And so 2012 begins!

I have been meaning to post for a few weeks but 2012 has been off to a busy start!

January 3rd, 2012 officially marked day 1 of our marathon training! Nathan and I are very excited to run in the Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon on May 6th and are lucky enough to be doing so with a few family members. My dad will be running the marathon with us as well as my cousin Joey (correction- Joey will most definitely be ahead of us!). My grandfather was going to run with us as well but he may be doing the half now with my sister.  Training has been challenging so far but we really enjoy getting to do it together. We ran 7 miles on Saturday which was our longest run so far. We both felt great but exhausted. The hardest part has been giving up our fun Friday nights!

Last weekend we threw our friends Jenn & Jesse a surprise engagement party and rented a party bus. It was a great time for them to celebrate with their Houston friends and I know Jessi girl, Laci and I had a blast planning it. Trust me when I say that it was very impressive that we were able to keep it a secret from Jenn! A good time was had by all and we all are so happy for Jenn and Jesse. We wish them all the best as they begin married life and can't wait for their wedding in Atlanta in February!

We tricked Jenn by making her think it was her Houston Bachelorette party!

The surprised couple, Jenn and Jesse!

Love party planning with Laci and Jessi!

All of the girls!

Nathan with the bride to be!

We had another big adventure this weekend. After our run Saturday Nathan convinced me to go to the shooting range with him. He has been trying to get me to go since he got his gun last year. Our friends Thomas and Laci went as well which made me feel better to have one of my best friends there! It actually was very fun and I am very excited to learn how to safely handle and shoot the gun. I got more comfortable the more I shot it and actually didn't have terrible aim :) Maybe one day I will get a small pink gun for my own - until then I will happily accompany my husband to the shooting range!

Nathan in all of his glory- he really had a great shot and was a great teacher!

Laci and I looking good in our protective gear!

Home For The Holidays!

After 5 cities and 6 Christmases we are one happy couple! We learned from last year that we needed more vacation time around the holidays and this year we were excited to get to spend 10 days at home! It's been so fun the past few years combining Christmas traditions and this year was no different.  It was perfect getting to actually be "home" and simply enjoy being together with our families.

Nathan and I love each others families so much and we have such a great time with all of them! Nothing is better than getting to spend time with our parents, sisters, one and only brother, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. So much laughter, good food, fun games and plenty of catching up - it was awesome!  Now the race is on to see who we convinced to come to see us in Houston, we definitely put the word out there that we love to have visitors!

Another highlight of our trip was getting to see our friends for New Year's Eve in Nashville! After all of the fun we had, we have decided that spending NYE with Kaitlin, Katherine, Laura and Johnny is now a tradition! We also got to spend the night celebrating with some of my college best friends which was amazing. We had the best time and it was the perfect way to end a perfect trip.

As sad as we were to leave our families and friends we are so thankful for the time we got to spend with them and are ready to start 2012! It is sure to be a great year!

We however seem to have gotten bad about forgetting to take pictures so I only have a few, we will borrow some of our families as we see them and post them on here as we get them :) 

Cousin's on the Jameson Side. (P.S. Nicole has heels on, she is actually the shortest, not me!)

Love our family!

Handsome bros. But honestly- don't you think they are starting to look alike?

Mom was so happy to have her favorite girls together!

Our favorite nephew- Mr. Calvin Borel.

Reunited and it feels so good! Very lucky to have these girls in my life!

We love getting to spend time with Kaitlin! I am so lucky to have her as my sister in law!

Nathan, Katherin, Kaitlin, Laura and Johnny. Can't wait for more NYE memories together! 

A Trip Of Firsts: Google, California & Whale Watching!

Wow, what a week! I don't even know how to start explaining the amazing trip we had to California!

