New Years Eve Survey

ABOUT YOUR SELF
NAME	Heidi
DATE OF BIRTH	12/16/84
HOMETOWN	Greenville
WHERE YOU LIVE NOW	Durham
RELATIONSHIP STATUS	married and loving it
# OF KIDS	0
JOB STATUS	I have one
JANUARY 2008
WHERE DID YOU BRING IN THE NEW YEAR OF 2008?	George\'s Garage(restaurant) with Evan
WHO DID YOU KISS AT MIDNIGHT?	hmmm...Evan?
WHAT WAS YOUR NEW YEAR RESOLUTION?	probably to work out/eat healthier
DID YOU FULLFILL THIS RESOLUTION?	yes, until our honeymoon!
WERE YOU IN A RELASTIONSHIP IN JANUARY 2008?	yes, we were engaged on January 11th
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN TIME SQUARE FOR NEW YEARS?	nope but always wanted to
FEBRUARY
WERE YOU IN LOVE ON VALENTINES DAY?	you could say that
WHO WAS YOUR VALENTINE?	my fiance!
DID YOU DO ANYTHING SPECIAL FOR VALENTINES 2008?	we went to chillis for dinner
WHAT DID YOU GIVE FOR VALENTINES DAY?	i don\'t remember :(
WHAT DID YOU RECEIVE FOR VALENTINES DAY?	a pretty necklace
DO YOU WATCH THE GOUND HOG ON THE 2ND?	no, who does that
MARCH
ARE YOU IRISH?	I\'m sure there is some Irish in my family somewhere
DO YOU LIKE CORNBEEF AND CABBAGE?	ewww no
DO YOU WEAR GREEN ON ST. PATRICK	most of the time, i think i forgot last time
DO YOU GO OUT DRINKING ON ST. PATRICK	nope, i have to work the next morning
HAVE YOU EVER DRUNK GREEN BEER?	nope
DO YOU LIKE THE SPRING?	YES!!!!!!!
APRIL
DO YOU PARTCIPATE IN APRIL FOOL	yes I do, I love to freak people out
DO YOU CELEBRATE EASTER?	yes
DID YOU PAY YOUR TAXES ON TIME IN 2008?	sure did
DO YOU LIKE THE RAIN?	depends, but the sun is my top choice
HAVE YOU EVER KISSED IN THE RAIN?	yes :)
DID YOU STILL HAVE THE SAME RELATIONSHIP AS 1/08 IN 4/08?	yes
MAY
DOES APRIL SHOWERS BRING MAY FLOWERS?	yes like tulips, my favorite thing about spring
DID ANYTHING SPEICAL HAPPEN TO YOU IN MAY 2008?	probably something to do with wedding planning
IS YOUR MOTHER STILL WITH YOU?	yes, thank you Lord
DID YOU BUY YOUR MOTHER A CARD ON MOTHERS DAY 2008?	yes
DID YOU BUY YOUR MOTHER A GIFT ON MOTHERS DAY 2008?	hmm, I dont remember(sorry mom)
WHAT DID YOU DO MEMORIAL DAY 2008?	went to a cookout
JUNE
WERE YOU IN LOVE IN JUNE 2008?	um YES
DO YOU LIKE BASEBALL? (JUNE 12, 1939 BASEBALL HALL OF FAME OPENED)	oh, who knew. I like duke basketball
DID YOU GO TO ANY BASEBALL GAMES IN JUNE 2008?	nope, not like the year before
DID YOU GO TO ANY BEACHES JUNE 2008?	yes, atlantic beach
DID YOU DO ANYTHING SPECIAL FOR THE BEGINNING OF SUMMER 2008?	probably painted the house
DID YOU GO TO ANY WEDDINGS I JUNE OF 2008?	yes! my friend Emily got married on 6/7/08
JULY
DID YOU CELEBRATE 4th OF JULY?	yes, who doesnt celebrate it??
DID YOU SEE FIREWORKS JULY 4th 2008?	well, it rained all night so all we saw was the 20 dollar pack in our driveway
DID YOU TAKE ANY VACTIONS JULY 2008?	nope
WAS IT HOT IN JULY 2008 FOR YOU?	not as hot as last summer!
DID YOU COOK OUT IN JULY 2008?	yes a few times
DO YOU KNOW WHAT BIRTHSTONE IS FOR JULY?	um, ruby? i think
AUGUST
DID YOU GET SUNBURNED IN AUGUST 2008?	a little bit at the lake but not as much as I use to...no more skin cancer for me, thanks
DID YOU GO SWIMMING ANY IN AUGUST 2008?	yep, in lake norman and in our neighbor\'s pool
