Merry & Married

The holiday season just wrapped up and we loved celebrating our first Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years together.

For Thanksgiving we didn't have a lot of time due to teaching schedules, so we drove to my family's house Wednesday and celebrated with them Thursday. We then went to Wetumpka to see Matt's family on Friday and drove in to Auburn on Saturday for the epic Ironbowl.

After the Ironbowl we came back to Birmingham and got to decorate our apartment together for Christmas. This was a fun way to start off the Christmas season together, and Matt was a great sport about decorating the tree with me. 

Another fun thing we did this year was go to the Alabama theater to see It's a Wonderful Life with Matt's former roommate Tyler and his fiancé. The theater is beautiful and it was fun to spend the night with friends.

Christmas was then split between Montgomery, Wetumpka and Lake Martin. Here are a few pictures from our first Christmas together!

These first few pictures feature the first time EVER that our family has completely matched for our Christmas pajamas. Christmas PJs is a tradition in the Bradley family but to celebrate our welcoming of Matt into the family mom decided that it was time to go all out. 

We were very excited to get to facetime with our brother who is in East Asia serving the kingdom. We were sad that he wasn't able to be with us but were also very grateful for what technology can do!

Some family members then came down for Christmas dinner from Birmingham and we had a good time catching up with them that evening.

After Christmas Matt and I came back to Birmingham to work on our project list, relax and prepare for our next semester. That didn't stop us from counting down the New Year with some friends last night, and the clock cake was fun to make! (Also notice how much my brother stands out from his friends...)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Better Late than Never

My last post on the blog was August 13th... Life took over after that. This post will be an attempt to recap our first semester as teachers, life in Birmingham, family updates, Auburn excitement and a few other things that have kept us so busy the past few months. Buckle in, I'm going to try to hit all the high points!

Jobs:

We have them! This is such an answer to prayer and a reminder that God is faithful. On January 1 of last year Matt and I had yet to begin internships, let alone real jobs. We had no idea where we would be working or how the Lord would provide those jobs. He did and we are thankful. (My job just happens to include coaching 14 middle school cheerleaders).

Now that we got jobs out of the way, here's what has been keeping us busy in our free time.

1. ENGAGEMENTS

We were so excited to fly up to Bloomington, Indiana to celebrate with Matt's stepbrother Alex and his soon to be fiancé. Turner had no idea that we had followed her up there to celebrate Alex's birthday weekend with him. We love Turner dearly and are so excited to celebrate with them in May!

2. WEDDINGS

Kendall, Matt's cousin and my puzzle-loving soul sister, got to marry the man of her dreams at the end of August. We LOVED being part of their day and celebrating with them.

3. ENGAGEMENT PARTIES (& Awesome Festivals)

Matt and I also traveled to Dothan, Alabama one weekend to not only celebrate the engagement of one of my dear friends Katie and her fiancé Michael [Big Mike] but also to attend the Peanut Festival. The pictures below should demonstrate how much fun we had...(Roasted corn on a stick...enough said)

Aside from everyone we know getting engaged or married there were a few other things that happened.

1. Auburn's incredible season

Matt and I were very lucky to be able to attend many Auburn games during this amazing season, including traveling to Tennessee, being there for the "Miracle in Jordan-Hare" - Auburn vs. Georgia, being there for KICK BAMA KICK - Auburn vs. Alabama, and traveling to Atlanta for the SEC championship...

Our good friend Nate got to attend the Georgia game with us...

Ironbowl. KICK BAMA KICK. Storming of the field. Themed cupcakes :)

SEC Championship in Atlanta & seeing dear Katie

And you'll have to check back next week for a Pasadena update! 12 of us will be traveling to California this Saturday to cheer on the Tigers (and NOT roll the palm trees...)

Coming up in the next post: our first Holiday season as married people. The joy. The traveling. The joy.