November is anniversary month in our house, it seems!
November 16th was our 6th wedding anniversary. :) Those have been six
hard years
(just being honest here! You know how I feel about that, and not romanticizing things...), guys, but they've been great too--
wonderful. The best years ever. It's amazing how many high "highs" of life and low "lows" of life we've been on, together, in these last 6 years.
Each year, our celebration of our anniversary becomes less and less..."formal/dramatic." I'm kind of liking that trend. :) This year the Horsmans and us traded "Anniversary days out," so we took their kids on their anniversary, and they took our kids on our anniversary. Gotta love living by family that is in the same position of life you are, huh?? Broke, but still needing to celebrate, dang it! ;) So, we dropped off our kids, then went out to Potbelly's for a quick lunch before doing to see "Ender's Game." Headed back to our house to watch another movie I had not yet seen: "Star Trek: Into Darkness" (is that the name?) on iTunes via the ever handy apple TV. Then we made a fire and talked--because nothing is better than owning a home with two working fireplaces, AND making fires all the time. :) I think the fireplace might be J's favorite part of our house, hands-down. We then went to "Everest on Grand," our favorite restaurant (probably). It's Tibetan/Nepali food, and it's just outstanding. Every.single.time. We started a tradition a few years back of getting take-out from there on our anniversary, and I think it's a FIRM tradition now. :) So we picked up our food, headed to the Horsmans to grab our kids, quick put them to bed, and then enjoyed our dinner in front of the fire. Really, a GREAT day, and pretty darn cheap too. Go us. :)
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| A week after getting engaged. At Renee and Jon's house, J meeting them for the first time. I was a tad bit nervous, considering our fun history, but he was cool and calm. Dork. He should have been just a BIT nervous. ;) |
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| The morning after getting my engagement ring in St. Paul. |
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| At my aunt's house--the extended family (local) meeting J for the first time. |
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| At Mike and Anthula's wedding in Montreal, just two weeks before our own wedding. |
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| Our chilly, yet sunny, November wedding day. We looked pretty good. |
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Mr. and Mrs. :)
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| Christmas in Nebraska |
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| Jamaica |
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6 weeks after having Layla
After this point our "couples only" pictures seriously died down... ;) |
From then on our pictures were family pictures!
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1st St. Patrick's Day as a family of 3.
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| A pirate family of 3. |
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| And the family of 4. |
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Anniversary #2: Home-ownership!
November 20th marked 1 year since we moved into our new home. It's been such a wonderful year here. Seriously, though--I can't imagine still being in that apartment. I'm SO grateful to have had the opportunities to be caretakers and have free rent, in a great area of town that we loved...but we were so done with it by the time we left. It's great to just BE in this house, and have our kids be able to be as loud as they want and not stress about that. :) We love owning a home!!
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| THIS was the picture that the website used to sell the house (their main house picture). It sold ME on the house, that's for sure! We talk all the time about how blessed we are by this house. The fact that it has 5 bedrooms alone...LOVE it. |
