Thursday, December 31, 2009

2009 Recap

As there is one hour left of 2009, and I'm waiting to ring it in by watching Dick Clark - who has been replaced by Ryan Seacrest - I can't help but think back on 2009. Will and I have had a wonderful year. Here's a recap of the highlights.

1. Will and I started off 2009 as newlyweds in our new little apartment together. New Years Eve 2008 was our first day back in Denver after our wedding.

2. We went to Disneyland for Will's birthday in May! It was fun, fabulous and there were fireworks! We also visited some spots from Will's mission on that trip and that was enlightening as well to see where my husband served for two years : )

3. We saw the beach several times - on the Oregon Coast as well as Southern California. Which is remarkable considering Will had never seen the gloriousness of the Oregon Coast until our honeymoon.

4. Will shot two weddings and has vastly improved his photography skills this year - and continues to improve and grow every time he picks up his camera.

5. We are entertained daily by our sweet/silly kitty that we adopted this year.

6. We ate delicious cookies in Estes Park while looking at the changing leaves. Can't forget that one!

7. We had a lovely Thanksgiving in Utah - and got to visit the lights at Temple Square which is always amazing.

8. We had our 3rd White Christmas in a row - well 3rd for me (RECORD!) and 4th for Will (who can forget the Denver Blizzard of 2006).

9. I started school again!

10. I saw the Nutcracker for the first time on our ONE YEAR wedding anniversary!

Looking back on our year - our life seems very simple,
which is a good thing.
2009 was a GREAT year! One whole year down....Eternity to go.

I couldn't ask to spend it with anyone better : )
I love you Will

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Knitting

I finished another hat!
This time I did a ribbed knit hat for Will.
It has some imperfections - okay quite a few but oh well - most of them are at the top anyhow!
Done.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Bahahahahaha!

Bahahahaha! This picture is hillarious!
Talk about "prom" style or what!!
Happy Holidays! : )

Sunday, December 20, 2009

One Year Ago

I still can't believe this was one-year ago. : )

One-Year Anniversary

There has been several highlights during the past few weeks - but our favorite has to be our one-year wedding anniversary that was yesterday. December 19th. I can't believe a year has already gone by. We keep reminiscing about what we were up to one year ago in preparation for our wedding. It doesn't seem like a whole year!

We had family photos done this weekend with Will's family by Becca Morgenegg - and this shot of Will and I turned out to be an awesome one-year anniversary photo of us! This is probably the best photo we have of the two of us - and we have a lot of them! This is definitely getting framed. Thanks Becca! I'll put up more photos of the shoot after Christmas.

In light of the Christmas season we've been watching lots of Christmas movies! These are ones we still need to get to and time is running out!
Will and I made fudge for the first time last week and it was a lot easier than we expected!
This is our final product. Yum!
So last Friday was my work's (Noble Energy) Christmas party at the Hyatt. It was fun to get dressed up and go. They took really cheesy "prom" type photos at the event so I'll post that pic when I get it from work. I bought Will a red shirt for our wedding luncheon last year - and it hasn't been worn since until all the holiday events this year! I was pleased to see him get more use out of it. Ironically my jacket was purchased for our wedding as well and I haven't worn it until this season too!
So Friday was my holiday party - then Sunday was Will's Home Depot holiday party. I must say that while my party was more elaborate (a lot more) Will's party was lots more FUN! We went to Dave and Buster's for dinner and games! We have a trick on one of the machines, so we ended up with over 17000 tickets and we went home with four very nice Dave and Busters glasses. We chose a practical prize : )
Don't mind this photo - I was playing with the saturation/contrast levels on iPhoto.
On to our anniversary - we started off the day by going to the temple to do sealings. The temple was very busy as there were 9 weddings and LOTS of people. But ya know, they must have the right idea - December 19th is a good day to get married : )
After a delicious dinner at Landry's (a seafood restaurant) we went to the Nutcracker. I've never been to the Nutcracker before and I have just one word: MAGICAL. I totally loved it. The costumes, the glitter, the snow, the dancing. It was incredible. Once is not enough, we MUST go back next year!
And of course, I'm all about cheesy - so I had to get our photo taken in front of the cheesy "festive" background. Not super great - but here are the results.
After the Nutcracker we walked to the Cheesecake Factory for dessert. Red Velvet cheesecake!
Totally Delicious!

And for fun - here is Will in his new suit. He's pretty proud of it : )

We've had a busy couple weeks - but definitely fun ones! Christmas is Friday and we are uber excited!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Sub Zero Temps

I finally finished my knitted hat .... just in time for sub zero temperatures!

Also I got my grades back for the semester - A's in both Chemistry and Sociology. Yay!

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Thanksgiving Festivities

So it's been awhile since I've posted anything. Well since Halloween really - but not much has happened besides Thanksgiving. The month of November was basically spent working on lots of projects for school for me and adjusting to Will's new schedule for work. Since Will has switched stores he actually has a pretty decent schedule of Sunday-Monday weekends and lots of 6am-230pm shifts so he's home most nights .... which makes it extremely difficult for me to get any actual schoolwork done. Maybe that's why I slacked so bad in November. The semester is done tomorrow - and I'm all finished except for my final chemistry test that I must get done before midnight tomorrow night! Yikes! Thanksgiving totally threw me off and it was hard to finish my class but luckily I have the day off tomorrow and will get it done!

As for Thanksgiving - we had a total blast. We drove to Utah for Thanksgiving to spend it with my sister's family and my parents. The drive through Wyoming was .... well - Wyoming but at least the weather was good - just SUPER windy!

