Christmas with Sean & Taylor

Merry Christmas from Sean and Taylor!  We hope everyone has enjoyed the Christmas Season.  Sean and I have been busy, busy but have loved every minute.   Enjoy the pictures below of our house decorated for Christmas.

Welcome to our home!

Our Kitchen

 

  Living room with our little reindeer, see he can sit still!

 

Our dining room furnished with the beautiful Hagadorn china cabinet and table filled with Great Grandma Clark’s china passed down from Barbara.  My mom has always collected and decorated with nut crackers around the holidays and I have taken up the tradition in our dining room.

 

 

The basement.  The Christmas tree that we got with my family in the mountains is downstairs.  I have a little of Henry’s OCD and only decorate the Christmas tree with ornaments that match.  We do have a couple of special ones on there though.  One is the beautiful ornament Henry and Barbara got us the year we bought the house, the other one is NC State of course.

 

Last week we had about 10 of our friends over for a Christmas dinner.  We ate pizza on our Christmas china, watched Home Alone and Jared and I creamed Sean and Ryan in pool.  It was wonderful night with our closest friends. 

As for now I’m watching The Sound of Music drinking eggnog while Sean and River nap by the Christmas tree!

 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone, we love you!

  

 

 

Christmas with Jared & Hannah

Well kids both Jared and Hannah are very busy with their jobs, traveling back & forth from Raleigh and their new house...short story is Jared won't be setting up decorations this year but Hannah did!  I didn't want to leave them out so I have Hannah's tree from this year and Jared's from last year. 

Hopefully next year they will start some new traditions that will carry on for many years to come.

 Hannah's tree at her house in Raleigh!

 

Jared had outside lights on his current house

Jared's Tree 2012

Last year the weekend before Christmas we went to each of the kids houses to visit with them, eat lunch or dinner and enjoy some adult beverages!  Jared and Lee cooked Chef Boyardee pizza for us...my favorite!!

Time to break out my sweater!

Family Divided!

Well kids as you know on Saturday we all went to Raleigh to watch the ECU/NC State football game and of course celebrate Stephanie's 28th birthday!!  While Sean, Taylor & Jared went to Hannah's on Friday after work, Mom, Stephanie, Shawn and I decided to go early Saturday morning.  So if I counted right there were 7 ECU fans, 10 State fans, 1 UNC fan and 1 that just wanted to dress up!

The plan was to meet around 8am to start the tailgating but then we decided 9am was better.  The Robinson's were also going to the game and Mike was able to secure everyone parking passes at his work which was just a short walk to the game.  Thanks again Mike!  So attending the tailgate...Mom, me, Sean, Taylor, Stephanie, Shawn, Jared, Hannah, Catherine, Audrey, Lee, Amanda, Drew (Lee's brother), Tom, Clarissa, Kevin, Mike, Caroline and Caroline's cousin!  Quite a fun crowd and since it's been a while there was lots of catching up to do between all the kids & adults!

Everyone brought food to share and some even brought a few adult beverages...champagne, beer, jello shooters and wine!

 

 

Yes we are both thinking...what the heck have we created with this group!!

 The Birthday Girl!!

Taylor, Mom, Clarissa, Caroline

 

 Jared, Tom, Kevin, Mike & Sean

 

 

The Girls!!

 Shawn, Drew, Hannah, Jared, Audrey, Sean, Lee, Amanda, Taylor, Stephanie, me & Catherine...Mom is taking the picture

 

 Drew was leading the "beer shotguns"!  This was Amanda's first time doing this...I'll say no more!

Around noon we headed over to the game which you will see on Tuesday!  Great tailgate, Great Fun!!

Labor Day Weekend-Guest Blogger

Hey y’all, its Taylor again here with another weekend update.

People say that a girl often times marries a man much like her daddy.  Although Dad and Sean are not exactly alike (Dad likes baseball and Bud Light) they both think athletes can hear them through the TV and both make my bad days go away so it makes sense that I fell hard for Sean at a football game.  Once we started dating I always looked forward to Raleigh weekends full of tailgating, football and friends.  Labor Day weekend Sean and I packed up the Jeep, our crack cocaine pup, River, and headed to Raleigh to start the football season out right.  We met our people at Hannah’s house for some drinks and to catch up with old friends before going to bed semi-early for 7am tailgating the next day.  Saturday morning we were tossing the football around before most people were up and going, of course mimosas were involved.

