It's a....

So pretty much everyone knows what gender our little sweetie is, thanks to word of mouth and Facebook, but I have neglected to write a post about it! I figure I might as well, couldn't hurt :)

For those few people (if there even are any) who don't know...our little baby is a BOY!!!!

Colt and I could not be happier :) We didn't really care what gender the baby was, just as long as they were healthy, but we're very excited to be having a boy. I've always liked the idea of an older brother/protector/example for younger siblings, so this is great!

It was so much fun to go in for our anatomy ultrasound and see our little boy really for the first time. I mean, we saw him at the 8 week ultrasound, but he honestly looked like a blob/bean....so I don't think that really counts. This time he legitimately looked like a baby. He was beautiful. It was such a cool experience to see him!

We are so excited to welcome him sometime in July. His due date is still July 28th, but he was measuring a week early, so you never know! Babies come when they come after all.

I'm feeling great, which is nice :) I have been very blessed in this pregnancy to not really get morning sickness or any other pregnancy symptoms on the negative side. I have gotten to the point where I need a nap every day, but when has extra sleep been a bad thing?? My belly has definitely started to grow, and now my belly button has started to pop out! Right now I'm enjoying my bump, but we'll see how long that lasts. I'm sure once the hot summer months roll around toward the end of this pregnancy, I'll be wanting that bump to be gone so I can relax and play with my baby!

-19 weeks and 2 days-

~*~Christmas 2013~*~

Colt getting into the holiday spirit  :)

I get the feeling that Colt and I are starting to make a habit of creating some pretty incredible Christmas memories. I mean, Christmas of 2012 we got engaged, that's pretty huge! So let me explain why our Christmas in 2013 was just as memorable  :)

For starters, we went to the lovely and WARM Florida!!! I cannot tell you how nice it was to leave South Carolina at 53 degrees fahrenheit (okay, I realize that's really not cold...) and watch throughout the day as the temperature rose to a beautiful 86 degrees fahrenheit. After a truly nice and easy car ride down, it was absolute bliss to open that car door and feel the warmth and humidity wrap around me like a perfect blanket to snuggle with. Colt enjoyed it so much that no sooner had we unpacked the car, then he was off on a run. Of course, we were also very excited to see my family again too!

We enjoyed an awesome weekend full of golf cart rides, Church, getting to see old friends, eating AMAZING food and too many wonderful goodies, and relaxing!!

On Christmas Eve we had the pleasure of picking up Colt's mom from the airport, as she flew in to spend Christmas with my family! It was such a joy to share Christmas with family on both sides  :)

Colt loves trains, so it was awesome when my mom found a Christmas train for a really good price!

Not excited in the least, or being a goofball for the camera either...

I think this train will definitely make an appearance under future Christmas trees  :)

Colt found a great deal on Groupon for a trip to a horse farm in Ocala, FL. Since his mom loves horses, it was a great Christmas present that he and she could both share!

We ended up opening gifts and having "Christmas" on Christmas Eve because on Christmas day we went to Disney World!! It was so much fun, but it was incredibly packed with people!! I've been to Disney on Christmas day several times before, and it's always had a big crowd (I mean, it's Disney...let's be honest here...), but never anything like this crowd! It was kind of ridiculous, but we still had a ton of fun!!

I love Disney at Christmas  :)

"The Haunted Mansion"

Waiting in line for "It's a Small World"

"The Jungle Cruise" which got changed for the holidays to "The Jingle Cruise". Every boat had a holiday-themed name and the classic jokes were given a little holiday sparkle too!

Waiting in line for "The Jingle Cruise"

We're really good at taking pictures...Take 1...

Take 2...

Ahh, third times the charm  :)

Throughout the rest of the week we enjoyed much of the same activities as we had before. The Villages is always a good place to visit, I never ever get tired of going back there  :)

The Monday after Christmas, Colt and I, along with my parents (Colt's mom had gone home a couple days before :(  ) went to Disney's Animal Kingdom! Colt had never been so we were really excited to take him there. Each Disney park is magical, but all for different reasons, so it's really necessary to go to all of them at least once if you want the full magical package  :)  However, the crowds were still quite bad, so we didn't get to fully enjoy everything there was to offer, but we can always go again! We still had a blast though  :)

In front of the Animal Kingdom's Christmas tree. This is one of my favorite Christmas trees!

"Expedition Everest"

Colt was the only one able/willing to go on "Expedition Everest". If you look on the left, he's the 5th one up from the bottom in a black t-shirt  :)

Quite possibly our favorite ride of the day was "Kali River Rapids". Here we are on our second trip through  :)

These next photos are what you get to see as you wait in line for "Kali River Rapids".

We also went on the Safari ride and got to see some really cool animals, although most of them were starting to turn in for the night.

On New Year's Eve, we (Colt, me, Mom, Dad, and Grandma Miner) went to The Olive Garden for dinner, and might I say we got there at the perfect time! It wasn't too early, but just early enough that we missed the huge dinner crowd and didn't have to wait forever! Later that evening, I wanted everyone to stay up so we could watch the ball drop at midnight...everyone else did a great job, but I kind of fell asleep and woke up just before it dropped....oops.

Our last couple of days in Florida were perfect, but all too soon we had to go back to the real world. It was an incredible vacation, and one that will definitely stay with us for a long time to come, but wait...I think I'm forgetting something....what was it?....OH YES!!! I forgot to tell you what really made this the most amazing Christmas yet!!!

When we went to Disney on Christmas day, I really wanted a picture of our family in front of Cinderella's castle. We never seem to get a picture there, and I knew it would look great on this blog post. However, unbeknownst (I looked it up, that's the correct spelling of that word) to our parents, I was really taking a video of them because Colt and I had some very special information to tell them.

I took 3 just to be sure!

BABY CAMPBELL is due July 28th, and we could not be more thrilled!!!

We found out that I was pregnant the week before Thanksgiving, and boy was it hard to keep that quiet!! I was only 4 weeks when we found out, so we wanted to make sure that everything was okay before we shared our happy news. Plus, we knew that our parents would be together at Christmas, and that we would be able to tell them in person...at Disney World. I mean, how could we pass up that wonderful opportunity to announce it like that???

We are so excited for our baby and can't wait to meet them! So far my pregnancy has gone very nicely, I haven't really had morning sickness at all, and I just hit 14 weeks yesterday! What's kind of funny is our baby's due date...the week that band camp starts....yup, we planned that one really well, didn't we?  ;)  It will be fine though, there are so many wonderful people to help us out with whatever that everything will be great. Plus, this ensures that our baby will definitely be a bando from the very beginning  :)

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!!