My trip to San Luis Obispo

In September I took a trip with my family to San Luis Obispo to help get Taylor moved into his dorm room and to say goodbye. I'm really glad I was able to go and see where he's living. I'm not going going to lie, I'm a little jealous! I didn't think I would be but it's so close to the ocean, the town is amazing, and his apartment is really nice. I haven't talked to him much since he's been gone but it sounds like he's doing great and enjoying his first quarter at college. It's really weird to go home to my parent's house and have him be gone. I keep expecting to see him but then I remember that he won't be back until Christmas. Here are some pictures from our trip:



In SLO there is an alley they call "bubble gum alley" where there is tons of gum stuck to the walls. Totally gross!






We made it down to the beach! So gorgeous, I'd be here every day






The beach is ten minutes from campus



They have an outdoor pool on campus! And a volley ball pit. I guess that's the thing to do when it's around 70 degrees every day



This is Taylor's living room



And his kitchen



Here's Taylor in his bedroom!

Rodeo Weekend

All summer I've been looking forward to Rodeo Weekend (known by most people as Labor Day weekend, lol), because I love the fair, rodeo, and spending time with our families. Like last year both of our families came up to spend the day with us and we all went to the rodeo in the afternoon. Unfortunately the weather was terrible, which was just my luck. It seems like every time we have a major event that people come to visit us for the weather is awful. It rained pretty much the whole day and our seats at the rodeo were not under the covered grand stand, so we sat in the rain for 3+ hours. At first we didn't mind, but by the end we were all soaking wet and pretty miserable so we decided to skip going to the fair and we all went back to our house instead.

Even though the weather was crappy it was still really good to see our families and spend the last weekend of summer with them :)




This is the only picture I got of the actual rodeo because it was raining so much I didn't want to get my blackberry wet




But that evening we took a few pictures so I could wear my cowboy hat :)

Rob's New Toy

This summer Rob worked really hard juggling two jobs, one job working at Hollywood Video and the other working as a server at a local restaurant in Ellensburg. Unfortunately the server job didn't work out but while he was there he managed to save up quite a bit of money in tips, so much that he was finally able to buy a new t.v. like he's been wanting for quite a while. As much as I maintained that we didn't need a new t.v. because the one we have works fine I have to admit that it's pretty nice, and it's fun watching movies on such a big screen! Boys and their toys :)





The new t.v. all set up on the new stand.

Nickelback Concet

As part of Rob's graduation present I bought us two tickets to see the band Nickelback play at the Gorge, an outdoor amphitheater/concert venue about 30 minutes from where we live. We had never been before but pretty much everyone up here says the Gorge is amazing. And I'd have to agree! The view is incredible and it's such a fun venue. We sat on the hill in the general admission section with the thousands of other people that were there. It was pretty hot sitting in the sun watching the opening bands (Saving Abel, Papa Roach, and Hinder) but once the sun went down there was a great sunset and the stars were beautiful. . It was fun for us to go to a concert because we haven't been to one together in quite a while, plus it was just a great thing for us to do together to end the summer :)

Happy 4th of July!

I can't believe how fast this summer has been going! I've been enjoying it so much though! It's great to have a break from classes for the summer and I'm enjoying the two classes that I'm teaching for the university. I've had lots of time to read, scrap book, and just relax :)

This year for the 4th Rob had to work for most of the day, but we had a little bbq for lunch before he had to leave. We really wanted to make it home for the holiday because he had family visiting from out of town but unfortunately that just wasn't possible. We made the best of it though :) After Rob went to work some of my girl friends came over so I didn't have to spend the evening alone and we had a good time eating tons of food and watching movies!



This is the cheese cake I made (that's my attempt at a star, lol). It wasn't bad for my first cheese cake!

Congratulations Rob and Taylor!

Rob is finally a college graduate! On June 13th he graduated from Central Washington University with a bachelor of arts in law and justice. He has worked so hard and I'm so proud of him! It was a very busy weekend with Taylor and Rob graduating on the same day and then a joint graduation party the next day but we all had so much fun!



As a gag gift Rob's best friend bought him a pair of aviator sun glasses, a toy cop set, and a Paul Blart mall cop t-shirt, just what every LAJ major needs!




I can't believe my little brother graduated from high school! And in the fall he's off to California where he'll be attending Cal Poly to major in engineering. I'm so proud of him!

Memorial Day Get Away

For memorial day we decided we needed to get out of town for a few days and spend some much needed quality time together just relaxing and having fun. Lucky for us we're just a few hours away from the Idaho border so we drove over and stayed in Cour de Lane and made plans to visit the Silverwood theme park. Going back to Silverwood was sentimental for us because when I was a freshman in high school we were there together on the annual band/orchestra trip, so it was fun to go back together :) While in Cour de Lane we did some shopping at the local mall, went out to eat, and saw two movies (there really wasn't much else to do, lol). We both really needed to get out of Ellensburg; it can get pretty boring in our small town! I think it was really good for us to get away and I'm going to try to make time for little get aways more often!






