Long time no see

Hey Friends, I'm back. I have absolutely no good excuse for not writing, except for I just haven't wanted to. We have been having lots of fun in the meantime.


Anders entered his late 20's. To celebrate, we went to Atlanta and had a nice dinner and stayed at the Intercontinental Buckhead. Then on his actual birthday, we met up with his family to celebrate. He was very celebrated and I think is enjoying his late 20's so far.

We tried some new recipes. I'm really loving skinnytaste.com! The above is Crock Pot Santa Fe Chicken we LOVE it and it's super easy to make on a busy day.

We celebrated our first anniversary.  The year old cake was surprisingly delicious.  I'm so thankful for Anders and still delighted to be his wife.  

We celebrated by going to Beaver Creek, CO.  Neither of us had ever been to Colorado, so it was a wonderful opportunity to relax, see a new part of the country, and enjoying being together.

Our hotel had a Spago, so we celebrated there on our actual anniversary.  The food was amazing and the company was even better!

The last day there we took the concierge's suggestion and went on a hike.  Now, I should state for the record that neither of us is athletic.  We enjoy being outside and it seemed like a very Colorado thing to do. So after talking it over with our European concierge and being assured that "if her 60-something year-old parents could do it, we would have no problem," we took the hike to Hanging Lake.   The hike nearly killed us, but the view was breath-taking.  We were passed by people caring small children and the elderly, and looking back I should have realized that Europeans are in much better shape than we are, but overall we had a good time and made a memory. 

Whew,  that was a lot for September!  I think I'm going to give October a post of it's own!  It's nice to be back to sharing with y'all.  Here's hoping I can keep it up! 

What we have been up to

Hey Friends, Sorry I've kinda left y'all without a post in a while. We have been busy bees these last couple of weeks! So here's what we've been up to...

We celebrated my brother and sister-in-law's birthdays. Kyle's birthday is at the beginning of the month and Allison's is at the end, so they split the difference and we celebrated in the middle with a delicious brunch at Parish in Inman Park. It was so yummy! We had a wonderful time with everyone, then the Birthday people had to hit the road, so we milled around Virginia Highlands, then headed home. On the way home we stopped at one of my favorite place J Crew Outlet! Hurray for a couple new clothing items for both me and Anders!

Unfortunately, at the end of July we received a call letting us know that Anders' sweet grandfather had passed away. Roscoe, or Papa, was a wonderful and Godly man who passed into eternity praising his Father in heaven and loving his family. What a mark of a life well-lived! Papa was a man of many talents, who had a great love for people. He was funny, a little flirty, and very, very wise. Although we will miss him greatly, it is such a comfort to know that he is at home with his Savior! We celebrated his life last weekend with a sweet funeral service and reception afterward. At both events it was clear to see he had had a great impact on many lives and he will be greatly missed!

Anders and I also had the opportunity to head down to my family's beach house for 4 nights. It was a wonderful time to rest and relax! While we do love hanging out with family and friends, it was really nice after a stressful week for it just to be the 2 of us.

We had a wonderful time and are so thankful to be able to use the beach house. We basically did nothing but lay around, read, and eat delicious seafood. We hit up some of our favorite restaurants, but for me nothing tops The Red Bar's crab cakes and Key lime pie! I think we waited for around 2 hours for a table, but it was well worth the it! We love going down there and can't wait to do it again!
Until next time,
Carlie
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Sunday Breakfasts

When I first got married, I had all these great dreams of getting up early on Sunday mornings and cooking a delicious breakfasts for my husband. Well, the first couple of Sundays came and went with us trying to fulfill my dream and ending up rushed and grumpy as we headed to church. Over time we fine-tuned our Sunday routine to allow for either a quick breakfast standing in the kitchen or a Starbucks run on the way to church.

So, I think that means that I'm probably just too lazy to get up a little earlier than normal. Oh well, we are much happier with our new routine than me being constantly frustrated by the fact that I'm not Susie Homemaker.

This Sunday, Anders I had did have a nice little breakfast made completely of food bought at a local market on Saturday. First, you ought to know that Anders and I are not lovers of health food. We like it alright and know it's good for us, but if we were to be honest we both would rather have doughnuts, candy, and fast-food. However, in light of the fact that we would both like to live to a ripe old age, we are making strides to do better with our eating. So the yummy and not unhealthy meal you see pictured is some-type of homemade, whole grain bread with seeds in it, with locally grown and made peach jelly and a fresh peach. It was delicious and hopefully this is a first step to happy Sunday mornings and a long healthy life.

Happy Fourth!

Well friends, the fourth came and went and we had a blast! Anders had an "energy day" at work of Friday which meant that he got to stay home from work that day, and I was thankful to get to leave work a little early on Friday. So we got to spend the afternoon nursing our latest addiction, Glee! Then we were off to a fun-filled Saturday. We recently started the couch to 5K program, so we started at the gym then ended up with our friends, the Meyers, for and afternoon at the pool. The day wrapped up with dinner and a blizzard with one of my former roommates, Katie and her husband John David.

Sunday was another busy day. We tidied up our severely neglected backyard for an impromptu cookout with some friends. About 30 minutes before our guests were due to arrive, it started pouring down rain. Then about 15 minutes later we lost power. Great. Thankfully all of our guests were good sports and the power returned before we blew ourselves up trying to light the pilot light on our gas oven. Yikes!

