2013 Year in Review - Part 1

It is safe to say that 2013 was a challenging and exciting year. It was full of ups and downs, as I suppose most years are. However, I can say that it was definitely a year for the books. While there were certainly struggles, it is the good things that I know I will remember as time continues to pass (way too quickly, it seems). Here are some of the things that we celebrated in 2013: Enjoy!

January marks birthdays for my mom, my two older brothers, and for myself. I turned twenty-three this year, and we celebrated all of the birthdays as a family at Dave and Busters. It was a blast, though our family outings always seem to be.

Also in January, I looked into the idea of doing a gluten-free diet. I have had stomach issues for ages, and we were desperate to try anything to make it a little better. This did not work, which was probably a very good thing since I could not stand to eat this bread!

February marked our sixth Valentine's Day together since we began dating. Since it's always so crazy on Valentine's Day (and we were both working and everything), we decided to go out to eat the weekend before the 14th instead. It was much quieter and less busy than it would have been on the actual day, and we have a very nice evening.

March was cheerleading tryouts, which meant for some very long nights (and weeks) for this cheerleading sponsor. It was a lot of work between getting the packet ready, going to required meeting, holding parent meetings, finding someone to teach them tryout material, spending evenings at the school to have the girls learn the material, hosting the tryouts at our school (meaning being there late on a Friday night to set up), and being there all day on a Saturday for actual tryouts.

April was Easter, where Michael and I exchanged Easter baskets with one another (since we don't have children), and we spent time at my parents' house instead of doing the tradition Easter egg hunt and things with Michael's family like we did every year before.

 May consisted of having an upper endoscopy done in hopes of finding out more about my stomach problems. Needless to say, I was terrified, and was glad to have my husband and mom there for support since I do not do well with medical things. It was the first step in finally finding a successful solution.

May also meant traveling back towards our school town in order to attend my best friends' baby shower. I hate that we live so far away, so it was great that we were able to take a weekend down in order to see her and her husband. I hated that we couldn't stay too long, but it was a wonderful trip.

 The rest of May/Beginning of June mostly revolved around spending time with my brother and his (then) fiance. We attended some soccer games with them, enjoyed some Chikfila, as well as went to a Rangers baseball game with my parents.

 June was all about stress for me as I finished up my first year of teaching (middle school, at that) and had to begin thinking about the next year. I knew that I did not really want to stay at my current school, so I began the search for a new school in the future. It took up quite a bit of my summer, in fact, and unfortunately was not successful.

June also marked our honeymoon. As we were both just starting our new/first jobs when we got married, we decided it would not be best to take our honeymoon right away (especially since I don't get too many days off). Instead, we waited until June and went to the Sandals resort in Bahamas. It was definitely a nice vacation after finishing up the school year.

Part 2 coming...probably tomorrow! :]

One Little Word

I have decided to join in on One Little Word this year (check it out on Ali Edward's website here. It's $5 dollars off, but only for the rest of today). I have been following some blogs that have done this class, and I thought that it would be a perfect thing for me to do in 2014.

My word for 2014 is BELIEVE.

2013 was a pretty rough year, and I look forward to 2014 (hopefully) being much better. I feel like BELIEVE is the perfect word for me, too. I have to have faith that things are going to get better this year, and I BELIEVE that it will happen. I think that a lot of things will be better this year, and I do hope that I am right about that. If you're considering taking the class for the year, and have not quite made the leap, I would definitely encourage you to do so!

Later today, I hope to get a recap of 2013 on the blog, but for now I wish everyone a very Happy New Year's Eve!

Scrapbook Page - Wedding

One of my hopes, especially with the start of a new year, is to start getting some of my scrapbooking layouts up here on the blog. Typically, this will probably more likely be Project Life spreads, but as we are between the years, I thought I would share a layout I did this morning when the creative juices were flowing a bit.

It's been awhile since I have had any time to scrapbook, or do much of anything that I would like to, between working so much and having an hour commute each way to work. Therefore, I have been grateful for this holiday break to have some time to work on what I enjoy. I decided to do a little work on our wedding album this morning. It's been over a year since we got married now, but I know this album is going to take forever to get finished, and I'm okay with that.

I kept this layout pretty simple, but I am very happy with how it turned out. Paper from one of the Studio Calico scrapbook kits (Aztec), glitter chipboard letters, and some fun embellishments including wood veneer and washi tape from Freckled Fawn, as well as a stamp from one of the Studio Calico kits as well. I'm loving the colors and how easily it came together for me this morning.

My Silhouette Cameo should arrive today, and then I will be getting started on Project Life 2014!

Cheers!

Christmas 2013

Happy Friday everyone!

It's so nice to be on break from work and have the ability to catch up on a few things, like actually making a post on this here blog. It's part of my New Year's Resolution to be better at updating and keeping this blog going, so we will see how that goes for me.

I do hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Our Christmas expanded about three days, and it was a lot of fun. On the 23rd, Michael and I decided to celebrate our Christmas, as we live an hour away from our families and wouldn't have a lot of time otherwise. In the morning, we went to ICE at the Gaylord Texan. This year's theme was the Nutcracker, and it was a lot of fun to go through and see the ice sculptures. It was sooo cold though, so it was good that it only took us about thirty minutes total to get through the whole thing.

