A Very Married Christmas (and an Addition to our Family!)

Its tough to be grown up.

When you look on Facebook in early December and all your college friends are heading home on Christmas break, it really hits you how much the real world restricts you.

Fortunately, my supervisor gave me the option of working remotely for a few days before Christmas, meaning Erin and I got to head home for Christmas much sooner than my three vacation days had let us dare hope.

After getting up quite early and driving throughout the day the weekend before Christmas, we were thrilled to get to spend some time with both of our families at a joint family dinner hosted by Erin's parents. Even though it turned out most of my family was sick, we all managed to have a nice evening together.

Then, after a week filled with meals with extended family, an annual party with friends, lots of time hanging out with families, and me working during the day, it was Christmas!

Both of our families went to Christmas eve service together (after hearing the announcement that their church would be celebrating Christmas eve with a fireworks display, my parents decided to join us instead) which was very nice. Then, Erin and I headed over to my families house for our traditional Christmas eve turkey.

After almost my entire family fell asleep watching "A Christmas Story", we all went to bed while visions of sugar plums danced in our heads.

The next morning, we saw a thick coat of white blanketing the lawn. The first White Christmas in Huntsville since the 1960's! It was very cool, until road closings and Erin's aunt getting stuck on the mountain (having to be rescued by Erin's dad in a 4 wheel drive pickup) put our Christmas plans in temporary jeopardy.

We started out the morning opening up presents with my family, then braved the icy roads to make it to Erin's house to open presents with her immediate family before the annual dirty Santa game with her extended family.
In the end, everything went off without a hitch and we had a wonderful Christmas! So wonderful, in fact, that it was quite difficult to make ourselves get up to drive back to Houston a few days later...

Even though we miss home, we have quite the little distraction now after having adopted a 2 month old kitten from a local animal shelter. We've named her Chloe, and you can see pictures of her on my Facebook.

Thanksgiving in Charleston

For Thanksgiving Gerrit and I traveled to Charleston to be with his family. His grandparents live there, and we were also joined by his parents and brothers as well as his aunt and uncle and cousins. His grandparents' house backs up to a beautiful reservoir (complete with alligators!), and the weather was beautiful so we spent a lot of time on the back porch.

Thanksgiving day was full of cooking and then eating and then going to see Harry Potter. Then more eating (although I think dinner for most of us was Brownie Trifle). So that was nice and good family time and everything.

But then on Friday was the most important event of the week. The Iron Bowl. And in Gerrit's family this means rivalry (his brother goes to Bama). I have to say, I was more sad to be apart from my family on this day than I was on Thanksgiving (Auburn football makes me miss them!) At first we all started out in the same room watching it. But after the start Auburn got off to, I had to go to another room to watch it. Not that anyone was being mean. More like I wanted to experience my misery alone and be able to talk to the television by myself. So Gerrit and I went back to another room to watch the game. And then I witnessed the most amazing comeback I have ever seen. I really still cannot believe that we won. There are no words really, except WAR EAGLE.

Now we are back in Houston for awhile, trying to get into the Christmas spirit (although it's hard being so far away from family and in relatively warm weather). But we will get to go to Huntsville soon, and we cannot wait to see our family and friends!

A Huntsville/Auburn Vacation

About a week and a half ago I got to go visit my family in Huntsville. Sadly, Gerrit had to stay and work. But it was a WONDERFUL time in Huntsville. Fall temperatures, fall colors, etc. I got in on Wednesday night, and my mom and I spent Veteran's Day running errands and baking for the weekend in which we went to Auburn for the Auburn vs. Georgia game. That was also wonderful. We tailgated, I got to see lots of friends and my brother and my grandfather, and I went to the game with my dad. Also my mom and I met Sister Schubert. On Sunday we had dinner for my mom's birthday with my dad's side of the family, and then on Monday we went out to eat for my mom's birthday. On Tuesday I had to return Houston and was very sad to leave, but very happy to see Gerrit.


Now this week Gerrit and I are off to South Carolina to spend time with Gerrit's family for Thanksgiving!

Work

Hello, my name is Gerrit and I still live here, despite my lack of posting in recent months. I could blame work, an exciting football season, or a plethora of other things... but instead I'll just update you on what's been going on lately.

Work.

It's probably what most of you are interested in hearing about, being as I've yet to talk to some of you about my new job.

I'm on a project that's fairly unique, actually. I'm on a two man "Knowledge Management" team, and in short my job is to tell people where to put their files so they don't get lost to the ages when they retire. There's lots of new changes coming software-wise for a lot of the people I work with, and the majority of my time is spent teaching people about the new software and how they will use it to store information effectively. When I describe it like that, it sounds pretty dull... but I can promise you that this job fits me quite well because of the amount of personal interaction it requires. It also presents me with lots of "face time" as I network with people constantly (positioned both above and beside me organizationally).

The fun thing is I get to test the limits of this new software, seeing what it's capable of and finding out all the cool features so I can teach other people about them.

Next year, I might be doing some traveling to some pretty cool sounding places to help train people there on this new software... but specifics remain to be seen.

Anyway, just wanted to catch everyone up on what it is that I do :)

Family Visits and Football

At the beginning of this month we were so so happy to have our families visit us (minus 1 of Gerrit's brothers and my brother who are at school).

Gerrit's parents and brother got here on the first of the month and we spent a great weekend with them. We mostly just relaxed and hung out, watched football, drove around the city, did a little shopping. Also the weather was really lovely while they were here, and it has not been as good since they have left. :(

After they left on Monday, my parents got here on Wednesday and stayed through the next Monday. We did lots of relaxing, shopping, going out to eat, etc. We also went to the Houston vs. Mississippi State football game to cheer on on Bulldogs (although I admit my dad and I were glued to our phones for much of the game nervously reading the play-by-plays of the Auburn game). The game was definitely interesting. First of all, student tickets to the game are free, and there were signs around campus trying to encourage students to show up at the game. That should tell you a good bit right there. There was virtually no tailgating until you got to the stadium parking lot. And as we walked by the library there were lots of students going in and out studiously carrying their backpacks. On a football Saturday. Also, during the pregame show, with about 20 minutes until the game started, the stadium was still about half empty. It filled up when the game started, but didn't seem to stay that way for long and was almost completely empty by the end. Mississippi State won by a pretty good margin, which was good. I know Gerrit was glad to see his team win in person. It's the only football game he's going to get to go to all year.

I, on the other hand, am going to get to go home in November and go to the Auburn vs. Georgia game! (Oh, how I have missed you Jordan-Hare!) I'm extremely excited about this because I will get to finally feel some fall weather (it is 88 degrees here this week), spend time with my family (who I miss all the time) AND see my Auburn Tigers play in person! And celebrate my mom's birthday by walking our crazy dog Bo around the Botanical Gardens Christmas lights. It should be pretty exciting!