Pictorial Year End Review

It's that time of year when we all get a little reflective about our lives. I think that is part of what makes this time of year so magical. Some people go through post-holiday depression, but I never have. I love the week between Christmas and New Year's Day. I love the feeling of looking both behind and ahead. I love being slighty reminiscent of the wonderful things that have made me smile throughout the year. I also love the anticipation of looking ahead toward the things that have yet to make me smile. I was blessed during 2009 with a lot of things to smile about. Here are some of my favs...

These pictures were taken about 6 months prior to our wedding.  I love how our happiness and the eager anticipation we felt toward our upcoming nuptials is so obvious in these.

Plus, I just adore the backdrop of our downtown area. 

Here's my little guy on the edge of our boat.  Our dogs are like our children (if you hadn't noticed) and, we love to spend time on the water.  So, being on the lake with them this summer brought us many days of joy.  Plus, I like this picture because he looks like he's smiling back at me.

The day of our wedding is a fairy tale moment in my life that I will always cherish.  We decided to see each other before the ceremony to take some pictures and just be together for a few moments.  Here, I am walking toward him with his back turned to me and we are about to see each other for the first time in our wedding attire.  Thanks to Elizabeth Taylor and her beautiful home, The Woodward, for making our day perfect.

This next string of photos is probably some of my all time favorite.  Two weeks after our wedding, my parents hosted a reception for us in my hometown.  What I didn't know is that my three best friends, and attendants in the wedding, spent the night after our wedding planning a surprise for me.  My two out-of-town friends, one in Kansas and one in Maryland, flew to North Carolina for the weekend to surprise me, and all this was made possible by the one that lived in NC.  The pictures you are about to see perfectly captured the immense joy and excitement I felt (plus, some jumping and screaming) when I realized they were there.  A huge thank you to my friend Amy Kelly for doing an amazing job capturing this moment, as well as the rest of the evening. 

Those are extremely candid shots that I will always love. I was and still am truly touched that they made the trip on such short notice and that my BFF in NC was gracious enough to open her home for them to have somewhere to stay.  I have some of the greatest friends and family that any one girl could ask for and I love them more than they know.

To sum up, I'll leave you with this shot.  I took this photo from the balcony of our room on our honeymoon cruise.  We would sit on the balcony every afternoon and watch the sunset as the ship pulled away from the port.  We were so relaxed and happy that week.  Here's to another year full of memories like these.