Jamie and John's Blog

Abby and her Dinosaur bone. Santa Clause brought Jackson and Abby new collars and leashes. Lupine brand makes a very comfortable leash with a padded handle (for those of us with horse-sized dogs). Also- the leash is guaranteed, even if chewed! We love them, and so do our dogs. Thanks, Santa!

We have just decorated our first Christmas tree together! Our house smells like pine and Christmas- we are still looking for a tree topper. Hopefully Abby's tail doesn't demolish the entire lower portion of the tree before Christmas season is over. We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving break and we can't wait to visit again over Christmas!

Uh oh! Look who's bigger! The picture on the left shows Abby at 4 months, the picture on the right is Abby at 6 months and Jackson full grown at 3.5 years. Abby has doubled her puppy weight- (she is over 40 lbs now!), she weighs more than Jackson but he can still out run and out smart her. Look at our older post to see how tiny she was 2 months ago.

John surprised me with a carving set and pumpkins yesterday! Look at our creations! Can you guess which one is John's and which one is mine??

We recently traveled to Centerville, Ohio to watch Jenny conduct as the Henry Clay High School Drum Major! Even though it was about 55 degrees outside, Jenny braved through wearing her beautiful dress- only a thin satin cape to keep warm. When I first met Jenny, she was a tiny 12 year-old girl in middle school. Things have really changed over the past few years. Jenny- you have become a beautiful, talented, young lady and leader. You were amazing out there! We are so proud of you!!

I am officially a teacher! I teach forensic science (grades 9-12) and integrated science (9th grade). So far everything is going great, I think. Who knows what the students are saying behind my back?? I am fresh out of school so I'm still in the mind set of "do what it takes to make the students learn" and less of the "get through this year/survival mode" which I'm told is sure to come. Hopefully I will get to create a class website soon. If anyone is interested, I will give a link and you can learn along with my students. Basic science, you may already know, but the forensics is actually really cool to learn about. I pretend to be an expert in class, but a lot of the case studies we are reading are new to me too. The dogs are doing great together, by the way. Jackson has warmed up to Abby and Abby has grown about 5lbs since we got her a month ago. She may out grow Jackson soon.. Life is busy here; I leave for work at 6:45am, John travel

We had our honeymoon in the Dominican Republic! Check out some of our pictures! Click here .

Meet Abby! She is 4 months old, about 20lbs, and sweet as pie. She likes to chew on rawhide, snuggling, and is desperately trying to make best friends with her big brother, Jackson. She has big shoes to fill but we are confident that she is the perfect addition to our new family! We can't wait for you to meet her!

Dominican Republic was a perfect place to honeymoon! We had the best time at the beach in hotel Riu Taino . We spent most of our time soaking up the sun and watching the waves. John took a stab at wind surfing, we both went kayaking and one of us got pretty tan ;) Some of the natives make a living by climbing the palm trees, knocking out the coconuts and selling them as (warm) drinks to people on the beach. We decided to buy one and it was actually really good!! We thought it was a good time to snap a picture. By the way, yes, I did cut off all my hair. It was the most convenient beach hair cut ever! I love it!

It's official! We are married! Mr. and Mrs. John A. Gillispie. We have finally settled into our new house with new dishes, cookware, fresh sheets and towels- Thank you for the gifts, we love them! We are anxious to have guests and explore Cincinnati, so give us a call if you are coming our way. I posted a picture from our wedding at the bottom of the blog. There will be many more later, and we will update our slide show. We thought our wedding was perfect and we couldn't be happier. Thanks to all those who attended and made our special day even better. Check out Jaclyn Johnson photography if you get the chance, she has our picture posted with a congrats.

Less than two weeks until our wedding day! We are getting very excited about seeing everything put together. I dragged John out to get our marriage license yesterday ;) We have been busy trying to organize our new house and get wedding arrangements secured. Engagement pictures should be posted soon! Also-keep an eye out for our wedding announcement in the paper. It will probably be announced the Sunday after our wedding :) :) :) Can't wait for the big day !

