2012

Warning: Long post.

I appreciate my life, this life, even on the bad days. This year was a good year, a really good year. We did so much, and I'm going to recap some of it for you. :) We did some things around the house, we actually went places (haha). I'm so looking forward to what next year brings. I hope that this year was just as good for all of you, and that you have a lot to look forward to.

Also, sorry for all the iphone pics. I'm just lazy these days.

• We did a little craigslisting for the first time. I got this amazing dresser that we painted and stained to use as a tv stand in the living room....$50! I love it so much. That same day we also got an awesome bookshelf for $10 that we painted. I've since painted the back a navy blue. Love! I got a few new pieces of furniture this year, but nothing that makes me happier than these two!

This isn't a good picture, but I painted the back of it blue.

• We put in new floors! I love them so much. I don't miss the carpet one bit (though I think the animals do). And while I would have loved to refinish the wood floor, they were a MESS so I'm glad we went this route.

• We took a road trip to Saratoga Springs, NY for Chance's cousin Ashley's wedding. I think this is the longest time we've been in the car together, we survived. It was a cold weekend. The wedding was beautiful and it was good to see some family that we haven't seen in awhile. We had a great weekend together!

• I met Cyndi Lauper. Yeah, that happened. It was for a work event. She also sang "True Colors", acoustic, and I was in the second row. It was pretty cool. I was also supposed to dress as Elmo for that same event. But that didn't end up happening. No hard feelings Elmo, I at least got to be cute for my picture with Cyndi Lauper. I also met Patrick Kennedy and the Surgeon General this year.

• We put in a deck! You have no idea how much I love this deck. It makes our backyard so much more complete, and adds extra space for us to spend time in. The dogs love it too, they spent a lot of days sunbathing out there. Can't wait until next spring/summer to plant new flowers and enjoy our deck again. I loved eating crabs out on the deck (instead of inside! Eating crabs inside is no fun), using our smoker, and fire pit... Maybe next year I'll actually get a potting bench like I wanted this year!

What the backyard looked like last year

Getting ready!

Chance and his dad building the deck

The step Chance made at the end.

We finally removed the awful, random basketball pole.

Love it....can't wait until summer again.

• We spent our 3 year wedding anniversary in Virginia Beach! This trip was actually hilarious. We've never been to VA beach before, and figured it would be a good place to go, it wasn't too far. Well our hotel was terrible (almost checked out the second we got there) but we stuck it out. And it rained basically the entire time. One day it poured so hard, we bought ponchos...and basically spent most of the day in the car waiting for it to stop raining. Though I did have delicious coconut pancakes that day. On our anniversary there were supposed to be fireworks on the beach. So we sat out on the freezing beach until 10:30pm and they ended up cancelling because of the wind. Womp. So even though the trip was kind of a fail, we did have a good time. We went to a comedy club (Chance has never been before) and had SO much fun, went to this awesome buffet seafood place, climbed up a light house (ouch, that was rough. Also a first for us.), and spent some time at the beach when it wasn't raining (I actually got in the water all the way...which I NEVER do). I also bought a blanket (I'm trying to find things when we go on trips that we can actually keep and aren't so souvenir-y)...it's like a mexican throw blanket. I love it, but now Chance really loves it, he's kind of claimed it as his own. It was a good find. I hope I can find more house stuff on future trips. 

• We got to see fireworks from our backyard! Since that freak storm in July delayed fireworks by a week or so...after we got back from VA beach they did fireworks that Friday night. We live pretty close to the fairgrounds so I was hoping we could see them and we could! Excited about spending lots of 4th's on the deck at home! No crowds!

• I went to Kansas City, Missouri on a work trip. It was the first time I'd been on a plane in FIVE years. Not kidding. And all the planes we took were small planes, the last one even had a PROPELLER! I wish I was kidding....I'm now officially terrified of planes. I seriously felt like I was going to lose my mind. Next time I go on a trip, I need to see a doctor to get some sedatives! lol....but the trip was good...there's wasn't much around our hotel but it was still cool to just be on my own and do whatever. I was there for 6 days. I thought I'd be nervous being in a hotel room all by myself (I never have been before!) but it was fine and the room was great and the bed was super comfortable, I wanted to take it home with me. I did eat out with co-workers a couple of the nights....we went to this one BBQ place and it was amazing! Same with this Italian restaurant in the city, yum. It wasn't a super exciting city, but it's still somewhere I haven't been before!

Propeller plane!!!

View from my hotel

Look at the KC library, it has giant books on the side.

• I turned 27. Ahh, how did that happen? Makes me sad that my 20's are getting closer and closer to being over! I wasn't feeling super great so we went didn't go far and had dinner at Carrabba's....yum.

• I "ran" my first 5k! I did not run the whole thing. I started running (jogging actually) in May, and I would only do it around once a week and wouldn't go far. I hurt my hip a little in August so that slowed me down more. I already posted about it....it was the Color Run. It was so fun! It was perfect for my 1st 5k! Can't wait until I can run the whole thing.

• We spent the weekend in West Virginia with Chance's family. Such a good weekend. It was a lot of fun, so relaxing! It was so pretty up there and I look forward to many more weekends spent up there with family! Got some great pictures too (finally decided to explore a little with the manual settings on my camera).

• I ran my 2nd 5k! It was a trail run which was hard (in the woods, up hills, over a pumpkin patch). It was cold that day too. Again, can't run all of it but I felt so accomplished afterwards!

Christina and I before our run!

• I met John and Sherry from Young House Love! Even though I met Cyndi Lauper this year, it kind of feels like meeting John and Sherry was my big celebrity moment, so cool. Pammy and I stood out in line for two hours. We were like 6th in line. It was perfect, and exciting! And we got a free cookie and hot chocolate afterwards.

Omg! John and Sherry! (and me and Pammy!)

• In addition to celebrating 3 years married this year, we also celebrated 9 years of being together the day after Christmas. 9 years! This is also techincally our 10th Christmas spent together....TENTH! Nine years ago we hung out Christmas Eve and exchanged presents but he didn't ask me out until the day after. :) Where does time go? 

I made this first one a couple years ago, and decided to add another one. 

We don't have any pictures from 2003 or 2004. :(

Anyone else concerned as much as I am for our love of stripes?

• And lastly, I've lost 31lbs! Wooo. I'm really excited about it. I feel happier & healthier and looking forward to getting even more in shape in the next few months!

To many more years of happiness!