Vincenza and Tim's Engagment Party

My Best Friend Vincenza who has been like a sister to me for over 20 years is getting married in September of 2008. She will be marrying a great guy named Tim that we met while attending NC Wesleyan College. Rob and I hosted an Engagment Party at our home for them in December. Many of our High School friends came in from out of town as well as Tim's parents who flew in from MA. After the Engagment Party, several of us went out for Vincenza's 30th birthday. It was great to see so many old friends!

Congratulations Tim and Vincenza! I can't wait to stand beside you as your Matron of Honor on 9-6-08!! Love you both

Christmas 2007

This is our first Christmas in our new house and we were so excited about decorating! We ended up decorating the day before Thanksgiving. We bought a 9 foot tree in Rolesville and Rob built the prettiest stand for the tree. (see pictures) We bought small trees to go outside on each side of the front door. Something tells me that we will be putting up more lights before Christmas, but this is what it looks like so far...

Honeymoon

We spent our Honeymoon in Riviera Maya, Mexico. We flew out of RDU the morning after the wedding and landed in Mexico just after lunch. After about an hour ride from the airport on Cancun, we arrived at the Adventura Spa Palace Resort. The resort was amazing and our room was beautiful! We were able to go swimming with the dolphins, snorkeling, four wheeling in the jungle, and toured the Mangroves by in our own speed boat.

Ladies and Gentelmen... Start your Engines

In February, Rob and I went to the Daytona 500! I had a meeting for work earlier in the week in St Augustine and Rob went with me. Once my meeting was over, we drove to Daytona for the race. Although Rob is a big fan of Nascar, I am not. However, when my District Manager offered the Hospitality Passes with Pit tours, I couldn't turn them down! We had a great time, but I think I have attended my first and last race... Sorry Rob! :)

Las Vegas

In February of 2007, I attended a Leadership Conference for work at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. Rob came out towards the end of the conference for a mini vacation.
The Conference ended on Friday morning just before lunch. Rob and I checked out of the Bellagio and moved down to New York, New York. We spent most of the day in the NY, NY Casio and then met four of my coworkers for dinner and then we were off to the Venetian to see the "Blue Man Group". This was a show like no other. If you get the chance to see it, I highly reccomend it... but make sure you aren't late! :)

We spent Saturday walking the Stip and taking in the sights. We were so tired after walking all day that we had dinner back at the hotel and called it a day.

Sunday moring we were up bright and early and on our way to the Grand Canyon. It took us about four hours from Vegas to get to the Grand Canyon but it was nice drive and very pretty! We went over the Hoover Damn and drove on old Route 66.

Our Wedding

Since I have been little I have never been able to wait until Christmas to open gifts... 2002 was no exception. I started asking two weeks before Christmas if I could open a present, and each time I was told NO. Two days before Christmas we were finishing wrapping our gifts for family members when Rob asked me if I wanted to open a gift. I told him no, that I had waited so far, and I could wait two more days. However after asking a few more times I couldn't resist any longer. He even let me pick which gift I wanted to open....so I was really not expecting anything. In the package was a silver jewlery box with my initials monogramed on the top, only the initials did not read LKE, they read LEH.... At this point Rob says that I shot him a "That is so not funny look", he smiled at me and I knew there was something in the Jewlery Box. Inside was a beautiful three stone, emerald cut diamond ring. He took it out of the box, slipped it on my hand and asked me to marry him...A moment I will remember for the rest of my life...
We had the most beautiful wedding. We were married at the Methodist Church in Wake Forest at 5pm on Novemeber 13, 2004. We each had seven attendants on each side,plus four honorary bridesmaids, 2 Jr Groomsmen, a flower girl, and a ring bearer. The lights in the church were low and candles on stands down aisle lighted the way to the fron of the church. My best friend Vincenza stood beside me as my Maid of Honor and Rob's Dad beside him as his best man.
Our reception was held at the Cotton Company and a great time was had by all. We made our exit around 11 and were taken to the Hilton at the airport for our very early flight to Mexico the next morning. I wouldn't change anything about our day and only wish that I could do it all over again

Animals

What would a blog be without pictures of our kids? Sadie is a German Short Haired Pointer and is the newest addition to the family. She is the most energetic dog I have ever met. She is always on the move and runs everywhere she goes, full speed!
We also have to cats who rule the roost. Both Sunny and Rainey were strays that Rob found and brought home to live with us. They have so much personality. Rainey is the older of the two and can be such a snob, and has a horrible reputation at the vets office! Sunny is very timid around anyone other than Rob and myself, but is such a snuggler. As you can see, both love Christmas... Rainey loves to sleep under the Christmas tree, and Sunny loves to climb in boxes.

Our New Home

In October of 2006 we decided to put our house on the market and move out of Wake Forest. Two days after putting the sign in the yard, (and with the help of my mom), we had an offer and a signed contract. Although this happened so much faster than we ever imagined, we were so excited. However... where in the world were we going to go in just 28 days??? Luckily we had some friends with a rental house that was vacant. We moved in the rental and must have looked at about 100 houses when we decided to build. We found a great builder and a wonderful neighborhood. We closed on our house April 30th and couldn't be happier with our decision!

2007 Cruise

September 2007- Rob and I took our second cruise. Our scheduled ports were originally suppose to be... Cozumel, Costa Maya, Belize, and Grand Turk. However, the hurricane season changed our plans... Upon arriving in Tampa we were notified that our new ports would be Key West, Grand Turk, Ocho Rios, and Grand Cayman. We really didn't mind the changes as we had been to Cozumel and Costa Maya in the past. We spent most of the first afternoon getting ourselves familiar with the ship. When we woke up the first morning we were docking in Key West. We got off the boat and walked through the streets of Key West. It was so hot that we decided to head back to the boat and go to the pool. On Tuesday, we arrived in Grand Turk. We had breakfast and headed over to Govenor's Beach for to do some snorkeling. The water was beautiful! Wednesday we arrived in Ocho Rios.. This was quite an experience. Once we got off the boat we were surrounded by the locals wanting us to come in their stores, or take us to see the sites. We were so overwhelmed that we almost headed back to the boat. However, we ended up on a great tour of the rain forest, and a trip through the villages of Ocho Rios. We ended up at Dundee Falls for a few pictures and then went back to the boat. Friday was our favorite day! We arrive in Grand Cayman around 7am. We had breakfast and went to meet our tour guide. We boarded a bus and headed for the Turtle Farm in Grand Cayman. I had no idea that we would be able to hold the baby Sea Turtles. They were amazing creatures. Once we left the Turtle Farm, we stopped in a little community called, "HELL". Hell has its own post office and we mailed a few "Wish you were here" post cards and got back on the bus.. After leaving Hell, we went to a local marina and boarded a boat to take us out to Sting Ray Bay to swim with the Sing Rays. This was an amazing experience. We climbed out of the boat onto a sandbar and were greeted by several huge stingrays. I must admit that it was little scary at first, but we really enjoyed it. We spent Saturday at sea and arrived back in Tampa on Sunday morning...Check out a few pictures from our trip!