catching up

Happy Holiday Week to everyone!!!

I am going to attempt to catch you up on life events since mid-October...

The first major fall event for us was the passing on of my dear Great Grandmother Aileen. She lived a full and beautiful life, surrounded by family up through her very last breath. While the death of anyone who has influenced your life is a sad time, I couldn't help but smile thinking of her reunion with my Great Grandpa Merle. The last time we saw her she mentioned how excited she was to see him. I keep her picture up on a shelf near where I study, and I look to her when I need reassurance or a reminder of what truly matters in life. She was one of the kindest hearts I have ever known, and I miss her every day.

Illinois, 2009

After some healing came Halloween - one of my favorite holidays! This year Tyler and I went with cereal box characters...made everything myself!

Tony the Tiger & Captain Crunch

We had a great time making/wearing the costumes!!!

And of course I dressed the puppies up too...

Sherriff Gryffin!

Penny the Batdog



It's true, I took them on a walk like this, haha. All the neighborhood kids loved it though!!!

Then came my sister-in-law's wedding! She planned it in 6 days, which sort of gave me heart palpitations, but weddings are always beautiful no matter how much time went into them!

Like my flower bouquet??? ;)

Wishing them all the happiness in their marriage!!!

Randomly we got to hang out with one of our best friends Umber! He is a man of mystery, appearing in Colorado once in a blue moon, so we were thrilled to see him! We literally hadn't seen him since our wedding in 2009!

We also managed to get a weekend off to celebrate Thanksgiving with our families! What a relaxing and joyous time to be able to be with our loved ones :)

Denver lunch and shopping date with my mama and sister!

Visiting H&M for the first time - success!

Thanksgiving dinner with my mom, aunts, and sister :)

We attempted to take a holiday family photo...none quite made the cut though (guess that means I'm off the hook for Christmas cards, eh?)

Black Friday shopping with my sister included watching Harry Potter 7: Part 2 while in line at Best Buy! Haha. Yes, it is being projected onto the side of a truck...

Thanksgiving weekend one of my dreams came true and I got to see the Broadway production of the Lion King!!! It was one of the most beautiful and powerful productions I have ever seen! The costumes were breathtakingly innovative, and the music brought me to tears. Absolutely fabulous!!!

Dinner at the Corner Office - so happy to have a date night!

Beside myself with pure glee!!!

After Thanksgiving weekend, it was a mad dash to the finish line...aka studying every waking minute!!! So there are no pictures after that haha :)

Random pics I love from fall:

Night out in Denver

Sweet Penny being sooooo bored with my nonstop studying!

Doing our part in this world by drinking wines where proceeds go to animal rescue funds! This wine is a blue heeler wine, we got it in honor of our red heeler :)

Putting Christmas decorations up! Is it bad that in one night Halloween went down and Christmas went up? I didn't get to taking down my pumpkins and bats until the end of November...

Gryffin helping me study by sitting on my notes...

Silly puppy :)

You know what? I honestly didn't realize how many smiles I had this fall. I spent so much time reading, studying, stressing, crying...overall had a lot of negative energy (posting on that later), but turns out there were lots of time where life sparkled for me and reminded me what happiness was about :)

Cheers to that!