Welcome! Y'all, I am having such a hard time believing that this year has come and gone so quickly. Yesterday I posted 2012: A Year in Review. It was so surreal to look back on all that has happened. 2012 was a great year, but I have a hopeful heart for all that 2013 may bring. This time last year we were putting the final touches on wedding plans and trying to decide what we wanted to do about our living situation once we were married. I was still attending LSU and living in Baton Rouge. Tony was starting his last semester at Alabama and living in Tuscaloosa. While we wanted a home terribly bad, we decided to consider all of our options.
From our August 2011 engagement, to finalizing wedding plans, my move home to Alabama, transferring from LSU to UAB, Tony's college graduation, job acceptance, our wedding, honeymoon, and newlywed life-- this year has definitely been one to remember in so many wonderful ways. I hope you will take a moment to remember all of the wonderful moments from this year, as well. I know that I will take a lot from all that I have learned from this year into 2013, both good and bad.
If you are new to the blog you probably do not know that I am one who makes a big deal about firsts. Since our wedding year has come to a close I thought I would do a post dedicated to the end of our engagement journey and our "year of firsts" (this being Part #1, 6 months of Newlywed Life) including birthdays, holidays, and a few other photo shots of everything in between.
Although Tony and I were able to spend a lot of time together this year, sometimes our memory of certain events become fuzzy because we are always so busy. Also, even though I take an extreme amount of photos, I love to look back on the stories associated with each event that I blog about. I hope this post will help us look back on all this year encompassed when trying to remember what all we actually shared together during the first 6 months as Mr. and Mrs. Randolph. I plan to add to this post in June for the remaining 6 months of our first year!
I am going to start with January. Since I started this blog in July, I will add posts that may associate with each event. If you feel a bit lost when reading a certain blurb associated with each set of photos feel free to click on the colored text. I am going to associate many previous posts to this post to make it easy to find certain stories that I have shared. I hope you all will enjoy reading as much as I enjoy blogging the contents of this post! :)
Enjoy and happy reading! Let's get this blog party started with a recap of Engagement Journey in August 2011! Of course our Destin Engagement kicked off the year 2012 with a bang!
Welcome to our year in review!
January 2012
While long distance dating, Tony and I typically would plan to spend Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve with each other. Normally, I would travel to him for Thanksgiving and he would travel to me for New Year's. We would spend Christmas with our families.
However, our friends, Joseph and Kinsley got married on New Year's Eve. It was a great day and truly helped to bring in 2012 without wedding planning on our minds. We enjoyed spending the day with many friends and family. My handsome man was a groomsmen. Then, for our wedding, Joseph, Tony's childhood friend, was a groomsmen in our wedding party.
Of course we were bound and determined to travel, yet again, to celebrate for the National Championship Game in Tuscaloosa together. We had dinner with a bunch of Tony's friends. Of course as many of you already know, LSU was dominated by Alabama.
I know I look like a confused fan in the photos below! Tony and I made a deal that if Alabama won we would go out and buy a 2011 National Championship shirt that I had to wear. Well, I figured I better make the most of it. I ended up saying screw a t-shirt, I want the most expensive, cutest sweatshirt that we could find. Touche? :)
February 2012
By the end of February we were so so exhausted from the hustle and bustle of wedding planning. We actually were finished with everything and had only reminders to send out to vendors and our wedding party this month.
During one of Alabama's long weekends Tony decided to come visit. We drove from Baton Rouge to Biloxi to spend one day at the beach and the evening at the Hard Rock casino. This was our first casino experience since we were both of age. We only played a few slot machines. We mainly walked around a good bit and took in the atmosphere. We actually were also able to meet a bunch of our Birmingham friends for dinner which was all the more fun, too!
March 2012
For LSU's Mardi Gras break I spent the week in Tuscaloosa finalizing last minute things for the wedding. It was a good trip to just get away from Baton Rouge for a few days to settle down. You certainly do not have that as an option during one of the most celebrated holidays while in Baton Rouge.
