Merry Christmas Eve!

Ho ho ho! We're so excited to celebrate our first Christmas together! Usually I am on vacation with my family while Ryan celebrates with his family, but this year we are celebrating together.

Yesterday, I spent the day making cookies - peanut butter kisses, chocolate-dipped citrus biscotti, mexican wedding cookies, and peppermint bark. I also made a chocolate swirl cheesecake and a gruyere and parmesan potato gratin for Christmas dinner. I have cookies everywhere!

This afternoon, I am getting my first present. Ryan is taking me to the Nutcracker ballet! This is one of our favorite traditions where we get dressed up for the Nutcracker and indulge in champagne during intermission.

After the Nutcracker, we are heading out to Long Island to spend Christmas with the Gallaghers! My tiny studio apartment is filled to the brim with boxes and suitcases! We're bummed that Dad Gallagher is in the hospital, but we're hopeful that he will get a pass to come home for Christmas morning.

I can't wait for Ryan to open all of his Christmas gifts, and I can't wait to finally find out what he got me! I usually guess my gifts beforehad, but Ryan was super sneaky this year. He even deleted the cookies off of his brower so that I couldn't do any investigating. Haha. Now if we could only figure out how to get all these presents out to Long Island....

Our first wedding present!!

We actually got our gift last week, but I finally got a chance to upload the picture today. My parents bought us a pair of Swarovski toasting flutes for us to use on our wedding day and every anniversary! Aren't they beautiful?

CANCELLED!

My flight was cancelled!!! I just want to get back to NYC to see Ryan and begin our Christmas celebration! Please pray that the next flight I'm on doesn't get cancelled and that the weather isn't too terrible for Ryan to drive in!

UPDATE: All flights out of Buffalo were cancelled so I'm on a flight tomorrow morning. I hope I make it! Ryan is safely (but sick) in the apartment after a 6 hour drive.

When it rains...

or should I say, "when it snows..." haha. Ryan is done with NJS today and is offically a 4402, which means he is a judge advocate! Just when we thought our time apart is finally over and we can enjoy Christmas, we found out today that his orders got messed up, TMO (transit moving office or something like that) doesn't have our paperwork, and a snow storm is hitting the northeast at about the time I am flying from Buffalo and he is driving from Newport! I hope that Ryan and I can make it safely to NYC tomorrow and start the Christmas festivities!!

We elfed ourselves!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

I want a hippopotamus for Christmas!

On the drive from Newport to Boston, Ryan and I heard the hippopotamus for Christmas song. Though I have heard the song many times, and love it, Ryan had never heard of it! He kept saying "hippopotamuseses" and laughing for the rest of the drive. I found a video of the song on you tube. Here it is...I dare you not to laugh!

I love that Christmas brings out the traditions in each family. Ryan and I have created some of our own traditions over the years. We go to the NYC Ballet performance of the Nutcracker and get champagne during intermission, we see the tree in Rockefeller Center, we set up our Christmas "shrub," and we exchange presents over my homemade eggnog. I also make a homemade meal of filet mignon, potato gratin, roasted green beans, and creme brulee that we eat while watching Christmas movie favorites such as National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Elf, The Grinch (the original), Charlie Brown's Christmas, and one classic movie that changes every year. These traditions helped shape our relationship as a couple and we hope to share them with our future children someday.

I'm so excited to celebrate Christmas with Ryan's family this year! They have a great tradition where all the "kids" sleep in the same room and then wake up at 4am to exchange presents in their pajamas. They also watch a Christmas Story on Christmas Eve. It will be so much fun to participate in all of that and also to bake cookies with Nan. Nan already decorated the house and now 9 stockings are hanging - Mom, Dad Gallagher, Ryan, Kevin, Bobby, Patrick, Micaela, Nancy, and ME!! I love being a part of the family!

Though my family doesn't really celebrate Christmas, Sabina and I have a tradition of watching Home Alone 2. In particular, we like to watch the brick throwing scene over and over and laugh while we scream "EEECHEEBUBBAA!!"

Oh, I love Christmas season! It's a great excuse to be a kid again!

What a week!

Ryan and I had a pretty busy week. I went to Newport with him to complete my overseas medical screening, apply for my official government passport, and talk to Father Dennis - the Navy Chaplain - about us getting married in the Catholic faith. Aside from having to get blood drawn and four shots (for those of you that don't know, I HATE needles!), it was a pretty great week!

Ryan and his fellow marines had semper fi night last Wednesday. It's a night where the marines roast the navy and "coasties" with humorous awards such as "spring butt award" or the "quasi fidelis award." We spent most of the night laughing, drinking, and hanging out with some pretty fabulous friends! I even got a shout out from Mitch for helping make the slideshow (and they used my computer)!

I got to have a girls' night of pampering on Thursday while Ryan played poker with the boys. Lloyd's wife, Jennie, and I went to get makeovers in Newport followed by wine tasting and a buffet of antipasto, cheese and crackers, and pad thai! It would have been an amazing night if the rain hadn't destroyed all of our makeup! We still had a great time though.

