Well we made it halfway through our first Christmas holiday and we are still alive. We drove up to my parents house on Friday night after work and drew names that evening for our Gag gifts. The rest of the weekend had many activities planned for the family and for Eric to get confused by all the people he met.

Saturday night we went over to our family friends, the Harrison's home for some food and games. Yet again the girls were beaten by the boys in Taboo. Eric brought it home in the last round getting seven cards!?!

Sunday, Eric was blessed enough to meet my dad's side of the family. Which actually wasn't that bad and we stayed a little longer than expected, only to later brave the Winter storm back to my parents home.

Christmas Eve, we had church and just squeezed into the 3:30p service. Then we headed to my cousin Kris' house to spend time with my mom's side. Eric walked around their house saying over and over that we need to move (hint: they have an amazing house). We all came back home after the gift opening to my parents house for Gag gifts and our gifts to each other. We all did quite well on our presentations but nothing could compare to my dad's gag gift to Eric. My dad got a little crazy and explained to us why he was laughing so hard the night before by himself as he put the gift together. Eric recieved the special tools he really wanted and he got me a label maker. Such love, huh!

Christmas we woke up to a special breakfast and then ventured to the movie theater to see National Treasure Book of Secrets. We all liked it and thought it was pretty decent. There are even some signature Nicholas Cage looks in this movie. We had lunch, and Eric and I were back on the road home, to work the next day. We hope you had a great Christmas and we will keep you updated on the Zapchenk Christmas this coming weekend!

This weekend Eric and I ventured into the art of Gingerbread houses. Our friend Carly got me a kit for Christmas and I was able to dable in my creative skills. I was also able to sit myself down to finish our thank you cards, which needed to get done.

Early Sunday morning Eric and I awoke to sauna like temperatures in our bedroom. Finally, after Eric went to check the thermostat he realized it was at 28 degrees, trying to heat up to 65. Luckily it was only the thermostat and nothing more serious like our heater. We went over to Menards to get a new one and as you can see it is pretty schnazzy.

Also, we have decided on our new home church - Westridge Community Church. We both really like the pastors and think it is a great place to start out our marriage.

We are very much looking forward to the Christmas season and spending the first weekend up in Wisconsin and New Year's in Illinois.

Merry Christmas Love, Danielle and Eric

We hope you had a great Thanksgiving last week. We had a blessed weekend with all the activities going on in the Zapchenk household. As Newlyweds there is a lot to be done besides gaze into each others eyes lovingly...we have a house to run and most importantly decorate. My parents (minus my brother due to his new job answering customer service calls for Kodak) made their way into Chicago Wednesday night and we were up late baking Chocolate Cupcakes and an apple pie. I came to find out that my mom and I have completely opposite baking styles. She's all over the place and I'm not. Luckily she cleaned every inch of our house this weekend and made up for it. My apple pie turned out great, granted I did make a special practice pie for the staff at work.

Thanksgiving day we made our way to Eric's parents home in Crete. Nothing like all the married children and their parents for the holidays. But, it was so much fun and we ate great food and had time to talk smart and be with everyone. We even got to go downtown to see Domenic and Michele's new condo. My dad and Michele went into decorator mode and started envisioning colors while Eric, my mom and I tried to tap dance on the floor.

The next day the alarm struck early as we got up for Turkey Renovation. You wouldn't think that we would call in the parents just for Thanksgiving would you? No, we had an agenda of completing the upstairs bath and completely redoing the downstairs bath. Plus, a couple other projects on the way. Home Depot did become our home away from home as we selected our colors, tools, new vinyl peel and stick and other random items.

My mom went into cleaning mode and made a complete makeover in our dining room by just getting the boxes off the ground and put in their places from the wedding. My dad took the upstairs painting, while Eric and I worked on the downstairs and replaced the peel and stick. For those who haven't seen the ghastly blue color in the upstairs bath, you have been saved. We painted a nice neutral color to go with the bath items Ryan and Katie bought Eric two Christmas' ago.

The downstairs got new tile and we painted the room Regatta Blue and a deep brown with white trim. We have a couple items to put in. But, we both love them. And if you didn't think that was enough my dad decided to master his acrobatics on an extension ladder in our foyer. We put up the awesome clock we got from Millaine and Matt and Rhonda and Mike (Thanks guys!) and then decided to get a new light fixtures. For those that are in the market, check out Menards they had the most variety and the best pricing compared to other stores.

