A day in August

Do I even post about my summer? I don't think so...I'm so behind I'll just start where we're at now!

Yesterday, the last day of summer vacation, Aaron and I took the four wheelers and drove to the river outside of Bismarck. It was a beautiful day on the trails. 

I'll be honest though, it made me miss horseback riding. I think I enjoy the peace and quiet of horseback riding. No motors, just the sound of plodding along in nature.

I'm looking forward to the day we can get up and spend the day riding horse, and not just fourwheeler. Besides, I owe Aaron a few days of it!

Florida 2016

Florida was wonderful! We would both go back in a heartbeat. We flew into Tampa and then drove to the Clearwater Beach area. The resort we stayed at wasn't right on the main beach, which turned out to be totally fine with me. We had our own private beach so there weren't so many, many people there.

We flew Spirit Airlines. I booked the flight with them because they were the cheapest. Turns out, however, that we had to pay for our carry-ons, our seats, and everything in between. So I'm not sure how much money we actually saved flying with them, but we did get from point A to point B safely...which is all that matters.

The picture above is the view from our balcony. The buildings in the distance are hotels right on Clearwater Beach. We were on SandKey and all the trees you see are Sand Key Park. Aaron sleeps a lot deeper/better than me on vacation, so as he was sleeping in, I spent my early mornings on the balcony enjoying the view and drinking starbucks coffee (that the hotel provided free!). 

We never did go swimming in the pool, mainly because there were always tons of kids in the pool and it was a rather small pool! (Plus, there was the big gulf coast a few feet away!) We did hang out on the chairs/loungers around the pool though, drinking fruity drinks and listening to Christmas music that was playing from the speakers. (Hearing Christmas music and seeing Christmas decorations was a bit weird without the snow...it did not feel like Christmas!)

The first full day there we rented a Cabana and basked on the beach. I think we were two of the whitest people there thanks to our Scandinavian heritage! I think this was my favorite day...it was so relaxing! There was a prop you got when you rented the cabana so you could prop the back up and a cool breeze blew through and it wasn't so hot. Felt amazing. 

Here is Aaron in front of our resort, The Sheraton Sand Key. As you can see (or maybe you can't but..) there were tons of loungers/hammocks around the area. So if you didn't want to walk down to the beach and lounge, you could lounge closer to the hotel. 

We were standing in the water when Aaron took this photo - so you can see that there was quite a bit of sand to walk through to get to our hotel. (I also really like how happy Aaron looks in this photo! Looks like my man, who's not a big fan of vacations, is enjoying himself! ha!)

Every evening except for one we watched the sunset on the beach. It was a tad chilly, and of course it's hard to beat a North Dakota sunset, but it was still beautiful. 

Our next full day there we drove to Honeymoon Island State Park in our little rental car. Beautiful blue water and silky soft white sand. I felt like I was in the Bahamas! 

We also drove to St. Petersberg and went to the Holocaust museum. Aaron and I have both been to the Holocaust museum in Washington D.C., which is much larger than this one, but it was still sobering to walk through. Our next trip to Florida (I say next because I know we'll be back), I really want to go to a Florida history museum. (The history nerd in me is coming out but, I really don't know much about the early years of Florida! It'd be interesting to learn.)

The next day we jumped on the Jolly Trolly and went to Clearwater Beach. Tons of people and lots going on, especially on Pier 60. I don't really have much else to say about it! (Except I'm glad we didn't stay right on this beach...I would have gotten peopled out.)

Our last day was spent at the Florida Aquarium. We probably won't go back here again until we have our own kids, but it was neat seeing all the different kinds of animals that we don't have in North Dakota. The little lemurs were so cute. 

Right next to the aquarium is the S.S. American Victory, a war ship that was used in WW2, Korea, and Vietnam. If you think history is interesting, like we do, we would recommend touring this ship. It's a self guided tour and you can pretty much go into every room/area on the ship. We probably spent about 2.5 hours touring it. I'm thinking I may do a separate post just on this ship. 

The trip went so fast! Well, I guess not the last few hours of the trip. Our flight was delayed, which caused us to get into Minneapolis around 2:30am. You could say I got a lot of instagramming done and we got quite a few episodes of Criminal Minds watched.  

life lately

Saturday mornings are when I feel the itch to blog and update things around here!

It's been a fast August, September, October, and November! I'm lovin' teaching...does each year just get better and better? That's what I'm told.

October found me in the cities with my old roommate, visiting my middlest sister. The three days were spent shopping, eating out, segway-ing, eating out, going to Mall of America, eating out, hiking, eating out. I feel like we ate out a lot? ha!

 

 Let's see - the next weekend Aaron and I spent Sunday afternoon riding fourwheeler outside of Mandan beside the river. Aaron decided to bring his swimming trunks to show just how beautiful the weather has been in North Dakota in November!

While here, Aaron brought his go-pro with. That's a cool little tool! The photos below are taken with that...which takes a photo every 30 seconds. (So I think we ended up with over 2000 photos? ha!) SO, Kristin, if Blair is ever curious what the trails look like around here, just let me know! I'll send ya the photos!

 

Later on in November Aaron and I spent an evening at Lake Sakakawea with Ruger. Once again, taking advantage of this unusually nice weather!

And then, the next weekend I traveled to the cities again for a girls weekend with my mother and sisters, and Zane! 

Whew! Ended up adding a lot more pictures than I was planning to! Next weekend, Thanksgiving, Aaron and I are headed to my folks' place and then 26 days after T-giving we're headed to Florida to spend a few days at the beach. Happy end of November! 

Holiday Photos

While there's still a few leaves left on the trees, I wanted to get our Christmas photo taken. I texted our neighbor this morning to see if she'd be up for snapping a few of us, she met us over at our park, and within 10 minutes we were done! (per Aaron's request - he's not real fond of picture taking!) 

Photo shoots with Ruger are always interesting...but he did sit/stand fairly well for them!

This is us - October 2016. 

Happy Anniversary, Aaron

Three years already since we said our vows.

Our wedding felt like it took a second, and with a snap of a finger, three years are past.

I don't think I would change a thing about our love life. We started dating our freshman years of college and knew within three months that we would get married. But, with advice from our parents, we waited four years to get married until we were both through with college.

We had lots of time to plan our big day, and there isn't much about our wedding that I would change. I would pick Medora again as the location, and I would pick the same dress, the same cake, the same venue, the same officiant...

...and definitely the same groom. :)

Of course there were behind the scenes things that happened...

...it rained almost all day before our wedding and we had all gotten tickets for the Medora Musical. 

We got rained out.

... Aaron's ring was too tight and his finger started turning blue. The ring came off soon after the ceremony!

...the stomach flu raged through my family members the week after our wedding and the day after our reception (we had a large reception a week after our wedding, in Fargo) I got the stomach flu, bad, at my in-laws. It also was the day we were planning on moving to Beulah since Aaron started his job on Monday. So, without AC in Aaron's little pickup, me with the stomach flu, and a 90+ degree day, we set off on our life together.

Aaron, if you're reading this, Happy Anniversary. I love you.

Can't wait to see what the next few years have in store!

(and with that, I think I'm going to go listen to "If I Could Make a Living Out of Loving You" by Clay Walker...just to reminisce walking back down the aisle for the first time as husband and wife!)