Goodbye 2017

As the year ends and we move into 2018, I just hope that it's a better year for us.

As I stated in a Facebook post today:

"What's on my mind this New Year's Eve?

It's been a long year. And a hard year. There will always be hard things in every year, but... man this year felt rough. I'm definitely in the camps of "Good riddance 2017" and "2018 NEEDS to be a better year or I can't take it."

Sometimes it's hard for me not to dwell on the negatives and feel jealous of others or sorry for myself, but that's one of the things I'm working on. Being grateful for the good things. Finding happy things amidst the hard.

Because there ARE happy things.

Some of the most obvious happy things in my life are, of course, our twins. They take an awful lot of our energy and patience, but at the end of the day, they are the ones that keep me going. I mean... look at those faces.

Anyway, however your year has been, whatever you're looking forward to in the new year, I hope it's a good one. That's my hope for myself, for my family, and for everyone."


With that being said, I would like to share recent pictures of our lives to close up the year.

We visited my sister and brother-in-law (Chanelle and Brooks) in Idaho for Thanksgiving:

We went and saw the Christmas lights in Downtown Provo:

I got a major hair cut:

We saw a musical of A Christmas Carol:

We played in the first decent snow of the year (giving us a white Christmas!):

And enjoyed these cute faces:

And with that, I'm out! Goodbye 2017, make way for 2018!

Love,
Ashley

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Gratitude

This time of year is especially prominent as a time when we all take a step a think about all the things we have to be grateful for. And let's be honest, that list should be pretty long, regardless of what else is wrong with life.

Among the things that make the top of my list are:

Loving, supportive family that will always have my back, being close with my siblings and in particular living close to some of them, going to a great school, living in our apartment that is nowhere near perfect but we love it, having great in-laws including both the family I married into and those who have married into my family, and of course, my best friend of a husband. The list goes on of course, but recently added to the list is that I'm grateful that Josh and I are expecting!

We are so thrilled to be having such a wonderful addition to our little family. And for the due date...

On that note, I am also very grateful to my awesome friend Jessica for taking these photos for us! I love the way they turned out.

With love and excitement,
~ Ashley

Fall Has Past

The fall months have come and gone, and here I am not sharing anything about it. It's time for an update on what's going on in our lives.

Early on in the semester we went to several sporting events, including both soccer and football games. We love our cougars!

At a soccer game with our friend Mariana.

At a football game before a crazy storm flooded the stands.

We also went with Trevin and Kim to Bridal Veil Falls before fall was over. I've been here all this time and never got around to it until now. It was breathtaking to me how beautiful it was. It was a gorgeous day and fall colors were everywhere. I can't wait to visit again!

Josh also celebrated his 24th birthday in October! I surprised him at work with a balloon and candy, and then we went out for lunch. The next day we continued celebrating; we got dinner at California Pizza Kitchen (which is one of my favorite pizza places ever), then went and saw a movie (Trevin came with us for the movie) - Gravity. Let me just say, it was a pretty intense movie. Really good. But I now never want to go to space. Ever. After the movie we joined up with Kim and played some games together. We had a lot of fun!

In the car picking him up from work!

Believe it or not, we actually planned to dress up and everything for Halloween, but that didn't end up happening. We had class that night and by the end of the day we were worn out and needed to unwind a bit, so we played some video games for a while before just going to bed.

Thanksgiving break was great, exactly what I needed as the semester has worn me down. Unfortunately Trevin and Kim couldn't come with us, which we were really sad about, but we did have a great time with my family. We all met up in Missouri, so Josh and I actually drove through the night on Monday night in order to get there Tuesday afternoon. I don't recommend it. We managed and everything worked out fine, but it's not pleasant forcing yourself to just ignore the fact the your body is tired, and only getting minimal amounts of sleep because you're trying to sleep in the car. ANYWAY, the trip was awesome though, and it was so fun to see everyone. Especially all the little kiddos! We had fun going to the Army museum, going to the park, and just playing around the house. Why do breaks have to go by so quickly?

In front of a boat outside the Army museum.

What a cute bunch of kids! A.K.A. my nieces and nephews. :)

Sweet Molly!

And sweet Lucy!

Now that we're back from break and Christmas is approaching, winter has definitely set in here in Provo. One day it snowed all day and all night, and since then we've had mixtures of snow and ice to walk through to get to school. So naturally I'm even more reluctant to go, but it's not much longer now until it'll be time to leave for Christmas break. We're almost there! :)

~ Ashley