New Year, New Promises

Alrighty.... So my attempt at blogging last year was a bit of a joke. But never fear, I've made a resolution to submit one blog post once a month for the entire year. Seeing as it's still January, I've been 100% successful so far! There's a lot you all missed out on last year, so please forgive me for going all the way back to October to get caught up. I normally wouldn't, but our Halloween costumes were so stinkin' awesome that I have to put up a couple pictures! Props to my sister in law Sarah for the awesome make up!

If you can't tell, we're frozen Titanic victims. I know. It's ok to be jealous.

We had fun at our ward Halloween carnival scaring all of the kids.

Although we did feel a bit awkward when they had the "costume parade" to be judged and Mark and I were the only people above the age of 13... Never fear, we still won the prize for scariest costume, and accepted our candy bar prize with honor.

Let's fast forward to December (I have nothing to report for November, since that was the month we bought our house and have yet to have a room complete enough for me to publish a picture). Actually, scratch that comment. We did buy brand spanking new stainless steel appliances! They are my pride and joy. And once our kitchen cabinets are painted and the counter tops are replaced, I think it might just be my favorite room of the entire house...

December brought Christmas music and delicious goodies... but no Christmas tree! We just had too many other things to do, too many boxes to unpack, and not enough room for it anyway. We figured since we don't have kids we didn't need to get the house all fancy for nobody! Sure, I was little sad that it didn't feel like Christmas, but I did make an amazing gingerbread house! And I'm not talking one of those crappy ones that come in a box (no offense to those of you who use them... haha!). I mean, I made and baked the gingerbread myself, and used super advanced techniques to hold that sucker together while it was drying!

I even made two, so that I could have good company and conversation while they were being decorated.

And here's the final product! I was pretty excited about it.

Although, I'll have to find a bigger base for next year, because I need to have room to make a yard!


And last but not least, we sailed to warm weather and blue waters with family and friends for our cruise to the Bahamas. It was a BLAST. I've been wanting to post about it for a while, but I was waiting to get pictures from other couples that went. That never happened. So we're going to make do with the ones that I had off of our camera. They'll do.

I've got two words to describe the best shore excursion I've ever done: Off-road Segways. Seriously, it was amazing.

Plus you look really cool when you're doing it.... ha!

Halfway into our segway tour, we stopped and frolicked in the beach. I know someone has better pictures of the water, but this will do. It was seriously so beautiful! We found some old pieces of coral and used them as our reindeer antlers. It was so hard to believe it was December, the weather was amazing.

Here we are in our Paul Blart poses.

And this picture sums up the hilarity of the entire cruise.

We even got fancy one night.

After the cruise, we had almost an entire day to play around Orlando. We decided to go to the Ripley's museum, which was a huge success!

I mean, come on. We're pretty much just as cool as this guy.

I figured I should put this in, because I'm a country girl now. And huge tractor tires are just plain sexy.

Everyone should own one of these. I felt like a little kid again!

And finally, Mark got up close and personal with the lizard man.

All in all, it was a great end to a great year. I'm looking forward to another year full of growing and learning, and hope to keep up with my goal of posting once a month, so you all can grow with us!

In The Beginning...

You know those super cute girls that post stuff on their blogs all the time and have in depth paragraphs about how amazing their lives are? The girls that do crafts and take artsy pictures and seem like they have hours to post things on their blogs? I'm not one of them. Not because I don't have the time--because I'm pretty sure that I'd have plenty of time to blog all day long if I cut back on Project Runway reruns and didn't do any of my laundry. I just don't know how to work this stupid thing! So please be patient as I learn how to work this blog. I'm still even wondering if anyone will actually read it, but I guess as long as it serves it's purpose of letting me vent and post pictures every now and then, it will have all been worth it. So welcome to the first post of my first blog! Glad to have you. :)

As many of you know from my recent Facebook post, Mark and I bought our first house last week! We are so excited to make it our own. We'll hone our design skills, and hopefully hone our relationship skills along the way as well. We went up after church this morning and started the long process of cleaning and painting before we move in any of our stuff. A BIG thank you to Sarah and Bode for all of their help in getting us started. It'll be a work in progress for a while, since Mark and I have a lot of ambitious projects to improve our humble abode. Here are a few pictures to get you intrigued as to what we'll be doing with it in the next coming year...

Here's the view from the front door. Bode did a great job cleaning in between the rails on the stairs!

This is taken from the bottom of the stairs, looking into the main living room. The door to the right goes to the master bedroom.



The view of the main living room from the kitchen. I actually really like the fireplace! Even though you don't really need one in Texas...

Here's the kitchen from the view of where our table will go. There are windows to the left of me, and the pantry and hallway to the laundry room is to the right.


A view from the living room into the kitchen.

Here's our master bath. Don't worry, the hideous curtains and shower door have already been removed... We have two huge closets and two sinks. I'm pretty sure this bathroom is the same size as my bedroom of our current apartment. I'm so excited to move in!

This is taken from the landing half way up the stairs.

Here's our media room at the top of the stairs.

This is one of the two bedrooms upstairs. Despite the picture, they are actually pretty large.

The upstairs bathroom.

Here's our backyard! The area that's fenced isn't huge, but it opens to these huge soccer fields, and we have a gate that gives us access to them whenever we want. There are walking trails all around the area too. Who knows, maybe I'll actually start working out...