Happy Thanksgiving

I've been a bit behind on my blogging lately. I have ton of updates, but they will have to wait until after Thanksgiving. Until then, I leave you with a picture of our cute puppy! He's a growing boy...already over 30 pounds! Norman wishes everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

Pumpkins, Pumpkins and more Pumpkins

I love carving pumpkins. It's really one of my favorite seasonal activities. So, of course, I had to talk Matthew into carving some pumpkins this year. We decided to take Norman with us to a local church that was selling pumpkins. He did good while we were there, but found a new chew toy - the stems of pumpkins. After that we came home and started carving. Matthew did a great job on his pumpkin! He did the "Trick or Treat" one and I did the "RIP" one. Another one of my favorite things about pumpkins are the seeds! I love baking them and having them as a fall snack. When we were all done, we headed outside to light the candles in our pumpkins and they looked great! Another fun pumpkin carving!

October 24, 2010

Matthew and I have officially been married one year today! I can't believe how quickly it has gone by and the amount of change we have encountered in our first year. It's funny - a lot of times I hear people talk about how difficult/challenging the first year of marriage is because you're adjusting to the other person, learning their quirks, living with them, etc. While I respect that, that has not been our experience. We've actually found that transition to be fairly easy and smooth for us. What's been challenging has been all the external circumstances - moving to a new state, finding/getting new jobs, finding a new church... Matthew and I would both agree however, that all those circumstances have done nothing but strengthen our marriage. We are definitely much stronger and closer than we were a year ago. I am incredibly thankful for Matthew and the incredible man that he is. I am so thankful that we look back on our wedding a year ago with such fond memories. Below are a few of my favorite pics from one of the best days of my life.

Mischief

Guess what he's been doing...

Time Zones: Central or Eastern?

On several occassions I've gotten voicemails from friends that say something to the effect of, "Hey Kate, I was just giving you a call to chat, but I know that it's an hour later there than here so I may not have caught you at a good time..." Well, SURPRISE! I'm in the Central timezone so I'm typically in the same time zone as most of you who read this blog. That's right, Pensacola, FL, is on Central time.

I know it sounds odd, but the panhandle of Florida is on Central time while the rest of Florida is on Eastern time. The time changes close to Tallahassee. Below is a handy dandy chart to show Florida's unique time zone division.

The Newest Member of The Hollimon Family

Matthew and I have added a new member to our family! Everyone meet Norman Hollimon! He's a 10 week old golden retriever. We got him last Monday night and he has been an adventure since the first night we got him! We're a little sleep deprived and now have limited freedom with our schedules, but he's adorable and we love how much fun he is! We're already seeing bits of his personality coming out. He's pretty laid back, rarely barks (which we're very happy about!) and outgoing. He LOVES anything cool. On our way home from picking him up from the breeder, we all discovered his love for the air vent as he literally feel asleep on top of it in the car! He loves stretching out on the tile floor and will pretty much put anything in his mouth which constantly forces us to keep a watchful eye out. He's adorable and we already love him! I'm sure we'll be putting up plenty of posts and pictures of Norman, but here are some to introduce you to our new handsome man!

OU/TX

Matthew and I were really excited to attend OU/TX with my parents this year. This was Matthew's very first OU/TX experience! We flew in to Dallas Friday night and my parents picked us up from the airport. After we got to the hotel and got settled, we hung out with my parents and then later met up with my brother for dinner. We had a great meal that Friday night at Adelmo's Ristorante. They offered a unique menu, but it was delicious!

Saturday was the game. We had a police escort to the game with a huge caravan of OU buses. It was really cool! It was kind of funny to see people's reaction to all the OU buses traveling to the game. Since we had a police escort, we stopped traffic through intersections. At one intersection, I looked over and there was a mailman who had gotten out of his car and was standing in the intersection with his longhorns up. It was pretty entertaining. The game was a blast, of course and Matthew really enjoyed his first OU/TX game.

That night Matthew and I went to dinner with my parents at a restaurant called Al Biernat's. It was delicious! They had great steaks! We were stuffed and ready for bed after the game. It was a great weekend and we were so glad we were able to attend an OU game this year! Here are some pictures of our weekend:

1 Year Anniversary

In just about 3 weeks Matthew and I will be celebrating our 1 year anniversary. It's so crazy how fast time flies! In anticipation for our first anniversary, Matthew and I have been tossing out lots of ideas of things to do and/or places to go, yet we still haven't made a firm decision yet on what we will do. A lot of this is due in part to our schedules. However, we're feeling a lot of pressure to want to have a great, fantastic story about what we did to celebrate our first anniversary.

So, as a result, I decided to ask those who read our blog...what did you do for your first anniversary. Oh and we won't be eating the top tier of our cake....we ate that the night of our wedding after it was all over!

House: Part I

Matthew and I have been hard at work in making our house a home. We have definitely done a lot, but still have much more to do. I thought as we completed or came close to completing a room of our house, I would post it on the blog. So far, we've got about two rooms almost completely done: the master bedroom and kitchen. We still have a ton of decorating to do and are still looking for some additional furniture pieces (ie: a small casual kitchen table and then an mobile island for our kitchen), but so far we're very pleased with how our home is shaping up!

