Goodbye 2009 & Hello 2010! Can you believe that it's here? I think, the thing I will have to adjust to the most is saying "twenty-ten". You can't really say '010 like you do say '09. That's sad because we've had nine years of that. I don't think that I will spend too much time reviewing 2009 because I wrote at lot over the last year (on the blog) and our Christmas letter kind of did a review already. Although, on Facebook there is an application for making a collage of pictures from the ones you have already loaded into albums. My friend Emerald made one and I thought it was so cute. So for the second time ever, I loaded an application onto my page. I am pleased with the end result. I chose for it to look like a bulletin board. Like it?I hope that you had a safe and Happy New Years Eve. Tommy and I started our New Years Eve night at the Kahley's. We exchanged Christmas gifts. I made Hannah an Ornament and a Photo Book. She loved her gifts. After gifts we just hung out with other friends, at there house and of course pigged out on food and played Apples to Apples. Tara made lasagna and a strawberry salad. The ladies had Champagne and we laughed the night away. Tommy and I made our new years resolutions to make 2010 truly the best year ever; for us, for business and set up for our future.
Bobby is Tommy's only brother. He is older and lives out in Cali. He and his girlfriend Stella took two weeks off from work and had been traveling around NJ, PA, MI and Ohio to visit family and friends over their winter break. The 29th - 31st they were here with us. It was our 1st time meeting Stella and we had not seen Bobby since last Christmas. They came in on Tuesday afternoon. We showed them the house and had some wine.
Afterwords we took a drive downtown just to show them around and ended up at Due Amici to eat. The food was amazing, as usual. We all split four appetizers and had an amazing bottle of red. The apps we picked...
***artisan cheeses, chef’s selection of local cheeses
***spinach artichoke dip, served with crispy house bread
***stuffed peppers, veal & parmesan stuffed banana peppers, oven roasted tomato sauce
***pepper crusted ahi tuna, mushroom & pepper salad finished with port wine reduction
After dinner we went home and exchanged Christmas gifts. Wednesday morning Tommy made a Big German with sauteed apples on top for breakfast. We all got packed up and hit the road for Medina, Ohio. Bert (Tommy & Bobby's cousin) has a new bead shop. We stopped by and checked it out. It's amazing. We don't have any bead shop like that in Columbus, that I know of. They have everything! Plus, they have classes and mini kitchen upstairs. Later we went to Norwalk to Aunt Sandi and Uncle Dan's house, the house we got married at, and had dinner. Dan made Pizza's in his wood burning oven outside and we sipped on wine and watched Harry Potter Six.
~Us at Due Amici~
~Bobby & Stella at bkst. So cute together!~
~The Bead Shop (maybe a fouth of it)~
~Stella picking out some cool beads, she made me earings for xmas!~
~T, me, Bert, Stella & Bobby outside the shop~
We had such a great time with Bobby and Stella. We got to talk to Bobby about work, Cali and everything in between. Stella is so sweet and such a thoughtful young lady. We enjoyed talking to her and she is such a great story teller. Oh my gosh, we laughed a lot in the car on the way to dinner Tues night. She and I also found out that we have a few big things in common.
Tommy and I had such a wonderful Christmas with my parents. We went over around 1 pm on Christmas day. We had Christmas dinner with my parents and a couple of other family friends. The meal was amazing. We had a beautifully herb rubbed roast, mashed potatoes and asparagus. For desert we each had a little crème brule and chocolates. Tommy, Jim, Dad and I played some pool and the other ladies talked upstairs. That night we stayed at my old house and woke up on "our Christmas morning" the 26th.
We opened stockings and then made Cinnamon rolls as we did every year growing up. Then we opened gifts and played at least three games of poker. It was fun to have a quiet Christmas with my parents. We also made the dough for a gingerbread house and Tommy and daddy cooked Kong Pow Chicken for dinner. It was amazing!!! Later in the evening Tommy and daddy played more pool and mommy and I watched Julie & Julia on the couch with the fire place going. We laughed at (and with) Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. If you have not seen the movie yet, go out and get it. Here are just some of the pix from Xmas day. Jill, Thank you again for getting my dad the framed baseball picture. He was so excited about it. It was just what he had been looking for, you made his day.
