Justin's 29th Birthday!

Last night, we had a birthday party for Justin! It was great! Lots of our friends came and I made some yummy goodies and, of course, his favorite cake in the shape of a Power T! Here are some pictures from the festivities!

Pictures of our "Decked Halls"

As promised, here are some pictures of our house all decorated for Christmas!!

1. Christmas Kitchen Towels!

The stockings were hung on the Ikea shelf with care...

Tree and Stockings and Garland! :)

Some cute decorations for the Kitchen counter! Cute Red Chargers have been added since!

Great Weekend!

Well, we had another fabulous weekend! We went to dinner with our friends Phil and Colleen on Friday night. We went to Ben's Next Door, which is owned by the same people who own the famous DC establishment, Ben's Chili Bowl. It was wonderful! We got some good southern favorites: fried chicken and shrimp and grits! Saturday we slept in and woke up to snow falling! It snowed just about all day Saturday. We went over to Phil and Stacy's to watch the SEC Championship game. We had a great time and ate some yummy chili. Saturday night we watched more football and just went to bed early! Sunday I went to church by myself because Justin had a big group project meeting. I helped with a welcome home pot luck for a family who'd been living in the Dominican Republic as missionaries for a year! It was great and we had a HUGE turnout! I got some errands done on Sunday afternoon and Justin and I capped off the weekend with watching "The Holiday." It's one of my favorite Christmas movies!!! Pictures of the house all decked out for Christmas will be posted this week, hopefully tomorrow! Tonight, Justin has school and Courtney is coming over so we can watch Christmas Vacation and The Victorias Secret Fashion Show that I recorded! :)

Decorating our First Christmas Tree Together! :)

Two nights ago, Justin and I decorated our first Christmas tree as a married couple! We had so much fun! We used all the ornaments we already had and added a few new special ones! We have one of the church we got married in that my Aunt Dannie gave us, one from Philadelphia (where we got engaged), and we hung our cake toppers up (Ramses and Smokey!) Here are some photos of us decorating!! First, our cake toppers from our wedding cake! Then, me putting the star on the tree and Justin putting the lights on the tree! It was so much fun!

Our first Thanksgiving!!

Le Left: Catie and I on the metro, Right: Our cute placecards that I made! Left below: Waters kids at the White House on Thanksgiving! Right below: Ashley and I with the feast we prepared! She's wearing my naked girl apron! :)

Our first Thanksgiving as husband and wife was absolutely FANTASTIC!!!! It was also my first Thanksgiving to host! I might have gone a little overboard with the planning, but I wanted to make sure everything turned out JUST right! Justin's Dad, Stepmom, Heath and Ashley, and Catie came to visit us! We had SO MUCH FUN! It was such a great weekend and we had a lot of fun family time. They got here really late Wednesday night and Heath and Ashley borught me a gift! It was the FOUR pack of the Vacation movies! I was thrilled!! Thursday morning we woke up and had waffles and bacon and country ham. Then we got started on the feast! Alice helped me get the Turkey ready and on the rotisserie and then we got to work! Justin, Mark, Alice, Heath and Catie all went to visit the monuments while Ashley and I finished the cooking. Everything was delicious!!! We had SO much food! After the feast, we all walked down to the White House and took some pictures and did some sightseeing. We came back home and settled on the couch to watch Christmas Vacation, mine and Heath's favorite! Then we played Dominoes til late and had a blast! Friday we did some shopping and more sightseeing and went to the National Harbor to see the big Christmas tree and some fireworks! We were going to Ice Skate but it was FREEZING! Saturday we did some more sightseeing complete with a Capital tour for Mark, Alice and Catie and then went to the Wizards-Bobcats game on Saturday night. They had to leave early Sunday morning and we were sad to see them go. I really love having family around. It was SO much fun! Can't wait til Christmas! :) There are a few pictures from our weekend!

Book Club Tonight, a broken camera and finally looking forward to a weekend at home!

So I'll start with a positive. I have Book Club tonight! YAY! I look forward to this each time we have it. We have a fabulous group of girls and we always have a BLAST at each book club meeting. It's truly a highlight of my month, each and every month. Ok, now the negative. Yesterday in my haste to get to work, since I was already late, I threw my soda into my purse thinking it was fine and sealed and all....WRONG! It exploded in my purse and the biggest victim was our camera. :( It has since turned on, but looks like night vision when you try to take pictures and only takes pictures that are a bunch of lines. SAD DAY! So, if it doesn't get better with time, the blog might be without pictures for a little while. We haven't decided about our route for getting a new one yet. I didn't absolutely love the one we had. I've seen other friends' cameras take MUCH better pictures, so maybe its our chance to get a better camera. After all, we are starting out on making a lifetime of memories together and I want to make sure they are captured! If you have any camera recommendations, let me know! Finally, we are actually staying at home this weekend!!!! I am thrilled! I'm taking Friday off and plan to sleep in and get a head start on getting ready for Thanksgiving. I'm just so glad to be spending a weekend home with my husband! We have a lot of house projects to work on, but being in our house together is going to be wonderful!

