New Addition to the Family

Yes we have a new addition to the family and her name is Rosie! She is a purebred Golden Retriever we adopted from a local rescue. This lovely girl was an owner forfeit (her previous family couldn't take care of her) so she is now ours. Tybee continues to adjust to this 88lb creature that now shares the house with him but we hope they will become fast friends. Rosie tries to play with Tybee but I think Tybee is afraid he will get trampled. I have never owned a dog this large but it is hard not to love this sweet girl. Welcome home Rosie!

Andy had to lift her up into the bed for this photo. She has a bed that she sleeps on at night. We hope one day Tybee might join her instead of sleeping in our bed.

Home Improvements

Andy's parents came down for a visit in January. I had mentioned at one time that I wanted to paint some rooms in the house and Jerry (Andy's dad) brought his paint brush and buckets from Tennessee with him to get to work. Below are the numerous improvements they made. Thank you so much for your hard work Jerry, Sarah and Andy. I would get home from work and another room would be painted!

Master bedroom painted.

Master bathroom painted. New rug on the shower floor and new candles on around the tub.

Master bathroom toilet room painted with new floor mat and framed picture.

Guest bedroom painted and framed picture hung.

Guest bathroom painted.

Other improvements made but not pictured: second layer of shelves in the master bedroom, stucco patched and painted, outdoor plants cut back, corkboard and extra shelving installed in the garage. Love my inlaws!

Colorado Ski Trip / Washington, DC

Andy and I have been travelers the past month. Andy went to DC for one week and we went to Colorado the followingweek. We returned home from Colorado late Sunday night and he flew back to DC 6am Monday morning for 2 weeks and I flew up to see him the weekend between. Needless to say he and I were ready for the travels to end by that time. Here are some pictures:

Do you recognized the building behind me? We went on a tour of the East Wing, strolled through several museums, and visited Georgetown cupcakes (you may recognized it from TLC's DC cupcakes). They were delicious.

View of Vail from the balcony of our hotel room at the Arrabelle (HIGHLY recommend this hotel if you are ever there).

From the mountainside in Breckenridge.

Balcony in Vail.

New Years Resolutions

Happy New Years friends and family and yes I know this is about 12 days late already. I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday as much as we did.

A quick review of the past year:

Andy continues to enjoy his job and travels at least once a month to D.C. or San Diego. I no longer work for the local high school and now work in an Orthopedic surgeons office. Regular hours and benefits are a nice change. We have been in our home for almost 18 months and have several projects in the works including painting bedrooms and bathrooms and building a garden to grow some yummy vegetables in this summer. Tybee isn't a fan of the hours that both Andy and I put in at our jobs but he forgives us if we take him on a walk and toss his favorite toy. We are also looking into adopting another dog from a local rescue.

I have some resolutions for 2012 and I thought I would share them:

#1: Do a better job of documenting our life especially pictures and this blog. It is pretty sad that my last post was from almost 11 months ago.

#2: Be healthier! Yes of course I would like to lose several pounds and will be entering the biggest loser competition at the office, but I want to be more active in general. Watch less television and enjoy the outdoors and beach we live so close to. I ran 2 5k races in December and hope to run one at least once a month.

#3: Travel. We already have a trip to Colorado and Washington, D.C. planned but I would like to take Andy to New York and I have never been out of the United States so a trip to Europe would be amazing (though that one is not planned for this year).

I'll try to keep you up to date on what we have been doing. Good night!

Happy Anniversary Allison and Christopher

Happy Anniversary!