Christmas in Vermont and New Years in California

Merry New Year!

After finishing our finals, we crammed all our Christmas shopping into one day before heading up to Vermont to spend Christmas with Ryan's parents. This Christmas was extra special for at least three reasons. First, it was our first Christmas together. Second, it was Kelsey's first Christmas away from home and with the Murphy's. Third, Ryan's brother, Eric, just got back from his mission for the LDS church in Boise Idaho so it was a lot of fun hang out together as a family again. Eric was really excited to finally have a little sister.

We each got a hefty bottle of hand sanitizer in our stockings Christmas morning. We agreed that Kelsey's mom would be really happy to hear about this.

Christmas was loads of fun and Kelsey got a really cute hat with a pink rose.

 A few days after Christmas we headed back down to Boston but not before getting a gorgeous snow fall of about two feet. We spent about an hour and a half shoveling out the drive way which Kelsey reminded us all of how we would probably pick up an extra year of life by living in a place where we wouldn't have to spend so much time shoveling snow!

 Arriving in California a few days before New Years we found the Soelbergs enjoying a newly aquired game Carrom. Philip was pretty good. Ken is currently the reigning champion. Next year might change things, however, as Philip really wants a Carrom set on which to train.

 

We also had a really nice family picture taken by Steve Loy during Grandma June's delicious pre-new years Chinese takeout dinner night.

Shaun left for college at BYUI and we skyped with him Sunday evening despite the bad connection. Hopefully he'll have better luck "breathing" the cold air as he adjusts to the adverse climate conditions.

Well, that's all for now. Keep coming back for more through the year.

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These babies are in the mail!

Sent invitations today! A few stragglers left, but only a few! Yay!

Invitation Addressing Party

Problem: 350 invitations to address and one day to do it.

Solution: invite your friends over for an invitation addressing party!

On Sunday we invited Kristal, Jes, Preston, Ryan's brother Chris, and Maryn over to Ryan's apartment for a pizza dinner and wedding invitation addressing party. We even got the bonus of Maryn's mom coming, since she was out visiting Maryn from Idaho!

Since our friends, even Preston, have much better penmanship than we do, we were especially pleased with how quickly and how well things turned out.

Kelsey, Jes, Maryn, Sharon, and Preston wrote the over 300 addresses while Kristal stuffed the envelopes and Chris sealed them. Ryan supervised and kept people busy and wrote some addresses intermittently.

On Monday Ryan sorted through and did several and all the leftover finding of addresses.

On Tuesday we double checked them, stamp them up and tomorrow we'll pop those babies in the mail!

Here are some pics from the addressing party.

People Watching

Harvard Square is a great place to people watch. Our good friend, Tyson, got us tickets to see a performance of Into The Woods by a Harvard theater group on Saturday. Before heading over to the theater we decided to indulge in one of our favorite sandwiches: the SMOKED SALMON AND WASABI ON ONION DILL BAGEL at AU BON PAIN. It is so delicious! And it's only $3.99. Kelsey usually likes to remove some of the wasabi spice, but leaves about half of it on. It's not that spicy, so don't be try to shy away from it. While we were eating our sandwiches in Harvard Square watching people (like the street perfomer in the orange shirt doing a funky dance) Kelsey kept repeating in between bites, "Why would anyone eat any other sandwich?" It's that good. You should try it. Ohhh, that's a good reception food idea.... Note to self....

The performance was great and it was wonderful to treat ourselves to a fun, inexpensive date.

Marathon Monday

It was around last year's marathon Monday Kelsey and Ryan were just about to start dating! Ryan came out to Wellesley in the early AM to make signs of encouragement (like "run sexy run") and watch the marathon with the Wellesley girls (especially Kelsey) and to get kisses from the marathon runners (girls only for Ryan, guys only for Kelsey). (For those unfamiliar with the Boston Marathon and the Wellesley Scream Tunnel, Wellesley College marks the half way point for the marathoners and at this point many Wellesley students offer kisses to marathon runners as they run through a veriatble tunnel of screaming women. If you ask me (Ryan) it would be worth it just to get a kiss from Kelsey half way through!)

At the end of that day, the girls all decided that I was the best guy "marathon kisser" and I ended up with this really cool photo.

This year's marathon monday was also an delightful day. Kelsey and I, now an engaged couple, obtained from participating in the kissing festivities but we did manage to get a few pics and have some fun.

Wedding Registries Part II

Long story short, when it came down to preferences, likes, dislikes, dreams, preconceptions, and childhood ambitions, instead of opting for exactly all the registry options that would fulfill every single desire we just went for SIMPLICITY.

We found that between Macy's and Target we could find everything we needed. Williams Sonoma it seems is a right of passage for wedding registries, so we did that. Finally, for practicality, we used the "things i want dot com" registry for random essentials (like an inexpensive place to get a bed, and a few ikea furniture pieces since ikea doesn't have a wedding registry). Macy's has a much nicer registry interface, so that's probably my favorite. In general though, we're really happy to just stick with simplicity.

If you happen to be thinking of making your own registry, good luck to you!

-Ryan & Kelsey