Christmas...Drinking Season :)

It has been TOO LONG since I have blogged.  As we say at work... "SLACKER!"  I guess I've gotten wrapped up in the holiday season...okay I'm just going to use that as an excuse :)  I have had the opportunity to see a lot of friends recently, and I am basking in the glory of how amazing my friends are.  

My sorority sister Megan was in town on the 16th and I went over to our friend/sister Anna's to see her and do some chatting.  She is someone who I have really grown to respect and admire.  She is such a passionate person and truly follows her dreams no matter what anyone tells her.  She was just home from an internship in St. Lucia (I know, jealous, right?!) so we got to hear about her experiences there, what is left of her grad school, and of course some good old-fashioned gossiping.  We might get to have her in Minneapolis soon!

At my bachelorette party 

Next comes Christmas weekend.  Woof!  We headed to my parent's place on Saturday to start the weekend.  That night, we headed in to town for a party bus, yes...in Litchfield.  Carmen got a bus into Litchfield and we hopped on for a super fun night.  We picked up whoever we could at the VFW in Litchfield and cruised to Zorbaz in Spicer for drinks, dancing, and lots of talking.  It was a fun mix of HS friends in about a 4 year range, and some of Carmen's friends from college.  I caught up with a friend I taught in drumline, a friend who lives out in Montana, and of course plenty of others!  We had such a fun night!!  Let's just say, "dirty Litch kids" know how to party.  The bus dropped Mike and I off at home, too :)  It's never boring when we all get together and I always have a blast with them!

Jake, Haakon & Bryce

Mike, Brad, Paul & Katie

Hilary and Katie

On the 23rd, my brother brought his girlfriend over so we could meet her for the first time.  My mom and I were under instructions from Mike and my other brother to be nice and behave ourselves...so we did.  Boring, right?!  She was pretty quiet, but everyone is when they first meet the parents.  The good thing is my brother was acting normal, so I'll take that as a good sign.

Christmas Eve we always go to my grandma's house to open gifts and have dinner with my mom's family.  Only her brother's family comes now, but we will leave that for another blog.  We had delicious hotdish (my gma makes the best), the usual goodies, and my grandma made CRANBERRY SALAD!!  I freaking love that stuff, mmmm!!  She made it just for me too :)  I'm Special!  I forgot to mention...my grandpa has a slot machine in his office.  Like a real one.  That he bought online.  Ahhh, to be old.  Hah!  So we indulged in that a bit, too.  It was a laughter filled night and we enjoyed ourselves.

My bearded men, Mike & Dad

Christmas morning...AKA Mike's 26th BIRTHDAY!  This is our first time in 5 years spending Christmas and his birthday together.  It pretty much made my year :)  My mom mad french toast from actual french bread, wow...that was delish!  We opened presents with just my parents (Jake was busy) and it was such a fun day.  We got some games, a card table and chairs, and some other good stuff, too.  My parents really did a great job this year with gifts!  I am known as being an ungrateful gift receiver :( but this year was awesome!  We played the game Trouble for hours and enjoyed the day together.

A short week of work brought us to this weekend.  I'll keep this one short.  Friday we went out with my high school girls to celebrate Anna finishing her Master's in Occupational Therapy (woohoo!).  A friend in med school who we don't get to see often came and it was so great to see her.  We hung out in Uptown and had an easy night catching up and laughing.  I always have a sore face after I leave because we laugh so much.  Congrats Anna!!

Anna, Katie, Carmen & Brittany

Saturday consisted of laundry and cleaning, as usual.  Our friend Jake, who lives in Denver called us up and invited us out.  His family and extended family are in town for the GB/Vikes game (going on now, Vikings are winning currently) so we got to meet a lot of his cousins.  Meeting his family...explains everything.  Haha!  They were a fun bunch and we hopped around DT Minneapolis for a few hours.  I'm so glad he included us!

Jake and Mike, love you guys!

Needless to say, I've gotten my fix of needing some friend time.  And it has been absolutely fantastic.  And I would love some more!  We don't have plans for New Year's Eve and I don't care.  We have spent some amazing time with friends and family lately and I feel so lucky to have such amazing people in my life!  

I hope that everyone's holidays were as great as ours and that you got to spend time with people you love!!

Grateful

I am really grateful for the people in my life.  Especially Mike, my family, and a few of my great girlfriends.  I really love weekends.  Like a lot.  I absolutely love being home all day with Mike and Lola.  In our home.  I also love going out and trying new things with friends.  I love trying new restaurants and occasionally getting my dance on.  I am hoping to be seeing a lot of my friends in the next few weeks.  Let's deck the halls with MEMORIES!!

