Fisher Christmas!

Okay, so I had plans to be this great blogger in the new year and I have already failed.  HA!  I haven't even posted about Christmas with my side of the family.  Here's a quick (or not so quick) recap:

We headed to Tuscaloosa on Christmas Eve afternoon.  We made it to my parent's house in time to rest for about an hour, and then head to church with Mom and Dad.  It was a really nice, relaxing way to spend Christmas eve, and it was topped off by Mom and Greg's tradition of watching It's a Wonderful Life.

The great part about not having kids yet is that you get to sleep in on Christmas!  We slept in, and I prepared a lasagna for Christmas dinner.  My brother, his wife, and my nephew drove down Christmas afternoon.  Once again, we all took it easy!  My grandmother came over for dinner, and we all had a really nice time!  She opened her presents from everyone, and we had good food (except for the burned bread- I swear it's hereditary).

The day after Christmas was our big to-do!  I got up early because I was doing most of the cooking.  Once I got up and started the coffee, I realized that Mom hadn't put the turkey in yet!  We had a good laugh about it, and I cooked muffins and started on all the side dishes.  My other brother and his girlfriend got there, and then my aunt, my two cousins, and my cousin's fiance.  It was certainly a house full of people!  We had so much fun opening presents and joking around.

I had arranged for a photographer to come and take some family portraits for Mom's gift from Greg and me.  She stood me up, and wouldn't return any of my phone calls.  I was disappointed because I had this session set up since September!  I was also disappointed because the photographer was supposedly a family friend.  If you live in the Tuscaloosa area, I encourage you to avoid using Kim Murphy Photography if at all possible.  She is unreliable and unreachable, and she certainly doesn't respect her clients.

It all ended up working out because we just had each other take some pictures, and we got some cute ones.  It was a really nice visit home.  Amazingly enough, no one got in a fight and we all left still liking each other- HA!!!  Here are some pictures:

The star of Christmas 2011! 

Dad loves that sweet baby! 

My aunt and cousins- I'm so glad that they were able to come! 

The whole family! 

With my brothers- so glad we made it through without a fight.  ha! 

The Barrow family!

Barrow Christmas!

Greg and I have a set plan of how we divide up spending time with our families over Christmas.  We will do up to Christmas eve with one family, Christmas eve night to whenever we go home with the other family.  We rotate every year.  We feel like it is important to be able to spend time with both our families, and we try to make it very fair so that no one gets their feelings hurt.  Living so far from our families can be a blessing, but it can also be a curse when it comes to holidays.  Luckily, I was able to take a few days off, and then I had the whole week between Christmas and New Years off.  We were able to spend a really good amount of time with family.  It was much needed!

Our Christmas vacation began on Tuesday, December 20 when I got off of work.  We decided to make the drive to Alabama that night.  It's just so much easier to get there at night when there is barely any traffic, and Greg was able to take a pretty big nap that afternoon so that he could drive.  We made great time and arrived at Greg's parent's house in Childersburg, AL about 1:15!  I was so excited to be there!

Greg's mom had to work a half day on Wednesday, but we were able to catch up on rest that morning.  We enjoyed spending Wednesday just hanging out around the house!  Thursday we spent with just Greg's parents.  We went to see Sherlock Holmes 2 (which was fantastic), did a little shopping, and then we had to eat at Greg's favorite bar-b-que place (Jim 'n Nicks).  It was a wonderful day with the in-laws.

Friday afternoon Greg's sister, her husband, and their kids came over.  It was SO good to see them!  It had been too long!  We also did presents with everyone that night, and we ended out the day playing Scattergories with the adults, which always provides lots of laughs!

I am so proud of myself for actually taking pictures this year!  Here are a few of my favorites from Christmas with the Barrows:

We got Tanner a Transformers action figure 

We actually bought this box at the Thrift Store and made it into a jewelry box for Kayleigh. 

We made a bunch of sweet treats for Nathan! 

Greg made this dry erase calendar for Liz! 

We didn't get this for Liz, but I absolutely love this picture of her!  She was SO excited! 

We collected those sea shells while on our Thanksgiving vacation for Linda- she loves shells 

This could be my favorite picture from our Christmas trip.  HA!  We made coasters for Ralph and he was super excited.   

Greg got a drill and tool kit.  He and Tanner were clearly having a deep discussion about the tools. 

Merry Christmas, part 1!

Our Wedding Weekend, part 2

Originally I thought that I would be able to blog the wedding in two parts, but as I pulled pictures that I wanted to share with everyone I realized that it would have to split into three-four parts.  I don't want to have overwhelmingly long posts.

I also realize that it has been forever since I posted Our Wedding Weekend, part 1, so if you missed it be sure to check it out!

I woke up on Saturday, December 19, 2009 so happy.  I knew that the day that Greg and I had been waiting for was finally here!  All the hard work that we (and of course my Mom) had been doing for the past year and a half was going to be worth it all.  I hopped out of bed to a silent house.  We had a house full of people so I was pretty surprised to be the first one up (although, now that I think about it... that isn't actually surprising).  Mom, dad, Betsy, and Jordan were all sleeping.  I went ahead and got the coffee brewing, and then I hopped in the shower.

We had to meet all the girls at the salon at 9 (I think).  I was cool, calm, and collected which is exactly how I wanted to feel the morning of our wedding.  I had talked to myself for months about how if something wasn't done by that morning then it wasn't going to happen.  No need to sweat that stuff because no one would even know it was missing (except for me and mom).

We finally got everything loaded up in the car and headed to the salon!  I feel really lucky to have a close relationship with my hair stylist.  I actually worked for her at PH Balance Salon in Tuscaloosa, AL.  Kim and Lisa were amazing!  They did everyone's hair for our big day...  And we had muffins, fruit, and mimosas!  Here are some shots of everyone getting made over at the salon:

 Kim is amazing!  I still go to her to get my hair cut even though I live 10 hours away!  If you live in Tuscaloosa and are looking for a fabulous hair stylist then you have to check out PH Balance Salon!

 My wonderful bridesmaids and my sister-in-law!

I absolutely love this picture.  Mom seeing me for the first time with my hair and make-up done.  (note: She hates this picture because she doesn't have her make up on yet, but I still really love it)

This was right after I got my dress on.  We are only 30 minutes late for pictures with Greg.  No biggie.

This is also one of my favorites.  Mom said, "You can still back out if you want to." I'm laughing because it's absurd, I was completely ready to marry Greg, and she would have DIED if I had called it off.  

We were 30 minutes late meeting Greg and the church for our pictures.  Mary drove me to the church which was only a bout 4 blocks away.  She sat in the car with me while Bob, our fantastic photographer, and our wedding coordinator got Greg ready for our first meeting.  I was so excited to see him!  I couldn't wait to see his reaction to my dress because it was nothing like he had thought it would be.  

Greg as he patiently waited for me to arrive.

Our meeting!  I said, "surpise!"  

By the way, we got married at Christmas because it has been my dream since I was old enough to dream about weddings.  I love the church at Christmas time.  

The church was so beautiful.

  It was freezing outside, and I felt like we were out there forever.  Being really cold was totally worth it because now we have really pretty pictures of us in front of the church.  

I think that I've put enough in this entry.  I have a really hard time picking just a few pictures from the wedding album to share, so I think I will have to do our wedding in 3-4 parts.  I don't want to over do it with a million pictures in one entry. 

I'll try and post the next entry sooner rather than later.  Love!