Phillip and I rang in the New Year for a full minute before falling asleep at promptly 12:01 a.m.  We made it to 12:05 last year so we were proud that we shaved 4 minutes off of our time.

Despite our lack of enthusiasm for staying up late, we are very excited about the coming year.  As eventful as 2011 was for us, 2012 is shaping up to be just as monumental.

For those that don’t already know, we will be moving to Charleston, South Carolina this summer.  Phillip has matched into a Cardiology Fellowship at the Medical University of South Carolina, so we will be heading that way in time for him to start his first shift as a fellow.  In order to make this move we’ll be selling our house in Birmingham, finding a new residence in Charleston, and I’ll be taking the South Carolina bar exam in February so I can practice (which also means I’ll be job hunting).  This will be a huge change for us, but we’re excited for the opportunity to live in such a great city.

Other items on the 2012 horizon include Phillip’s ski trip to Montana, a trip to the Bahamas for our friend Leslie’s wedding, and the establishment of a new cooking club blog.  After that, who knows!

2011, that is.  We made it through a Birmingham snow storm, the rest of our engagement, another year of on-call days, 3 months of ICU patients, a new (old) boat that survived the exploration of Logan Martin, the first full year of legal practice, the April 27th tornadoes, a round of interviews and the fellowship match, two high school reunions, three published papers, our wedding, our honeymoon, our first married Thanksgiving and Christmas, trips to New Orleans, Houston, and the beach, my brother’s college graduation, a hike up Ruffner Mountain, our first trick-or-treaters, a leaking washing machine, stubborn heater and broken refrigerator, birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, a funeral, a new transmission for my car, all of the name change hoops, Phillip’s first pair of contact lenses, the first stamp in my passport, another year of college football, and the creation of this blog.  We did it together and we’ll keep doing it together, come rain or come shine.

And now that song is stuck in your head.  You’re welcome.  Anyway, Phillip and I are both big fans of Christmas, so we always joyously greet the season.  Due to our Thanksgiving travels, we didn’t get our decorations put up quite as early as we would have liked, but we did manage to decorate two trees, hang stockings, put our wreaths and lit porch trees outside, get out all of the holiday stuffed animals, and place a few other choice items throughout the house.  Now, for those of you that know me, you’re probably saying that this sounds like pretty light decorating for me, and you’re right.  With everything we knew we’d having going on at the beginning of the year (check out a forthcoming New Year post for details), we regrettably decided to only put out the essentials this year.  But never fear!  We already have great plans for next year’s holiday decor (as we were taking down the tree after Christmas, Phillip said “let’s put the tree up earlier next year” and I knew I’d married the right man)!  I was excited to find a new Christmas tree for our living room this year – it was such a challenge to find one tall enough, wide enough, full enough, and most importantly, not pre-lit (I have issues with the pre-lit trees).  But, Mom and I finally found a suitable tree on Thanksgiving weekend.  Here’s the final product:

I also set out to make a selection of Christmas goodies this year, including attempting to master my granddaddy’s pound cake.  While the cake wasn’t quite as good as his, it was still yummy, and everything else – Crockpot Candy, Fudge, World Peace Cookies, and Peppermint Bark – turned out well too.

Crockpot Candy

Phillip requested his holiday vacation for Christmas this year, so he had an entire week off starting on the Tuesday before Christmas.  Opposite to our normal state of affairs, Phillip was vacationing and I was at work the whole week.  However, this gave Phillip an opportunity to visit his family in Dothan.  He spent some time at the farm and exchanged presents with his parents and grandparents, although he did miss his brother Ben by a couple of days.

Pat (Phillip's mom) and Papa

Joe the dog, hanging out on the farm.

Phillip got back in town on Thursday, and that night we ventured out to the Alabama Theatre for a holiday screening of It’s a Wonderful Life.  It was a sold out show (sold out as in 2800 people)!  Despite my issues with the crowd, we had a lot of fun and especially enjoyed the pipe organ exhibition and sing-a-long before the show.  The next day we headed to Rogersville for the Christmas weekend.  My Uncle Richard, Aunt Nancy, and cousin Thom were visiting from Indiana, so we had a full roster.  That night seven of us went to Florence to see the newest Sherlock Holmes movie and had a great time.  We spent Christmas Eve finishing up the last of the wrapping and doing some cooking for our Christmas meal.

Jonathan (my brother) and I before Christmas dinner.

There was actually a lot of eating going on the entire weekend – that’s part of what Christmas is for, right?

Do you remember when you were little and you’d wake up ridiculously early on Christmas Day because you were just so excited you couldn’t sleep?  Well, I may not have gotten up ridiculously early, but I did get up early and had to wait for the rest of the crew to make it out of bed.  Mom made sausage balls and we opened some presents before heading to church.  After church and lunch we opened some more presents, then picked up my niece Kenslee and opened MORE presents, then spent the rest of the day spending time with each other and playing with/admiring our gifts.

Phillip and my dad taking a closer look at Phillip's new tool chest.

At one point during the present-opening, Kenslee asked if she could take a break!

Mom, Jonathan, and Kenslee attempting to play Just Dance Kids - as you can tell, Mom marches to the beat of her own drummer.

It's just not Christmas until Uncle Richard puts the bow on his head (I made that bow!).

Grandmother unwrapping her photo gift.

All in all it was a very merry Christmas spent with all the people I love most.  Can’t wait until the Christmas season rolls around again!  And neither can Barnaby:

Ho, Ho, Ho!

