2013 year review

Another great year has past and so many wonderful things have happened. Now that 2014 is here I can't wait to see what this year has to bring!

January
I spent New Years with these two wonderful ladies at a dance club. It was an awesome night and we danced the whole night away!

February

We spent the begining of the month looking for different wedding venues! It was a stressful time but I think we went to 4 different places at the coast.

This was also the month that I became a toddler teacher at my work.I spent a long Saturday and many weeks of rearranging to make everything perfect!

March
After much searching we finally found the perfect wedding venue. It was this adorable little event center located in Lincoln City. While there we managed to have a good beach trip as well

Easter came very early this year. We spent Easter in Sweet home at Tyrel's granny's house.

April
Engagement photo shoot!

 

I also enjoyed watching some Spartan baseball

May

Now that we picked a venue, we ventured out to find the location of the wedding. We were looking for a beach that would have big enough parking for everyone and easy beach access. We finally found a place at Fogarty State Park!

Towards the end of May summer decided to come early which meant some fun in the sun. And my brother went to his first prom!

Oh and I can't forget about the school carnival! The first one I've participated in my school carnival and my siblings had lots of fun

June

Summer had started which meant even more days at the park and we celebrated my mom's 44th birthday!

July

Lots of events went on during this month. The first starting with 4th of July!

We took a hike at Silver Creek Falls. Absolutely beautiful place and hope to do it again and do the longer hike and then the next day we spent the day at the beach!

And then last but not least I had my bachelorlette party!

August 

One of the biggest moments in my life. I GOT MARRIED!!

September

We had the wonderful opportunity to spend the whole weekend at the renaissance fair!

And lets not forget September is the start of beaver football season!

October

The beginning of fall. My favorite time of the year. Fall brings Halloween, more beaver football and my birthday celebration. My birthday is actually in September but I couldn't celebrate it until October

November

More beaver football and Thanksgiving!

December

Christmas time. My absolute favorite holiday! Also Corvallis experienced it's first real snow. About 5 to 6 inches worth

Wordless Wednesday: Weekend of pet sitting

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The dogs freaked the cat out while sitting on my lap

Having a holly jolly Christmas

This year was probably the quietest Christmas I've ever had. Generally holidays involve a big group gathering including all 4 of my younger siblings, my brother in law, and my grandparents (sometimes both sets.) Well this year my sister and her husband stayed in Idaho and neither of my grandparents were able to come. It was a small group and very quiet. Now the reason this is strange is because growing up I've always had a big family, having me be the oldest of 5, and our house was NEVER quiet. Always loud and always something going on. Something you get use to and when you go from loud to quiet it's just not the same.

As a kid, Christmas was spent in La Grande. But as our family grew it became harder to travel. Lately Christmas has been spent at my parents house. But even though it was a small group this year, it's always nice to get together as a family.

Christmas morning came and I received a phone call saying that Santa had come so I headed over to my parents house to open presents. Ty and I were spoiled rotten this year and was given a large amount of money for our honeymoon as well gift cards for us to go shopping.

This was the first one we opened. It was in a box with this note sticking out

Ty loves his new hat!

Another one from my mom. She is so creative!

 When we got home we just had to open up my new movies and watch them! We later joined my parents again for a yummy dinner.

My sister's hair!

Playing with my Brother's new toy :)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. After being off all week it will be weird being back at work tomorrow for just one day and then having the whole weekend off again

Loving life!

If you follow me on Instagram you would have noticed that it blew up with baby pictures Friday night! As most of you know my baby fever has been going crazy. I work at a daycare/preschool and have many opportunities at work to visit the baby room, which I absolutely love. One of my co workers just recently had a baby in August and she needed a babysitter for Friday night while she enjoyed some quality mommy time up in Eugene. It was a lot of fun and he was the easiest baby ever. I wasn't sure how Tyrel would do, but I was pretty impressed with him and even caught him holding the baby while I made a bottle for him. The baby slept through the whole night was up bright and early at 6am. He stayed up whileI listened to Christmas music and enjoyed some breakfast. It's been a long time since I've been up that early on a Saturday but it was definitely worth it. As we cuddled up on the couch he ended up going to sleep which gave me a chance to get some sleep as well.

I ended up meeting my co worker at the mall and I got my nails done. I went to this place in Albany called Edith's Salon because I had a gift certificate for Shellac nails.

First time doing Shellac and so far I've really enjoyed it. I think the best thing I like about is that it's suppose to last 2 weeks. We will see how long they end up lasting because every time I paint my nails it always ends up chipping off 2 days later

Saturday Ty planned a date night for us and surprised me with a new restaurant he discovered in Salem. The Old Spaghetti Factory! The food was delicious and afterwards we the new Hobbit movie.

A snowflake made out of bells!

Now I'm enjoying the rest of the week by relaxing since I don't have work until Friday. I've already watched my traditional Christmas movie: National Lapoon's Christmas Vacation! Does anyone else have a Christmas movie they watch every year?

Wordless Wednesday: thank you

Tasty Tuesday: Homeade Granola Bars

This is a simple recipe that I've made twice now! They are delicious and chewy and better then any granola bar I've ever bought at the store!

Ingredients:
Granola (or rolled oats) 4 1/2 cups
Flour                             1 cup
Baking soda                  1 tsp
Vanilla Extract               1 tsp
Softened butter             2/3 cup
Honey                          1/2 cup
Brown sugar (packed)   1/3 cup
Chocolate chips              2 cups

Optional:
Raisins/Craisins/almonds/peanuts

Procedure:
1) Set oven to 325
2) Mix all ingredients together. I start with all the dry ingredients first.
3) After all the ingredients are mixed together add chocolate chips 1 cup at a time
4) Lightly press mix into a lightly greased 13 x 9 inch pan.
5) Bake for 18 to 20 minutes
6) Cool completley before cutting

That's it! Super easy and super delcious
Enjoy

Christmas tree!!

Holy cow it's been awhile since I've written two blogs in one weekend! I guess being stuck in the house has given me more of a chance to blog, which I really miss doing. But also Tyrel has been keeping himself playing his new game, allowing me to do more computer stuff.

Anyway, I woke up this morning in a really good mood and I decided that today was the day we were going to get our Christmas tree. I love Christmas and it just isn't the same without a Christmas tree. Last year and we went and got a big tree and we discovered it was just too big for our place so this year we picked a shorter tree and lets just say I'm so happy with it!

I feel so tall now!

We got in the house and instantly started decorating it! Well, I started decorating the tree while Tyrel hung up Christmas lights. Everything turned out so perfect, like it always does. I love Christmas lights and now they are currently all around the house. Can you tell that Christmas is my favorite holiday?

Look I can actually reach the top of the Christmas tree!

A closer view of some of my favorite ornaments...