2013 in Review

January 

- Rang in 2013 with the Kauffmans

- Lindsay spent a weekend in DC and Northern VA with Emily and Jillian

- We went to Taco Bell for our yearly trip

February

- We lived in Cleveland for six months

- We celebrated Valentine's Day

 March

- We went to to Pennsylvania for Spring Break

- I turned 24

- We celebrated random days

- We celebrated Easter (wasn't it strange that it was in March?)

April

- Not much happened. There was a warm day and we took this picture but beyond that there was a ton of snow.

May

- We had a fun Cinco de Mayo with friends

- We went to our first Cleveland Indians game

- We endured the Great Passport Fiasco of 2013

- We celebrated three years of marriage

June

- We went to Port Clinton, Ohio for our backup anniversary trip

- We went to Niagara Falls

- We attended a couple of weddings

July

- We celebrated the 4th of July

- We met the cat that has since tried to adopt us 

- Mom and Dad visited us

August

- We drove to Beaufort to surprise my dad for his 50th birthday party

- We had lived in Cleveland for one year

- Four years since we got engaged

- Carson went to a Browns game

 September

- We moved our bedroom downstairs

- We visited Amish Country

- We went to the Drive-In 

- I visited Beaufort again

- We had Poison Oak and wanted to die

- We went to Grand Rapids

October

- Carson visited Princeton and Yale

- It snowed for the first time

- We made a snowman

- We went to the Arboretum

- We went to a corn maze with our Community Group

- Carson was an astronaut for Halloween and I was a fairy

November

- We decorated for Christmas

- We met up with the Bennetts in Columbus

- We hosted Friendsgiving for our Community Group

- Traveled to Beaufort for Thanksgiving

December

- Community Group White Elephant

- We explored the city

- Traveled to Pennsylvania for Christmas

- Carson turned 27

- We celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve
- We traveled to Pennsylvania 

We traveled quite a bit:

New England

Washington, DC

Port Clinton

Niagara Falls

Beaufort (three times!)

Grand Rapids
Pennsylvania (two times!)

We crossed some things off our Cleveland list, including:

Indians Game

Browns game
 Amish Country

Metroparks

Melt

Arboretum

Explore Downtown

Highlights for us were:
Trips we took
A great first year (and first semester of second year) for Carson's grad school
Starting a community group
Seeing family several times this year!
Getting more involved in our church community 

Pennsylvania Christmas

We headed over to Pennsylvania after I worked on Christmas Day. It was a six hour drive (it's shorter if you take the toll roads but we are not about that) to the Lancaster area where Carson's brother lives. 

We spent Wednesday-Sunday there, spending lots of time with our five beautiful and hilarious and incredibly energetic nieces. Carson and Trent did some brother bonding over manly movies, Checkers and shooting little girls with Nerf guns. Erin and I did some sister bonding over shopping, which included great deals and a lot of walking. We worked in a trip to the park, a first birthday party, a ceremonial taking-down-of-the-Christmas-tree and several cases of flu-like sickness (now a Bay Family tradition - we all got a 24-hour bug when we visited for Christmas 2 years ago, but that bug was way worse). It was a fun little trip, crazy to see how much the girls have grown since our last visit (too long ago - March), and to think about how nice it will be to get together again once we're all warm and well. 

Now, pictures.

Chagrin Falls Christmas

The Sunday after Carson's birthday, we got the chance to hang out with some great friends. After church, we met the Storey family for lunch at Melt. After a couple hours of conversation there, we divided and then headed into Chagrin Falls. For Carson's birthday last year, we went to see the Hobbit with John and Rachel, so to keep tradition going, I invited John and Rachel, and Heather and Evan to join us, plus Evan and Rachel's brother Elliot. We ladies ditched the guys (I didn't like the books and really didn't like the last movie) and saw Saving Mr. Banks instead, the movie about the making of Mary Poppins. I'd say we made the best choice. It was a GREAT movie.

 The Hobbit was 45 minutes longer than ours so we took this excellent picture in the movie theater lobby and then went into Chagrin Falls.

It's lovely this time of year.

The guys met up with us after getting drinks at Starbucks. I took this picture of them through the window.

Our Christmas 2013

I worked Christmas morning and then we hit the road, so we decided to have our Christmas at home the day before. Carson (okay mostly Carson) was dying to open gifts, so we opened a few that were sent to us on Christmas Eve-Eve, which was Christmas Eve for us (confused?). I made Carson take a picture in front of the tree which resulted in a lot of ridiculous Carson moves.

And I know, lots of gifts. The mail this year was insane. Plus some of those are ready to go for other people. And the star on the tree will not point straight. It has attitude.

We opened our gifts from Granddaddy and Grandmama.

Carson modeled, and I told him people would see these pictures, but he didn't care (he LOVES the sweatshirt - thank you!)

After I got off work on Christmas Eve, we had real Christmas. We wear PJs to open gifts on Christmas, so I threw those on (I opened, so I was all too glad to be comfy) and took the "Christmas morning" picture.

We started with stockings.

Friends of ours gave us the Costco sized thing of Pellegrinos, so we are set for probably the next three days, because Carson loves special drinks :)

I got the Sperrys I'd been eyeing

And a warm headband! And warm scarves! (Oh, it was 17 degrees this day)

Carson got the perfect cookie cutters for next year's cookies

And a neat car thing that he instantly loved but I didn't really understand.

While I enjoyed the wonder of new sweaters

And this was the millionth picture Carson took. He takes ten in a row, so there are a lot with me making my "STOP IT" face.

For months, Carson's complained that my aprons are too girly for him (but more than that, they are ridiculously tiny on him), so I mentioned that to my mom and she made him this. And he loved it.

I saved Carson's helicopter for last. And he loved it like I expected but I forgot to buy batteries because I thought you just charged it. Oops.

I also got him the same slippers we got my dad. He loved them and wanted/needed some so now they can match.

We got so spoiled this year! So many fun things, new clothes, neat things to do and watch (A Christmas Story!?) together! Merry Christmas!