Holidays

The holidays were great. I am such a slacker at posting, I have not felt very exciting lately. For Thanksgiving we had dinner at our house. It was a early and pretty hectic day. My first big holiday dinner!! Everything went okay except John was in misery since we did not eat until 5:30, he is used to eating dinner at noon. We are still adjusting to each others traditions. Then a blur of work, and Christmas was already here. Grandpa and Darla were able to stay at my house for a week around Christmas. It was a lot of fun to have them so close. We went to see Sherlock Holmes, we had Christmas eve dinner at Mom's house then Christmas breakfast at Aleta and Andrew's house. Christmas day dinner was also at our house. This went so much more smooth! I realized I had to schedule things out and plan a little better to make things work! Now with the new year comes dieting, yup I am at the heaviest I have ever been and am disgusted!!UGH and School, I am going to start my prerequisites to go to nursing school. I am pretty excited! John is still working @ APX alarm and he is doing really well. That is my oh so exciting update! Hope everyone's holidays were great!


My first Christmas tree! It was lots of fun, a pain in the butt to take down though!

Connor and his Aunt Crystal

Yes I chopped my hair off again!

Happy Halloween

Does anyone else feel like Halloween is not nearly as fun as it used to be? Now its just an excuse for me to go on a binge of candy, junk food, Mountain Dew, and watch scary movies. Don't get me wrong I did have a fun night with my family. Of course eating food and hanging out. We watched The Nightmare Before Christmas (favorite holiday combo!) and of course Hocus Pocus (I still cannot get over how young Sarah Jessica Parker is in that movie!)Finished of the night with Drag Me To Hell, actually not that scary of a movie but at least it was entertaining.
I think these are the first pics I have posted since I chopped my hair off! I actually cut it the day after we got back from the honeymoon, but my life is not too eventful so its taken a couple months to have a good pic.

John & Crystal being annoyed with each other as usual.


Connor looks like he is on a sugar high right here :D

Gorgeous girls! Crystal and my cousin Rachel

I love this pic of Mom & I!

Happy #22 John!

So for John's birthday this year we rented the UFC fight and had a TON of junk food! I pretty much spent the day cooking and baking. I made caramel popcorn, 2 different birthday cakes, cookies, cornbread, and homemade chili. Mom, Crystal, and Aleta helped me out. Needless to say I ate way to much! We had a pretty decent crowd show up. My family and some of John's friends came over to enjoy the feast and watch the fight. It was so funny to watch Connor around all the "big boys." He was running around and screaming, he even started kicking things once the fight started. He is such the little boy now! The guys usually get all excited after the games and end up trying out their moves. Derek even got a bloody nose... Pretty eventful I must say. This year I made John a quilt. I think he was pretty excited. He spent the next day curled up on the couch with it!







I threw in a picture of our dog... He is so huge! And he is CRAZY! He is chewing up my back yard! I am so ready for him to be out of the puppy stage and mellow out... I will just keep hoping!!

Honeymoon!

So the wedding was great! Everything I thought it would be, and it went so much smoother than I could have asked for. I am still waiting on the disk so those pictures will come soon! So for the Honeymoon we went on a 7day cruise to Mexico, we stopped in Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, and Puerta Vallarta. So great, we had a blast. John had never been on a cruise before, all I had to mention was the food and he was in!

This is our ship, the Mariner of the Seas


In Cabo we held this 8 week old tiger. So adorable, but I think it wanted to eat me! The thing loved John be kept growling at me. Pretty scary I am not going to lie!




In Mazatlan in front of this Gorgeous cathedral. I love old buildings like castles and cathedrals the art is amazing. This one in particular I think was built in the 1300s and was just awesome.


The beaches in Mazatlan were PERFECT! John was in heaven. It was like jumping into bathwater and the sand was amazing. They even let us use towels and facilities @ this resort, we could use their pool and everything. Pretty awesome I must say.



At the dinner table. Of course the food was amazing. I spent the week after the trip being starving! I ate WAY too much, plus they had an Indian dish every night on the menu. I had it pretty much every night, plus our waiter would bring us an extra curry or something. WOW!



In Puerta Vallarta we did an excursion through the cruise line. We did a Jeep tour. We had a caravan and drove all over. We did a little off-roading which explains the sweet bandannas. It was great, we went to a little village w/ no electricity just a simple life. Then we went to a tequila factory and saw how they made tequila. They fed us some amazing lunch then we hit the beach for a couple hours. It was just like being in America. They had a wal-mart ( they were building 2 more!) and they had a Sams Club and a Costco. The hotels and resorts looked beautiful. It was definitely a tourist hot spot.




The last couple days on the ship were just relaxing. John bought me some beautiful flowers! Just a great trip!
We did have some upsetting news once we got home. 2 days later John's boss called him and told him he had no more work! UGH! What a great wedding gift. So we have had some struggles! He has another job now and we actually have a really great opportunity to start an insurance agency w/ Farmers. It feels like a blessing in disguise. I think its a trial we needed to go through. A month later things are defiantly more calm.

Bridals

Ya... So the wedding is kind of consuming my life right now. We did get the Bridal's taken, and of course they are amazing. I just love our photographers they are awesome! Only 3 more days and John & I will FINALLY be married, after 4 1/2 years it just feels right! More importantly, we both need a vacation desprately. Enjoy the pics!

I am sure we will have plenty of pics from the wedding and honeymoon. So I promise I will keep up on my bloggin duties!

Engagements!

We finally got our disc! These are just a few of my favorites. Only 2 more months until the big day!

Wow I am a blog slacker!

I don't know if anyone actually reads my blog, but I still feel bad not updating since March!! I guess I am not that exciting. Wedding plans are still plugging along. John & I took our engagement pictures this month. So when I get my disc I will make sure I do a post. I can't wait to see them myself!

A quick update, Connor turns 1 on May 21.. so that is coming up in the next couple of days. He is walking and talking just a little bit. He is still the highlight of all of our lives right now.

Grandpa & Darla made a quick trip to our house for a couple of nights. The first night they were here we played cards and Mom & I made caramel popcorn. We were sitting there eating it and Grandpa's tooth broke!!! The next day he ended up at my office getting the tooth pulled!! I felt so bad, not the best way to start of your vacation. I was so happy that they came and stayed with us though, it was a little strange having my grandpa be on the receiving end of what I do everyday though.

Andrew, Aleta, Grandpa Averill, Darla, & Connor

Connor & His Great Grandpa Averill

We are always finding new ways to entertain the little guy, bubbles were a great idea. I think we were more entertained that he was!

Erick stopped in for a visit as well. Again we played a lot of games. We had so much fun! He had a butt kicking training the next day though, hopefully we did not wear him out too much!

Had to post an updated picture of my dog! He is actually so much bigger than this now, but I just love him to pieces.

Connor is walking now!

The newest early Birthday gift. Nobody can seem to wait to give him his new gifts. He loved the sand box though!

A new pic of Crystal & I.


Happy 51 Mom! Yup I made the cake. It was pretty good! Funny story Crystal & I have used that cake storage thing for months and we could never figure out why the lid never sealed... Oh ya we were putting the cake on the wrong side of the platform. Yup we are super smart!