I spotted these food storage containers while registering for wedding gifts and immediately knew that we were meant to be together. So, I added assorted sizes to our registry and began dreaming of my future everything-in-its-place pantry.  And my dreams came true this fall when I was able to devote some time to cleaning out and reorganizing our pantry.  After making the chalkboard labels, I tackled the baking shelf.  Then the pasta shelf.  And then I just couldn’t stop myself and took everything out of the pantry and reorganized the whole thing.  It was a great day.

I was amazed by how many different types of flour I had accumulated - all-purpose, self-rising, bleached, unbleached, cake, bread, wheat, ...

A beautiful sight.

Thank you to everyone that gave us these containers as a wedding gift!  Without you, this amazing pantry would not have been possible.  Oh yeah, and Phillip loves them too.

We had a lot to be thankful for this year, including being able to spend time with both families for Thanksgiving.  We started off the holiday season with a trip to Dothan for Thanksgiving with the Deans.  Phillip’s brother Ben flew in from Charlotte on Wednesday night so the gang was all there.  Here are some highlight pictures Phillip picked out for this post (he even took most of them):

Phillip's Mimi after hauling in several of her best Thanksgiving dishes from the car. We also celebrated Papa's birthday and Mimi and Papa's 60th wedding anniversary on Thanksgiving - a big day for this family!

Gathering in the kitchen to visit on Thanksgiving Day.

Ben and Mimi

Bountiful table #1

They are so silly when they get together.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to spend the weekend with the Deans because Phillip had to work on Friday.  So we headed back to Birmingham on Thursday night, Phillip did a shift at the clinic on Friday, and we drove to Rogersville Friday evening.  While I was waiting for Phillip to finish his shift, I attempted to make a pecan pie for my dad and grandmother.

I made my own pastry!

The finished product. I guess I didn't cook it long enough or something, because this pie was a FAILURE. For those that have never found themselves in this particular situation, note that pecan pie soup is delicious over ice cream. : )

Since they decided it just wasn’t Thanksgiving without me (ha!), my family saved the big meal for Saturday night.  So that day Grandmother attempted to teach me how to make cornbread and her Thanksgiving dressing.

Despite my reservations about the unbelievable amount of shortening used to grease the cast iron pan, the cornbread came out perfectly. Bottom line: trust your grandmother when it comes to these things.

And that cornbread turned into this:

Grandmother's dressing

The Burts have been (safely) frying their turkeys for several years now and this year was no exception.  My dad and brother have it down to a science.

The setup, complete with wind shields.

My brother Jonathan (whom we typically call "Man") keeping an eye on the frying.

Crispy, delicious turkey

And then it was time to eat!

Grandmother, always happy to be with family.

Bountiful table #2

Mom took up my camera and got this shot of me and my niece Kenslee.

Phillip and I had so much to be thankful for this year – a wedding, a fellowship match, our health, our families, our friends, our new blog – we are truly blessed!

The next weekend was the biggest football game of the regular season – the much-hyped Alabama/LSU showdown.  After some consideration, Phillip and I decided to head to Tuscaloosa – without tickets and (gasp) without a plan.  This was actually my challenge for the weekend.  Since Phillip wanted to go, I left it to him to make all of the arrangements (or not, you know, whatever, I’m rolling with it).  So on Saturday morning we gathered some stuff to put in a cooler, realized we needed a mid-sized cooler, and went to Walmart where we found a lovely blue number with wheels.  After this small delay and a Chick-Fil-A run for Phillip’s breakfast, we finally hit the road to Tuscaloosa.  On the way there, I asked Phillip where he thought we should try to park to which he replied, “I thought we were parking at Catherine’s.”  Nooo, that would be a component of a plan I would make and I’m not supposed to make plans today.  But, I made an exception and got in touch with Catherine to ask if we could once again park at her (former) house.  Catherine and her family are always so wonderful to let us stash our vehicle, even when we ask last minute!  So we get to Tuscaloosa and after a quick visit with Catherine’s parents, begin to wander about, pulling our cooler.  As awkward as this seemed to me, we fit right in on game day.  Our first actual order of business was to meet our friend Gabe (and whoever happened to be with him).  After loitering on a corner for a while, we finally spotted Gabe, our friend Matt, and Gabe’s sister, Audra.  Luckily, Audra had a friend who was hosting a tailgate at her house a few blocks away.

Matt and Gabe enjoying the free food.

This actually turned out to be the perfect spot to spend the day – there were games on the televisions outside and some LSU fans were cooking up some jambalaya in a giant iron pot.

Giant pot of jambalaya as prepared by an authentic LSU fan.

We made the front porch our base camp and spent the day catching up with various friends including our groomsman Josh (all the way from Kentucky) and my sorority sister Emily and her husband Matt (all the way from Indiana).

Audra and Gabe

Phillip and Gabe talking shop (i.e., residency).

Josh and Gabe on the way back from visiting Darren's tailgate where we enjoyed even more Cajun food.

Now, there’s just not much to say about the game.  It was a tense four quarters.  We split from the tailgate pretty quickly and headed back to Catherine’s house.  Although the general mood was pretty dismal, Catherine’s dad Roy was incredibly optimistic saying that the loss was the best possible thing that could have happened.  He then proceeded to lay out a precise series of events that would lead to Alabama’s appearance in the National Championship game.  At that point, everyone in the room had decided that Roy was delirious from disappointment, but when all he said came to pass, we began to wonder what else Roy McCord knew.  It was a long, win-less day, but we did enjoy getting to see so many of our friends.  I survived without a plan and, of course, we came home with a new blue wheely cooler of our very own.