Tommy and I truly had a wonderful Christmas together this year. We have not celebrated yet with Tommy's brother, sister or parents but we will soon enough. It will feel like Christmas just keeps on coming. T and I had our Christmas on Christmas Eve. So the 24th of December we woke up, turned on the fireplace and opened stockings. Tommy got two stockings this year. One had a couple little gifts in it and the other had coal. Oh dear! After stocking Tommy made omelets for breakfast. Then we opened our gifts. Tommy got the movie Transformers from Santa so we watched it and played his new board game called Criss Cross Poker. You play 10 hands of Poker at the same time. Really fun. I got one for my sister in law too (don't worry she already knows she got it). After board games we took a nap. Ahhhh. A nap. After this past season I almost forgot what a nap was. lol. For lunch Tommy made his own cocktail sauce and we had shrimp. We had 3/4 lb's of and there were only 6 pieces. They were big suckers! lol. Also we had crackers and Bree. It was the perfect lunch. We were lazy the rest of the day. I put my new ornaments on our tree and we made hot chocolate (big surprise) and talked.
I got a Hippo for Christmas... just what I wanted! This was my Xmas-eve gift!
Tommy's Xmas-eve gift was the Hot Drinks for Cold Nights Book
Jackson was tired for all the gift opening! Really... this is what Tommy got, the he placed it on my hook! Sadly, I still have not seen the movie. Tommy was so excited to get a G by Guess shirt. What's in here? Turns out they were Hot Coco Mugs from Santa! Jackson got his mama a card... Our stocking gifts! Just cause they were the same size, we had to take a picture! When I opened this bag it sang, "Santa Baby!" Playing our new game! You can see the card Jackson got me. It has his face on it and Tommy scratched out Wife and wrote Mommy! It was so cute. Puppy, really was tired by the end of the night. lol.
Tommy and I had a "newborn session" booked for January. I got a call, a week ago, from Jeremy Hart (the new daddy) to say that baby Ella came three weeks early. "Mommy and baby are both fine", he said, "We were just wondering if we could bump up our session date to next week?" So we did. Last night Tommy and I photographed a newborn preemie who weighed in just under 5 lbs. She was so adorable. She was so alert and wanted to know what was going on during "her foto shoot" at all times. It took her a long time to go to sleep, so we could get "sleeping shots" but after a while she did and we got just what we wanted. Aka the last picture! Enjoy!
Apparently when you are tired you can't write a blog... and you forget pictures. Please take the time to read this again. It would mean a lot to me. Sorry for all the errors in the first one.
Take that for a title of a Feisel Family Blog! Here's another teaser for you!
Thurs, With God ALL THINGS are Possible!
Friday, I was poisoned!
Saturday, Avatar the Movie!
Sunday, I will miss you, Brittany!
Let’s go back before Thursday even hit. Last week Tommy and I dropped off my rings at Helzberg Diamonds at Tuttle Mall. He and I usually never go out there because it's a little bit of a hike. So, Monday the 14th rolls around and Helzberg calls to say that my rings are ready to be picked up. We couldn’t go that night because I was hosting Girls Night. Tuesday didn’t work because we were busy working all day. Wednesday we went to our Bible Study’s Christmas party. We thought we would leave there in time to go pick them up but it was 10:30 before we knew it (I guess because we were having so much fun!). On Thursday we did get our work done in time to go pick up the rings and eat some Chick-fil-a at the food court in "thought" of my cousin Andrew (who works for the main branch in GA). When we were getting ready to leave the mall we saw a married couple about our age at Guest Services (we found out later that their names are Johnny and Anna.) Anna was crying a lot and as the minutes passed her tears got bigger and bigger. Tommy thought maybe they lost their child in the Christmas crowd but the mall was dying down and I would think that only one parent would have run to information while the other was screaming his/her name. As Johnny walked away from the Guest Service counter, Tommy asked him what was wrong. He said, "My wife lost her wedding and engagement ring. She thinks that they fell off in the ladies room while she was washing her hands. She knows that she had her rings on here at the mall because she played with them on her finger when we talked about getting the wedding band appraised so that it’s insured along with the engagement ring. I said the mall will not be open late enough we’ll have to come back tomorrow.” What’s worse is that the ring had been passed down from her mother!
