Merry Christmas!

We hope you all had a wonderful holiday! We shared our Christmas with Friday at Jeff's parent's house. We had a lovely Christmas dinner and a fun time opening our presents! Even Friday got a Christmas stocking where she got some fun stuff like treats, a new chew toy, and her very own ornament for our tree. Below is a picture of Friday relaxing under the tree with some of those gifts.

2008 was such a huge year for us, with the wedding, the house, and the puppy... we're looking forward to see what 2009 will bring. We wish you only the best for 2009!

Our Tiny Polar Bear

Even though it's been only 3 weeks since we got our little puppy, she's grown so rapidly already! And we know that it won't be stopping any time soon! Also, we've come up with a few nicknames for the little rascal, such as Scruffy, Polar Bear, Chompers, Frizzle, Fluffernutter, etc.

Here's Jeff with the little Scruffster!


Last weekend, we also gave Friday her first bath ever! She was surprisingly well behaved- We think she was a bit confused, and just happy to drink all the water around her.

Here's a post-bath picture... check out our web album for the full experience!


We're looking forward to celebrating our first Christmas together next week!

10 weeks

Friday has been occupying our time non-stop lately! She's always ready to play, which can be extremely tiring, even for the both of us, taking shifts! As you may notice in her pictures, her ears have switched to both being folded. When she is full grown, both ears will be straight, but we think that her ears are growing faster than the rest of her little body, which is why they can't stand up yet!

She's on her way to being house-trained, which is a relief! Below are some more pictures of the little munchkin...

Falling asleep with Mommy-


Little Miss Folded Ears-

Meet Friday

We'd like to take a moment to introduce you to the newest member of the family...


Meet Friday, our new puppy! She is an 8 week old West Highland White Terrier, also known as a Westie. We got her on the day after Thanksgiving (hence her name) from Mount Holly, NJ. She came from a litter of 4, with 3 brothers. When we first picked her up she was extremely timid, but quickly came out of her shell. Now that she's acquainted herself with our home, she's extremely outgoing and has an endless supply of energy!

While she's truly a handful, we love her to pieces- we can't imagine not having her in our lives!

Some more pictures of Friday are posted below. We will add some more pictures and videos to this blog site, but we will also upload more Friday photos to her web album, which can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com/jen.j.kohl/Friday#.

This is Friday in her playpen with her littermates... can you tell which one is her?


Friday playing in her new home with her stuffed toy. It's bigger than her now, but it won't be for long!

Settling in

It has been approximately 3.5 weeks in our new place now, and we are almost finished settling in. After numerous trips to Crate & Barrel, West Elm, and Ikea, we've gotten the mud room and the 2nd bedroom/office completely settled. (I feel like I know the exact layout of all of those stores, since we're there just about every weekend!)

Our main area of focus now is our living room! We have ordered some lovely Crate & Barrel furniture and a rug that will tie the whole room together. This should all arrive by the end of this week, so we'll post pictures when it's all in!

Surprisingly, the whole task of picking colors and decorating our condo is a lot more difficult that we originally imagined... So let us know if you have suggestions for color schemes for our place!

Here's a shot of our living room, peeking into the 2nd bedroom:


Here's a shot of the living room, with just the rug pad down:

Homeowners!

Yesterday, we closed on our new home- a 2 BR/2BA condo in Jersey City/Hoboken! The process of closing was a lot more complicated than we thought it would be... With getting the mortgage, dealing with our finances, packing and moving our stuff, and then finally doing all of the closing paperwork, we realize that it's a very laborious process! But, it was all worth it. We are now enjoying being new homeowners!

We are rapidly unpacking and getting settled into our new place, and will be furnishing our home over the next several weeks. Our goal is to be completely settled in by Thanksgiving. Stay tuned!

Back to the Real World

The honeymoon has officially come to an end! Check out the pictures online at http://picasaweb.google.com/jen.j.kohl/TheHoneymoon#. We had such a wonderful and relaxing time, but we've got plenty of things to look forward to as well.

Now it's back to the real world, but we are glad to be back with friends and family. Our next big project is closing on our condo and moving in! We will be closing on Sept 26 and moving in on Sept 27.

Honeymoon: Day 5

Today is our last day here in Miami! We are very excited about boarding our cruise ship, although we are unsure if the planned stops will be the same as we originally booked. With the forecast of hurricanes hitting Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, and Turks & Caicos, it looks like we may end up missing most of our original stops. However, we are sure that it will be fun regardless, and are looking forward to this next week.

This will be the last post until we get back into the US next Saturday, so farewell! We are packing up our stuff and getting ready to head over to the port.

Lots of love,
Jen & Jeff

UPDATE: We just boarded the ship and found out our new cruise itinerary. We are on the Carnival Liberty and will be sailing to Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Belize, and Isla Roatan. We haven't been to the last 2 locations, so we're pretty excited! :)

Honeymoon: Day 2

We've now been in Miami for 2 days, and it is total paradise! Despite earlier forecasts for possible hurricanes and storms, it's been nothing but sunny and beautiful here.

We left home yesterday at 4:45AM to catch a 6:40AM flight at Newark Airport. We arrived yesterday morning at 9:30AM to a rainy Miami airport, but as soon as we arrived at the Ritz-Carlton hotel, it was perfectly sunny. Being on our honeymoon immediately started to pay off-- When we checked into the hotel, we were upgraded to a balcony room with a pool view! Yesterday was spent exploring the area and scoping out the local restaurants and shops. When we returned to our room in the afternoon, we received a pleasant surprise of chocolate covered strawberries in our room along with a card of congratulations from the hotel staff! After a brief nap, we went to dinner at Barolo, where the highlight of dinner was the amazing calamari and yummy molten chocolate cake.

This morning was spent sleeping in, since we were exhausted from yesterday's travel. We then relaxed by the pool for an hour and then headed out for lunch at a local pizzeria. We wandered around some shops and galleries and then spent the afternoon on our balcony reading, relaxing, and napping. Later in the evening, we enjoyed a lovely dinner in South Beach at Oriente, an Asian-Cuban restaurant. We enjoyed delicious calamari, wine, and skirt steaks.

We're looking forward to checking out the beach tomorrow and spending some more time relaxing!

We're married!

In the after-glow of our wonderful wedding, we are looking forward to embarking on our relaxing honeymoon and beginning our new life together.

Thank you to all our family and friends - each of you have been (and will be) an irreplaceable part of our lives. You have each touched us in a different and unique way, which has shaped our lives for the better. Thank you all for your kind wishes, thoughtful messages, and love.

Please check back here at http://the-kohls.blogspot.com for future postings and updates. We will post our wedding photos when we have them!

We're off to Miami at 6:40AM tomorrow (Tuesday) to begin the honeymoon! See you soon!

Love,
Jen & Jeff

P.S. To view more of our wedding photos online, visit http://my.bellapictures.com/Wu-Kohl08312008