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I am shocked that it has been nearly a year since my last rambling and somewhat appalled at myself for letting so much time pass without writing so much as a new paragraph. “Time Flies” is an understatement over the past 11 months. It has been a year of changes and new and amazing stories to share but somehow a lack of inspiration to write about them. I’m certainly not an award winning author with millions of dedicated readers but I do know that I have had requests from my very own small fan club to write something new, but have experienced some kind of writers block. It’s not that I haven’t thought about writing or even sat down and started a new entry, it’s just that after getting a few sentences in, it never “sounded” right, or something would inevitably come up that pulled my mind in another direction. Okay…enough about that…let’s get on with the show!

It seems as if so much has happened over the last year that I barely know where to even start. This blog entry could end up more like a mini novel! So first I’ll set the scene. It’s 8:00am on Sunday morning and I’m sitting in our living room across from our sliding glass doors and it’s snowing! Colorado experienced an unusually warm fall and this weekend is really the first snow of the season. We’re meeting up with friends later for a post Thanksgiving get together and since waking at around 6:00 my mind has been preoccupied, trying to decide whether or not to pull out our Christmas decorations and to start decorating a little for the holidays. Back at home my family has always had a little ongoing tradition of trying to put up the tree the weekend following Thanksgiving. We’ll see how motivated I am throughout the rest of the day.

Maybe instead of our year in review, I’ll start from our most currant experiences and work my way backwards. Seems like the last few months have been much more exciting than last winter, so I’m going to try to be orderly and not skip around, but I’m not going to make any promises. My mind tends to wander, more accurately it skips around, so bare with me!

Thanksgiving this year was spent with Joe and Holly. Joe moved out last June and to make a really looooong story short, now lives in Utah. Holly took a job in Arizona so for Thanksgiving everybody met in Colorado. The morning was spent up at Loveland, snowboarding on the few trails that are open and the rest of the afternoon cooking and preparing dinner. Mike and I hosted our very first Thanksgiving dinner! It was really nice to have a small group for practice. Friday night it started snowing and Saturday we woke up to about 4 inches and Loveland’s snow report claimed 14! We scrambled to get into our snow clothes and our boards thrown into the truck and we were out to ride our very first powder day of the season! YAY!! Yes, it was awesome!

Moving backwards…Mike plays on a flag football team with friends of ours on Sunday nights. He played in a fall outdoor league also. It has been a lot of fun to watch him and the team play. Go THUNDER!! We have a pretty fun group of friends we hang out with regularly and over the summer between the two of us, we played on three softball teams as well. The fall for me was incredibly busy this year. Working in admissions at a college, the fall is dedicated to high school students, college fairs, and tours. Needless to say I don’t have a lot of time outside of work on weeknights due to nighttime fairs and events. I’m glad the fall has passed and things have slowed.

Mike and I moved from our duplex in Golden to an apartment in Littleton this past June. I’m only about five minutes away from work now. I no longer have a commute which has been a nice treat over the past 6 months. Mike took a new job as an estimator and then another as an assistant project manager, but desk work didn’t suite him. He now works as a lead carpenter in the foothills. He builds beautiful timber framed custom homes. He’s back to doing what he loves and hopefully even with all the talk of our economy in a downward spiral there are still people interested to purchase these beautiful residences.

We’ve also been looking at homes for ourselves. All we’ve heard lately is that now is the time to buy and that this is a buyer’s market, so we’ve conducted our own little searches. Our lease isn’t up until this coming June and who knows if we’ll be able to pull it off, but if we find something in our price range (I say with a laugh) and with potential and a good location, maybe sooner than later we’ll be homeowners. I can’t stand watching our money swirl down the drain paying stupid amounts in rent once a month when in theory we could use it for a mortgage. So keep your fingers crossed for us that over the next few months, maybe it’ll be our turn to find a place that we can call home.

I made a trip home to NY this summer for a Julie and Jim's wedding in July. It was nice to be home and I loved spending time with my family. The following weekend was Carly's shower and we celebrated in style! I missed Mike like crazy and couldn't wait to get back to Colorado to see him! It was the longest we've been apart since we started dating and we both realized that hopefully that was the last extended trip we'd take that we weren't going to go on together. It just isn't home without Mike being there too. This fall I flew back to the East Coast for Carly's wedding and a day spent in NY with family and then right back to CO.

Now for the grand finale! Mike and I started dating in November of 2003, so after doing the math (and for those of you who know me well, that does not come easy!) we’ve now been together for five years! Wow! I can hardly believe it myself. The question is, how the heck has it gone by so fast?! I think I knew before Mike did that he was “the one” for me. We looked at lots of rings lots of times and talked about getting married and spending our lives together, but it wasn’t until this summer that it became official. One night in July after a softball game Mike was super antsy to get home. He said he wanted to go for a walk and spend some time together, so instead of going out for the usual Wednesday night beer, we scooted. There is some open space behind our place that we spent a lot of time in this summer, walking the trails and fishing the lakes. We walked our usual route and stood at the edge of the water watching the sun go down and enjoying the serenity. Mike walked over to give me a hug and I said to him, “if you were to ask me to marry you right now I’d say yes”, and as soon as I got the words out he had a ring waiting and asked me to marry him! I was totally shocked and of course the answer was yes!

The date has been set for October 2, 2009! We’re going to have a small wedding in Colorado and then swing home to NY and party with everyone! I can hardly believe it and we’re both super excited! All I can say is…what a year!