our first Christmas cards:

Our first Christmas cards as newlyweds! As much as I wanted to make diy Christmas cards this year, I really had no time. So when I got an email from Night Owl Paper Goods about a sale on holiday cards, I decided to go with that. plus, I really love that these are printed on wood. Plus they come with a 2011 calendar printed on the back, so useful! (I'm all about calendars this year I guess) They had so many nice designs, Nick liked this one the best though :)

I designed a wrap around Christmas label for the envelopes but didn't get to take a picture. We got out of the hospital on Monday and I ran to the post office to send them off. I'm not sure if this will be a yearly thing for us, it kind of took me a while to get them together and I didn't even make them! (unlike Melanie's cute felt cards, which I'm sure took her a lot longer!) hehe. Did you send cards this year? I'd love to see pics if you blogged about it!

ps: in response to the comments below, I sent them in regular A6 envelope's (that I had leftover from the wedding, sweet!) and the postage was only .44 cents :)

weekend trip to the hospital:

*pics posted with my husband's consent ;) he's so cute!

You know how I was supposed to go to Renegade SF last weekend? If you follow my twitter, you may have known that didn't end up happening. What did happen was around 1am on Friday, well, technically Saturday - Nick started getting bad pains in his stomach and so we decided to go to the ER.

Our original plan was to leave for SF at around 8pm, get there by 4am and sleep for a couple hours. Instead, we came up with a weird/crazy plan of going to sleep early at 8pm, waking up at 2am and driving to SF to arrive in time to set up for the show. The 2nd plan was crazy but I know the Lord was really watching over us through it. If we had left at 8, we would have been on the road when Nick's stomach started hurting. and I wouldn't have known where to take him!

Anyway, they released us from the ER at around 4am and Nick said he was feeling better and that we should still go to SF. I really wanted to go but I was concerned about him. We prayed about it and I just felt like we needed to stay. At 7am, Nick's stomach pains were back and they were worse. We went back to the ER and they gave him a CT. It turned out he had a bowel obstruction. I hear these are quite common but his pain was really awful. He was throwing up and it seemed like the pain would never end.

We were praying praying praying. I asked friends + family for prayers. Praying for Nick to feel better, praying that he didn't need surgery. By Sunday he was feeling better and they kept us in for observation. We got discharged yesterday afternoon and I was so glad for my husband to be home.

So we thought we were going to have an adventure in SF, we ended up having a hospital adventure instead. It was a long hard weekend. But I am grateful Nick is better. I've never seen him in so much pain before. Thank you to friends + family who prayed for him. The Lord is good and I believe He really watched over us through this entire situation. Sorry to anyone who came out to Renegade, I got some emails + tweets about it. I was bummed about not being able to make it to SF but of course my husband's health comes first. My aunt said that there will be many craft shows, but I only have 1 Nick ;) so true.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter:

I realized I never posted any pics from our honeymoon! Not sure if you knew we went to the Harry Potter theme park in Florida. Well, it's not a whole theme park, it's a section within Universal Studios Orlando. But it was amazing!!

So you first enter into Hogsmeade and see the train station. Nick and I were so overwhelmed by the total awesome-ness of it all. It's like the books came to life for us! (Cute vintage luggage right?)

Honeydukes candy shop. Yum!

hehe, he's so cute ;)

Hogwarts! So legit.

Zonko's joke shop!

They also had Ollivanders, The Owl Post & we ate at The Three Broomsticks. We had butterbeer and pumpkin juice, yum! Well, Nick liked butterbeer better than I did. It was interesting. We went on The Dragon Challenge and Harry Potter & the Forbidden Journey, it was intense! Totally had to close my eyes ;)

and guess what? When we were walking through Hogwart's, they had different rooms and displays set up and I totally saw a few of the exact same props/decorations I had at my wedding! Remember I posted some inspiration boards and mentioned some sort of Harry Potter decor. That made me happy :) It would have been awesome to have been the set decorator for this theme park. They had a lot of vintage/antique market finds in the shop displays too, so fun!

The pictures just don't do the park justice. You really have to go for yourself if you're a fan of Harry Potter.

Then we went on a cruise around the Bahamas, but my battery was low. (what was I thinking not bringing my charger?) so I busted out the good old disposable camera for the rest of the time. The cruise was nice and relaxing and fun! The theme park was definitely the highlight of the trip though, and Nick talked about wanting to go back to Hogwarts throughout our whole cruise ;)

a 'just because' gift:

I just want to talk about my husband for a second. He is really one of the best gift-giver's I know. His gifts are really thoughtful, mostly practical, and sweet. So the other day, he told me that he had a gift for me. I opened it up, and it was a canon rebel. My very first SLR! and it's not even Christmas yet! He said it was a 'just because' gift because he knew I was feeling un-inspired lately. Yikes, he really raised the bar for 'just because' gifts.

Now don't get me wrong, we don't go buying each other expensive things like this all the time.. and we didn't get a wedding gift for each other so I'm partially putting this toward that. :)

Anyway, I thought I'd bust out my old camera and

do one last shoot .. taking pictures of my new camera!

REBEL!

Turning it on for the first time, so magical!

Nick also said he would take a photography class with me. Isn't he the best? I've been wanting to take a photography class to learn how to use a slr camera.. & I love taking classes with my husband (we took a letterpress class together last year!)

I am just reminded everyday of how blessed I am to be married to such an amazing guy. Not because he gives me cool presents. Just because he is my best friend, we always talk & laugh together and we love spending time together. I love being married to him!