Reflections

Greetings, blog readers!

What a year it has been! I titled this blog "reflections" for several reasons. The first reason is much more obvious...as of Monday Sam and I will have been married for one year and I felt that it is a great time to reflect on all of the wonderful things that have happened for us this past year. The second is to look back at some of what we said we would accomplish and reflect on whether or not we actually did those things we said we would do! :)

This year we have accomplished so much. Obviously getting married was huge, and beyond that we had many other firsts, too! After much trouble and hassle, we purchased our first home together. Stressful doesn't even begin to describe the process, but the rewards of being homeowners have been amazing. We have been working HARD on our back yard and getting it fenced in and are so close to being done with that project. The late nights recently spent painting boards are actually really fun knowing that we are doing something to raise the value of the home, make it ours, and give Dawg somewhere to play freely.

At the end of May, Sam and I made another big purchase, a 2009 Ford Escape. We love it! And we finally sold his car last weekend! So we are down to two, functioning vehicles that we feel safe in and take pride in caring for.

We really wanted to get a dog, which was part of our motivation for getting a fence put up. Things happened a little faster than we originally planned, as a good family friend, Leslie, had the need to make space for more dogs-in-training. And so enters "Dawg!" Dawg was supposed to be a peanut allergy detection dog, but did not pass the training (he gets very skittish with loud sounds - ie gunfire, fireworks - and gets distracted from the search). So, instead of going to a family in need, he came to us, perfectly trained, too smart for his own good (and ours!), and SO loving and loyal. Dawg is the perfect first dog and has been an amazing addition to our little family. And great practice for (one day) having a child! Really...he is like a kid...we love it!

One of our goals has been to make sure to make a somewhat major trip each year. This year, we will be headed to Texas (next week in fact!) to visit Sam's Aunt, Jane, and my very good friend, Amanda. We are so excited and think we must be crazy for going to Texas in the middle of July...not to mention they are having record high temps right now...oye! We were also going to go to Colorado and visit a bunch of National Parks on the way, but that trip has fallen through. Sam was going to begin grad school through Alamosa State University, but, as the program is young, it got cancelled for the year because of lack of enrollment. This was kind of sad news, but will make it easier on our pocketbooks until next year.

Another big goal of ours this year was to get closer to being debt free. This is a mixed bag. As we reflect, we know that we have paid some things off. My car, a student loan, credit card, but we also know that we added debt...a car. We still use our debit card instead of living the cash only lifestyle, but we seem to spend less that way in general. We are no where near where we had hoped to be on everything at this point, but are hopeful that with me gaining fulltime employment (still saying our prayers in this department), things will move much quicker for us.

In the area of our health we are neither here nor there. With budgets getting tighter after the fence and trips, we think this will improve. We having taken a liking to riding our bikes and plan to do so for EVERYTHING (grocery trips, etc) for the remainder of summer to help us get in shape and save money. Legs of steel here we come!!!

In all, life is great. God has blessed us in so many ways and we are as happily married as we were one year ago! Thanks to all of our friends and family for a great year!!!

~Heather