Isabella's first Christmas

Isabella is 4 months already and I got to spend an evening taking family pictures of Murillo-Minus family. She is such a cutie pie!  Here are my favorites, enjoy! Merry Christmas  :)

Georgia on my mind

We just returned from our trip down South for my friend Erin's wedding in Savannah Georgia.  Talk about a beautiful place to get married!! She was such a beautiful bride and the city of Savannah is full of rich history, as well as being down right romantic and dreamy.  It was awesome.  Of course I've got tons and tons of pictures to share. 

The trip happened to fall on John and my 1 year wedding anniversary (crazy to believe it's already been a year!), so we decided to make a fun trip out of it.  We  flew into Charleston on Wednesday and got a rental car for the week for some flexibility.  Then we drove about 15 minutes outside of Charleston and stayed in a nice hotel on the beach at Folly beach.  The town was really quiet so we walked around and met some nice local people and ate at some really good restaurants.  There's really nothing like fresh seafood when you're on the coast. We had our fill of mahi mahi, salmon, tuna, grouper, snow crab legs, conch fritters, and other Southern favorites like hush puppies and boiled peanuts.  John had never tasted boiled peanuts before so I made him pull a U-turn at the first road side stand we laid eyes on! My 9 years in the South has left its mark and I will forever love my boiled peanuts, sweet tea, corn bread and hush puppies (to name a few)!

After a few nights in Folly Beach and Charleston, SC, we packed up and drove to Savannah, GA.  Our hotel was right downtown in the historic district and within walking distance to all sorts of great stuff!! Best of all, we stayed at the hotel where the bride and groom were at so ran into them multiple times! 

We toured lots of historic houses, though my favorite was the Owens-Thomas house in Savannah.  It was beautiful and architecturally interesting! Other adventures included a trolley tour of Savannah, a trip to Paula Dean's store, exploring downtown Savannah's night life (lots of great music and my favorite the to-go cup for drinks at the bar!), and a trip to Tybee island.  We toured Fort Pulaski, which was also very cool historical land mark. I definitely got my fill of Southern wildlife, as we went to the Magnolia plantation and took a nature tram ride that pointed out some alligators and water foul for us.  We also took a drive through Savannah's wildlife refuge on our way out of town and saw several alligators and lots of cool birds. 

I love the beach so of course I just wandered about taking pictures and was in heaven.  I hope you enjoy my pictures as much as I do!  We cringed just a bit when we heard that it was snowing back in MN, and then cringed a LOT when we knew we were returning to 12 inches of snow.  Thankfully my sweet sister had shovelled the snow at our house and taken good care of our Samson so it make returning to the cold a little easier.  Winter wonderland is here and I look forward to more pictures of snow and Christmas festivities!  Happy Holidays!!

This Old House

Well last week launched the start of a new project for the hubby and me. We bought another house that needs some love and we're already rolling up our sleeves and getting to work!

So it needs a major face life--outside and inside. Originally, we thought we could get by with redoing the bathroom and kitchen before we moved in and then do a major overhaul later down the road. But... after several discussions and walks through the house and a few valued conversations from John's fellow construction friends, we've decided to do more than we originally planned up front.  So we're gearing up for a bigger budget (yikes) and longer time line than we thought. But I know in the end it will be worth it! I'll update with progress and pictures along the way. Here's what this old house looks like on the inside...

Living Room Window

 Front Porch

Kitchen

The unfinished 1/2 bathroom off the kitchen 

Dining Room

 Bedrooms upstairs



The new home has a big yard, which is so exciting! We have room to build a garage (garagemahall as John would have it) and still have a plenty of yard to enjoy.  Room for a garden, plenty of green space and even room for the dog to play. We're very excited to see how this old house ends!