Tennessee Weekend!!

We had an absolute BLAST this weekend! We flew into Nashville at about 10 or so on Friday night. Donna picked us up at the airport and we went back to Tullahoma and went straight to bed! Saturday, we went to Shelbyville to have lunch with Grandmother and Aunt Alice. It was so good to see them and share our wedding pictures with them! There's a picture from our lunch trip. Then we went back to get all dressed up and went to Catie's piano recital. She was fantastic! We headed on over to George Dickel to take family pictures for Heath and Ashley's wedding reception. We went to Mark and Alice's house inbetween and I got to watch the UNC-Miami game, which was GREAT because we won! We went back out to George Dickel at 7 for the party. It was SO much fun! We had great food and the band was wonderful! There was a photo booth that we had a LOT of fun with as well. Hopefully those pictures will show up soon! On Sunday we got all packed up and went up to Nashville for the Titans-Bills game! It was so much fun! The Titans played great and it was a lot of fun to see how big of a jerk T.O. is in real life! All in all, fantastic weekend and the final of our 3 weekends in a row out of town. We are really looking forward to a lowkey weekend at home next weekend!!

Veteran's Day-CMA's

Yesterday was Veteran's Day. Because Justin works for the government, he had the day off! He took Rastus to get his second and final flu shot. (Two more than we got for ourselves, haha!) And worked on some projects at home. I got to leave work at 3 (YAY!) and went home to help him and enjoy a cold, rainy afternoon at home together. Unfortunately, he had school too. So, he went off to class and I watched the CMA's. I was SO pleased with them! Great performances and very funny! I loved all the references to the Taylor Swift/Kanye incident and I was THRILLED about all of Taylor Swift's awards! YAY! It's still VERY cold and VERY rainy here so we are looking forward to heading south to Tullahoma this weekend! We are excited about Heath and Ashley's Wedding Reception at George Dickel and going to the Titans game with Donald and Donna on Sunday! I'll let you know how all goes and post pictures when we return! Happy Thursday!

Cute New Blog Stuff!

Ok. I think I will be a LOT better about using this now that I know how to decorate it! It was driving me a little crazy how plain it was when I saw everyone else's look so cute! I've started reading other blogs and I'm really enjoying this blogging world! I've been reading McMama's blog about her and her four kids. She is really an amazing woman. You should check out her blog! It's on my list! Justin doesn't have school tonight so we are making homeade pizza and hopefully cleaning and organizing our house some more! I promise pictures when it is actually done and presentable. This is going to have to be before Thanksgiving because I'm hosting my first Thanksgiving!! I'm really excited! If you have any tips, please let me know! I think I've got everything planned out pretty well, so it should go fine. We don't have a lot of space, but that will make it more fun, I think! My bosses are gone for a conference this week, so work is going to be fairly slow. Other than that, just another great week with my fantastic husband!

Chapel Hill Homecoming Weekend!

So our second weekend in a row being out of town was spent in the Southern part of Heaven: Chapel Hill! We left DC around 2 on Friday and headed down to Raleigh for the night to visit our friend's Ryan and Martha. We went out to dinner with them to The Busy Bee in downtown Raleigh. It was DELICIOUS! I had a burger WITH a fried green tomato on top and Justin had Shrimp and Grits. Needless to say, we got our southern fix! Saturday morning we woke up early and Ryan and Martha fixed us a yummy breakfast. Then we were on our way to see the Heels play! We got to Chapel Hill and dropped Rastus off at Noah's Ark Kennel there and headed to get our parking spot. We went walking along Franklin Street and watched the homecoming parade! We tailgated with all of my friends in Granville and then went on down to Stadium Drive to finally tailgate with James and Bryan! They have a fabulous set up each week! The game was great! It had a bit of a slow start with a bunch of field goals, but the heels picked up the pace and kept the bell!! It was a lot of fun! On Sunday, we went to the Alumnae Brunch at my sorority house. It was so much fun bringing my husband to that! Brunch was delicious and it was great to see everyone! We made it home in time for me to cook one of the yummy meals I learned in cooking class: Seared Salmon with a Cucumber-Dill Sauce, Roasted Red Pepper Quinoa and Hummus and Pita Chips! YUM! All in all, GREAT WEEKEND! Off to Nashville next weekend!

Knoxville Weekend!

