Holly Jolly Christmas.

Family Photo with the D O G's

For Christmas this year it turned out that Andy and I would not be able to make it home to our families. Several reasons held us back. At first we were a bit bummed out, lonely feeling, and sad, and relieved (it gets hectic going back to MN and trying to visit everyone). We talked to our friends mom on Christmas Eve and invited her to dinner as her son, daughter-in-law, and Granddaughter would not make it back to MT due to plane problems. We new she was home by herself and didn't want her to be lonely. When talking to her on the phone she told us that she was cozy and content at home by herself. We told her it was just us 2 here for Christmas and she told us to "Enjoy it." She lost her husband a few years back- she said she remembers 1 Christmas were it was just the two of them. It made me feel so good to hear her say that and really made me embrace and treasure this Christmas with just Andy and I. I completely loved it. I feel so blessed. I feel so blessed for our relationship, respect, and love for each. I am so thankful for someone who is my best friend and who can make me laugh like no other. We have so much fun together, I wouldn't trade it for anything. We spent Christmas Day at one of my favorite little spots on the mountain in my favorite little town. Although it was cloudy, it was still beautiful as always. Here are some pictures from our lovely little Christmas.

 Is Santa taking applications?

Cutest D O G on the planet.

 

New Riding Gear

Andy's awesome new snowboard socks

You must "Believe." Santa did come and left his partially ate cookies.

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New Buggie.

The snow is great for early season and we are taking total advantage of it. Here are a few pics from a day on our sleds up in Taylor Fork. We bought a new 2013 Skidoo and it is so fun and so amazing in the powder. It is going to be a fun fun year on it.

Fresh Powder!

Did you know it's almost possible to drowned in snow? That's how deep the snow was a Big Sky this past weekend (12-22-13). It was such good snowboarding up at big sky. I at one point got stuck in such deep I thought I was not ever getting out. Although winter snuck up on me fast (for a minute there I thought I was getting too old to like the cold and snow) We are enjoying it every chance we can. PS. Big Sky and Bridger got about 30+ inches of snow in 3 days. AMAZING.

Fresh Powder in your face.

Music Weekend.

Back on the weekend of November 22 and 23rd, Andy and I spent the weekend going to music shows. The first was Friday night to see The Zach Brown Band. Although the venue is not the greatest, the show was fun and entertaining. ZBB played a little of everything including Metallica and Nirvana. On Saturday we went out to the Filler bar in to see Keller Williams play. Andy introduced me to Keller William a little over 2 years ago. The guy is a music Genius. He is absolutely incredible. Here are a few pics from the shows.

Mr. Zach Brown

Keller's Guitars.

Amazing.

Minnesota Vike what?

We learned the expensive way that watching the viking lose in person is no better than watching the Vikings lose on TV. Good thing I follow college football and am able to cheer for players that belong to the Seahawks. Thanks Russell Wilson for making the Vikings look even more terrible than they already are. Oh, and thank you Percy Harvin for not playing for 1 1/2 years and then coming back to play for the Seahawks, making your first appearance against the Vikings, and looking really good. Nice Strategy.

We spent the weekend of November 15-18 in Seattle with all of Andy's good friends (Dustin, Donny, Kip, Kyle, Tim and Beth) from high school and also our friends Ryan and Jessica Gaard from Billings. This whole trip was a celebration for Donegan's Birthday (supposedly whatever Donegan wants Donny gets). 
 

Highlights from the trip:
1. Gum Wall (Isn't it one of the wonders of the world?)

I have been waiting to see this for a long time, Check off  the bucket list

2. Crab Pot
3. Lots of beer drinking
4. Loudest Stadium
5. Chihuly Glass Museum (my favorite).
6. Watching Kip hit a pole (almost penetrating his spleen) while yelling "Shake n' Bake" at Dustin
7. Seeing Tim's apartment
8. Seeing the Space Needle
9. Going to the Market
10. Riding a ferry to another town to of-course go drink some beer.
11. Hanging with a great group of friends. Making Memories
12. Oh, one more.... Getting cut off at the crab pot due to yelling "Donny" and singing "Happy Birthday really loud." 