I did come home in time to catch one parade with my best friend, Laura, and our families. I am sad to say, it was my first and only Baton Rouge Mardi Gras parade to ever attend. Oddly, I have no desire to attend another. I think it just was not my thing. I am more accustom to my mother's hometown parade in Bogalusa, Louisiana, which is extremely hard to top!
In March, my sister was dismissed from the hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tony traveled down to Baton Rouge to be with me and we welcomed Mary Kathryn home in style. We decorated the house yard to the nines!
My grandmother came to visit the following week to help out around our home and stay with my sister some, as she was not allowed to go back to school immediately. We took one night to get out of the house and go to a past time LSU favorite, the LSU vs. Alabama Gym Meet.
During this month we also celebrated Miss Mary Kathryn becoming a TEENAGER on St. Patrick's day. Tony was on Spring Break and was able to come down for the week. Mary Kathryn invited a few friends to come over for a slumber party the night before her birthday. We went to the parade, Mellow Mushroom, and then ended the day at Z-Fest, a local fair. It was an enjoyable weekend with family and friends. We were all tired and totally sunburned come Monday morning!
April 2012
Ah, the month of April kicked off all of our wedding festivities. We starting this month with our first shower, a Handy Man Tool and Garden Shower, hosted by church friends. At the time, we did not know if we were going to be closing on a home or living in an apartment. We received many wonderful gifts. Some we are currently using and other have been stored until we have a yard!
The next shower was hosted by my Baton Rouge Bridesmaids. The girls in the photos below are some of the most wonderful friends I have ever had. Meeting friends in college is much different from growing up with friends and knowing them your entire life. I adore each and every one of the ladies below. I am so thankful to have met girls that will like you for you, not for what you bring to the table. It was such a blessing to be showeredd by those I love dearly. These are beautiful friends inside and out, that I miss dearly.
I was able to spend my Spring Break in Alabama visiting Tony. We spent a good bit of time in Birmingham looking at homes and apartments. He had already accepted a job the year before his senior year at Bama so we knew where he would be working. We just did not know where we would live.
This is the month that we decided to wait on buying home. We actually ended up finding an area that we wanted to live in and signed our first apartment lease together towards the end of the month.
Then, we ended the week of LSU Spring Break with family and celebrated our first Easter together. This month was a bit surreal, overwhelming, and tiring to say the least. All around, April was a good month. I think I spent more time on the road traveling than I did at my own home!
May 2012
We started the month of May with Tony's graduation the first weekend. I think Tony's mom and I were more excited about his graduation than he was! Within five years, Tony Harper completed a cooperative extension program with Southern Company, accepted a job after four years of working, and graduated with an Electrical Engineering Degree and a Math Minor from The University of Alabama. Proud is an understatement. I was elated for him, and still am.
LSU finals followed the second weekend of May. I actually had a final the morning of Saturday, May 12. When I got home from my final, the Randolph family had traveled to our home in Louisiana to help me move the last bit of my personal items and furniture to Birmingham since I could not fit it all in my car. Tony had just had his tonsils removed the week before. So, we ended up living in Butler for the next two weeks until Jordan, Tony's younger brother's, high school graduation.
While Tony was out of commission after his tonsil surgery we moved in the rest of our furniture into our apartment. We ordered new furniture, too. I took a few days to move him out of his Tuscaloosa apartment and while in town had Bridal portraits done.
He started working as a full time employee the last week in May and I stayed in our hometown to finish a few last minute DIY projects. It seemed like just about every other day I was traveling somewhere to meet someone in either Meridian, Thomasville, or Monroeville to make finalizations or adjustments for the wedding.
We ended this month with Bachelor and Bachelorette parties. The guys went to Destin for Memorial Day Weekend. My long time friend and bridesmaid, Codi, hosted my Bachelorette Party the same weekend. I was able to slow down for a weekend to visit with old friends before kicking off wedding month. It was great to reunite with old friends before all the wedding craze became overwhelming.
June 2012
And I thought May felt like a tornado, June felt like a hurricane. We had a shower every weekend in June. We celebrated everything from our Wedding Party, Bridal Luncheon, and a Bridal Tea with my church family. As if May was not busy enough, all of our showers had to be planned in June since May was full of graduations and moving.