We left DC at lunch time on Friday to head down to Rocky Top! We got to Knoxville around 8 and went out with Megan for a fun Friday night. We met up with our friend Mary Alice at her sister's halloween party! Saturday we woke up and went to the store to get all of our supplies for Tailgating! Megan and I made a lovely spread! We tailgated by the ATO house and had a blast! The weather didn't cooperate too much but we had fun! We even got to see Smokey! The game was a lot of fun, minus the rain, and the Vols won!! Go Vols! The night's fun came to a screeching halt when Justin and I realized we lost our keys.

Sunday morning we called AAA bc we thought we might have locked them in the trunk. While the guy was having a REALLY hard time opening our door, I called the UT police just in case to see if someone had turned them in. Sure enough, good samaritans DO still exist and someone had found our keys!! We had a wonderful lunch at Calhoun's on the lake and then headed back to DC. All in all, Good Tennessee Weekend!!

Cord found! Pictures as Promised!

So, I found the camera usb cable! Here are some pictures from our past events. The first is the Waters family in Jamaica (For more jamaica pictures, visit my facebook page), then Justin and I at the National Symphony Orchestra, then Mrs. Phyllis and I dancing at Beni and Amanda's wedding, then Beni and Amanda as they left the church, and finally Justin and I at our One Month Wedding Anniversary celebration!

Missing Camera Cord

So I haven't posted in a while! Sorry! Currently, the usb cable for our camera is missing. So this post will be without pictures! I'll find it and put some pictures up soon!
Since we last posted, we've been having a BLAST! Our friends Beni and Amanda got married on October 3rd and their wedding was just beautiful! We got free tickets to see the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center from our friend Liz and that was fantastic!! And the biggest news here lately is that we went to Jamaica from October 15 through the 18th for Heath and Ashley's wedding!! Everything was just perfect! The weather down there was wonderful and the resort was so nice. The ceremony was beautiful and right on the beach. The weather cooperated long enough for them to get all the dances in and then the afternoon island storm came in! It was so much fun getting to be down there with all of our family. We really enjoyed ourselves. Other than those big events, we've been doing what we do best, watching football. It hasn't really been going well for any of our teams, but we are keeping the faith! I'm going to a cooking class tonight and Justin has to take an online exam. This weekend we are headed to Knoxville for the Tennessee/South Carolina game and the first of three out of town weekends in a ROW! :) Pictures to come, I promise!

First full weekend of Fall!

We had a great first full weekend of fall!!

Friday night we were lucky enough to go to dinner with our friends Steve and Janelle who were in town for Steve's work. We haven't seen them in so long so it was great! We went to Ted's Montana Grill and had a wonderful time.

Saturday we watched the first half of my game (which wasn't really worth it!) and then went to the Shalom House to host our annual fall party with the residents there. It was a great time! We played Uno and Bingo with the residents and had some great snacks! They always really enjoy us visiting and its nice to know that we can make a difference. Afterwards we went to Black Finn with Josh, Lori Beth and their friend that is living with them right now to eat dinner and watch the Tennessee game. That one was a bit more successful! There's some photos from Black Finn with Justin and I and with our friend Peter.

Sunday we went to Sunday school and then I rested for most of the day. I've been getting a little sick. Justin had a lot of school work and spent most of his day down at school working hard!

Happy Autumn!

We're Married!!!

Ok, so life got a LITTLE hectic right before, during and after our wedding. We are settling down as husband and wife now in our home together and I'm really going to be better about blogging, so please read!!

We had a FANTASTIC wedding and honeymoon. We were so glad that all of our friends and family were there to share our experience; it couldn't have been better!

Our house is coming along! We ordered some new furniture and things are slowly coming in and being put together. We are still working on finding a place for everything and getting some things hung up. Once it's done, I'll post pictures!

Justin has been VERY busy with school. It's not so fun for me him having to do work all the time, but he is working very hard and I'm very proud of him.

I've just been working and participating in a new book club I started! I really like it and the group of girls are fantastic! We really enjoy spending time together. I'm hosting the next meeting next Monday, followed by some Panthers MNF...if its even worth watching.

We've also gotten back into the swing of things at church. Our new Sunday School class has started and the church has started a program to read the Bible. Justin and I have been pretty slack on that, but we are hoping to catch up.

Of course, football season is here and that's really important to both of us! We've been watching all of our games and are excited about the rest of the season!

For those of you who haven't seen wedding pictures, the website is www.fortmillphotography.com, you need to click on online ordering, sarah and justin's wedding and then enter your email and the password is waters.

Happy Friday!!

Congressional Baseball Game!

Turner and I went to the 48th Annual Congressional Baseball game on Wednesday. It was so funny! It's a baseball game where congressmen and senators play against each other: Republicans versus Democrats. The Republicans had won the past 8 games in a row so we had high hopes, but it didn't turn out that way this year. The Democrats won 15-9. It's a lot of fun, the crowd gets really into the game and the congressman/senators have a great time. They do it to benefit The Washington Literacy Council.

James's Wedding and George Strait!

