What you may not know-2013 edition

Well Happy New Year everyone!  I hope you all had a fantastic time over the holiday season and spent some time celebrating with family and friends.  We stayed pretty busy over my almost two week vacation from work, it sure was tough getting back into the swing of things today!  We started off with our first house party.  We had a great time cooking, decorating and of course having wonderful friends and family over to celebrate.  Here are a few pictures from the celebration:

The cocktail area:

Food-yum!  Of course this was my favorite part.  I spent a lot of time trying to decide what to make, and thoroughly enjoyed all of the preparation.  Food makes me happy :)

Fried Ravioli

The Derrick's and the Walkers

Walker Family X two!

Lippard girls

Lippard and Walkers

Walkers and Swygerts

Walkers and Kelleys (almost)

William and I also got to spend our first Christmas together. Since we've been dating, William has always gone to Signal Mountain, Tennesee to spend time with his family, and I have always stayed here to do the same with mine. This year was my first trip to the mountain, our first Christmas together, AND our first as a married couple!  We really had a great time. We spent most of the days there stuffing our faces with delicious treats, chatting with everyone, and even made time for some card playing. I had heard so much about how special the "house on the mountain" was, and it was so nice to finally see it in person. William's mom, Jayne, even made me my own stocking. It had my name cross-stitched on it and everything! It made me feel so special and excited to be part of such a wonderful family.  Here are some pictures from our trip.

The outside breezeway bar area :)

Turkey fryin' time!

Signal Mountain Christmas Eve

Silly hat time!

Personalized napkins-so cute!

Not the best photo, but it was Christmas morning and we were festive, so why not?

Our first Christmas!

My what you may not know this week is not a happy one.  With all of the fun that we had over the holidays, we unfortunately also lost a very special part of our family. William's dog, Mr. Henry, went to dog heaven on Friday, December 28th. He was a precious dog that everyone couldn't help but to love. He was always spinning in circles with excitement, leaning on top of you when you were close and exhibiting unconditional love, especially to William. We loved him very much and will miss him forever. We are so glad he is not in pain, but will miss him dearly.

"... what we have enjoyed, we can never lose ... all that we love deeply becomes a part of us."
Helen Keller
We love you Mr. Henry!