Memphis

On March 20th I went down to Memphis to look for an apartment. My sister Lindsay is living in Alabama for a couple of months, and she and her son, Caleb, came and met me in Memphis!

I hadn't seen these two in almost a year! It was so great to see them.

  

First things first, we had to go shopping. Caleb was so hilarious. I had to fight him to take the pictures above. Two minutes later we walked into Old Navy and he goes and poses with the manikins and says, "Take a picture of me".

 After shopping, we went to a Mexican restaurant in the hotel's parking lot. It actually was pretty good.

 The next day we went apartment hunting! I'm not going to lie, it was miserable. It was a long day and I really can't thank Lindsay and Caleb enough for spending the day with me. Lindsay was great at calming me down and assuring me I would find a place. Caleb was seriously so well behaved, and actually seemed to enjoy looking at all the apartments.

One apartment took us around on golf carts! That was probably the most exciting part of our day.

 The next day we decided to go look at one last complex. It was the light at the end of the tunnel! I fell in love right away. I really wanted a townhouse, and this place had the perfect lay out. I was sold! I put a deposit down, signed an application, and was done! It was wonderful.

Our new home!

 After we finally found a place, I was less of a stress case, and we decided to go explore Memphis! We drove out to Graceland only to find out how expensive it is. We decided not to take the tour, but we went and drove by Elvis's house. Caleb kept asking us all these questions about Elvis. That kid is too smart for me!

 After Graceland, we went to Beale Street. It was cold and rainy, so we didn't stay long, but it was still fun!

 Then we went to the Peabody Hotel to see the Duck March. The hotel has ducks in their lobby fountain, and everyday night they march the ducks from the fountain into the elevator. It was way cool!

The Duck's red carpet.

Their elevator.

 (Sorry, blurry pictures!)

 After the hotel, we went and got the BEST BBQ! I thought I had pictures, but Lindsay must have taken them. It was delicious and made me so excited to move to Memphis and eat BBQ all day, everyday.

Thanks again, Lindsay and Caleb! I couldn't have made it through the week without you both!

Introducing Chasqui!

Three weeks ago, Kevin invited us over for Sunday dinner. This is a regular occurrence and we didn't think much of it.

We arrived at Kevin's and he had this big gate up, blocking the living room. We thought this was a little strange. Steve looked around and then looked at me and said, "Oh my goodness, my dad got a dog!". We went running to the backyard, and sure enough! There was the cutest little Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy there to greet us!

Kevin had just gotten back from picking him up at the airport in Atlanta. Steve and I were obsessed right from the start! Kevin named him Chasqui, after a previous ridgeback he had many years ago.

He is the cutest little pup and has made our minds up that we will be getting a puppy as soon as we move!

 Kevin has to teach in Knoxville most Saturdays, so we get the honor of babysitting at least one day a week. He is so much fun to have around!

Kevin asked me to take pictures of him every week so he can track how much he grows. It's amazing how big he has gotten in only three weeks!

Isn't he so handsome??

We just love Chasqui! He is going to be hard to leave when we move!

We're Moving!

We found out on February 22nd where we are moving for rotations.

WE ARE MOVING TO MEMPHIS!!!

This was both of our first picks and we could not be more thrilled! Steve got Memphis, Core 1 which was his top pick.

We will be moving in the middle of May. It can't come soon enough!

The Super Bowl

We went to Rick and Holly's for the Super Bowl this year. Holly made quite the spread and I ate WAY too much.

There was a problem getting the game to come in clearly, so Rick had to sit and hold the antenna. I told him this would be a humbling memory for twenty years from now when he is a millionaire.

 Every year I try to get into football, but every year I fail. I mostly played on my i pod and watched the commercials. Katie and Brady joined in on the technology fun!

It was fun to hang out with Rick, Holly, and the kids. This was our last Super Bowl that we will have with family for who knows how long! Hopefully we will make new friends when we move since we won't have any family around.

Nashville and Memphis

Back in January, we decided to go and check out Memphis and Crossville (two potential rotation sites). We went over Martin Luther King Day. It was nice to get out of town for the three day weekend! We decided to break the trip up and spend Friday night in Nashville, Saturday night in Memphis, and Sunday night again in Nashville.

