What are you doing for Thanksgiving?

So, even though we've been together a while, we had never prepared a holiday meal together ... Until now! *dun-dun-DUN* (That was supposed to be the dramatic music in the background)

 As we speak, hubby is in the kitchen preparing his very first Thanksgiving turkey. As usual mom has been a huge help with EVERYTHING :)

Aubrey is the creative genius in the kitchen so he's pretty excited about making some non-traditional dishes. We're going to have a hodgepodge of friends and family this year and we're leaving our door open to anyone who wants to be a part of it!

           Hard at work in the kitchen!

           I'm obviously helping a lot...

Here's the menu so far:

*Mexican Thanksgiving Turkey with Chorizo, Pecan, Apple and Cornbread stuffing

*Squash casserole

*Triple corn bake

*Mom's collard greens

*Butternut squash soup

*Mom's super awesome legendary dinner rolls

*Over-the-Rainbow Macaroni & Cheese

*Sweet potato pie (or casserole... Not sure yet)

*Chocolate peanut butter pound cake

I'll make sure to post pictures when it's done!

EDIT: 

Here are some more pictures!

Aubrey spent a long time on this marinade and I was so glad when it finally went on the turkey!

      Being theatrical for the camera :p

 

            Massaging the turkey...

       And pouring more sauce on top!

             It smelled SOOO good!

           I prepared fresh cranberries 

 

And added a little lemon juice and zest for a twist - it was so easy!!

 Two of mom's delicious sweet potato pies!

         Butternut squash for the soup!

The hand emulsifier made it easy to blend the onions and squash

                     Final product!

 I peeled lots of potatoes for homemade mashes potatoes 

The most interesting part was covering the turkey in banana leaves to keep moisture in while cooking 

Get a Grip

So, if you saw the last (er, the first...) post I made, first of all thank you for stopping by!
Second of all, I am experiencing some technical difficulties (AKA I really don't know what I'm doing and the last time I had anything resembling a blog, Xanga was cool - actually, MY Xanga is still cool ... but anyway...).

So my mission is to eventually - sooner than later - get a grip on this whole thing, which will include fixing the unfortunate layout situation that's going on with the photos!  It will also include things like adding: captions for the photos, more wedding photos and more of our engagement and proposal photos ... right now there are only 1 or 2.

EDIT: So why did I name this post "Get a Grip"? ... well, (besides the obvious reason) it's because I just so happen to be drinking this awesome tea by Republic of Tea called "Get A Grip" ... not to be confused with "Get it Together", which I frequently call it. Same difference though. I need all that: get a grip, get a life, get it together, get your life together... But anyway, you should try it (the tea) - it's delicious.

Oh yeah, and in other news, greetings from Thailand! Here, hello = saw-wad-dee!
Hopefully my husband will also get on here and help out a little! I guess I shouldn't throw him too far under the bus... it was my idea to do a blog (especially since we didn't have a wedding website).
Anywho, I guess I'll know he actually visited the blog if I hear from him about this haha...

I'll make sure to update with pictures from Thailand and other fun details!
Until next time ... saw-wad-dee (also means goodbye)!!!

THE BEGINNING

Hello friends!

We would like to say thanks so much for checking out our blog! This is a new adventure for us (as is marriage!) so let's see what kind of fun we can get into...

I guess I'll start with an update:

Wow, how long has it been since the wedding?
November 3, 2013 marks 3 months from the day we said our vows (Awww!)
We dated from 2005 to 2011. We got engaged on our dating anniversary (September 2nd) and we had high hopes of getting married one year later on our 7 year dating anniversary. How romantic would that have been? (And of course, 7 is the number of perfection!) ... But it didn't happen that way and we actually ended up waiting 11 months and 1 day later for our LOOONNG awaited wedding day, August 3, 2013. I can't believe it's already been 3 months!

Did you go on a honeymoon?
Yes! That was an answer to lots of prayer because we didn't have arrangements for a honeymoon until probably a couple of weeks beforehand! It was so much fun and such a blessing. Since it was our VERY FIRST vacation together, it was a really special time.
Where?
We went to Grand Mayan Riviera Maya for 7 days ... and it was absolutely GORGEOUS. From the natural beauty of the beach and the Mayan ruins to the amazing resort accommodations, we could not have asked for a better location to spend our honeymoon.