The view from the top of the ferris wheel




I thought this sign was really funny :)




Here I am terrified at the top of the ferris wheel...



This was crazy fun!





Much happier now that the ferris wheel is closer to the ground!


We are now half way done with our last week of spring quarter classes, yay! After finals next week we will be officially done for the quarter and Rob will be a college graduate! He is very excited to graduate and be done with school. Next weekend is going to be really busy between Rob's graduation, Taylor's high school graduation, and their joint party, but I'm really looking forward to celebrating both of them, as well as spending time with all of our family and friends!

6 years ♥

Today is the 6 year anniversary of when we started dating :) I can't believe it's been so long! But it honestly just keeps getting better and better ♥

A long over due update...

I'm so terrible at posting anything on our blog! Mostly because nothing to exciting happens to us ;) But while I'm procrastinating and not doing my homework I might as well write something!

The 4th week of spring quarter is about to start. I can't believe how fast the quarter has been going, let alone the year! I'm almost done with my first year of graduate school, crazy! And Rob is six weeks away from graduation! He is very excited and just wants to get through it so he can be done. I'm so proud of how hard he's worked and I'm glad he's stuck with it because I know he hit a few sticky spots and easily could have taken a break. I really excited to throw him a party and celebrate him because he deserves it so much! This is the year of graduations in our family. Rob, my brother, and my cousin Sean are all graduating on June 13th, so it will be a busy day! (Side note, I can't believe my baby brother is graduating high school. I'm so excited to see what he does with the amazing college opportunities he's been given!)

This quarter is supposed to be the busiest quarter of the graduate program, and I'm definitely feeling it! We have a weekly lab that is 4 hours and a lab write up that has averaged 20 pages each week. There are only 8 labs so after I finish the current write up there are only 5 left, woo hoo! This lab is taking up all of my time but I'm trying hard to get some other homework in so I don't get behind.

The weather around here has been crazy. We've had a few days that have been super nice and definitely feel like spring/summer, but then we have a few crazy days with snow, so who knows when spring will really start. I wish Rob didn't work so much on the weekends because then we could get out and enjoy the sun together (when it's actually sunny and warm like this weekend). I'm really looking forward to summer this year. Mostly because I really need a break after how crazy this year has been, but I'm hopefully going to be teaching water aerobics and helping my major professor with a really interesting research project so I'm excited! It's nice to have something to look forward to rather than knowing I'll be bored out of my mind like I was last summer.

Hopefully soon we'll do something soon and take some pictures so I have something new to post :)

what a crazy winter it's been!

This quarter has been so crazy, and I've really neglected our blog (sorry!) School and work has really been keeping us both busy, leaving us little time to play :( But we've been trying really hard to make the most of the free time we do have by spending lots of quality time together. On the upside of things, the winter has been so mild! All of the snow melted the first week of January and we've had very little since then. It's my kind of winter!

I've been working really hard this quarter in my classes to stay on top of all of my work, and I've done pretty well so far. I'm getting close to finalizing my thesis topic so that's really exciting. One of the classes we have to take this quarter goes through the whole process of developing an idea and turning it into a thesis so that has really helped me. I'm also working with an amazing professor who shares my interest in working with dancers and her input has helped so much. Right now I want to look at the effects of cross training on the fitness levels of dancers, so hopefully that will work out.

Rob is so close to being done! He registered for his last quarter of classes, yay! He's been working really hard and I'm so proud of him. I can't wait to throw him a graduation party this June to celebrate all of his hard work!

A few weekends ago we flew to Oklahoma to attend Rob's grandfather's funeral. That was an extremely long weekend of travel, but the service was very nice and I'm glad we were able to go. It was really nice to finally meet so much of Rob's family, though I wish it could have been due to happier circumstances. All of his great aunt's, uncles, and cousins are such nice people, and very fun to be around. They made me feel very welcome and I look forward to getting to know them better in the future.

Despite the wrench that Oklahoma threw in my birthday party plans (which I totally didn't care about because family always comes first!), this was probably one of the best birthdays so far (minus the extreme stress I was under from school. I had midterms and a presentation the week after we got back). Rob bought me a cake and took me out to dinner. He also took me to pick out my birthday present, a new purse! (I love the horse, star, and horse shoe charms on it!)



Valentine's Day was just as great too :) We stayed in for dinner because we already went out for my birthday, but the steak we had was the best meal we've had in a long time! Later in the evening we went out for drinks and then to a girly movie (I love when he lets me pick, lol). All I ever really want for my birthday and Valentine's day is to spend quality time with Rob, and that's exactly what I got this year :)




the stress of the week left me with an eye infection :( so no eye makeup for a while...



our Valentine's Day breakfast!