Christmas at Full Sail: 2010 ☆

  Well not at Full Sail, but our second one during. We were engaged at this point and had our wedding planned for the following May 7th 2011! I have a handful of pictures of us in Atlanta with Jessica, but don't remember that trip at all. (Sorry.) Jordyn was 2 & 1/2 in this picture and Jessica was only a couple weeks away from having her second baby (James). I didn't have any good pictures of her to post though. I have a lot of blurry pictures in my Full Sail stash.

  While we were in pro-production for our Final Project, Gruff's Bridge (Michael as costume designer and me as 2nd AD), he surprised me with Disney tickets! I even remember where we were sitting on those steps for a lab and Rebecca asked me if I could have a meeting with her on a certain day. I said, "Yeah I'm free that day." Then Michael said, "Wait, no. We're busy that day!" Um, okay... That was a wonderful surprise. He took me to Animal Kingdom during the day, then we drove to Magic Kingdom for Mickey's Christmas Party. They had free milk and cookies in each restaurant place!

 We went to Birmingham for a few days - or a week? - and I was very excited to have my parents there too! It was very important to both Michael and I that our parents meet before our wedding. We took them to Peavine Falls and did some climbing.

 I remember one morning around 11am, Michael grabbed by attention by exclaiming, "Hurry! Meet me outside! And bring your camera!" Then we saw Santa riding around on a fire truck and he was throwing candy at the people he saw. There were not many people outside. More candy for us!

Here is a ginger bread house I watching Michael make.

So many presents just from his family (and Santa)!! What did I get that year? Good question.

Another day Michael brought some camera equipment that he borrowed from Full Sail back to Peavine Falls so he could shoot part of a film. I don't remember getting many shots done before the sun started setting and I didn't want to walk on the rocky trail when I couldn't see very well. 

   I was very excited when it started to "flurry" one day and took a lot of pictures jumping and dancing in the "snow". Michael laughed that I was over reacting when there was barely anything coming down and was sure it would be all melted in the morning. I was very happy that he was wrong!

 The rest of the pictures are from December in Gainesville:

Tonia and Mia stopping by!

And they continued to live happily ever after!! ;)

Last month of 2009! ☆

  One of the cool things about meeting and dating the person you know you're going to spend the rest of your life with is that you get to experience a world that you didn't grow up really knowing. My family always used an artificial Christmas tree and colorful lights, but I soon found out that every year Michael's family always bought a real tree and used white lights. I didn't mind the change, so that's what we have always done since 2009. This was after he tied "our first tree" onto the Lexus that he used to have.

  He also told me that he likes to use plain bubbles and ribbon rather, but over the years I have collected ones my mom gave me and bought our own "regular/fun" ornaments and added them to the tree too. Also I told him we needed to switch the huge bow on top for an angel. Over the weekend (2016) when my mom and I were at Hobby Lobby I got an ornament that was of a Santa with a Hobby Lobby shopping cart! Haha- too cute.

 We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my family. I've posted before on my Full Sail blog about when Mia, Tonia and Michael joined me for fancy Twilight and New Moon "movie premieres" pictures. (I forgot to resize those pictures before posting them so those pages might take longer to load.) Michael even came to church with us that night!!

 ♡ Grandma Re!!!!! ♡

 My Miaskee!! Her parent's noticed and praised my 15 pound weightloss since they hadn't seen 

me since before I left for Full Sail in July. ;)  At some point during our Winter Break, I went with 

my parents and other family on my dad's side and spent the day (or a night?) 

we visited Grandma Belva and got to meet her boyfriend, Deane.

 Then at the end of the month we flew to Birmingham (the picture below was taken in the airport). 

We celebrated a late Christmas and stayed a few more days to attend Christopher and Meredith's rehearsal dinner and wedding on January 2nd, 2010!! We caught the flowers and garter!

 I also went with Michael to his dentist appointment, haha! Then he took me to the Summit, which is a big outlet mall area with fancy/ expensive stores. I liked all the decorations and Michael was sweet about taking lots of pictures. Later I helped Mrs. Patty, NaNa, and Meredith put together bags of walnuts. (I don't remember that, but there is a picture!!) I do remember that the cream colored jacket I'm wearing in these pictures was my super favorite, but it got lost during this trip. Blast!

Ye Ol' Christmas

   This is to show pictures that I never posted during Full Sail (before I had my blog), plus 2011 since I never posted those few Canon Christmas pictures. For 2012 you can see refresher pictures here (Christopher picking out a tree while he stayed with us for a month) -- and here (cookies and lights in Birmingham)-- also here (opening presents in Birmingham). Click on this next link for a post of me meeting baby Luke in 2013 and us decorating a little tree at Alana's house. Although I know I was in Gainesville for 19 days that Christmas while Michael finished working Grinchmas in Orlando, I don't have any pictures already on my blog or on my hard drive that I can find.

   I'm debating whether or not to post all the pictures I have in two seperate posts during our 2009 and 2010 Christmas outings. I probably should so they are all here together and it's showing how we celebrated during the whole month rather than just of us opening presents. It's more fun that way. However, tomorrow being the last day of the year I feel like I waited to long and might as well just wait until next year to post them! But if I at least take a super fast shower then run to the bank real quick (we unexpectedly got money back from our escrow, wooo!!), I'll have enough time to edit and post all those before Michael gets home since he needs me to help him with the deck around 2pm.

  Right now I'll just post the pictures from 2011 since there are just a few from celebrating at our apartment at Millenia:

 Miriam gave me the rest of her fake snow that she bought for a couple Christmas photo shoots 

that I did for her. Also, I'm pretty sure Michael photo shopped my eyes open later, haha!

Below the ornament reads "Our First Christmas" (being married).

   And these are the ones I have from the last two years (2014 and 2015) -- just the ones I had on my Instagram page: I stopped using the Canon as much once I got my iPhone in August 2014. Lame.

2015:

Cute hay bale snowman that we saw after breakfast one morning & getting our yearly picture 

with Santa at Bass Pro Shop in Birmingham when we visited mid-December!

With Donna, Austin, and Jeff. Donna and Jeff were our Phase 2 trainees at work in December, 

while Austin and I were their trainers. I really like that they decorate the office at work.

 This picture was taken in our one bedroom apartment at Bala Sands. 

We spent two years there before buying our house!

 The Lavins and Kellys came to Gainesville, but we only got to see them for about two hours since Michael and I both had to work the next day. I had to get my skinny picture with my cousin, Jessica. My goal is to get back to this point ^^ by next Christmas, which will give me almost 6 months to kick up the health extremities after Chip is born. This was taken almost 6 months after Jessica's baby Jeremy was born. So we'll both have early July babies, although her fourth baby is due in May!!