Christmas Blizzard of 2009

The snow has finally stopped, but the roads are all closed and our cars are still burried in the snow. Unfortunately, it looks like our Martinez Christmas is going to have to be postponed, as much as that bums us out. I'm actually really upset- I was looking forward to seeing everyone and getting to spend an actual Christmas with them. Before we got married, we always split up on the holidays to go to our respective families, only ever seeing the other for a few hours or so. I was excited to finally get to spend a full Christmas over there, and am sad that we arent going to be able to make it there this weekend. Unfortunately, the roads and interstates are still closed and it would be physically impossible with our cars to manuever that far, and getting stranded does not sound fun, especially when the police are refusing to help stuck people and banning all towing companies to venture out to help as well- as if to say "You were an idiot and drove, so you have to be stuck".

So looks like we are back to watching Castle until the roads clear enough for us to head out at least for some food. Thankfully, Pizza Hut is open today and we can get something other than Chinese!

See everyone, presents are wrapped and ready to go!! I wish we could bring them to everyone now!

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas from the snowed in couple!

Yes, we got hit by the Christmas Blizzard of 2009...and we got hit pretty hard. Unfortunately for us, mother nature decided to dump a pretty substantial amount of snow on us, causing us to basically cancel Christmas and all of our plans.

To start the holiday, I venture out to head to work only to find my car stuck in the driveway. After a good portion of an hour trying to push my car out of the driveway and Adam having no luck, we decided that work just wasnt going to happen. We finally got the car back INTO the driveway (a very difficult task) and headed back into the warm house.

Being the smart people that we are, we didnt go grocery shopping before the storm hit, meaning we had no food. And of course, the pizza places are closed, along with every other delivery place, so we spent the better part of the morning trying to find a open place that was actually out delivering in the snowy mess.

Thank God for Chinese Delivery! We finally found a place open and willing to brave the blizzard to bring us food, so instead of a home-cooked, yummy family meal...we had Chinese takeout!

They even brought us a calender for the new year...how nice!

Our fortunes!

So now that we were full and had nothing else to do, what else would any people stuck inside do?! We watched a marathon of Castle! Oh yes, you heard me.

Exciting Christmas, wasnt it?? We are going to try and make our way to the family tomorrow, provided it stops snowing, which it has yet to do...

Annabelle in her Christmas shirt

Minnie decided to climb the cabinets in the kitchen...

Merry Christmas everyone! Hopefully you all had better luck than we did with our snowy holiday!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Merry Christmas Eve!!!

We're gearing up for the big snowstorm heading our way- got all of the last minute gifts bought and wrapped (well, the Martinez side is wrapped!) and ready to head over there this weekend (provided we arent snowed in...blah!). Although that's about the extent of our holiday-ness, it's still a start. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas Eve with your families! I'll leave you with a copy of our Christmas card for this year...

6 Years Ago

6 years ago today I was a junior at Roncalli. About 4 months prior I met this incredibly nice, way-too-good-looking-to-be-in-my-league guy at work. I talked about him all the time- I'm sure I was pretty annoying to all of my friends actually, since it was THEM who finally called HIM and got me our first date.

6 years ago today that boy and I went to the mall to get some last minute Christmas shopping done. We got each other our first gifts to one another (I got him a hoodie, I got an outfit- both from Pacific Sunwear...how many years has it been since I've been in that store?!). When the mall closed we walked around outside, it was cold and there was snow on the ground. We ended up sitting in the bus stop- this was before they had the fancy "bus depot" they have now. We met the crazy lady who told us to never leave home without a knife, and just enjoyed the night.

After acting a bit nervous he asked me to be his girlfriend, with the premise that he'd be leaving in the summer, but we could see where this led. In our heads, neither of us really thought it would last more than a few months anyway.

Obviously, we couldn't have been more wrong.



Even though this is no longer our "anniversary", it's still an anniversary of sorts. It's the day we decided to try, and so to me, it will always be a special day. I love you, Adam! :D

The very first picture ever taken of us together, at Village Inn after the play- hence my crazy makeup and scrubby clothes!

Wedding Ornament!

I'm so excited! Ever since the wedding I've wanted to get a Christmas ornament this year that has the year on it and everything. I've been looking for just the right one and yesterday I came across this!

