A Quarter of a Century

We celebrated Michael's 25th birthday yesterday! Unfortunately, I had to work most of the day, but it was still a great day. He spent the day sleeping in, talking to his friends and family, and just relaxing and taking a well-deserved break from any schoolwork. As soon as I got home he opened his presents and then we went out to dinner and a movie. We went to Red Lobster (Michael's birthday tradition) and saw The Social Network. Michael thinks that he is ridiculously old and jokes about how he may as well be wasting away. Ha!





Oh, and as you may have guessed from me having to work most of the day yesterday, I got a job!! Yay!! I do data entry and credentialing for a company called Prime Health Services. It's a managed care company that offers services such as international PPO and repricing offerings. It's about as interesting as it sounds. :-) Still, it's a job! Also, it's super low-key and low-stress, which is a big change from my last job. Michael wants to work part-time and has a few interviews coming up this week, so wish my old-man husband good luck!!

Home Sweet Home

Here are some pictures of our apartment!

The living room

We don't have a real dining room, but luckily we have a spacious living room so the dining table fits nicely.

This is the view looking into the kitchen from the living room/dining area.

The kitchen

The bathroom

Our bedroom is totally pink! Believe it or not, I actually didn't mean for it to be THIS pink. We got a pink lamp and when we turned it on we found out that it tints our room pink! Oops. The pink bedding was the cheapest we could find that was comfortable, and since I love pink, I couldn't complain. After that, we just went with it. Can't say I mind too much, and luckily, Michael doesn't either. :-)

Last but not least, this is our guest room/storage room/Michael's study room. Michael also uses the closet in this room since I pretty much took up all the closet space in our room. He's so nice!

We really like our apartment. Our only complaints are that some of the stuff is really old and doesn't work very well (such as the dishwasher) and there are plenty of spiders. I am beyond terrified of spiders, so that's been quite the adjustment. :-)

We have been having lots of fun and have made some really good friends. We have also been exploring the city. Some of our adventures include walking around downtown, checking out the Titans stadium, and visiting Centennial Park, which is the most famous park in Nashville. It has a replica of the Parthenon which is pretty neat, although we haven't taken the tour of the inside yet.

Wedding pictures are almost done so I will post some when I get them!

Frogs, snails, and puppy-dogs' tails....

.... that's what my husband is made of! When I got engaged, I got lots of advice from a lot of different people. I remember that my boss at the time (who is a male in his late twenties) told me, "Remember that all men are really just little boys in bigger bodies." I told him that I definitely already knew that because I have two brothers who have proven that statement very correct. However, being married has shown me that his statement was even more true than I realized. I came to this understanding one day last week when I was doing my hair in the bathroom. I realized that I hadn't heard any noises from Michael in about five minutes and my first thought was, "Uh-oh, he must be up to no good." Usually he is talking to me or going on about something philosophical or singing made-up words to a song. :-) I went to check on him and found him making a mess. Right then I realized that if not hearing anything meant he was up to no good, I really was married to a little boy in a bigger body. Haha! By the way, he doesn't act like a child in an 'ugh-my-husband-is-so-childish' type of way, but in a really funny way.... at least most of the time. ;-)

After that I started looking for more ways that Michael acts like a little boy and grabbing the camera whenever I caught one. This is what I found:

I have woken up freezing quite a few times because he steals the blanket AND my pillow!


He begs me to buy Goldfish every time I go to the store and then sits too close to the TV while eating them on the floor. Yes, I tell him to scoot back... or sit on the nice comfy couches we have.

I told him that after I took the picture, he couldn't do this anymore. :-)

Anyway, I tease him about all of these things, but really I can't help but smile when I'm picking up Cheerios off the floor. He definitely keeps my life interesting! Love you Michael! And I'm really probably making the situation worse when I do things like not let him go to his first day of classes before I take a first day of school picture. :-)


Life in Nashville is good. I am keeping busy by exploring, scrapbooking, and finishing up my thank-you notes. Michael likes school and is already planning his thesis. We are excited for fall to come - we hear that fall in Nashville is beautiful!!

The Beginning

Well, I figured that since I created this blog over a month ago, it was time to finally start blogging- especially since we just moved to Nashville and there's so much to say about this awesome place!

First, thank you to everyone who came to our wedding and helped make the day so special. It was the best day of our lives and we are so glad to have so many great memories. We sure were tired by the end of the reception- my feet were killing me and I was in flats! NO idea how some brides are able to wear heels all day.

Anyway, the next day we took off for our honeymoon to... Vegas!!! Not quite as exotic as Cancun or Hawaii, but we had a budget to stick to. :-) At first neither of us were too excited because he's from Vegas and I've been there a million times, but it ended up being lots of fun... despite some serious car problems! Some highlights include: seeing the Cirque du Soleil show Mystere, (neither of us had ever seen Cirque before- it was weird but really awesome!) going on a gondola ride at the Venetian, and eating some really yummy food. Here are a few pictures from the honeymoon-

This is when we had to pull off the freeway somewhere near Baker while Michael worked on the broken car. :-(

This was on the gondola ride. The gondolier even sang to us! As soon as we got off Michael claimed he was seasick. Seriously, who gets seasick on a gondola?? I had to tease him lots for that. (This is Michael, and I didn't just claim, I was seasick. Carly was rocking the boat back and forth swaying to the music) Clearly, Michael lies when he's embarrassed. ;-)

I love the Bellagio garden! This time it had a spring theme which was super cute.

When we got back from our honeymoon we stayed at my parents' house for a day or two while we opened our wedding gifts (fun!) and got everything ready to move. Then, we were off to Nashville! I am not a huge fan of road trips, especially ones that are 30 hours long, (!) but it was great to be with my new husband and have plenty of time to talk, work on our southern accents, and play random car games.

When we drove into Nashville I was surprised by how pretty and green it is here. It is also unbelievably humid and full of bugs! Eek! Ha no but it really is great here. And even though I've always heard of southern hospitality, everyone here really is so nice. It is going to be so much fun starting out our marriage here in Tennessee. We are both excited to get to know more people and make new friends. Now, if I could only find a job!! Cross your fingers for me!