Christmas

This Christmas season has been so different than last year!
Last year I quickly fell out of love with Christmas - turning off the radio early and being unenthralled with gift buying and celebrating. Reflecting back to last Christmas my life was in disarray. I was living with my parents, commuting far to school, not sure if I would graduate, did not know what the future held, and had just gotten engaged but had no plans for the wedding. No wonder I couldn't stop and enjoy the holiday!

I have so enjoyed Christmas this year! This year I have peace with my life. I am married, have a job, feel settled and full. I have enjoyed every minute of Christmas music and excitement. I found joy in gift buying, even sought out the crazy shopping. God filled my Christmas with the joy of Jesus' birth and from that the love for those around me. 

Spiritually I have been reflecting on Gods promise to the world that He would bring a savior and His perfect sovereignty. Also, within the fulfillment of this promise, God tested his servant Joseph, throwing him a curveball but using it to save a nation. 
What promises has God made you? Will you be patient for as long as it takes, even hundreds of years, believing God will be faithful on all He has promised? 
What curveballs has God thrown you lately? He sure has thrown some my way- and I can't wait to see how God uses those to do BIG things! 

This year I had great celebrations with my big new wonderful family!

Friday, December 21: Seeing The Hobbit with the Ellis' and the Grosskopfs
Saturday and Sunday, December 22-23: Going to Mt. Princeton Hot Springs with the Grosskopfs
Monday, December 24: Flesher-Hinton Christmas band, Christmas cooking, movies  and sleep over with the Marbles
Tuesday, December 25: Morning gifts and breakfast with the Marbles, afternoon time with my hubby, and evening dinner with the Grosskopfs. 

Wednesday, December 26: recovery with the hubby followed by a game night with the Marbles and Grosskopfs!

My family is so much bigger than last year and is so much fun!

I hope you enjoyed your Christmas season as much as I did!

Losing our "wisdom"

This weekend, Daniel and I both got our wisdom teeth removed. We had been procrastinating it for a LONG time but it had finally become a necessity. Because we would most likely take days off of work to take care of each other, we decided we'd do it together.

Last week consisted of my preparations for the big event.
I went to the library.

And stocked our fridge with yogurt, pudding, ice cream, roman noodles, and soup.

Thankfully, Dad agreed to pick us up and drive us home on Friday morning. We were not in such good shape when we finally got home, but we made the best of our situation. The best part was going through it together!

I bet it would have been HILARIOUS to have heard us trying to talk to each other with mouths full of gauze!

Our recovery is going very well! We only took the big pain pills twice, both times on Friday. We're down to just Tylenol. We are still trying to chew soft, squishy substances that are NOT SMALL PIECES! Food getting stuck in our wholes is our current fear and obsession.

Unfortunately, Thanksgiving is tomorrow. (good for my diet)
Fortunately, I can still eat stuffing!!!

Enjoy your Thanksgiving and be thankful this year that you can chew!



*funny story about the title: Daniel forgot the word "teeth" when announcing to his work that we would be "Getting our wisdom out". :)

First Snow*

I love snow!

I love the freshness of the air and the clean blanket of white that covers everything in sight.

   

Thursday was our first *real* snowfall of the season. 

I celebrated by:

I made a pot of chili
Yum-o!

I pulled my favorite red coat out of the closet
and flaunted it all over town.

 

I drank coffee (of course)

           

               And read a good book.

But the main reason I love snow is because it comes when we celebrate my favorite holiday in my favorite month. In anticipation, and in celebration of our snow, I took a trip to Michaels and allowed myself to drool over these:

Enjoy the snow! and a Merry way too early Christmas!

The Coffee Experiment

I have a coffee addiction. More specifically, I have a Starbucks addiction. Even more specifically, I have a carmel latte addiction.
I love the taste of the milk and coffee and carmel mixture. I love it hot or cold. I love the experience of going to the coffee shop and walking out with my coffee in hand. I would go EVERY day!

But the problem is...$$$

About a month ago, my adoring husband gave me this:

This is an espresso maker. You fill the bottom with water and then it boils up through coffee grounds into the top part. It is so easy to make (and clean!)

So we have been experimenting with making our own coffee. While I have had to give up some of my coffee shop going wonderfulness, I am enjoying sipping carmel lattes on my couch, in my sweats.

Some of the coffee concoctions we've made are:

• Pumpkin Spice Latte (only 3 pp if you make it at home) 

          

• White Chocolate Mocha
• Mocha Cookie Crumble 
• Carmel Macchiato
  And of course...lots of
• Carmel lattes! (both iced and hot)
  
  
  

One-derland

Yesterdays snow was an early surprise, considering it is only the 5th of October. It wasn't my only pleasant surprise yesterday, however.

