New Year, New Possibilities

January is one of my favorite months. I love the new possibilities that come with a new year. I love the sense of being able to start over fresh. 2010 was one of the best and worst years of my life. Pat & I had some difficult struggles, most of which I'd rather not talk in depth about in this forum. (Those of you that know us well are familiar with the medical problems and family issues that we were faced with this year.) But we've also had some incredibly wonderful times together, as individuals and as a couple. We were blessed to travel a ton this year (Disneyland, Vegas, Montana, New York), we survived a difficult year of stress and struggles that come with graduate school, Pat got a much-deserved promotion and raise at work, and we kicked off the end of 2010 with a whirlwind 2 weeks of seeing both sides of our family in New York and then Montana, and celebrated the end of 2010 with some great friends.

I have a feeling 2011 will be a better year for us. There are so many new possibilities ahead. I will graduate in May, we will be traveling to Montana in June to celebrate my little brother's high school graduation, followed by a much-deserved week of relaxation in the Caribbean. 2011 is full of promise for our little family of 2, and I can't wait to see what this year holds.



Cheers to the New Year! We sincerely hope your lives are as blessed as ours.

I'm Embarassed

I have been a bad girl lately. A VERY bad girl. Every ounce of my energy is going into the million other things going on in my life right now (traveling, holidays, school, work, internship, THESIS), so the blog has taken a backseat. As soon as this week is over, I'll be coming up for air, and hopefully doing some much-needed updating. Hang in there with me.

Much love and holiday greetings to everyone!

Fall in Pictures

Every ounce of writing energy I have is going toward the first 2 chapters of my thesis, so you all are going to have to put up with a post of mostly pictures.

Labor Day Weekend in Ventura & Santa Barbara:

{Crushcakes in Santa Barbara=best cupcakes EVER!}

The late summer wedding of our friends Robyn & Phil:

The Montana State vs. Sac State football game (In case there is ever any confusion among our friends and family, my loyalty will always be with Montana State above Sac State. Go Cats!):

{Tailgating}

And last, but not least, a weekend trip to Montana to watch my little brothers play football:

Ty (the younger of the two)

Trev & I. His team is undefeated right now. :)

Nothing says fall like a little Friday night high school football. Oh, and windstorms and terrential downpours if you live in Sacramento.

This post ought to tide you over for awhile, right? I can't promise I'll be back to blogging in full force anytime soon, but I'll at least check in once in awhile.

Stay Tuned

If there are still any loyal readers out there (Mike, I know you read this, you may be the only one these days), please don't abandon me. I am a terrible blogger lately because this little thing called my thesis has completely taken over my life. I still have some pics to post from Labor Day weekend (I know it's been a month, so sue me), as well as from the Sac State-MSU football game this past weekend. I will try to make time to get to it on Sunday, so please be patient with me.

Goodbye Summer

So here are the last of our Summer 2010 pictures from the last month or so. About a month ago, we went to a bbq/birthday/poker party for one of my good friends and her fiance, whose birthdays are only about a week apart. It was a great time with good food, yummy drinks, and great company. Here are a few pics from that:

Me with Dee, the birthday girl and Bride-to-be (her wedding is coming up in November).

You should never underestimate the importance of good, quality girlfriends. This is my California support system. :)

Rewind to July, when we spent the day in the Bay Area for an Oakland-Boston game. Tickets to this game were my "paper" gift to Pat for our first wedding anniversary, although by that time last year, Boston had already been in town so we had to wait until this year to go to a game. Unfortunately, Pat's coveted Red Sox lost, but we had a blast nonetheless.

Wearing our Red Sox gear (Pat's shirt was my "cotton" anniversary gift this year; it's one of those certified team shirts and he wears it at least once a week).

The Red Sox Emperor. This guy was a character.

Pat enjoying the game (minus the horrendous sunburn. Poor guy).

I've been saving the best for last. This is my favorite recent picture of us, taken at Dee's party:

Hope everyone had a fantastic summer!

I'm a Bad, Bad Blogger

I cannot believe that I did not post at all in August. Not once. I hope you all haven't given up on me after my unintentional hiatus from the blog. It's just that, well, it's been a busy summer. And living my life has gotten in the way of my blogging. How is it that summer always seems to fly by so fast? And now it's September, back to my routine. Work, Intern, Study, Workout. Rinse & Repeat. Not that I am at all bummed. My long-awaited summer of what was supposed to be relaxation and rejuventation turned into a summer full of traveling, research for a few different projects I've been working on, class, training for my first 5k on Thanksgiving and recovery from my procedure in June (which really put a damper on said training). Oh, and cram a move in there as well. A pretty stressful move, with a doozy of a landlord who got so sick of our "constant demands" that he hired a property management company so he would not have to deal with us (um hello, general cleanliness is not a "command" so much as it is common courtesy). Speaking of the move, here is a picture of our new place:

Anyone who has been to our last apartment will be able to easily tell how much of an upgrade this is for us. We have a garage that we can fit both cars into (plus some storage), an actual guest room, which is actually serving as a workout room at the moment since it is housing my treadmill, two and a half baths, and an office. [The downside: we also have stairs. Lots and lots of stairs. Which didn't really concern me during the move, as I did not yet have the ok from my doctor to lift anything heavy. Ask Pat and Cody how they feel about stairs, however, and you will get a totally different response.]

I promise to be a better blogger from now on, and thanks to all of you who probably thought I was going to let the blog go.

Now we're off to SoCal for the long weekend. You know what that means--beach and sunset pictures will be forthcoming. Happy Labor Day Weekend everyone!

Montana Family (Dogs Included)

Noticably absent from these pics, of course, is Pat. Unfortunately, he was only around for the first few days (most of which I wasn't feeling that great), and not much went on the way of excitement during that time. Also missing is my stepdad, who was in Washington for a baseball tournament for most of the time I was in Montana. Such is the life of a baseball dad, I suppose.