I suppose I will start off with why we were out there. I was lucky enough to be chosen to go with TopSpot to the Google Premier SMB Partner Summit, which was held in Mountain View, CA at Google! To say I was excited is an understatement and to say my Google loving husband was jealous is also an understatement! What an experience to get to go to Google, it was beyond awesome! The campus was amazing and I was so impressed with the Summit. Wonderful speakers, food and we had a great time hearing our company president speak! It was an amazing experience and one I am truly grateful for. It reminds me how lucky I am to work as such an awesome company with great people!

The Summit was over on Thursday and Nathan flew out to meet me and spend a long weekend in San Francisco! It was our first time in California and we instantly fell in love with the city of San Francisco! We spent Friday seeing Fisherman's wharf, the sea lions at Pier 39, Ghirardelli's Square, rode a cable car and strolled around Union Square. It was so fun and the sea lions were hilarious and gave us a taste of what was to come on  Saturday!

Saturday we checked one major thing off of my bucket list! I have always wanted to go Whale Watching and our experience honestly made one of my dreams come true! I have always had a love for marine life, but whales have always had my heart! We took off our our tour at 7:30 am and our tour guide, Miss Carol, told us to expect the unexpected and boy were we surprised! Our trip started out by going under the Golden Gate Bridge and heading towards the Farallon Islands. Once we got to the islands we saw 2 spouts of water, we knew we were in the presence of whales and Capt. Tom took us in the direction of the spouts. While we were waiting for the whales to surface we saw an adorable seal swim right up to the boat and right past Nathan and I! Right then we saw 2 Gray Whales surface. They were beautiful! The whales were just resting so we stayed with them for about 20 minutes getting to see them wave at us with their pectoral fins and even smack their tails! It was awesome and my dream to see whales had come true! We then circled around the Farallon islands getting to see the thousands of birds, seals and seal lions that call those islands home. You could even see the seals "body surfing" by the island. After circling the island, we headed out to the continental shelf where the water was 1,000 ft deep. Once we got there we saw a few white sided pacific dolphins but then we realized that we were in the middle of a super pod! It was a once in a lifetime experience. We were in the middle of 2,000 white sided pacific dolphins! They were jumping and flipping out of the water, swimming right next to the boat, it was amazing! We got a few videos of the dolphins swimming by the boat, but we weren't able to capture how many dolphins there were. It was beautiful, and indescribable.  It literally took my breath away. We have posted some videos to share with you all! While watching the dolphins, we noticed 2 more spouts of water. We decided to head towards them to see if we were able to see any other whales. We followed the spouts and were lucky enough to see 2 humpback whales! We were so close to them, it was amazing. While I secretly was hoping to see humpbacks, I didn't expect it because most humpbacks were out of the San Francisco area at this time of year. Overall we had the experience of a lifetime and I was so happy to share this experience with Nathan. We both were on cloud 9 after the tour and couldn't have asked for a more perfect ending to our trip!

We are so lucky for the opportunities we have been given and this trip was one of the best trips ever! We are counting down the hours until we are back in Kentucky (47 hours until we leave!) and can't wait to spend Christmas with our families and NYE with our friends!

Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!

Kelly & Nathan

Videos of the Pacific white sided dolphins:

Abby & I with the Android Snowman at Google! They had brought in snow for a video!

Abby & I with Stan the Dinosaur on Google's campus. He just had a delicious meal of pink flamingos apparently!

Dave, Tim, Abby & I at the amazing Google Store. 

Nathan and I with the Golden Gate bridge in the background!

We had fun with the decorated cable car!

Little fuzzy picture whale watching, but the only one we had on our camera!

View of the amazing Farallon islands. They were incredible and are home to so many birds, seals and sea lions!

A Cajun Fried Turkey With A Side Of Friends!

Thanksgiving 2011 was a first for Nathan and I. It was our first Thanksgiving without our families. While we missed everyone back in Kentucky terribly we had a wonderful Thanksgiving here in Houston! Our dinner guest list slowly grew over the past few weeks and we ended up getting to spend the day with 13 of our friends! All of our friends brought a dish to share for our Friendsgiving feast. There was plenty of food, laughs, drinks, games and football to make for a very fun, perfect Thanksgiving! 

