Five January Highlights

Things that we did/happened in January:

1. We got a kitten. And she has grown a lot.

2. We watched Auburn win the National Championship. WAR EAGLE!

3. We had some surprise guests! Our friend Brittany and one of her friends had a 45 hour layover here in Houston on their way back from the National Championship. So we had a fun couple of days.

4. We joined a small group at church, which has been going fantastically so far.

5. Gerrit found out that he will be travel around the world (literally) for work in the late summer/early fall.

Now on to February! Which in my opinion is much better than January. Valentine's Day and my birthday. Plus I am going to travel home to visit my family, and we are going to take a mini-vacation to San Antonio to do some sight seeing and visit some of Gerrit's family.

Chloe Kitten

Here is our new cat. She is very cute and loving and mischievous.

She has also already grown a lot (probably more than doubled in size) in the 2.5 weeks that we have had her.

We already have randomly started calling her a ton of nicknames (Chloe Kitten, which has been shortened to Cloakton, El Cloketon (even though she is a girl), Chloster, etc.). She is going to be very confused about her name, so it is a good things cats don't really respond to them anyway.

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!