WERE YOU STILL IN A RELASTIONSHIP AUGUST 2008?	once again, yes
IS AUGUST 2008 SPECIAL IN ANY WAY TO YOU?	We found out we are going to be an aunt and uncle :)
DID YOU TRAVEL ANYWHERE AUGUST 2008?	yes, lake norman with Evan\'s family
WHAT IS THE AUGUST FLOWER?	what? um, dandilion?
SEPTEMBER
DID YOU GO TO SCHOOL IN SEPTEMBER 2008?	no, I hate school
WHAT DID YOU DO ON LABOR DAY 2008?	slept in, i dont remember what else, maybe a cookout?
DID YOU STOP IN REMEMBERANCE ON 9/11/01?	probably
DID ANYONE PASS AWAY SPECIAL TO YOU BY SEPTEMBER 2008?	no, thank you Lord
DO YOU LIKE THE FALL?	I LOVE the fall
IS SEPTEMBER IMPORTANT TO YOU IN ANY WAY?	nope, but october was and they dont have that question for october!!
OCTOBER
DO YOU HAVE AN OCTOBERFEST WHERE YOU LIVE?	maybe but i dont go to those
WHAT IS YOU FAVORITE CANDY?	anythingn chocolate!! and orange sour patch kids
DID YOU DRESS UP FOR HALLOWEEN 2008?	yes
DID YOU GO TRICK OR TREATING 2008?	nope, and no one came by our house for candy :(
WHAT DID YOU DRESS UP AS HALLOWEEN 2008?	football player
DID YOU GO TO ANY WILD PARTIES OCTOBER 2008?	does my honeymoon count?
NOVEMBER
DID YOU HAVE THANKSGIVING 2008?	yes
WHERE DID YOU GO TO HAVE THANKSGIVING DINNER 2008?	our house!
DID YOU SPEND THANKSGIVING 2008 WITH FAMILY?	yes, Evan\'s family came over for dinner
DID YOU EAT TURKEY THANKSGIVING 2008?	YES
DID YOU GO CHRISTMAS SHOPPING 11/28/08?	we bought a tv for ourselves at best buy, it took 10 minutes
WHAT WERE YOU MOST THANKFUL FOR NOVEMBER 2008?	having a wonderful husband, a house, loving family and f riends
DECEMBER
DO YOU CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS?	yes!!!!!!
DO YOU BELIEVE IN SANTA CLAUS?	i use to until i found a present in my parents room that said to heidi from santa. that was last year....haha just kidding
DID YOU KISS ANYONE UNDER MISTLETOE IN DECEMBER 2008?	sure did
DID YOU GET WHAT YOU WANTED FOR CHRISTMAS?	yep, and more
ARE YOU STILL IN A RELATIONSHIP DECEMBER 2008?	once again, yes
WHAT ARE YOU DOING FOR NEW YEAR	going to our neighbor\'s house, they are having people over and doing fireworks!
RANDOM QUESTIONS
ARE YOU IN LOVE?	okay, I\'m getting tired of thse questions...YES
WILL YOU GET DRUNK NEW YEAR	depends on how much champagne I drink
WHAT IS YOUR NEW YEARS RESOLUTION FOR 2009?	we have a few
IS ANYTHING EXCITING GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU IN 2009?	yes, our niece will be born!!
WILL 2009 BE BETTER THAN 2008?	2008 was pretty awesome but I guess you never know
WILL YOU PARTY MORE IN 2009?	I don't really "party" I like going to parties though
WILL YOU POST THIS FOR OTHERS TO DO?	of course

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Christmas Day in the mountains

Evan and I drove up to the NC mountains where my family gets together for Christmas. My grandparents have lived there for many years and my parents are building a house right below them on the mountain. This is pretty exciting considering my parents have lived in the same house in Greenville for 20 some years. They definitely deserve to build a house however they want on the side of mountain with an awesome view.
Here are a few pictures of their house in the making and some family pics.....

