Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, dear friends and fam!

We wanted to send an email this year and point you to our site where we’re going to share our parenting stories since we have no idea what we’re doing. Follow our journey out of ignorance.

If you don’t want to receive these, feel free to unsubscribe at the bottom of this email! We added you from our baby shower invite list :)

January

We got a doggo! His name is Murphy, a mini Australian shepherd. Or a border collie. We’re not sure which. He’s a good brother to Nora. The weekend we got Murphy was also the same weekend we bought a new home and sold our first. (Thanks, Hannah!)

February

January was a bittersweet time because we moved away from our first house where we made many memories over five years. But we love our new house in Fairmount. We’re living our European walkability dreams off of Magnolia Ave, a popular street in Fort Worth filled with boutiques and wine bars. While we were moving Murphy went to training and came back… the same, but a better version of himself.

March

We went to a Holi festival with our travel group of friends, The Ugly Dumplings. The Holi festival is an ancient Hindu celebration that marks the beginning of spring. It is celebrated with colors, music, food, and fun. Traditionally, people will gather outdoors and throw colored powders and dyes at each other. The colors represent the coming of a new season, as well as the triumph of good over evil.

April

We had our entire house painted and had a sleepover in our guest room. We learned the hard way it’s better to just be out of your house while they’re painting it.

May

We went to San Francisco with our friends the Ugly Dumplings (again). The first time we went in 2019, we watched an entire season of Stranger Things, walked through the redwoods of Muir Woods, and ate too many dumplings from a bakery in Chinatown called Good Mong Kok. So, we did the same thing this time.

June

We went to Switzerland with our friend Rachel, dropped her off and then drove to Lyon, France. Lyon is known to be the food capital of France. In Lyon, the day before Brandon’s birthday, June 16, we found out Christine was pregnant. I was in shock for about three months. Brandon was ecstatic. We ate at a Michelin star restaurant in Zurich for Brandon’s birthday to celebrate. Later that month we flew to Charleston to see my brother Zach, his fiancé Maggie, and our dear friends Elaine and Rod.

July

We celebrated life with our dearest friends at the lake near Austin and told them we were pregnant. Later that month Murphy got really sick. He went to the ER, where we discovered he has BBs stuck in his skin from his first owners. Funny enough, we cared more about him after that.

August

We found out on Christine’s birthday that we are having a baby girl and decided to name her Camille after a beloved aunt. We also celebrated the passing of Grandaddy.

September

For Labor Day we flew to Georgia to see Brandon’s dear friends and his family, where we rented a Tesla for a roadtrip the state. Don’t rent a Tesla for a roadtrip—six hours of charging. Christine moved therapy offices and realized how exhausting being pregnant is. We visited friends in Georgetown, Texas, and ate amazing food.

October

Lots of travel in October. Our best friend Abbie came in town for the Texas State Fair (read: corndogs). Later in the month we celebrated our anniversary (October 21) by driving to Kentucky and Indiana for Cousin Emily’s wedding. Then we drove all the way back for Kaley and Jonathan’s wedding north of Dallas on the next day. That next week Christine went on a retreat in Seaside, Florida.

November

In the first week of November we were back in Kentucky for the Breeder’s Cup in Keeneland. We learned the hard way that you have to also pay in advance for parking, but the bread pudding at Keeneland really is the most delicious. We had two.

We also went to New Orleans with Christine’s parent (Janice & Ted) for Brandon’s first trip to the city. Brandon couldn’t hang and threw up the first night after a stop at Lea’s in Lecompte, Louisiana (pronounced leh-count, where you have to get a piece of pie, any pie). In New Orleans we saw a desk that belonged to an Italian king and a Monet that you can actually buy (Monet is one of Brandon’s favorites), ate the biggest crème brûlée, saw a naked man off an adjacent balcony, ate beignets, got yelled at by locals, and learned about all the hauntings a restaurant started by a longstanding Mardi Gras queen and her wine shipping dad.

We celebrated Friendsgiving and Thanksgiving with family in Tampa, Florida, and celebrated Brandon’s grandma’s (Mema) 80th birthday, casino style.

December

The beginning of December we had the most beautiful Taylor Swift baby shower that our delightful friends hosted (special shoutout to Steph, Chrissy, Emily, Judy, Julia, and Brandy).

We went to New York City for our babymoon with the main goals of seeing The Met and Harry Potter and The Cursed Child (and of course, bagels). Christine cried through the first ten minutes of the show and we both decided that it was truly magic—Harry Potter and Christmas in NYC.

We hosted two Christmas parties and set up our nursery.

Christmas in Kentucky is also magical, albeit cold, like –30º wind chill cold. We planned on staying in a precious Airbnb only to wake up one morning to no water due to pipes being frozen. Our dreams to walking to the best coffee/pastry shop in town were dashed (we love you, Andy’s), but we love being with family and taking showers at any house where we are currently parked.

We hope you all have had an equally magical year full of family, friends, good travel, and better food.

Here’s to 2023 🥂

Love,

Brandon and Christine