Maui.....

Maui was so amazing! We got to experience incredible scenery and see two of our best friends (Karly and John) get married. You can't ask for much more than that. While in Maui we went snorkeling, took a road tour to Hana, went to an amazing wedding, and a Luau. Here are a few of our pictures....

Summer is here!

(Cliffs of Moher)

Andrew and I have had a very busy summer. We've already made a quick trip to Northern California and spent 10 days in Ireland with the Gibby family.

Our pictures from Ireland are at : http://picasaweb.google.com/elishabelle/Ireland2009?feat=email#

Our next adventures will be in Maui, where we will be attending our dear friends, Karly and John's wedding. We're very excited to spend some quality time and to say we saw our friends get Mauiied :)

(Slieve League near Donegal)

(Clifden Castle-it was on private property)

(Connor Pass-outside of Dingle)

Moving on up...

We are at 419 days until the wedding. I've been updating the website ( http://www.theknot.com/ourwedding/ElishaMcArthur&AndrewGibby ) all day and would love if anyone has any special pictures of us together to share. As of April 27th Andrew and I are homeowners and we're loving our new location. We're super close to many conveniences, and I'm less than 5 minutes from work.

The new address is:
Elisha McArthur and Andrew Gibby
20948 Sandstone Square
Potomac Falls, VA 20165

Our cell phone numbers are still the same. Austyn is slowly adjusting to the new place and all of the stairs that a three level townhouse brings. Although we're doing a lot of traveling this summer, we're still up for visitors if anyone has an itch to come and visit. Here are some pictures from the finished master bedroom (blue and brown) and of course, the guest suite :)

Update from the East

We've accomplished quite a lot in the last month. On February 1st, we decided to begin the hunt for a house. Our very first weekend of real estate shopping, we found a townhouse that met our needs and we put an offer in. Unfortunately, we were outbid. So, we moped for a couple of days and then, kept on looking.

The next weekend was President's Day weekend and we took a trip out to California to visit friends and look at wedding venues. I'd had my heart set on one (mostly because of the beautiful pictures online), but I was a bit wary of the outrageous catering costs. The site of Vintner's Inn is just as beautiful as all the pictures online. We had brunch, and were lucky enough to steal a late dinner spot on Valentine's night. Someone had canceled their reservation during our tour. Dinner was absolutely amazing and that sealed the deal. The date of the wedding is July 17, 2010 in Santa Rosa, CA. www.vintnersinn.com .



Andrew was doing some traveling for work from February 18th (my birthday) to February 24th. During that time I focused on things around here, and tried to have a little birthday fun. Two coworkers took me out to dinner on two separate nights. It was nice to go out with new friends. Andrew also bought me a Wii for my birthday and set it up before he left. So, we're in the new video game generation. BTW I love Wii bowling.

When Andrew came back into town we decided that we would look at houses again that very weekend. We looked at about 7 homes that day, and the very last one we looked at was a townhouse in Sterling, VA. It is located very close to a shopping center and conveniently less than 2 miles from the school where I work. The sellers are the original owners (1991) and the townhouse is in very good condition. After we got back to the realtor's office that afternoon, Andrew and I hopped in the car and started deliberating about two different places that we had looked at that day. I knew he liked the townhome because of its proximity to so many amenities. I really couldn't disagree, so when we were about a block away, I turned the car around and went back to the realtor's office to let him know that we wanted to put in an offer on the townhouse. The market is hot here! This place was only on the market one day and got 3 offers! Luckily, we put in our escalation clause with our paperwork and managed to still get it under value.

In less than a month..hmm 2 weeks really, we have a house under contract and a wedding venue. All, so very exciting. Now, we are looking forward to Aaron and Sophie's wedding in Park City, Utah in 2 weeks! Life is never dull in this household!

Holidays 2008

Since we were in CA for Thanksgiving we spent Christmas and New years on the east coast. On Christmas Eve Andrew's company had a nice lunch at a nice Chinese restaurant (which I got to attend) and then we finished up our last minute shopping. Andrew went to church with his family that evening while I went to rescue the dog (we hadn't planned on being gone all afternoon). Christmas day was loooonnnnggg. We woke up at about 7:30 and exchanged our gifts to one another (I gave Andrew: pj's, running jacket, running store gift certificate, 2 x box games, a tie, a roll aboard duffel bag, and tickets to a Capitals hockey game. Andrew gave me: awesome Bose noise canceling headphones, my favorite perfume, and a subscription to 3 different bridal magazines). After playing a bit of video games, we headed over to the Gibby's house and opened gifts there. Andrew then played board games with his brothers for about 3 1/2 hours and a little after 3pm Andrew's brother's wife and her family arrived. We had a nice group of 10 for a wonderful dinner of duck. The night ended at about 10:00 p.m.

