cordie in paris

New place… New year…

A fresh start!

Cordie and I have been here in Jacksonville, Florida living in our new place (biggest bonus is the pool below) for just a week now. In that time we have spent a lot of time looking for things at furniture stores… finding our way around a new part of the city and spent a day in Orlando celebrating our ONE year anniversary…the morning was a wonderful treat with flowers and a Venti Iced Caramel Macchiato (yes still drinking iced drinks) for the two hour drive we had in front of us.

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Our first stop was Ikea for some basic necessities as all of our house things are still in storage in MN and we browsed for quite awhile getting ideas for future pieces to make our place more homey.

From there we headed to Disney World (intending to hit up the food & wine festival at Epcot-but just getting back from Europe we decided to wait and go enjoy exotic foods at a later date) and spent a nice relaxing afternoon/evening at Downtown Disney.img_6029 img_5989

We had lunch at an Irish Pub called Raglans which was very scrumptious but the best part was the live entertainment throughout the whole lunch. There were tap dancers and a live band that encouraged the environment of being in Ireland. :)

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After a very filling lunch we decided to just lay on the grass near the water and enjoy the sunshine and talk about what is to come. Before leaving the Disney “World” we got caramel covered apples and some turtle fudge for the road trip back to Jacksonville. Ending the evening with watching good ol’ Sunday Night Football… not my favorite thing to do but Cordie was def missing the games while we were out of the country.

This week of being back has also meant many many early mornings starting between 4-7am due to both of us experiencing jet lag…but we are thoroughly enjoying starting the day as Cordie has a lot of work to do and I have started training for a half marathon that I will be doing at the end of February…so getting up early together and hitting the gym or going for a run along the beach has been a great new habit for both of us.

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We both do miss our friends and family back in the Midwest but are very very thankful and excited to be here in Florida and move towards the future all the while enjoying beautiful weather and not freezing under mounds of snow!

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Our FIRST year…

…in a nutshell

It is so hard to believe that our first year of marriage is already over! We both understand and have heard over the past year together that your first year is meant to be your ‘hardest’ yes we had some moments of misunderstanding…due to a loss of communication… but there wasn’t anything that stands out to either of us which would ‘make’ it a really really hard year…we feel like its been a breeze…

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When we started to dream and pray about our year we knew it would be a year of moving forward. Moving forward meant physically moving out of Rochester, pursuing our dreams of what day to day ‘living’ would be like as individuals and as a couple, to see and experience new places, people and culture. From those dreams became short and long term goals as individuals and as a couple…through the pursuit of them we have discovered that we are wonderful accountability partners. :)

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We moved… lived… walked… became a part of the following places… Rochester, MN…drove all over Florida for 2 weeks… Austin, TX (twice)…New York, New York… USA east coastline… Ponte Vedra, FL…. Valencia & Barcelona, Spain… Rome, Cinque Terre, Venezia, Italy… Paris, France and now learning our way around Jacksonville, FL…yes we both learned a lot about one another traveling so much together…

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We have laughed immensely… shared tears over lost ones… enjoyed hours and hours of silence together on buses, trains, airplanes, different types of cars…someone once told us that we should ‘enjoy’ our time to bond together when we are traveling… it was quite humorous to us both as being married more than 9 months we felt we had already ‘bonded’… with that said I can confidently tell you that we enjoy one another’s company no matter if we are sitting at home relaxing, working on a project together or in the midst of strangers underneath a sparkling Eiffel Tower….for those of you that may be concerned.. ;)

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To celebrate our ONE year we ‘claimed’ our outrageously spectacular time in Cinque Terre (you can click on the previous link to see & read out our ‘rugged time’) as our celebration…mostly because it was our favorite place… and staying in an apartment RIGHT on the water, listening to the waves crash at night through our open windows and having our own private view… we knew we couldn’t find anything better!

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We are on our way to DISNEY WORLD to spend our official anniversary for the day! Look forward for pics to come…

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It has been an amazing year being married to my wonderful husband! And we are both excited and ready for this upcoming year and the many to follow after!

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Thank you to those of you reading this that have been a part of our first year and will continue to be in our lives in the many years to follow…here are some of our favorites from the BIG DAY (october 27th, 2012)

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Cordie & Katherine