course, we didn't get far in that discussion without the help of wikipedia or google.

Savannah, GA

Well, I already wrote about our experience in Savannah. We loved it! But, unfortunately, I left the camera in the hotel room when we went out. Jamie has some videos of the performers on his cell phone, but I haven't figured out how to get a video from a cell phone to a blog quite yet.