Reflection of 2009

I can hardly believe that today marks the end of yet another year. Time seems to go by so quickly nowadays and when I think back on it, so much has happened this year! I am going to appropriate this idea from another blog and fill you in on what happened month by month since I lacked in regular blogging this year ;)

January

Last year for New Year's Eve/Day, Nick reserved a hotel room for us downtown Omaha where we spent the night swimming and watching fireworks :) We then proceeded to go back to our room and watch Dog the Bounty Hunter until it was time for the fireworks to start!

I also started my last semester of college in January with 6 weeks in a seminar class at MOWest and them student teaching the rest of the time with Mrs. Hyatt. It was quite an experience!

February

February was marked with me anxiously awaiting my Praxis results to see if I would pass and offically get my teaching certificate after student teaching. The verdict was in and I passed all of my tests which was such a huge relief!

I took over the full responsibility of teaching all of my classes at Maysville, which brought on extreme exhaustion. Sadly I was already counting down the days to Spring Break and how many more lesson plans I had to make! I honestly thought that was the toughest part of student teaching (the lesson plan making).

Nick and I celebrated Valentine's Day together and I can't remember what I gave him or what I received!

March

March saw me still super busy student teaching along with the added pressure of applying for jobs here in Omaha. I was banking on my Special Education certification to help me get a job, however, was devestated after my first interview to find out that the Praxis certification that was accepted in MO, was NOT accepted in Nebraska, thusly resulting in me feeling as if I had wasted a whole semester in college taking the Special Ed classes.

My friend Kati was preparing for her wedding in June and I went to her bridal shower in March. It was a blast and really seemed to kick off the wedding season for us, although our weddings were still three months away :)

April

April ushered in a much needed break from student teaching! I remember feeling so relieved that last Friday before spring break knowing that I was going to get to spend a week with Nick where we weren't rushed doing wedding stuff and could just enjoy eachother's company!

Towards the end of April Martha and her sister, Teresa, had a bridal shower for me which was wonderful! Nick and I received so many lovely things and plus, it was great getting to see some of my family that I know wouldn't be able to make it to Omaha for the wedding.

May

May saw many changes in my life, but not as many as the following two month. On May 9th I officially was done with college and celebrated with Graduation and a Graduation party which Nick's parents came down all the way from Grand Island, Ne, for! I was beginning to get nervous about moving away from home after the wedding, and was trying to spend every minute I could with my family! Nick and I were working hard every chance we got to get wedding stuff straightened out, and were pretty much all but done with the preparations!

Mom and I spent some time garage saling together, which is a favorite past time of ours!

Nick and I seriously began tossing around the idea of getting a dog after the wedding, and after quite a while of looking for one in the papers and on the internet, I found a Husky breeder in Grant City, MO. We chose a black and white male and decided to pick him up about a week after we got back from our honeymoon in July. We didn't know then what we were getting ourselves into :)

June

Cue the wedding music! This month proved to be a busy one for the churches! My friend, Kati, got married the first Saturday of June and I got married the last, which worked out really good because we were both in eachother's weddings!

Kati and Jesse at their wedding :)

Nick and I take a moment at Kati's wedding to stop for a picture!

After nine months of vigorous planning and preparation, the month for our wedding was upon us. Thanks to Nick's grandma Rosie, we were able to use the larger and nicer room at our reception hall because it wasn't booked! Therefore, we had a kitchen and ended up getting to have a dinner and a much better set up! Ethan and I literally spent all day the day before our wedding decorating the room, tables, etc! It really turned out beautifully, and I couldn't have done it without him! Our wedding went off without a hitch, except Nick kept trying to put my ring on the wrong hand during the ceremony :) The reception was wonderful and everyone had a blast Polka-ing right up until midnight!

July

July began with us in Durango, Colorado, for our honeymoon!

Some beautiful mountains on our drive through Colorado.