We left late afternoon on Friday and stopped in Crossville on our way to Nashville. We stopped and talked to some of Rick and Holly's friends about the rotation and whether or not they liked Crossville. I wasn't sold on it. Ben (Rick's friend) really sold Steve on the rotation though. I was really hoping that we would fall in love with Memphis and Steve would forget all about Crossville! We got to Nashville late and just went to sleep.

The next morning we decided to go see the Ryman Auditorium downtown. The Ryman Auditorium is a famous music venue. It is known for having the second best acoustics in the Nation. The first is the Mormon Tabernacle on Temple Square. :) I think it would have been a lot more interesting if I was a big music buff, but it was still cool to look at the building. It is a beautiful auditorium.

 Steve downtown!

 Us in the Ryman.

The Ryman. I loved the stained glass windows!

 After our tour, we headed down to Memphis! Our first stop was in Germantown, a city just outside of Memphis and where we would most likely live if we move there. 

Well, my wish came true. We LOVED Germantown!! It is a beautiful, well kept city and it has EVERYTHING! It has Costco, Target, and a Mall! And tons of great places to eat. It is everything I could hope for. And Steve loved it too! We went to one of the hospitals that he would do rotations at and he was very impressed.

After Germantown, we went to visit another hospital that Steve would work at in Memphis. This hospital wasn't as nice and the neighborhood was a little run down. BUT we loved Germantown so much that we didn't let it dampen our mood.

After we explored, we went to get some Memphis BBQ! We found a little place by our hotel and it was delicious.

After dinner we went to historic Beale Street! It was a pretty interesting place. They have the street blocked off so you can just walk around. They sale liquor and beer to go! It was quite the party place. Sadly, we were both stuffed from dinner and exhausted. So we just walked down the street and then went back to the hotel. We are getting so old and boring!!

Steve on Beale

 The next day we drove around and looked at apartments in Germantown and Cordova (which is right next to Germantown). We just fell in love with these two cities. By the time we left, we had decided that Memphis would be Steve's top pick for his rotation site!

We got to Nashville just as the sun set, but decided to go see the Parthenon. It is a replica of the Parthenon in Greece. It was so beautiful and just made me want to go to Greece! Apparently there is a really cool museum inside. I'm sad we got there so late. Next time!

 We had a great little weekend getaway and we are now very excited to see where we end up for rotations!

Goodbye 2012, Hello 2013

I am pretty sad to say goodbye to 2012. It really was an amazing year. We had so many fun trips and experiences that I think it will be hard to top.

I do have high hopes for 2013. This is the year we FINALLY get to move from Harrogate, I will graduate in May, Steve starts his rotations and will be half way done with med school, and I did my annual headstand on New Years so that should bring us plenty of luck.

 Happy New Year! I hope 2013 is great for all of us.

UTAH December 2012

We were lucky enough to go to Utah for two weeks in December. It was great to spend time with family and friends. Once again, I didn't take very many pictures so I will do our whole trip in one post.

The first night we were in Utah we went to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's Annual Christmas Concert. We didn't have time to look at the lights at Temple Square but City Creek had beautiful lights that we enjoyed on our way back to the car.

Isabelle and Adie came to the concert. I just love these girls!

 So good to be back in Utah!

 Utah got a ton of snow while we were there! I was so happy to have a white Christmas!

 I didn't get to see very many friends this trip, but I did get to spend most of a weekend with my best friend, Natalie. We went and got sushi Friday night and stayed up till two in the morning talking. The next morning Natalie had to work and I ran a 5k. Once she was done with work, we went to brunch at Red Rock and then went for a walk around Liberty Park. It was so nice to have so much time with Nat!

Walking in Liberty Park

 A beautiful day for a walk!

 I sure love this park.

 After my fun day with Natalie, we went to my moms house for her Christmas party. There was the most beautiful sunset that night! I miss Utah's amazing sunsets.

On Christmas Eve we went to the movie Lincoln with my mom and then went to Shannon and Matt's Christmas Eve fondue party. We spent Christmas running from house to house, trying to see all our family. We were able to see everyone, but were exhausted by the end of the day. It was still a wonderful Christmas!

We were also in Utah for my 26th birthday! I had a great day. I had breakfast with my mom, had coffee with Natalie, went on a shopping spree with Steve (shocking, I know!), and then went to dinner with Shannon, Matt, Mayke, Trevor, Dana and Brandon. It was a great, low key, birthday.

Thanks again to Matt and Shannon for letting us take over your house. I already miss everyone so much and it breaks my heart that it might have been our last Christmas in Utah for awhile.