Busy busy busy....

It has been a busy two or three weeks! I apologize for my flaky blogging, I am trying! There is so much to tell...where to begin? Well, the weekend before Labor Day we flew up to Boston and met up with Jana, Ray, Mashelle, Nic and Rand. It was incredible! Neither Ryan or I had ever been to Boston so it was an awesome experience. We packed a lot into two days, but it was so fun. We got there late Friday night, so we just went to sleep when we got there, but didn't stop Saturday or Sunday. We started at Harvard and the Cambridge area. It was beautiful. We spent time walking around in Harvard's Museum of Natural History, it was wonderful! The rest of the weekend was filled with stops along the freedom trail, incredible food, and so much fun with Ray, Jana and Mashelle! Here are some of my favorite pictures from the weekend!

 Incredible lobster rolls

Fenway Park

 Ray found the ivy!

 Harvard

 Jana and Mashelle on the swan boat

 The Old North Church (where Paul Revere hung the lanterns)

The day after we got back from Boston, Ryan finally started school! He has been such a trooper at home cleaning and making dinner while I have been at work, so it was so exciting that he finally got to start doing his classwork and getting out of the house. It is nice finally getting in a rhythm of both working and him having class and homework.  He is working hard and loving his classes! 
Last weekend we went to Charlottesville, VA to the University of Virginia campus. Saturday, we went to the campus and walked around before the game and it was beautiful.  Many of the buildings on campus were designed by Thomas Jefferson, so it was amazing seeing all of those. The football stadium was beautiful and the fans were all so nice, we decided to adopt them as our team while we live here. It was nice being at a college football game since we can't be at Floyd Casey cheering on the Bears. The next day we headed over to Monticello, and spent the day wandering around there. It was incredible, and I highly recommend it. The grounds around the actual house were amazing! We walked around the garden for a long time looking at all of the vegetables and taking pictures for Granddaddy.  The house was also designed by Thomas Jefferson, and it was stunning. We fell in love with this area of Virginia, everywhere we went was just beautiful.

 Church on UVA Campus

 UVA has the second most collegiate secret societies (behind Yale) there signs can be found painted on campus

 Thomas Jefferson's Rotunda

 Patios on dorms surrounding the Lawn

 Inside the Rotunda

 A view of the Lawn from the Rotunda

 White Squash at Monticello (for Granddaddy)

 Monticello (look familiar? Its on the nickel!)

Honestly, I knew marriage was going to be great because I would get to be with my best friend and we would just love each other and all would be wonderful, but it has been so much better than I ever thought it was going to be. I love being married to Ryan, I love how much we laugh and how silly we can be. I love getting to start and end my day with him.  It is so incredible that I get to live every day with my best friend. I can't believe we have already lived here two months, it has gone by so quickly. But I guess time flies when you are having fun, and we are having so much fun! Today we started our kickball league. We play every Sunday on the National Mall in between the Washington Monument and WWII Memorial, life really doesn't get much better than this. We miss our families and friends so much, but we are so blessed to be here.  Now that we are in more of a rhythm with school and work, hopefully I will be better about the blog posts :)  But until next time, we love you all and miss you bunches...

Cheers!