Fame and Fortune

This was a big week for Shaun Johnson! Not only did he get his first shot at 15 minutes of Fame on the Oprah Winfrey Show but he also is the creator of Award Winning Chili. Yes, we should all bow down =) Shaun had a crazy week working the Inauguration but it all paid off because Oprah had a live feed from his store for her Inauguration Wrap-up Episode the day after. Then after a day of rest and relaxation, Shaun was able to catch-up on sleep and start the makings of his "Czech Chili" for the 2009 Bursch Chili Cook-off Invitational. All that slaving in the kitchen and red pepper addition paid off with a 2nd Place Ribbon. Go Shaun!!!

The New Addition...

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage. Well we opted for a car instead of a carriage. This is our first joint venture as husband and wife so we're very proud of our new Baby, the Sparkly Ford Edge!

Of course, the purchase of our new car couldn't be enough excitement, Sandra had to get it towed before even owning it for 24 hours. She was reluctant to call home, after Shaun had done such an amazing job negotiating the deal, so she opted for a call to 911 to report the vehicle stolen. Only to her surprise the vehicle had been towed not stolen, quite a relief actually.

Happy Holidays

We had an eventful holiday season this year, traveling to spend time with our families and friends! Thanksgiving was like the movie Groundhog's Day for us, seeing we had three rounds of it. I won't complain though as it is one of my favorite holidays. I mean what's not to love; Turkey, Mama Geiger's stuffing, pumpkin pie, and my B-Day =)

Shaun headed home to Ohio for an early Turkey Day celebration with his Mom and John. Notice he strategically planned this with a home Brown's game so he could party with all of his Ohio Boys. Then we spent Thanksgiving Thursday with the Geiger Family and had our traditional ping pong battle. Only this year, Shaun found his opportunity to win by challenging Maggie (5) and Annie (3) to the table. I'm sure the tables will turn soon enough! Then we headed down to Kentucky to spend some quality time with the Johnson side. The best part is you never have to leave the house to have fun, their basement includes all of life's necessities - bar, pool table, air hockey, movie theater room, seriously what more to you need! They were able to pry me from the house to tackle my first Black Friday shopping experience and I have to say not nearly as insane as I had expected.


So I'm one of the lucky ones that gets to celebrate their birthday on Thanksgiving every seven years, I actually entered the world on Thanksgiving Day hence my love for Pumpkin Pie!!! This year my birthday was just as eventful as my wonderful hubby surprised me with a weekend trip to NYC to see one of my favorite musicians, Michael Buble, and couples, the Erikssons. There is nothing quite as spectacular as New York City at Christmas time, we enjoyed playing tourist running through Central Park, shopping at Herald Square, and strolling through Rockefeller Center!




We spent our first Christmas as newlyweds here in Virginia and decorated our tree with all of the wonderful ornaments we've received to highlight the event. It was a bittersweet holiday as we lost one of our family pets, Koby. He was such a cool cat, he loved to play fetch and chase Cali around. We have so many fond memories with him and have a stocking hanging in his honor.



As if we didn't get enough time off with the holidays we had to extend the fun and take a week long vacation to Utah. We had such a blast hanging with the Richards and enjoying the scenery. Alli of course teased us the whole trip pretending she was going to crawl but that's alright because we're wrapped around her finger and think anything she does is amazing! As any mature adults would do once they put the baby to bed, we'd bust out the video games and play Wii. But it lead us to the discovery of our next American Idol, YES IT’S ME, because I scored a 98% on Rock Band as the singer! Although, I could become the next competitor on Top Chef because Sara gave me several cooking lessons while we were there too. Watch out World! Some of the highlights of our trip were touring Sundance and skiing in Park City. I was on the hunt for Robert "Bob" Redford the whole time and kept having look alike sightings...guess I'm missing my LA days =)

A Year in Review

2008 Covered Several Milestones for Us!!! We ran our first 1/2 Marathon, GOT MARRIED, and celebrated the big 30 for Shaun, what a year!

