Our Life....

We've had a lot happen in our life together the past few months...here's a recap!!

1) We survived marching season!! Phew! That was a seriously big accomplishment. I still need to send my band directors a message about how much more I appreciate them, now that I've actually seen the other side of marching band! It was a ton of fun, though, I have to admit. I sincerely enjoyed getting to know these wonderful kids better and sharing those experiences with them.

*Check out the media gallery on the band's website to see some pictures from this year's season! For some reason I couldn't get them on here :/

At our last competition, one of the students gave me this awesome pin! It's been fun to be "Mom" :)

2) We went through the All-County Band process and had tremendous success! Colt had 33 students represent his band, it was awesome! There are four high schools in our county, so it was quite the competition to earn a spot in this band. I actually got to be a judge for clinic and senior flutes (so pretty much, grades 9-12)! It was an experience, let me tell you!

Colt's school got to host the clinic and concert for All-County, and I think it went really well :)

Great group!!

3) Colt got to try out his acting skills in the high school's production of "A Christmas Carol". He was the ghost of Christmas future....and might I add, he did very well at being really creepy....like almost too well...  :)

4) We got to go to Virginia to spend Thanksgiving with Colt's family. It was a ton of fun and went by way too quickly, but I'm so grateful we were able to spend that time with them :)

No family visit would be complete without loves from nieces and nephews :)

5) Last, but not least...I think the biggest thing that we've done in the past few months was this....WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!!!!! It was a very long and tedious process....I don't even want to know what it's like to sell a house because buying one was agony enough. However, we were truly blessed with the people who helped us, they were absolutely wonderful! If you ever need a realtor in the upstate area of South Carolina, contact Sorrel Hoover, she was AMAZING!! And Mike Milligan from BB&T was so great!! We really could not have done this without their help...I pestered those two so much for almost 3 months (first time homebuyers = lots and lots of questions), but they were so patient!! We also could not have done this without the support and knowledge of our family! They gave us some great tips and information, held our hands as we went through this, stopped my frustrated crying when I didn't understand something or was freaking out because something wasn't going the way it should have been, etc. We love you guys, thank you!!!

We could not be more thrilled with this house, it's so great!

Obviously I need to take more pictures, but we'll get there! Right now we're experiencing the typical, "We're newlyweds who don't have every bit of furniture a house needs." However, we do have everything that we need, at least for now, and we couldn't be happier :)

That about wraps it up for our updates. We've been enjoying the Christmas season thus far. We recently got to go to a really fun Christmas party, hosted by our friends, the Dante's. It was a lot of fun to see some of Colt's friends from college there too! Next on our Christmas agenda is a trip to Florida to visit my family, but Colt's mom gets to come too!! It's going to be a wonderful Christmas!! 

We hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!!!

Denver Downs

This weekend we got a very special visit from Colt's momma, Judy. It was so much fun to have her here, we were able to do some fun things!

Friday night, we went to the Seneca vs. West-Oak football game with the band, and liked to have freezed our tails off!! Unfortunately West-Oak didn't win, but we still had fun!

Saturday was an awesome day! I've always loved corn mazes, and Colt and I kept passing this really big one at an old farm called "Denver Downs". It seemed like a pretty cool one, plus they had a petting zoo, pumpkin patch, hay rides, etc. As it turned out, Saturday morning we were looking online for some things to do in the area, and ran across an advertisement for a civil war reenactment (something I've always wanted to attend!) at Denver Downs! So we ate a quick lunch and headed over, and boy did we have a blast!

*WARNING: Picture overload ahead.

We didn't get to leave this section for a little while...someone had to get just the right shot... ;)

I'm still not sure how this thing works...is the other half of it buried in the sand or something???

This was an awesome way to do duck races!

:)

Petting zoo...check :)

These piglets were soooo cute!!

One more because I just couldn't help myself :)

This hay barn was so much fun! Once you climb up the hay to get in, you get to pull a "Tarzan" move and swing across!

Lovely.

Cue "Tarzan cry"...

There were hay rides available to take you to the pumpkin patch to pick out your own pumpkin, or take you to the civil war reenactment.

Pumpkin patch.

Soldiers going off to battle.

These ladies claimed they were field nurses, but I didn't see them do anything but sit...

The cannons were seriously loud, but every once in a while they produced awesome smoke rings!

Camp.

Concession stand.

Cool period items for sale, I really liked these lanterns.

Colt, "That looks like fun!"

Yup :)

We had a fun time in the maze, but unfortunately some people decided they would cheat, so when we got in there corn walls were knocked down and checkpoints had been moved around :( I think next year we'll go the weekend that it opens, so we can experience the maze before it gets ruined.

Clearly some people don't read the rules/don't care because it was evident that every one of those rules was broken...we may or may not have seen empty beer cans.

Colt proved to be quite the excellent guide, I have to admit I was impressed.

He had to figure out how everything worked. Thank goodness there were blocks around the wheels or he might have just rolled away!

After a fun day, we went to an amazing local barbecue place called, "The Smokin' Pig". This place is only open Thursday-Saturday, and always has long lines out the door. Every time we would drive past it we would say we've got to go there, so we finally did! AMAZING. So good. You can believe the hype on this place! Then we finished Saturday night off with an incredible Gamecock victory. What a game!! 

Sunday we went to Church and had a grand time, then headed on over to have dinner with some great friends/family (they might not be blood related, but they still count!).

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend and we're so glad that Mom could come visit!!