Christmas Eve

I don't think anything can compare to the food on a Norwegian Christmas Eve.....Evan's family is Norwegian so they do a traditional dinner with all the yummy foods. I finally learned how to pronounce them all! Talk about being stuffed! For starters, each person has a bowl of rice pudding and whoever finds the shaved almond in their pudding, receives a prize(Mike got it this year).
The next course(not really a course, haha), is a shot of Norwegian liquor to cleanse the pallet and to say skal(cheers) to family and celebrating together, which is always fun with his family! I did not take the shot because it is really strong and I did not want to choke on it and ruin my dinner, haha. I took a tiny sip.
The main dinner consists of Medisterkake(meat loaves with pork and beef combined....probably the best thing of the whole night),pork roast, Sur Kaal(cooked cabbage), mashed potatoes, peas, butter horn rolls, lingonberries, Lefse(rolled potato "pancake" with cinnamon and sugar inside), peppernuts(cookies with pepper, very yummy and Evan usually eats about 25, but they are the size of an acorn).....and of course, we had some pie and cookies for dessert. Whew!
We opened presents that night and did stockings in the morning. The breakfast was fruit, Julekake(special bread with raisins) with goat cheese on top. Good thing I like to eat :)

My sister in law and I in front of the tree....

Our husbands are a little excited about being santa's helpers

My Husband's Creation

First of all, my hubby is the sweetest ever...on Mondays, he insists I do not cook or clean and just wants me to come home and relax since I don't get home until 8. Last night he decided to make quiche so he made a list of all the ingredients from a recipe(even though he didn't follow it completely) and had it cooking when I got home. He said the only thing he couldn't find was the pie crust(he doesn't hit the grocery stores too often) so instead......he used graham cracker crust. Yes, he used the pre made graham cracker cheesecake crusts. :) Gotta love him! I didn't say anything harsh, I just thought, hmm it will just have a different taste to it and I will just eat it and pretend I like it. Well, I took one bite and it was REALLY good!! The crust added just a little sweetness to the quiche and it went really well with the swiss cheese, bacon, and green onions. I told him his accidently awesome quiche is going to be his "thing" now and I think he felt pretty special. :)

ps-go ahead and try it with graham cracker crust, you may be suprised too!!

Elf Yourself.....

Go to www.elfyourself.com and turn yourself into a dancing elf....it will make your day 14 times better than it is already.

24

I had a pretty good birthday today with some sweet cards from people at work to my sweet hubby taking me out to a nice dinner. I also got my hair cut and colored at a new fun salon downtown, which I highly recomend...The Garden Salon. When I got home, Evan took me out to Brightleaf Square to Another Thyme(pretty creative name). They had some YUMMY food! They brought out champagne for my birthday and we ended with dessert.
Evan was cold and was not ready to take a picture....
I am playing with my new present from Evan...an Ipod dock/radio( it is in my bathroom so I can have some music in the morning to get me going)! By the way, if you can't tell from the picture, my hair is darker....



It feels good to be 24, I don't feel like a grown up yet, but I have plenty of time to feel like one so I am going to put it off for now :)

Birthday Time Again

Amongst all the excitement of Christmas is my birthday, which I forget about sometimes because Christmas is way more fun! haha. We did some early celebrating of my birthday yesterday at my mother in law's house with a yummy carvel cake and awesome presents! On my real birthday, I am hoping Evan will take me out to dinner somewhere fun, but he is keeping it a secret!

Criminal on the Loose...

