2015
- Thanks to my amazing aunt Susie who dedicated countless hours to teaching us, we finally got going on our family history work! This was one of those things we had always meant to do, but never did. Once we learned the basics, we spent a significant amount of time on familysearch.org. (Especially Michael - he was really consistent about it.) We also tried to share some of what we'd learned with others.
- Michael continued to press on through his final year of graduate school. We kinda got used to not seeing much of each other in the evenings. He studied...and studied...and studied. I was very proud of him.
- Experienced horrible tooth and jaw pain off and on for several months (March 2015 was particularly awful). Finally - one night when I felt a crack - we figured out that I had a big ol' rotten tooth that somehow got missed when I first saw a dentist! I was shocked because I'd only had a handful of small cavities teeth my entire life. My wisdom teeth were also removed in the process of trying to identify the root issue (no pun intended, naturally :).
- Got stuck in a blizzard coming back from DC - what was normally a 3 hour drive turned into a 7.5 hour drive home!
- Made a giant snowman at the front of our apartment complex. Kind of became a community project. Over several days we saw people adding various accessories to it - a hat, a scarf, a carrot nose, spray-painted clothes etc. (our favorite was glow sticks buttons!) People would literally pull off the main road just to take pictures with it.
- Celebrated my 27th birthday
- Explored beautiful historic Virginian plantations. Man, I love the East. If we had more immediate family out there I think I could stay there forever.
- Visited my family in Sydney, Australia (again thanks to my sweet parents) and met up with some old friends for the first time in almost 10 years! Michael celebrated his 26th birthday in Australia.
- Strawberry picking
- Saw my cousin Robert for the first time since he left on a 2-year mission for our church
- Beat Michael in Disney Scene-It. Yes, it was that big of a deal. I'm usually not a very competitive person, but Michael can testify that this game has a way of bringing out my inner animal.
- Attended our church's annual youth conference in Kirtland, OH as a youth leader. Had some incredibly meaningful experiences there. Michael and I prepared a 15 minute documentary video for our youth summarizing our church's history in the area.
- Won 1st place in my company's monthly photo contest! Unfortunately I can't share the image because it's copyrighted by Bella Baby Photography - but here's a photo that someone took of me at work! This is what I did for 3 years.
- Cow Appreciation Day
- Took a crazy trip on an overnight bus to NYC to visit James and Kristin Hilton, two of our dear dear friends from BYU days! They were the best hosts. I don't think I could ever live in the city, but I LOVED visiting. I also got to see my childhood friend Jackie Kroeger whom I hadn't seen in 14 years! (Note: On the bus ride home, two young adult women were almost left at a rest stop. As in, the bus was literally pulling towards the freeway before someone pointed out they were missing!)
- Attended our church's annual Girls Camp as a youth leader again. I LOVE camp!!
- As usual, lots and LOTS of other events and projects with the youth at our church. We sure love and miss these kids!
- Two weeks straight of running around in VA with guests! (Michael's sister and niece, followed by his parents)
- Lots of other special memories with friends and family
- Our 3rd Anniversary. The little time we had to celebrate was very special. Our anniversary fell on the day before our church's "Young Men's Camp", a project that was essentially Michael's baby for months. It was a huge, crazy undertaking with lots of stress, tears, and planning leading up to it. Our anniversary was a crazy blur of last minute errands, phone calls and texts - except for 2 precious hours where we turned off our phones and ran away to Tucanos!
- Young Men's Camp (see caption for photo above). I'm still digging up photos from the actual camp!
- Dressed as Robin Hood and Maid Marian for Halloween
- Camping and hiking in Shenandoah National Park with the Van Wagenens and the Kahls. This trip was incredibly therapeutic for me. Heaven for me is an East Coast autumn.
- Lots of last visits to our favorite places in VA (my heart hurts just looking at these!)
- Said our last goodbyes to friends and then packed up our life.
- Drove across the country to begin a 5 month stint in Southern California. We didn't have to stay in a hotel once, thanks to the hospitality of family and friends along the way! An important note - the week we made the cross-country trek, we had mostly good weather. We had decided on a southern route through Texas to ensure the best chance of fair skies. Well, just days after our arrival in CA, we turn on the weather channel and glance over the route we just took. And what do we see? Tornadoes, hail, snowstorms, and entire stretches of closed highway. WHEW! Little did we know that disastrous weather had been at our heels, and had we left just a few days later we would have been completely stranded. We couldn't believe how blessed we had been!
Tune in next time for our adventures in CA. :)
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