2014 Recap - Highlights of the Year

January
We didn't exactly start off the year the best way. Within the first week of the year we found ourselves receiving Tank's cancer diagnosis. We decided to deal with it day by day and allow his condition to determine how much time he had left with us.

February.

February proved to be one of the hardest months of the whole year. The cancer took over Tank's quality of life and we made the most taxing decision of our lives and Tank crossed over the rainbow bridge. On top of this, two days before I quit my job and was left with the unknown of what we were going to do because we could not live off of one income but I could also not continue working with such insanity. Luckily with two weeks I had two interviews and was offered a position as a Deed Clerk and errand runner at a law firm only 5 minutes from our house. Things finally started turning around.

March.

March brought on lots of spending time with friends, old & new. I met up with one of the girls I used to work with and we had lunch and shopping in the quaint little town of Granville. Julie from over at Just The Joys came to Ohio with her hubby and some other friends for the Deer and Turkey expo and we of course turned it into a blate. It was a lot of fun and now Anthony and I just need to get ourselves to Michigan!

April.

My cousins band opened up for Neil McCoy and we of course had tickets to go watch the show with some of our friends. I also had my cousin Lydia's bridal shower that I helped to decorate for. (She ended up starting her own blog this year too! Make sure you add it to your reading list, you will not be disappointed)

May.

 The month of May turned into a really busy month with a big surprise too. We started the year off saying good bye to our fur baby and really struggled the quieter moments spent at home without Tank at the house. However, less than 6 months later we found ourselves welcoming another big boy into our hearts. Just when we thought no other dog would fill that big void we met Tyson and we quickly fell in love! We attended Lydia's beautiful wedding in Columbus where she married her best friend, Ryan, and we celebrated with family dancing, photo boothing it up, and more dancing with the Ohio State marching band. We wrapped up the month of May with Anthony's graduation ceremony and big party at our house afterwards. I was one proud wifey that day and I continue to be so proud of my hardworking and super smart husband.

June.

In June I joined my parents on their beach vacation to the Outerbanks. I enjoyed countless hours laying on the beach and just relaxing.

July

In July we spent the 4th of July at Anthony's Aunt and and Uncle's house and then spent my birthday in Charleston, South Carolina. Charleston never gets old for us!

August

August was full of many nights of concerts at the County Fair.

September.

I had the privilege of being in my best friend's wedding followed by the next weekend of going to my cousin's wedding. Missy's wedding officially ended all the weddings of the year.

October.

In October we got the travel bug and decided to take a spur of the moment trip to Niagara Falls and of course Tyson tagged along since we didn't plan on spending a lot of time in Niagara Falls and instead going hiking in some State Parks.

November 

For Thanksgiving we spent the extended weekend at the beach. It was a lovely thought to escape the cold of Ohio but it was colder there and add the wind factor the weather wasn't the best but I will not turn down a day spent on the beach.

December

December was of course spent celebrating Christmas and no traveling out of State.  

Even though 2014 started off not the greatest it ended off on a great note. Life has been pretty great and it is only getting better with 2015. I hope you all have an amazing New Years and if you are out and about make sure that you are careful and stay out of trouble. Good bye ya'all, see you next year!

Christmas Weekend Recap 2014

That is his "Mom you better get your Christmas picture blog posted before next year and no one cares anymore about how we spent our Holiday" face. No really though tomorrow is the last day of 2014 and it doesn't seem like time is slowing down any bit around here. I luckily had 4.5 days off for Christmas so after I went on my mad cleaning spree and one last trip for any procrastination shopping that needed to be done I jumped into my pajamas and spent as much time as physically possibly lounging around with that big guy up there.

I finally got our critter tree up just in time for everyone to be visiting our house for Christmas. A select few found themselves hanging out temporarily on the little tree that I had until Anthony cut a hole in a chunk of wood for me to put this bigger tree up in the kitchen and then it was pretty much complete. Family and friends also bought us some really cute ones to add to our collection! 