Also, we had a wedding to attend every Saturday in June until the weekend of our wedding. To make things even more exciting, Tony was a groomsmen in one of the weddings. The groom was actually a guy that Tony had graduated with from UA. The two guys attended Shelton and Bama together. Today, we enjoy getting together with Michael and Savannah as often as possible, even though they are living in Tennessee now.
Then there was our wedding and honeymoon. Needless to say, after our wedding our honeymoon could not have come at a more opportune time. It was very needed and worth every single minute!
If you would like to read more about our wedding, pictures and details can be found in the Wedding Wednesday series. The larger photos below are a few I pulled from Instagram.
I plan to post on our Honeymoon at a later date. More photos and all that we experienced will be included in that post! Hopefully, it will go live later this week! :)
July 2012
Here I will begin adding post links from past blog posts that are associated with photos. I started this blog July 26, 2012. I only posted three times that month. You can see those and my welcome post if you would like by Clicking HERE.
We celebrated our first 4th of July the weekend we arrived home from our honeymoon. We were so exhausted from the two plane rides and weather delays that we did absolutely nothing all day. I think we attempted to unpack our luggage, wedding gifts, and decor but I do not recall us getting very far. If I remember correctly, we ended up at the pool all afternoon and went out for dinner.
August 2012
Tony Harper's 24th Birthday was in August. I blogged about Seasons of Change we were experiencing in this post. I made my first ever red velvet cake for him (his favorite) from Pioneer Woman's recipe book that we received as a wedding gift. I blogged a good bit about baking his cake HERE. It was a complete and total disaster. I hated it so much! He was actually sick, but we made the best of the weekend and my terrible cake. Once he felt better we met his parents and brother to eat dinner at Kobe.
September 2012
We celebrated our first married Labor Day by hosting lunch at our home for friends and family. This was the first time that many of our closest relatives and friends had seen us since the wedding and had seen our new little home. This was the first time since we had been home that we were able to truly spend time with everyone without the hustle and bustle of pre or post wedding events. It was nice to slow down and enjoy our down time.
In September we celebrated seven years together on September 22! Here is the post I blogged on our Seven Years of Love.
My 22nd Birthday was in September, too. Tony and I ate dinner at Outback and played with the new iPhone 5. See those awesome gifts my husband bought me? Specifically, that Icee and those Krispy Kreme? The man I married knows me so well! Those two items are the BEST birthday gifts I girl could get. Who needs an expensive watch or purse from when you can have the desires of your heart for truly less? True love, folks. :)
We tailgated for most of the home Alabama football games during the 2012 season with family and friends. In the photo on the left, we are at the Alabama vs. FL Atlantic game in late September.
October 2012
On the right, we are at the Alabama Homecoming game in late October. In THIS POST I blogged about 'Dominating The Tailgate"
The month of October was fairly interesting. Since we are new at everything, we are learning A LOT. I blogged about celebrating our First Halloween HERE. Being the planner that I am, we decided to carve our pumpkin a little too early for Halloween and learned that it could/would rot in most cases. We went out of town for the weekend and came home to pumpkin leakage all over our floor. It was a lovely mess. Lesson learned- Sometimes planning ahead comes back to bite you in the butt.
November 2012
We accomplished a lot during the month of November! The Birmingham Fall Foliage was stunning, I recalled Saying Yes To The Dress one year ago, we became registered voters in our new county (and my new state) and voted on Election Day!
This was Tony's first election to participate in and my third. While we were signing in at the check in table the ladies working the polls had a great time quizzing us on newlywed life.
Needless to say, we enjoyed exercising our freedom to vote together. It was pure joy for me to be representing the very state that made me who I am. I love living in my "home" state again. :)
We also started a new tradition and purchased our first Christmas tree from Lazy Acres Christmas Tree Farm. You can read the blog above for more on our hunt for the perfect, first tree! Also, we started new traditions when decorating our little home for Christmas. You can tour our home and see our Christmas decorations and tree by reading THIS POST, It's Christmas Time.