Nathan and I decided to come up with some superlatives for our guests as a thank you for sharing Thanksgiving with us! 

The Sixth Man aka 3rd Host has to be Pete for helping us get the apartment ready to have everyone over! He was also thrilled to see his Cowboys win! 

MVTC (Most Valuable Turkey Carver) goes to Seto and his amazing turkey carving skills! Don't know what we would have done without him! 

Most Dedicated Baker goes to Dan for making the most delicious homemade rolls I've ever eaten! He went above and beyond his roll duty! 

Most Creative Sweet Potatoes has to go to Scott for his twice baked sweet potatoes complete with peanut butter and marshmallows! I would even go as far to say his may have had the best presentation, I wish I had gotten a picture to share! 

Sweetest Bride to Be goes to Jessi girl! Her new shiny ring is beautiful and I am so glad we got to spend time with her this weekend before she went back to Papua New Guinea. We miss you already Jessi! Can't wait to see you in January. Congrats again to Jessi and Scott on their recent engagement! 

Apples To Apples Queen goes to Miss Beth Feger. Being witty and hilarious is her thing so don't mess with her green cards people! Her apple pie was also delish! 

1st Thanksgiving as Mr. & Mrs. goes to Alison and Luke! So happy we were able to be with them on their first Thanksgiving as Mr. & Mrs. Stephens! Also very proud and excited for Alison and her new job as a nurse practitioner! 

Most Popular Guest goes to Mary and Shamar for bringing sweet baby Kaden! We were so lucky to get to spend his first Thanksgiving with them! 

Favorite Eggrolls this is a big one. Eggrolls have always been a part of my Thanksgiving tradition, just ask my Mom's side of the family. They were one of our must haves every year, but this year Miss Jillian brought us homemade eggrolls from her family! They were absolutely wonderful and reminded me of so many great memories with my cousins at Nana's! 

  

Most Boisterous goes to one of our favorite New Yorkers, Joe! We were so happy to have his booming voice and fun personality to keep our game of Apples to Apples lively! 

We have so much to be thankful for and this Thanksgiving we were particularly thankful for our friends who have made Houston feel like home. Having a house full of friends was a great start to the holidays! Here are a few pictures from our Friendsgiving!

This could be the first time Nathan wore shorts to Thanksgiving! Thankful everyday for my husband! 

Kaden and I, he was the best baby, didn't even cry once!

Our Turkey Carver, Mr. James Seto. Nathan is getting tips for next year!

Alison and Luke, the newlyweds! 

Jill and Beth, two girls I am very thankful for!

Jessi and Scott, we were so happy to spend time with you both!

Mary, Shamar and Kaden celebrating Kaden's first Thanksgiving!

The big kids table!

Guess that makes our table the little kids table!

A Visit from the Whites & Our Family Photos

It has been a busy 2 weeks in our house. Last week we were so happy and excited to have Kevin and Julie visit! We had such a wonderful visit with them. Having visitors is the best, it allows us to play host and hostess and gives us quality time with our visiting family and friends.

Our visit kicked off with a trip to the Houston Zoo where got up close and personal with some Giraffes and got to see some baby elephants playing in their pool! We also go to take Kevin and Julie to some of our favorite restaurants in town. Charlie and Winston loved all of the walks that we went on while showing Kevin and Julie our area and one of our favorite parks!

Nathan and I realize how incredibly blessed we are with family and we value every chance we get to spend time with them. We loved having Kevin and Julie visit and were so sad to see them leave. We cannot wait to see our ENTIRE family in one month!!

To kick off the holiday cheer we have included some of the pictures our friend Julia took for our Christmas card.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our friends and family! We are so thankful for all of you!!

It's Been a While...

It's been a while since we last posted but we are going to try our best to post more often! It has been a very exciting time in our lives these past few months. Summer came with new friends, many fun trips, lots of pool time, many and our 1 year anniversary! We are very blessed to have found a great group of friends in Houston and Texas is feeling more and more like home.

