Our First New Year's!

To welcome in the year 2009, we spent the evening at Adam and Maegan's house. We got a real treat this New Year's! When Maegan spent the summer in Australia for missions, she stayed at a family's house for about one month of that time. Well, that family came to visit her during the week of New Year's! So, for a New Year's Eve dinner, we pulled out all of the stops and made the most southern meal ever. The family absolutely loved it and even took a picture of me making fried green tomatoes! To top it off Maegan made some homemade ice cream. After the meal, he headed to the fireworks stand and to Maegan's parent's house to shoot them off. This was another treat for the Australians as fireworks are banned there. This was the first time they had ever set off their own fireworks! Once we had set off the last one and were thoroughly frozen, we headed back to Adam and Maegan's for fun and games until the ball drop in NYC. It was absolutely a great time!!

Our First Christmas!

Our first Christmas was an adventure! I don't think Gibby has ever been to that many Christmas celebrations in one year! He definitely felt the effects of inheriting a large family at this time of the year. We started off the Christmas season by getting our first Christmas tree! This was another first for Gibby. He had never had a real tree before for Christmas. I was the one that insisted on it because it just doesn't seem like Christmas to me if I don't have a real tree. We had a fun time trying to find a place that sold real trees and then finding a price that was good for us. We eventually bought a tree from the Boy Scouts of Vestavia. Kali even got to join in the festivities as we brought the tree in and decorated it. I just know she always loves the time of year when I put the Santa hat on her and takes pictures! This year she was really cooperative though! :-)

Troy Homecoming 2009

In November, I was able to go to Troy University's Homecoming. Unfortunately, Gibby had to stay in Birmingham to work. I traveled down with Adam and Maegan and stayed with them at Ellis and Becky Bush's house. Ellis is the college minister at Bush Memorial, where I attended church in Troy. He has several acres of land right outside of Troy. During college, we would go out there to fish, hang out, cook out, and play Frisbee golf. Now we always go back when we are in town to do the same. Homecoming was no different. We were able to spend quality time and catch up with a lot of friends from college. The day of the game, we all met at the BCM for lunch before touring the campus (which has changed a lot) and walking to the stadium. It was great to go to the game and see even more people from the college days. I topped off the weekend by going to Bush Memorial on Sunday morning to see all of my favorite church members. Overall, it was a great weekend!! It was hard to be away from Gibby, though, since it was our first weekend away from each other.

Landon Tucker Lightfoot

On October 13, 2009 our beautiful nephew Tucker was born to Gibby's sister, Brittany, and her husband, Rob. He weighed in at 7 lbs. 5 oz. and was 21 inches long. He had the most beautiful golden hair and the longest feet I've ever seen on an infant! He is the first grandchild on both sides and it showed! Our life was definitely blessed by the birth of Tucker!!

Day Four: Sausalito and Carmel

On our fourth day we decided to take the ferry over to Sausalito. We really wanted to go see the big redwood trees. We had no idea how we were going to get to them, but we took the ferry anyway. We were hoping for some type of public transportation on the other side of the bay. There is definitely not any public transport in Sausalito, but we got a great deal on a rental. It was a great price without a limit on mileage. So, being the roadsters that we are, we decided to drive CA HWY 1 down the coast to Carmel. We stopped first at the redwoods, which were absolutely beautiful! It is impossible to get a good picture of the trees just because they are so enormous. We had a great time hiking through the first part of the forest. After the forest, we found our way to Hwy 1. On our way, we were able to cross over the Golden Gate Bridge, which was a lot of fun! It was an amazing site. Too bad the toll is so high though! ;-) We stopped once along the way to take in the breathtaking view of the cliffs along the Pacific. It was the first time either one of us had seen the Pacific Ocean. We made it to Carmel just as the sun was setting. Unfortunately, it was too foggy to really get a good picture of it. It was a long and great day to end our time in California.