Peace out 2009!

This year was great, hard, fun, etc. Overall I think I liked it better than 2008. I'm definitely looking forward to 2010.

in january we put away our holiday decorations, waved goodbye to my mom and sister, took a lot of snow pictures, and i started school.

pups playing in the snow.

henry & i on a walk.

during february we celebrated valentine's day, our 5 year anniversary, had more visitors, and went skiing at loveland. it was a love-filled month.

valentine's flowers.

family in breck.

march brought our biggest snowstorm of the year, spring cleaning, and more wedding stuff.

henry buried in snow.

i flew home for a shower thrown by my mom, charlie flew back for a bachelor party, and of course more hiking happened in april.

opening presents.

i think the best month of all might have been may. i finished up my first semester of school, had a fun bachelorette party, and we got married.

the new hubs and i.

when we got back to colorado in june we wrote a lot of thank you notes, hiked through a ton of snow, and found a new place to live.

snow covered trail.

in july we hiked part of Pikes Peak in the rain, sent out moving announcements with the wrong zip code on them, packed a lot, and flew back to MD for some family time.

hiking down pikes peak.

we moved in august. i started school again, we hiked our first 14er, and got our car stuck on a mountain.

on top of grey's.

alex came to visit in september, i turned 26, and we ate a lot of burgers barbecued on our new grill.

alex & i on bear peak.

in october we continued our halloween tradition of carving pumpkins and making riceballs, watched the rockies lose in the playoffs, and got our first big snow of the season.

go rockies.

dogs & pumpkins.

we celebrated thanksgiving with friends in november and started the ski season.

first time skiing.

december brought the holidays, family, good food, christmas cards, and a job offer.

merry christmas.

frozen pipes and Blurb

Whiny portion of the post:

Last night it was cold. Negative something. I woke up this morning to frozen pipes. Now the good thing is it's only in the kitchen, so I can still shower and all of that good stuff. But no water in the kitchen. Since we live in an apartment (VERY happy about that right now) I went down and filed a work order. And do you know what the woman at the desk told me? Oh, don't worry, that happened to a lot of people. Maybe you could try using a hair dryer on the pipes. Um, excuse me, what?!

A. The frozen part of the pipes is most probably not something I could reach with a hair dryer.

B. I am not spending my day holding a hair dryer to pipes.

C. How is it supposed to make me feel better that EVERYONES' pipes are frozen?

Blurb Book portion of the post:

I mentioned before that I ordered some books through Blurb. I ordered wedding albums for us, my parents, and C's parents. Overall I think they came out pretty well. I don't have PS so I just used the layouts in Blurb's BookSmart.

Things I liked:

... the imagewrap covers came out really well.

... the printing quality was really good! i used the premium paper and the colors and detail was really good.

... i ordered the 13x11 size for us and it seemed to work the best with cropping, etc.

... you can create your own custom layouts and/or change their layouts.

Things I didn't like:

... i used the 8x10 size for our parents and the cropping was a little off on some of the pages. it wasn't like they cropped the areas that they warn you might get cut in printing ... it was like they shifted the entire page up. i had selected a black background for a few of the pages and there's about a 1/10 inch white space at the bottom of the pages.

I was happier with our book than out parents' books but I think that was just because of the size. I would order through them again. I wouldn't order the 8x10 size again. Probably because I just think it's an awkward size.

Here's 2 pictures from our album:

happy 6 months of marriage.

dear husband aka charles aka dude,

happy 6 months. they've been fabulous, awesome, amazing, etc. but seriously, being married has been way better than being engaged. perhaps because we're not planning a wedding?! or maybe just because i love you so much. even when you don't take the trash out. maybe because you love me even though i hate cooking. here's to the next 6 months! and the ones after that, and the ones after that, and the ones after that ... and lots of takeout.

love, d

Wedding Recap: Details

The last wedding post. Don't lie, I know you're a little sad. Here are all of the things I forgot to mention in the other posts. Most of these things meant absolutely nothing to anyone there but a lot to us.

Here's my dress and I have to be honest, I never had "that feeling" that you're supposed to get when you try on a dress. I knew I wanted something white, light, and not pouffy. I did like this dress as soon as I tried it on but I didn't get all sad or weepy. I think my exact words were "eh, I like this one and I don't feel like trying on any more. Let's just get it." I will say that I had to get my dad's approval before officially deciding on it. Once he okay'd it, I was good to go.

