2016 Recap + 2017 Goals

The new year always has me feeling some sort of way and I wanted to write down some of those thoughts. I wanted to be able to look back on the year and remember some of the accomplishments and good times we had. But also, I want to start this year feeling organized and excited for what this year has to offer.

2016 Highlights

- Tanner saw the ocean for the first time with my family in South Carolina.

- We celebrated our first anniversary! 

- I finished nursing school, passed my Boards and started my first RN job as a Labor and Delivery nurse. A complete dream come true!

- We moved to Indiana into a very cute, small country home. 

- Went to Minnesota on a family trip with Tan's family.

- Celebrated our favorite friends getting engaged in August!

- Our first nephew was born, Hudson Taylor on September 21st.
- Watching my older sister's engagement and starting to plan her wedding!

2017 Goals

- Continue deepening our walk with the Lord on our own and together as a couple.

- Go on adventures and take trips together, big and small; starting in a few weeks, go to Colorado to see our sweet sister and Tanner's first trip on an airplane!

- Celebrate two years of marriage :)

- Stop renting finally and buy a house, Lord Willing!

- Celebrate our besties Mike and Sam's wedding and watch them begin their life together!
- Dive deeper into our careers

"None will find contentment, purpose, joy, or peace of mind of any lasting sort apart from him" (Ecclesiastes 2:25b, T.M. Moore). 

So here is to another year of God's grace, learning to rely on Him more and be more mindful of all the many blessings he pours upon us.

We turned One!

This may be a month late, but I can't let our first anniversary fly by without writing something. I want this blog to be a place I can look back on and remember what we were going through and how we felt during different seasons in our life and in our marriage. So as a way to celebrate being married for a whole year, I wanted to jot down some things we have learned along the way.

"Husband, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her," Ephesians 5:25

"Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord... Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit everything to their husbands." Ephesians 5:22,24

• Love & Respect: This year has been a huge learning process for Tanner and I. We are getting used to being husband & wife, roommates, and financial partners. Going into marriage, we knew what the Lord said about our individual marriage roles but actually living them out has been much different then what we ever could have pictured but so beautiful at the same time. We learn more about each other each day and how the Lord designed us together as a couple. I find it so beautiful that the Lord created us to be partners. As a wife, I have been able to grow so much from being under Tan's authority as a husband. He makes me feel safe and supported and I couldn't ask for much more.
• Cooking dinner is a very hard task: Going into marriage, I was ready to be Mrs. Betty Crocker and was very quickly faced with the fact that planning, organizing, grocery shopping, and preparing a meal is not easy. I have such a hard time finding things to cook that aren't crazy hard or expensive or that take half a day to prepare. I would say on a good week, I cook a home cooked meal maybe 3 times a week. (That sounds so bad when I actually write it out! Poor Tan.) Ah! Tanner has been very patient with me though and helps with almost every meal. This year, my goal is to keep improving that number and maybe bump it up to 4x/week. :)
• Naps: Tan is the best napper I know. He loves taking a nap after work or on the weekends. It's the cutest thing, I think. They aren't usually very long and he seriously falls asleep in less than 5 minutes. But they always remind me of how hard of a worker he is and how grateful I am to have him as my husband.
• Love languages: Tan and I learned each other's love languages pretty early on in our relationship, because we both have the same ones!! haha it kept it pretty simple. We have felt like these have helped our relationship so much this past year because sometimes it is the simple things that just remind you how much this person means to you, like holding hands while walking into the store or going places together just to spend time with one another. Also, I had someone tell me my love languages may change while life goes on and I'm eager to see if that comes into play for us but I want to remember how much they've impacted us this far.
• The first year doesn't have to be the hardest: When you're engaged, you get a lot of marriage advice and we kept hearing a common piece over and over. "The first year is the hardest." This, for one, is kind of intimidating advice but it also prepared us for some hard times. And this year has been pretty crazy with lots of job changes, school, and moving but I don't think I would define it as hard. We love that being married allows us to spend so much time together, learning about the Lord, His plan for our lives, and each other. Granted, we are still getting to know how each other operate and we are both sinful people but we're thankful the Lord has blessed us with a year full of joy, love and growth.

June 6, 2015 will always be my favorite day but everyday after that has been a true gift. I'm often reminded of just how gracious the Lord is to bless Tanner and I with the covenant of marriage. Also, we are so thankful for the love and support our family and friends give us daily that help our marriage flourish.

 

All photos taken by: The Shalom Imaginative

To check out our full wedding blogged by our photographers: http://theshalomimaginative.com/blog/los-angeles-wedding-photographer-wisconsin-woods-summer-camp-wedding-camp-rotamer-wi/#more-8181

Life Update

Okay, I may need some work on the whole blogging thing. I kept meaning to post these past couple of months but you know how it goes, life gets in the way. So I wanted to do a little update on everything.

• Nursing school was officially done as of the end of April! I also took my state boards in the beginning of June and PASSED, meaning I am officially a RN. Ah! I have been applying for jobs, but we are still waiting to hear back. 
• Tanner started a full time commercial carpentry job with a local company this May. He is absolutely loving it! It is located in Northwest Indiana so we are planning to move out there around the end of summer.
• We got to celebrate our ONE year anniversary!! It was so incredible! My younger sister graduated from high school that same weekend and we had her party at the same venue we got married at. It was pretty magical to feel all the same feelings we felt the year before and just spend time together and with my family.
• My mom and dad got an adorable new, golden retriever puppy, named Remi! We are all a little obsessed with her.

As of now, we are just trying to enjoy time together and with our families. We have so much planned for this summer and I'm so excited. Thanks for taking your time to read this!

Tanner got to see the ocean for the first time this March!

Sweet Remi!

Coffee Shop

Tan and I are obsessed with coffee and we really love going coffee shops! The atmosphere is so great and it's so awesome to support local business owners. Sadly, there aren't many cute places by us so we have been trying to go out of our way to find some by us. The other week, we went with our two good friends to this adorable coffee shop on the campus of University of Chicago. It ended up only being like half an hour away and the coffee was really good. We definitely want to do this more; just getting in the car and finding local shops to support.

 Coffee Shop: Plein Air, http://www.pleinaircafe.co/

New to the blogging life

 Photos by theshalomimaginative.com

Welcome to my first blog post, ever! I've been an avid follower of so many blogs the past couple of years that I couldn't resist starting one for myself. I really just want a space to be able to put parts of my daily life as a newlywed on so I could look back and remember how I was feeling during this time in our lives. I'm sure this will just be a random assortment of pictures of Tan and I, but that's okay with me! It'll encourage me to be consistent with documenting periods of our life.

To explain a little about myself, I am a 21 year old nursing student that recently got married to her high school sweetheart! I am set to graduate nursing school the end of this April and I have hopes to pursue labor and delivery nursing. My husband and I met in middle school at Lake Geneva Youth Camp in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. My friend introduced us and I could help but think he was the cutest boy ever. We started dating in high school but he lived in Illinois and I was from Wisconsin so we endured two years of long distance dating. I, however, solved that problem by finding a college only 15 minutes from his house (You were right, Dad!) :) Tan proposed on February 13, 2014 and we got married June 6, 2015! We now live in a cute, 2 bedroom apartment that is 3 blocks away from his parent's home and it is so great. We are loving married life and we absolutely love doing the day to day things together.