Twenty Fifteen Part 1

It's crazy to think that we are already over a month and a half into 2015!

Here's a little recap of what January looked like:

We started 2015 with a little New Year's Eve get together at our house. We played a fun game and watched the countdown on the TV. It was a good night.

We have a picture just like this in almost the same spot in my house from two years ago. We were even wearing the same colors! 

The next week, I started seeing a myofascial release therapist for my neck. I've been going since and it has been so amazing. I feel so much more movement and I'm in a lot less pain every day. It's a slow process but it's one that I really believe is going to pay off in the long run.

We went on a fun sushi date night with Josh's brother and his family. We both got gift cards from Josh's parents for Christmas, so we decided to go together. It was delicious and a lot of fun!

The next day, I headed out of town with some good friends for wine tasting. One of my wine pals also has a January birthday, so we wanted to go to this specific winery to celebrate both of our birthdays. We were able to get a free tour of the facility and they gave us lunch along with our tasting. It was a really great experience. We also checked out a local building that housed a ton of organic eateries and little shops. I had an amazing salad and tried a raw oyster for the first time. It was a really great day.

 The whole group of wonderful ladies!

Birthday girl picture

My dear friend went into labor that weekend and I got to meet her little man! Oh my goodness, am I in love! He is so precious. I'm so excited to be an Auntie again!

Later that week, one of my dear friends that went wine tasting with me had me over for a wine night. She bought a bottle of wine from the winery for us to share (though we did not finish off that bottle in one evening), and some yummy meats and crackers. She also made me these delicious brownies! It was the best night. We always have such good conversations when we are together, and this night definitely did not disappoint.

The next day, we attended the memorial service for Josh's great grandma. While it was a very sad day, it was really nice to be able to see so many of Josh's family members there. His brother and his family were able to come up for the service, so we got to spend a lot of time with them that weekend. We went out to lunch with everyone after and Josh was able to show the video he made in honor of his great grandma. That evening, we went over to see our new baby love and had dinner with our friends. We played a game and laughed so much. It was such a fun night.

 My sister-in-law and I with our nephew

 Uncle Josh and our nephew

Uncle Josh and our new "nephew"

The next day, we had lunch with his family and celebrated Christmas with his brother's family. We went out bowling later that afternoon with our oldest niece, which was a lot of fun. That evening, I went out with two of my sisters-in-law and we had such a fun night. It really was so good to have quality family time with everyone.

My oldest niece in the middle 

This boy and his smiles 

With my sisters-in-law

Later that week, I went out dress shopping with my friend K.M. for our Vegas trip! We had a really fun day together. That evening, we went to a hockey game with Josh's family (my first!). His brother bought us all tickets for Christmas. It was really fun, but also very stressful! I was seriously nervous about people getting hurt the whole time. We have a friend that works at the arena and he got Josh and I on the kiss cam!

Part of our group

The next day, one of our friends got baptized at church and we went to a little luncheon at her in-law's house to celebrate.

Later that week, I turned 30! My dear Bible study friends surprised me with a yummy cake and my favorite cookies! We also played a game that evening and laughed so hard. It was the best first day of being 30.

That weekend, I went out with some of my dearest friends to a wine bar that I'd been wanting to try for awhile. They had a huge selection of wine and had the yummiest food. Paninis are their speciality, and they also have amazing meat and cheese trays. I didn't hear anyone complain at our table about their food. Everything was delicious! And it was such a good night of being out with my girlfriends. I seriously enjoyed it so much. It was incredibly relaxing and so perfect.

January was also full of other fun evenings spent with friends and family. The Bachelor and Pretty Little Liars came back on, as well as most of my other shows, so that was exciting. I also sang for worship a couple of times. It was a busy month, but a good one.

Vegas, Baby!

Since Josh and I both turned 30 on our last birthdays, we decided we wanted to bring in this decade with a bang!

We got to spend a fun four days in Las Vegas with some of our good friends.

We ate way too much food, walked until we had blisters and sore legs, and enjoyed the sights.

