...A BLOG UPDATE!Happy New Year Friends and Family! Yes, Timmy and I are still alive and doing well, once again I have neglected the blog, this may be the longest break in blog posts yet! Thanks for your patience and understanding. Since there seems to be a lot to update since our last post, I have decided to honor one of my favorite childhood Christmas memories of signing the 12 Days of Christmas at our annual Christmas party and bring you our updates by numbers, countdown style (sorry no hand motions in this version). So sit tight and hang in there as I bring to you the 12 Updates of the Marsh Family Fall & Christmas!
TWELVE Drummers DrummingThis Christmas I was very lucky to have the opportunity to spend 12 days at home over the Christmas holiday. One of my lifelong best friends Meg, who now lives in San Francisco, called me back in October to tell me she was coming home for Christmas the weekend before and wanted to know if I could come home and go to the river with her. Luckily I was able to get off work early and thanks to my generous mom who shared some of her earned air miles with me, was able to fly home on December 18. During my 12 days I got to spend one night at the river with the Meg and the rest of the Gill family, and other than a 24hr stomach bug enjoyed spending the week before Christmas at home with mom preparing for the holidays and catching up with friends and family in Richmond. Timmy drove up on the 23rd and we enjoyed celebrating Christmas with Reed & Mom on Christmas Eve and had a fun filled Christmas day with his family since this year his brother's and their families were all in town as well. 12 is also the number of people we had around the table for our Christmas Dinner at Mom & Dad Marsh's as well, we were grateful that they included my mom at dinner that night. Below is a photo of me and Meg at the river as well as a photo of the whole Marsh gang that my mom took after our Christmas dinner!
ELEVEN Pipers Piping The fall is always a fun time in our house because one of the things that Timmy and I both share a strong mutual love for is college football. There is nothing like planning your Saturdays for 11 weeks in a row around the good games coming on TV or getting together with a group of friends to cheer on your favorite team, or the underdog. For as long as I have known Timmy he has always played Fantasy College Football and as you all know I am a die hard Virginia Tech Fan. While I know Timmy was raised a Wahoo fan, he still supports (most of the time) my passion and love for all things orange and maroon and Hokie, especially during football season. While it was a rough start for the Hokies this season with their first two games, 11 represents the 11 straight wins they had to finish off their season strong, claim the ACC Champion title and land themselves back in the Orange Bowl game tonight against Stanford. This year mom got season tickets to the games and I was fortunate to be able to travel to Blacksburg for three home games and even introduce my friend Melantha to Blacksburg on Gameday and slowly start converting her to a Hokie fan as well. On the weekends that I wasn't able to make it the games Timmy made sure I was in the Gameday spirit with plenty of tailgate snack food and drinks on hand to enjoy as we watched, and a few morning I even got a special VT breakfast. Below are some of my favorite fan shots from this season. Tonight we will of course have all of our Charleston friends over to cheer on the Hokies one last time in hopes that our magic number 11 turns into 12, it will certainly be a great game!
TEN Lords a Leaping On December 10 the College of Charleston had its annual Faculty & Staff holiday party. Timmy and I enjoyed the chance to get dressed up and enjoyed celebrating with some of my amazing co-workers and friends. A week from today, on January 10 Timmy will celebrate his 30th birthday! Hard to believe that he will be 3 decades old and to think that I have been in his life for more than 11 of those years is crazy. Timmy is a low key birthday kind of person but I do have some fun surprises in the works to celebrate this big birthday!
NINE Ladies Dancing Well 9 is the number of months that women are pregnant for. Unfortunately this is not my announcement to the world that I am pregnant (sorry to those of you who I know are anxiously awaiting that day), but 2010 did bring a lot of babies into the lives of many of our friends and we have many more who are expecting in 2011. One of my lifelong best friends Annie is one of those who is expecting really any time now. In October my mom and I, along with a few of Annie's other friends, threw her a baby shower and luncheon. Below are few pictures from the shower. Timmy and I enjoyed the opportunity to go home for the weekend, celebrate Reed's birthday and celebrate the anticipated arrival Baby Cohen. While I was home in December Meg and her sister-in-law Sarah as well as their cousin had another Couples Baby shower for Annie & Zac where we all got together at Dream Dinners and prepared lots of frozen meals for Annie & Zac to take home and have on hand when the baby arrives. For those of you who may not know, Annie was one of my frist friends, I met her when I was one and she was three and we moved down the street from the Gills on Teterling Ct. While my memory is not sharp enough to remember everything from our childhood, there are plenty of pictures and home videos to fill in the gaps for us. In a lot of ways Annie was always the big sister I never had. I have been so blessed to have such an amazing friend like Annie in my life and I can only hope that her little girl finds the same sort of lifelong friendship and mentor that I have found in her mom!
EIGHT Maids a MilkingBack at the end of the summer I posted about the free country concerts that one of Timmy's radio stations 96.9 The Wolf puts on at The Windjammer. At the time of that post we had already had the opportunity to meet 4 rising country artist/groups and since then we have seen and met 4 more, bringing the total number of rising country artists we had the chance to meet to 8 for 2010! We are both looking forward to what fun musical adventures 2011 will bring to our lives, hopefully some more great free show as well as some other fun concert opportunities. Below are the pictures with David Nail, Walker Hayes, Steve Azar, and Jerrod Neimann.