We decided to start 2008 off with a bang and hosted our first New Years Eve Bash; confetti, champagne, the whole nine yards. You'll start to notice a theme to this post, we love to celebrate, give us an excuse and we're there! So of course when Superbowl Sunday rolls around who else is going to volunteer to host the soiree. We gathered with friends, boys cheered while girls gossiped, and topped it off with the famous Pamper Chef Football Cake that no football bash is complete without. That leads us to March, which no Irishman can do without, Happy St. Patty's Day! Shaun and I decided to play hooky and enjoy Kegs N Eggs with DC 101 and one of our favorite bands, Carbon Leaf. What a crazy and eventful day! We had several more of those through out the summer including a Pat McGee concert and tubing in West Virginia or was that Virginia?!?! Guess the mystery is part of the fun =)

We also snuck in a few fun trips with our friends this year, there is nothing we enjoy more! We headed up to Vermont for a ski weekend with Muge and Chris in Okemo and hope to keep the tradition up now that they own property there. Then I headed West with Bonnie to visit the Richard Family in Utah and meet my new god-daughter Alli. Like that experience wasn't amazing enough they also introduced us to the most amazing brunch at Sundance. And of course my love for the West Coast brought me back to California for several trips. Catherine and I headed to LA to relive our glory days, another tradition we hope to continue for years to come! Along with a few trips to San Diego to visit Amy, Phil, Breyer, Stella and their latest addition Reagan. As you can see the West Coast never loses it's appeal.

The wedding planning and festivities lasted all year long. Shaun stretched it out the most probably with two Bachelor Parties and monthly anniversary celebrations but I did my best to milk it too. While Shaun was off gallivanting in Vegas and Nashville the girls pulled out all the stops to make my Bachelorette Party even better in Sin City. The parties never seemed to stop as we were surprised with our first wedding shower in Louisville and then were lavished with gifts again at my Wine and Dine Shower in Virginia. I tell ya, we could really get used to this royal treatment!!! The wedding topped all of our wildest expectations, we wish we could re-live it every weekend. It was so amazing to be surrounded by all of our family and friends. A special shout out goes to Steve and Susan Johnson for beating all our friends in the Bar Golf competition.

It's funny how much time you invest in planning a wedding and how quickly it all flies by but the memories last forever and lucky for us we had a killer honeymoon to follow it all up! We headed off to St. Lucia for 10 amazing days and found the perfect balance between adventure and relaxation. We went on a guided tour through the island and discovered the banana plantations, the gorgeous views of the Pitons and snorkeling between them, and the friendly and welcoming hospitality of the locals. We increased the thrill factor and went ziplining through the forest, talk about facing your fears and battling your phobia of heights! We also became adventurous enough to join the local street festival on Friday night and taste some street grill and watch the dance off, if only Britney was there to show off her moves, haha. Believe it or not we also found time to hike, horseback ride, and go deep sea fishing. It sounds like we were on the go all the time but we enjoyed several days on the beach and at the swim-up bar.




So every fairytale comes to an end but thankfully we had other milestones to look forward to including Shaun's big birthday along with his mothers! September and October were filled with surprises and more celebrating. Shaun realized what a lucky man he was when his "wife" threw him not one but two surprise parties for the Big 3-0! This is where you can tell that Sandra is the main author of this blog, heehee. Anyways we had the Virginia crew all gather at Shaun's favorite bar, O'Sullivans, where we could shout surprise, enjoy carbombs, and embarrass Shaun with his silly b-day shirt and stickers. Then we headed into round two when we returned to Ohio the following weekend for the Browns/Steelers game only to show up his Mom's house filled with his hometown crew and family to celebrate. The surprises didn't end as his Dad and Susan were the mystery guests at the football game. It was such a fun-filled trip we had to come back the following month to do it all again for Paulette's Big B-Day!


This year certainly never had a dull moment! You'd think planning a wedding we'd be too busy to do much else but that wasn't the case at all. Along with our exciting newlywed status we had many other things to celebrate with our friends and family. This year seemed to be a year of multiplications as all of our friends were either getting married or having babies. We started the year off welcoming Baby Claire, Allison Layne, and Anna Rose to the clan followed by Reagan Elyse's arrival in September, Ella Carlson's 1st Birthday party in October and Sadie Chayton Ottenbreit's arrival in December. The summer was spent on the wedding circuit starting with Jamie and Annie's wedding in June, followed by a fun filled trip to Chicago to toast Katie and Brian, our own, and then rounding things out in Ohio where Shaun was the best man in Eric and Tenzin's big day. It was a fun and exciting year with many things to celebrate including a New Years Eve engagement for my sister, congratulations Barbara and Tokey!!!