HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Here is a quick update of some of the things we have been up to lately.  Unfortunately I have been terrible at bringing our camera anywhere, so all of these pictures are borrowed.  It's not always easy to get people together with so many different things going on in people's lives.  Fortunately, I have a few people in my life really dedicated to making this happen.

Girls' night at Natalie's new house!

We also went to Marshall for Christmas with Josh's family.  While we were there, Jeremiah and Amber had the whole extended family over for an ugly sweater party.  Uncle Dave was the winner with a stellar flesh colored, glittery sweater and a black dickie.

Ugly sweater party

Josh's idea... not kidding

After driving home in a wicked snow storm, we were thankful to be able to stay home for a while.  I worked on finishing up all of my school-work (probably my most self-motivated finish yet!) and we both worked on our Christmas shopping.  Chase and Josie came home from school, so we decided to all get together and make cake pops.  They were really fun and cute, but they tasted SO GOOD!

Cake pops with the fam

 On the 23rd, I picked Josh up from work and we drove to Moorhead.  My Mom's side celebrates Christmas on Christmas Eve, so we went to church, had our traditional pizza dinner, and opened gifts.  Nothing is quite like being able to watch your "Secret Elf" (Secret Santa, but from elfster.com) open gift after gift and be amazed at all the great things they got.  Christmas is my favorite time for bargain shopping for this reason.

Our first Christmas together as a married couple

 It was actually a coincidence that we all matched. That's how fancy we are :)

Family

After Christmas, we came back to Saint Paul so Josh could work a bit.  We has a celebratory Pad Thai dinner (more on that later), went to a house warming party, and drove back to Moorhead for a wedding.  The wedding was so beautiful and I was so thankful to be able to see so many friends.  It's funny how even only 1.5 years later things can be so different in the small town of Moorhead.

Wedding. Congrats Lyndsi and Mitch!

We woke up nice and early on Sunday morning to head down to Dundee for the Jans family Christmas.  It was really nice to see everyone and catch up, meet Josh's new twin baby cousins, and get our fix of Grandma's famous Christmas cookies.  As we were driving down there, Josh realized that it was our 6 month "anniversary."

Reminiscing after being married for 6 months!

So many things have happened in the last 6 months.  In reality, 2012 in general has been crazy.  Recap:

• We bought a new car (and traded in the Sebring AND the Cougar)
• We got married (complete with LOTS of wedding drama)
• We went to Huatulco, Mexico for our honeymoon
• We moved Josh into our apartment
• Josh's parents moved at about the same time to the Tampa, Florida area
• Josh's brother moved at about the same time to Marshall, Minnesota
• I finished my first year of grad school and started my second
• Josh started a new job
• Josh lost his new job
• Josh spent 4 months underemployed at Staples (where he was, obviously, a stellar salesman, leading the store and district in sales)
• I obsessed over houses
• Josh obsessed over dogs
• We had approximately 1,000 friends get married and were only able to attend TWO other weddings
• I began a preliminary job search in the Twin Cities area (including conference hopping, exhausting!)
• JOSH GOT A JOB AS A MARKETING BUSINESS ANALYST AT GENERAL MILLS!!!

This year has been a roller-coaster.  We have so many things to be thankful for and are blessed in so many ways.  Thank you, thank you, thank you to the people in our lives who supported us during our rough time.  I am not always the best at expressing gratitude to people, but we really appreciate the shower of love we have been shown for the last few months.

Josh can't wait to start his new job.  He is so excited about each and every thing he will do, especially working at General Mills as a whole.

I have a few goals for myself and us as a couple for the year 2013:

• Find our first "home" where we will stay for more than a year
• Manage to move in the least stressful way possible
• Get a puppy
• Start saving to buy a house
• Start saving for a "big" trip
• Go to Florida, Duluth, and Chicago
• Go to "the lake" at least 5 times this summer
• Graduate and get a job!
• Run a 10k in the end of April
• Continue to grow my hair out

Let the games begin!