Friday, January 14, 2011

New Year, New House

Oh wow, so much has happened since the last post! Tyson and I closed on our new house (!*yay*!), Christmas has come and gone, our friends Maria and Brandon let us ring in the New Year at their wedding, we went on an AWESOME ski vacation, and Tyson started a new job!

The house is absolutely WONDERFUL, although we've been gone so much since we moved in that there are still boxes left everywhere that need to be unpacked. Tyson and I have committed to really buckling down over the next few weeks so that by the end of January we can have a normal, put-together home to live in. It's amazing how much space we have now! You could probably fit two of our old apartment in our house and still have some room left over. One thing is for sure, my parents, Tyson's parents, and Tyson's grandparents are all THRILLED to have all of our stuff out of their basements/garages/etc! They are also probably ecstatic at the thought of not having to move us for several years....heaven knows we've had waaaay too many "homes" in our six years together!

The multiple family Christmas concept is kinda new for Tyson and I, but last year we worked out an itinerary where we were able to fit a trip in to see both of our families, so our plan was to stick with that same schedule this year. Unfortunately, some of the best laid plans can fall through! We had a beautiful white Christmas up in LaFollette at my grandparents' house on Christmas morning, but all that snow and ice prevented us from making it down to Atlanta to see Tyson's family. We were really bummed that we couldn't make it down to see everyone, but considering when we were finally able to leave my grandparents' house a few days later, our cars were STILL having a hard time naviagating the icy roads, we knew we made the right decision. Luckily, Tyson's mom and brothers were coming up to Knoxville the following week to have Christmas with some of the local family and for Andrew's baseball camp at UT, so we were able to see them shortly after the holidays. Not the same, but definitely better than nothing. We will have to come up with a different plan next year too, because we are going on a super fun Disney World vacation with Tyson's family the week before/of Christmas, and we'll need to figure out a way to get back to Knoxville at some point too. Seems like it's always busy, busy for the Patricks!

On New Year's Eve, Tyson and I left work early and headed over the mountains to Mooresville, NC, where our friends Brandon and Maria were getting married. Brandon is the twin brother of Tyson's best friend/best man Mike. Coincidentally, Mooresville is also the city I used to live in before my family came to Knoxville in 1999. I hadn't been back there since we moved, and boy has it changed! I barely recognized it! We spent Friday evening at the wedding and reception, which was SO much fun! Maria looked absolutely gorgeous, and you could just tell how happy they were to be tying the knot. And Tyson and I were way jealous of their choreographed first dance...we definitely didn't have the discipline to stick with dance lessons for ours. We chose the middle school/hugging embrace stance for ours! But like I said, so much fun. Not only were Tyson and I celebrating our first New Year's Eve as a married couple, it was also the five month anniversary of our wedding, which we got to spend with some of our very good friends! We definitely missed our families though!

We spent all day Saturday in Mooresville looking around at some of the old sights in the town....our family's old apartment from before we built our house, the house, my old schools, my church....and we even visited with one of my oldest and dearest friends Stacy and her boyfriend Will. It was a lot of fun to catch up and talk like old times. On Sunday morning we got up early and met our friends Rodney and Callie in Davidson for breakfast. Callie has family in that area of NC and they happened to have spent New Year's there, so we decided to meet up for a quick breakfast before they headed back home and we headed north to Virginia for our ski trip. We ate at this great little place called Toast, which I would definitely recommend to anyone travling through the area or visiting someone at, say, Davidson College.

We arrived at Massanutten Ski Resort in Harrisonburg, VA just in time for the night time ski session. We had met my parents, brother Justin and girlfriend Erin, grandparents, uncle and cousins Corey, Riley, and Casey up there, and we were so ready to hit the slopes! My grandparents and mom took my little cousins Casey and Riley, to the timeshare to check in, and the rest of us headed up the mountain. Corey, at only 11 years old, took to that snowboard like a duck to water....I just can't believe how good he is! I am definitely the least advanced skier/snowboarder of the group. I stick to the beginner and some intermediate slopes...I'm such a wimp! We skied 5 out of the 7 days we were there (well they skied 5, I skied 4...). Needless to say, we were all very sore! We even went to Showshoe, WV one of the days (that was the day I took off....when we got there I took one look at those trails and though, wow, this is way above my level of experience, and decided to do some sight-seeing with my mom and grandparents instead!). I do think I improved overall this trip, so next year maybe I'll be able to take on some more intermediate slopes...but probably no black diamonds in my near future!

I think we were more tired when we got home than when we left, but another wave of snow gave us some more time to recover. School has been canceled for the entire week in my home county and Tyson's new job was canceled on Monday, and delayed on Tuesday and Wednesday! I went in about 30 minutes lates to my job on Monday, and we left about 30 minutes early, and it was delayed a little on Tuesday too. So it was nice to kind of be eased back in to the work week. Tyson is liking his new job so far, although he hasn't really been immersed in it yet. He is working with one of our friends, Clint, who is helping show him the ropes for now. Before long he should be raking in so much that I can quit my job and be a full time trophy wife! Not really, but here's to wishful thinking!

The next few weeks are scheduled to be just as crazy busy as the last few have been for us, but it's all so much fun that I really don't mind. I do miss the lazy weekends and weekly game nights we used to enjoy on a regular basis, but there will be plenty of time for that in the future. For now, we are just enjoying life with our friends and family and getting involved in as much as possible! Who knows when I'll even have time for another post...from the way things have been going, it might be 2012!