Hey, friends

Sorry I have been so quiet on the bloggity lately! I have been a busy, busy girl! I started my new phase of my internship, and I am rarely in the office (err... not that I EVER blogged from work!), and my evenings have been spent getting ready for all the fun stuff that's been going on. Kat already mentioned this stuff, but we had book club at my house on Tuesday, and last night we had a onesie shower for Melissa and the babies that are WELL on their way! A million thanks to the girlies that came last night and helped decorate. I had such a blast. And, may I add, you ladies did a FABULOUS job. I think the evening was a huge success (as evidenced by the cute-itude of the onesies...!). I can't wait to meet Tyson and Riley and dress them up in their new clothes. Hee hee. They're gonna be the coolest kids on the block. Not that they weren't going to be already.
On a note, well- more about me: I started my supervision for my LPE (licensed psychological examiner) status last week. This means (when I'm done, which will be a looooong time) that I can expand my psych skills to other places beyond the schools: I can work in hospitals, clinics, etc. and do more "psychologist" things instead of ONLY working in the schools. It's going to be a LOT of work, but in the end, it will give me flexibility if I ever want to change my mind about what I do. I will be able to provide more typical "therapy" and can have the opportunity to contract myself out. It's going to be a while, but I think it's a great move. I will keep you posted. Much love to you all. I'm so glad I've gotten to spend some quality time with my ladies lately!

Christmas with the Woods and Rosses!

Christmas started out for us with Christmas Eve at Melissa and Greg's house with Melissa's in-laws, our folks, and the kids. We had a TON of food (of course, right?), and we had a blast. Check out the stockings for the babies... Their names are official!! Click on the collage above to see the pictures a little bigger...

My dad and I had to try out Carleigh's new lip gloss. Shiny.

Scroll on for many more Christmas pictures!

Christmas at the Wells' house!

Next on our Christmas extravaganza list was breakfast at the in-laws' house on Christmas morning. Matt & Lisa (Jeremy's step-brother and his wife) and their kiddies came over too. We had a nice, lazy morning with biscuits and gravy, egg casserole, and a fantastic fruit salad (that I made...).

Christmas at the Spann house!

After all the glorious food and opening of presents, it was time for us to relax at our house and do our own Christmas with just the two of us. As a side note, Jeremy decorated our house beautifully this year (with all our lights from the wedding!), and our casa looked pretty amazing, if I do say so myself. I got Baby DJ Hero this year. For those of you who remember, Jeremy used to have his own wheels of steel back in the day. Which he sold. But now he gets to be DJ any time he wants to once again! ;) And he got me the American Idol Wii game. Which is absolutely amazing. I may or may not have been slaying some Beyonce and Kelly Clarkson songs the past few days. I'm pretty amazing. ;) And so are you (Kristen, Melissa Haney, Katie, Chandle, and you other folks that read my blog and have had the pleasure of singing...!). Overall, it was an amazing Christmas. I can't believe I have to go back tomorrow. It's been a great two weeks off.

Tomorrow I switch supervisors and therefore schools at my internship. This begins my LAST semester of grad school. I HAVE ALMOST MADE IT. Looking forward to it... Sad to see Christmas go, but what can ya do?

Scroll on, anniversary posts below!

Our Anniversafari!!

For our big ONE YEAR anniversary, we decided we wanted to do something really different that we'd always remember. After doing a little researching, we found Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge in Eureka Springs. It's a refuge that takes in big cats (lions, tigers, cougars, leopards, panthers etc.) in addition to bears (grizzlies even!) and other exotic animals that people think they can keep as pets and soon discover (duh.) that they can't. The animals there are VERY well taken care of, with donations of food from Wal-Mart and Tyson and plenty of room (they are in cages part of the time and the other part in large habitats). Even cooooooler is that they had cabins. They have four small cabins that are right next to each other with a fire pit and a hot tub in the middle. Even COOLER is that we had the whole place to ourselves. There were no other people staying there. We had an awesome view (with deer outside every time we stepped out!... uhhh why deer would feel ok with having lions and tigers 50 yards away, I'm not real sure). At night we would hang out on the deck with the hot tub and firepit and hear the lions carolling, which was super intense and amazing.

This is what the inside of the cabin looked like. There was a fireplace in the corner that kept us toasty all weekend (even though it was really cold- complete with flurries all day on Saturday!).

I highly recommend this place. If you have kids, it's a really cool place to see, too. And it was truly awesome to stay there. Can't even say enough about it!!

More pics from Turpentine Creek

Here are some pictures of the animals from Turpentine Creek. By the way, this tiger behind us weighs 950 lbs! Yeeeoww! So they have 62 tigers at Turpentine Creek. SIXTY-TWO. There are, what, two at the zoo? They also have four or five lions. A whole lotta cougars. And an gi-normous grizzly bear that scared me just a bit. So the animals spend part of their time in cages such as these, but they rotate out into HUGE (several acres) habitats, and they spend time with their lion and tiger friends. The cougars have covered cages, because, apparently they will jump out. And kill you. But I digress... The animals are very well taken care of. And every day at 4 (later in the summer), you can watch the interns and employees feed the animals. They have holes in the cages which they shove huge chunks of meat through. When it's close to feeding time, the lions and tigers really get going and roaring. It's pretty sweet. We watched feeding on both days we were there.