Anna finished giving Guest Services her info and ran back to the bathroom to search again. Mind you, the mall is closing in 6 minutes. I talked to Tommy for a sec and then proceeded to the ladies room myself. Well, forty minutes, and 4 trash cans later, no rings. We talked while going through the trash (mostly me trying to clam her down) and found out that we had a lot in common between living in Akron, going to Hudson Community Chapel up north, both going to Vineyard in Columbus, the year we got married and that Tommy and Johnny rhyme! ;) After no luck of finding the rings we sat down in the bathroom and prayed together. I shared with her that if the rings were stolen that God has the capability of placing them back into your life. Somewhere you would least expect them, to make sure that you know He did it. Before we parted, I gave them my business card and asked her to call me to keep us posted.
Later that night Anna called. She said that when they got home they looked on the dresser to see if the rings were there. The dresser is where she always puts them when she takes them off. They both looked on the dresser and found nothing but one picture frame and two candles. They went down stairs to the living room and prayed together for at least half an hour. When they went upstairs to go to bed, they saw both her engagement ring and wedding band stacked in a way that even with the steadiest hands would be difficult, with the center diamond pointed straight at the corner of the dresser. God did this for Anna. He is so amazing. For all we know, someone found the rings in the sink at the mall, didn’t turn them in and God took them back. Our Lord is so amazing.
Friday started out as quite a night. We went to Brian and Alisha’s house to surprise one of our friends for her birthday. We met some new people and hung out till Bizzy (Elizabeth) got there.
Around nine, we left to go shopping and ended up at Brio (right before they closed) for their $2.95 bar menu. All we got was the Red Pepper Bruschetta and some waters. As soon as I stood up I knew I was going to be sick. We had tickets to see Avatar (in 3D) and while Tommy returned them at the box office I sat back down in the lobby. Luckily I made it to the car and we almost made it home, but on our street, it happened. Sick as a dog! Tommy took such good care of me when we got home, he could not have done any better if he tried. We were sad though that we did not get to see Avatar that night.
We ended up sleeping in on Saturday morning. We got up around 9:45am. Bethany came over around 10:30 or so. She was coming to pick up some stuff and we hung out for a few. It was great to see her, I had not seen her in weeks. Later, Tommy and I got ready for the day and went shopping at Kohl’s for Brooke’s Birthday party; she was turning 5 years old. Marvin, Jill, Brooke and Audrey used to live next door to us, they recently moved several miles away so we’re always excited to get to see them. Tommy found a sweater that he thought Brooke would look cute in, and then ended up picking out the perfect birthday card too! Tommy said she’d love it because it had a lady bug on it and sure enough she did. When she opened presents at her party, she showed everyone her card like she was the teacher reading a book to her class, and it was so cute.
The party was flowered themed, which is where we are headed next on this “What a Weekend Story”! Jill outdid herself once again. Each of the kids got a foam wreath to decorate with little flowers. She then took a picture with each of the kids and Brooke, printed them off and framed them in the wreaths, which we stuck magnets on the back of. After that, the kids planted mini, foot-tall, Christmas trees they got to decorate with pipe cleaners and more mini foam flowers. Then Brooke un-wrapped her gifts and the kids had cupcakes and ice cream. We had such a great time at her party. Before we left Jill gave me my Christmas gift from her. I got the cutest purple hat and wrap-around scarf. I was so excited! The hat is just my style and in a color that I didn’t have yet. I was so happy. She also got me an 8x10 of the two of us at Easton when we went to go see Transformers 2! It’s so cute and I was so excited about the picture because all we have framed right now are family pix. I am determined to start a friends wall, and the picture of me and Jill will be the first to go up! (it’s already in a frame!)