We arrived in Vegas early on Friday morning and got our fun going right away. We were able to get a lot of things comped or discounted on our trip, which saved us so much money and made the trip that much more enjoyable.

Cheers to a fun weekend!

As it was my first time really experiencing Vegas, I wanted to see as much as we could. The only part of Vegas I had ever seen were the shops and moving statues in Caesar's Palace, so we tried to walk through almost all of the other major hotels on the Strip. We did a lot of walking our first day there. I'm pretty sure when we checked our step count that it was well over 13 miles that day.

Inside the Bellagio

We also took a little bit of a nap, as our flight left so early and none of us got very good rest the night before. We had In n Out for lunch, since my dear CO friend hadn't had it in awhile, and we ate at The Pub in the Monte Carlo for dinner. We went out to The Bank at Bellagio to do some dancing. We had a lot of fun there.

All dressed up with somewhere to go

The next day, we slept in and ate at the food court in the Excalibur for lunch. We did some more exploring of the hotels and did a little bit of gambling. Later that night, we had dinner at Pampas in Planet Hollywood, which was an incredible Brazilian steakhouse my hairdresser recommended to us. It definitely did not disappoint. I would highly recommend it to anyone heading to Vegas. We had the best service and definitely got our money's worth of food. They also had these really yummy drinks called Caipirinha that we all tried. So good. After dinner, we headed over to Aria to see Zarkana. As I had never seen a Cirque du Soleil show before, I really enjoyed it. Some of the things they did made me so nervous, but it was really cool.

Mandalay Bay 

Luxor 

We didn't even plan to match every night but it just happened

Not even the best representation of all the food we had. It was delicious! 

I love lights so much

The next day we continued exploring. We walked down to the Venetian and stood in a long line to try the cannolis at Carlo's Bakery (Cake Boss from TV). We did some more gambling and hung out around our hotel. We did an early dinner buffet at the MGM Grand. It wasn't my favorite meal but they had a pretty good selection of food. We went back to the hotel and hung out for awhile before we went out to the Foundation Room at Mandalay Bay. It was advertised as a lounge with dancing, so we were hoping it would be the best of both worlds. It had an incredible view of the strip, as it's at the top of Mandalay Bay. But, there wasn't any dancing, so we went down to Hakkasan at MGM Grand. It was a really cool place.

The Venetian

Ready for our last night out 

On the balcony of the Foundation Room

The next day, we hung out around our hotel and went to Buca di Beppo for a late lunch. The ambiance wasn't as fun in this one, as it was in our hotel and not a standalone restaurant, but the food was still really good. We then headed down the Strip again to see a few other hotels we hadn't been in yet. By the time we got back, it was just about time for us to head out.

Caesar's Palace

Outside LOVE at the Mirage

It was such a fun trip and I was definitely sad when it was over, but we were all exhausted and ready for more sleep and our own beds. I am so thankful for our friends that were able to come and celebrate with us. They made the trip so much more enjoyable.

The Big 3-0

So I'm writing this in my last few minutes of being 29 (though technically I was born at 10:02pm on the 28th).

I've been excited that it's my birthday week, but I honestly haven't thought much about the number 30. It stirs up some emotions for me, as did quite a few different ages.

When I was in high school, my goal was to be married at 22, have my first kid at 24, and have my last kid before I was 30.

Obviously, God had different plans for me.

30 is weird to me, because Josh and I started dating when we were 20. We spent almost our entire 20's together. So it's weird to be starting a new decade of age with him (and to be coming up on our 10th dating anniversary).

I often think of myself as being younger than I am. I think because 25 was the last birthday I was somewhat excited to be getting older on, I often still think of myself as 25. I usually pause when people ask me my age and have to think about it for a minute.

But I'm honestly really excited about my 30's. Because my birthday is so close to the start of a new year, I often still think of new beginnings when my birthday rolls around. I'm excited to start a new decade with my man by my side. And I'm excited to see where life will take us in our 30's.