On Friday, one of my bestest friends and bridesmaids came through Minneapolis.  She moved to South Carolina in October to live with her aunt, get experience in the dietetics program there, and follow her heart to try something new on the east coast!  I have been so excited to see her, and it was all I expected!  Of course, she has to come back to snow...which will make her never want to come back again, ugh!  We met for dinner at Black Sheep Pizza and caught up with gossip, each others lives, and what comes next. She has been such a great friend to me over the past...4 years now I suppose.  She is someone who always lets me be me.  My sarcasm, my honesty...and she truly appreciates me for the way I am.  Even though she is completely different than me in style, friends, etc, we fit perfectly as each others friends.  You mean a lot to me, Lex!!

Friday Night

2010

And now for my Mikey.  He truly treats me like a princess.  I am so lucky to have found someone to put up with my whining and impatience (and my good qualities, of course, haha!).  If it weren't for my brother having a short stint at NDSU, I wonder if Mike and I would have ever met...but I'm so thankful we did.   I was completely content with my 5-year-plan that began my junior year of high school.  4 years of college, move back to Litchfield, get married, a house and start popping out babies...all with a certain twin I was dating at the time.  It sounds bad when I say I had a boyfriend when I met Mike, but clearly my persistence (just to clarify, Mike did not persue me, I went after him) toward Mike was a good choice on my part!  I will never forget being at our first LDS/TKE exchange and proclaiming myself single for the first time and all the guys gave a good laugh, knowing my heart was already taken up by Mike :)  I am so glad he drug me out of my rut and opened me up to a "new world".

October 14, 2007...the 2nd time we saw each other

June 2012, Costa Rica on our Honeymoon

                       
We have now officially known each other for a bit over 5 years and have been dating a tad over 4.5 years.  And it has been fantastic!  We have lived together in Moorhead, Downtown Minneapolis, Golden Valley, Bloomington, Burnsville, and now Apple Valley :)  Lola has bee along for the ride for over 2.5 years as well.  There have been LOTS of ups and downs, but with Mike's patience and my persistence, we have made it through.  And again, I feel so lucky!

Saturday we had Mike's Holiday Party for work.  We ate family style at the Ginger Hop (wow, delicious) and headed back to their office for dessert and three new home brews from their kegerator.  Yes, they have one in their office.  And beer in the fridge...and can indulge any time they want.  Lucky, I know.  And they have a rooftop deck on their building they can use during the summer.  SPOILED.

Mexico work trip 2011, Cancun

Anywho, it was a great time to catch up with the spouses and his coworkers and prime up for their "Strategic Planning Retreat" in January...AKA our work trip to MEXICO!  We are going to Puerta Vallarta this year for 5 days, yippee!  This is also only 2 weeks before I go to Maryland for 4 days to see my cousin Aria.  I have a very exciting new year ahead of me :) !

I am a lucky, lucky girl, and although things don't always go my way, at least I've got great company along the way.  I love you all who make my life fantastic  :)

To Baby...or Not To Baby

I'm sure that many of my friends can relate...as soon as you get a ring, the baby questions start flowing.  Nope...we're waiting.  Wedding...Nope, we're still waiting.  6 month anniversary...nope still no babies.  No intention of babies.  nobabiesnobabiesnobabies.  You get it, right?

Kate Middleton is pregnant.  oh.my.god.  FINALLY.  Hah.  I don't actually care, but it's breaking news, I'm sure my BFF Lexy is peeing with joy, and it brings up some interesting topics.  Apparently it is customary for royals to give birth/become pregnant within their first year of marriage.  It seems very common among us commoners, too.  But if you think about it...why?  All I want to do right now is enjoy being a WIFE!  After 5 years, I still love spending time with just my Mikey.  I still feel like we're in the honeymoon phase, and I want to riiiide that out as long a possible.  (Sappy, I know)  But really, I want us time before we become parents with opposite schedules who never see each other and only spend time with our child/children.

I AM NOT SAYING ANYTHING AGAINST YOUNG PARENTS/FRIENDS WHO HAVE KIDS!!  Trust me!  But, for me...I have no interest in becoming a parent right now.  That's just me.  And I have mad respect for my friends and classmates that have children.  I don't think I could do it.  I can barely contain Lola (our rabbit).  Haha!

