January: The year started off amazing - After a couple interviews that started between Christmas and New Year's, I accepted a job with an architecture firm in Madison! It was a long, hard job search and I was unbelievably thankful and excited!
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| Celebrating at a veg restaurant in Madison with dear friends. |
February: It was a crazy busy month. I was commuting long hours from our apartment near Mike's office to the other side of Madison. AND I was shipping a lot of orders on Etsy AND we were looking for a house! It was an exhausting but exciting month. We relieved stress by cooking up a storm.
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| Butternut squash + baby bella risotto. |
March: In February we found our perfect first house. The location was great, the yard was plentiful, and the spaces were cute. More importantly, it had a great porch to host friendly gatherings which completely won us over. Until March 11th, we crossed our fingers that everything would go smoothly with the inspection and closing, and it did! We became homeowners! First day in we hired a floor guy to refinish the tired wood floors, and we spent the next couple weeks painting and moving.
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| Closing Day! We closed downtown, ooh-ed and ahh-ed at our house, and celebrated over breakfast! |
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| Newly refinished wood floors. |
April: We traveled back to Indiana for Easter with Mike's family. Highlights included visiting with baby Colton and spending time outdoors in the increasing warmth of spring.
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| Hilarious photo of M + Maggie. |
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| love my wild niece! |
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| sweet nephew, enamored aunt. |
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| our feathered residents, loving the beginning of spring. |
May: Our adventures in gardening begin. We spent the whole summer gardening and poking around in the yard, some days we didn't come in till it got dark... it was heaven. We built a raised bed on the side of the garage and planted lots of veggies and herbs. We had no idea how it would go or what it would end up like! Just high hopes and lots of vegetable dreams. We also had a great Memorial Day weekend visit with Chris, Rachel and our little niece and nephew.
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| Freshly planted raised bed. |
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| So began the summer of porch parties with our very first! Max capacity. |
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| Mike's brother + family come to town for a visit over Memorial Day weekend. |
June: The highlight of the month was our dearest friends Stefanie and Bryan tying the knot in Denver! We returned for the first time since we moved away a year before. It was the most beautiful wedding and my heart felt like it was going to explode.
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| mustache photobooth! |
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| Meeting baby Ella :) |
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| Visiting our wedding spot again almost 2 years later. |
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| Madison. Evening bike rides to the lake and drinking beer together in lifeguard chairs. |
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| Lots of mountain bike riding! |
July: We spend July 4th weekend camping in New Glarus with our friend Jennifer and the pups. Day trip to drink beer in the hot sun is highly satisfying. Then we travelled back to Colorado to see more friends get married in Vail! Our garden continues to grow out of control, I learn to golf, we make yummy sushi.
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| Camping in New Glarus. Cheers! |
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| Toasting our newly married friends! |
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| Photobooth by our very own wedding photographers! Love them! |
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| Searching for zucchini a midst the chaos. |
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| beautiful heirloom tomatoes. |
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| First time golfing for a work outing! |
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| vegan sushi at its finest. |
August:
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| infamous vegan cookie baking. |
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| tomato harvest. |
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| exploring Olbrich gardens near our house. |
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| sweet photo of us by a friend. |
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| Meeting the Schleck brothers at a Trek BBQ!! |
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| Beloved garden, full of yummy food. |
September: We celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary with a bike date to the lake, picnicking on take-out and drinking a bottle of (cheap) wine from our honeymoon... lots of smiles. We hosted a dual birthday party for me and my sweet friend Jen! We traveled back to visit family in Indiana over Labor Day weekend, harvested more veggies, went to Wiener & Kraut Day in our old town (tradition), and discovered Heartland Farm Sanctuary right in our community.
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| Huz of 2 years! Manfriend of many years ;) |
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| Birthday girls! |
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| cuddle monkey. |
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| Mexican sour gherkin cucumbers. |
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| the ladies at Heartland Farm Sanctuary. |
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| Sister having her portrait taken at Wiener & Kraut Day! |
October: Cyclocross season! Also, we had trick or treaters for the first time!
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| Mike raced lots of cyclocross. |
November: We did lots of mountain bike riding, saw a Boulder favorite - Gregory Alan Isakov play a show in town, got our first Christmas tree, and spent Thanksgiving with both families. Such a cozy month.
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| our scrappy little first tree. |
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| Gregory Alan Isakov. |
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| matching shoes for the ladies. |
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| Longest ride ever at the Kettles - 20 miles! |
December: For another post, it's not yet complete!
