Merry Christmas!

this christmas was happy but sad. we were sad because we could not go to utah for christmas as we had planned, but we were happy because i got a job! :) i am now a nurse at the loretto hospital in chicago! i work on the med-surg/telemetry floor. i am very grateful for my job, but i only got a few days off, so we were unable to fly to utah. luckily, we were able to drive to mn for a few days. seeing my family was great, but we missed seeing rich's family too and feel bad that we have not been able to spend a christmas there since we got married. there will be no way to stop us next christmas...even if we have to walk there! merry christmas everyone!

puma got a new shirt for christmas. it says, "meet me under the mistle toe". puma is my first dog, so i may not know what i am talking about, but i am pretty sure she is the cutest, most adorable, most sweet, most fun and most friendly dog out there. merry 1st christmas puma! :)

Thanks for Thanksgiving!

rich and i were super lucky to get to go to MN for thanksgiving. thanksgiving is such a great holiday. the woodwards (friends that are like family), my grandma, aunt shirley and the carolans (friends that are like family) came over for the weekend. with this combination of people...it was obviously a blast. we played all day and all night! :) i am so thankful for thanksgiving!

here are all the kidlets acting like zombies in the basement.

abe, rich and mike having a straight up dance off competition. watching them do this was probably the best 3 minutes of the whole weekend. it was cray cray cool!

puma lovin' rich on the ride home.

what is thanksgiving without a way too competitive game of risk? no comment...

i am so thankful for my husband, family and friends. i feel so blessed.

Festival of Lights in Chicago

i LOVE christmas and christmas lights!!! our friends, trevor and melissa, rich and i all went to chicago for the festival of lights. it is when all the christmas lights on the magnificent mile get lit. the festival had concerts and activities during the day, and then at night they had a big parade, and then they lit the lights. gothem city is pretty sweet. it was a super fun trip. we switched cameras with melissa and trevor to see who could get the best pictures of the other couple. i think they did a pretty good job...i hope they like the ones we took. oh and we went into chicago by metra. rich loves public transportation because of his time in germany, and so do i! while we were on the metra, there was a whole bunch of german people all talking and rich eavesdropped the whole ride home. he got pretty excited about being on a train and about hearing german. he might've preferred that to seeing mickey mouse, but maybe not. we will definitely go to the festival again next year! oh but we may look up the train schedule before hand because....we ended up missing the 9:00pm train, and the next train out wasn't until like 11pm, so we all hung out at grand station. it was pretty funny but annoying too. i took pics of us all laying on the floor and posted them below. if christmas wasn't so close, we might've been more annoyed. santa clause is coming to town, so who cares! :)

Happy Birthday To Janelle

i turned 25! i still feel like i am 16 sometimes, but then i see high school kids and realize that i hopefully look and hopefully act older than most teenagers. probably a good thing. i had a great birthday. i love that we have made so many amazing friends here in illinois. i had a birthday dinner at chilis and then ice cream cake (yummy!) and games at my place. it was so much fun because i have such fun people in my life.

rich also took me out on a short birthday adventure for my actual birthday. normally rich is not the biggest fan of shopping, but for my birthday, he took me to the mall and became a shopping champion. it was too cute. i don't think he checked any scores/news/facebook/messages on his phone once, and i have never seen him bring me so many clothes to try on. it almost seemed like shopping with me was his dream come true... ;) despite the fun, the shopping trip did not last too long because rich had tests the next day and had also made dinner reservations at an indian restaurant, so we left without maxing out all our credit cards. it was a great birthday! i love "growing up" with rich. :)

HalloOoween

i may look like an angel, but hallows' eve is one of my most favorite holidays.  i love it a lot!

 

 

Puma the Puppy

rich and i got a puppy! her name is puma possin. we named her after the cat, not the shoes, but who cares. she is the cutest little buddy ever. her last name is obviously after my family. she is great company--especially when rich is studying. we love having her around--even if the house training part isn't that fun. especially since we are on the fifth floor. puma is the cutest little poofy puppy ever!

the first day we got puppy





trip to chicago

White Coat Ceremony

i am so proud of rich. he is going to be a great dentist. the white coat ceremony was pretty cool...it didn't last too long thankfully! :) i love the guys and gals in rich's program. they all seem so awesome. we are going to have a fun four years here!
















the dental boys, their women, and melissa and trevor (melissa is in the PA program)