We turned 30!

Despite my husband's emphasis on my turning 30, he actually turned 30 also this year, and only A FEW weeks after I did.

For my birthday:

Aaron tried to surprise with an early birthday present of stand up paddle boarding (which I've been wanting to do since the first time I heard about it), but the people he tried to arrange it with, never got back to him.  So we went to a horse race instead (unfortunately we lost those pictures in the water that destroyed Aaron's computer back in April.

We also stayed at one of the nicest hotels in the city....which was super nice (tv in English!!) until we woke up the next morning with Aaron's clothes soaked through because of a leak in the ceiling.

The night before that, though, we enjoyed a walk by the river, eating at one of my favorite restaurants, and having an Arrested Development marathon (since the new season had just been released).

the last picture of me in my twenties

In between my birthday and Aaron's birthday we went home to go to Isaac and Caroline's wedding!

One of our friends blessed us with buddy passes on Delta to fly home, and we ended up getting to sit in Business Elite on the long flight home!!

 In Business Elite, your seats fold down into beds, so I slept longer on that flight than I ever have before.

Thanks Lindsey!!

We came home for these two to get married.  The wedding was beautiful!

And then Aaron worked it out that we actually did get to go SUP, once we got to America.  And I think it was even better than the original plan, because we got to do it with almost all of his siblings.

Classy tanks.....and no Hannah's not really pregnant

And then again later with his parents and Josh!

At home we celebrated both of our birthdays with our families:

At the birthday party with my family it turns out I took more video than pictures...it involved a piñata, how could I not take video of that?

that's me dominating my brother in corn hole

with my grandparents

first time i've ever celebrated a birthday with july birthdays

At the end of our time at home, I surprised Aaron by letting him know that one of the other perks of the buddy passes that we received, was that on our way back to China we were stopping in Japan to hike Mt. Fuji to celebrate his birthday!

Pictures of Japan to come....

Stacy's mom has got it going on (It's true)

Happy Birthday to my beautiful Mom! (Belated post - her birthday was actually Sunday).

so 80's. so cute.

I love you and hope you had a great birthday!

A Christmas Tradition

As soon as we returned from our honeymoon in Greece,  I was ready to set up our Christmas decorations, and realized as most newlyweds figure out their first Christmas together that:
A) we had no christmas decorations

2) we had no christmas tree

and D) we had no money.  (home alone reference anyone?  and yes I've seen that at least once every year (most years multiple times) since it came out during my childhood)

Thankfully family gave us some of their old decorations and there was a Food Lion right down the street where we bought a $25 tree with our VIP card.

Our first Christmas together, Aaron gave me Home Alone.
It was the longest I went a Christmas season without watching Home Alone.
My previous Home Alone was on VHS and we had upgraded to a Blu-ray at this point.

Our first Christmas tree....also, I look like I'm in 9th grade in this picture.
No seriously, I wish I could post my yearbook picture.  you would agree.

Our first Christmas together.
Notice - no VHS capabilities.  It was a sad season until Christmas morning.

Anyway, that Christmas we decided to start a Christmas tradition of getting a new Christmas ornament every year, so we could slowly add ornaments to our Christmas tree.  So this year - this is what our tree looks like:

this year's tree

Here's a sample of some of our ornaments from the past 5 Christmases.  (the first two are MIA because I left them in America, afraid they would break or get lost over here).

2010's ornament.  I love this little guy.  He always makes me smile.

2011's ornaments, our first Christmas in China....we spent a lot of time on bikes and dodging electric scooters, so it seemed appropriate.

And the cloud ornament below is this year's ornament.  We bought them from a local artisan's guild here.  You see clouds like that in decoration (painted as trim on walls) all around the city.

I look forward every year to picking out a new ornament.

And here are some pictures from our previous Christmases together:

2008, Aaron's parents' house

This happened right after:

2009

I miss this house

2010, first Christmas in China

since we just moved into our house I didn't have much to decorate with
so I made one festive corner

2011

I'll be honest, I don't miss this house.

Summer continued: cookouts & the fourth of july

Uncle Chris and Aaron
Chris is literally grilling every type of meat you can imagine

turns out I only took pictures of Eliza and/or Davis
on the fourth

getting the camera set up

got it working....still an awkward angle
friends from Charlotte!  Thanks for the cookout Graham and Seth!

Other Summer photos: Giant Jenga

my cousins Sarah and Jessica and I dominated

meet the new Mrs. O'Hare

Virginia became a Mrs. and an aunt in the same day.  Welcome to the family!

Meet Davis

Meet our nephew, Davis Jamison Riddle - born June 30, 2012 the same day that his uncle Micah got married.

Just call me tia

Golden Birthday review

I turned 29 on the 29th of May.


This is the first birthday where I officially feel old - leaving my twenties in just a year.

