University of Tennessee

At the end of October we traveled up to Knoxville for Ryan's youngest brother, Nathan's, official visit to UT! We left at midnight on Thursday and got into town at 8am on Friday! You could say we made great time, or something like that! We went to breakfast & shopped around for a little while, and then checked into our hotel. We had a couple hours down time to get ready, and then we were off! We were going going going allll weekend! Lunch with some coaches, touring the campus, touring football facilities, and then dinner with the players & coaches. That was just the first day (2pm-8pm). When we  got back to the hotel and get ready for bed it felt like it was midnight...and it was only 8:30! The next morning we were up and at 'em by 9am for breakfast with the team & coaches, touring more of the school and meeting the dean's of the two college's Nate is interested in, going to the Vol walk, and watching the team warm up on the sidelines. Tennessee played South Carolina that day and unfortunately lost, but as if just being up there didn't make Nathan want to be living there already, we know he got even more excited to be up there after watching that game. The rest of the weekend kept up the same crazy fast pace but it was great for everyone to see and learn about the place Nate will be spending the next 4-5 years! We are very excited for him, and may have even donned that strange shade of orange for him that weekend. But I guess we're warming up to it...at least for the next 4-5 years ;)

Halloween

In the spirit of fall and Halloween, we went pumpkin picking with the Frye's in mid October (see previous post). And then our pumpkin sat. and sat. and sat. We didn't do anything with it! So finally on Monday, such an odd day of the week for Halloween to fall on, we decided we better carve this baby or it was totally pointless to get! Clearly neither of us are artists, but we gave it our best shot! We ended up with an off center smile and one buck tooth haha!

Petermans pick a Pumpkin!

         Wow..well, it looks like I haven't done too well on keeping up with this blog, but that's life I guess! Since the last time I blogged I have started my grad classes and while its only 2 classes, I am learning they definitely require more time than undergrad! I have been kind of hard on myself thinking that I am an underachiever since I can only take 2 classes per semester rather than a full load (that's how the program is designed) but now I am thankful because it allows me time to work part time and still enjoy time with Ryan and cleaning and cooking and all those joyous wifely duties! :) Also since the last blog, football season has started! We are at Nathan's games every Friday night and watching our alma mater play every Saturday. We love Gator football, but this season the Bartram team is providing MUCH MORE excitement and victories!

         This past Saturday we went pumpkin pickin' at a local church who has a pumpkin patch every year. I don't remember if I have ever been to a pumpkin patch (Mom & Dad: if you did take me, forgive my forgetfulness!) so I was pretty excited. Especially because I am sooo ready for fall and the weather that comes with it! We went with our friends Brooke & Jacob, which was also good considering Brooke & I later found a craft show so the guys thankfully had each other to make it through that! ;)

Waiting in the car to meet the Frye's!

He is always being silly! 

 Love my man!!

Little by Little

So we've been living in our home now for 6 months and we still don't have it "fully" decorated. One thing you don't realize when you are registering for a TON of stuff for the wedding registry is that you receive it all at once! And I don't know about you, but we certainly can't/ don't want to hang EVERY thing up all at once. So for that very reason we go at a slower pace and get a few new things up every couple of weeks. Which is kind of cool because it feels we just keep getting more new stuff! haha! Here are 2 things we finally got put up this weekend!

 The earring hanger my sister made for me a few weeks ago! 

I LOVE it!!

 And our framed monogram! I have been SO excited about this for so long!

I actually bought the frame and letters before we were even engaged! Like...

last September! But funny story... I recently saw another idea for letters in a frame and 

decided that I wanted to do that instead of our monogram....

check it out:

 And we would have used it above our head board. So I went back to Hobby Lobby TWICE to exchange for all the letters and '&' sign, only to discover that my frame was not large enough to contain "you & me". what a bummer! And we also  realized that our bedspread is navy and SILVER so the gold letters might look a little funny in our room. So back to Hobby Lobby I went to exchange again for the original letters!