Also, I started the series Friday Favorites this month! Check them out for all that changed week by week.
Finally, I started the Wedding Wednesday Series. If you are a Bride planning a wedding you should read up on all things wedding planning! In case you missed the other Wedding Wednesday posts:
1) Decor (Reception and Ceremony) Click Here
2) Flowers Click HERE
2) Flowers Click HERE
3) Reception Food and Cakes (Click Here)
4) Photographer Click Here
5) Make-up/Hair Click Here
December 2012
We attended our first professional Christmas Dinner for IEEE. I blogged about this first experience in THIS POST, Midweek Randoms. We had a wonderful time joining with members of IEEE from the area. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner and professional piano entertainment. I was finally able to meet a few people from Tony's office which was great, too. Although we were the minority in relation to age, it was an entertaining night.
Our first Christmas was spent splitting time between my Louisiana family and Tony's Alabama family. I know I keep saying that I plan to catch everyone up on our first Christmas soon. I promise, I truly am planning to give you all the inside scoop! Yesterday we celebrated our last Christmas with the last few people in Tony's family. I want this post to be great, not just good. So, it is just taking me a while to separate and organize all of our photos. That post will come soon, possibly the end of this week!!
Stay tuned in! The photos below are a few that I pulled from Instagram as a mini recap. More photos are coming soon!
Lastly, if you are a regular you may already know that we are expanding! I announced this bit of good news earlier this month. If you would like to read more on the blog expansions within the next few weeks, you can access the link by Clicking HERE. I am so thankful for the platform the Lord has provided for me through this blog. If you did not know, the blog is now accessible through Facebook! Click Here to access the Facebook page. You will need to log in, then hit "Like" in order to read the posts. A new look and much more is coming in 2013 for Love.Laughter.Happily Ever After!
Thinking it all over and THANK YOU!
As I come back to my little corner of the Internet that I have built and thoroughly enjoyed since July, I feel as though we were just getting married and planning to leave for our honeymoon! Man, time is flying! Hopefully, time will slow down or I will continue to blog even more in order to remember exactly everything that we are experiencing.
Embracing the blog world head first has been such an enjoyable experience for me. I think many people thought I was crazy for sharing our lives as my "electronic journal" on the Internet at first. But now, I am so thankful to have it to look back on since we have been married. I can only imagine where we will end up in the future and I look forward to blogging each step of the way.
HUGE thank you to everyone who has had a lasting impact on our lives in the past year. We owe a lot to our parents, families, and close friends. Our wedding would have not been possible without those from our hometown or churches that we grew up in. We are tremendously thankful for each and every person who has helped us get to a good start in our marriage.
Thinking it all over and THANK YOU!
As I come back to my little corner of the Internet that I have built and thoroughly enjoyed since July, I feel as though we were just getting married and planning to leave for our honeymoon! Man, time is flying! Hopefully, time will slow down or I will continue to blog even more in order to remember exactly everything that we are experiencing.
Embracing the blog world head first has been such an enjoyable experience for me. I think many people thought I was crazy for sharing our lives as my "electronic journal" on the Internet at first. But now, I am so thankful to have it to look back on since we have been married. I can only imagine where we will end up in the future and I look forward to blogging each step of the way.
HUGE thank you to everyone who has had a lasting impact on our lives in the past year. We owe a lot to our parents, families, and close friends. Our wedding would have not been possible without those from our hometown or churches that we grew up in. We are tremendously thankful for each and every person who has helped us get to a good start in our marriage.
Thank you so much to everyone who is so faithful to read each day! I am truly grateful and full of awe for those who dedicate their time to read a little blurb of our lives each day. I hope to continue to use this platform in a positive manner. I hope to continue to bring awareness to my Jesus and let Him shine though me. And, finally, I hope that you will continue to read and be as inspired as I am by life and love each day. Love to you all, near and far. Until next year (or, tomorrow)!
As always, until next time- Happy Blogging!
As always, until next time- Happy Blogging!
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