Friday night, Ryan, a few of his buddies, and I went to Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut to play some Texas Hold 'em. Foxwoods is HUGE and could easily compete with any hotel in Las Vegas. We were too nervous to play at the tables when we first got there, so we started out with video poker. We lost at first but then came back with a straight flush to curb our loss to only $15. Then we went to check on Lloyd and Pete who were playing $1-$2 Texas Hold 'em poker. Ryan was still nervous to play at the tables but decided to give it a whirl with Mitch. Mitch did very well in the beginning and had the strength to walk away when he was up. Ryan eventually got pretty good at it and we walked away with about $135 at 4:30 am. We were exhausted!

Today, we drove up to Boston to see Sabina. We had a great time eating with her and Ryan finally got to see her apartment! It's a good thing we all love nachos! But now I'm sad because Ryan is back in Newport and I'm in Buffalo. Though I am grateful for the time with my parents and the opportunity to check more wedding details off my list, I miss my man a lot! It's a good thing we will be back together for Christmas in less than 5 days!

Thankful for family this Christmas

We had quite the scare today. Ryan's stepfather and sister, Nancy, were in a car accident. Nancy, luckily, only had a few scratches. Dad Gallagher, however, is pretty banged up. He fractured his neck, broke his ankle, had a gash in the back of his head, and lost a bit of his ear. Luckily, there is no serious damage that we know of. They are monitoring him for internal injuries and he is going to have surgery on his ankle, but he was conscious and mobile (and joking around!) when we saw him. Considering how bad the accident was, we are lucky that he is doing okay and his recovery should not be terrible.

Ryan and I are so thankful to have such a wonderful and loving family. The lack of sleep we will get tonight is a small price to pay to know that Dad Gallagher and Nancy are okay (and getting to see the family is always a bonus!). We received our Christmas miracle today and for that we are so grateful.

"But it's not really Japan...."

One of the things Ryan and I have heard a lot since we found out we were moving to Okinawa is that it won't really feel like Japan because there are a lot of Americans and Ryan will be working on a military base. Not true!! We want to take advantage of living abroad and we plan on living off base, learning Japanese, driving on the left side of the road, and eating sushi and sobe! Although climate-wise Okinawa is very much like Hawaii since they are both tropical places, Okinawa is still very much Japanese. When I stumbled upon this Jenny Spouse comic about the misperceptions of Oki, created by a military wife, I had to post it!

(click on it to make it bigger)

Let it rock!

I added tunes to the blog! It's a collection of some of our favorite songs and songs that make Ryan want to move his hips. Haha. Maybe you will hear some of these songs at our wedding! The Kevin Rudolf song is all for you, Bobbo!

PCSing on the Brain

So, it's 4:15 am and I'm still awake. Why? Because I have our pending overseas move on my brain. I have spent the last 18 hours making an extensive inventory of my belongings and what I can remember of Ryan's belongings in an excel spreadsheet. I have it organized into categories such as, "take on the plane," "express shipment," "bigger shipment," and "things to move to Buffalo," since my parents have generously allowed us to store some stuff in their basement. I also have a list of items to buy before we move and things I have to accomplish before the move (and preferably in the next 2 weeks). Everytime I go to lay my head on the pillow, I remember something new to put on one of many many lists, so I jump up and run to my laptop. Either that or I have dreams of my belongings dancing in my sleep.

So, here I am, wide awake. This is what PCSing does to you. For our friends and family not in the military, PCS stands for "permanent change of station." It's what you do when you switch duty stations, or in our case, move to your first duty station. In just about a month now, Ryan and I are heading to Okinawa, Japan where Ryan will be a Judge Advocate for the United States Marine Corps. I have no idea what I am going to do there yet, but I have faith that I will learn and experience a lot there. Until then, I am a PCS-organizing guru with the side job of planning our big fat Catholic-Indian wedding extravaganza.

This blog will be our place to document and share our new life as a married couple living in the tropical land of Okinawa with our family and friends CONUS (for you non-military folk, that means in the CONtinental US). Why name it Kobe Burgers in Paradise? Well, if you know Ryan, you know that he loves cheeseburgers...actually, love might be an understatement! He also enjoys listening to Jimmy Buffet (he has been bugging me to put a $400 Jimmy Buffet margarita maker on our registry, but considering it's basically just a ginormous blender, I had to veto that). One of Jimmy Buffet's famous songs is entitled "cheeseburger in paradise." Ryan took me to a concert a few years ago and we had fun dancing around like "cheeseburgerheads." Since Japan is the land of Kobe beef, which is quite the delicacy, and Okinawa is known as "the Hawaii of Japan," we are going to be two "Kobe burgers in paradise!"

Don't believe me that Okinawa is like paradise? Does this change your mind?

How about this?

Even though we'll miss our family, friends, and the change of seasons (English and driving on the right side of the road), we're very excited about this new adventure and about starting our life as a married couple. I'll try to update this blog as often as possible. For now, I think I'll give the lists a rest and dream about scuba diving with the love of my life!