HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We rang in our first New Year as a married couple with good friends in Blacksburg. We were all back from the bowl trip, and wanted to take advantage of the time we had together. Because now that we are all in different places,
you never when we’ll be together for another wonderful evening. We started off the evening at Macados for dinner, “Just To Be There!” Our glass collection wouldn’t have been the same without two more 2006 Macado’s glasses, and we’ll go back for 2007 ones! After a great dinner, we headed back to the Townhouse to watch the ball fall. Our townhouse is like…100 feet from Macados, which is very convenient!! Tall James brought really good champagne for the New Year, and we had a wonderful evening bringing in the New Year. We are excited about all that 2007 is going to bring us, and we want to spend every day of 2007 enjoying life!!

The Game… good till the 4th Quarter.

Walking into the game was amazing. Fans from both sides were ribbing on each other’s schools. Our seats were near the top of the Dome, in the Georgia fan section. We decided we are tired of playing bowl games against the hometown favorite, the ACC needs to host some good games other than one in Charlotte.
The MV’s did pregame and we got some good pics of the VT and “HOKIES.” We started to learn Georgia’s cheers (just G-E-O-R-G-I-A over and over… like most of the SEC schools). The game started great. The all maroon uniforms looked good and we jumped to a 21-3 halftime lead. I still felt our meltdown coming and predicted our loss. The pass of the day was thrown by one of our wide receivers in a flea flicker for a touchdown. It was obvious Glennon was going to have a hard day… (if only Marcus Vick wasn’t such an idiot). The defense was playing lights out, and usually only a one point lead is all we need to win, but Glennon got turnover happy, throwing three or four picks and fumbling once (he was hit from the blind side, can’t really blame him on that one…).
In any case, all the extremely fair weather Georgia fans started to get into the game in the fourth quarter when the Hokie offense imploded and Frank Beamer almost had a heart attack. Larger UGA fans started to take their shirts off and wave them around like towels…
I had to remind myself we were not playing West Virginia. But it isn’t like Angela and I haven’t sat through horrible Hokie losses before, so we just enjoyed ourselves anyways. We annoyed the UGA fans near us who expected us to cry I guess, instead we kept yelling for the Hokies anyways!
The Georgia Dome did do cool things like drop glitter confetti and parachute Chick-Fil-A cows. After the insanely horrendous loss we had to walk back to the hotel, constantly harassed but inconsiderate Georgia fans… who more than likely had not attended the school. All the fans needed to do was through batteries at us to be WFVU fans. It was still an awesome time and fun with friends. We drove back to Blacksburg on New Years Eve.

Gameday!

Gameday in Atlanta was foggy and a little rainy. After sleeping in we heard everyone’s adventures from the previous night and walked across the street to a really nice diner named The Varsity, which catered primarily to Ga Tech students. Hokie fans were found there in abundance! It was a very neat diner, right out of the 50s, the largest drive-in restaurant in America. I was a little uncomfortable by the all white patrons being served by an all black staff, but the restaurant was neat nonetheless. After a quick tour of Georgia Tech we walked down to check out the parade (and reflect in the great fact that we did not have to march in it!). We walked through UGA’s band on the street and were harassed by their mascot, a big bulldog. We later heard that the Hokie Bird stole a UGA cheerleader, so we felt even. But, seriously, that dog harassed us! It was a really good parade with good floats and bands. The Hokie car was there, which is always awesome, and Atlanta’s fireman passed out fire hats, which Angela was SUPER excited about! After the Marching Virginians went by, cheerleaders were holding a sign telling fans to follow them to Fan Fest at the Georgia Dome. Which...every Hokie did! All of a sudden, all of the Hokies watching the parade jumped in and joined the parade. It was awesome, because UGA’s band was still behind the Marching Virginians, and they didn’t have anyone to play for when they went by!! Georgia fans did not show up until the game, meaning the city of Atlanta made a lot more money off of Hokie Nation… again! Fan Fest was really nice. It was in the Convention Center and hosted by Chick-Fil-A. There were numerous football related games and prizes before a pep rally. We took pictures with the cows, one of which James made cry because he told it that it was weird. This older Hokie woman standing next to us was laughing soooo hard!! We got to talk to Mr. Jay and Jen, along with her man Nathan and his brother Paul, and we caught up with friends from the band. Jen played the punt return contest but got pitched a bad punt! (Which we have on video for all interested parties! ☺) It was exciting, but we were all tired, so we went back to the hotel for rest and drinks before kickoff!

Chicken Bowl!!

One way to pass the time in Waco was to count down our trip to see the Hokies play in a bowl game!! The week after Christmas we met Tall James, Screech, and SAM in Blacksburg to go to our first Bowl game outside of the band. We spent the evening at a local favorite, Boudreaux’s, enjoyed mojitos, and headed off to bed early in preparation for the next days drive. There is nothing like a road trip with great friends we hadn't seen since the wedding!! After a short 6 hour drive we arrived at the Marriot Renaissance Hotel near Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Tall James found the hotel, and we had an awesome view of downtown from our 16th floor room. We watched the sunset over the ATL before heading out to catch up with friends. We soon found out that Georgia’s band was staying in our hotel as well, making for interesting waits for the elevator, as well as interesting elevator rides. It was soooo encouraging to see Hokie fans EVERYWHERE and few, if any, UGA fans. The Hokies had taken over the ATL. For dinner we headed downtown to find our former band mates, who were staying at the Sheraton. Walking in the city we ran into Dan Richardson on his honeymoon, a friend from Tech! After checking out a few bars we found the band in a foul mood due to sitting in traffic after a gig, hungry. We reminisced about the good times and how excited we were to not be wearing uniforms!! It was a great to see everyone again though! Since Bic grew up in the ATL, he took us to a local diner near Georgia State, far from the crowded chain restaurants. We had a great meal and enjoyed the sights for a bit. Angela and I were exhausted so we headed back to the hotel for some rest while Screech and Tall James found a nice martini and cigar bar while SAM chilled with his girlfriend who is in the band. The next day was going to be a long day for the band given the partying they were doing!

