February....

February doesn't seem to be all that exciting of a month....don't get me wrong, we have done quite a bit, but February is the time when I start longing for spring. Last week gave us a small glimpse into the not to distant future with a 68 degree day. It was so wonderful! We took Belle on her first long walk on Kelly Drive (she did so well, we are such proud parents, haha) and I even put the windows down in my car! HOW AMAZING! Unfortunately it was short lived as ridiculous winds led to cold days as well as another round of snow last night that brought 6 inches of snow. Anymore 6 inches seems like nothing around here....crazy.

Like I said, not much seems to happen in February. Dan and I don't even really celebrate Valentine's Day, so that isn't a huge event for us in February. We did however have the wonderful opportunity to rekindle our love during Valentine's weekend at a marriage seminar called The Art of Marriage. It is from an organization called FamilyLife and it was a 6 session video event on different aspects of marriage. Dan was completely skeptical of this event and didn't see why it was necessary. He pictured an old guy up on stage talking about marriage for hours and he thought we would have meet in small groups and talk about our feelings, haha. Well luckily it was nothing like that! It was so wonderful! We learned so much about each other and our marriage. It was very refreshing to be able to take some time out of life and really strengthen our marriage. We have a new perspective of not only our marriage but how we both fit into it. I could go on forever about how great it was.....but I will spare you. Don't think you have to have issues in your marriage to go to something like this. My parents have been married for 30 years this year and got a lot out of it too. We HIGHLY recommend this event for newlyweds or even engaged couples. It is a great way to start your marriage off on the right foot!

Other than that we have been hanging out and living life. I am in the thick of rehearsals for shows in March and April. Dan has been working a lot of overtime, including Saturday's. We had the chance to have my old roomies over to our house for brunch (we missed Jenna though as she was sick...booo). We are still attending Grace Church and are learning a lot. Dan got a new motorcycle, so he is heaven, haha. What can I say, life is good here in South Philly!

Wishful Thinking

As you can see I have changed the background image of our blog because we are WISHING for summer right now. We are SO OVER the snow! Here are some images of our latest round of snow:

We finally saw black top on Tasker on Saturday afternoon when they did a complete plow....and plowed my car in again. However, most streets are full of icy bumps and Woodstock still has quite a few inches down the entire street. And of course there is word that there might be yet another round of snow/ice coming our way. If it snows again, I don't know where we are going to put it!!! Unfortunately it's only the end of January and we still have a good bit of winter to go...ugh!!!


Other than dealing with snow nothing else is really new. We have a very full week ahead with a few activites, so we will have more to blog about next week!

New People in a New Year

As we relaxed most of the weekend we realized that this was the first weekend that we had actually spent entirely at our house since Thanksgiving. It is amazing how insane the holiday's can be and how every weekend was some sort of family gathering pulling us from Philly. Don't get us wrong, we love our families and made some really great memories, but what a relief to just hang out at home as the 2 of us (uh...4 of us). We also realized how much we have neglected a thorough cleaning of our house as well. But that is not exciting, so we will talk about the "new" people in our life this weekend.

One thing Dan and I really want to do is make new friends, haha. We love the friends that we have, but in a city as big as this one, we need to get out and meet more people as well as get to know our current friends even better. Well, no time like the present! Friday night after hanging out with 2 philly cops after our car had been sideswiped (a whole other story unto itself) we drove only 7 blocks to hang out with our friends Amaryah and Dave. After checking out their amazingly renovated new place, we took off to Northern Liberties and North Bowl.

If you like to bowl, this is one of the neatest places to go in the area. Of course you need to get there early because there is ALWAYS a ridiculous wait time. Luckily they have delicious food (tater tots!) to keep you waiting. The four of us enjoyed some dinner (tater tots!) and drinks and actually didn't end up bowling at all. But the atmosphere is really great and we had a wonderful time chatting it up. We highly recommend North Bowl (and their tater tots!) to any bowlers or even non-bowlers!

Saturday after Chris' first rehearsal with 180 Dance Company, we took off to our friend Jed's place to celebrate Genevieve's birthday. We got to meet 2 other couples and play lots of Apples to Apples until late in the night. Lots of great conversation was had and we were all entertained by the one couples beautiful baby girl. Although as Dan mentioned, "hanging out with married people, there is A LOT of talk about babies, I am not sure if I can take it!". So sorry, but no babies here for a while. :)

After our mega cleaning on Sunday we drove over to West Philadelphia to attend a service at Grace Church. It was so encouraging to meet people right away who were genuinly excited to meet us. It was a great service and we are definitely going to go back again next weekend. It is so exciting to see people of ALL ages and ALL races worshiping together. There were lots of young couples (yay for new friends!) that we hope to get to know. Plus as Dan said "they have a motorcyle men's group and dinner after church each Sunday, this gets better and better." But really it was a great message and they are really into service in the community (which is a big plus in Chris' opinion). We are definitely excited to go back.

So lots of new people (and getting to know other friends) this weekend. We feel the need more and more to meet other people in this great city and make it our "home". And remember, if you ever want to come bowling, we're ready for ya!