It's been a crazy year, y'all. Let's look back, shall we?

2008 started pretty early in the morning for me. I had trouble going to sleep on New Year's Eve. We had a party and then I just couldn't go to sleep. Our house was filled with girls in the wedding party and I had about a million thoughts running through my head. Not only did I have my wedding the next day, but we also were about to leave for Bulgaria and we didn't have our visas yet. I had a crazy two weeks coming up.

We started off New Year's Day with pancakes that my Daddy made for the girls and me. Then, we all hustled to start getting ready for the wedding. We needed to be at the church at noon and there was a lot to do!

The rest of the day flew by. Our wedding was gorgeous, our reception was loads of fun and we might have stayed all night if it had not have started snowing around 7:00. My mother kicked us out of our reception so that our guests would feel free to leave.

I cried a little bit during the ceremony, but then held it together until I had to say goodbye to the Princess before walking out of the reception. My mother broke that up too because I was a bit heartbroken at not being able to see her until her wedding in June.

We finally made it out, I smiled for the cameras and we drove off and forgot all of our stuff. We had to secretly drive back to the reception and have a bridesmaid bring our luggage to us.

The rest of January is sort of a blur now too. We went to San Diego for 10 days, eventually received our visas, ate a lot of Moe's queso (leftover from our rehearsal dinner) and flew to Bulgaria on January 13th. I freaked out a lot in Heathrow and Nathan got sick almost instantly upon arriving in Bulgaria.

In February, I was really hungry and was accepted to graduate school in Boston. At the end of February, we flew to France.

March began with 10 days in France. I loved, loved, loved France, y'all. I can't wait to get back. We also spent a very long night wide awake in Rome. In Greece, someone asked me if English was my first language. I had a Red Letter Day when I got accepted to another grad school, received a tax return and my brother secured our apartment for us all in one day! I went on a day trip to Melnik a famous Bulgarian winery and ate lots of mish mash. We went to Istanbul for the weekend and saw a lot of machine guns and ate a fish sandwich that left me without an appetite for a week. My parents came to visit and we explored Phillipi and Kavala with them. March was a busy month. I'm tired just reliving it.

April was decidedly calmer. Early in the month, Nathan had a most unpleasant wake up. Every time I tell this story, I start laughing uncontrollably. I started reflecting on the future. A shiny, new, German grocery store opned up next to us and I was a lot less hungry. I really missed everyone back home, so I posted a lot of wedding photos. I wrote a travelogue for The Blue Banner. At the end of April, we celebrated Easter Eastern Orthodox style.

May was a great month! We said goodbye to Bulgaria and we flew home. One of the Absolute BFFs got married and we had a blast at her wedding! We packed and packed and packed some more.

June 1st we moved into our apartment in Boston. Oh, and I got a job! Also, our best couple friends got married. It was beautiful!

In July, we celebrated Independence Day downtown and took some, um, crazy pictures of ourselves. The big news of July was that Nathan got a job!

In August, we went to the Cape. My Sorority Little Sister came for a visit. I tried out a knitting group that wasn't for me.

In September, I coined a word--Bostontacious and Yankee BFF came to visit.

In October, we went apple picking, A and C came to visit, and we went to the Head of the Charles regatta.

In November, we voted with few choices, I turned 23, Baby Girl turned 6, and I made fondue in a pumpkin and after Thanksgiving we decorated for Christmas.

We closed out 2008 in December with soul searching, ranting, and lots of snow and bagels.

I'm so glad that I have a written record of this year. It was quite a doozy--lots of traveling, learning how to be married, moving to a new city, getting our first jobs. Here's to a more settled, less crazy, but still fun 2009!

Merry Christmas!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it.

Just a few pictures of my favorite Christmas morning...
I had no idea what the little gold box at the bottom of my stocking was.
But then I realized...it was an engagement ring!
Love Sis-in-Law's face when she figured out what I was showing her!

Before I can leave for Christmas, I need to:

-eat 5 bananas.

-finish off half a Crockpot of pizza soup.

-get Nathan to drink the last of the milk.

Why, oh why, did we buy any groceries this week?

Hello there! I have lots and lots of pictures to share today...

