In Which I am a Terrible Blogger

Hi all,

Sorry it's been like, half a year since the last update.  For a while life wasn't super exciting, and then the holidays hit and since 2014 started, it's been just insanity.  I will try to capture the magic and memories from the past half year with this update...mostly by going through my phone and looking at pictures.

Fall semester went well for Zack--he made it on the Dean's List again!  We also celebrated his 25th birthday; I got him a record player...and definitely opened a can of worms with it, because now he talks about getting records all the time!  It's been pretty fun though.  We also went to Amber's 1920's/Downton Abbey party, which was fun!  For Halloween we went down to Lewiston; Kandace's parents have a crazy awesome party every year, and we got to go this year.  It was pretty fun, they decorate all the rooms and have great food and music.  And for our last-minute costumes, I think we looked pretty great.  Zack was The Dude from The Big Lebowski, and I went as Minnie Mouse.

1920s style?

me & birthday girl Amber

being SERIOUS about the 1920s

Penny thinks she's a lap dog because Zack pulls her up onto his lap to scratch her belly

Minnie Mouse top half

not bad for last minute!

Zack as The Dude

at the party

In November, we got to see Glenda, she came out for Thanksgiving and stayed with us for a little bit.  It was nice to have her around and to have some family time; we went to WA for Thanksgiving and brought Penny with us.  Zack's cousin brought his cute fluffy dog and we had a great time playing the dogs and baby Rachel and enjoying the joy being around family brings. 

driving to WA

Thanksgiving in WA with Glenda

chasing Penny around

of course this is the best picture of us from the trip...

For Christmas we stayed in Moscow, which was a nice change from the past few years, where we've been traveling across the country.  It was so great to not have to worry about packing, or airports and jetlag.  And, as fate would have it, of course, our transmission blew out like, the week before Christmas, so we were more or less stranded anyway.  But have Christmas with just us and Penny was very nice.  We got a big tree and used all our childhood ornaments to cover it, and I put up decorations and had music on all the time.  We had steak with mashed potatoes and I made a combination yam/sweet potatoes & apples casserole.  Everything was great, and for dessert we had chocolate mousse!  We had a nice, quiet Christmas the next day.  Penny was overwhelmed and thrilled with all her new toys and goodies we had bought her.  We tried to get her to open some of the things we had wrapped, but she didn't understand it...oh well.  Zack and I exchanged perfect gifts: he got me a beautiful set of brushes from Lancome (including ones I didn't have, but wanted and couldn't justify to buy myself), and I got him a big box set of Neutral Milk Hotel records and goodies.  So he spent the whole day listening to those, and I played with makeup, perfect!  My 26th birthday was great-Zack made me breakfast and I opened up presents, talked with my family and later we went out to dinner.

our beautiful tree

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve dinner

NMH box set

brushes

we got Penny some booties for winter walks...it's hilarious to watch

birthday breakfast

Zack made me German chocolate cake!

pre-birthday dinner

Other highlights from December includes the Digilent party at the new SEL event center.  It was a frustrating evening, because the cab company we were to use completely dropped the ball and was late picking us up in Moscow and also leaving the party.  We spent most of the night angry at them, but I enjoyed getting dressed up and all that.  Also, Amber and I had a girls' day in Spokane and got makeovers at Sephora (we each had vouchers for free ones!), lunch and enjoyed being girly.

Christmas party look

 

um...I couldn't get over Clint's face on the M&Ms at the party

pretty ladies @ the party!

post-makeovers

after mine

I had the lady work on my eyebrows, and help me figure out the gold/purple eye that I tried again for the Christmas party

one night we took Penny out for a winter walk

she has to be in the middle of us at all times possible

Since 2014 hit, work has been insane for me.  With the start of the school year, for about 2 straight weeks I was doing over 120 orders every day.  And handling quotes (the guys who normally do were both out of the country/town for 3-4 weeks) and answering phones and about a zillion other things.  And then once the orders got down to a more "reasonable" number of like, 70 a day (I usually average 20-30 orders an hour), we had one of our biggest boards go out of stock.  It's been like that this whole year, something big will go out of stock, and we'll build up a ton of backorders and then it'll come in, and something ELSE major will go out of stock.  It's been increasingly frustrating at work, there has been drama within other departments and I'm getting fed up with how things are around here.  But I'll deal with it until we leave the area.  So all of a sudden, I blinked and it's now March.  Every day at work for the past two months has been so exhausting and draining for me, and now it's finally starting to kind of slow down.

For Zack, he's in his final semester at UI, hooray!  He graduates in May and we are so thrilled!  He has been applying for jobs and thinking about all the possible avenues for the future and we still aren't sure where we'll end up just yet.  Once we have a better idea, we'll be sure to let everyone know.

I'm sure I forgot some things, but that's a rough overview of what's been happening for us.  Also here's a cute picture of Penny in the snow because she's so adorable it hurts.

 

Jumping Off Waterfalls! + other fun (3 year anniversary, too)

This has been a really fun & exciting summer.  We finally feel like we are 'home'.  Our friends are great, we hang out with them often, we love our new place and both have new, great jobs. (Zak just started a new job for the school, he'll be working part-time doing A/V set up.  He's really excited about it, and it'll be a good fit with our schedules!) 