Claire Kennedy Designs

Hey everyone. As some of you may know, my aunt is a designer and creates beautiful wedding gowns, Beaux Arts gowns and many more things. Her business, Claire Kennedy Designs, has been featured on NewsOK.com. The article focuses on the dresses she makes for the Beaux Arts, but she does much more! So if you or anyone you know needs a wedding dress, she's the person to know! Check her out!

http://www.newsok.com/parties-extra-claire-kennedy-designs/multimedia/video/441609167001

MIA

I realize that we've been a little behind on our blogging and have basically been MIA, but we have a good reason! Aside from the typical day-to-day busyness, Matthew and I have bought a house!! We moved this past weekend and are so excited to be in a place we can make a home! I'll post more later, but here's a sneak peak of our house!

The Big 3-0!

June 15 was a very big day in the Hollimon household. It was Matthew's 30th birthday!!! The Saturday before his birthday, I had told Matthew that the director of my office was having a pool party so we needed to leave around 2 to make it there in time. Two o'clock rolls around and our doorbell rings. Matthew goes to the door to answer it and there are three gift-wrapped packages sitting on our front porch. He looks at the packages and starts gathering them up (at this point he's starting to get a little confused). Then SURPRISE!!!! His parents walk around the corner! Matthew's parents and I had been planning to surprise him for his birthday with a visit from them! It was a great surprise and Matthew had no idea they were coming down. We just sat around and visited and then we ended up driving around town and found a fruit stand on the side of the road. We stopped by and picked up a watermelon, some peaches and two canteloupe. It was all delicious. We fixed a great dinner and Matthew's parents had brought down a wonderful cake. It was a white cake with a raspberry filling with fresh fruit on top. It was delicious! So happy 30th birthday to my hubby!

Just for fun...

So, I realize that this post isn't about a specific event or story, but I just wanted to share. Matthew and I have so much fun together. Seriously, we are laughing all the time. I think Matthew has a great sense of humor which bodes well for me as he has me laughing all the time. We are totally goofy with each other - singing in the car together, doing impersonations, just being completely silly and it's a blast. Several times we've found ourselves bursting into laughter for minutes and then normally one of us ends up rolling on the ground from laughter. It's so fun.

Matthew has also been really great for me in the morning. For any of my friends that I have lived with, they know that I'm not exactly a morning person. Typically I need some buffer time in the morning before I feel like talking to you. But one thing I noticed immediately about Matthew when we first got married was how great he was in the morning. He always seemed to put me in a good mood. My favorite is when we just wake up and Matthew cracks a joke. How couldn't that put me in a great mood?!

Anyway, like I said, this post isn't about anything in particular just something that's been on my heart because I'm so thankful that we have a blast with each other. We love being around each other and have a great time while doing it! I'm so thankful that God placed such an incredible man in my life to be my partner for life!

Memorial Day & Family

This past Memorial Day, Matthew and I flew to Austin, Texas, for a "Garyville" family reunion. My aunt and uncle live on Lake Travis in Austin so it was a great place for us to get together. My parents, brother, aunt & uncle, two cousins and their spouses were all there. It was a lot of fun! We spent the weekend doing one of four things: eating, sleeping, playing catchphrase or being in the pool and/or lake. It was fantastic and SO relaxing! We already want to go back! Here are a few pictures from the weekend.

Carrie Underwood Concert

Last Wednesday Matthew and I went to the Carrie Underwood concert here in Pensacola. We had bought the tickets back in December and were really excited to see her. She definitely did not disappoint! She had two opening acts: Sons of Sylvia and Craig Morgan. I didn't particularly care for Sons of Sylvia b/c I didn't really like their type of music, but Craig Morgan was great!! Some of his songs that he sings are "That's what I like about Sundays" or "Redneck Yacht Club" or "International Harvester." Before he sand his song "That's what I like about Sundays" they started it out by singing Amazing Grace first which I thought was pretty cool.

Once they were both done, Carrie finally made her appearance. She came up from under the stage on this red and gold couch singing Cowboy Casanova. It was a good arrival. She had many costume changes (I tried to get a picture of almost all of them, ha!). After her first few songs, she changed and they changed the backdrop of the concert to be a bunch of trees. Then from the top of the stage area came down a wooden swing. She was singing on the swing which was pretty cool.

One of the coolest things all night was what happened next. (Cue next costume change). They had this video of her "walking" through these landmarks in Oklahoma, then through Arkansas and then through Nashville and then it shows her stepping into a blue truck. Then all of the sudden, from the ceiling of the civic center you see Carrie Underwood in this blue truck that is suspended from the air!! The truck made a "U" around the arena so we could see her really up close! That was so cool!

After that she made another appearance coming up from the bottom of the stage but this time she was in some type of electronic "dress" that matched graphics that were being displayed on the backdrop. It was crazy...and really hard to describe, but hopefully you can tell which "dress" I'm talking about from the picture below.

Then after that she did a set that was reflective of The Grand Ole Opry. They put up a video of Randy Travis singing so him and Carrie did a "duet" of the song "I Told You So." That was pretty neat.

Oh and by the way, I didn't know this but apparently Carrie plays both the guitar and piano. I thought that was pretty cool!

While the suspended truck was definitely the best "entertainment" moment of the night, I think my favorite moment was probably when she sang "Jesus Take The Wheel." The reason it was my favorite was because in the middle of the song she busted out in "How Great Thou Art." It was very powerful. She has such amazing vocals and I knew she wasn't lip sincing b/c she actually missed a few words on her song "Wasted" but it's so impressive how powerful her vocals are. She also sang "Temporary Home" which was cool. As an audience member you could definitely tell that "Jesus take the Wheel" and "Temporary Home" are songs very close to her heart.

It was a great concert and I highly recommend it to everyone! She puts on a great show and she is so enjoyable to listen to! Here are a TON of pictures from our evening out with Carrie! :)