4 Years

It's hard to believe that we've been married for 4 years now! 

In some ways it seems like it's always been us and in other ways I still feel like we're newly-wed. 

I have a really hard time expressing in words how I feel about Craig and our life together (he is so much better about it than I am, he is so sincere and kind and I feel I just come off sounding generic or cheesy), but I can't even begin to say how grateful I am for Craig.  He is a better match for me than I ever hoped for.  Here are some of my favorite pics of us and our snippets of life.

In Vegas just before we got engaged.  This is my favorite smile of his ever!

I just love the feeling of this photo.

From our honeymoon. I love the intensity in his eyes and the colors in this one (I'm actually pretty certain he was getting annoyed with me for taking so many pics at this point, but I still love it)

After we moved to NC!

At the garden at Tryon Palace in New Bern.

On our great trip last year - that was the best.

The most recent (last month at our fancy schmancy Titanic dinner) and right on up there with our wedding photo for my top pic.  

Happy Anniversary to my wonderful wonderful man!

Peonies

I am loving peonies lately and have had this bunch of silk peonies for a long time now, but it was just tied together and looking a little unfinished. I found this little white pitcher on sale and made a little arrangement.  I think it turned out pretty cute!

And our trees our budding out and the birds are getting all twitter-patted.  I love it.  This little boy cardinal has been sitting in our tree and chirping for his girlfriend for a while now.  Bright red cardinals are my favorite, I love having them around.

Can you spot him in this one?

Long Time No Post

I can't decide whether it's time to retire this blog or not.  I mean there is a part of me that really likes to have a good record of the things that we've done, but then so much of our day to day life is working/cooking/eating/sleeping.  What's the point of that?

But then again there have been some big things that happened. My mom stayed with us for a month or so, we went to  So Cal with some friends and met up with some others and that was awesome, Little Stephen turned 1 (and is as cute as ever), Easter Pig Picking, I'm going to UT in 10 days (work trip), and we have some fun upcoming things planned too.

Well, I'll try to sum up some things and then hopefully do a better job of keeping up the blog.

Right around Thanksgiving last year my dad started a job up in MA and they sold their house.   Since they moved from a 6 bedroom house to a one bedroom apt they moved a lot of their things into our shops out back.  My mom came out to help move things in and avoid the MA winter (for someone who lived in CA, HI and AZ somehow the snow just doesn't agree with her).  She stayed with us for about a month or so in January.  It was interesting at times but overall pretty good to spend time with her because I realized I hadn't really lived with her since I was about 20 (and that was only for a couple months) so it's been a long time.  Also my mom is pretty awesome at keeping busy and she helped get a lot of things done.  I don't mean to try and take advantage of her visit, but she's just that kind of person that doesn't really sit still and not do anything.  She keeps herself busy and she's always doing things for other people (rarely do I see her doing things for herself).  She stayed with us for a couple weeks before Christmas, then went up to MA for a week or so, after that came back down and stayed another month.

Stephen turned 1 on 2/13! We skyped with him for some bday cake and he loved it!

This is my new fav picture of Stephen, I'm obsessed with it.

This year for V-day Craig was sweet and brought me some roses and sweet treats and I made some cupcakes for him.

At the end of Feb we went to the Queen Mary and Disneyland.  Our friends Brian and Eric also came out and then we met up with some friends that we met on our crossing last year and had a great time!  I'll put up pics of that trip in another post.

For Easter we had the annual Anderson Pig Picking and it was awesome.  We had a great time with aunts/uncles and cousins and delicious food.  Uncle Ferrell and Craig cooked a great pig.

Of course I made cupcakes and found a cute idea for peep cupcakes on pinterest

One of the best parts about my parents moving all their things out here was I got my childhood piano!  I've been practicing a little bit here and there, but today Boots discovered the piano.  He was so interested in the keys and pushing them down, but the notes scared him.  He wasn't sure what to make of it!

We've also acquired some new awesome furnishings for the Queen Mary collection. Some of them are getting restored and I'll put up those pictures later when they're finished.

Well that will sum it up for now.  I'll try to get the QM/Dland pics up soon!

Old School

My mom is staying with us for awhile and we found some old, old school slides.  I scanned some in and here are some of my favorites

My mom and her first boyfriend!! They were about 16, but  HAHAHAHA he is so cheesy, also mom what was up with your hair?

Mom in Hawaii

Dad at the beach with his beloved dog, Scampy

Dad in the military.

My Mom with her first born, my older brother Steve.  

