January

Since I was such a slacker in January and didn't get around to posting much, here is recap of what we did in late December/January!

We rang in 2012 at home! While we would have loved to had an excuse to get dressed up and go out, we thought ringing in our first year as a married couple at home would be nice! We snacked on finger foods, drank champagne and lit fireworks off our backyard deck! It was a fun night at home, just the three of us (Kelsey too!).

I have to admit though, I was a little sad "our year" was over. We had many fun things happen in 2011. We bought our first home, enjoyed all of our wedding festivities, got married, had an amazing honeymoon and many fun newlywed memories. While I was sad to see our year of fun go, we know 2012 will be an exciting year too. We are looking forward to spending more time on our house, planning fun trips throughout the year, and being apart of Andrew & Briana's wedding festivities! So many fun things to look forward to and enjoy.

In late December, we had a trip booked to Buffalo, NY to visit Daniel's grandpa. His grandpa is getting older and it's been an annual tradition to go visit.

Here we are on the plane!

Snow! I love visiting snow but I don't know how people live up North, or where it's cold. No thank you.

Daniel's brother, Andrew and his fiance, Briana met us up there and stayed too. Briana and I were SO excited it snowed! We were hoping for at least one day of snow and I think it snowed two days out of our 4 day stay.

We like to visit Niagara Falls everytime we go since it's such a short drive away. Such a neat thing to see... if you haven't been you must go at least once!

It was FREEZING!

Please excuse Daniel's ugly puffer jacket! :) I need to buy him another one before our next visit.

Dinner w/ Aunt Joan at Riley's in East Aurora.

On our last day saying our good bye's! Such a nice visit!

Mid January we decided to make a weekend trip to the beach. In the winter I'd say we try to go to the beach a few times. Sometimes the waves are good, but often times they're not. We like to go just because even if that means just sitting, reading, and enjoying a lazy afternoon all bundled up on the beach!

One of our "relationship resolutions" for this year (and hopefully we'll continue doing this for years to come) was to throw in a monthly date night where we try something new (we still have our weekly, casual date nights). We trade on and off, so in January Daniel planned our first one. We went to a place called Wine and Canvas. We watched an instructor, and painted our own canvas... while finishing off a nice bottle of wine. :)

We had a lot going on in January, hence my absence blogging. We made the decision for me to start working part-time starting 1/9/12, so I could go to school full-time and finish sooner. I am working towards a degree in Early Childhood Education (thinking of teaching 1st or 2nd grade), and plan to graduate in late 2013. It's all new for me, working part-time, but I am loving it. It's giving me a lot more time to study and focus on school as well as get things done around our house! I am also enjoying mentoring and volunteering more at a local Elementary school. I love having hands on experience with kids, and learning more about what I'm passionate about! It has been fun observing classrooms for my observation hours too. It's very time consuming, but so worth it. I am learning so much and I am so grateful for the many opportunities I've had thus far! As for Daniel, he was busy with work a lot in January and for that, we are very thankful! :)