It's perfect! It's not cheesy like most of them and it's a wedding cake- how perfect! And lucky for us, it was sold at Bed Bath & Beyond- where we have a gift card from the wedding! Combine that with a 20% off coupon we got in the mail and I was ecstatic. So we hopped in the car yesterday to the nearest Bed Bath & Beyond and they had it! I'm so happy. Now we just need to get lights...and other ornaments...since our tree right now is standing, very bare and lopsided, in our kitchen area.

New Traditions!

Christmas!

Ok, so not yet, but Adam and I actually had a rare free weekend this past weekend and we were able to finally spend some time getting Christmas-y.

I was super excited, because we found a place near us that was offering Santa Paws pictures- pictures with the animals and Santa to raise money for the humane society. I was super excited, and spent Saturday morning giving Annabelle a bath and picking her our a festive outfit.

We met Dion and Evan at the place and Annabelle was so excited- she was running around to everyone and it was so cute. Our picture turned out really great, and we paid for the copyright too, which means we will be able to get them printed and made into Christmas cards! Once the picture is emailed to me I'll post it up.

After our exciting morning with Santa, we headed out all the way to Lawrence to get our first ever live Christmas tree! I've always wanted one, so Adam and I decided this year to start our own tradition of going to get one. Since we've never done this before, we were a bit out of the loop when we got there and of course the selection was basically gone because it's only a couple weeks before Christmas, but we still had fun!

Baby Christmas Trees!

At first we got stuck in the pre-cut sections- we were already so confused!

Finally after walking through the nearly empty field, we came across this little guy.

Looking at it now I realize that it has alot of gaps in it. And it rather scrawny looking. But at the time it looked really perfect!

Dont let him fool you, he didnt cut it down. I wanted to cut it down, but NO, Adam didnt want to!

It fit in the car!

Pit Stop! Haha, yes, I made him pull off of the interstate specifically for me to take a picture with the Jayhawk bird. You know you are jealous.

Wrestling the tree

I enjoy our new tradition!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Adam and I decided that now that we are married, it's time that we divvy up the holidays, since we were used to splitting up on the major days and each going to our separate families for the main part of the holiday and meeting up for bits and pieces.

After much arguing and debate, haha, we finally decided to give my family Thanksgiving, since I've missed getting to do the Black Friday with my mom and Kelsey since they moved. So Thanksgiving day after I got off work we headed down to Springfield and got there just in time to eat...and eat some more....yum.

After food we scaled the sale ads, planning our route for Black Friday shopping. We were hoping to get all of our gifts done in one day with the good sales, and hopefully have the deals be at the place we had wedding gift cards to since the wedding took most of our money for the year.

We planned our route for the morning and my mom, Kelsey and I headed out bright and early...well not so much bright, seeing as the sun wasnt up, ha, but we headed out early and left Adam to sleep and watch Skye. We hit up Kohls, Target and Kmart before the morning was done and braved the insane crowds, but came out with every item we went in for so it was worth it.

Saturday we headed to Branson to Silver Dollar City to see the Christmas lights- apparently they are ranked in the top 10 in the nation, so we had to see them. They were pretty neat, and it wasnt freezing cold, so we were able to enjoy it.











Back home Sunday with a ton of leftovers!

Freeport, Bahamas

Last stop on the cruise was in Freeport, Bahamas. It was alot calmer than Nassau and definitely much smaller. They also had a straw market, but nothing at all to the extremes of the day before.

We were only docked here for a few hours, so we spent the time walking around the area and getting tiny souvenirs for people. There wasnt much to do here, but it definitely was pretty!

It was the last day on the cruise, and we were bummed to have it be over. Although we didnt get to do a whole bunch while we were there, it was just so nice being able to relax and not worry about work or getting up early or really anything. Next time we are definitely saving anough money to do an excursion though- I want to go snorkeling!

Bahamas!

Our second stop was in Nassau, Bahamas- home of Atlantis! While we only saw Atlantis and didnt actually go there, Nassau was very pretty...and very different. The people there are very, well, pushy and we couldnt walk two feet without someone trying to sell us something!

Aside from admiring the crystal blue waters, we braved the straw market, which is like this massive craft fair type thing where tons of people try to sell you knock-off designer purses. It was really crazy, people trying to get you to buy something left and right and bartering prices and wow. It was a bit overbearing.

Again, we didnt do any excursions but we had fun walking around and seeing all of the touristy shops and taking in the sun. It was all so pretty!