Mancub Turns 28

I know, I know, I'm way behind on blogging. Slacker wife of me to not post a sappy love note to the hubs on his birthday. This year we didn't do anything too crazy because Brad needed to study for his 4 tests the following week (which he ROCKED by the way, so proud of my smartie pants husband)! Thankfully he took the night off from studying and we put to use a gift card that my bosses got us for Christmas.

It was so fun to dress up for a nice, romantic, dinner that was all on the house. We went to Hall's Chophouse here in Charleston which is one of the top rated restaurants here. It's a place we never would have gone to because it's definitely not in our student budget but thanks to my generous bosses we didn't have to worry about money for a night. For those of you who are looking for a steakhouse and have some money to spend I would HIGHLY recommend this place. Everything was so perfect, the staff is incredible and the food was amazing.

Earlier in the day I had made Brad's favorite cake for his birthday and we were planning on eating it after we got home. We were so full though that we just decided to wait until Saturday to dig into the cake! haha.

I'm so grateful I got to celebrate my mancub being in my life and him getting older, wiser, and better looking!
;)

curing the winter blues with a beach trip

Winter can be a rough season. However, I'm SO glad that we are in the south this winter instead of snowy Syracuse. The cold still gets old after awhile. A couple of Sundays ago it was a little warmer than usual and I was getting some serious cabin fever because it had been chilly and rainy all week. Brad had a lot of tests coming up but somehow I convinced him to take a little break and go walk on Folly Beach.

I'm a beach lover, always have been. Anyways, so as we were walking the beach we were looking in all the little tide pools we counted 15 starfish. YES you read that right, FIFTEEN starfish. They were all alive too and so beautiful. It was so neat, I was literally running to Brad every time I found another one saying "this is the BEST day ever!" I guess it doesn't take much to please me.  I wanted to take one (or a few if I'm being honest) home so badly but I controlled myself! This is probably the most random blog post but I just had to document it. I will probably never encounter 15 starfish again, especially not all in one day.

I have high hopes for you

2015

Feels so weird to type that still and I honestly can't believe how fast time flies. Like stated in the title of this post I have high hopes for the year 2015. I think it will be the best one for Brad and I, and that's saying a lot because 2014 was REALLY good to us.

I told y'all I would share my goals for this year with y'all so here goes:

1. Spend less time on social media. I have recognized that I spend too much time on social media and I don't benefit from it at all. Social Media is good for many reasons but most of the time I am wasting quality time I could be spending with loved ones and getting jealous and bitter because of the appearance that other people's lives are perfect. If I'm being honest I have totally failed so far with this goal and it's only January. It's a good thing I still have 11 more months to get better at it, right?!

2. Be consistent with health and fitness. I know, I know. Everyone always makes a fitness goal. I am trying to just be conscious and consistent on how I treat my body. Health and Fitness is so important and I really want to get into the routine of making this a top priority. So far I have totally rocked this goal and it makes me really happy. They say it takes 21 days to make a habit, so hopefully I'm almost there. What I'm missing most--sweet treats and bread!

3. Find the joy in the journey. It's so easy to just go through the motions of life or get stuck on petty little things that don't matter. This year I'm really trying to keep a positive outlook (besides my emotional break down today I've done pretty good), stress less, and choosing to stay away from drama (can't believe I'm still having to deal with this in my 20s).

Here is to 2015. Can't wait to see what this year bring us! :)

"What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more."

I should probably make a goal to blog more. Brad and I have spent the last hour reading through past posts and I just have to say it has been SO fun...and let's be honest I cried during both the anniversary recap videos--I'm a sucker for romance and love, especially mine and mancub's love story. It's crazy to see how much we have done in the short time we've been together. Blogging should for sure be one of my New Year Resolutions.

Anyways. Let's chat about Christmas for awhile shall we. This Christmas was one of the best for me. It was so fun because my WHOLE family was actually together to celebrate, talk about the best present ever. It's been a long time since that has happened and we took advantage of all the time together. I can't believe that we didn't get one single picture of all of us together!

The first night we got there we went to Pine Mountain to go on a train ride to see lights. My niece loves trains so this night was all about her. And although the line to get on the 15 minute train ride was hours long it was fun to chat with my family and soak in all the cute things my niece did. You guys, she was blowing kisses at frosty the snowman. Seriously, if that isn't the cutest thing ever I don't know what is.

One of the days my dad took us all to the shooting range. I was totally freaking out before hand because I have never shot a gun before. It's a good skill to have so I wanted to learn, I was just so worried about all the things that could go wrong. Anyways, I ended up having such a fun time. Plus, I loved getting to see all the guys in the family bond over guns.

On Christmas Eve the Steven's Family came down and we had a Cafe Rio style lunch and did our traditional gingerbread houses. It was so fun to see them and catch up. Afterwards we opened presents (my parents went all out and spoiled us rotten) and later watched the Polar Express. After that we left cookies and Dr. Pepper for Santa and then went to bed. On Christmas Day my older sister and her cute family had to leave to go back to Utah. It made me so sad. I wish we could have had more time together!

The rest of the week was just spent between hanging with my family and going to do Christmas celebrations with Brad's side of the family. I can't believe how fast the week went by and it was bitter sweet to come back to Charleston! I'm already looking forward to the next time we are all together again.

Sometime this week I'll be posting about my goals for 2015. I have high hopes for this year and am really going to try to become the best version of myself. I would love to know what everyone else's goals are! Happy New Year to each and every one of you!

Thanksgiving 2014

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! I figured now would be the perfect time to get back into blogging world. I've been thinking about it a lot lately and today I actually have some down time and figured I would be productive with it instead of scrolling through social media all day long!

