The Summer of Weddings

The summer of 2014 has been named the summer of weddings for Riley and I.

My cousin Nathan was married at the beginning of the summer, but we were unable to attend.  Riley's cousin Jaycea wed at the beginning of June and we unfortunately were not able to attend this one either as we both had bachelor and bachelorette parties for other weddings.

Riley's classmate, Brent, who is also the grandson of my former boss, Mary Ann, got married at the end of May.  Brent married Kayla and they both went to Horton High School like Riley and I.  It was an outside wedding and we had a wonderful time.

June 20 was my friend, Annette's big day.  I was honored to be a bridesmaid in her wedding as she married Dan in Manhattan on a beautiful Friday afternoon.

My high school friend, Kendelle was married to Andy on July 12.  I was able to stand up with Kendelle as her matron of honor and couldn't have been more honored.

Our final wedding of the summer was Riley's best friend, Jacob.  Jacob and Maddy's wedding was the perfect wedding to end the summer with.  I was happy to have Riley's family in attendance with me as Riley was busy with his role as the best man.

A Job Change ... and The Beginning of a Master's Degree

I spent this past school year teaching 6th, 7th, and 8th grade math in the mornings and K-4 PE in the afternoons.  As much as I love teaching math and PE, I've accepted a job teaching preschool at Riley County.  I've taught summer preschool there the past three summers and will now teach year round.

I'm very excited to make this big change.  I'll also be starting my Master's Degree in Early Childhood Education, so things probably won't slow down too much!

We're Having a Baby - Telling Our Family

Even before finding out that we were expecting, I was searching for neat ways to tell our family.  Pinterest is filled with ideas and it is expected that you announce in a creative way.  I struggled for a while deciding on when to tell our families.  I feared the possibility of telling too early and then having the unspeakable happen.  Riley and I decided that we would want our close family and friends to know around the 8 week mark and just ask them to keep it quiet until we reached the 12-13 week mark when we would make it public.

My family had planned to spent July 4th at my parents house with a pool party.  Riley and I arrived there July 3rd and I handed each of my parents a card in an envelope.  My mom read it right away, screamed, and ran over to hug me.  All the while, my dad was still reading the card so we got a good laugh about that.  Haley came home shortly after and my mom shared the news with her.  We told Eric the next day when he arrived.

Riley's family had planned to go to Junction City for the fourth of July so we chose that weekend to announce as everybody would be around.  We thought it would be a simple task, but it turned out to be so much more than that!  For some reason, we couldn't get everyone together at the same time to announce the news.  It turned out that we ended up announcing it very late at night after Riley spent time convincing people not to go to bed because we had a "holiday card" to give everyone.  It was a bit of a disaster, but oh well.

This is the card we gave family to announce our news:

We're Having A Baby - Telling Riley

Today I went in to the doctor's office and got a blood test and officially confirmed that we are having a baby!  I initially wanted to wait until Sunday to tell Riley because it is Father's Day.  I really wanted to wait as I thought it would be really memorable, but I was too excited and couldn't wait to tell Riley.

This evening Riley was downstairs cleaning guns and I called him upstairs.  I had to laugh a little as he came upstairs saying "This better be good." out of annoyance of me asking him to come upstairs.

As he walked into the room he saw me sitting on the end of the bed with a card and baby sock monkey.  Immediately a huge smile came across his face.  Inside the card I had written,"The only thing better than having you as my husband is our children having you was their dad.  You're gonna be a DADDY!"  I, of course, teared up and he asked, "Are you serious?"

Riley came up with the idea of doing a sock monkey room for our someday baby quite a while ago.  I was just impressed that he actually cared, so of course I had to go along with it.  Plus I think it's pretty cute too!

On a funny side note.... I had been complaining to Riley earlier the previous week about having cramps.  He made some silly comment about how "he had a feeling" that I was pregnant and referenced the Black Eyed Peas song I Gotta Feeling.  Once I shared the news with Riley today, I hit the play button on my phone to play the song.  We both had a good laugh about it :)

1st Anniversary

This past weekend Riley and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary.  It's hard to believe that we've been married a whole year.  

 

We ate at Taco Bell for lunch which was perfect.  When Riley and I celebrated our five year dating anniversary, he took me to Taco Bell.  The day he proposed, we also ate at Taco Bell.  It only seemed fitting that we keep the tradition going.

We ate dinner at Longhorn's followed by cutting into our wedding cake.  I was nervous about the cake being dried out and gross, but it was really moist and yummy.  Grandma Mary's cake did not disappoint.

My Best Friend's Wedding

My best friend from high school, Krista got married at the beginning of November.  It was a beautiful wedding and I couldn't have been more excited to be a part of her big day.  Krista made a gorgeous bride and the whole day was absolutely perfect.

I had the honor of returning the favor and being her maid of honor.  I'm so happy for Adam and Krista and can't wait to see what life has in store for the two of them.

Our First Home

In August, Riley and I purchased our first home together.  We found a house in Westmoreland, Kansas and fell in love with it.  It has four bedrooms and three bathrooms which is wonderful for us.

We didn't have to do much to the house other than painting.  Lately we have been finishing up unpacking and purchasing things to fill our new home.  We couldn't be more excited :)