They even have a white Siberian tiger...!
A lot of the animals here have arthritis pretty bad because their previous owners declawed them (in the hopes of making them "safer"). It's actually really bad for them and pretty sad...

One of the tigers at TCWR came into their possession because the owner decided he no longer wanted a tiger, loaded it into his TRUCK, drove it to the woods (IN ARKANSAS), and dropped it off. 60 miles from home. Several days later, the tiger showed up on the owner's front porch. It had never learned to hunt and was ready for supper... So now it lives at the refuge. However, said tiger had to walk through (or around) Harrison, AR, in order to find its way home. Food for thought (next time you're camping). YOWZA.


Jeremy got up close to one of the lions. PS, did you know lions and tigers squirt?? Pretty far, too. It's apparently a stinky, greasy substance that doesn't come out of clothes very easily.

... I'm trying my best to upload a video from feeding time. Stupid blogger. Moral of the story is, go see this place! It's awesome!!

More pictures from around Eureka...

From our fancy dinner at DeVito's...

At the top of the Crescent Hotel... We took a ghost tour!

One Year Ago Today (Err... yesterday!): The Big Day

100_0771, originally uploaded by jeremyandelizabethwedding.

The day of our wedding, I woke up bright and early at Melissa's house (I woke up before the alarm went off... It was too exciting. I kept saying, "It's Christmas! It's Christmas!" ha ha). Melissa was good enough to get me started with a giant cup of coffee and My Super Sweet 16. Yes, there was a marathon. It helped calm me that at least I wasn't as crazy as those kids. ;)
A couple-few hours later, all my girls showed up and we enjoyed a fantastic breakfast (Bloody Marys and mimosas included!). Everybody hung out for a while and most people got ready there at Melissa's house. Emily came over and fixed my hair, and I had a few moments to relax before heading to the church...
Many pics are below, so keeeeeeep on goin!

100_0773, originally uploaded by jeremyandelizabethwedding.

Look at how teeny Nate was back then! ;)

Chandle drove me to the church in David's truck (I was too excited, and of COURSE she was the first one ready). Kat did my makeup (THANKS, Kat!), and soon it was time for pictures at the church. I had spoken to Jeremy on the phone a couple times that day, but we had not seen each other. Poor guy had just a couple things to do that day (make sure we had our room at the Peabody... call the taxi for a ride to the hotel from the reception... finalize our music list, etc.). But it all came together, and it was finally time!

This is one of my favorites of him from that day...

It was then finally time for us to get to see each other. We decided to do pictures before the ceremony because we wanted to join the party with everyone as soon as we could! We were both really excited...

Here are just a couple of the posed pictures we took before the ceremony... if you want to see more, check out our wedding blog.

It was officially time. I remember I wasn't nervous at all (just excited!) until I heard the organ music start. Here's a picture of Chandle, Kat, and Katie peeking out of the room where we got ready into the sanctuary, where they could see people starting to fill up the room.


I also didn't cry... until I talked to my parents, of course. But I pulled it together!
Here are our vows. I absolutely love them. So much, in fact, that they made me CRY when I was trying to say them. I had forgotten how much they meant to me (it had been a little while since we had picked them), and I was surprised at how touching they were:
I, Jeremy, take you, Elizabeth, to be my wife, my partner in life and my one true love. I will cherish our friendship and love you today, tomorrow, and forever. I will trust you and honor you I will laugh with you and cry with you. I will love you faithfully through the best and the worst, through the difficult and the easy. What may come, I will always be there. As I have given you my hand to hold, so I give you my life to keep. So help me God.
I, Elizabeth, take you, Jeremy, to be my husband, my partner in life and my one true love. I will cherish our friendship and love you today, tomorrow, and forever I will trust you and honor you, I will laugh with you and cry with you. I will love you faithfully through the best and the worst, through the difficult and the easy. What may come, I will always be there. As I have given you my hand to hold, so I give you my life to keep. So help me God.

Now that the ceremony was over, it was time to head to the reception. It was a little ways away from the church, and we're really lucky that our friends and family had the option of staying at the site for a whopping $22/room! ;)
My dance with my papa/Jeremy's dance with his mama: "The Way You Look Tonight" by Rod Stewart (my dad loves him... I might have a special place in my heart for Rod too, hee hee).

Our first dance together: "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by Israel Kamakawiwo'Ole. It still makes me tear up when I hear it...

100_0826, originally uploaded by jeremyandelizabethwedding.

Mmmmm wedding cake... Leah: we had it last night, and it was STILL delicious. ;)

100_0828, originally uploaded by jeremyandelizabethwedding.

My dad gave an incredibly touching speech...

100_0836, originally uploaded by jeremyandelizabethwedding.

... and then it was time for the party to begin!! Someone told us (Kat? Jaime?) that when Ben Nichols came in, he said, "Hi, I'm Ben Nichols, and I'm here to play a few songs." To which Jeremy's mom responded, "Well don't you just look like a rockstar??" :)

jaime 358, originally uploaded by jeremyandelizabethwedding.

... playing our favorite photo game. Kat- any ideas what you gals were being? Tigers perhaps? Tee hee.

jaime 355, originally uploaded by jeremyandelizabethwedding.

Seahorses, I betcha. Always one of my favorites.

jaime2 128, originally uploaded by jeremyandelizabethwedding.

This is probably about when I told Kristen and Kat that I WOULD pull the "bride" card and MAKE them get up and dance with me.
It worked.
They did.