Merry Christmas to Us ....

WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!

This is definitely our Christmas present to each other this year. We closed 2 days ago - and will be moving in next week! Moving on over to the East side .... Aurora!

Its an older home (1968) that has been completely remodeled. The landscaping will definitely need some work, but we are up to the challenge (we think). Its crazy to think we own a 5 bedroom house (with definitely not enough furniture to fill it).

More pictures to come after we move in (this one was just one I found off the internet).

For now, we are going to relax and enjoy the holiday.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Year Two, Me & You ....

I love my husband. Tomorrow marks year two of marriage for us. These two years have been hard at times, but overall it has been absolutely wonderful (and it just only keeps getting better). I love being married. I love having my husband at my side, and I look forward to spending eternity with him. I love you, Will.

This is us last night before my work Christmas party:

And now, I'm going to go enjoy a fabulous anniversary date night with my hubby. Off to Landry's for dinner then a movie!

Two years ago

December 19th, 2008

Denver Parade of Lights

Last weekend Will and I went with some awesome friends (Niel & Dani) to the Parade of Lights in downtown Denver. This was my first Denver Parade experience. I honestly didn't know they had parades here, and I felt lacking for the many parades I remember back in the NW.

Anywho, it was a fun date night. Rather cold - but we booked it out of there before the end so we could hit up Olive Garden. I must say that was the BEST Olive Garden experience I have had in a LONG time. Our server totally broke several rules (I would know since I worked there for a week). She was CONSTANTLY filling our breadstick basket without asking us (with more than the "alloted number per fill up), constant drinks (mine never got below 3/4 full) and then at the end of the meal she literally dumped like a dozen plus of those andes mints on our table (there were only 4 of us). I'm sure no one else would've noticed these things, but since I worked there, and since the past few times Will and I have gone we have gotten terrible service ... this was quite the unexpected treat! That girl was definitely working for her tip!

Here are the 4 of us at the Parade:

This was a super sparkly fun band:

Random Float:

Will and I in the freezing cold:

Our double daters, Niel and Dani:

Our pretty Christmas tree in our apartment:

And just for fun

Will being cheesy while I was testing out my new camera.

My other camera randomly decided not to hold a charge, so we got a new one on Cyber Monday.

In other news, we finalized negotiations on the house we put an offer in for, and our appraisal happened last week - and we now are just waiting for the appraisal information and then we should be good to close in about 10 days! Kinda crazy since we put an offer in on this house "on a whim" but I think overall its going to be a very good thing for us. : )

There Is No Good Title For This

Like my previous post said - these are the very few photos I have taken in the last 4 months. There sure aren't many.

Our drive back from Vail in August

Our drive up to Golden Gate Canyon State Park in September

We stopped at a little lake to fish.

We caught nothing. Neither did anyone else there that day.

Pretty Overlook at Golden Gate Canyon State Park

Breanna's Wedding in September

I had a good reunion with some good friends from High School

Picking Pumpkins at May Farms in October

Aw - doesn't Will look cute with the little kitten?

These kittens were running all around!

I, sadly, look like I'm squishing this poor kitten.

She was cute though.

Us in the saddest looking corn maze I have ever seen.

You could see through the corn!

How could that be a maze?!

Date night to Maggiano's in October.

I am promising to 1) take more photos 2) post said photos 3) blog more often and 4) not be so boring!

Bad Blogger....

Alright folks. I am a bad blogger. I admit it. I have left this blog unattended for 4 months now! Terrible, terrible, terrible. I guess life has either been really busy - or just really boring. I am going to say it has been both.

These are the big events that have happened in the past few months:

• I got a NEW JOB! Well, same company - but a new position within a much better, cooler department. I am now the senior administrative assistant to the Rockies MidCon Business Unit Manager. Sounds spiffy huh? But really so far its been kinda slow but the work environment is so so so SO much better! I've been in this position as of October 5th.
• Will and I moved apartments! We no longer live in West Wash Park. We now live in the Sheridan/Englewood area. This has come with a new ward - which we haven't quite adjusted to. Its hard going from such a small, tight-knit ward to a large ward where people aren't so friendly yet. We have a feeling we will be moving again shortly.
• Will and I went back to Washington in August for a long weekend. He was the photographer for his friend's wedding down in Cottage Grove, Oregon. While he did this all day on Saturday - I hung out with my parents all day. It was a pretty awesome, relaxing weekend. Well at least for me. : )
• I went home again (by myself this time) back in September for my friend Breanna's wedding. It was a blast! I saw lots of good friends that I haven't seen for a long while. It was a nice reunion. I also attended my high school's homecoming football game. That was nostalgic .... but weird. I hadn't been to a homecoming game since I was IN high school.
• We got a puppy .... but then had to give the puppy away. He was awesome, but our beloved cat Abby did not get along with him and she was not adjusting ... at all. She stopped eating and would not come out from under the bed for long long periods of time. As good and happy this puppy was, Abby is our first child and she rules the house. This is not such a good bullet point, but it was a hard few weeks for us so it is worth mentioning.
• Will and I spent a nice weekend in Vail in August. We got to shoot a reception up in the mountains near Vail, and we took the opportunity to stay in the pretty town. I had never been before and I needed to see what all the hoopla was about. It was nice, but I bet its nicer in the winter with all the snow.

Notice all these bullet points are not in any sort of timeline? That's how my brain is these days.