I have been doing Weight Watchers for almost 3 years. It has been an ongoing struggle, a battle that I sometimes choose to lose and other times push through for a win. I have struggled with my weight since ...forever...and I will have to continue to monitor what I eat and exercise until I die. This is a realization that has been hard for me. I feel like the people I'm around can eat whatever they want whenever they want it and I become jealous and upset. It has taken me 3 years to realize that everyone SHOULD watch what they eat and exercise, that I am not abnormal, but ahead of the curve. My twenty-something friends will realize that they too need to watch their intake of food.

It has been this place of comfort and my incredibly supportive and encouraging husband, who has made it possible for me to lose 26 pounds on Weight Watchers so far! He was the one who encouraged me to join WW at the beginning of my junior year in college. He has helped me become more active and has been so supportive in me watching what I eat! (He even ate Subway EVER Sunday for lunch for almost a year!) I was able to lose 20 lbs in the two years at school. (Stress sucks!)
Since our wedding I have kicked into high gear. I am tired of wasting time and only halfway trying! I want to lose this weight SO bad it hurts and I am so motivated!

Over the last 8 weeks I have tracked and counted ever point. We have exercised every weekday morning for the last 7 weeks and have made an effort to be active on the weekend. I am really starting to notice major differences in my appearance and I am feeling great!

Yesterday I reached my first big goal of weighing less than 200 lbs. I reached ONE-DERLAND!!

I think there is a little difference:

  226lbs 199 lbs

My New Life

So much has changed in the last 3 months.
I've changed my career, my home, and my last name.
I've graduated from college so I am no longer spending my time with homework, classes, rehearsals, and practicing. Instead I spend my time:

Working my new job at Colorado Honor Band as the office assistant.

Working out with my husband in the mornings.

Counting points and actively working hard to lose weight.

Picking up the house (making the bed).

Doing laundry.
Cooking.
Shopping.
Drinking coffee.

Talking with friends.

A (little) violin playing.

Most importantly: Spending as much time as possible with my wonderful husband!









Needless to say, I love my new life. We are still adjusting to the new schedule and are finding the need to hold on as tightly as possible to any time we have together, but we are more relaxed, more connected, and happy! As our lives continue to lead in a forward direction I am praying that we will be excited and patient with whatever lies before us. I want to treasure ever moment Daniel and I have together. This is a new adventure and every moment is exciting! So far, our new life is proving to be such a blessing! What more could two newlyweds ask for?

Honeymoon

I don't feel particularly motivated to blog about the honeymoon. I want to move on and blog about my new life as a wife.
However, I also cannot ignore the need to finish what I started and that includes blogging about the honeymoon. So here it goes...

Daniel surprised me with a beautiful trip to the Floriday Keys. I had no idea until we were in the car, driving through the rain, towards DIA-and then I only found out we were flying into Miami.
I found out at the car rental that we were actually driving the 1-2 hour drive down to the Keys.
In the keys Daniel had rented a beautiful condo. After a slight snag in plans (the condo wasn't ready when we got there at 9 am after an all night flight) we had a beautiful trip with many wonderful adventures!

 
These are a couple pictures of our condo.

We had so many wonderful adventures! We kayaked in the ocean by our condo, went jet skiing, and snorkeled.

Here are a few pictures from our trip down to Key West. It was so hot that day so we basically went from shop to shop, trying to stay in the air conditioning.

 

  This is a picture of the "golf cart" you could rent.

These pictures (above) are from a dessert restaurant called "Better than Sex". I had sparkling red wine with white chocolate around the rim and Daniel had a strawberry beer with chocolate around the rim. He also had a dessert "grilled cheese"(brie and dark chocolate melted between two slices of pastry dough and a strawberry sauce for dipping). It was amazing!

One day we went to a park called "Theater of the Sea" where we saw a dolphin and sea lion show and saw beautiful fish and sea life. We decided this was better than seeing any of that while swimming in the ocean water...though we did see a manatee from a dock one night.
















We also tried new foods:

Like a coconut and a horned melon. Neither very good...
And we enjoyed beautiful sunsets and ocean views!

 

Mostly we just enjoyed relaxing and being together. We would read most mornings on our porch overlooking the water and then we would plan an activity for the day. Afterwards we would go out for a nice dinner and then enjoy time together at night. It was the perfect getaway after our wedding!

This picture is from Miami Beach, where we went the last day.
It was a great day despite the sunburns and sand on the plane...but that's a story for another day.

Grosskopfs est. 7.7.12- reception

Here are some gems from our reception:

Next up: Honeymoon :)