Christmas comes to the Tidrow house!

Christmas is rapidly approaching, so we finally found the time to get everything ready at our house! Last Christmas, we were preparing to move to Terre Haute, so we put up our artificial tree. This year though, we were able to get our first real Christmas tree! We went to a local place called Holiday Hill Tree Farm. We were even able to cut our own tree, which is something neither of us have ever done before!


Here's Luke with the saw he used to cut down our tree!

Of course, before the tree went home, the folks there had to manhandle it a little to make it less messy and easier to transport.
After we got home, we had to put the tree in its stand. So Luke spent some time bonding with the new tree stand!

Izzy wanted to check out the tree too!

Then we started decorating. Luke put the star on top, and we both added our ornaments.


Even Izzy helped...by sitting on the tissue paper that the ornaments were wrapped in.

And now our house is completely decorated inside and out! So enjoy a few shots of our tree & home, and Happy Holidays from the Tidrow Family! - Luke, Pam, & Izzy Cat

Thankful

There is nothing like Thanksgiving to remind you (as if we should need reminding!) of the many blessings we have. We spent the holiday with friends and family, playing board games, watching football, and just hanging out. Some of the things we're thankful for this year are the birth of a healthy, beautiful baby niece, Haiden; a home that's not underwater; and another year with my Great Grandmother. 

Mom and I made a special visit to our relatives in Ohio for a girls' lunch out with Granny, and we all had a great time.

Now we are back home and preparing for Christmas. If you'd like to help us, please vote on our poll!

Dancing Disaster

Luke is not an avid Dancing With the Stars fan. I, on the other hand, was online the day ABC announced this fall's cast. I've been DVRing every episode so I can skip through the commericals and not miss a beat. My 2 favorite contestants the entire time have been Cody Linley & Lance Bass. Cody is just adorable, and I ended up rooting for him because of how hard he worked...and because I love Julianne Hough.

I was a huge fan of *NSYNC, and Lance has always been my favorite...even through that whole space cadet era. So of course I was cheering for him all season! But last night, my hopes were dashed when Brooke "I can pop out like 15 kids and still look like a freakin' goddess" Burke stole the trophy. She may have had great technique but she bored me senseless!

If you haven't kept up with Dancing this season, feel free to check it out here.

As distraught as I am, the show must go on. My reality tv fix may be over for awhile though. Well, at least until American Idol!

(Photo of Lance Bass & Lacey Schwimmer from Dancing with the Stars website on ABC.com)

Countdown to Turkey Day!

It's only a week until Thanksgiving, and we're looking forward to going back to Richmond & Centerville to visit with our family.

In Farmersburg today, it is ridiculously cold - 38 degrees! And everyone has started to get sick, including Luke. For right now though, Izzy & I are doing just fine.

Hopefully, we'll have some good Turkey Day pictures next week to post!

Long time, no post!

It's been ages since we last posted, but we have a good reason!

We've been very busy fixing up our new home - a 2 bedroom, 2 bath, rental on about an acre in Farmersburg, IN. There is a creek that runs through the backyard and a big bonfire pit perfect for entertaining.

Izzy loves her new home, too, because it has lots of big windows to sit in. Luke spends lots of time puttering in the garage or outside, and I love having a nice, big kitchen to cook and bake in.

Hopefully we'll find more time to blog soon and keep you all posted. Have a great fall weekend everyone!

Welcome new niece!

On Wednesday, August 20th at 6:25pm, we welcomed a beautiful baby niece to the family. Haiden Kaylei came in at 6 lb. 14 oz. and 19 3/4 in. long. You can see her hospital picture here. Hopefully we'll have some great new pictures of her soon!

5 Years!

Today we celebrated the 5th Anniversary of our first date. Wow! It's hard to believe it's been that long, but here's a snapshot of all that's happened in those 5 years:

• 8 Goat Shows: At least that Luke came to...
• 7 Trips to the Driving Range: It's about give and take folks...and I wasn't quite as awful as I thought
• 6 Cars: Mable (the red Pontiac), the burgandy boat, the Contour (may the transmission rest in peace), the Neon (still going!), the HHR (God bless the '57 style front end that saved Ricky & Luke's lives), and the Equinox
• 5.5 Births: Peyton Tidrow, Jacob Farmer, Sophia Sparks, & our adopted nieces Savannah Semmler & Shelby Life. Oh yeah...and there's another on the way (Yay Hayden!)
• 3 New Homes (in the past year no less!): Plainfield, Terre Haute, Farmersburg (coming soon!)
• 2 Deaths: Aunt Marcella Rader & Grandpa Max Farmer
• 2 Study Off-Campus trips: New Mexico for a month & Philadelphia for a semester
• 1 College Transfer: USI to Vincennes University
• 1 Flood (We're figuring that Pestilence and Frogs will come in for the 1st & 5th wedding anniversary.)