Tyson spent the majority of Christmas Eve and Christmas day drooling over these cupcakes and cookies that we had out for everyone. I was pretty proud of him, he didn't attempt to help himself to any of them, even when I forgot them out on the table over night and on Friday.

I have a fair amount of reading to get done after telling Anthony some of the books that have been on my reading list. It doesn't look like my goal to read more in 2015 is going to be too hard. I am also going to be teaching myself calligraphy in the coming year. I told Anthony a couple months ago that I really wanted to give it a try and he remembered. 

My Momma added to my never ending supply of mason jars with this set. I cannot wait to bust these out this Summer. They are so cute!!!!

My Grandma painted these beautiful pieces at the local ceramics place and gifted them to us for Christmas. I am in love with them. There is something that is extra special about receiving handmade gifts. I decided that this upcoming year I am going to go to the ceramics place once a month and paint a piece to eventually give next year for Christmas to different people. Scratch that, I am probably going to have to go twice a month, one time to paint something to give away and another time to paint something for our house.

We concluded Christmas twenty14 with Christmas at my Grandma Spiker's. I love getting together with these cousins and watching the little kids open gifts. We pretty much got gift of the year by getting Evan a marshmallow blaster. He was so pumped and all of us adults were playing with it every chance we got. I might be making another trip to Bed Bath and Beyond to get a couple more. 

All in all Christmas this year was very low key, other than the excessive amounts of traveling we made all over Muskingum County but getting to see everyone really topped that off, and hey gas is under $2.00 around here so we're not complaining about the extra miles. 

I am really excited to ring in the new year tomorrow first by kicking it off with getting out of the office early at 12:00 and then ringing it in with the big Doublecut New Years Eve Party. 

Weekend Wrapup: Christmas Prep

We did what pretty much everyone else was doing this weekend, finished up on Christmas.

Friday night I went to the grocery store and got the food we need for Christmas Eve dinner, well mostly everything except for the ham. 

Saturday, Tyson and I slept in until 11:00 and then I did some laundry and house cleaning. Saturday night Anthony and I watched the movie Tammy and wrapped Christmas gifts. On Sunday morning we woke up early and headed to Columbus to try to finish our Christmas shopping, however we got there (an hour from home) and I had forgotten my wallet at home! Luckily Anthony had his money so we did get a little bit of shopping done. I was really wanting to get more stuff from Old Navy but the line was to the back of the store so nothing really seemed worth waiting in line that long for so we resorted to Target, Bed Bath & Beyond and Barnes and Noble. For the most part we are done aside from a couple gift cards I need to pick up tomorrow and a couple other things. 

Last night we ended up at Mom and Dad's for dinner and spent the majority of the evening there just hanging out and letting Tyson and Diesel play with their dogs.

I cannot believe Christmas is this week, let alone that next year we will be ringing in 2015. Life is flying by so fast I cannot believe it. We have some fun things in the making for 2015 (fingers crossed!) so I cannot wait to get it all started. Oh and I almost forgot, Sunday we also did our Christmas picture for our cards, which are going out super late!

The dogs were not cooperating but we did get one semi decent picture and we just settled with it.

Starting on Christmas Eve we have literally five, yes five as in the amount of fingers on my hand and days in a work week, Christmases to do. It all starts with Christmas Eve dinner at our house and midnight Mass, Christmas morning at my parent's, Christmas lunch/dinner and my Dad's Moms, Friday is my Mom's side for the Spiker Family Christmas and then Saturday we are out of town for Anthony's Dads side at Grandma and Grandpa Fry's. Its going to be crazy!!!! I am not real sure if I am ready for it to start or not. Luckily I only work til noon on Wednesday and then I am off until Monday. I can tell you right now that on Sunday I am going to be spending the whole day lounging around the house and not doing a darn thing!!!!

What are your plans for Christmas Day? or are yours spread out too?!