 It was a bit of an ordeal but I am very excited that we finally got them both up on the wall! :)

 But before I exchanged the letters, they provided for yet another cute Chelsea pic! :)

6 months together & Chelsea's 1st brithday

Wow! Yesterday (August 12th) Ryan & I celebrated two exciting "events"! First, it marked 6 months since we said "I do". We aren't quite sure how it went so fast because sometimes the weeks just seem to drag on until the weekend. But as they say, "time flies when you're having fun", and we have certainly had a lot had fun together in our first 6 months! We celebrated by staying IN and making a delicious dinner for my man & having (as Ryan calls it) a cinematic adventure! For dinner we had a rotisserie chicken from Publix (as Ryan eagerly requested the night before), broccoli, sauteed zucchini, sweet potato/ potato, & hawaiian rolls! mmmm!

We also celebrated Chelsea's 1st birthday on Friday night! Now we don't know that her birthday is the 12th exactly, but because of her age when we got her we did the math and figured out that she was born mid-august of last year, so of course the 12th was the perfect date to pick! :) Now Ryan thinks I went a little "over board" when I got her presents, and in the scheme of things I may have, but I was very excited to celebrate our little girl! Don't worry...she won't get this every year! ;) Here is Chels & her loot:

She got a fleece blanket (because she likes ours so much), a new rope toy,

a large bone, a new collar, and an edible birthday card that says:

"Happy Birthday to a spoiled rotten dog"

(Spoiled...maybe. Rotten...not at all!)

We had such a great relaxing night together, celebrating marriage & a pup! When we got married I didn't think I could love Ryan any more, but after six months together I most definitely do! I didn't even know it was possible! I am so thankful for such a great hubby! 

We are GATORS

But was that ever a question? HA! Nope!

Ryan & I are proud to announce that our (his) littlest brother Nathan committed last week to play football for the University of Tennessee! We can't wait to watch him play in the SEC, the greatest conference ever! We are disappointed that Florida was not on it's game and missed out on such a great player, buuuut we're hoping we can hold our ground against Nate the Great!! Of course we'll root for our little bro, but as you can tell....we'll still bleed orange & blue!

proud new owner!

Chelsea's a Gator too! 

Nate leaves for UT in January and we are so excited to see God use him in great & mighty ways! (Go Vols)

DIY days

 So a few posts ago I shared a picture of Chelsea's new leash holder I made. Weeellll her sweet little "C" didn't do so well staying on the wall, and one day daddy pulled the leash off the hook and it fell to its demise! Sad day! :( So I surfed around online to find a new leash hanger idea and I found one that was originally made to be a key hanger but I just changed it's use to a leash hanger! :)

I also made some cute new magnets!

(can you tell I like flowers? It's kind of all I know how to make!)

Last weekend Ryan & I went to our first Arena Football game to cheer on the Jacksonville Sharks! Let me tell you... it was fun! It is quite a bit different than "real" football, but the fans were outrageous so the atmosphere was just as fun as college footbal! (which we cant wait for to start!) We were having a date night with his aunt & uncle who had club seats for the game so we got to enjoy the game but still talk & hang out with them at the same time! We had such a great night!

Always Playing Catch Up

       I cannot believe it is August already! And that I have lived here for almost 8 months! And that we have been married for almost 6 months! And that we've had our pup for 4 months! Life seems to by flying by at super sonic speed, but somehow there are always those weeks that feel like they c-r-a-w-l by! Sometimes I feel like I am just waiting for the weekend once Monday comes around. Of course that 's because I want Ryan to be home, not because I work soooo much! Haha- yea right! A lot has happened since the last post (what a surprise) so here I am, playing catch up! 

       A few weeks ago my sister & her boyfriend came to spend the day with us (on a Saturday) and it was so great having time to just hang out & talk with them! My sister is my best friend, yet we hardly get to talk because she has a real job plus a babysitting job and I have a few jobs (but no where near full time) and a hubby that I looove spending time with. Not to mention the HUGE factor of living 2+ hours away from each other! :( They got here around noon and we went to our pool and cooked out and swam, and our friends Brooke & Jacob came too! We really enjoyed spending time with all of them & my sister and Brooke got to talk all about being teachers and their experiences with crazy/funny kids which we all were entertained by! J&B left after the pool and the rest of us got cleaned up and went to see Captain America. Now let me just say, neither my sister nor I wanted to see it but the guys wanted to so we went with it....it actually ended up being really good! Afterwards we introduced them to the delicious world of Bento Sushi! mmmmm! I LOVE sushi from Bento so when we talked about sushi I said we had to go there! My sister loved it and then found out there is one in Orlando too! Wonderful! We were so thankful to get to spend time with them between all of our crazyyyy schedules! 