We had some interesting things happen to us early Sunday morning.....I was startled awake around 4am to a bang and Sherman started growling. It was one of those noises where it wakes you up so its hard to tell where it came from. Evan didn't wake up so I had to beat him awake to go check to see if there was someone breaking into our house. He looked around and brought our watch dog with him. Nothing was out of the ordinary, all the windows and doors were intact so we went back to bed. It could have been a branch that fell or the wind.

The next time we woke up, we were all startled by a loud sound on our deck at 8am. It almost sounded like someone/something running off our deck. (deer? person??) Sherman growled and we just laid there like...what just happened? We figured it had to be deer on the deck or a branch that fell. WELL....30 minutes later, the cops are banging on our door. They have a search dog and are wondering if our neighbors are ever home. We said we rarely saw them outside or with cars in the driveway. They said their back screen door was open. The next thing they said was that a man was hiding at his girlfriend's house and took off. I am assuming he must have ran through our neighborhood and they were just checking with all the neighbors to see if anyone saw something fishy. We told them that we actually heard noises around 4am and 8am and then we were like....wow, could that have been him trying to break in?? I freaked out of course and Evan was the rational one who told me not to worry. I wanted to talk to the cops more to find out what this guy did and why he was running from them, but they were already in the back of our yard.

Today I call my neighbor two doors down to see if the cops talked to them Sunday morning. She was like "They never came by here, but what happened?? We saw cop cars down our street and all down cole mill rd with their lights on!!" I then told her we never saw cop cars b/c we just stayed in the house for a while so apparently this man must have done something pretty bad and the cops didn't want to scare us....GREAT.

My co worker's husband is a Durham cop so I am going to see if he can look up the report and let us know what this guy did, I am very curious to see what happened and what he was doing in our non scary, non criminal neighborhood!! I will update with the juicy details when I find out something!!!

Deck the Halls

Wednesday night Evan and I ventured out to find a Christmas tree. We didn't have to hunt for long, there is a cute little nursery near us who sells trees every season. I made sure to ask if they were from NC(we like to support the local tree growers).
I just love the smell of Christmas trees! Thankfully Sherman doesn't so he stays away from it!

I have done some decorating but we are starting from scratch so we are slowly building our holiday decoration collection. The only things left to get are a tree skirt, more lights for outside and a wreath for the door!

My Favorite Things...

Now that Thanksgiving is over and it is almost December my brain switches over to Christmas and all the memories of my childhood start filling my mind and it makes me all warm and gooey inside! I like to think about what really makes Christmas special to me and what I enjoyed most growing up. I am looking forward to bringing the same traditions into my family and making them our own. Here are some of my favorite things about Christmas......enjoy!

Gobble Gobble!

Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone but it was a success! I didn't know how I would feel having 10 people over and cooking a pretty important meal, but it was all pretty easy! I woke up around 9am and started on the desserts while Evan cleaned up around the house and outside. I made a blackberry-raspberry-blueberry pie, which came out perfect! This was the first time I made a pie all by myself, watching my mom make them probably helped some. :)
I also made a peanut-chocolate torte and one of our guests brought pumpkin pie.
My brother in law and his girlfriend came over early to help us in the kitchen...they made a yummy salad and helped Evan with the turkey, which was so easy...a turkey, granny smith apples, champagne, spices and throw it in a roasting bag! We had just enough turkey with maybe one or two helpings of leftovers. The rest of our meal consisted of stuffing, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, rolls, mashed potatoes and lingon berries(a Norwegian tradition)
I didn't get a picture of the whole crew but here are a few from the day. We are so thankful for our family and friends who came to join us and for having a table big enough to fit everyone :) I really enjoy having people over at our house and I am looking forward to our next big bash!

House Updates

So, I went pretty crazy when we first bought the house with all the painting of the rooms, cabinets, and molding and then I crashed. Now that the wedding is over, its time to get back to "activities" as Evan calls them. He said I was going to have activity withdrawal...and I did. I was itching to paint and decorate!!
I finished the foyer and hallway yesterday, it is a tan that reminds me of a latte...

The living room is starting to look like a livable space! We have added a new couch, rug, pillows and curtains. The only thing missing is more pictures/art on the walls!

