"Once in a Lifetime..."

I know this is going to be information overload, but there is SO much to say about our trip to New York City this week I don't even know where to start...! We took over 150 pictures and each one of them doesn't even begin to capture all stories and memories we'll have of this amazing trip.

Ok, so here are a few of my favorite pictures...

I thought this picture captured the essence of Jamie's and I's marriage:

This is what we did the most of the entire trip- WALK! I have never walked so much in my life!

Jamie was oddly excited to see the Stock Exchange building on Wall Street...

And he even rode the bull in front of the Merril Lynch building!

We walked through Central Park and took some pictures in the beautiful Fall scenery!

Here is the Macy's store where we almost lost our sanity shopping on "Black Friday"!

We visited Ground Zero and saw the site where the Twin Towers used to stand.

Here we are on the Staten Island Ferry going to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was so FUN! The crowd was insane but the floats and huge balloons (and a few celebrities) made it worth it all.

And we saw SANTA...!

After the parade we went back to Sam and Jason's apartment to whip up an amazing Thanksgiving dinner- complete with stuffing and all the tasty fixin's!

We sat down for a yummy dinner and Jason said a sweet prayer reminding us how blessed we truly are.

Later in the week Sam took us to her costume shop where she works sewing costumes for all the Broadway theaters.

Here is a costume they were working on for The Grinch (which we actually saw on stage later that week)!

Sights from Times Square...

We went to the Rockefeller Center to see the ice skaters and HUGE Christmas tree.

Jamie wouldn't let me ice skate of course, but it was fun to watch everyone else falling on the ice.

Friday morning we got up early to go to the Today Show and got a glimpse of Stacy London from What Not to Wear.

Even though Broadway is on strike we still were able to see some great shows. We saw Pygmalian (the story of My Fair Lady starring Claire Danes), The Grinch and The Rockettes Christmas Spectatcular. They were all wonderful shows and we had great seats!

We spent alot of good times on the Subway...!

Jason's sister, Juli, kept us laughing the whole trip- she is such a spaz! Here she is having a mini-melt down in the sidewalk because she couldn't find her gloves! (And we actually just came out of this cajun restaurant here where they just happened to be playing the Razorback vs LSU game and we got to see the last quarter and overtime! And we were sitting next to some people from Lousiana- it was perfect!)

We had SO much delicious food in the city, but our last morning there we went for brunch at a cute cafe in Greenvich Village and it was by far the best meal of the week!

We finished our last day there with tons of shopping (shoes and handbags galore!) and tried to hang on to the last moments of our trip... here is the view from Sam and Jason's apartment.

It truly was the perfect "last" trip for us (before baby Audrie arrives). We are so thankful for Sam and Jason's tremendous hospitality and true friendship. We'll miss them...

'Tis the Season... to be Thankful

We had a wondderful non-stop weekend full of family and friends! My side of the family celebrated Thanksgiving on Saturday with a big feast at a lodge on Lake Wedington. It was a great time! We ate until we burst and spent time talking with everyone until our nieces decided to put on a magic show in front of the lodge fireplace... it was pretty cute! Here is a group picture that Kim took:

Afterwards, Jamie and I went with our friend, Gloria, to the lighting of the Fayetteville sqaure and we watched the parade of Christmas floats and even waved at Santa. I love this time of year!

Tonight we finished up the weekend with (more food) and had a big group of family and friends over to our house to break in Jamie's new grill.

Tomorrow morning I get to take my sister, Carolyn, and her husband, Darren, and adorable little boy, Rumi, to the airport at 5am to catch their flight back to Hawaii. Here is a beautiful picture Kim took of them this weekend:

So much to be thankful for this time of year... Happy Thanksgiving!

Showers of Blessings

This weekend was our first baby shower- thrown by our amazing friends- and there was cuteness everywhere!! ("Blush and Bashful" don't even begin to describe the amount of pink!) The hostesses put a lot of love into this beautiful shower! The neatest part was to see all the people coming in the door who are so happy for Jamie and I and our first little baby. So many wonderful friends and family and coworkers, my sister from Hawaii (ok, she's here for Thanksgiving, but it was nice to have her there!) and even the lady who I did my student teaching with 8 years ago came, too! Jamie and I stayed up late that night putting all the adorable gifts away in the nursery. Audrie is definitely coming into a nursery full of wonderful things, but even more importantly she's coming into a world full of people who are so excited to meet her!

(photo by Kim)

Special Memories

A few weekends ago the girls in my family all got together for a girl's night at a cabin on the lake near Branson. We were celebrating my Grandma Allamon's birthday and spent time looking through old photos and jewelry she left us when she passed away this spring. It was alot of fun to just take a break from the fast pace of life and relax with all the girls. We ate way too much food, stayed up too late, and played a pretty hilarious game of Cranium.

I came home with a couple of really neat pieces of jewelry of my Grandma's, but my favorite was a beautiful Italian cameo pendant that her husband bought during WWII when he was stationed in Italy. I researched a little about it and found alot of neat information about these pieces (ranging in price from $300-$2,000). I had it polished and strung on a dainty chain. I love wearing it and hope I can pass it on for generations to come.

And here are some of my favorite pictures of my Grandma's:

(This is from 1933 at the World's Fair- my Grandma, Eileen, was 14 years old.)

(This is of Eileen and Charlie Cummings as newlyweds.)

(I love this picture because my Grandma is about 6 months pregnant in this photo... and is still classy in her heels and pearls- I love the 40's!)

(And this one is neat because my mom, on the left, and her mom and sister are all wearing different stages of heels. My mom explained how special it was to finally be old enough to wear pumps or heels for the first time.)

Daddy's Little Girl

I've always known that Jamie would be a wonderful daddy, but last night I realized even more how blessed our little girl will be to have him. We went out with some friends who also happen to be expecting their first babies, too- Jenny and Rhonald are having a little boy in January (three weeks before us) and Jim and Emily are expecting (what I think is a girl!) at the end of May. After dinner we all decided to go for a group ultrasound to see our babies and it was so fun! When we got to see Audrie (it's been almost two months since we've seen her) she was SO big- we couldn't see all of her on the screen anymore- Jamie just had to scroll around and look at her face and legs and sections of her separately. (We did get confirmation once again that she is indeed a girl!) At one point we were looking at her face and she was staring at her hand and started opening and closing it and twisting her hand around to look at all her little fingers and Jamie just thought that was the neatest thing ever. He started going on about how cute she was and we needed to enter her in a beauty pageant right now because she was already so darn cute!! I think our little girl is going to have him wrapped around those little fingers very quickly...!

Me, Emily and Jenny with "Audrie, Burrow, Jr and Cole"!

Milk Chocolate & Peanut...

So this is what Jamie decided we were going to be for Halloween...

His office had dressed up that day as a whole bag of crazies, so Jamie wanted to share the joy with me and put a big "m" on my shirt when he got home from work.



We passed out candy for several hours last night to the steady stream of pirates, monsters and princesses who rang our doorbell. It was fun to see all their costumes and several of them were my former and current students. So cute!