 

The Wolfpack played Louisiana Tech to open the season.  Jared, Hannah and Audrey (high school friend) stayed back to continue tailgating and watch the pups.  Jared was in charge of watching River and all I can say is that I’m thankful for Hannah, Audrey and other Wolfpack tailgaters who looked out for "on the run" dogs.  The game was super-hot with State winning 40-14.  Our next game we have planned to attend is NC State vs. ECU (family divided!) and we cannot wait. 

 

After the game we headed back to the houses to shower and nap before a night out in Raleigh.  It is always a sure thing when we go out that it is going to be a good time.  We’re all pretty good at dancing like no one’s watching especially with a little liquid confidence running through us.

Sunday morning we woke up and drove to Carolina Beach for a night of camping on the beach.  The weather was beautiful all day and River LOVED the ocean.  This was his first time meeting the ocean and he literally rode the waves all day long.

The local Papa Johns had a jeep that would drive out on the beach and deliver pizza so that’s what we did for dinner.  We played volleyball until sunset and then the boys made a campfire for us to relax by for the rest of the evening.  We fell asleep to the light pitter patter of rain on our tent only to be awaken at 5am soaked and water logged from the nights torrential down pour.  We packed up and were home and showered by lunch time Monday. 

 

Until next time, Go Pack!!

 

 

                                                                           

Sunset Beach-Guest Blogger

Hey ya’ll its Taylor, guest blogger this week!  This past weekend Sean and I decided to escape to Sunset Beach, NC with some friends after a long work week for them and before my summer ended.  My Maw Maw and Paw Paw have had a house here since I was born so I have many wonderful memories there.  Last year Sean and I went with Barbara, Henry and Jared.

Yep, that’s Henry snoozing away. (2012)

Sean and I arrived a little after lunch time Friday and hit the beach right away.  The weather was beautiful all weekend so we soaked up some rays and enjoyed a few drinks before the rest of our people got there.  Henry is not going to like this next statement:  Sean and I are not huge fans of Ella’s, so we decided to go to Crabby Oddwaters for dinner, it was super yummy! Crabby Oddwaters is a restaurant right off the island.  The top floor is the restaurant and below they sell fresh seafood, Bill’s Seafood.

 

Finally, the rest of the group showed up and we started the weekend off right with a ‘Henry Hagadorn’ tradition, a tall boy Milwaukee’s Best.  I’m not sure where, when or why this tradition started but Amanda and I downed ours so we could start our wine drinking. The rest of the night we sat on the screened in porch playing Spades exactly by the rules by moonlight. 

After everyone came too woke up the next morning Lee and Amanda made a delicious breakfast for us and we hit the beach for the rest of the day.  Amanda and I soaked up every sunray beaming down while the boys played every beach game possible.  Of course there was football, Frisbee and bocce ball but what is the new big hit is Kan Jam.  We met a group that had driven down from New York the previous night just to enjoy little ole Sunset Beach.  With them they brought Kan Jam.  They explained the rules (points based on different ways a Frisbee comes into contact with the can) to Jared and Sean beating them first go around.  Then they made their mistake, they went for a swim while the boys practiced. During their brief dip in the ocean the boys mastered the game and creamed them at the rematch!

 

By this time we were all sun kissed and hungry.  The boys ran out grabbed a few groceries and Amanda and I grabbed some fresh seafood.  We all met back up and had the most delish shrimp boil ever finishing the night with a game of Phase 10 and a drink or ten two. 

Jared’s new dance move, you should ask him about it.

Sunday morning we hit the beach for another beautiful day.  Sean and Lee had to leave early for their Fantasy Football draft so we had to get a good start on the day’s activity-sand castle building.  Lee and Jared were the main builders, Amanda and I dabbled in it occasionally and Sean and Carlos laughed supervised for us. I think that it was a solid try but we have room for improvement next time.  The football boys left, the rest of us played for a little while longer before heading back to reality.  Another perfect weekend with some but not all of our favorites!  Until next time…