This past weekend we went to our friend James Mullings' wedding and then hurried to Bristow, VA for the George Strait concert! Julianne Hough and Blake Shelton performed as well! We had a wonderful time and used our new cornhole board for the first time! Justin grilled some great Turkey Burgers and we had a blast. It rained and stormed through King George's whole performance, but we still loved every minute of it! On Sunday, we had Integration and Involvement Day at church and I'm part of a team helping with this, so that was exciting! I also had a pool day with the girls for a goodbye to our friend Lauren who is moving to Kansas to go to KU lawschool. It was a great weekend!

The first of the catch up posts! NC Wedding Shower Weekend!

So I'm going to do a few posts and catch us up! The Weekend of June 5-7 we went back to North Carolina for two wedding showers and some wedding planning. We finalized the reception menu and I got my hair done and had bridal portraits! Our first wedding shower was Saturday night at Lisa, Carly and Christine's house. It was fantastic! It was a tailgate themed shower and the girls did an AMAZING job planning it. I'm one lucky gal to have bridesmaids like them! We played games, had BBQ (NORTH CAROLINA BBQ), got some wonderful gifts and just had a really great time!
Our Second Shower was a kitchen shower on Sunday afternoon thrown by my mom and Mrs. Surbeck. It was fabulous as well! We did have to squeeze in church and lunch at Jackson's beforehand though! We were so lucky that Justin's Dad, Stepmom, and two sisters could come in for the weekend!
Pictures to come of the weekend!! :) It was fabulous!

Another great weekend and our first wedding shower!

Well, as usual, we had another fantastic weekend!

Friday night, Justin took me to pick up my wedding dress. It was SO pretty and made me EVEN more excited! Then we went to our friend James's engagement party at our friends' Jeff and Gretchen Davis's house. It was fabulous! Good times with friends!

Saturday, my friend Courtney and I went to get manicures and pedicures then layed out by the pool! Saturday afternoon, Justin, Turner and I went to our friend Amanda's graduation cookout! We all had a blast!

Sunday we went to church and Justin led communion for the first time!! He did a GREAT job and I was very proud of him! After church we had our quarterly young adult potluck! After that it was time for our first wedding shower! The ladies at the church threw a wonderful shower and we got so many wonderful things!!

The pictures are from us riding the metro back from the cookout and the wedding shower!

Wassermans in DC!

Last night, we went out to dinner with my Aunt Rebekah, Uncle Mark and cousins, Jared and Aaron. We went to a Tapas place called Jaleo. We all had a great time and it was so fun to see them! We don't get to see them too often, so it was certainly a special treat. Aunt Rebekah, Jared and Aaron are up here with Uncle Mark this week while he works and has a few events to go to. After our dinner, they had to rush to a West Wing White House Tour!!! We hope to get to see them again while they are up here!

Memorial Day Weekend!

We had a fantastic Memorial Day Weekend! Friday night we went to dinner with our friend, Amanda Buckner, to Carlyle in Shirlington. It was fabulous! While we were waiting on her, we went to a little wine tasting presented by the maker of these wonderful Austrian wines!

Saturday we helped our friends the Marker's move to their new house and then hit the road to Annapolis with the Jeep top down! We went to Sandy Point Park in Annapolis to the "beach" there. It was great! We laid on the beach and played tailgate golf! We then returned to DC because my brother, Turner had finally arrived to live here for the summer! We went to the Nationals/Orioles game. Of course, the Nationals lost, but we had a great time!

Sunday we took my brother to our church and ran some errands.

Monday we had a Memorial Day picnic in Upton Hill park with our small group from church. We used our NEW gas grill we got from Justin's Dad, Alice and Catie for Christmas. It was a lot of fun and great to see everyone! Monday night we went to dinner for our friend Tafanie's birthday in Old Town.

All in all, a fantastic weekend! We are so glad to have Turner in town!

Justin gets a CEO Award!

I know that I should be better about posting on this, and I will be (It's my half year resolution!) I figured it was a great time to start posting again because Justin received his CEO Award for Volunteerism and Community Service!

Last night, we attended Alion's Annual CEO Awards Dinner because Justin was the recipient of the Volunteerism and Community Service Award! Two people out of his ENTIRE company of about 3,400 were presented with this award! We were seated at the front table and were joined by a handful of retired generals, including the head of Justin's contract and the Deputy Head of his contract! It was a lot of fun and a yummy dinner! :)

We are VERY proud of him! Here's a picture of him and me and his beautiful award!

Our New Blog!!

Hello Family and Friends!!!

Since Justin and I will be starting our new life together in just a little over four months, I figured I would start a blog to keep folks up to date on our lives.

This will keep everyone up to date on wedding preparations and just our lives in general!

We're excited to share this with everyone, and hopefully we will do a good job with updating it!