Once we got back to town, we had lunch out and then went home and decided to go ahead and open our presents. We wanted Sirius to be able to have some time to play with his new toys and have some treats since we would not be home for a couple of days. It was a lot of fun, and Michael did a wonderful job shopping for me this year. I think he was happy with his gifts as well. :]

Christmas Eve was all about spending the day with my family. We met at my parents' house, and then we went off to see Anchorman 2 (since the first Anchorman is a pretty big hit in our family). Then we returned to their house, did a lot of eating, and spent a lot of time sitting around and playing some games. At night fall we all opened our awesome gifts (my parents are amazing at Christmas), had a wonderful dinner, did a white elephant gift exchange, and enjoyed watching a Christmas Story. It was a wonderful day, and it seemed to go by way too fast.

Christmas day was spent with Michael's family. We picked up his grandpa, and then headed over to his Aunt and Uncle's house for a nice Christmas lunch and to spend some time together. We stayed there most of the weekend, and then returned to his mom's house in order to finish opening gifts as a family. It was a nice day as well. Sirius certainly had fun playing with his other dog friends!

I hope that everyone else had a wonderful Christmas season! I can't believe we are nearing the end of 2013. It feels like it has flown by! Have a wonderful Friday!

5 on Friday

I follow some great blogs that do the link up 5 on Friday, so thought that I would play along this week, and for weeks to come. This week wasn't too exciting for me, but I did find some things that I love. This was my last FULL week of summer break before staff development begins again next Friday. I'm not sure where the summer went; it's a little bittersweet, I guess. Now, without further ado, onto the Friday 5!

ONE: TARGET

I have always been a huge fan of Target (who isn't?) and I made two different trips there this week. Since we are still new to our town, I still don't know where everything is, but I sure do know how to get back and forth from the Target! The first trip I found some new pants for work next year, pretty happy with the price. I made another trip today to get some more school supplies for my classroom, and had my usual stop at the dollar section. They had some wonderful books for $1; classics they have turned into children's chapter books. I sure did pick up a copy of each to add to my classroom library.

TWO: This Shirt

I am almost positive that I am going to buy this for my husband, whether he wants it or not. I sent him the link in an email today, but he's been busy at work so he hasn't said anything about it yet. Still, I do believe that for the price, I can't help but buy it for him. He tends to wear anything I buy for him, so I'm not too worried about it.

THREE: Freckled Fawn

For any of you that are into scrapbooking or Project Life, then you definitely need to know about Freckled Fawn. The embellishments and washi tape are incredible, and I can't help purchasing things once or twice every couple of months. Yesterday, she released a goodie bag for her instagram followers with the awesome embellishments and tape shown above, and I couldn't help but scoop it up, especially for SIX dollars! You should definitely check it out. :]

FOUR: Nike Training for the Kinect 

My husband has had an xbox since before we were dating (well, he's had to get a new one since then, but that's not the point). So when the Kinect came out for it, we were definitely interested in getting it and trying it out. The games were fun and everything, but then when we were looking for a way to work out (without running outside in the Texas heat), my brother and his fiance mentioned this Nike training. Let me tell you, it's tough! They say it's a lot of the same training that Olympians do, and it takes a lot for me to get through one workout that's thirty minutes. It's tough, but it definitely gives results!

FIVE: Project Life

I know I already mentioned this, but I am pretty obsessed with Project Life. With moving this summer, I had to pack all my craft stuff away pretty quickly because we wanted to start moving some stuff to the house while we were taking about a month to spend weekends at the house to paint the rooms that we wanted to and everything. Now that we have moved and unpacked most things, I have been able to get back to work. I am definitely behind, but I am enjoying going back and going over what has happened so far this year. If you don't know about Project Life yet, you should definitely look into it!

Well, I suppose that is it for now. Happy Friday! :]

This Summer...

This summer has certainly been a crazy one for the two of us (three now, I suppose, since we added the pup to the mix). We began looking for a house at the end of last school year, at the beginning of May we found a house that we were in love with, and decided to sign a contract in hopes of buying it. The houses in the area we were looking were going in five days at most, and we knew we would have to act fast, even though the house had only been on the market for two days. I am happy to say that everything went pretty smoothly, and by the end of June the house was ours! We did have our apartment until September, so we decided to wait a month to move in, that way we could get everything together. We have been living in the house for a couple of weeks now, and while it's a big change being in a nice area, we love the house.

I really did love our apartment. We found it pretty soon after Michael had received his job the previous summer. We were able to make it look very nice, and even though we had a second bedroom, it was pretty tight. The second bedroom was more of a craft room/storage room, so it was often a bit of a mess. Now, we have a five bedroom house, so we should have plenty of storage and room to grow into. (Notice our new addition in the picture above, that was the weekend we adopted Sirius....the same weekend we moved. Yeah, timing was a bit hectic!) Overall, I am very happy with what the summer has brought us, and I do look forward to what life brings us from here.