Our colors were somewhat of a controversy and they basically were built off of my bouquet. When I was little every Valentine's Day my dad used to bring my mom home a dozen red roses. He would also always bring a pink one for me and a yellow one for my sister. I knew I wanted my bouquet to be red, pink, and yellow roses ... for our family. Then Charlie decided he wanted to wear a yellow tie and my mother talked me out of red or yellow bridesmaid dresses, so pink it was. I let our florist do whatever she wanted with the bridesmaid bouquets. She did try really hard to talk me out of my bouquet but I refused to budge.

Our cake was a carrot cake. Yum! Seriously, I love carrot cake. So does Charlie. It was definitely not the sturdiest thing but it tasted so good! Definitely worth the giant crack in it.

I made our table numbers out of pictures of the dogs. Oddly they were the most popular thing. Everyone wanted to know if they could take them home and at the end of the night they were all gone. Not really sure why people wanted pictures of someone else's dog but I'm glad they were a hit.

Our centerpieces were another thing that I really loved. We wanted something that people could take home and plant and that wouldn't die in a few days. We did small pots of miniature roses and ivy mixed together and most of those disappeared, too. My parents took the remainder home and planted them in pots.

And that's it ... all the random details you never knew you wanted to know about our wedding.

Wedding Recap: The husband

For me, this was the most important "wedding detail" of all. And frankly, I think I did pretty well and here's why:

1. He loves animals.

2. He's not afraid to make a fool of himself.

3. He climbs mountains with me.

4. He's thoughtful, caring, & can always make me laugh.

5. He moved across the country for me and never makes me feel guilty for it.

6. He's most definitely, without a doubt, my best friend.

... love you, dude.

Wedding Recap: The pics you don't frame

You know when you look back on the pictures from the day ... even the ones from the photographer who generally took out all of the awful, embarrassing pictures ... there are ones when you think "wow what was I doing/thinking". Here's a few of mine that I've collected. They're too funny not to share.

We'll start with the ceremony. There's one I'm still waiting on getting from a friend & it's priceless.

I'm putting the ring on C's finger in this one & this is my "are you suuuuure? Because once this baby's on your finger you can't ever take it off" face.

And after the vows ...

This was after the ceremony when we were about to take pictures. I look pretty angry but I assure you I was excited.

No idea. Bad, just bad.

When Charlie saw this he asked, "Did I really get on the ground like that?" Uhh, yeah ... the camera doesn't lie.

We may not always take good pictures ... but at least we have fun making fools of ourselves.

Wedding Recap: Us two

One of the reasons that we choose our photographer was that we liked his style (obviously). We were looking for a photojournalist, someone to capture the moment. I didn't want to look back on our wedding pictures and see a bunch of posed pictures; I wanted to see pictures of what was really going on. We wanted something similar with our "portraits". Nothing with us standing next to each other with a cheesy grin on our faces. Although I think some of my favorites of the two of us were just ones taken through out the day.

Wedding Recap: Music

I've already mentioned a few of the songs that we jammed out to at our wedding, but I figured they deserved mentioning since most were pretty significant (at least to me).

Charlie and I were introduced to "Better Half" by Keith Urban. [Told you I loved country]. When we first started dating I made the boy a mix CD with a bunch of country songs on it & this was one of them. In a way this became "our song" but we didn't pick it for our first dance because it's pretty fast and I'm not that skilled of a dancer. I think I mentioned that before.

Our first dance was to "Someone Like You" by Van Morrison. I've mentioned my love of Van before. We listen to him all.the.time.. Seriously love him. Tupleo Honey is my favorite album.

My dad and I danced to a shortened version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" & "What a Wonderful World" by Israel Kamakawiwo. Personally I like the second half of the song the best.

Charlie & his mom danced to "A New Day has Come" by Celine Dion. This was a surprise for her, we had originally decided not to do parent dances and when we changed our minds Charlie wanted to keep it a secret from his mom. The two of them bawled the entire time along with pretty much everyone else.

I mentioned that we danced to "Green Grass Grows" by Tim McGraw.

... and Charlie and his buddies danced to "Call on Me"... the remix. Lovely.

Of course "Shout" made its appearance ...

... as did "Let's Stay Together" by Al Green. Not sure why I like this one so much.

And my personal favorite of the night, "Friends in Low Places" by Garth Brooks.

The last dance of the night was Van again, "Have I Told You Lately".

Most of the pictures are credited to Joseph Allen. The rest are from friends.