The Year in Review

2014 has been one of the best years of my entire life. Seriously. I mean it. I know a lot of people say that every year but I don't. I didn't know I could have this continuously happy feeling and it feels amazing. Why was this year one of the best? Well let's review it...

January

I bought a new couch. Beezy was at my house everyday.

February

Beezy and I celebrated our first Valentines day together.

March

We headed to Puerto Rico! Beezy and I went with his cousin and a group of her friends. Neither one of us had ever been there before so it was nice to go together.

April

The Easter bunny paid us a visit!

May

Beezy completed the mud run and prepared for the Spartan race!

June
I turned 30 years old. I thought I was going to be really sad but I wasn't. It was just weird to say that I was 30 rather than 29. My mom came to town and helped us celebrate!

 Napa/Lake Tahoe

 

July

We spent a week on the big island of Hawaii. We snorkeled, went to volcanos, visited black sand beaches and even green sand beaches.

 

August

 

I experienced my first raiders game. The tailgate parking lot too.

 

September

 

The Kings started playing again!!!That meant that we went to a lot of games.

 

October

On Halloween we celebrated by going in costume to the Kings game. They liked us so much they put us in their Halloween costume contest! We also celebrated Beezy's birthday!

 

November

I went home for Thanksgiving and Beezy headed to Tahoe to be with his family. We also went to the Justin Timberlake concert.

 

December

We got engaged! Went a Hornblower cruise around the bay. Celebrated our Anniversary and we also celebrated Christmas and it was all wonderful!

 

I can't wait for 2015!!

Christmas

On Christmas morning, I woke up to Beezy's mom more excited to see what Santa brought her than anyone. We thought we'd wake up super early to open gifts but in reality we didn't and it was his mom waking us up to open presents. Once we got up we realized Santa had indeed paid us a visit.

 True Lies photo from the original press kit! We love that movie.

 

Beezy smelling his new shoes. He loves the smell of new shoes.

 

Once we opened up gifts from Santa, Beezy's mom has all of her grandkids come over. Beezy has a sister who produced a very large family.

Can you guess which one is his sister? After they left we headed out to spend the evening and Christmas dinner with his family. We were all anticipating the White Elephant game.

 

 We love our photo bomber...

 The tree at his cousin's house...

In their family, if you get a gift card, you place it on the tree as an ornament before it's given out. I had actually never seen that done before. I thought it was a clever idea.

Opening gifts. You can see the excitement on people's faces. Then as the evening wore down we all started to get tired. We had all been going non stop for days. The party ended at 3:00 a.m. and clearly there was a casualty...

We had a really nice Christmas and we feel incredibly blessed. Not only were we fortunate enough to get presents, we were blessed to be surrounded by people who care. It was a very nice day.

Christmas Eve

Christmas was a little different for me this year. In my 30 years of life this was the first one I've spent away from my family and not been in West Virginia. This year I spent it with Beezy and learned how he celebrates Christmas eve and Christmas day. This is also the first Christmas I've spent in California the two years I've been living out here.

On Christmas eve, we headed out to his dad's house. Every year he goes over and spends the evening with his dad, step mom and that side of his family. They make tamales and have a dinner. It was the first time we've seen a lot of that side of his family since we got engaged so we experienced a lot of questions about the wedding and wishes of congratulations. It was very nice.

 

I always love getting to see other people's Christmas tree. I feel your Christmas tree tells a story. This was his dad and step mom's tree.

This is some of Beezy's cousins and they are the sweetest family. They always take the time to ask me questions about how we are, what we're up to etc. Don't you love people who take an honest interest in your life without a hidden agenda. They definitely get an invite to the wedding.

Once we filled up on tamales we made our second stop of the night which was to his mom's side of the family. They were also making Christmas eve tamales. We also took a practice run at playing the White Elephant game. His family had sent out a mass text saying we would be playing it on Christmas night. So when we got to his aunts house, his cousin Dan decided that we should play a dry run of the game. He went out and got "clunker" gifts. As we started opening them, some were clunkers but others were really nice! We had a lot of fun.

 The Salsa bowl that we actually ended up with from the White Donkey game.

 

That hat... definitely one of the clunker items.

 

When we got home though, we did one of my traditions which is put out milk and cookies for Santa. Since I came down with a horrible head and chest cold literally the day before Christmas eve, I didn't have the energy to make cookies like I had planned. So Santa may have got a two week old, soft Christmas tree cookie.

