January Photo Dump

January really was a wonderful and FREEZING month for us. We were in Puerto Vallarta for a week, which was not nearly long enough and a lot of cold weather, crocheting, reading, and trying to occupy a 2.5 year old puppy in the cold. I also spent a weekend on retreat with some of my 7th and 8th graders. 

a blanket for myself

one morning on the way to work
this doesn't figure in wind

banana bread

That day our internet was limited....

We moved into this GORGEOUS house mid-December. We love it, and so far we love everything about it. It was the house I wanted to hate when we were touring houses, it was a whole 15 minutes from work, as opposed to the less than 5 I lived before. It is out in the country. It runs on propane. It only has two bedrooms, with a beautiful unfinished basement that will hopefully not be too hard to finish off with the potential of two more bedrooms, another bathroom, a big multipurpose room, a laundry room, a storage room. It is a split level, four steps up to the main floor and nine steps down to the basement. It doesn't have a fence.  It isn't in my top choice of elementary schools. Ahhhh, we wanted to hate this house. I told Marc as we were driving out to the house that this had better be good or else there is no way.....

We walked into the house, it is totally open on the inside, the living room flows into the dining space, which flows into the kitchen. It backs up to the Crow Wing State Park (which we love and adore). It is a quiet neighborhood. It had two bathrooms, TWO bathrooms, this is a big deal when we have all of our family over. It has a three stall ATTACHED garage. It was under our budget. It had beautiful details. Besides the guest room nothing absolutely HAD to be painted. (Mom has since painted the 2nd bathroom because I didn't like the color before, thanks mom, it was livable but now this is wonderful). The guest room is next on the list to be painted. The yard is huge. We love this house, we have adjusted and really don't mind the 15 minute drive. Propane isn't a big deal to us. We continue to grow into the house and figure out where stuff goes. But one thing that we have found we actually don't mind is the fact that because we are so far out in the country we don't have unlimited internet access, we had to go with a dish internet provider which only allows us so much internet each month.

Living/Dining/Kitchen before anything was moved in

We actually read more books, we talk to each other more, we don't have Netflix streaming endlessly, we don't sit mindlessly on facebook for hours. We have plenty of data each month to do what we want to do, we just don't stream things without end. We communicate more. We enjoy the silence more. We get lost in more books and magazines. We watch movies we already owned. We check out movies from what feels like a nearly endless supply at our library. We have disconnected some, and we love it. We aren't as tied to our ipads, iphones, laptops, and tv. We were just discussing last night what a welcomed change this has become in our lives. Yes, we still use the internet probably more than we care to admit but it has been seriously lessened and we love it. I still make photobooks on shutterfly, instragram, facebook, read blogs, write blogs, and my husband frequently looks up triathlon training plans and I look at half marathon plans but we have taken a step back from the technology that had gotten a grasp on our lives. I don't think we even had a clue how much we were absorbed in it until our data was minimized and while there are moments we miss it, the reality is we are actually enjoying the lack of data.

How much do you use the internet in any given day?
Do you enjoy the chance to step back from technology?
What are your opinions on technology?

Downtown Puerto Vallarta

One early evening we took the city bus downtown and walked to old Puerto Vallarta and here are a few images from our time down there. Riding the city bus in Puerto Vallarta is an experience in and of itself, first there is not a time frame for when buses will becoming or going, they all just run continuously and stop pretty much wherever, so we had a little trouble getting back on the bus to return to the hotel. The bus drivers all seriously felt like they were driving for NASCAR and were racing one another, really I never felt unsafe, however it really was quite the experience. If you are ever in Puerto Vallarta I recommend riding the buses at least a couple times, plus they are way cheap.

Downtown we did a little shopping, hello bringing home Mexican vanilla, and wandering around. We saw a ton of cool architecture and the Church of Our Lady Guadalupe was GORGEOUS, worth stopping in for sure. There was a wedding going to take place later that night (on a Tuesday) and it was interesting to see the cultural differences in wedding attire.  