Little Stephen has so much coloring and looks from the Sherry's side, but it looks to me that a lot of Little Stephen's expressions are so much like my brother's - love it!

Even older school is my Grandpa & Grandma with my mom (center) Uncle Charlie and Aunt Aneata (baby)

New Years 2013

Happy New Years!! 

This is how we celebrated our New Years:

Dang!

The day started of great.  Craig had to work (2nd shift 3-11), but I was off.  So we went for a drive in the mustang and to lunch at our fav restaurant, The Laughing Owl.  It was great.

Craig went to work and I watched some Dr Who and set up a little party for two.  Put on a party dress, had Martinellis and cheesecake out, and some good music on (Sting of Pearls) ready at 11 for when he got off.  I also set up some fireworks that we were saving for New Years.

All was going great until we lit off the last fireworks just after Midnight.  BOOOM!!! The launcher went sideways and the next thing I new I was cowering and watching a very large firework go off sideways on the ground!  It was so scary!!  Fortunately Craig and I were fine, but we did have a casualty.

Did I mention that we JUST got this door in August?!?

We had been standing on either side of out stormdoor and some shrapnel somehow shattered the door!  Truthfully were not even sure what exactly hit the door, but we did see the result!  It's pretty crazy!

I guess unlucky '13 came in with a bang!

The only thing we can do about it is laugh and be glad that neither one of us was hurt or anything else too serious happened.  

Happy New Years, hope yours was a little more successful than ours!!

Anderson Christmas Letter 2012

Christmas Letter 2012

Other notable events:
My parents sold their house and are becoming East Coasters!  I am happy they'll be closer to us, but it is a bittersweet move.  My dad is up in MA and my mom is staying with us for a couple months in order to avoid the MA winter.

We fixed up Craig's 1966 Mustang and she looks good!  Craig has had this Mustang since he was 14 and restored it from the ground up.  It's been a long time coming to get her all ready to go so we were really happy to have her up and running.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas!!

Biltmore

We went to Biltmore for Craig's 30th bday with our good friends Eric and Brian and we had a blast. To say that Biltmore is amazing is an understatement. It was amazing time 10!  Like Disneyland for adults, there was tons to see and do. What was even better is that E&B have a pretty extensive knowledge of the history and story of Biltmore so they were able to give us a great tour and really make the place come to life for us.

Diana at Biltmore.  She's at the top of the Mountain so visitors to the house have a destination to the top and to see the view of the house and valley below. The ultimate "You made it!"

See the tents in the background?  Have an extra $100000?  We'll you can have your wedding at Biltmore if you want.  I have to admit it's got a GREAT location.

1st view of Biltmore - wow!

At this point we can already tell this place is going to me amazing

Biltmore poplars line the road

We were just standing on this carriage-way for the above  pic. Shell, turtles and fish fountains embellish the carriageway. 

Closer view of Biltmore on the esplanade

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Biltmore's staircase

One of the first tours we did was the architect/ roof-top tour.  It has some amazing views

This was from the front balcony and the view from the observation room.  The sweeping view of the carriageway and the top of the mountain for the Diana and the wedding tent.

The tail-less gargoyle.  He pretty well- known for one thing . . .

It's good luck to pat his rear! lol!

the copper top of the roof- decorated with acorn trio and GV for George Vanderbilt

This man wanted you to know this was his place

Eric, Craig and Brian on the loggia

Some of the features on the house.

Stacked Fondant Cake with Cascading Flowers

This was the final cake for Course 3 of the Wilton Classes.  The third Course it intro to fondant and gum paste and was really fun - but exhausting.
This last cake took hours and hours and hours, and I now know why cakes cost so much.  My instructor was telling me that if it were to price it out each flower should be about $5-7 and just time spent frosting and decorating the cake would be $40, supplies were probably another $35 - so that would be $160 - $194!!  

And that's at minimum wage! Needless to say I am not quitting my day job for this little hobby, but it is fun to create!

It may seem boring but I love simple and clean lines and using one color for flowers but different shades, I think it adds dimension.  It's hard to tell in these pics but I have 3 different shades of pink.

Roses, Calla lilies and my little Mum flower

So I really like using fondant - it's fun to use and has such a clean look when done well (p.s I can already sense that I'm going to get ocd about lumpy or cracked fondant on my cakes).  But I'm still determined to master buttercream. I picked up a few more tricks from my instructor - she's amazing and hopefully can figure out the best and easiest way to get nice sharp edges with buttercream and NO potholes.

Next month I'm taking a hiatus with the course and gonna do Halloween cakes and cupcakes!