Thanksgiving and Pre-Christmas

Hey ya'll! It's been a month since our last post and quite a lot has gone on since then! We had a great Thanksgiving meal, have started decorating for Christmas, and Tim is nearing the end of his first semester at Vandy.



Heather was not able to get much time off from work for Thanksgiving so we decided to stay in Nashville and cook our own meal for the first time. We, Heather especially, were a bit nervous about cooking a turkey unsupervised. In true Tim and Heather fashion, we sought the advice of professionals weeks in advance. Translation, called both moms and took notes on Thanksgiving specials on the Food Network. Fortunately our planning paid off and we ended up with a simple to cook, delicious turkey! We also spread out the cooking over a couple days which decreased our stress levels at any given time. Thursday morning was surprisingly calm. We spent half the morning sitting on the couch and watching the parade while the turkey was in the oven. Our menu also included: dressings with homemade bread, Heather's garlic mashed potatoes, broccoli casserole, deviled eggs,cranberry relish, and a pumpkin pie!. We ended up with enough food to feed 6-8 people! After stuffing ourselves, we felt like we had just as much food as we started with! A week or so later we had finally finished off the leftovers. A definitely successful first Thanksgiving!



Leftovers!





With Christmas rapidly approaching, we (Heather) have been thinking more and more about decorating the apartment. Last year we had a tiny, pathetic, fiber-optic tree. Needless to say that it didn't make the trip with us to Nashville. So, a few days ago we went out and got our first real tree! Tim ended up setting up quite the learning experience when it came to securing the tree to the roof of our car. He rolled down the windows and ran rope over the tree and through the windows (one rope through the front windows, and one through the back). As soon as he finished tightening the last knot, he realized "oh great. I tied the doors shut!" We decided instead of doing the ropes all over again, we would just crawl in through the windows NASCAR style. It was pretty comical to see us both laughing hysterically while crawling into the car through the windows in the busy Walmart parking lot. I'm sure we got a few looks from passersby. One thing is for sure, we'll never do that again! Tim blamed the situation on always having a pickup to throw the tree into. We resolved to have our next vehicle be a pickup of some kind.



With Christmas just 19 days away, we are eagerly looking forward to having Tim's parents join us in Nashville for the holiday. We have a long list of things to do with them in the few short days they will be here, and we couldn't be more excited to show them around!

Happy Halloween!

We are loving the fall season! The weather has been cool and the leaves are turning beautiful colors. We went to a pumpkin farm to pick out pumpkins a few weeks ago. We met a group of Tim's classmates and all took part in the fun activities at the farm. We successfully competed a corn maze, took a fun hay ride, oh yeah, and picked out pumpkins! We had a great time!




We both have a lot of fun carving pumpkins, I'm not sure we will ever grow out of it! Draco liked smelling the pumpkins, he was very curious about the whole event!



We even dressed up and went out to a Halloween party! Tim dressed as Lieutenant Dangle from Reno 911 and I was a beauty queen. We had a fantastic time!

These past few weeks of fall activities has been a great start to the holiday season! Thanksgiving will be here before we know it!

Draco!

The other day I caught Draco standing AND eating!
Its seems like a small thing, but for Draco this is big (almost as big as he is)! He has always been such a picky eater. Ever since we got him he has only laid down while eating. To this day he will not eat without me (Heather) close by. Even if Tim gives Draco a treat during the day, he wont even eat it until I am home.

Anyway, enjoy the cute pictures of Draco!

Tennessee State Fair

Two weekends ago we went to the Tennessee State Fair! Our main motivation was going to the demo derby Friday night. We ended up waiting in line on the road just to get into the parking lot. I would guess the line involved about 120-150 cars! There was only ONE parking lot and ONE entrance to the fair! Talk about poor planning!!

Eventually we got in, found the grandstands, paid for our tickets to the demo, went to find seats and this is what we saw:


A race track. We weren't sure how there was going to be a demo derby, there was no place for the cars to smash into each other. The only thing we could guess is that demo derbies in the South are maybe more about the racing than the smashing. We were pretty bummed about the non-smashing of the cars.

But were were even more confused when we saw the cars:



Yeah, there was only ONE demo-derby-looking car to been seen. Turns out the rest of the cars did not show up! How does this happen? We don't know! They had to cancel the demo derby because there were no cars! I think we both of our jaws touched the ground when they told us the demo was canceled. Their excuse involved some type of communication error, but they weren't really sure. We got our money back and decided that we probably won't return next year. All in all it was a very confusing and weird experience.

We had a better time when we met up with some of Tim's school friends. We all had lots of fun eating delicious fair food and enjoying other fair things. We found the livestock barns and went in to check things out. Right then it started to downpour. We didn't have umbrellas so we found a seat and watched people show their cows in competitions. Suffice is to say we ended up spending 30 minutes more then anyone would ever want to in close proximity to cows and goats.