Other than these few things (sadly I can't think of anything more exciting that has happened) life has been kinda boring. Will and I are becoming "that couple". We really need to find more hobbies to do together during the week. Our weeknights have become quite lackluster, especially now since its getting dark so early. I have "my shows" and Will just wants to play video games, so really we just alternate depending on whats on tv that night. We decided we needed more interesting things to do - so the other night we decided to go check out the local city recreation center. We've decided to start going to Open Swim after dinner this winter. I described my childhood to him - how no matter what the season was, I would go to open swim at the club all the time. Even when it was pitch black and dark and cold out - I would still want to go swimming because it was something fun to do. My parents would drop me off at the club after dinner throughout my childhood - and I loved it. I was that annoying kid that constantly talked to the lifeguards, I made "swimming buddies" that I would meet up with, and I have generally good memories of going to the club. We decided that we need to do more things like this as a couple, because when we have kids we want to already be in the habit of not sitting at home every evening staring at the tv night after night. We'll see how this goes.

Also, I haven't taken very many photos lately - but I'll post the few that I've taken since my last post in July in a separate post following this one. Maybe then I'll be all caught up and I'll post more often eh?

We have some more things in the works, but we need some more time to work the details out before saying anything out loud. In time folks......

Until then, Ciao!

True Love

That's right, folks. I love this dude.

Cherry Creek Art Festival

Oh how we love the Cherry Creek Art Festival. Every year on Fourth of July weekend. Yes, the art/photography is nice - but the real reason we go? You guessed it. The FOOD! Nothing beats high priced fair food. Yum. I ate until I literally thought it was all coming up. Literally. The bike ride home from the festival - a mere 2 miles or so, was difficult. But oh so worth it.

Look at the blue sky in this photo!

Oh, and the blue/green snow cone of course.

This, my friends, is the real reason I almost lots my cookies:

The biggest rice krispie treat I've ever had.

I consumed this monstrosity AFTER the snowcone AND a slice of pizza!

And no - Will did NOT help me eat it. : )

It was delicious - and again, oh so worth it.

And just for fun -

A real man spends the entire length of a movie with the cat.

I love these two : )

Italiano

Last week Grandma Popo (Will's grandma) came into town to visit. She lives in Michigan and spent the Fourth of July here in Colorado.

On Saturday, after spending the day at the lake, Grandma took us all out to Maggiano's to celebrate Will's and my belated birthdays. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be able to eat any sort of Italian food for a while, simply because we ate SO MUCH food at dinner and I thought I was literally going to explode. Just when we thought we could eat no more, the server brought us these two giant, delicious, chocolate cakes as a surprise. There were 6 of us, and between us all, we still couldn't finish them.

This picture cracks me up just because we all look like we got lots of sun that day, which we did - well all of us except Grandma who was smart and stayed in the shade.

We were glad to be able to spend time with family! Thanks Grandma Popo!

St. Vrain State Park

Will and I had a glorious 4-day weekend together. We started off our adventure by going fishing and camping at St. Vrain State Park up North between Denver and Fort Collins. It really was just an RV Park, but it was perfect for our purposes. I had never been fishing before - that's right, never - and I wanted to try it out. Will and I have also never been camping together - that's right, never - so it was the perfect double whammy. Fishing AND camping, together!

We registered at REI when we got married, and got oodles of camping stuff - but because of Will's crazy retail work schedule at Home Depot, we've never had (nor created) the opportunity to go camping together. Well folks, we're hooked. It was so easy! The hardest part was getting all our stuff together and now that we've purchased most of what we need - we are golden.

Only next time we vow to actually cook food while camping. We may or may not have had a plan when it came to food, and therefore when it came time for dinner we hopped back in the car and drove to Popeye's. That's right - we had fast food while camping. Whatever - it was our first time in a while okay? Next time I promise to do foil dinners, but that's only if I remember to thaw the chicken.

Majestic Rocky Mountain Glory:

So I could not sleep the next morning for the life of me - and therefore I got up at 630AM (a miracle in itself) and I decided to go fishing while Will continued to sleep. I happened to catch this gorgeous skyline early in the AM. A hot air balloon lifted off from the foothills and I watched it ascend into the sky with the Rocky Mountains in the background. It was pretty awesome. This, my friends, is why I moved to Colorado in the first place.

Will was lucky and caught two fish on Friday and I caught one fish on Saturday.

Good thing I got up!

Will came walking up to where I was fishing just as I started reeling one in.

I was shouting "I caught a fish! I caught a fish!" and in a skeptical response he just said "A real one? Are you sure?" Well duh!

We had a blast! We've caught the fishing (and camping) bug. We also now have annual fishing licenses, so you better believe we will be out there more often. Maybe now Will might believe me when I tell him I caught a fish. : )

Happy 234th Birthday, America!

(pictures taken of the Aurora, CO fireworks display 2010)

Thank you for having another Birthday!

God Bless America

"Ass in a Lawn Chair - Feet in the Sand..."

Ah. Summer.

Yesterday was an awesome day at the lake with the fam.

We joined Will's parents and sister (and Jax) for some jet skiing and relaxing at Cherry Creek Reservoir.

It was awesome.

Good start to Summer.

One day older and wiser too....

My hubby spoiled me this weekend for my 24th birthday (which was on Father's Day). We went to an AWESOME dinner at the Melting Pot on Saturday night to celebrate. I believe the photos speak for themselves:

So delicious - you MUST get the cookie's n cream marshmallow creme fondue with milk chocolate (not dark) if you go.

We celebrated at Will's parents on Sunday with Red Velvet cake.

My favorite!

Gifts from the hubster:

Digital Scale and Healthy Cookbook

Gotta work off those birthday pounds! ; )

Pretty new Coach Purse and Wallet to replace my stolen ones:

Thanks to all for the birthday wishes! I had a wonderful 24th birthday.

I love you, Will.