What have you been doing since you got married?
Well, you're really brave to ask a newlywed that question! Hahaha ... well, besides the obvious (ahem), we have been adjusted to married life, of course. We did not live together before we got married and we also didn't do any of the other married people things ... so all of that has been fun to figure out together!
We have an apartment that we are still in the process of decorating/fixing up/learning to maintain. We don't have any pets because we have enough going on without throwing that into the mix! One day we will though (Ask Aubrey and he'll tell you we'll get a puppy and a kitten at the same time... we'll see haha.)

How's married life?
It's ridiculous! In good ways, OF COURSE! There are also challenges (I'm guessing this is not the 1st time you've heard this). Thankfully, we tried to prepare ourselves for that in a few ways so that we weren't completely naive. But, when it comes down to it, it's one of those things you just kinda have to go through - it's hard to explain all the facets. This blog will help me make an attempt at that though.

We're a little different from most couples I think, because we dated for so long before marrying, but also without living together. One good thing about that is that we've been together long enough to see each other at absolute lows and highs. We've seen how each other acts in front of friends, family, in major crises, in great accomplishments, in conflict, etc. There are not TOO many surprises in terms of WHO this person is that I married. I like that.

EDIT: The short answer to this question is married life is amazing :)

What does he/she do?
If you are a friend or family member of primarily Aubrey or Diana, most likely you haven't spent a whole lot of time with the other side of the family yet! Here's the abbreviated version:
Aubrey works with kids at an after school program and attends school; Diana works full-time as a lab tech. Aubrey likes to do things like play video games, talk about controversial topics, read, workout, cook, and sing. Diana likes to do things like take photos, surf the internet, cook, and travel. We're both sort of foodies-in-training, although Aubrey is much more open to what types of food he's willing to eat! We both love missions and our first mission as a couple was a medical mission trip to Ethiopia in 2012 (thank you again to all who supported us with prayer, finances, and medical supplies for the trip!). We hope to go back in 2015.

If you want more details, just ask and we'll be happy to answer!

I wanna see pictures!!
I know, I know. That's my favorite part too!
Our proposal pictures were taken by our good friend Kathy-Marie Kruszewski on Kennesaw Mountain at sunset, just moments before Aubs popped the question! She is super creative and talented!
Our engagement pictures were taken by our good friend Jeniffer Romero, who is also amazingly crafty and has a great eye for photography (not to mention, 2 adorable kids + hubby who we love too)!

Here are some of our favorites.

     

Our wedding photographers were Ben & Alex Thompson, who recently moved to New York. We found out about them through our friend Jenni who used them in her wedding as well.
They were fantastic and I would definitely recommend them.
You can go to alexandraphotography.com to see her sneak peek pics, but you can also look out for some of the official photos here on our blog :)

Are you gonna have kids??
That's for us to know and you to find out... Or maybe, for us to find out and you to find out too :)

Why did you choose that name for your blog?
Honestly? What had happened was....
Ok I don't think either one of us has too much creativity when it comes to this whole naming/blog thing (yet) but I'll try to break it down.
The New Bowens: obviously we're The Bowens ... not John and Dawn, but Aubrey and Diana (hence the "New") ... that was the easy part.
completely incomplete - apart from trying to be clever with words (fail) we wanted to do one thing in particular:
Challenge the idea that marriage makes you a complete person. In a lot of ways, we're not complete because we are a work in progress, individually and as a married entity. Even as newlyweds, we realize that, yes we are meant to be together, BUT we can never 100% complete the other person. Does that sound sad? It's not. Because that's not our job - that's Jesus' job. We can do a lot of things for each other but one thing we can't do is be ALL that our spouse needs. But the good thing is that the pressure is off and that we don't have to set our expectations up to fail.

Another way to look at it is that we were happy as single people and that we don't need to be married (or even dating) in order to be successful, productive, loved, important, etc. We're super grateful for marriage and it has been a blast, but I think people put too much pressure on it to do things it wasn't intended to do.
It changes a lot of things about the way we view marriage. I'm sure we will talk more about this in future posts.

What kind of blog is this going to be?
Like I said, this blog is a work in progress, so don't be surprised if we change the blog name, if we throw something crazy at you or do something unexpected.
I expect that we will post funny stories, questions, revelations, pictures, thought provoking questions, etc.
It's all an adventure, uncharted territory.