Early Saturday Andrew and I took a trip to the American history museum. Unfortunately, many of the exhibits are not on display and after an hour of opening it was super crowded. On Saturday night Andrew's brother, Aaron came over, ate pizza, and played video games till the wee hours and on Sunday we all went to the Capitals hockey game in D.C.

On New year's eve we went to a wonderful dinner at an Italian restaurant across from the Kennedy Center. Then we went to the Kennedy Center for "Legally Blonde". It was a very cute show. Parts of it were written much different from the movie. Very entertaining show. To bring the new year in we went over to the Gibby's and toasted with champagne and hugs at midnight. Overall it was a lovely holiday season, but I am looking forward to next year in California!

Another way to stay connected

Hello everyone! A few of my coworkers have blogs and I realized this would be a great way to stay in touch through words and pictures. Hopefully, even for my technology impaired family members.

I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season! So far we just did a 10 day trip to CA for Andrew's cousin's wedding and Thanksgiving. It was a wonderful trip, but much too quick. We put 1,400 miles on our rental car in less than 10 days! Our first couple days were spent in Del Mar for Shannon and Bryan's wedding, then we headed to Santa Maria for an evening. From there we spent the next night in Salinas, and traveled to Martinez the next day. On Tuesday we drove up to Sonoma to look at wedding venues and then met up with a great group of friends and family at my favorite, Chocolate Sushi in Sunnyvale for dinner. After dinner we were back in Salinas, and the next morning had 2 breakfasts, with 2 separate groups of friends. After that we headed back to Santa Maria where we stopped at my cousin Kara's and hung out with her and her kids for a short bit, then headed to the Vertrees where Andrew got a taste of Santa Maria BBQ (Vertree's style). Later that evening we eventually made it to sushi (notice a trend?) at Yanagi's in Santa Maria with some of my bestestess from that area. Thursday morning Andrew and I woke up and headed out to hang out with Dana and her new four legged man (Lane). The rest of the day was spent with family (thank goodness). On Friday we left Santa Maria at 6:30 a.m. for Disneyland! We spend Friday and Saturday at Disneyland, and then left Anaheim at 5:30 a.m on Sunday to head to San Diego to drop off our rental car and fly back to our cozy little apartment. After rushing to make it to San Diego in time for our early morning flight that flew to LAX, all flights were canceled and they ended up bussing us to LAX, where we had less than 30 minutes to check bags, go through security, and of course RUN all the way through the terminal to the very last and cornermost boarding gate. OH my! We made it, but not without a little bit of stress.

After returning back to VA, we had a few days of work and on Saturday morning I ran a 5k with one of my students. Girls on the run is an awesome organization. I wish it would have been around when I was a kid! After the morning jaunt in 20 degree freezing weather, Andrew and I headed down to Williamsburg for a couple of days with his family. On Sunday evening we watched a great fireworks display, had a fabulous dinner, and then drove home to start yet another week at the grind! Last weekend was our first weekend in Herndon in at least a month! We were both pretty wore out. I will update more as Christmas and New Years come along.

Only 4 days till my half marathon!

I'm officially in taper mode and have been for the last week and a half. It is an interesting place to be after struggling through about the last 6 out of 14 weeks of training. The last 10 and 11 mile runs really took a toll on my knees. If I do this again, I will definitely try to start running at least a month before actual training starts. 30 miles a week is a lot for someone who had barely run 3 miles at a time EVER in their whole life. Running for a cause has been an emotional and physical journey. Being able to train with others who have the same cause is priceless. The best thing about this experience is how much better my cardio fitness is. If I keep my pace steady and slow, I can just keep going and going, without getting winded. The toughest part of the training has been the toll it has taken on some of my lower body. With time I hope that those aches will subside and that I will be able to train for another half marathon. Good luck to me!