Month: December 2013

As 2013 Comes To An End

Lauren6 Comments

As 2013 comes to an end, I find myself thinking a lot about the past year and a lot about my New Year’s Resolution.  Last December, I forced kindly invited Joey to recount all the fun we’d had that year and forced kindly invited him to do the same this year when I suddenly realized it was the end of the month already (where did December even go?!).  I thought I’d take a moment to do so here as well.

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In January, I started the new year with the resolve to be more open and say yes more.  I also saw a bajillion movies in preparation for award show season, made fancy pancakes and got honest about how January basically sucked.

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In February, I enjoyed Denver Restaurant Week, the Oscars and my first time at the Boulder International Film Festival.  Oh and helped throw our second Super Bowl bash.

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In March, I said yes to a trip to Arizona with Joey’s family, celebrated the arrival of Spring (hello, warmer weather) and said yes to a promotion, which turned out to be a lot less scary than my unrealistic mind had imagined.

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In April, I celebrated another Rockies Home Opener, dyed my hair red(ish), took Joey out for his 26th birthday (Linger & Little Man, for the win!), took my sister out for her 21st (!!!) birthday, said yes to another summer bowling league (why?!) and got in a Twitter fight with Robert Irvine.  Yes, seriously.

April was a good month!

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In May, I celebrated my (future) Mother-in-Law’s 50th birthday with a surprise party in the Coors Field Warning Track suite!  Followed by our 6 year anniversary and a trip to Vegas, baby!  It’s called Vegas, baby!, NV, right?

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In June, I participated in the Denver Heart Association’s Heart Walk, drew up an epic Summer Bucket List, joined a CSA, celebrated Jenn’s birthday and got sick for the third time in four months.  I now legitimately have a fear of colds.

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In July, I celebrated the 4th of July, my own 24th birthday and my best friend’s engagement within the first 10 days of the month.  Excitement overload!  I also said yes to being her Maid of Honor, although that was the easiest thing ever to say yes to 🙂 The end of the month was spent celebrating my dear mother’s birthday.  July is just a month for celebrating, I guess!

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In August, I said yes to a weekend trip to Joey’s family cabin.  Turned out I’d be avoiding something I ended up loving! Go figure.  Then… WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!  My mind is blank of anything we did after that 😛

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In September, we celebrated our first homebrewiversary (and haven’t brewed a single batch of beer since…), Colorado flooded 😦 and… WE GOT ENGAGED.  I said yes in a BIG way!  My mind is blank of anything we did after that too 😛  P.S. I swear that ring is on my left hand… stupid camera reversal!

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In October, we (sort of) settled into our house, (sort of) settled into wedding planning and took a trip to New Orleans, where we got to forget about needing to get settled into anything but that vacation mentality.  I also experienced my first Halloween, full of trick-or-treaters, as a homeowner!

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In November, after a grueling 9 hour wait, we reserved a public park for our wedding ceremony and officially had a wedding date! We also tackled a bunch of house renovation stuff (okay this was more Joey than me…), attended an engagement party thrown in our honor, finally got to see our engagement photos and enjoyed two fabulous Thanksgiving celebrations.  I ❤ Thanksgiving.

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In December, I revealed our mini bathroom reno (I’ll leave it up to you to decide if mini is describing the bathroom or the reno), bought a new fridge and range, changed up our KBCO Studio C tradition, got totally spoiled at Christmas, had my first out of town guest at the new house (my cousin is still here actually!) and… said yes to skiing! <—More on that at a later date, though 🙂

In case all my underlining didn’t tip you off, I’m pretty happy with how my New Year’s Resolution went.  I honest to goodness kept it in mind all year and tried to be more open to trying things I might normally say no to.  Most of them paid off, one of them didn’t.  I’m never bowling again 😛  And although some were really easy to say yes to (I think you know which), others weren’t and I’m proud of myself for being more open.  2013 was an amazing year and yet, as amazing as 2013 was, I think 2014 is going to top it!

Happy New Year!

A Denver Christmas

Lauren2 Comments

A just like that, another Christmas has come and gone.  I don’t think I’ll soon forget this one as it was the first in our new house as an engaged couple and because this was the first year I gave in and spent Christmas Eve with Joey’s family.  I know, 6 years later… I swear it had nothing to do with Joey’s family (who are all wonderful) and everything to do with the fact that for as long as I’ve been alive, it’s been just the four of us here in Colorado and it’s been just the four of us at every Christmas so I may have had a hard time letting that tradition go.  Anyways, this year was filled with more laughter, happiness, family and food than I thought possible and as usual, I felt so showered with love that I feel almost speechless.  And because of that, I think I’ll just let the pictures do most of the talking.

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This gag gift has been making its way through Joey’s family gift exchange for years and this year, Joey got to be the one to trick a family member into getting it.  His grandpa was the unlucky recipient but he didn’t seem to mind too much.

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The Denver City and County Building all gussied up for the holiday.

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Christmas morning waffles might be a new tradition in our house.

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Followed by me forcing Joey to watch a childhood favorite of mine… A Muppet Christmas Carol.  I think he was only slightly mortified that I sang along to most of it.

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Guess who got a hammock for the back yard?!  Is it summer yet?

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Post-“Secret” Santa gift exchange serenade, compliments of Jory 🙂

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Aaand off to Christmas #2 with my family!

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We got my dad two nice bottles of Colorado company tequilas.  He proceeded to serve up margaritas immediately after opening them.  Guess it was a good gift!

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We got my mom a better gift than just a picture of us I swear but she not so subtly hinted that she wanted this too.

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My sister’s been living iPhone-less for months but I just got a new phone so she “upgraded” to my old one.  I think she was pretty excited to have SnapChat back in her life.

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Mom cooked an amazing feast as usual.  Prime rib (gah!), wild rice, brussels and my contribution of a kale salad.  I highly expect Joey to be holding an intervention for my kale salad addiction any day now.

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Oh wait, he’s too busy drinking beer from a wine glass.

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Only in Colorado.

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Salted Caramel Bread Pudding was to die for and put me in a full on food coma.

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Today has been another day of food, family and present opening.  Joey’s mom seriously spoiled us rotten.  Then topped it off by taking us all to see Saving Mr. Banks.  I thought it was a very touching movie.  One that I watched from a reclining seat.  It’s the new thing!

Apologies if I seem a little absent this week.  I promise it’s only because my cousin is coming into town tomorrow and we basically have work off until next Thursday so I’ll be soaking up tons more family time (plus some wedding dress shopping!!!) and a lot of fun.  Hope you all had a wonderful and relaxing Christmas!