We have had a lot of fun adventures this summer and made a lot of good memories.  A few weeks ago Bryan & Chad got engaged and we had fun celebrating the love they share.  We are all really excited and happy for them.  The day after the party we went hiking with them and Kandace up in Elk River, about an hour/hour and a half away.  It was seriously beautiful and amazing to be in the forests.  We hiked for an hour or so and then sat and ate lunch with a beautiful vista of one of the three waterfalls in the park area.  We saw some people swimming in the lower falls area, but couldn't figure out how to get there; it was really steep and no clear path.  We then decided to go back to the first waterfall and try to get to that to swim in.  The hike back was definitely more taxing, a lot of hiking uphill and plus it was still really hot out.  But we made it to the upper falls and quickly got in the water.

Kandace & Bryan leading the way

 

Chad & Zak have a fun bromance

Zak talking about the cabin he wanted to build there

 

hiking hiking hiking

upper falls, where we swam

 

middle falls

lower falls, wish we could've figured out how to get down there, but oh well

beautiful vista

you can't really tell, but it was super steep and we foraged a crazy (dangerous) path down to the falls

excited to go swimming!

where we went swimming, we climbed up to the top area

 The water was a lot warmer than we had expected, but it felt glorious.  The current from the falls was pretty strong, but there were plenty of rocks and ledges to hang onto.  I was having fun just swimming around but then the boys decided to climb up the falls.  The next thing I know I was nervously climbing up some rocks, but luckily the guys helped and made me feel safe and got me to the top of the falls, where there was a little pool to relax in.  But that wasn't enough, because then they decided to go over the small falls in that area and go into the next pool, where there was a place to jump off.  Zak did it, without us really knowing, but thankfully he didn't get hurt at all.  He even convinced me to jump off the top of the waterfall.  I was fine until I got to the top of the rocks and had to position myself to jump, but man once I did, it was so awesome!  It was so much fun and I was really proud of myself for doing something new and a bit scary.  I felt like a warrior woman for conquering the waterfall. 

We had a great time in the woods with our friends.  We are planning on going back sometime soon and hopefully camping overnight.  And I definitely want to try jumping off that waterfall again!

On Tuesday the 7th, Zak and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary.  Man, the time has been flying!  It's hard to believe it's already been three years.  Since it was on a Tuesday, we both decided to work and just go to dinner after.  It was actually to spend a quite evening at home, and not be somewhere else dealing with a hotel, etc.  We went to Sangria, a Peruvian inspired place.  It's really good; we've been a few times before and every time we have been there, our food has been great.  Zak had a chicken dish with rice, onions, and some other things--it was really yummy.  I had two appetizers: crab cakes and a crunchy spinach salad, both were excellent.  It was a nice evening.

Zak starts school on Monday, he has a bit of a weird schedule but he is planning on going to the gym or doing homework in his free time.  We are hoping to go camping sometime soon.  Tonight is the Lentil Fest in Pullman, which we are going to with Chad & Bryan.  We haven't been before, but it's apparently really fun and a big deal, so it should be a good time. 

Zak's Birthday

Zak's birthday went really well.  It was on a Thursday this year, so kind of a bummer, since:
-he had an 8 AM class
-and a chemistry lab from 7 - 9 that night
-I had to work from 5 - 8

but I tried hard to make it a good day for him.  We got up a little earlier than usual so he could open presents.  He was very happy that he got the knife he wanted, as well as a monocular, shower radio and Carl Sagan's The Cosmos on DVD.  Between his classes, I took him to the Old European Breakfast place we love over in Pullman, where he enjoyed eggs benedict and I have stuffed sausage & harvati ebelskivers.  Everything was amazing!  Zak at least didn't have to work that night (got paid for his birthday, whoo!), so we had some time together before our evening got hectic.  But unfortunately, once he got back late from his lab, he had homework he  had to do for his forestry class the next day, so he stayed up late and got up early the next morning to work on it.  Thursday was ok.

being goofy with all his presents

happy birthday boy

he loves this knife!

So that's why I decided to make Sunday much better!  A few weeks back, we were watching America's Test Kitchen, and I was trying to get some answers from him about what he wanted for his birthday dinner, etc.  The recipe they were showing was Slow Roasted Pork with Peach Sauce and it looked really good, and so he asked me if he could have that for his birthday.  I agreed and went on my way to find the recipe on-line, as well as a friend who had a roasting rack.  I found both and talked myself through the recipe and it turned out magnificently!  We both had Sunday off and it was so hard to smell the roast in the oven all day and not be able to eat it until 5.  I was so pleased that it worked out (I wrote up the recipe, click to go to it)!  To round out dinner, we had zucchini monterey and mashed potatoes and everything was delicious.  Pretty much a prefect birthday dinner!

so yummy!

For dessert, we had our friends come over to hang out and eat the peach cake, I had made for the first time.  I was nervous it wouldn't taste good, but it was a big hit and was very yummy.  The evening was fun, everyone had a good time and it was nice to be able to celebrate Zak's birthday with everyone.

I caught him a bit off guard, but look how nice the cake looks!

Zak also got a little bit of birthday cash, so he went to the mall yesterday and bought something else he had asked for, but didn't end up getting: a set of nice weights.  He really likes them, and has been using them while we watch t.v.  He's inspired me to be a bit more active, so together I think we'll do weights instead of just sit around.

Zak bought these weights with some of his birthday money

He loves them, and loves to model for the camera with them

So, thank you to everyone for your gifts, cards and well wishes for Zak!  I love being able to pamper him a little bit more - and he loves being right one day a year (his words, not mine!).  Thanks again!

all his birthday cards