I also found this article on the best age to have a baby.  The trends have been changing...I feel anyway.  It seemed popular to have kids young a few years ago, and now I feel as though the average age is going back up again.  I always wanted to get married and have kids right away.  Obviously, that has changed.  I see people in their thirties and I think, get going, people!  But according to the article, it's becoming safer and more preferable to wait until your thirties.  Obviously there are studies everywhere telling you what you want to hear, but this one provided lots of info from different sources.

From the article, linked above--- "You could also define "best" as meaning the best chance for the health of the infant, rather than the health of the pregnancy itself. With that definition, according to Mirowsky, one California study concluded that the "best age" for first birth, in terms of lowest rates of birth defects, is 26."  And in the next paragraph--- "Put it all together, he said, and the optimum age at first birth in terms of the mother's long-term physical well-being was 31 years old."  There are benefits for you, your baby, your pregnancy, and your health after the birth.  Depending on which is most important, the age varies from early twenties to 34 years old.

Needless to say...pick the age that is best for you.  And if you don't know, then WAIT!  I think about babies all the time, but have decided a dog is a good place to start...and that won't even happen for a while.  So, hopefully, this doesn't all come back in my face...karma, you know!  I told a friend this week, I do enjoy friends my age having babies, that way I can learn from them and they'll always be there with advice :)  I truly am so proud of people my age with children, and they are all great parents!  I will join you some day!

Violet Cole

 

For now...I will share some ADORABLE pictures of my "niece", my sister-in-law's sister's daughter, born the day after Thanksgiving :)  

Smiley Sweetheart :)

My Life

This is my life.  And today, I celebrated 6 lovely months of marriage with my amazing Mikey!  It feels so great and I cannot wait for 60 years :)  It sort of snuck up on us... I was telling a story this afternoon, my memory was jogged and I burst out "It's our 6 month anniversary!".  This was the perfect way to top off a great weekend.

FIRST...I'll catch you up on Thanksgiving!  We went to North Dakota to be with Mike's family on the first big holiday since Carol passed away.  The 7 hour drive never gets easier, especially after working all day, but I really enjoyed my time on this visit.  We arrived after midnight and crawled into bed.  Thanksgiving day, we had lunch prepared by Mike's dad and uncle at his uncle Arthur's house.  Mike's sister and her boyfriend have really come out of their shells and were talking to everyone.  I talked to them more that weekend than I have in the past five years!  It was a nice change to hear what they are up to and chat.  

That night, we headed in to big ol' Max (Mike's hometown of 300) to spend some time with Mike's high school friends.  We don't get to see them often since they are over 8 hours away :(  We went to Cody & Randi's to start some drinking and do some wedding talking (they are tying the knot in July, and Cody was in our wedding).  After a few hours we all went over to Luke's house to join them, their cousins visiting, and Katie, who was home from Italy! I whooped them all by over 50 points in Wii Bowling...booyah!  After little Adam was put to bed, I drove the 90 minutes home, ugh.  *Special congrats to Luke and Belinda who welcomed their new baby girl on November 26th!  We just missed her arrival!  Saturday morning, I met with a sorority sister for coffee, and it was so great to catch up!  Saturday night, Cody and Randi stopped through Bismarck, and we had a few more drinks and some fun story time.  Needless to say, Thanksgiving weekend was a fun time, as we got to see lots of friends and spend good time with family.

My new arrangement :)

Some of my goodies!

THIS weekend, we drove home on Friday for my mom's birthday, and surprised her.  She loved it! But mostly she was happy that she could drag me to all of the bake sales at 7am the next morning with grandma!  I actually roused myself out of bed...okay, mom woke me up...haha.  We went to 2 churches and the Little Red Schoolhouse, and ended with breakfast at Cricket Meadow, yum!  It was very fun to spend time with my grandma and be out beginning all of the "Christmas-ing".  I snagged some decorations from my mom and gma's to bring to our new place.  After a quick nap, we headed in to town for the rival hockey game between LDC and Willmar...we lost, but it was fun to be back there!

Our Tree

Today, after the Vikings lost, we got to decorating at our place.  

We're feeling festive!  We got up our tree, and my decorations from family.  I am usually a grinch about Christmas, but this year I'm giving in.  After all, Mike was born on Christmas...what's not to celebrate!?

The holidays are treating me well, and I'll post more soon about being thankful.  I want all of the people we've seen lately to know that they mean a LOT to us and we enjoy spending time with you!