One major development in our life - we have a new White to introduce to you all! Charlie was adopted July 16th and has been such a fun addition to the family. We had forgotten how tough it is to have a puppy but we love him dearly! Winston loves having a little brother and Charlie follows Winston everywhere.

We have been lucky to see our friends and family recently. Amber came down for a visit in September, my parents came down for a long weekend, we traveled to New Orleans for Halloween and got to see Gary, Jon and some of my old SOS friends. The Whites are coming down this week and we will be home in 7 weeks for Christmas! We will be staying in Houston for Thanksgiving this year but are planning on having a "Friendsgiving" with our friends who aren't going home. We are very excited about that and will be sure to post about it :) We will be cooking our first Turkey- should be an experience!

On a side note, we found out that our family friend Mark Barsotti was diagnosed with cancer a few weeks ago. It came as a shock to everyone and our thoughts and prayers are with him and the Barsotti family everyday. If you have a chance, please say a little prayer for them and if you would like to follow Mark & Mary Ellen's blog here is a link to his CaringBridge site.http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/markbarsotti

We are posting some pictures of our summer and fall adventures for you all, we can't wait to be back home for the Holidays.

All of our love,

Kelly & Nate

Halloween 2011 on Bourbon Street. We were Goose and Maverick for the night!

Our first night in New Orleans with Jon, Gary & Kristin.

When we first got Charlie, he was so little! Now he is taller than Winston!

1st Year Anniversary Dinner at our favorite restaurant III Forks!

The Whites at the lake on our summer trip home!

The Jameson family at Dawn's wedding! So glad we were able to go and spend time with our Danville friends and be there for Dawn's big day! The wedding was beautiful!

Kaitlin came to visit in July and we went on the "Texas Tour" trip. We went to Austin, tubed the river in New Braunfels and wrapped up the weekend in San Antonio. It was a great weekend with friends and we were excited to spend time with Kait!

Showing Amber the Houston skyline- What a great weekend with one of my best friends!

Charlie at Beach weekend! He loved playing in the water and being able to run around the beach!

Snow Day!

We haven't posted on here in over 5 months, but I've finally found a perfect time to post, a snow day! It's actually more of an ice day, but either way we don't have to go to work today. We didn't think we would get many snow days living in Houston, but we have one today!

A lot has happened in the last 5 months, so I don't even know where to begin. Both Kelly's parents and my parents have come to visit us down here at different times and we had so much fun with both of them. We flew back to Kentucky for Christmas and we managed to see everyone from our extended families while we were there. It was very tiring, but we were so glad to see everyone. Most of our families we hadn't seen since our wedding.

My sister Kaitlin and her friend Katherine came to visit us over New Years and we had a blast! A few weekends ago we drove up to Austin with some of our friends for the weekend to celebrate one of their birthdays. We went out on 6th street, saw the capitol building, and toured the University of Texas' campus. Now that we have been to Austin, we can move on to our next goals of visiting Dallas and San Antonio.

Even though we have been doing a lot in the past few months, we still have a lot planned. We are flying to Denver, Colorado in a few weeks to visit Nathan Fletcher who lives in a cabin and works at a ski resort. (He's our outdoorsy friend). Kelly is planning on taking some ski lessons when we get there with our friend Josh who is going with us. They need a little practice first before they hit the slopes.

Later on, in the beginning of April, Kelly's brother Taylor is coming to stay with us for a week during his spring break. We are so excited to have him come down and can't wait to show him around. We are going to take him out to some tasty restaurants here, but we will definitely eat in some, otherwise we would go broke due to the large amounts of food he can consume. Guess that's what happens when you're in high school.

We are doing well in Houston and have been keeping busy and making friends while here. We love having visitors come down and see us so if you need a break from the cold in Kentucky you should come down here (except this week, we're freezing here)!