2010 In Review

This was a crazy year. Busy, full to the brim. What else CAN you have, when you go back and forth all over the country/state, plan a wedding, get married, have friends get married, and move several times? 

I had paragraphs planned, but I think bullet points are more appropriate. Will you read paragraphs? No. 

January

My wedding dress came into the store and I decided I loved it and wanted to live in it

Weekend on Oregon coast with the Bay/Bradford family

I moved in with Carson's parents for the spring

Went to Virginia to meet Trent, Erin and baby Kennedy

Also saw Brooke and Jillian while there... a treat

February

Drove from Virginia to South Carolina - was there for two weeks

It SNOWED five inches in Beaufort... and the town went crazy

Jillian and Gary got married and I was able to be a bridesmaid!

I went to Portland to visit Carson's grandparents. We did puzzles and Scrabble.

March

Carson picked me up and took me to Spokane

Emily came to visit in Spokane.

We picked my wedding dress up 

I turned 21! And celebrated with Mickey Mouse ears at Olive Garden with Molly and Erica

We took our engagement pictures

April

We celebrated Easter

I made a lot of cards

Carson visited once

I had a bridal shower in Olympia

I worked out every single day

I flew to Beaufort at the end of the month

I sent out a million wedding invitations

I passed out in the post office

May

Carson finished school

I helped make wedding decisions

I had a bridal shower in Beaufort

I made wedding programs

I realized I'd lost too much weight for my dress and stopped working out

I went to Charleston with Emily and we freaked out because I was getting married in a week

I went wedding dress shopping with Brooke

I picked my future husband up from the airport

I attended my own bachelorette party

We got married

We went to Mexico

June

We moved to Naches, Washington

Had 2 receptions in Washington

I discovered how to fill a 40-60 hour workweek with housework and other things, minus internet

Made many trips to Starbucks for said internet

Started this blog

Rode bikes

Went to the doctor for sand in my ear (I still get some out occasionally)

We were married for one month!

July

Visited the laundromat quite a bit

Got our bedspread stolen from there

Carson's mom visited

Went to Cashmere to meet Carson's friend's baby

Had the worst job interview ever in Spokane

My brother visited

Went on the most excruciating hike ever known to man

Flew to Beaufort

Brooke and Levi got married

We were married for two months!

August

Returned to the West

Packed, packed, packed

Applied for a thousand jobs

Moved away from Naches

Carson started school

Went to job interviews

We were married for three months!

September

Moved into our apartment

Continued both school and my job hunt

Worked at White House Black Market for 4 weeks

Went to job interviews during that time

Hung out with Spokane friends

We were married for four months!

1. 

October

Started working at the daycare

Discovered that this is not a career for me, but I do enjoy it as a job!

We painted our kitchen

We went to the pumpkin patch 

We carved our pumpkins and had an evening of scary movies

We were married for five months!

November

It snowed for the first time this year

We were sick a LOT (we think it has something to do with my job)

Carson had strep

I got food poisoning

We celebrated Thanksgiving

We shopped on Black Friday

We were married for six months!

December

We went to Beaufort for a week

School ended for Carson

Trent and Erin had baby #2 - Brooklyn Carter Bay

We went to Leavenworth for a weekend

Carson turned 24!

Carson had pneumonia

And our quote for that weekend became "P...as in Pneumonia"

We went to Olympia for Christmas

We were married for seven months!

That was our year! So many specifics and details left out, if you can believe it, with that long post. 

Happy New Year!

This Week

We took down our Christmas tree and the decorations

We vacuumed the remains of said tree, which appears to have lost half its needles on our floor

We walked into Target for a lampshade and found one... and wrapping paper on sale, a binder and a microwave for $14... down from $55... thanks, whoever returned it!

We got Christmas cards and a Christmas box in the mail... and enjoyed all of them

We watched Andy Griffith quite a bit

We watched snow fall down an inch an hour on Wednesday... scraping that off the carwas not so fun

We ordered pizza and salad from a local restaurant, just because. YUM!

...and we went to work each day, Carson studied for a CLEP Literature exam he's taking Friday morning (pray for it!), and slowly, but surely, his pneumonia self is getting better. He's not sick-sick anymore, but I hear that it takes its toll on you.