All in all we had a great time at the fair and lots of laughs!

New Car

Last weekend we bought a car! It is a 1998 Toyota Corolla. It's in pretty good shape but it is the "value" model. Translation...no features. Thankfully the only feature it has is A/C, a definite must in the South. Even though it doesn't have all the bells and whistles, it runs well, should last us as long as we stay here, and might even be worth a couple dollars when we are ready to sell it. It is so nice to have two cars again. We were starting to stress a little bit about Heather having to wait 30 minutes after work on the side of a very busy road for a bus that would take over an hour to get her home. Thankfully we can rest easy knowing that we both have reliable transportation again!




Check out our new wheels!


Today we took Draco to a dog park near our apartment. He had lots of fun being off leash and being able to run around a bit. There were some really nice dogs there and even another corgi. We felt pretty bad for Draco when he started getting humped by a soaking wet bulldog , so we made sure to give him a treat when we got home! Sorry Draco!

Today we also went to K&S World Market, an ethnic grocery store. It was so fun to see all the different and yummy looking food. We scored some yakisoba noodles, pot stickers and curry sauce. We also checked out the Costco and finally bought some Tillamook cheese! They don't carry it in the regular grocery stores here.



This weekend we also plan to venture to a Jazz Festival and spend some time by the pool...oh yeah and not go to work or school on Monday! We miss you all and hope you have a fantastic holiday weekend!

We're on a blogging roll!

As we thought, we have so much to share with you all right now! We know at least most of you have never been to Nashville so we'd love to share some stories and pictures as we explore the city for ourselves. First, we have a few more pictures from our trip to share, and then some pictures from our trip to the local Farmers Market. Don't forget you can click on the pictures to enlarge them!

Some of the beautiful red rock just east of Salt Lake City, UT

There were tons of huge windmills in the Wyoming high country

The arch was really exciting to see in person!

FINALLY!

The Tennessee State Capitol sits on the highest point in the city limits. It overlooks a mall similar to the one in Washington D.C., but much smaller. Earlier this week, Heather and I took an official tour of the Capitol building. Some highlights included the House and Senate Chambers and the Governor's outer office.

These pillars run along both sides of the mall. The space between each pillar represents one decade of the state's history. On the stone wall across the walking path, historical events that took place during the decade symbolized in the pillars are engraved.

Tennessee history = Civil War history

What the? We think it is mini okra.

It was interesting to see what types of fruits and vegetables are grown down here. Most farms had the same things: tons of tomatoes and squash, peppers, corn, watermelon, peaches, and cantaloupe. The cantaloupe and watermelons were HUGE! The cantaloupe is about twice the size of Hermiston melons and the watermelon was about 3 full hand-widths.

Unpacking and the Anniversary

When we got to the apartment on Saturday morning, it was already hot outside and we were NOT looking forward to unloading the entire truck. But the truck wasn't going to unload itself so piece by piece we emptied it. It was quite a bit of work to find homes for our 2-bedrooms worth of stuff in a one-bed townhouse. After a few loads to the dumpster and a couple big loads to the nearest Goodwill, we made it in! I'll put a few pictures of the apartment down below. We explored Vanderbilt one afternoon and found Heather a good Vandy shirt to wear around now. Cami, we found a burrito place that seems to be related to Chipotle, called Qdoba. It's just like Chipotle but a little bigger and better! Oh yeah!!! We'll be just fine down here!

Yesterday was our first anniversary! We had a great day together. We made a delicious breakfast, ate some of our wedding cake, and went to see a movie (Julie & Julia) which was pretty cute! And for dinner we went out to a good steakhouse in downtown Nashville. Seth and Emily gave us a gift certificate to Jimmy Kelly's Steakhouse as a graduation gift so we used it last night. After a couple of the best steaks we've ever had, we drove all around downtown to check out the Saturday night hustle and bustle of the city. It gets pretty busy down there but we are both really excited to check out the nightlife sometime soon!

We are still searching for a job for Heather and will continue to search vigilantly until we find the right job for her. Please continue to pray for us that we would find the right job soon. I am getting very excited to start school in a few weeks! It will be refreshing to be reminded of why we moved oh so far away from home. Now check out some pictures!

Best Friends...


Seth being a goof...


Our first dinner with chairs!


Some of the really interesting architecture at Vandy


Proof that we actually made it to Nashville ;)



Our makeshift dining table + two chairs!! WOOT!


Remind you of a certain someone with Buttons?


She won't admit it, but she does have fun playing video games every once in a while!


This cake has definitely seen better days


Our two beautiful diplomas!