This is one of my favorite Christmas ornaments. Our serving dishes are the Arthur Court Magnolia pattern and this is an ornament from that collection:
Here's one of our Alma Mater ornaments.
This is for southern girls like me who didn't know snowflakes actually looked like snowflakes! I had never seen flakes this big before.
Another Alma Mater ornament. This one with our lovely mascot Rocky on it.
A close-up of the wise men and camel in our nativity set.
And here's the shepherd and donkey.
OK. Now, how to make bagels. I use the dough hook on my KitchenAid. You can definitely make them without a large mixer, but I never knead by hand anymore. It's so much easier and less messy with a Kitchen Aid!
Combine 1 1/2 cups warm water, 3 Tbsp. sugar and 2 Tbsp. yeast in the bowl. Let is sit and froth for a while. Then add 4 1/4 cups bread flour and 1 Tbsp. salt. It'll look something like this once it is all combined:

Cover the bowl with a towel and place it in a warm, draft-free place. It will double in about an hour and look something like this:
Make little balls of dough and let rest for 10 minutes while you boil 2 quarts of water and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Then, you form the dough balls into bagel shapes. I like to make a hole in the balls with my thumbs and work out from there. Nathan likes to roll the dough into a snake and join the ends.

Drop the bagels in the boiling water and boil 45 seconds on each side.
After the boiling, put the bagels on a wire rack to drain (I put my rack on top of a cutting board).
Brush the bagels with an egg white and add your toppings (salt, cheese, sesame seeds, etc).
Nathan wanted parmesan bagels for his birthday. Yum.
Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes. As you can see, this recipe yielded 9 bagels that we in-between a regular bagel size and a mini-bagel size. You could probably make a dozen mini-bagels (1 bread serving each) or 6 regular size bagels (2 servings each).
And now for the snow! It snowed and snowed and snowed this weekend. Saturday was bitterly cold, but yesterday was around 32 degrees so we ventured out. Here's the view out of one of the windows yesterday at church.
And here is our church surrounded by lots of snow. It didn't stop snowing from Friday afternoon until Saturday night and then it picked back up again yesterday morning and snowed all afternoon!
Here are some pink snow people on Boston Common. It was so beautiful on the Common. I loved it.
Here is Boston's ginormous Christmas tree all covered in snow.
And here are Nathan and I on the Common. Isn't my hat crazy? I bought it a few years ago on the streets of New York. Right after this picture, we went inside Starbucks to warm up a bit and then walked around downtown for about another hour. It was so beautiful to see everything covered in snow!
Oh, and here are pigeon tracks in the snow. I hate pigeons more than anyone else I know, but these tracks were adorable.
Our family birthday plans were canceled yesterday because the snow turned to sleet and the roads were not too clear, but we'll celebrate tonight at UBurger. Then, only one more work day until my fabulous Christmas break. I won't be back in the office until January 5th!

The snow is coming! The snow is coming!

Actually, I haven't seen anything yet, but word on the street is that we're out of here at 11.

I'm so excited I'm practically vibrating.

I am going to clean, drink some mint sipping chocolate Nathan got for me, snuggle with Miss Marple, watch the 90s remake of Christmas in Connecticut, whip up some yummy pasta for dinner, bake some bagels for Nathan's birthday breakfast and maybe him bake him a birthday cake.

As soon as I get home, it is going to be a great day. Apparently, getting home is the hard part. Last year it took about a million hours for people to get home from the first storm.

I promise to post pictures of snow, bagel making, and birthday celebrations! Hurrah!

Also, in a totally unrelated note, Nathan's co-worker (who is actually my friend too!) and I just had the following conversation:

Alicia: your husband = hilarious
biega asked him if he wanted a lanyard with an id holder on the end
and his reply was "do you even know me?"

Rachel Ann: Haha
Did he accept or not?
Because apparently I don't know him.

Alicia: he put it around his neck
i was confused about what he meant, too
i don't know him

Rachel Ann: Me neither.
I guess.

Alicia: yeah, oh well

Here's the snow update I just received from a co-worker.

Our first storm arrives tomorrow with the first flakes around 11am. The heaviest snow looks to fall from about 2pm until 9pm. In fact, this storm look eerily familiar to a storm last December--the one where it took 6 hours to go 5 miles. So if that was you last year, heads up, it may be very similar. Any holiday shopping/dinner dates planned for Friday evening might want to be bumped to this evening. By late Friday night most towns have 6-10" of snow---lightest north, heaviest south.

We were supposed to watch the Baby Girls tomorrow night so Bro and Sis-in-Law could go to a Christmas party, but now the party has been rescheduled. Guess I'll be cleaning the apartment and making lots of yummy food for Nathan's birthday.

Get excited! 6-12" of snow....that won't melt until April.