There were tons of these birds diving in the water
I found them fascinating to watch

Whale Watching

Last week Marc and I were down in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and had an AMAZING time, here comes your warning for a photo overload coming your way. Seriously. One afternoon we spent out in the Bay of Banderas, which is where at any given moment between mid December and mid March (or so) there are roughly 300-400 humpback whales mating and giving birth. They migrate between Banderas Bay and Alaska. We were out in a 30ish person inflatable boat with a 400 horsepower motor watching these AMAZING creatures. THEY ARE HUGE and no photo does justice to what we saw. They took my breath away. Sooooo awesome to see. I don't even want to admit how many photos I took on our trip, however, here are a few from our whale outing. LOVED IT.

Have you ever been whale watching?

            Where?

Puerto Vallarta

We are home and I feel like I am going to freeze to death, yes literally, yesterday while driving to work my car thermostat said -32 degrees, not including windchill. RIDICULOUS! Seriously. Either way, my days are now spent remembering Marc & I's marvelous trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico last week. The weather was gorgeous, 80s to 90s during the day, sunny as all get out, and BEAUTIFUL. We had a wonderful time sitting by the pool and on the beach, playing in the water, and going on adventures. It was so good for my soul to get out of the frozen north and head south, new rule in our house, we will be leaving the north every winter for a week. It was great to go outside and not have to put on my hats, mittens, boots, winter coat, etc. rather we just went out in shorts and a tank top. Also to add to the wonderful was that I was able to run outside every day in my shorts and tank tops, no treadmills (seriously HATE the treadmill, I get bored sooo fast and now with all these people and their new year resolutions they are hogging up the treadmills, bring on February when people start to fade off their goals, that sounds horrible but true). Here's a few pictures from our stay, there are tons of photos coming over the next week or so. 

Seven Months as a MRS.

The Wonderful Things:

• We are off to Mexico this weekend. We decided to delay our "actual" honeymoon until winter, when we would want to get out of northern Minnesota and go someplace warm. We went to Bayfield, Wisconsin for a few days after getting married (which was way fun) but now we are off to Puerto Vallarta and using a week from my parents time share (thanks mom and dad)
• We were talking that this is really the first real trip we have taken together other than our trip to Bayfield or to visit family and dear friends (which sort of counts as a vacation but doesn't) - we are jazzed to be flying somewhere. Whoop Whoop
• I think we have almost everything switched over to our new address - every time I think we have a good handle on this we have totally forgotten something else. Thank God for the United States Postal Service and their ability to forward mail.
• I LOVE LOVE LOVE our new house. Seriously.
• I hope to post about it soon

The Things No One Warns You About:

• when boys get sick it sucks - the world ends. enough said.
• Moving sucks as much as it is amazing

The Miscellaneous Things:

• Ahhh yes, I have fallen off the blogging deep end. December was nuts with our houses, yes houses, it took a bit longer than we anticipated for our old house to sell it kept getting delayed and what not (read super annoying) and we ended up being able to move into our new house a few weeks earlier than our old house sold. I seriously think for my sanity this was our best option, I can't imagine having staying in our old house because we each had a laundry basket of clothes, a spoon, a fork, a bowl, no plates, one towel, and minimal anything else. It was nuts. I would have been climbing the walls. Anyways, long story short, we got moved. Whoop Whoop. And our house is sold and we don't have to worry about it. Whoop Whoop.
• I do plan to hop back on the blogging world, life got nuts and ahead me and this is fell behind. Sooo after we return from Mexico (we get back on the 18th) - know that this will come back into action. No promises until then.

I can't believe we have been married seven months already, time flies for sure. Time boggles my mind, to me it feels like days crawl by at times and sometimes fly but weeks for sure fly by and months I don't even have a word to mark how fast they seem to be going. 

Here is to getting back in the saddle soon on the blog. I miss writing.