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving tomorrow!! :)

Birthday fun

Evan had some early birthday celebrations this weekend(his birthday is on Wednesday) with the family. I wasn't feeling good, so he did most of the cooking...plus he probably didn't want my germs on everything :) I did make him a cake though! He requested a vanilla cake with strawberry icing. It was a pretty girly looking cake but still yummy, haha.
My sister in law's husband, Mike helped Evan with some things around the house like putting up a light fixture and putting our grill together. He is a great help with that kind of stuff! The grill is awesome, I didn't realize it would be so big!! It is taking up a lot of room inside until we can get a cover for it....I guess I could fold laundry on it!
ps- We are going to have a little niece to spoil in May! We found out this weekend from Megan, my sister in law that its a girl. We are so excited to be an aunt and uncle, there is already a picture of her on our fridge :)

Professional wedding pics!!

Since a lot of people have been asking when the professional wedding pics would be done, here is Robin's website and the login to view our slideshow of the highlights....
www.robinlin.com
login: heidievan
password: october19

If you live in the Raleigh/Durham area, you should check her out for your next photo shoot, she is wonderful....and a really good photographer!!

Rockie's Work Shower

We had so much fun throwing Rockie a baby shower at work....she is so excited for the big day and it will be here really soon!! She is also going to be such a great mom! I didn't take any pictures of people on my camera :( but I did get some of the food and the diaper cake I made, which was so much fun!! Everyone gave the mom to be some great advice on parenthood, some funny and some serious....all I know is I need to have some cabbage laying around when the time comes...who knew??


Diaper Cake Recipe(in case someone would like to make one but doesn't know how!):

ingredients-
*54 pack of diapers(for two layers) you can really make it as big as you want but just make sure it is sturdy enough for the bottom layer to bare all the weight.
*rubber bands
*wide ribbon of choice
*white infant socks
*pacifiers, teethers, baby forks and spoons, small toys/rattles, etc.

directions-
*roll up diapers individually and place a rubber band around 3 rolled diapers. make a bunch of these bundles and place them together to form a circle
*when you have the size you want, make sure all the rubber bands are running across the middle of the diaper so your ribbon will cover the rubber bands all the way around the cake
*wrap ribbon around the cake and tie it pretty tight in a bow. If you are making a large cake, you may want to attach the ribbon all the way around and make sure to have a sturdy base under the cake.
*Make each layer the same way and stack them on top of each other, tying ribbon around each layer
*Turn white infant socks inside themselves to form a ball, or the "icing roses". place them around the cake in the notches at the base on each layer
*stick pacifiers, spoons, etc behind ribbon or for larger items, attach with twist ties. The heavier the items, the better the ribbon should be attached. My cake was pretty light so I only tied the ribbon around the cake and that's it
*to make a sock "bow", stack socks flat on top of each other and tie ribbon around the middle as tight as you can. Fan the socks out to form a bow shape
*Add any type of cake topper like a picture frame or stuffed animal

And you're done!

Weekend in Greenville

We had a busy but fun weekend....I went home for my (ex) co worker's baby shower(who I am going to miss so much at work, but so happy she is able to stay home with baby) and Evan drove to Va Beach to coach lacrosse. He met me in Greenville Sat. night and we went out for dinner with my best friend Jenna and her boyfriend Josh. We stuffed our faces at a new restaurant in town called Hibachi Grill.....yum. If you live in Greenville, I suggest you go there! We also picked up our grill, my Uncle Bob's wedding gift to us, and a desk from my parent's house. I found some great things from my childhood while cleaning out the desk...even a couple of my diaries from middle school! They were hilarious!!

Here are a couple pictures from the baby shower.....

Fall is here!

Halloween for us this year consisted of carving a pumpkin(which Evan did all by himself :) ) and going to a small party with our neighbors. We did not get any trick or treaters...and probably won't for a while until there are more kids around here! The trees looked so pretty today with the sun shinning through the bright colors so I had to take some pictures of the front yard. I forgot how pretty maple trees are in the fall....