2012 in Review

We began the year in Spokane, drinking sparkling cider at midnight on January 1st, watching fireworks, and breaking our Taco Bell fast (we have not craved or even eaten any since). We played in the snow as well. 

In February, we celebrated Valentine's Day, and apparently didn't too much else, or else I didn't take pictures of it! 

In March, Carson's cousin Savannah got married in Seattle, and Carson was the officiant. We celebrated my birthday the day before that, and one of my gifts was to see Straight No Chaser in concert in Spokane. During spring break at the end of March, we drove up to Canada for the day, and back again. 

We celebrated Easter in April with good friends - old roommates of mine, now married and old "Spokane friends" of ours. This was also the month that we discovered we would be moving to Cleveland!

  

May was a busy month. At the beginning of the month, I "ran" Bloomsday with Izzy, then we helped plan John and Rachel's wedding reception, I was finishing up school, we had Moody's Spring Formal, our second anniversary, our families visited, and I graduated. 

In June (okay, the last day of May), I went to Ukraine. It was supposed to be until mid-July, but I had a miscarriage and came home after three weeks.

 July was our last full month in Spokane, and it was full of crafting, goodbyes, fun outings, and time with friends. We celebrated 4th of July with good friends, and fireworks downtown, went to Olympia for a garage sale, walked around Spokane for the last time.

In August, we drove across the country to Ohio! We saw Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, visited with Kristine and Ryan in Iowa, stopped by South Bend, and finally made it. That weekend we celebrated Zack and Erica's wedding in Akron! 

In September, we went back to the Lowcountry for the first time in almost two years. I got to spend a little time with Emily in Beaufort and to see my family, but the main reason was for Becca and Thomas' wedding in Savannah!

In October, Carson rode his first roller coaster at Cedar Point, Morgan and Caleb got married in Florida and I got to escape the cold Cleveland weather to be a bridesmaid, and we celebrated Halloween (well, technically, all we did was dress up)

In November, we took our Christmas card pictures and celebrated Thanksgiving -- twice! 

In December, Carson had a birthday, we did a lot to prep for Christmas, worked a lot, and finally celebrated for the first time in our new home in Cleveland! We got to see friends from "back home in Spokane" as well: Rachel and John, Zack and Erica. We finished the new year off right by having friends from Beaufort (now Virginia): Brooke and Levi come for the weekend to ring in 2013!

It was an eventful year! Can't wait to see what 2013 is going to hold!

Here's our 2011 Recap, if you're interested.

Christmas 2012

It snowed on Christmas Eve, which guaranteed my first white Christmas! 

I opened in the morning, which meant that I was there at 5:30. When I got out, I did some things around the house, made Carson some salsa (I cut onions and didn't cry!) and wrapped a few more gifts before Carson got off work. Once he did, we decided that a nap was the perfect way to spend an hour. I woke up first, and when I looked out the window upstairs, it was snowing. Big, beautiful flakes. Magical and Christmas-y. 

We'd planned to go to dinner. Originally, we wanted a sit-down dinner, and then we just wanted to grab something, so we headed out. We took pictures because seriously, our outfits were terrible. After my shower, I put on fleece leggings (get some!) and grabbed the first warm thing I saw in the laundry basket - Carson's flannel shirt. A belt made it seem a little more like I was wearing a real top. It was under my coat the whole time, so nobody knew (okay, so they probably did, but nobody cared). 

Carson threw up a jacket, and with much deliberation, chose a pair of pajama bottoms that coordinated with the blue of his outerwear. He finished off the look with running shoes.

And then we went out into the snow, where I didn't hold my camera steady enough in the dim evening light.

We stopped by my work to pick up coffee and my tip money.

And drove all around town looking for somewhere to grab dinner. Even fast food places were closed! I was a little surprised, thinking that maybe Christmas Eve is a good night for the restaurant industry, but even McDonald's was shut down (at 6pm!). We finally found a pizza place that's just down the road. We'd been meaning to try it anyway, and we've found a new favorite place. And yes, Carson paraded around town in that fine attire. You only live once.

We watched White Christmas, ate pizza, and enjoyed glasses (technically jars) of cranberry 7-up (so good!)

And we took this horrific photo.

And Carson opened one gift, because he was especially good this Christmas Eve: a coffee maker. 

The next day, as you might have assumed, was Christmas. We thought about opening stockings first thing in the morning, but since I did not have to be at work at 5:30, we decided to sleep until the last possible moment. I worked from 8:30-4.

And since I thought we should document what we did on Christmas, Carson took this picture back at home. My apron looks worse than I thought it did - they should come in smaller sizes.

Carson likes opening gifts in pajamas, so we changed and pretended that it was early in the morning and not 4:30 in the afternoon. We took the traditional picture in front of the tree:

And the "candid" photo of us opening gifts.

And ate Breakfast Casserole.

And orange cinnamon rolls (there were 8 in the tube [I don't like baking enough to make them from scratch. Maybe one day?] and we made 4 first, burned those, and made the other 4, setting a timer the second time). Both the casserole and the rolls are Norman family Christmas/holidays food.

And we opened more gifts. And took few pictures of the process.

And we made this huge mess. Our families were very generous this year.

After this, we watched a cheesy Christmas movie on Amazon Prime, ate some more, and went to bed at a reasonable hour, because I had to be back at work at 5:30 the next morning.

Merry Christmas!