a man asked me at work the other day what my New Year's resolutions were. i was abruptly hit with the fact that i don't have any.

i'm going to spend a little time doing something that i am very good at.... and that's focusing on the past. 2011 has been a hell of a ride.

[january]
i really had it with indiana. the weather, some terrifying medical testing, and a serious lack of travel all contributed in a big way to what I would consider the worst month of 2011... it really is all uphill from here, i'd say. it wasn't all bad, though.... alycin organized the fabulous roll n bowl evening, so much love. the roll n bowl was the highlight of my january:


[february]
i hit my milestone birthday, the last one for a while... i turned 25, and my friends threw me the best surprise birthday party; i just love having all of my favorite people in the same place! among other things, i forged an important bond with one of the kids at the shelter, met our fabulous wedding planner, morgan, for the first time, and decided, once again, that math really is not the subject for me. february favorite, a night spent with friends at the vid:


[march]
my talented friend, emily, wrote a play that depauw university's theater department decided to stage. it was my serious pleasure to visit greencastle and see it live, and celebrate with her afterwards. erik and i took some us time and visited asheville, north carolina, and knoxville, tennessee. march was a great month!



[april]
what can i say about april? it's always one of the best months of the year! little 500 happenings: another cutter win, another big cutter family celebration (AND teddy's first birthday bike ride!). it would also turn out to be the last team rev race, so happy to be coaching in the pit for them.

[may]

april really set the stage for may and the rest of the year, because may was just full of more celebrating. the stewarts got hitched and graciously allowed me to be part of their day, i got to shoot an event for summit city bicycles, erik and i went to arkansas for the second year in a row for a big race, and we sent mike off with a bloomington-style upland goodbye when he moved back to chicago.

[june]

june was a hard month, but still a good one. june saw the departure of more of my nearest and dearest friends... caroline and clayton moved off to colorado, and kristen moved to phoenix (but not before goodbye packing slumber parties and goodbye boats on lake monroe). june also saw most of erik's racing (and i saw the least of erik!), including nationals in Georgia.

[july]

let's be real, july was a serious blur wherein all i did was take care of anything and everything wedding related. we also had a major land-lord induced mold-problem that caused a last-minute move, so july was a whirlwind. ricketts visited, though, a july bright spot! July also saw the annual Bloomington crit, and the going away of another part of our Bloomington family, Hank.

[august]

i mean, august was a banner month, everyone i love (with the exception of very few) was all in one place to celebrate erik and i getting married. august was the beginning of something really grand! this is from our fab photogs, nate and amanda reynolds:

[september]

my fabulous friends kelly and josh got married in september, and it was fantastic!! september was also spent anxiously anticipating our visit to see caroline and clayton in colorado. little did we know, once we got there, a job would plop into erik's lap and we would become colorado residents when october hit. the ball was rolling really fast in september.

[october]

we tied up loose ends, and i did my best to say goodbyes to everyone inindiana. this may be the hardest thing i've ever looked forward to doing. and in october, i'm not gonna lie, i pretty much regretted moving for the entirety of the month. i struggled to find a job and feel in any way at home, even though we had fabulous roommates and were living next to mountains.

[november]

i started assisting carrie and we shot our first wedding together. every day of november was better than the last, and i got hired at the YMCA right after spending a few days in colorado springs for friendsgiving with caroline, clayton, mike, and kristen, and renee.

[december]

december saw our first murried christmas, and also the first without any family. i got promoted at the Y, and, most importantly, i finally started to feel like i fit in and colorado was really home. welcome to my home.

that's enough backward looking.

2012 is going to be the best year yet, and i am so looking forward to it.

i have a real thing for christmas. i got to make a trip home to fort wayne from boulder to decorate the tree at my parents' house, and here's a tiny baby bit of what christmas time looks like at our place. we always put up a HUGE real tree, and tree-decorating is an allday process full of egg nog, classic christmas music, and my fabulous organizational skills at unpacking boxes and repacking them back into the closet!!!

i was doing a search for something in a closet upstairs... behold what i found there, one of the things that makes my dad a total badass (that's a master's national championship jersey, in case you're wondering):


christmas is a big deal, i told you. my parents instilled in me this weird love for all things antique when it comes to christmas. when my grandmother (who was a saint) passed away, we got all of her antique ornaments and they are some of the most cherished things in my family.


this is the aluminum foil star that was atop the tree every year since my dad was a little boy:


we have a thing for the pickle ornament in my family; the first one to find the pickle on christmas morning opens the first present. as i am bad at seek and finds (and bad at functioning in the morning), i usually lose this game. also, a nice side note... my grandfather planted a walnut tree when my dad was a kid, and it only ever bore ONE walnut, and then the walnut tree died. my grandpa painted that one walnut gold and hung it on the christmas tree. it still goes up every year on our tree.








my mom's choir boys, always a christmas staple!!






a great weekend.

i convinced the roommates yesterday to take a trip to the denver art museum for the day (it was free admission day, no less!) the boys decided that we should start roommate field trips (which i love!), and the first one was a smashing success. the highlight of the trip was making our own postcards in the western art exhibit which are now the first pieces of art to grace our refrigerator. yes, it was an activity meant for small children, and yes, we did sit next to several children whose drawings were notably better than mine. stay tuned for the next field trip, but enjoy this one for now:



















feeling more at home every day.

so here's a smidgen of a friendsgiving.
okay, it's more than a smidgen, it's so much.
i love it.