SEVEN Swans a Swimming As previously mentioned in other blog posts, I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to serve as an advisor to the new Beta Theta Pi colony at the University of South Carolina. When I first started volunteering I was serving as the Recruitment Advisor but due to some advisors moving this fall I assumed the position of Chapter Counselor in early August. In this role I not only work directly with the President of the chapter but also help organize and communicate with the entire advisory board team. It has been very fulfilling for me to be able to volunteer my time to an organization that I care so much about and I have really enjoyed the relationships I have been able to form with the amazing men in the colony, the other volunteers, and the Beta staff members. 7 represents the number of trips that I made to Columbia this fall semester to work with the men and the advisory team. Sometimes the drives can get a little long and lonely, but the return on investment I am getting back from serving in this role is definitely worth it. I am looking forward to what this year and the new executive board will bring to the colony! Below is a picture of many of the men in colony with President Pastides at their Men of Principle scholarship banquet this fall.
SIX Geese a Laying Well 6 is the number of hours it takes for us to make the trip from Charleston back to Chester. We were lucky to have the chance to make it home for the weekend in October that I already mentioned, as well as for Thanksgiving and again at Christmas. This Christmas we were also blessed with a White Christmas, something we haven't had for a while. While I don't know exactly how many inches of snow we actually got, I know it was at least 6. It made for a pretty Christmas and a really nice, lazy snow day on the 26th! Below is a shot of Mom & Dad Marsh's house on Christmas night and a shot of the grill and cooler from our snow day at mom's house.
FIVE Golden Rings Is it me or did Christmas seem to come really fast this year? We were fortunate to have the chance to host the Greek Life Office staff for our annual Holiday dinner. Five is the number of people who joined us for dinner that night, including my boss Kassie and our 4 amazing student workers, check out the picture below. I continue to feel very blessed to work in a field that I love where I have the chance to interact with so many amazing students and coworkers. Don't get me wrong, like with any job, there are tough times and days, but the people, opportunities, and experiences this job has brought into my life really outweigh the hard times and make it all so worthwhile. Looking forward to what 2011 has to bring to both Timmy and I in our professional lives this year. Five is also the number of hours that Timmy and I spent in the car driving to and from Chester to Hertford to visit with Dad after Christmas. The drive to and from was definitely worth it to be able to visit with Dad, Regan, and Luke for a few hours over the holidays.
FOUR Calling BirdsAlong with the many babies blessing our friends lives, so are weddings! 4 is the number of weddings we already know we have in 2011. These include one of my best friends Clayton who proposed to his girlfriend Amanda right before Christmas. We are also excited that my best friend and Maid of Honor from my wedding Tina got engaged to her boyfriend Eric on Christmas day! While no date has been set for their wedding, I am really excited that they are engaged. Tina and I have experienced so many of life's ups and downs together over the years and I was so honored to have her stand next to me at my wedding and look forward to being there for her as she gets ready for her big day as well! We are excited for all of the celebrating for all of the weddings we have coming in 2011. Below is a shot of me with Tina & Eric at one of the Tech games this fall.
THREE French Hens Three is the number of nephews that Timmy and I have and we were really lucky to be able to spend time with them all at Christmas. We do not get to see Jacob & Zachary very much since they are in PA and we are in Charleston, so we were glad to get to spend so many days with them over Christmas break. It's hard to believe how old they are getting, but I am happy to report, even at 7 years old Jacob still thinks his Aunt Rachel is cool and still enjoys playing with me. I lost many laser gun wars and Sorry games but enjoyed playing with Jacob and Zachary. We were also excited to get to see Benjamin again since we had not seen him since our trip to MD in August to celebrate his 1st birthday. He is still as adorable as ever and now that he is walking is fun to chase around the house!
TWO Turtle Doves Two is the number of weekends we had visitors this fall. Mom and Dad Marsh came down for a long weekend at the beginning of November and my sorority sisters Liz & Caroline came down for a long weekend right before Thanksgiving. We really enjoy company and the opportunity to show them around Charleston and try out new places to eat and explore. In addtion, it has become a new tradition over the past few years for my family to take a self-timer picture in front of the tree every Christmas Eve. I am happy to report that this year we only had to take it two times, and not because the first was bad but just so we could get one closer up too. We have come a long way since that first Christmas when we couldn't figure out the timer or all get posed and stop laughing long enough for a good picture. You can check out the portrait below! Two is also the number of movies that Timmy and I have gone to see since we got home on January 30. We don't go to the movies often so the fact that we have seen two in the past 4 days is a big deal for us. We went and saw Little Fockers on Friday and last night finally went and saw the new Harry Potter movie, which believe it or not was sold out when we tried to see it in the afternoon and we had to go back last night, guess we weren't the only ones who hadn't seen it yet!
and A partridge in a pear tree Alas, I have made it to one! Aside from the fact that it has taken me over 1 hour to finally update this blog and that our one spoiled puppy has been trying to distract me to play with her for the past 30 minutes, that is not what I had in mind to include here at the number 1 spot. For us one is for the One who has made everything in this post and in our lives possible. Timmy and I continue to be grateful everyday for a loving and faithful God who continues to bless us with good health, jobs, and loving family and friends. It's so easy to feel like you want more or need more at the holidays, but we thank God everyday for all that He has given to us and we look forward to seeing what plans he has for us as we enter this new year.
So there it is friends and family, sorry that you had to wait so long but if you were able to hang in there and actually read this whole post then you are in fact a very faithful follower! We hope that you and your family enjoyed the holidays and we wish you all many blessings in this New Year!
