Life of R&R

We started our Christmas adventure by leaving our home and driving to Cheyenne. About halfway through our drive there we heard the sad news that Ryan's Grandpa Mosbrucker had passed away unexpectedly. So we got to Cheyenne that night and left the next morning for Billings, MT. We had to extend our trip and ended up staying in Billings until the 29th to attend the funeral. We were lucky enough to be able to stay at Ryan's grandma and grandpa Dunlop's house. We celebrated Christmas there and Ryan's Aunt and Uncle (Barb and Burt) made an awesome prime rib dinner for us. We did some shopping in town, neither of us had clothes for the funeral. We spent time with Ryan's mom's family. It was really nice getting to know them.

We left for home right after the funeral on the 29th. The weather had been so nice all weak, but of course, with our luck it started storming as we were leaving. We made it to Big Sky, Montana after 6 hours and only 150 miles of white knuckle driving. It was a complete white out. The temperature was -20 degrees and we probably passed 100 crosses along the road side. I had had enough and finally convinced Ryan to pull over and get a hotel for the night. Luckily we hit the last stop before 60 miles of nothing to Yellowstone. It was a very scary night. The next morning we drove the rest of the way home. The roads were still awful but once we hit 1-15 in the middle of Idaho it was a lot better and we were able to make it back to home sweet home.The trip from Billings to Provo ended up taking us 24 hrs. We were just glad we made it all in one piece.

My entire family was able to come home for New Years. The 31st was awesome. In the morning we had a professional family picture taken. It has been many years since we had one taken. It will be really nice to have an updated one with the whole family. I got lucky and I was able to be called off from work that night because our census was low, so I got to spend the night with my family. We all went up to the cabin and had homemade clam chowder in sourdough bread bowls that my grandparents made for us. It was pretty tasty. Then we did our little family gift exchange. We received the most awesome gift from my brother Matt and his wife Mitra. They had taken a picture of Recon and found a painter in Hong Kong and he did an oil painting of it. It is so cool!

After we were all done opening presents we all found ourselves in shock. Mike, my sister Anna's boyfriend said that there was one more present that needed to be opened. He got down on his knee in front of everyone and pulled out a beautiful ring, proposing to my sister. Of course she said yes! It was so cute. We are so excited to have him join our family. He is an awesome guy and he'll fit right in. Good thing we let him be in our family pictures earlier that day:)

We celebrated the New Years all together. I don't remember the last time we were all together to celebrate it. It was really special. Everyone went home the next day and I had to go back to work.

2010 was an absolutely crazy year. We settled in to our new home and finished tons of projects on it including our basement renovation and master bedroom remodel. Ryan finished another year of school and finished his internship for the year. We were excited to find out the they will be hiring him back in the office to continue his internship in the spring. I feel like I had an amazing year at work. My confidence and experience level as a ICU nurse sky rocketed. I became very experienced in caring for post open heart surgery patients. This was a big accomplishment for me as I was pretty scared in the beginning.

2010 brought many happy blessings to our family. We gained two more sister in laws (Mitra and Analyn) with Matt and Andrew's weddings. We also welcomed two nephews into the family as well, Henry and Eamon. We also adopted our loving pet Recon. Our family was also blessed with the bittersweet diagnosis of PSP/FTD for my mom and we had many questions answered. This year has been a roller coaster and full of mixed emotions. It was a very stressful year, and I don't think I would have never gotten through it without all the caring people that surround us.

Hopefully 2011 will be filled with many happy memories. Best wishes to you all.

After nearly a year of remodeling our master bedroom, we have finally finished. Though we do still have to paint our new doors, we're going to wait till spring when it's warmer outside. We completely striped the old room of all trim and baseboards, carpet and wallpaper. We put up crown molding, all new trim and doors as well as a new ceiling fan. We installed a new window together and had fun with texturing and painting the walls. Our carpet was put in yesterday and it was a wonderful thing to come home to from work. Now all we need to do is pick out blinds for the window, install our new closet hardware and decorate! We're not exactly sure what color we want to do for the bedding yet. Any suggestions? It was such a long process, but we both learned so much by doing it ourselves. We would have been done a long time ago, but it kinda kept getting put off with all the other projects we did throughout the year. At least we're done in time for the holidays. It's such a relief it's all over and now I get to run my toes through some really cozy carpet!