Opening gifts from the family

This was the only photographed gift opening that we did. As such, I suggested that we change into our comfy clothes, an idea that was pleasing to Carson! 

There was gummy earthworm eating (Becca, where do you find such things?)

 Becca's gifts to us (this was the first thing we opened; she gave it to us before we left Beaufort)

Carson found Marshmallow Santas in his presents from my parents

Scott always wraps things creatively... Burlap

Twine

Electrical tape

Finally!

Sour and regular gummy worms. 

They must have been good because I saw the packages in the garbage the next day :)

Scott gave me salt and pepper shakers shaped like pigs. 

I think they're adorable.

And much preferred to the Morton's salt container and spice rack version of pepper I was using!

Mom gave me lots of craft things, which made my day.

Fabric, really strong glue, magnets, pom-pom makers... all kinds of things to use

I have plans for these things but haven't done anything yet.

You Should See

This is a video I stumbled upon and am sharing in the hope that it blesses you.

Christmas was over a few days ago, but we can still reflect on the Savior's birth, right?

Enjoy!

Our Very First Christmas

We went to Olympia for Christmas this year, so our personal gift unwrapping happened on Wednesday night.

The reason for this is that that's the day that Granddaddy and Grandmamma's presents to us arrived in the mail. 

We opened those and Carson was hungry for more. 

Naturally, I had not wrapped his presents (yes, three days before Christmas... because I had purchased them two days before that), so he went into our room and shut the door, while I wrapped.

Then I called him,

and we unwrapped presents.

Here are our stockings:

And the tree which you've seen a million times, this time with presents

One of his stocking stuffers... 

there's a funny little poem that you can print out with this but I lost it and we don't have a printer...

More stocking stuffers

All of my stocking stuffers... I sense some baking in my near future

Marshmallows

notice the hydration and vitamin C behind Mr. Sickly.

He cut out hearts and had all different sorts of names for me on the tags

I noticed that and I copied the idea (minus the hearts... too hard to freehand)

Thursday...

I was supposed to work 7:45 till 4

But I got a text that said to see if I needed to come in at 9

And at 8:30 another text came, telling  me I had the day off

So we got an earlier start than planned on our trip over the pass

But since we were up to leave at 7:15 anyway, we got gas for the car 

And Carson made a snowman on top of it

Then, we went up the South Hill and looked at Christmas lights.

Yes, in the morning. 

Then we found a cute coffee shop and had espresso and hot chocolate. 

No pictures, I'm afraid. But we did these things.

Afterward, we went to Target to buy Settlers of Catan

And then back home to wrap our gifts for other people

(SO not on top of it... I'm blaming it on the fact that I work a lot, but we all know it's not true)

And of course there are no pictures of Christmas Eve

But we girls got our nails done (mine are this color)

While the guys went to Cabela's or somewhere guyish 

And then we returned to play Settlers and watch Christmas movies

And after that, we played Catch Phrase and telephone pictionary 

(they are now selling telephone pictionary as an actual game-game... Scribblish... but we just played with regular pieces of paper)

On Christmas day, Carson was still a bit too sick to go to Seattle, where the Bay side was celebrating, so we just hung out at the house

Then we opened gifts (at 1pm or so...)

And headed to the Jenkins' for Christmas dinner

Here's my new owl cookie cutter and some cookies (Carson received a bear)

Some festive gingerbread men

Chewbacca, the fattest cat I've ever seen 

Watching Christmas movies once more

Playing Rook

Eating, eating, eating (we snacked on this while waiting for the real food)

More snuggling with Chewy

Norman, the dog

Merry Christmas!

Settlers of Catan

Snuggling with Earl, his new bear

We left Olympia on Sunday morning at 6:30.  

Which was TOO EARLY (especially during a lazy holiday weekend) but I sat in the back of the car and slept for a good portion of the trip, which ended at 11:45 in front of our building.

Where we dumped out our stuff in the living room and proceeded to take advantage of some day-after-Christmas clothes shopping. Carson obtained two new sweaters and a polo shirt, while I ended up with a new sweater, shirt and pair of jeans. 

And then we returned home to continue being lazy. 

And I just love this little part of our house, so I'm sharing a picture...

Hope your Christmas was merry and wonderful!