After the birthday party we went to Edamame. Our waiter, also a Tommy, calls us regulars…I don’t know about that but we do like it there. He said since we were, we could order off the new menu they are introducing next week! We ordered a new appetizer, the Calamari. It was amazing. It came with deep fried green beans on the side. We got some of our favorites; the Edamame Roll, the Buckeye Roll, the Nutty Almond Roll, and we tried a new roll called the Mango Roll with, yes, mango. We spent two and a half hours at the restaurant just talking and eating. It was great!
We bought tickets (again) to see Avatar that night. We headed over to the theatre afterwards and got into the line. Yep, they let us all up at once, then we had to wait again to get into the actual theatre. To be honest I had absolutely no intention of seeing this movie till Tommy told me about the reviews and that we could see it in the “New 3D” experience. Amazing!
You have to go see it. I have to agree with most of the reviews that the plot could have been more detailed and just better but it was so cool the way the film was shot. I don’t want to tell you too much so you need to just go see it, in 3D! I am also ecstatic that Alice in Wonderland will also be out in 3D, like the way Avatar was filmed. Can not wait for that!!!
Today brought what Saturday morning brought, sleeping in! Ahhh! Avatar was a 2 hour and 45 minute movie and so we didn’t get home till around 2am. So far it’s been a lazy day. Tommy and I played some board games in front of the fire place and sipped on hot chocolate. We took a nap, two hours later we got up and I wrote this blog while he went out on a shoot. Picture to come later. Sadly, I just found out an hour ago that Brittany Murphy died this morning. I know it might sound silly but I feel like I lost a friend. I love her movies. I have almost every one of them that she was in. Clueless, Just Married, Uptown Girls, Little Black Book and Girl, Interrupted are just some of my favorites. My heart goes out to her family.
I guess she has 5 movies in post-production right now. It will be nice to still see her on the big screen again, although I am sure they will be hard to watch. Again, my heart aches and I will miss her as, I am sure, many others will.
2009 felt like a big year for us. I thought it would be kind of fun to share some of the highlights of our year. Maybe pick our top 12 “Days of Christmas”, I mean “Memories of the Year”. What better way to share 12 memories than by month? Off we go…
In January Tommy and I went (for the first time) to a place called The Dog Joint. Jill and her family introduced us to it. You can get a hot dog with about anything on it and their combinations are crazy cool. They also have about 30 flavors of milkshakes! It’s right across the street from our Library and we make frequent stops there.
February we had a double date with my parents. Tommy got a cook book (from me for Christmas) called Build a Better Burger. Tommy and Daddy prepped in the kitchen and mom and I sat in the living room and talked. Ten minutes after the guys were done grilling the burgers were loaded with toppings and gone! I have never seen four people eat so fast.
In March we had four or five dinner parties. It was fun to cook for friends and family. We made sushi, Burgers and Tommy even grilled lobster one night. I can say one thing for sure, our guests left happy!
For one of our date nights in April we made grandmas home made noodles and kielbasa together. Tommy’s mom’s mother, Josephine, cooks like no other. For Christmas 2008 she gave all the grandkids some of her recipes. Oh My Goodness, were we happy campers when we got to try the noodles that we spent hours making. The kielbasa recipe is out of one of Uncle Brian’s books Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing that grandma and Uncle Brian perfected together. We have made the kielbasa again at least three times since April.