Thanksgiving is probably my second favorite holiday, after Christmas of course. This year Brad and I are spending our 3rd Thanksgiving together. It's crazy to think our first one was just 2 days after Brad asked me to be his girlfriend! Our first Thanksgiving as a married couple was spent in New York City, we went for the weekend and we have so many wonderful and "funny" memories from that trip, I use quotations because it wasn't funny at the time but now I just look back and die laughing. I'm so grateful that we finally have a snow free Thanksgiving. I will take the autumn hued leaves and 50 degree weather over snow any day! 

I love that Thanksgiving is all about giving thanks for all that we are blessed with and boy have we been blessed this year. Not to say we haven't had our trials but our blessings have definitely made up for them.

I figured I would go ahead and make a list of some things I am feeling especially grateful for this year.

1. The Gospel of Jesus Christ. I am so grateful for the knowledge that I have of a loving Heavenly Father who just wants the best for me. This has been such a comfort especially during the times I felt alone or stressed this year. (still working on that goal of not being so stressed all the time).

2. My family. I am REALLY blessed in this department. This year they have shown so much love and support for me and for Brad. I love that they have taken him in and support him as well. I wish so badly that we all lived close. I miss seeing and spending time with them. I feel like I miss so much.

3. This year both Brad and I have been so blessed to be able to accomplish some of our biggest dreams. I graduated from college and Brad is almost halfway done with his first year of Dental School.

4. My job. I L-O-V-E being a nanny, and to the sweetest baby girl ever. I love not working retail because I always have weekends and holidays off.

Those are the more serious things I'm thankful for but if I'm being honest I'm also thankful for things like: Technology (makes living away from home a little easier because we can do things like skype, call, text, etc), Proactive (I've always struggled with my acne and let me just say proactive is always a lifesaver), and let's be real...dry shampoo (why did it take me so long to discover this?!).

I hope everyone has a wonderful thanksgiving, whether you are spending it with friends or family (or both). I'm ready to eat my body weight today (don't worry I'm wearing stretchy pants) and then decorate for Christmas! ;)

A Little Love Letter

Dearest Husband,

I just wanted to write you a little thank you letter. Lately I have been feeling SO grateful to be your wifey. So here are some of the little things that make my love for you grow even more each day. These are in no particular order (just as they come to mind).

#1- That you take pictures without complaining. As you know I follow a lot of blogs and they are always complaining about how their hubbys are always such a pain when it comes to taking pictures. While I know it is not your favorite thing to do, you always do it because you know how much I love having pictures to look back on.

#2- How you always ask me what is for dinner and then as soon as I start making it you take over. As someone who HATES making dinner you have no idea how much this means to me.

#3- I love that you ask me about my job daily and are so interested in the little baby girl I nanny. It gives me a glimpse into the future about how you are going to be such an incredible daddy. Our kids will be the luckiest to have a dad that cares so much about them. {side note: #babyhunger is a real thing!}

#4- The little love notes you leave me occasionally. As I've already blogged about this is totally my love language. Words mean so much to me and I'm on cloud nine when I find them throughout the house/in my lunches.

#5- Lately I've had a hard time figuring out where I fit in, which has been hard on me. But one thing I know for sure is that I always have you and that makes me that happiest girl in the whole entire world. How lucky am I to have a husband who I want to spend every second of every day with.

I could seriously go on and on about how blessed I am to be your wifey but I'm pretty sure I should stop with the mushy lovey dovey good stuff before all the other ladies get jealous of what a catch of a husband I have! I love you, Brad!

Love,
Your Very Lucky Wifey

As of Late

A lot has happened since the last time I blogged. Here is what life has looked like as of late.

Brad started fall semester and got elected as an ADEA representative for his class. Dental School is a very funny thing to witness. Being an outsider looking in at the situation it really just looks like an extension of undergrad sorority and fraternity drama mixed with a whole lot of studying. Interesting mix for sure. You have the ones who study all the time and then you have the ones who just treat it as one big social event.

My friend Haley (from middle school, high school, and college) got married on August 23rd. It was so fun to get to go back and see her and Matt finally tie the knot. Being a part of the wedding and being kind of behind the scenes watching everyone adore the love that those two share was probably the best part. I'm telling you though a lot of work goes into a wedding. 

On August 29th, I turned 23. I don't know why but birthdays just don't seem to be the same, they just feel like a normal day. I kind of miss getting all excited about birthdays. I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old. Another sign would be that I was THRILLED to get patio furniture and a free dinner at Panera!

Brad and I got callings at church as the 11 year old scout leaders this past Sunday.  Can I just tell you how OVERWHELMED I am. Holy cow. We just sat through our first meeting last night and I feel like I'm in over my head. I didn't grow up with brothers so I know absolutely nothing about the scouting program. It's a good thing I'm married to like the scouting guru. This will definitely be a growing experience for me but I'm excited to learn new things, and secretly I'm hoping that this is a sign I will have some boys in my future! haha.

I have finally started my job as a nanny. So far it has gone super well, I feel so blessed with all the jobs I've had in my life. One of the highlights of this job is that it is only 5 minutes from where Brad goes to school, one of my favorite parts of the day is driving to and from work with him, definitely makes traffic more bearable.

It's been nice to start getting into a routine/schedule. We do SO much better when we are on one (type A personalities over here). We are more productive and happier. I'm looking forward to all the things that fall has to offer!

Pretty soon I'll put up a home tour of our apartment that we are absolutely in love with. It's coming together and I just have about 2-3 more final touches to make! So stay tuned!