On Monday we headed over to our friends' home know as, "The Shed." Traditionally, the guys in this home host an amazing party complete with homemade BBQ, karaoke, fireworks, and tons of friends. This year they did not disappoint!
This is a photo of some of our good friends watching fireworks at our local country club. We had a great time!

After such a busy weekend it was not fun to have to go back to work. I don't know why 4 day work weeks always seem to be so long. So we were definitely looking forward to this weekend, and our upcoming vacation!

Happy 4th of July

Well folks, I cannot believe it's already July! We have already had a great weekend full of food and friends and are looking forward to a day of relaxing and more food and more friends. We are headed to our friends' 4th annual 4th of July Party tonight. It has historically been awesome and we have high hopes for another amazing night of Boston butts, karaoke, and fireworks. Hopefully some great pictures will becoming soon.

Anyway, Happy Independence Day! Many thanks to all the men and women who have fought for the freedoms that we enjoy everyday.

Boring, but true

Ok, so I realize for the 2 people who read my blog, neither of which is my mother, I have not posted anything in a very long while. I guess this a good thing as life has been very enjoyable and busy! We have taken several trips, had a birthday, and have tried to keep our house running smoothly.

First, we enjoyed a great trip to Arizona! I had the pleasure of going to a conference for work. Children's Hospital of Philadelphia puts on a wonderful conference every year for people working in pediatric cardiology. The content of the lectures was great, but even better was an opportunity for me to catch up with friends from my former job at CHOA.

Having dinner with my former co-workers

I love what I do and the children I care for. I am so blessed to work with such a wonderful group of patients, families and co-workers! Anyway, Anders was able to join me for part of the conference and we took that opportunity to explore some of Arizona. The highlight of our trip was definitely our tour of Sedona.

We took a tour with Pink Jeep Tours and it was fantastic. One of my co-workers recommended them and we are so glad we used them. The tour was exciting and the scenery was stunning! Anders and I would love to go back and do it again one day.

We have also been in the process of having a new roof put on our home. Boring life stuff, but hopefully it will make our house a better place to live. We love our little home, and are happy to be able to fix what needs to be fixed. Hopefully the new roof will be put on next week, and maybe I'll remember to take some pictures of it.

I turned 29 earlier the month. Although this birthday was not nearly as traumatic as my 25th birthday (when I started crying at lunch with my mom and dear friend), I think I may have a complex about getting older. A few days before the big day Anders found my first gray hair... Bleh! That's not OK, I am going to have to tell my faithful hairdresser, Tommy, to fix that little problem the next time I see him. Overall, my friends and family made the celebration of my birthday very special with a little day trip to Atlanta, dinner at Grits and a lovely dessert at The Tic Toc Room.

After the birthday, our church had it's Missions Conference. It was wonderful and challenging. It's always so encouraging to hear what the Lord is doing in other areas in the world, and challenging to hear how we can be helping others spread the gospel, or going onto the mission field ourselves. I am excited to read, Palmer Chinchen's (our keynote speaker) new book, "True Religion - Taking Pieces of Heaven to Places of Hell on Earth" I will try to remember to let you all know how it is.

Lastly we just returned from a weekend getaway to Atlanta. We went with my parents and our dear friends Kris and Gerri Ann to see Bryan Adams! We had a blast at the concert, and were surprised to be able to visit with some sweet friends who had just adopted the most precious baby boy.

Whew, I'm tired from writing that. Sometimes I feel like being busy is the only way to really enjoy your time to the fullest, but hopefully sometime, I will learn to slow down and not have to always have a new event on the horizon. My husband is much better at this than I am. Hopefully, his hermit-like behavior that I give him such a hard time about will rub off on me a little bit :)

PS Whoever reads all this mess deserves some kind of reward, because this was a really long and fairly boring post. Sorry I'm not a better blogger :)

Fire!

So, I left the house today, really hoping and planning for it to be a nice day. I had a bright and happy shirt on, I was looking forward to eating my low-fat strawberry Pop-Tart for breakfast and having a somewhat nice day at the office. I arrive at work right on time and head to the break room to make a cup of coffee and toast my Pop-Tart, well folks that's where the day derailed. I was putting my Splenda and creamer in my coffee and I noticed that the toaster oven was smoking...ugh! So I start fanning it and turn the oven off and the next thing I know is that the fire alarm is going off for our entire building. Wonderful! Long story short, the firemen came and we no longer have a toaster oven at work.

So after starting things off on the wrong foot, the day got much better. I headed to the gym after work and took a class with a friend called "Flirty Girl Fitness." It's actually pretty fun and I actually enjoy the corniness of it all. Then I headed home for a glamorous evening of scrubbing the bathrooms and doing various chores with the husband. Hurray!

I'm very excited because tomorrow I'm starting sewing classes, so I can learn to be Susie Homemaker. I'm really looking forward to this even if I turn out to be horrible at sewing because I'm taking the lessons with one of my good friends and our teacher is really fun and crafty!

My First Blog Post

Hi Friends,

We are so excited to be able to share our lives with you. We have been married for 4 months and are having the time of our lives. I cannot guarantee that anything I say on this blog will be interesting or grammatically correct, but I hope that you will like learning about our lives.

So, because I don't really know what else to say right now, I'll leave you with a few pictures :)