To kick off the last year in my twenties, we decided to go big.


I woke up on the morning of my birthday to a collapsing tent under the weight of the snow from the storm the night before.  We kicked the snow off, ate breakfast, then set off for climbing a glacier.  It actually wasn't as hardcore as it sounds - I mean I didn't throw up like I did hiking Tiger Leaping Gorge (which according to our friend Jarred whether or not I am throwing up is his new litmus test for if something is hardcore).

We came back to the city a couple of days later, where Aaron and I got caught in a rain storm heading to one of my favorite restaurants to celebrate my birthday.....only to get there and discover it was closed.....so we had McDonald's for dinner instead.


The next night Aaron took me out on a date to the nice Italian restaurant he took me to for our anniversary.

AND then the next night he surprised me by taking me to the previously closed restaurant for a surprise dinner with some local friends.

It was a good birthday.  I think it's going to be a good year.

one year ago today

One year ago today, we arrived in China.  We arrived in China a year ago?!  How did a year already pass by??

We haven't done anything to remember this day - maybe I'll talk to Aaron and we can come up with some tradition.  It just so happens that we moved to China on St. Nicholas Day- so maybe we'll remember both at the same time and eat oranges, chocolate, and nuts, and set our shoes outside of the door.  Although, I suspect they will be gone in the morning, not filled with treats.

To celebrate our one year anniversary of living in China - here is a video of the mess it was to pack and store stuff, and some pictures of our farewells.


The video below is pretty boring and messy.  And I'm not sure if I thought zooming in would make some kind of huge impact or statement.  because it doesn't.  and it looks pretty lame.

an oversized truck for our goods

pizza after our friends helped us move out.  we miss y'all!

goodbyes at the airport.

And a video of Josh - because he's a cutie.

pilgrim days

Thanksgiving was great.  To kick off thanksgiving, Wednesday night we had a simple meal with some friends in the city. We ate bean soup and cornbread, instead of all of the casseroles that we're used to these days on Thanksgiving.  We all played the part of either a pilgrim or an indian.  Aaron revisited his pilgrim days, and I revisited my childhood of playing in the woods and finding arrowheads.

I'm welcoming them to the harvest

it was funny at the time, but now i'm not really sure what was going on in this picture

 Also, I realize that it is considered politically incorrect to call Native Americans, "Indians" AND where we live actual Indians, from India, more readily come to mind when I hear the word "Indians", but for some reason I could not talk about Thanksgiving without saying Indians.  It just kept slipping out.  It's like I was brainwashed as a child.  The mascot for my elementary school was "Indians."  The Waxhaw Indians.  It was awesome.  But not nearly as awesome as my high school mascot - the Rebels.  I think you see where I'm coming from now, and can understand why I can't seem to let go of Indians in the thanksgiving story.  Maybe if I had grown up going to the school of Native Waxhaw Americans, this would not have happened.


Thursday we got together with some of foreign friends in town for Thanksgiving dinner.  It was kind of like the first thanksgiving in that it involved people from different cultures coming together to thank God for our blessings (4 countries represented at our dinner), but this one involved a lot more butter.

pre-thanksgiving video watching

That's right we had football on the slingbox.  Thanksgiving was complete.

carving the turkey

post meal book reading by Victoria

enjoying the meal

Friday after Thanksgiving friends came to town, and we spent the next few days enjoying the western restaurants in our city, watching our friends play football (aaron's shoulder kept him out of the game), making barbecue, and just loving hanging out with them.  We'll get to see them again for Christmas.  They are literally like our family in China, we see them every couple of months and during the holidays.  This Thanksgiving, I am really thankful for them, knowing that these years of us all living in China are sweet years.

unfortunately I don't have pictures of two of the guys that go with these ladies
so the ladies will just have to represent all of them.  Also, look at that cute little guy.

It was a nice sunny day for football.  That's right.  That's the sun.
I took a picture of it, and I'm not blind.  We debated for a long time about
whether that was the sun or the moon.  Also, it's only that yellow in this picture
because i saturated the color when editing it.

the only guy, besides mine to make the pictures.  sorry guys.

"and I pray that someday, I can find me a redneck boy."
that mustache was my "early christmas present."

Christmas decorations!

barbecue!  smoking hickory chips on the grill.

We got a 5 kg pork shoulder for this barbecue.  We realized, a little to late, how important it is to let the butcher know you want the butt end of the shoulder - hence the term boston butt.  Our butcher didn't know american cuts, and I didn't tell him the butt end, so we ended up with the whole shoulder (the curve of the shoulder), taking away some of the meat I was expecting.  Last time we fed like 10 people with 5kgs of meat.  This time 5 kg didn't even satisfactorily feed 6 people.  Fail.  You live, you learn.  And apparently in China, I am learning a lot about butchery.