I still feel like the 90's were only ten years ago, even though it's been quite a bit longer than that. I still feel like I was a teenager not that long ago, even though it's been almost 13 years since I graduated high school. I still feel like "kids" that were born when I was in jr. high should be younger than 10, and they are adults now.

Growing older is a weird thing. The older I get, the more I understand why my grandparents would say things about "remembering it like it was yesterday". I don't feel like I've been alive 30 years, but I have.

This past month of being 29 has brought so many wonderful things. I have a new "nephew", we got to spend a lot more time with our nieces and nephew, we've had some great times and conversations with friends, and I think I may have found something that is helping me tremendously with my neck issues.

So while it's a little sad to be closing this chapter of being a 20 something, I'm so thankful that the last few paragraphs were filled with so many wonderful memories and experiences.

Onto the new...

Happy New Year!

2014 is now over.

While I am a little sad to see it end, I'm also very excited for a new year and the freshness it brings...as well as the many good (and bad) things that are coming soon.

A couple of posts ago, I talked about how I have a few hopes and dreams for 2015...as I am not a New Year's Resolution kind of girl.

One of those hopes is to figure out my neck issues and to be able to manage them better. As I have now been living with these issues for three and a half years, I'm ready for some progress in this area. I have learned some good methods of reducing my pain to help me feel more comfortable and to help me sleep better, but I would love to have this thing figured out so I don't have these restrictions any longer.

I also want to get more involved in encouraging other women through Bible study or something like that. It's been almost two years now that I was last involved in any sort of women's Bible study and I really feel like I need to be involved in one again. Whether that means I'm leading/co-leading or attending, I'm not sure. But it's something I feel I need to pursue this year.

There are also a lot of different possibilities I've been thinking on and praying about, and I'm excited to see what doors God opens and closes when it comes to them.

I'm really excited for some things that we have planned and some events that are coming up. I'm excited for the changes that are happening/going to happen in our church. And I'm excited to see how God is going to mold and grow Josh and I this year.

2014 was a good year.

Here's to 2015!

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

We had such a wonderful Christmas this year.

I got almost all of my shopping/wrapping done way ahead of time, which made the days leading up to Christmas a lot more relaxing. The only thing I really had to do last minute was make Christmas crack (recipe here. It's deadly good stuff. I used 1 cup of butter though, instead of a 1/2 cup. Other recipes I found recommended using the full two sticks and I think it definitely made it that much better).

We spent Christmas Eve with Josh's family. We opened our gifts in the afternoon, went to the Christmas Eve service at church, and had an Italian dinner together. We took silly pictures, ate lots of yummy desserts, and played some games.

Brothers 

I called her a cheeseball and she thought that was pretty funny 

My favorite boy in the world 

Sisters-in-law

Christmas morning, we went to Josh's brother's house to watch our niece open her presents from Santa. But, we got a big surprise there...Josh's oldest brother and his family came for Christmas! All of us thought they weren't able to get time off work to spend Christmas with us, but things changed for them last minute, so they drove all night to get here! We spent a little bit of time with everyone in the morning and then headed to my parents' house to have our traditional Christmas breakfast in pj's. After our yummy breakfast, we took turns opening our presents, youngest to oldest. We spent the rest of the afternoon spending quality time together, and I made some more Christmas crack for us to enjoy. My mom made yummy ham and bean soup for lunch. Later that afternoon, we headed over to my grandparents' house to spend some time with them. And after that, we had all of dot35 and their wives over for some snacks and games. We were so excited that C. and Y. were in town and were able to spend some time with us.

So happy to have the whole family together 

Our adorable nephew! 

Normally we go to a movie on Christmas Day with our friends, but this year, we decided to wait until the day after. We saw Unbroken and it was so good. I was a little disappointed in where they cut the story off, but I knew going into it that would more than likely be the case. Even so, the movie was very good. I, of course, highly recommend the book, but I did enjoy the movie. Some of it was very hard for me to watch, being so emotionally invested in Louie's story, but I thought they did a really good job on the movie.

Dot35 wives 

Dot35

I'm exhausted after a busy couple of days, but I'm so thankful that we were able to spend so much time with family and friends.