2013 Year in Review

Wow 2013 you sure went by quickly!! It seems like each year flies by faster and faster than the previous year. I'll try to let the photos do the talking. :)

January

With busy season I honestly don't remember what happened or didn't happen in January.  However in late January Scrubmates hosted Winter Wine & Tea.  We were fortunate enough to have the Colt's super bowl trophy to take pictures with.

February

This didn't happen in February but it aired, our TV debut, on Pawn Stars!

March

A work trip to Dallas to see my buddy Reggie happened in early March.  Then, at the end of busy season, I was rewarded with a trip to the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 to see Louisville on their run to the National Championship.

 April

By April, Darren's interviews were in full force.  We coupled an interview at Mt Sinai with a long weekend in New York City. 

 May

During Darren's last interview leg in May, we ended up doing a road trip to Durham, Charleston, Asheville, Savannah and Gatlinburg.   Also in May we went to the Indy 500 for the first time.

 June

In June we went out and celebrated Mollie's birthday with a beautiful cake and a tasty dinner.

 July

 In July we had a BBQ for the 4th and the following weekend went to Chicago to celebrate the wedding of Kristin and Tim.

August

In August I went to my first official soccer game and saw Chelsea beat Inter Milan.  Then we jetted off to Vegas and met up with Jason and Michelle for a long weekend and then spent the rest of the week in Los Angeles. 

September

A weekend in September ushered in football season with the Bears playing the Vikings. 

October

In October we celebrated our first anniversary by taking our first trip to London!

November

In November I got to join Bryan and Carolyn for their baby shower in Chicago and then that same weekend we went to a second bears game against the Lions.

December

Christmas.  So grateful we got to celebrate with both of our families again this year.

Biltmore Gardens

After we toured the Biltmore Estate we took a tour of the gardens.  It was at the tail end of the spring flower festival so the flowers were still beautiful but not as pretty as I'm sure they would have been a couple weeks before.

This is the view of the side terrace out to the side garden.

This is the side lawn near the front of the house.  It is just the house's right below the front walls.

View from the gardens to the side of the house.

Beautifully manicured gardens.

Finally got to test my new camera with some detail shots!  They turned out incredible!

View from the garden down to the conservatory.

Biltmore Estate

The one thing I wanted to do while in North Carolina was visit the Biltmore Estate.  I had been once when I was much younger and fell in love with everything Vanderbilt as a result.  Many years before I would attend Vanderbilt University!

Some of the details reminded me so much of Harry Potter like this clock tower.

And this courtyard looks like it is from a movie.

Unfortunately pictures were not allowed inside so I went a little crazy taking pictures of details outside.

These pictures were taken from the side yard.

One of many sculptures around the house and grounds.

The gargoyles on the front of the house.

And beautiful pictures of the front.

Duke Gardens

Darren interviewed at Duke and I drove down to meet him so we could road trip around the south for a week.  After his interview in Chapel Hill we spent the weekend in the Durham/Chapel Hill area.  The one place I wanted to visit were the Duke Gardens having heard how beautiful they were.  Everything was so charming including the fountains.

 

The flowers were in full bloom.

 

 

Everything was manicured and pruned to perfection!

 

 

Afterwards we did a drive by of Duke Chapel.  Due to graduation being that weekend we couldn't get much closer.