And this is how we bond....

This is how the Smith family bonds after a long weekend with great friends!

 We get comfy and lounge around...

 We make something in the crock pot, because it makes the whole house smell delicious...

 And we ALWAYS have dessert:)

Eric and I had our last of a steady stream of visitors this weekend.  We had the pleasure of spending four days with the Welus! Amanda and I have been great friends for about 20 years now, so I was really looking forward to their visit.  As you can see, she has a baby bump going on.  She was a trooper and didn't let that hold her back from exploring the city!  One of our highlights together was exploring Central Park and taking part in an NBC Studios tour.  Thanks for coming to see us Welus!

 Here she is with the bump!

 Aww, such a great couple.

I also enjoyed the opportunity to experiment with my camera as we were exploring.  There were two guys making enormous bubbles for onlookers.  It was a great chance to work on snapping the camera at just the right time...

 I love that the camera really captures the color and transparency at the same time. 

 My goal was to get the bubble mid-burst, and I did it!

 Pretty cool...

 The park has many great places to experiment with color....I enjoyed myself as I tried out the different camera settings under this bridge. 

 I really want to take a class, because I don't have a natural eye for beautiful spaces and angles.  Its fun to try anyway!

I decided to play around more with the cool plant Chad and Kim got us as an "apartment warming" gift during their visit:).  I think it's the prettiest thing in our apartment.  

Pretty Great Start...

For this post, I don't have any pictures or fun adventures to share.  Instead, I will share some thoughts that came to mind as I was sitting in our apartment reflecting on the weekend.  As I was trying to think of a title for this post, what came to mind was "Pretty Great Start."  And what I am referring to is, being married - Eric and I have had a pretty great start.   When I say "great," I don't mean easy.  Rather, I mean solid, meaningful, growing...fun, exciting, and challenging.  There are a few factors that have contributed to this "great start."

First is being in a position to only rely on each other.  Though being away from our friends and family is super challenging in some ways, I think it has helped us to build a really solid foundation during our first year of marriage.  I mean, what other married couple gets to spend all weekend, every weekend with each other?  Most couples have friends, family, commitments, a house to take care of, etc., vying for time.  I won't pretend I am not envious of those things at times, but not having them close by has allowed the unique opportunity for undivided attention and time to spend with one another.  In addition, we have learned to communicate and help each other through the challenging aspects of being away.  I can't leave out the fact that, as we grow together, we are also trying to becoming better people, looking more like God. 

Next is the fun factor.  With a steady stream of visitors, a city of endless entertainment opportunities, and thinking each other is hilarious, fun comes easily:).  I really believe that laughter is an important part in a healthy relationship/marriage.  Whether we are laughing at each other or with each other, I think the fun that we have together has helped us have a great start.

And last, having solid people in our lives supporting us has had a huge impact on the beginning of our marriage.  I think this was most evident to us at our wedding, when we were surrounded by such amazing examples of fabulous people and couples.  The impact of that moment has only increased as we have people still reaching out to us and pouring into our lives from states away.  Great friends and family encouraging us, visiting us, calling us, checking in on us....makes us realize how lucky we are to not only have each other, but to have a great community of people around us. 

So, this is definitely one of my sappier posts.  But, I felt the need to share that I am an extremely lucky woman because of an extremely amazing husband.  Though we have much more to learn about being married, I know that having a sense of "oneness" with each other and God, having endless fun together, and having an amazing community supporting us will increase our chances of having a pretty great journey throughout our entire marriage.

Two of My Favorites

My brother Chad and his wife Kim are two of my favorite people:).  They are so much fun and are raising two of my favorite little people, my neices Maddy and Emmy.  Because they are raising those two little people, I have not had the chance to spend time with just Chad and Kim since the little ones were born.  It was so great to get 3 whole days of quality time together.  I was very delinquent in taking pictures, but I did get a couple which are shown below. 

