for christmas, brennan's brother gave us all a calendar with everyone's birthdays in it. according to our calendar, january 5th was grandpa foxley's birthday. so, brennan and i gave him a call and left a message singing happy birthday. yesterday we had a voicemail from grandpa foxley thanking us for the voicemail, he's going to keep it, and his birthday is actually august 29th. thank you, nolan.
anyway, in honor of 2015, i give you the best of 2014
january
snowshoeing, nickel city, latin dancing, and bowling rang in the new year. but actually, january was kind of a hard month. i had just become a zone coordinator at work (which meant more freedom but more responsibility), became relief society president, was going to school full-time, and dating brennan full-time. there were a couple of weeks there where i thought brennan was going to dump me. but luckily that didn't happen and things started to turn around half way through the month when we went to the cabin for mlk weekend. sledding, jumping in the snow, and hanging out with a bunch of 14 year old girls was the perfect medicine for myself and my relationship with brennan.
february
february rocked. valentine's day, road trip to San Diego for presidents day weekend, learning how to surf, meeting brennan's awesome sister and her family. one of my favorite moments from that weekend was at breakfast one morning i was eating toast and 2 1/2 year old(?) ellie came up to me and asked if she could have a bite. i said, "sure", and she climbed in my lap and started eating all my toast. she's a little fire cracker. i guess she told her mom she wants to be me when she grows up. (#winning)
march
march also rocked. kerri completed her mission just in time to see me get engaged. well, she didn't actually see me since no one else was there when brennan proposed, but she was home from her mission. oh and brennan proposed (clearly). maybe someday i'll post the engagement story.
april
my last semester on byu campus (tear). there was a major close call, but thanks to brennan's help and 12 hours of intense studying for one test, i passed all my classes! brennan graduated magna cum laude. obviously he didn't have any close calls. he also turned 24 on another trip to the cabin and we took our engagement photos which was may more fun than i was expecting, thanks to my very not camera shy husband.
may
brennan got accepted to the Ohio State University the day we were getting our groomal photos done. in my mind i had convinced myself that living in galveston, texas was going to be awesome. making the mental switch to columbus, ohio wasn't very hard.
june
june was the best. june will always be the best because that's when we got sealed in the temple forever and ever. when we were kneeling across the altar, i couldn't look at brennan because every time i looked at him i cried (tears of joy, of course) even harder and i didn't want to be such a blubbery mess in front of my whole family and his. how embarrassing. but honestly and truly it was the happiest day of my life so far. i'll spare you the dirty deets, but even our wedding night was perfect. then we got to spend two very romantic weeks traveling all over the yucatan peninsula. it was unreal. i got to hold a baby tiger, we snorkeled with squid, starfish, sea turtles, sting rays, visited chichen itza, hiked all over mayan ruins, and ate tacos al pastor till we didn't even want to hear words "tacos al pastor" anymore for a while. it was amazing and we're definitely going back for some anniversary someday.
july
the first six weeks of our marriage were spent as nomads. two weeks in mexico, one week in scott and mattie's basement, then two weeks in washington, and almost a week in scott and mattie's basement again (our saviors). in washington i took 3rd in my age group in a triathlon, we had an open house and i was introduced to the cabin on the south fork of the walla walla. brennan taught me how to fly fish and shoot a bb gun. i am in love with that little piece of heaven (the cabin, not the gun. i still hate guns). we finally got all our stuff out of the russell's basement and into a moving truck and drove for two and half days across 6 states and ended up in columbus, ohio. when we got there they were still putting in new floors in our apartment. i was so tired and wanted to just get our stuff in, i thought i might cry. but then brennan introduced me to city bbq and everything was made right in the world. seriously, city bbq and graeters ice cream are the only two reasons you need to make a visit to ohio.
august
i started homeschool (aka byu independent study), but mostly we played a LOT. brennan didn't start school till the second week of august and the first week of school was just orientation which meant no studying. we rode our bikes all over columbus and discovered all we could downtown. we visited the beautiful hocking hills state park and took a little trip through amish country where i fell in love with every farm animal i saw and every cookie i ate from miller's bakery. we visited kirtland and stayed in cleveland which made us grateful we live in columbus.
september
oh glorious september. as part of my birthday present, brennan got us tickets to cedar point. if you need any more reasons to come to ohio, cedar point should definitely be on that list. it has 6 of the top fifty best roller coasters in the world, 72 rides total, and some of the tallest and fastest roller coasters in the world. another part of my birthday present was the painting class i took through september and october. turns out i love painting more than i thought i would and am currently working on a painting of the salt lake temple. september was also the month brennan's dad and uncle freddie came to visit us and take us to an osu football game, we had dinner at a physician's house who had three goats including one adorable baby, and brennan's parents gave me my beloved hammock stand for my birthday.
october
i think october was the first month that we didn't go on a trip somewhere. but brennan did take me to lynd's fruit farm to pick some apples, eat amish frye pies, and buy pie pumpkins. fortunately for me, brennan really grew to like the concept of an orchard and i think every day he's growing to like the idea of wright farm 2018 more and more. we also celebrated a year of me being home from mexico, meeting, and dating. woot! i was thinking yesterday how we really haven't known each other that long, but fortunately for me, the more time i spend with brennan, the more i love him. just goes to show that god really does know us better than we know ourselves. and he'll never lead us astray.
november
on thanksgiving i finally got to meet the foxley's. the drive was beautiful through west virginia, pennsylvania, west virginia, maryland, west virginia, then virginia. every time we crossed into west virginia we'd start singing "country roads". the day before our trip there was a big snow storm and the appalachians really did look like "almost heaven". before we left, brennan let me put up all our christmas decorations and i kind of miss our quirky little tree.
december
i did all i could to get us into the christmas spirit in december. before we flew to washington i made christmas goodies and we went caroling and delivered the treats to our friends. we watched christmas movies, visitied german village and saw all the decorated bavarian houses and ate german pastries. we had our own christmas eve--watched the christmas story, ate tomato soup and fancy grilled cheese, read christmas stories, and opened our pj's from my mom. i made scones for our christmas morning and we opened up our presents from each other and my mom. the next day we flew to washington where we started our trip in leavenworth--a little bavarian village at the foot of the cascades. there are shops dedicated just to christmas decorations and lights to boot all over the town. if we ever live in washington i would love to live there. on the drive back from leavenworth to kennewick we got to stop in wenatchee for cafe rio and drove through chelan and near cashmere. which means nothing to most of you, but mattie gave me the book the orchardist for christmas last year and that's where the story takes place. it's pretty much how i pictured except fewer businesses and road (obviously -- the book takes place in the 1800's). but it was beautiful and i fell even more in love with orchards. on december 24th my newest niece, cora, was born. she is beautiful and perfect. we also visited the cabin, kissed under the mistletoe, rode the carousel of dreams a million times, saw lots of movies, ate way too much candy, and slept in pretty much every day.
2014 started out rough but turned out to be a real winner. i consider myself a very lucky girl with a very happy life and we're really excited to see what adventures 2015 will bring.
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