Thanksgiving 2009

We started off the morning with a brisk 5k run (walk) to benefit MUST Ministries with our friend Sarah.

This year for Thanksgiving Eric and I stayed in Atlanta to celebrate with the Buergler’s and their long-time family friends, the Litwin’s house. Last year I found it rather exhausting to figure out 20+ years of family traditions and inside jokes, but this year was a much easier transition.  While not spent with my mom’s family at the Cabin, it was a great place to be for Thanksgiving!   As tradition has it, the young guys challenge the “wily veterans” to just about every game imaginable: horseshoes, corn hole, bocce, ping pong, pool, beer pong, etc. This year the wily veterans won, but not without the young guys claiming the old guys cheat.  Tim let me proxy for him while he was carving the turkey, and I took home the gold in the champagne cork shooting contest: the young guys couldn’t contest, I was the clear winner :)

Friday morning, Irene and I tackled the Lenox Mall.  She let me sleep-in (which means  we didn’t leave the condo until 6am. ha!).  After she treated me to Starbucks, we hit the four story Macy’s in Buckhead.  Bargain after bargain, I came home with some shoes, scarves, shirt, and our pots & pan set (and 2 bonus gifts!).  We also scouted out deals for this coming week’s Friends & Family sale.  Don’t worry Macy’s, we’ll be back!

After shopping, Tim, Irene, Eric and I piled into the Liberty and took off for my grandparents cabin in Highlands, NC where we continued Thanksgiving with more eating and drinking.  Of course, we went into town for shopping and hiking.  Eric and I got a great deal on a TV media center stand for our living room, and my parents were generous to haul it home for us.

All-in-all a blessed First Thanksgiving as a married couple!  Below is guest video-blogger, Rebecca’s videos of our hiking on Saturday - enjoy!

Post Wedding - Whew!

First of all, I apologize for the delay in updating the website and in posting pictures from the wedding.  I (Elizabeth) was swamped with leading two retreats (90 teens each), a trip to the soup kitchen with 30 teens, a trip to the corn maze with 20 middle schoolers, wrapping up a Confirmation program, and planning double-header Confirmation Masses with the Archbishop.  Never mind setting up house, adjusting to living with a husband, and working out all the kinks that come with being newly married.

We’ve finally opened gifts (THANK YOU!), set up the apartment, and have settled in to as much of a routine as possible given the above.  And now, we’re moving!  Fortunately it’s to a bigger apartment, in a building caddy-corner to the one we’re in now, but still...six weeks of “do I move this from my parents house now or wait?” ensues.

A few fun things about our married life:
 Sunday’s I plan our meals for the week and Eric goes to the grocery
 Eric doesn’t mind doing the laundry.  He is good at folding and putting away the clothes
 I usually do all the cooking, but Eric is the resident veggie chopper
 Eric created an easy to remember system - his side of the bed is on the right, therefore his clothes in the closet, towel on the rack, tooth brush in the holder (you get the point) are on the right....leave it to the engineer to come up with a “system”
 We don’t have cable (or even basic channels)

Georgia Aquarium

In search of the, “as promised on the radio” new penguin exhibit, Mandi, Katie & I used my three free passes to the Aquarium on the first day of Thanksgiving break.

The penguin exhibit was a third the size of the old one and half the cold-water section was blocked off.  Needless to say, we were a little disappointed in the false advertising and from the looks of it we won’t be seeing our chilly friends until the new dolphin exhibit opens next year.  Sad.
Alas we still had fun making fish noises, fish faces and making up fish drama as we walked the glass walled hallways.