      Over the last 6 weeks I have been taking my first grad class. Which has been kind of a joke in the sense that it hasn't been a real class that we've learned anything, we've just had different assignments that get us used to learning how to use their online system. I must admit... it is no where near as intuitive and user friendly as UF's website, buuuut what would you expect? ;) It's been cool though because I found out there are 3 ladies in my cohort that live in Jacksonville & we just met up for dinner this week to meet & get to know each other so that we can have someone to call with questions, or to study with, or just to vent! Haha! Anyways, one of our assignments was to create a short video about ourselves so we could all get to know each other (which was a cool idea) so here is my video, just to add a bit of humor to this post. (btw-turn your head to the right!)

And just for kicks, here is a video of one of the many ways Chelsea keeps me entertained during the day!

     

Our First Married Fourth!

     The fourth of July was our second "big" holiday together and thus, there is always the question of whose family to spend it with. Well this time we got to be with BOTH of our families! My parents & brother came up to Jacksonville to spend the day with Ryan & I and his parents & brother! We had a delicious cook out for a late-ish lunch and then had cake to celebrate both mine & Ryan's dad's birthday! (his is on the 4th!) I also made some cupcakes and attempted to make the frosting red, white, & blue... here's what I got..

Some of them came out with Red & Blue icing....but others looks a bit more purple :/ eek!

 This first trial on the foil came out with pretty good shades of red & blue (I think I gave up on the white)

It was fun to try it though!

     We then headed out to St. Augustine to stake out our land to put our chairs out for the fireworks! Luckily Ryan's dad became friends with the people next to us & they agreed to watch our stuff while we walked around the town. We went to Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum & saw some unbelievable things! Ha...ironic huh? Then we walked around St. George's St. until we found some dinner & then headed back to our chairs! The fireworks were AMAZING and  there were thousands of people there! No exaggeration! The down side to the whole evening was that it took us over 2 hours to get out of the parking garage! We all really enjoyed the day together & the adventure to St. Augustine, but I think the verdict is still out as to whether we'll do it again! Here are so pics of the day:

Tis the Season....for a Wedding!

Whew! July seems to be FLYING by!! So here is my attempt at catching up on the last 3 weeks!

     The day after my birthday was Friday, July 1st, the day before our friends Booke & Jacob were to be married! We left early that morning for Gainesville to partake in all the fun pre-wedding activities! We all met at Brooke's old apartment and split from the guys there. Ryan and the guys went to get hair cuts, pick up tuxes and then went to see the new Transformers movie. From what Brooke told us, Jacob had been counting down the days till their wedding and subtracting one to know how much long till he got to see the movie! hahaha! The girls first made a run to Starbucks and then were on our way to get the nails done (essential pre- wedding activity) and then picked up Brooke's dress & headed to lunch. After the days activities we all met at the Boughman Center on campus for the rehearsal. I had never been inside, but when we got there I soon saw that it was beautiful!

   
     After the rehearsal we left for dinner and afterwards returned to the hotel we were all staying at. Ryan & Jacob were in the same Fraternity at school so a bunch of the BYX guys came to the hotel to hang out with Jacob on his last single night and all the girls hung out with Brooke working on last minute things for her big day!
     The next morning the girls were getting their hair done at 8 am and the next thing we knew it was time to head to the chapel. Here are so pics I snapped of Brooke & her bridesmaids while the photographer was taking pics!

     I snapped a shot with the beautiful Bride then left to snag a seat!

 The Groom!

My Stud Muffin! 

 Here comes the Bride! 

The reception was at Plantation Hall in Haile Plantation & it was a relaxed fun filled atmosphere! Here are some pictures!

 First dance

 All of Jacob & Ryan's BYX bros (& their women!)

 The Petermans & The Fryes! yaay!

 Couldn't resist this shot! ;)

It was a beautiful wedding & we were so thankful to be a part of their big day!