Nick in front of the steam engine that pulled our train to Silverton, Colorado :)

Me in front of of Mesa Verde National Park :)

Then the weekend after we got back from our honeymoon we made a trip to Missouri to give my family their souveniers and to get our puppy, Akiba.

August

After applying for jobs in several different places, I finally landed one as a Pet Care Specialist at the Petshotel in the local PetsMart store! It was absolutely a dream come true because I got to play and work with dogs all day!

Nick and I were enjoying training our puppy and he began to catch on fast to the housebreaking and to other various tricks I was teaching him.

September

September began with a phonecall from my best friend, Martha, telling me that her boyfriend proposed to her and they are planning a wedding for later in November! She had been dating him for quite a while and they are expecting a baby, and are due in January!

Nick and I found ourselves on the road quite a bit and made a trip down to Missouri for my birthday. We began discussing wanting to have a family sooner than we originally thought, but were a bit apprehensive as we still wanted to have our "couples" time and were really enjoying married life :) For a few months we let the idea rest.

October

October 3rd brought our first snow of the season, and it was wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy to early for our liking! Akiba absolutely loved the snow and didn't know what to think of it as first :)

Mom and Dad hosted a dinner for us at the June Conley Building in Maysville so that the rest of my family who couldn't make it to the wedding could meet Nick. Uncle James cooked the meats for us and everyone else brought a dish. We had lots of people there and I think it may have been a bit overwhelming for Nick :)

Nick and I made our annual trip to Vala's Pumpkin Patch to get our pumpkins for carving.

Nick's is on the left and mine is on the right ;)

This month Nick also celebrated his 29th birthday and I made him lasagna and garlic bread for dinner :)

November

This month ended up being incredibly busy for us! Nick took a week off of work to go back to Grand Island and deer hunt. At that time I made a trip back to Missouri and spent a week with my family. Mom and I enjoyed going to Kansas City and going junking and Christmas shopping :) Thankfully, Nick ended up getting a deer whose meat is sitting in our deepfreezer right now waiting to be ground!

A few weeks later we went back to Missouri again for Martha and Jason's wedding which was really nice.

This month Nick and I spent Thanksgiving with his family and his mom and I went shopping for some good deals on Black Friday :) We also began to talk seriously about having a baby the following year.

December

December 4th Nick and I got a positive pregnancy test!!!!!

Three tests can't be wrong!!!

We then announced it to my parents and grandparents when they came down for a visit the following weekend. They were thrilled and Mom and Grandma bawled :) Nick called his parents and told them over the phone, not wanting to make as big a deal about it to them as they are already grandparents.

December 19th we had our Christmas with his family in Grand Island which was a lot of fun. I spent the morning shopping with his Mom while he and his dad went out and walked some ground trying to stir up deer.

Then we headed to Missouri on Tuesday the 22nd for Christmas. A little earlier than we had planned leaving, but we were trying to beat a major snowstorm that ended up hitting Christmas Eve, and kept us at my folk's house until the Sunday after Christmas :) I am sure Nick was getting bored, especially because it wasn't his own family, but I frankly enjoyed all of that extra time with them!

Just sitting around in the frontroom at Gma's talking :)

The guys playing some late-night poker on Xmas Eve

Christmas morning and Lauren looks sleepy!

While in Missouri for Christmas Nick and I began talking seriously about getting rid of Akiba. As much as we loved him, he was costing us quite a bit of money for boarding anytime we wanted to go somewhere, and honestly, he was beginning to cause me more stress at home for reasons I am unsure of. So while in Missouri I made a posting on Facebook advertising him, and that very day a girl I went to college with said she was interested. Well to make a long story short she bought him and we dropped him off Sunday in St. Joe on our way home. Needless to say, it has been a huge stress relief for me since I am at home all of the time right now.

And now it is New Year's Eve and Nick and I are enjoying ourselves at home. We rented a couple movies and watched Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, and he's playing a Call of Duty game on our new Wii. Hopefully this next year is as good as this year was....and with a baby on the way I don't see how it wouldn't be! Until 2010, later :)