So you may have noticied that I mentioned a move to Farmersburg. It's true! We're no longer homeless! And our wonderful friends can have their house back. I do think that the saddest part of the Flood-forced Brady Bunch will be Savannah (who loves her kitty cat!) and Bear and Izzy. They've gotten kind of used to each other!

Hopefully we'll have pictures of the new place soon, but we don't move until after September 1st. Anybody free to help move? :)

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July everyone!

We spent the weekend with family in Richmond. In fact, Luke & his cousin Stephen were crowned Kings of Cornhole in the Corman Family Cornhole Tournament. Uncle Joe made a delicious meal...in a trash can!

And we capped off our visit by moving Jessi & Travis into their new home! It is a beautiful place and they've put a lot of work into it. It'll be perfect for their new start as newlyweds!

We also got to check out Grandma & Grandpa's new house. It's very homey and warm. The garage gives Grandpa plenty of room to putter. The backyard is actually a cement patio, but the flower & veggie gardens make it feel natural still.

It seems everyone's getting settled except for us, but hopefully we'll figure out a plan soon!

Mission Accomplished

The Thank You notes are finally finished! We apologize for getting them out so late but we thought they were lost in the flood, but we found them (after we made new ones of course!). Now both versions are on their way to all of you.

Our living situation is still undetermined, but hopefully we'll know soon!

The Great Flood

So as some of you have probably heard, Terre Haute, Indiana was thouroughly throttled by 15" of rain in less than 24 hours over the weekend. Many homes were flooded, and 21 of the 92 counties were declared disasters.

I was at a Relay For Life event Friday night so I was dealing with severe weather there and hadn't thought of our house. Luke left to go to work and when we returned, we parked at 7th and Springhill and waded through up to chest deep (on me) water, only to find our home completely flooded.

All things considered, we've been very lucky. We only lost a few important items...like our marriage certificate. But Luke, Izzy, and I are all safe and are staying with some wonderful friends!

Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers!

Grrrrr addresses!

So...we've definitely surpassed the Emily Post timetable for getting your thank you notes written post-wedding. Please accept our apologies. So from the grueling experience of writing more thank you notes than I think I've ever written in my life, I've learned a few things I feel are important to pass on:

1. For the love of all things holy, just make a pretty little Excel spreadsheet of everyone's addresses BEFORE you send the invitations. Because if you don't, you will inevitably lose them all by the time you're ready to send TYNs (Thank You Notes) and any other correspondence that comes later.
   
2. Don't bother trying to get your new husband to help write them. Just split up the duties like this...Mrs. writes them; Mr. stamps & sends them. Because if Luke had written our TYNs, no one would be able to read them. :)
3. Don't put them off because in the end, they're still sitting there, only now they're late.
   

So after an evening of writing until I thought my hand would break....I am going to sleep! Enjoy the beautiful weather! (I heard rumors that Noah and the Ark were seen floating down 3rd Street today!)

Adventures in Marriage-Land!

Our first official holiday weekend was very busy. Mom (Clara), Chris, and Jessi visited and we went to Bridgeton, IN to check out the Covered Bridges. It was a really cool place and Chris got some great pictures. We also had some fantastic pumpkin ice cream! http://www.bridgetonmill.com/

On Sunday, we spent time sprucing up our yard. We planted flowers in the front and back yards, and even have a little veggie garden on the side with herbs, peppers, onions, and sunflowers!

Monday we bought our last big wedding purchases. After returning some double gifts we received, we were able to get an awesome Chicago Cutlery knife set with a knife sharpener built in, and an awesome hammock and stand so we can enjoy our hard work outside.


The greatest adventure of the week had to be learning how to use our new rotisserie. We were fully prepared to host a nice dinner for our friends Ricky, Robin, and Savannah, but actually cooking the whole chicken was a bit of an undertaking.






Ultimately, the chicken did get cooked. And according to the diners, it was quite tasty!


Another major accomplishment of the evening was Savannah's discovery that grass is not that bad after all!

We're married!!!

After 4 years, 8 months, 3 weeks, and 4 days, we finally became husband & wife.

Following the lead of our friends, the Semmler Family, we've become bloggers. Below are some pictures from our honeymoon in Jamaica!





These are some of the pictures we took in Negril on one of the tours. Luke actually jumped off a 30' cliff into the ocean!