As my dad was hanging off the ladder over the second story, Eric said, "Your Dad is crazy, and there is no stopping him." Yes, Eric there is no stopping for decorating in the Derks family. An hour or so later we had a new fixture in the hallway upstairs and in the foyer and there were no broken bones. Plus, Eric's parents drove up to witness the action and they were nice enough to help out and cook us a steak dinner. And where did we get to eat it, in our clean dining room - kudos mom!

But, of course the most important factor was what Bud thought. He liked it and showed his approval Sunday morning with some regurgitated cat food on the dining room floor. Thanks Bud. For all the hard work we put my parents through we took them out to dinner at a place that is becoming my favorite special night restaurant, ZED 451. It is like a Brazilian type restaurant, but has a lot of fresh fruits, veggies, cheeses and breads on their Harvest table. However, it is a prix fixe meal and isn't the every night dinner.

Well, that's all we did this weekend. Hope you had fun and didn't get stuffed on Turkey (no pun intended). We made it through our first major holiday as a married couple and our looking forward to Christmas in Wisconsin!

Blessings, Danielle and Eric

Sorry for those who have become dedicated to our blog. We are so sorry that it has taken some time to write out what happened at the wedding, honeymoon and now our home life together. Only one month ago Eric and I were married at Indian Lakes Resort with some close friends and family. It was definitley a wedding that was a sight to see (See previous blog entry for the link to all wedding photos). We were blessed to have the help of my parents who created everything from the kids costumes to the flowers and ceremony backdrop. Plus, Eric's mom and sister putting together our favors and gift bags for the hotel. The day went so fast for everyone, but was just a great time for all. We got married at 11am and it was hilarious for me to watch the 7 kids dressed as fall items walk down the aisle towards Eric. My bosses daughter fell once in the middle of the aisle then ran back towards the pond in the atrium where she proceded to try and jump in before her dad saved her. To see her mom's very humorous account of Avery's antic's visit their blog by clicking their family blog .

I did so well that morning by being calm and not tearing up every five minutes, but when I walked up those couple stairs and saw Eric, I completley lost it. Not a big suprise I guess :). It was really nice and the music was amazing. The ceremony seemed to fly by right into a round of pictures with family and the wedding party which consisted of our dads and my two best friends Amy and Hillary. Eric and I had our own time to get some great photos in as well.

Finally, we went into the reception as Mr. and Mrs. Zapchenk, which was amazing. The Wednesday prior to the wedding, Indian Lakes upgraded our reception site to the upstairs ballroom that completely made it even cooler. Our cake was so good and it was donned with Mr. and Mrs. Sprinkles that is a personal story in our family now. We ate great food, talked with Friends, danced to my mom's favorite Christian-Jewish song and just took it all in. It was such a fun day and we were really able to make it feel intimate by having tidbits of information about us at each table and donating money from us kissing to our Compassion Child, Dayana, who is 10 and lives in Columbia.

Eric and I got to spend the night in the wedding penthouse at Indian Lakes and have chocolate covered strawberries and champagne (which we didn't even drink, who even likes that?). The following morning we ate brunch with our family and opened the rest of the presents at our house with them. We left for Jamaica on Monday at 6:30a from OHare and were in Montego Bay by 12noon. If you ever have the chance to go all inclusive, do it! It gives you a lot less stress on where to go and how much you are spending. We were able to relax for eight days without the phone calls or added stress of work and anything else that pops up. The biggest questions were when do you want to grab ice cream, do you want to take a nap and which pool should we lounge at? Rough I know, but well needed for Eric who hasn't taken a vacation in 6 years!!! By day 8 we were ready to leave and come back to Chicago to be in reality. Not necessarily work, but homelife with just us and of course Bud the cat.

So now, we have been married for a month and are adding touches to the house, putting stuff away and making it our little piece of the world. As you can see we have added:

a monstrosity of a shower head- which is nice,

a timed coffee maker for our tea next to a plate from Eric's mom

and hung up some pictures around the house.

All is well and thanks again to everyone who helped and gave us support as we got married!

For those of you that are interested in viewing our wedding photos, visit http://www.weddingprints.com/EventLogin.aspx?sid=93245 and the password is Zapchenk.

Eric and I have the copyrights to the pictures (we haven’t received the CD yet) so if you want some copied to a CD or e-mailed, let us know.