Mother's Day 2015

Yesterday was Mother's Day! Our day was filled with lots of love and laughs. We started the day off bright and early with 8 a.m. church (we may or may not have been 30 minutes late....) with Andy's parents. After church, Andy, David and I went over to their house to open gifts and make breakfast together. We cooked up some pancakes, waffles, sausage and fruit salad. It was a really great meal! However, we didn't have much time to savor our food because we were hurrying to make it to a 12:15 movie. We  quickly piled into my car and headed over to the theater for the matinee movie. The movie was not my favorite ( I don't care much for Will Farrell movies), but all of us being together was nice. After that Andy's mom and I went to a mother-daughter Pure Barre class while the guys took naps and got started on dinner. Once we got home from our workout, we wrapped the night up with some salad and spaghetti on the back patio. All in all, it was such an enjoyable day!

The best part of Mother's Day was seeing how excited Andy's mom got when she opened her presents. For almost a year she had been asking for photos from our weddings. We finally delivered on that request!!

See below for the cutest photos of her opening her gifts!

Time flies - An update on life in KCMO!

Since I have moved to Kansas City time seems to fly by even faster than usual. I can't believe January 8th marks our ten month anniversary and ten months in KCMO. I have grown to love Kansas City! A few of my favorite things about living in this new city would have to be:

1. The amazing weather! Actually having a few fall months was a new and fun thing for Andy and I. We enjoyed burning wood and sitting by the fire! 

2.) Our lovely home that the Lord has provided! We have truly loved having a space that we can call our own. After so many years of doing projects on our family members' home it is nice to finally get to work on our own. We have enjoyed remodeling the bathroom, living room floors and painting the entire house. We hope we can continue to do more renovations down the road. 

3.) Exploring new bike routes! During the summer, Andy and I had more time to bike and we really had a blast exploring new bike routes. We even went on a group ride once! We are looking forward to biking again come the spring.

4.) Making new friends! It has been such a blessing to have made new friends rather quickly. I have enjoyed meeting Andy's school friends and getting to know them. I have also made some new friends at work. It's nice not to feel so alone in a new city.

5.) My fantastic new job! I really love my new job. I have been so much busier than I was at my other job and working hard has been so fulfilling. I am learning more and more about retail, flowers and marketing. The way I got this job is such a God thing. He paved the way and I am thankful!

There are so many more things that I love that I quickly want to mention.... less traffic, working directly across the street from Starbucks, my office, our huge backyard, the farmer's market, gardening and leaves....lot's of them!


I am going to try and do a better job of blogging the next year. Stay tuned!

Our Little Vacation

My little vacation consisted of 48ish hours in Colorado with Andy and his parents. Even though this trip was too quick, it was so sweet and fun that it didn't really even matter. We were there to stain Abe's cabin, and even though it was a big project we managed to find time to stop and play!

Andy and I had such a great time together. It felt like we were on our own little honeymoon. I hadn't seen Andy for nearly three days, because he had left early to get a head start on the staining. I will say that there is definitely something about being away from each other for the first time since being married! Being apart made me really appreciate Andy even more. I was so thankful to not have to eat dinner alone and sleep in bed by myself once we were reunited in Denver.

After a full day of staining we decided to head to town! We ate dinner with his parents on Friday night, at our favorite spot, Eric's restaurant! It was the first time that Andy and I branched out and ordered something different off the menu. We settled on an olive oil pizza, and it was so good!! It had garlic dough, basil, tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms, and instead of sauce-it had olive oil. We highly recommend it!! 

The next day we decided to take a break from staining to go road biking. We woke up and headed out to Hoosier Pass, were I dropped off Andy so he could bike 10 miles (descending 4,000 ft). He looked super cool and flew down the Pass at 40 mph or so!!!

Then we met up in Breckinridge for breakfast. After breakfast, we hopped on our bikes and rode from Breckinridge to Frisco (12 miles) and stopped at fun outdoor spot called Foote's Rest for ice-cream and a cold beer! After a few photos were taken, texts were sent and a few phone calls were made (no cell service in Fairplay so we had to take advantage of good reception) we biked back to Breck. We biked a total of 22 miles and both got a little sunburned! It was so much fun!!! Good company, gorgeous scenery, homemade ice-cream....what more could I ask for?!

Anyways....our little vacation was so fun and memorable and I can't wait for the next one! 

June Goals

I want to do a better job of setting little, achievable goals and then accomplish them! I have decided that the month of June will be a perfect time to start implementing this into my life.

For this month I want to focus of five things:

1.) I want to make a habit of doing some type of exercise or physical activity 6 days a week. This is something I kind of already do, but often times I get lazy and let a few days during the week slide. I think this will be a great way for me to keep my spirits up and feel satisfied with myself.

2.) I want to take time to listen to one interesting podcast a week. This is something I enjoy doing when I go on road trips, so why not try to learn more, more often? I am always doing housework, so the next time I am making dinner, washing dishes, doing laundry I will multi-task and listen while I work.

3.) I want to read one book a month! I love to read, but often times chose to do something else instead of read, just because it's easier or because I don't have a good book checked out.

4.) I want to blog at least once a week. This is so easy to do if I just set aside 30 minutes of my week. I truly enjoy looking back on my life when I read my blog posts, so making this a weekly habit will be so rewarding in the long run.

5.) I want to spend 20 minutes or so a day catching up with a friend. I have found it is much easier to pick up the phone a call a friend when it's only been a few days since you last spoke, than if it has been a few weeks. I want to keep up with friends and let them know I am there, so this is something easy I can do to make sure they know that.



There you have it! Five easy goals! Let's get started!

Bye bye bye Honda, hello MDX!

The last time I had a brand-new car I was 15 years old and didn't even have a driver's license. I remember I had to wait three months until I could drive my Honda Civic. It sat in my driveway for what felt it like forever before I could legally drive it. What I will remember most about my Honda is the cool, digital dashboard, the way one piece of my hair would always swirl up an blow straight out the sunroof, and of course the loud engine that sounded like a plane taking off when I would accelerate!

Flash forward to nine years later and I am at the Acura dealership falling in love with a 2008 MDX. It took an entire weekend to find this beauty, but when I did it was love at first site. Well to be honest it was more love at first site for Andy and I needed a little convincing on the color of the car before I knew it was the one! Nevertheless, it is totally awesome and is equipped with handsfree bluetooth so that I can chat with both hands on the wheel while I drive.