Christmas with the Gougers!

After a wonderful visit in Virginia Beach Angela and I dragged our poor dog away from his Lizzie and headed across the Bay to see my family. AJ and Lizzie became quite good friends while we were there, and he was sad to be leaving her. Although, I think he was more upset about getting back in the car! We were very tired and still exhausted from the move,

and we realized that in all the chaos there were several more boxes of presents to wrap! Angela thought that she would be able to wrap them in the car, but that was very unsuccessful, and she only wrapped one present in an hour! So we stopped in the parking lot of an elementary school in Newport News to finish…

the rest of the day was a slow paced family visit where Colin was the center of attention. Baby’s first Christmas is always a big deal! We methodically exchanged gifts until Grandma and Grandpa Gouger came over for dinner, which was great! Angela at first had a hard time catching on to the method, but she figured it out!
AJ loved opening his gifts, and really enjoyed his cigar and duck! He was completely worn down from all of the attention, presents, and traveling, and he fell fast asleep on Grandma’s comfortable lap. He loved Grandma and Grandpa, and we have decided that they need to get a little dog! We had a wonderful Christmas ham, with great wine, and spent the evening enjoying great food with the family.

We watched family videos during the afternoon, and enjoyed seeing how cute Mary was as a little girl, how funny James is playing football by herself, and how awesome it is to see teenage girls in the 80s who are too cool for everything! ☺ After family videos, the girls made bracelets and earrings from the bead kits they received for Chrismas.
All in all, we had a very pleasant Christmas with both of our families, whom we hadn’t seen in quite awhile. It was our first Christmas together, which was very exciting and very eventful! We hoped Rod had pleasant holidays in Baghdad, and that next year, we can all celebrate together!

Christmas with the Burley's!

This year was one crazy Christmas. After driving for over 2500 miles since early December, Angela and I were utterly exhausted. We finished unloading our furniture in Blacksburg in a pouring rain alone and headed to Virginia Beach on our last bit of energy. On Christmas Eve we frantically searched for gifts to give each other as we had not the opportunity before.
Christmas Eve traditions for the Burley’s include going to Olive Garden. We dropped of AJ with Lizzie for doggy bonding and picked up Mom Burley from work. It was nice to see Tony, whom we hadn’t seen since July 4. He is really enjoying the Coast Guard Academy! The Burley’s neighbor, Karen Minkowitz threw a Christmas Eve party with a bunch of neighbors which included a silly gift exchange. We had a good time, but it was bittersweet in the fact that Rod was on the other side of the world and Taryn was leaving for California the next day. After the party we went to Midnight Mass with Father Scordo who had married us! There was so much incense in the church my eyes watered up and I could not see anything, plus I was a tad tired. Angela and I stayed up till 2am to wrap presents then passed out till 5am to wrap more. We had a nice gift exchange with Mom Burley and Tony around 6am. He really liked his cigar box we got for him in Key West. The dogs loved their toys, and we realized how dominant AJ is due to the fact that he could control everything Lizzie did… but she is a tiny dog.

Nebraska

Grandmother Lois passed away in early December, and given the fact that Lincoln was merely a long days drive from Waco, we drove up.
Angela had not had the opportunity to meet my Mother’s family as they could not make the wedding, and I was excited to show her Lincoln, which I think is an awesome city due to childhood vacations. We left around 5am and headed north. Our only traffic was in Fort Worth and we made good time. AJ was introduced to snow in Oklahoma at a small truck stop. Kansas was stereotypically flat, and Nebraska met us with tidy farms and a spectacular sunset. At York we hopped onto I-80 and grabbed runza’s, a Nebraska fast food oddity. Meat is cooked with cabbage and wrapped in dough… sounds weird but is fantastic. Using mapquest we found the hotel we were sharing with my Parents and Sarah who had flown in earlier. They were at my Uncle’s place for dinner after the wake. We used the internet to find our way there and had a good reunion with my parents whom we had not seen since July. The rest of the family received Angela well and we shared some memories of my late grandparents. The next day we gathered for a cold funeral for Grandma Collings. It had been 16 degrees the night before… and for acclimated Texans we were COLD. After a nice ceremony we went sight seeing with my parents. We visited my mother’s alma mater, Nebraska Wesleyan where my Grandmother had been a librarian and professor of children’s literature. We then headed to see the library my Grandfather had run at the University of Nebraska. My dad found a park near our hotel to take AJ on a walk, where he met his first frozen pond, poor dog.
Lincoln’s skyline is dominated by the state capitol building and the gigantic University of Nebraska football stadium. They love their Huskers! After a nice visit we got up real early and headed south across the plains to pack up and leave Waco for good!!

Fishing with the Frank Weller’s

The day after Thanksgiving Grandpa and Uncle Frank were going fishing down at Ingleside Navy base. They convinced me to come so we went and picked up a one day saltwater fishing license. We got up early and left by 6am for Ingleside first stopping for some freshly caught shrimp as bait. We walked to the end of the only pier at the tiny base overlooking Corpus Christi. As soon as we started fishing sand trout started biting. In just a few hours we had a cooler full of 120 trout and headed home. Grandpa decided I would be in the way if I helped gut and clean the fish, so I was assigned to cleaning the poles. Angela and I had some friends over before we moved and grilled up the trout into good po’boys. We had a nice stay in Rockport before heading back to Waco to pack it all up and move home.