Some highlights of our trip:
*Eating at Bubby's.  It came out that Chad thought I took them there because I used to call him Bubby.  That would have been a much better reason than it was just a place with great food close to Eric's work!
*Watching the IU/Ohio State game together (Chad went to IU, Eric to OSU)
*Drinking PBR
*Cupcakes
*Seeing one of the best musicals I have seen in awhile....In The Heights
*Shopping for Coach purses in hidden, locked rooms in China town.  Kim was like a kid in a candy store:)
*Exploring a new area of Brooklyn for dinner and a movie
*Having live in dog walkers for the weekend (Chad and Kim always got up before us and helped us out by taking Murphy on nice walks)
*Shopping at markets for scarves!
*Taking pictures in the old school photo booth:)

Here are some pictures of my beautiful family.

Hott Mess....

Who is this hot mess you ask?  None other than my loveable husband.  The picture is so awesome, that I couldn't help but start my blog post with it.  Therefore, we are going to take a journey through our weekend in reverse:).

At about 11:00 AM today, I was staring at this hilarious face.  Please note the twig stuck behind the ear...  Eric ran in a 10K Down and Dirty mud run this morning.  For those of you who know him, you know that he, of course, would not take the mission to get muddy lightly. 

At about 10:30 AM, I started watching racers climb through this mud pit and sprint to the finish line.  This was a solid 30 minutes of cracking up.  First of all, people look hilarious when they are covered with mud.  To make it even better, they would come out of the mud pit sprinting to finish the race, but they didn't account for the slippery muddy turn at the end.  At least 1 out of 3 people completely wiped out on the turn.  Needless to say, there was a crowd encouraging them to "push through!!!" and "take the turn as fast as you can, you are almost done!!"  These verbal encouragements pushed the racers, which made better wipe-outs.  

 

At about 10:00 AM today, I was watching Eric make his way to the start line.  I was so excited to use my new camera for these pictures.  I stood on the sidelines trying to look like a professional photographer.  

 

 

 At about 9:00 AM today, I was helping Eric get prepped for the race.  We later realized that the bib was useless, as no one would be able to see it at the end of the race!

And, at 6:00 AM today, I was waiting (not so pleasantly) for the subway to take us on our 1.5 hour journey to the race.  Eric likes to be insanely early for everything.

Now on to Saturday....my birthday celebration!!  Let me preface this with the fact that I put a lot of pressure on Eric to think of something fun for us to do for my birthday (since I am celebrating away from the rest of my friends/family).  Eric put a lot of thought into thinking of something that I would enjoy.  He came up with two options: a Murder Mystery Dinner Theater or Medieval Times.  I chose Medieval Times:).  So, Saturday night we took a bus to Jersey City to eat chicken legs and ribs with no silverware, drink hardy portions of ale (well....maybe a margarita for me - I am sure they had that back then!), and watch knights battle it out.  The place turned out to be a hilarious combination of bachelor/bachelorette parties, work parties, and family entertainment.  We decided they definitely hit the jackpot with hitting all target audiences!

 

 

 

 And finally, Friday...my actual birthday.  Though I was far away from Indiana, I had a fabulous 30th birthday.  I was overwhelmed with love from my friends, family, and coworkers.  All of the students in each of my four classes made my birthday cards (which hilariously included one liners such as these: "You are my Birthday Queen", "For your birthday, I give you math (followed by a series of multiplication problems)", and "Until you taught me, I did not understand.  I love you.")  Who wouldn't have a great day when you have 100 kids pumping up your ego???  In addition to that, my boss brought in birthday treats, my husband sent me flowers, and 3 amazing friends sent me chocolate covered strawberries to work!  When I got home, I was overwhelmed with facebook messages, thoughtful cards/gifts (topping the charts for creativity was the 30 fortune cookies Jess and Stephanie sent me with 30 tokens of our friendship in them).  So, a huge thank you to everyone who so generously/thoughtfully helped make that day special for me.  Eric and I went to dinner that evening, and topped it off with my favorite guilty pleasure in NYC.  Crumbs cupcakes:).  Mine is Red Velvet and Eric's is the Baba Booey. 

It was definitely a fabulous, fun-filled weekend.  I am so blessed in my life.  Next on the calendar of things to look forward too....Chad and Kim's visit next weekend!