 

I also got to Skype with my mom for a little bit! We opened up our one gift on Christmas eve. She opened up books, I opened up a wedding planner and Beezy opened up a pair of shoes! We were all very happy.

Of course we had to take some photos! She opened up the book version of Romancing the Stone! Clearly, that is one of our favorite movies.

 

We were completely wiped out so we went to bed so Santa would come visit...

Christmas Around the World

On Sunday night, Beezy gave me an early Christmas present which was a trip to the Christmas Around the World exhibit and carnival. Cal Expo was hosting the event so we headed over there to enjoy the festivities.

Clearly, you don't want to go there till it starts getting dark. You won't get to see the lights. So in one night, we did like the sign said and travelled the world in one night...First up we stayed pretty close to home and visited the Golden Gate Bridge.

Then we traveled to the land of Denmark and checked out the flowers...

We even stopped by the White House to see Olivia Pope but she wasn't there working.

A trip around the world wouldn't be complete without stopping at the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

 

Or taking that obnoxious photo holding up the leaning tower of Pisa...

 

Beezy even got to pet a lion when we went to Africa...

 

We finished off the evening by riding some of the rides but once we rode the Tilt a whirl that was it. Beezy was done in by the spinning so we called it a night. He tried his hand at some games but it wasn't his night. We left and headed home. It was a really fun early Christmas gift. If they come to your town, you should check it out! The lights are amazing! They also had dinosaurs and my favorite... pigs.

We Have an Officiant!

Before we got engaged, we already knew who we wanted to marry us. The real question was, How were we going to ask him? Once we got engaged we knew it was only a matter of time before we were going to pop the next big question. If you've been reading for awhile then you already know that Beezy's family is very close. He has an uncle Dan who is hilarious. He's originally from New York and he's been a part of Beezy's family for over 15 years. He's smart, funny and a genuinely caring guy. He's been ordained and performed a few weddings in the past. Any time his family would hint around to us getting engaged they would ask if Dan was going to officiate? We'd play coy and not really respond and that of course made Dan always tell us his strong points for being a good fit to officiate.

Once we got engaged, we knew we would ask Dan to officiate our wedding. The next big question was, How are we going to ask him? And when are we going to ask him? We scoured the internet for cute ways to ask and we chose to ask him on a bottle of wine. Dan loves his wine. So we headed out to BevMo to find the perfect one. When we made a pit stop at World Market we found this cute little suit that goes over a wine bottle. Sold!

When we got to BevMo we found wine that you can actually write on! Sold! Beezy came up with a cute little rhyme and I wrote it on the bottle. Then we packaged it and held on to the bottle for a whole week.

When the Christmas party came we knew that would be a great time to give him the bottle. It would announce the wedding date to his family and be a great time to share the moment of asking Dan to do the honors. He didn't expect a thing until we sat down beside him to get him to open the early Christmas gift.

 Realizing what the bottle has written on it.

 

And guess what?! He said yes! We have someone to officiate! It's going to be great. Dan knows Beezy so well and he knows how to make people really laugh. He's going to do a great job on our special day.

Christmas Cruise

On Saturday, Beezy and I headed to San Francisco to attend his cousin's annual Christmas party. This year instead of hosting the entire event at their house, they decided to change things up. We all met up at their house in the Bay ate some light appetizers and just hung out for a little bit.

 Enjoying the food

 Beezy's mom and aunt

The view of the city from their rooftop

 

Then from their house, we headed downtown to board the famous Horn blower. His cousin Tuckie surprised everyone by taking us on the famous Horn Blower dinner cruise. If you've never heard of the Horn Blower it's a very nice dinner cruise that takes you all around the bay as you eat dinner. You can go out on deck between courses, dance in their ballroom and fill up on their amazing chocolate cake. I had never been on the bay so it was a fun, new experience!

 The city had tons of festive lights out for the holiday.

The water around the Golden Gate was very rough but it was worth it. The fog really helped light up the Golden Gate during the night.

I love the Golden Gate Bridge. I think it's just one of those fascinating places that holds so much history.

 Some of the group together on top deck!

We had such a wonderful time at the Christmas party. We didn't want the night to end. Sadly it had to at 3:00 a.m.

This was definitely a Christmas party to remember.