blogging

what has happened to personal blogs? i feel like that aren't that many unless you made it big.  ha i forget about this blog a lot, but then when i do go back and read it i love it.  i love reading about things that i honestly would probably forget over time.  and i actually still read certain blogs everyday, or whenever they post. i still love blogs.  anyways, i figured i'd give a little update on life.

 santa was a no go

 she was a pretty cute wise man though

 she loves her elsa doll

 this girl loves animals

 bus rides:)

just a few little snippets of things going on around here.  i could post so many pictures and different things we've done over the past few months but hopefully i'll get to it later. 

we are going to be moving from virginia in may and it's pretty crazy that our 3 years are up! i've absolutely loved living here and will miss it so much. we've made some amazing friends and just had some great experiences. not to mention, i love the trees and green everywhere. but i'm actually ready to move on in life. i'm ready for us to move to the next step, careers, more kids, and down the line a house and just settling down.  we will be moving to las vegas in august/september where nate will be working for a law firm.  i'm a little nervous for him to have a real job since his last school year has been pretty chill and we see him a lot.  but i'm so ready to live closer to our families. after having elin, i've realized how amazing it is to be close to family and have your kids grow up with cousins and grandparents close so i'm excited for that.  so for now we are going to just live it up being students and enjoying every last minute on the east coast!

p.s. does anyone actually read this blog? i've thought about making it private since it seems its basically for my own personal use.

utah trip continued

a few more pictures...

 bath time, all the time.

 there is no filter on this pic. she is one naturally tan girl. lucky!

 nate and i thought we should take advantage of babysitters while we were home.  we left her overnight while we went to the johnson mill in midway.  i was worried about her constantly and had my mom send updates. we still had a lot of fun and loved staying there. if you need a quick getaway, this is the place! fresh cookies upon arrival, amazing rooms(we would know we've stayed in 3 different ones), movies and popcorn, amazing views(above was the view from our room), and a delicious breakfast.

 the back side of timp is my favorite.

 finally got to meet my cousins adorable babe! so much fun and wished we could have spent more time together.

 granny and e, just waving, like usual.

 two adorable baby girls.

 watching my grandma with e just about melted my heart. love these two so much.

 i couldn't get over the sunsets and took a ton of pictures.  watching the sun set is one of the things i miss the most about living in virginia.  there are too many trees and hills in the way(which ironically makes it beautiful too).

 we picked one of the coldest, windiest days to shop at traverse mountain.  brrr

 elin couldn't get enough of the dog.  she was still a little unsure of her though if she got too close to her. it was pretty cute to watch.

 she would watch her like a hawk.

 these three :)

i have to document our trip home so that hopefully i won't make the same mistakes in the future.  first of all our first flight was at 5:45 am. that meant we were up at 3 am getting ready. we then flew to denver and boarded pretty soon for the next flight to chicago.  well they were slow getting us loaded and then they had to de-ice the plane.  we ended up being 45 minutes late to chicago.  unfortunately, our layover in chicago was only 50 minutes.  we decided to run to our gate which was of course on the other side of the chicago airport, and we still missed our connection.  they then told us the only way to get home would be to fly to la guardia, ny and then catch a flight from there. by the way, i will never fly american airlines again.  i was not impressed with how they handled the situation and treated us at all.  we were definitely ready to get home so we had to catch an extra flight.  4 airplanes, got home at 9:30 pm. and we were so exhausted. poor e cried the whole last flight which was thankfully only 50 minutes.  prior to that she was perfect.  i told nate no matter what it costs i am not having multiple layovers again.  i don't ever want to have more than one.  anyways that was our fun random story.

we are happy to be home and back to normal life!

a very merry christmas

we were able to be in utah for 25 days over the holidays. 25 days may seem like a lot but when you live across the country you just try to soak it all in.  plus, it isn't very hard to say goodbye because you are ready to go home.  we had such a great time and it was so nice to be with family.  holidays have become even more fun with e here.  it's kind of hard to come up with a lot of traditions for just our family when you aren't home for christmas but we still had a few.  one that i want to always do is give my kids a new christmas book each year.  there are so many to choose from and i love children's books. we really kept christmas quite light because we knew she would get spoiled from grandparents.

we love cousins

 sunday before christmas selfie

 christmas eve at onna's house. we spent that night and christmas morning with nate's fam.

christmas morning, just waiting for the sleepyhead to wake up.

 she pulled a little at the paper but wasn't too crazy about opening presents.  watching her face was pretty cute though.

 another selfie, this one on christmas day.

 her and grammy opening more gifts.

 the day after christmas we went with nate's family ice skating in midway.  we put elin in an umbrella stroller and just had a blast.  she fell asleep about 30 mins in and we just kept on going. one of the most memorable moments was when jon(nate's dad) fell flat on his back.

the whole family minus karen who's taking the pic.

 the next week we were back to see the ice castles with my family and to do more ice skating. elin fell asleep again and we had a blast again. i love ice skating.

what a great christmas!