John has officially started working at Momentum as the campus ambassador to UK, Ohio State, and Kent State Universities. Our new house is only about 5 minutes from his new office! He will go to Atlanta for official training in a few weeks. After that, be sure to hit him up for free Coke. I will be teaching freshman Biology at Conner High School next year. I just got the offer today and we are very relieved to know that we both have found good jobs for next year! We are looking forward to not being students (finally!) and beginning our new lives together. Wedding is only 5 weeks away!!

We went up north yesterday for the third time and finally settled on a place. Check out some pics of our new house .

That's right.. we both have our Master's now! 6 years of dating and 6 years of college-not sure which is more impressive! Sunday is Graduation day and will mark John's masters in communication as well as my masters in secondary science education!! John will begin his job in Cincinnati June 2nd! We are looking for a place to live, planning a wedding and searching for a teaching job. I had an interview yesterday and hopefully I will know something in a few weeks. Finding a place to live is not easy when you don't know your way around.. our life together is going to be an adventure! As far as wedding plans go- Church/pastor: check Dress: check (and it is beautiful!) reception: check photographer: check Florist: check DJ: check Invitations: check To do list: Send out wedding invitations Get married Live happily ever after.

Don't let it fool you! Cake tasting sounds like a fun time, but let me tell you it is difficult. Just one bite of 10 cakes leads to an upset stomach that can't remember if white was better than chocolate or if buttercream tastes better than vanilla. One step forward, two steps back. Good thing I had John with me! He is so good at keeping me focused and not distracted by the massive amounts of cake. :) After some serious damage to our wedding diets, we finally decided. Glad to have that terrible task of eating wedding cake out of the way. Barb-sorry we forcefully dragged you along. It was a terrible job but someone had to do it. Thanks for the help. To everyone else- we look forward to watching you eat the cake that honestly took us way to long to choose.

Defended my master's comprehensive exams today. Passed. So glad to finally be done and get to relax and just wait for graduation. Sitting in a room with three Ph.Ds defending your answers to questions they wrote for you is quite an intimidating experience, but it was rewarding to be complimented on my speaking skills and performance in the defense. I can't imagine defending a qualifying exam for a Ph.D over more than twice the content with more than twice the expectations. Whew...glad it's over. Next step is to stress over getting a good job. never ends...

Our save the date magnets came in this week, so we're busy addressing envelopes and everyone can expect those within the next week, hopefully. If your save the date magnet is delivered to your neighbor or any other wrong address, it's because I addressed the envelope instead of Jamie and the postman couldn't read it...I tried to tell her. Also, my second annual climbing competition at the Johnson center was thursday night, and was a huge success. 76 competitors was 8 more than last year, and the prizes and donations were more varied and exciting. If you're in Lexington, be sure to check it out next year, even though I'll be gone. I know everyone from out of town in anxious to see the ring. It looks something like this , although this clearly does the real thing no justice, as I bought the most beautiful diamond in town. Finally here's a hysterical website I happened across this week. For those who know Everybody Loves Raymond , he has a new pet name for

Here's my first attempt at using Adobe Illustrator to design our own wedding monogram for the invitations, napkins, etc. I saw in a magazine that only 20% of couples design their own monogram... Leave some comments, let me know what you think and any other ideas you might have... THANKS!

This year was our fifth Valentines day together. I have never made John celebrate because I don't really care, but this year we had a romantic dinner. John made a fire in the fire place and I cooked dinner. Valentines Day fell on a Thursday which meant John had just finished some prints in his photo-lab. (John has a new hobby-photography. He is taking a photography class where you take and develop pictures and learn about perspective and art etc. ) After dinner, John handed me a stack of photos to sort through so he could show me what he has learned. I looked through a few and everything looked great until I saw a picture of John playing Scrabble. I laughed because it obviously didn't fit in with the rest, but I finally understood when I saw the next picture. It was a picture of his Scrabble board with the words "Jamie will you marry me". By the time I gasped and looked up, John was on one knee. He said the sweetest proposal and asked me again, "wil

We got engaged on Feb 14, 2008, which was on Valentine's Day ...completely by coincidence. The ring just happened to be ready on the 13th, and Jamie was working for the following few days, so the timing was right, Valentine's or not. Look for the proposal story to come soon, and be sure to ask Jamie to see the ring...it's blingin if I do say so myself.