Most days were raining and cloudy, hard get good pic

Some of the guys.

Peace, Love and Happiness.

Beautiful "big" City.

This Guy is Amazing

I first saw his creations in the Bahamas.

My favorite one.

Little did I know how amazing his work is. 

Dale Chihuly!

 

 

A few pics that highlight our trip. More to come, I hope. We all hope this is a trip that we can make every year. Did I mention Andy has the closest group of friends ever. FUN FUN FUN!!

Boo!

Yes, the mustache is real.

Judging by the following pictures, it probably isn't hard to guess that Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. How lucky I am to have married someone who gets as excited about Halloween as I do (he wore is costume to work all day).  What made it even better this year is that one of our favorite bands, and our good friends, Jon Wayne and the Pain were playing right here in Bozeman. We started the night by going to visit the Romines and see little Stella (well actually, Maddie wanted to go see Stella). Maddie was in her usual Devil costume, but this will be the last year as she has grown a bit heavy and it no longer fits. We then made it downtown to the Zebra and spent the night with good friends Jammin' to JWP.

Ps. I loved our costumes this year :) Andy made a great trap also. Oh, and did I mention that I made my costume. 

*Everybody is somebody else's weirdo.

Me and Chuck

Johnny W

hidden bit of paradise...

Back in August, Andy and I took a nice little drive up to a favorite little place of mine...West Yellowstone. We did a 10 mile hike at a place called Coffin Lake. It was gorgeous. As you can see not only did we enjoy it but so did the
 D O G's.

Dos Anos!

Happy 2nd!

Tonight we celebrated our 2nd Anniversary. I woke up this am excited that Andy has kept me around for another year and so thankful for the many adventures we have had and look forward to the many more. It apparently has become a tradition (well 2 years in a row) that we cook a crab leg dinner at home. It was delicious. I got to open my anniversary/birthday gift (although Andy made a promise not to combine gifts). I actually didn't really ask for anything for my birthday but Andy surprised me with a new Awesome camera lens, and he booked me a class so I can learn how to use this camera. Can't wait to take some awesome pictures. 

If I had to choose again, I'd still choose you!
                    Happy Anniversary.

Din Din! Yummy!

Playing with my new lens, it's awesome (even if I don't know what I am doing).

They celebrated with us too.

Maddie Says: Happy 2nd guys, I love you!

 

 

If I had to choose again, I'd still choose you. Happy Anniversary!

Read more at: http://anniversaryquotes.net

A hiking we will go.

Granite Lake

I have been meaning (for a really long time) to get this blog up-to-date and stay up on it. It's so funny how life moves so fast. I was procrastinating on up-dating because in my crazy head I thought I would be able to go back and put in all the things we have done over the last year,  lets just say that is not happening. I am just going to make a promise to myself to keep this up to date, so that as I get older and continue to forget things I can look back on all these awesome adventures that we have.

The Guys and The Dogs

Me and Jessica

 So, this past weekend Andy and I went camping and hiking with a group of our friends. This was the weekend before our anniversary and we like to do a little get away for our anniversary. We car camped in the beartooth mountains on Friday at Lily Lake. Saturday we woke up fairly early and hiked to Granite Lake. It was approximately a 5.8 mile hike in, down hill most of the way (sounds awesome until you have to hike out). It was beautiful and a great way to spend our 2nd anniversary and hang out with our friends. 

 *Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.  ~Albert Einstein

Andy enjoying his Anniversary present. 2 Years!

The Guys getting ready to go fish.

MVP of the wkend. This man hiked darn near 12 miles and never complained once.

Happy Anniversary! 2 years.

Ryan and Jess and Kona Bear.

The Guys.