Here are our adventures of Thanksgiving....

630am Wednesday morning leaving Denver
Had to capture the sunrise.
We missed our exit in Fort Collins so we ventured onto
"Owl Canyon Rd" exit about 30 miles South of Cheyenne.
Yeah the road were scary awful and I completely thought we were going to get a flat tire.
We were in the middle of nowhere.
We didn't see one other car - but 15-20 min. later we made it
to our original highway (hwy 287)
Then we had a long stretch of this to look forward to ....
Highway 80 in Wyoming is the MOST BORING drive EVER.
It was pretty icy in some parts but VERY WINDY the whole time.
Will drove everything except I got the stretch from Rock Springs to Evanston.
Boring.
Although I was amazed at how EVERY SINGLE body of water in Wyoming was frozen.
I made Will back-track so I could snap a shot of this river.
I couldn't believe it was totally frozen over!
I was glad we left so early though because we made it to my sisters at 2pm.
I liked this picture because it shows us all singing my other sister's fiance (Ryan)
"Happy Birthday" on speakerphone the day we arrived.
Thanksgiving was delicious and we had way too much food - too much pie particularly!
But I was too engrossed in the food to take any pictures of the feast.
I did watch how to make a turkey though and will be attempting for Christmas!!

The day after Thanksgiving was super busy as we got up at 345am for Black Friday shopping at Smiths (Fred Meyer) for 50% off sock sale.
It was Will's first Black Friday experience so he had quite a fun time : )
We also hit up Kohls where we stood in line for an hour
but my $30 roaster and 60% off holiday plates were totally worth it!

After a 3 hour nap we rode the FrontRunner train from Ogden to see Temple Square Lights.
That was quite an experience since it's a 3 level train
and on the top level you can see the sights quite nicely.
This is the Ogden station where we got on:
Will and me on the train.
My lovely parents on the train:
Two of my nephews and their friend on the train:
The lights were pretty neat .... once we realized we were on the
wrong side of the Conference Center!
We were wondering why the lights hadn't turned on yet - but we were on the wrong side!

My parents and Janelle's three boys:
Also with us down to Salt Lake was Janelle's friend Shara and her family:
My sister and brother in-law and their boys
Don't mind Dalton - he wouldn't cooperate for photos that night.
Will and the "blazing tree"
I made my mom take this photo a few times since she totally missed
the temple in the first few shots!
I won't let her live that one down.

Will particularly had a blast skeet shooting Thanksgiving Day.
It sure didn't help his ambition to own a gun. I'm still fighting that one.

Here's Will at 730am Sunday morning at JBs in Evanston.
It was pretty dead in there - and we were dead tired.
We got home at 2pm on Sunday and right away I had Will setting up the Christmas tree.
I love this photo because Abby is sprawled out totally indifferent to the tree.
The finished product - and of course it's prettier in person but cameras never do it justice.
Its brighter in person.
Our stockings hanging on the wall.
More holiday decorations!
And Will was so nice and brought me home a poinsettia from work.
It's glittery and all - but its hard to see here.
I had to post this - Will totally caused a full on stove fire one night
while making biscuits and gravy.
He wanted me to show him how to do it so he can make breakfast in the future.
He yelled at me while I was in the living room and said "Its on fire, what do I do?"
I was like "eh." cause I figured it was no big deal.
Once I walked over there to see the damage I started freaking out cause it was so big I didn't
know what to do at that point.
So Will grabbed to hose to the sink and sprayed it down.
I'm pretty sure it was grease under the burner : )
This is the aftermath:
And just for fun:
Ignore the not-so-flattering picture of me.
I've been trying to finish another knit hat but Abby is so enamored by the yarn.
She kept swatting at it here.
She's such a "typical" cat.
All in all - it was a fabulous trip and we had a great time!
Next up our One Year Anniversary is on the 19th! Where did the year go?!
We got tickets to the Colorado Ballet's Nutcracker and we're going to eat red velvet cheesecake from the cheesecake factory since we had red velvet cake for our wedding : )

It's going to be fabulous. Almost two months off from school, 1-year anniversary, christmas parties and Christmas! Busy December!

Happy Holiday Season, All!

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Happy Halloween!

I was hoping Friday work would still be cancelled, since outside it still looked like this:
Sadly, no go. Work was still mandatory. I guess it was a good thing though since our work Halloween festivities had been cancelled along with work the day before, so we had a "make-up" Halloween party.
My co-worker Lindy and I went as condiments.
Last night Will and I went to our ward Halloween party.
Will was Spock.
Check out those ears!
I didn't really want to be mustard without a ketchup for the ward party....
so I went as a "trick or treat" witch
Ignore the missionary jumping into this photo : )

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Thursday, October 29, 2009

It's not even Halloween yet!

Snow storm .... in October?! Well at least it gave me a day off today (Thursday) and they let us out of work early yesterday. Will had the day off anyway yesterday - and he was actually anxious to go to work today. He had cabin fever from staying inside with nothing to do. I luckily got to use today to get some homework done!

This is what we woke up to this morning!
Me after Will had to pick me up from work yesterday:
Will by my car - with the accumulation from yesterday:
...and this morning after more snow accumulation:
...and it's NOT even Halloween yet!!
Our pumpkins look so awkward by the snow!
Oh... and guess what? It's still snowing.
What does this winter have in store for us?!

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Finished Product

Here is our finished product - our carved pumpkins!
Carved while watching Casper last night.

We think Abby's not too sure about 'em:
Will's is obviously the left.
Mine is obviously the right.
: )