so wonderful

Woke up to this email this morning:

Ash,
I was reminded again tonight how much I love you and am so glad you are a part of our family.
I hope you get some peaceful sleep tonight and have a wonderful day tomorrow.
Blessings,
Karen

For some reason I always imagined the family of the man I would some day marry would get along with me just fine, but wouldn't feel like family. I could never have imagined I would love them (and be loved by them) as much as I do!

My Mother-in-law was someone I looked up to when I was young, and has become one of my best friends.  I am so blessed.

Where do I begin?

we have had a busy year.  It all started with Emmaline coming in February, and it seems like we've  been on a crazy high speed roller coaster ride since then! We decided to move home in March, and then started packing in April.  By May the house was completely packed.  We left Moscow on the 22nd and went down to Buhl to visit with some of Bran's relatives for a few days.  It ended up taking us much longer to get there than planned due to an unexpected snowstorm (yes, in May - there are some things I don't miss about Idaho!). We had to stay the night in Boise then made our way to buhl the next morning. Karen, Tyler, Emma and I flew out of Twin Falls on the 24, while Bran and Kelly (a good friend of ours who took a job in Annapolis) started their cross-country road trip.

Emma was quite the awesome travel buddy. She slept most of the ride to Buhl and all but an hour of the flights.  When she was awake she was content which was wonderful.  I owe my baby goodness to my awesome Moby wrap - if it weren't for being able to tuck her in there for the flights I'd have been in trouble!

Bran and Kelly arrived on the 31st, just in time for our second anniversary. We didn't get to move into our rental until June 14, two weeks later than planned. I'll have to tell you more about that later!

Happy Mother's Day!

Birthday and Spokane

I had a fabulous birthday! It feels like my birthday started on Saturday and ended on Monday - we had a bunch of people over Saturday night for a "stock the bar" party. Everyone must have had Bran in mind, because we got 8 bottles of whiskey! I was very excited to see that the Stevenson's got me an awesome set of highball glasses, and the Points' brought an awesome girly mojito mix - I needed some stuff I could handle! And Bran got me some beautiful flowers for my dining room table :) At the end of the night, there was very little alcohol left, and everyone had a great time. I made sausage pinwheels, velveeta dip, chocolate covered strawberries, and Jen made my cake. The food turned out great, and was super easy, and Jen decorated the cake so it looked like the chocolate covered strawberries - so cute!


Because I'm horrible at being a hostess and taking pictures of the goings-on at the same time, I don't have any pictures from my party. I know that Jen took some, so I'll get those from her soon!

Sunday was my actual birthday, and we just had a small get-together with our house (Me, Bran, Ty, Jen, and Rachel) and Kenny Trovato and his roommate Sampson. It was so much fun - we did burgers and hot dogs, and I made a yummy rum cake which I was excited to buy the rum for. Just before I made the cake, I realized that it called for instant pudding, which I didn't have. So because the weather was so nice (60's!) we all walked downtown to Roseauers and Bran and I ended up getting pudding, a no-bake cheesecake, and a small container of eel sushi. The sushi is at the top of my favorite birthday things list! We love it, and havent' gotten to have any in a long time. One of Bran's friends works at Roseauers, and he told us that their sushi is really good, and made fresh by this Japanese lady every day. We can testify that he's right - it was awesome!

On Monday, bran took me to Spokane to do some shopping with the money I got (thanks, Karen, Aunt Leanne, Granny, and Aunt Laura!!). We also went to Outback Steakhouse for dinner, which was awesome as always. I ordered my first drink at a restauruant (their Strawberry Kiwi Vodka Lemonade thing...) which Bran said didn't even taste like alcohol. I didn't mind - I thought it was great :)





We had so much fun!

ok so not as many pictures as I thought I had, but I'll keep digging and see if I can find some more.