We took our “Summer Vacation” in May. Our friends own a cabin in Hide-A-Way Hills. They offered for us to use it over a weekend. We obviously took them up on it. Tommy got to play some golf. I took some magazines (Rachel Ray’s of course) and we sat on the patio for hours. We also packed a couple of movies and the New Harry Potter book (at the time) and read it together. We spent one dinner night at the Club House and asked them to make Tommy’s Favorite Pizza (a.k.a. all the toppings that T likes on a pizza). It was made to perfection. What a weekend.
Our favorite memory for June was going to Easton for movie with our friends, Brian and Alisha, for Alisha’s 21st Birthday. We watched a movie up on the big screen (outside, like a drive in) at Brio, ordered some food and dessert and hung out. Brio had a $2.95 menu from 3-6, Monday – Friday’s. The menu is full of appetizers of generous proportions. We ate our way through the night and talked for hours. Alisha is on our New Age Foto team and she and Brian just got married this past year.
July we had a couple of my friends over with their husbands and kids. We had a pool party. Yep, you heard it right. We grilled hotdogs, blew up floaties and hung out by the pool. It was such a great time had by all.
August is my favorite month so I’m going to cheat and share a few of my favorite things. We celebrated my 25th Birthday Party with friends at Brother’s Bar, went to the Ohio State fair with our friend Clarissa, went to Tom’s Ice Cream Bowl (in Zanesville) with some friends, walked for “Donate Life” for my friend and her baby boy, had a Scavenger Photo Hunt (with Jill and the girls), saw Grease outside of Brio with Mom and Dad (for their Anniversary), took a day trip (to Cleveland) with my daddy to see the Indians play, went to my friends art show and saw Uncle David and Fireworks, of course. Then, my mom took me and Jill to Waynesville to go Antiquing. Can you believe we did all that and we shot a wedding every weekend?
September we had our two year anniversary and went to a sushi joint called Edamame We ordered some sushi and a bottle of wine and talked. Edamame has become our new favorite sushi joint. What is so great is that it’s located at Easton, just eight minutes from our house. This also, can mean trouble!
October we went to Cincinnati to visit one of our flower girls and her family. Emma - 5th grade, Elle - 2nd grade (flower girl), Avery - Kindergarten and Aiden is 18 months. Over the weekend we helped with crafts in Elle's class, went to Emma's 5th Grade Halloween Dance Party, walked the kids during their school Halloween Parade, went out to dinner (just us adults) to a restaurant that we had not been to before and took the kids to pick out pumpkins and helped them carve them at home. For Trick - or - Treat we set up a Photo booth in their driveway and took pix of all the kids. Tommy and I dressed up as Cleo & M. Anthony. We hung out on Sunday and played with the kids, then went out for Sushi. It is for sure that we made tons of memories that weekend.
November we visited with our families. We had the most relaxing time over Thanksgiving. We visited with my dad’s side of the family and Tommy’s mom’s side. We got to visit with both of Tommy’s grandmas and we let our nephews open their Christmas gifts while we were there, since we won’t see them on Christmas day.
December has been crazy so far. I would have to say that putting up the tree with Christmas music and candles lit was so much fun. We got a real tree (for the first time ever, for me) last year, and this year it was time to get out the fake one again.
All in all, it was an amazing year. Tommy and I were so blessed to get to work together, spend time with one another and make memories (that I am sure will be scrapped) for the year of 2009. We hope you and your loved ones had a good year too and you can look back at your memories you made over the months. We also hope you have the most memorable holiday season ever.
We love you all, Meredith and Tommy Feisel Oh, and Jackson too!
I hope that you had a safe and Happy New Years Eve. Tommy and I started our New Years Eve night at the Kahley's. We exchanged Christmas gifts. I made Hannah an Ornament and a Photo Book. She loved her gifts. After gifts we just hung out with other friends, at there house and of course pigged out on food and played Apples to Apples. Tara made lasagna and a strawberry salad. The ladies had Champagne and we laughed the night away.
