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  • Cinque Terre, Italy

    July 11, 2011

    The last week of our trip to Europe this summer was spent vacationing in Italy. The Cinque Terre is a rugged portion of coast on the Italian Riviera. “The Five Lands” is composed of five villages: Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore. We stayed in Vernazza and hiked to the other towns on both sides.  It was so peaceful and relaxing.  It was a wonderful ending to our trip.

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  • Milane, Italy

    July 10, 2011

    We spent our last two days in Milane before returning back to the States. We did a lot of sightseeing and eating wonderful Italian food. Milane was beautiful and had a great sense of history (just as ever other city does in Europe) but after leaving Cinque Terre and it’s sense of cozyness and feeling like “home” it was hard to adjust to such a large city with so many shoppers.

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  • During our adventures this summer we spent a weekend in Beaune.Beaune is the wine capital of Burgundy in eastern France and one of the reasons we went to visit (Burgundy wine is one of our favorites). If you can believe it Beaune is one of the key wine centers in France. The town is surrounded by some of the world’s most famous wine villages. Beaune is a walled city, with about half of the battlements, ramparts, and the moat, having survived and in good condition, and the central “old town” is extensive. Beaune has a major food market on Saturdays which we were able to visit while we were there. There are a large number of stall holders supplying a broad selection of products and specialties from Burgundy and the surrounding regions. We had a great weekend of sightseeing, tasting wines, and eating delicious food.

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  • Merry Christmas

    December 21, 2007
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  • Happy Holidays!!!

    December 13, 2007

    Dear Family and Friends, Another year is coming to an end and looking back at 2007, we find so many wonderful moments to remember and share. The first part of 2007 was spent planning for our wedding in June. Of course, we started this website where people could go to read updates about the event and now we hoping to continue to write entries about our first years of marriage. The wedding was beautiful and a day we will never forget. We are still thanking everyone for helping make it so memorable and for being there to help us celebrate. We left for Kauai, our honeymoon destination on Monday morning and had a great time. We did all of the touristy things. We took a helicopter tour of the island, took a catamaran adventure to see dolphins, drove up the coast to go snorkeling, went to a traditional luau, drove up to Waimea Canyon, ate lots of great food and somehow found time to relax by the ocean. Again this year we were blessed with many weddings besides our own. We would like to congratulate those couples and also those couples who are getting married this upcoming summer. Even with the wedding we found time to do a little traveling. Last spring I presented at a conference in Greensboro, NC and Dusty came along to keep me company. In August we went with friends to Chicago to tailgate at the Iowa VS. Northern Illinois game. This October a good friend of Dusty’s from college, Ian, got married and we were able to go to Ft. Lauderdale, FL for the event. The weekend after Thanksgiving I went to Chicago with two girl friends for a “Girl’s Weekend Away”. I am still an instructor teaching and coordinating our Speech Center. This spring semester I get the opportunity to teach Interviewing as well as a special section of Public Speaking for high school juniors and seniors getting ready for college. These will be two new courses for me and a lot of preparation over the holiday break. I’m very excited for the chance to teach something new and work with high school students. Dusty has had many changes over the past year. He started doing consulting while working full-time almost a year before we got married. Shortly after we got back from our honeymoon, Dusty decided he had spent enough time in cubicle land and quite his job to start a software development company, BrightMix, with a good friend of his. They develop web-based software for businesses and are working on developing a few products of their own. Recently, they found that working out of their houses wasn’t always the most productive and leased an office space. Dusty works more then ever but really enjoys working for a company he believes in, a company he started himself. Dusty and I were very blessed to have an unforgettable year and are hoping the rest of our first year together as a married couple is as joyous as the past six months. We wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year! Marlina & Dusty

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  • Christmas at Our House

    January 4, 2006

    I have been waiting for Christmas since July. Over the past few years I’ve been collecting things to decorate for Christmas and finally have a place big enough to have it all out instead of rotating things every other year or so. Poor Dusty had to put up with me asking if I could decorate since before Thanksgiving. I finally got the chance after coming back from Thanksgiving at his father’s house.

    Here is a great picture of some of the Christmas decorations. We have huge 14 ft. windows so everyone could see our tree from outside. Dusty was CEO of Curb Appeal and made sure that we had enough lights on the tree. We ended up going to Walmart one night at midnight to buy more white lights so I could start putting on decorations. Our big tree is decorated in silver and red. The two smaller ones in the living room are decorated in family ornaments and the other is Santa Clauses. Dusty’s grandma has given him an ornament every year since he was born and so one of our trees has all of those ornaments along with other ornaments I’ve gotten from my mom and from my grandma.

    Dusty and I hosted Christmas at our place this year for my father and his family. My dad lives in Oklahoma with his wife Debbie along with my step sister and her family of six. We were lucky enough to have them home for Christmas again this year. My dad and Debbie stayed at our place while everyone else stayed with other family members. Christmas Day we had everyone over for a late dinner and the opening of presents.

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