Our First Christmas

We had a great first Christmas!  Santa brought M two movies ("A Christmas Story" and "Elf") and a new game for the Wii ("Cabela's Outdoor Adventures").  Some how his sister new Santa was bringing him that game because she got mike the orange Cablela's gun that goes with it.  Santa brought me an upright KITCHENAID white mixer.  I needed any excuse I could find to use it that day, so we invited some people over that evening and made homemade buttermilk pancakes with it and cooked some bacon.  Yummy!  We recieved some other wonderful gifts from our families, including a rusty star to put on our house, and a nice brown sweater for myself.  We got some hygeine stuff in our stockings, so they must think we smell bad or something. lol Just kidding.  It's actually a good idea I think!  You gotta have deoderant, Q-tips, etc. anyways so why not use 'em as a stocking stuffer so that people don't have to go buy more when they run out.  I think I now have a like a 2-year supply of body wash that has been given to me (either as a stocking stuffer or just because they didn't want it); that's great because that's one less thing I have to buy.  We are poor and trying to save money anyways, so why not?!
M smoked a salmon that he took to my family's x-mas.  Everybody that tried it said that it was good.  I'm a picky eater so I didn't try it, but it sure did smell good!  I'd like for him to smoke me some cheese sometime, then I could have and endless supply of smoked cheese.  Mmmmmm....

Wedding Pictures

Here I have posted a few pictures from our wedding.  I have written a caption for each picture below the picture.



 Releasing the balloons after the ceremony.

 The balloons that we released all together before the ceremony.

 The main cake on the cake table.  Notice the sunflower cupcakes and the his and her cakes on each side of it which are cut off in the picture.

 The ceremony behind the barn.

 The free balloons floating in the sky.

 My cake with an Allis Chalmers fondant tractor.

 M's cake with a John Deere fondant cake.

 My pa and me riding up to the ceremony in the horse and carriage.  The only people that knew about the carriage was my family, me, and anybody else that has been to either of my big sister's weddings.

 The bridal party (except the 4 kids), M, and I.

 My something blue and wedding shoes.

 M and I walking towards the soybean field to get some pictures.

 The wall of M and me!  This was behind the DJ.  It consists of the firefighter cross (with blue flames) painting and ISU painting that I painted (with help from my mom) for M last year for Christmas, a buck that M's cousin shot, and my Wizard of Oz lights.

This was what the weather was doing a day or two before the wedding.

Our memorial wall with our loved ones pictures (names have been removed for privacy).

Where the ceremony was held, without all the people.  The haybales and chairs were for the people that couldn't stand the entire ceremony; everybody else stood.

The cookie and mint table.

New Family Members

Saturday, M and I adopted a pup from a local pound.  He is thought to be a lab/shepard mix, is close to a year old, and we named him Nitro.  Why Nitro you ask?  He is a VERY spirited dog that likes to chew everything he can get his teeth on, and he loves to play.  Basically, he is ornary; he's so full of life.  M wanted to name him Cyclone (after ISU) which would've been very fitting, but Nitro just seemed like a much better name.  When my 4 year old nephew was asked for an idea for his name, he suggested Sally.  We laughed but decided we didn't want our dog to have gender issues.  Last night Nitro got ahold of a box with a few full beer cans in it that somehow got left on the porch.  Nitro found it, emptied the cans out of the box, and left bits and pieces of the box on the porch and grass.  He's a lil scoot!

Our second new family member is the goldfish I got yesterday.  He his orange and white.  We were trying to think of names, and M first came up with orangey (very original).  Then, we decided on O.J. (like orange juice), and M proceeded to add "Simpson" to O.J.'s name.  He's a gold fish, so there's nothing too exciting about him, but it is still nice to have a lil goldfish.

10 Day Anniversary

Well, M and I have been married for ten days now, and we haven't gotten sick of each other yet.

We are in our house and slowly moving things in a little at a time.  We slept the first couple of nights on an air mattress, but as soon as the electrical inspector OKed our house, we moved the bed and couch in.  I have never been so happy to have a mattress to sleep on.

Our wedding day was absolutly perfect; the good Lord was looking out for us.  The weather that day was perfect, whereas the day before and after were very windy and a little rainy.  There are so many beautiful pictures that family and friends took of us, and I am eager to see the photographer's pictures.  I will have to post a few at a later date.  The photographer just called... I'm going to go get our pictures right now!  She said they are on 7 CDs! lol

The short story of M and A

M and I are a couple of "crazy cats" living in rural Iowa.  M is 30, and I am 22.  I have three sisters, and he has one half brother, one half sister, one step sister, and two full sisters.  Between the two of us we have 10 wonderful nieces and nephews whom we love deeply and no children of our own.  We also have 5 parents total whom love us very much.

Our relationship started August 15, 2009, and we got engaged exactly two months later (10/15/2009).  It was a Thursday evening, M and I were talking on the phone (because I was 1.5 hours away at college).  M called and my dad for permission to marry me.  He called immediately and popped the question.  In my eyes it was the perfect proposal.  :)

M started building our home about the end of July last year, and we are just moving into this this week.  We only have concrete floors in our house, curtains to doors inside the house, and no trim but it is livable and that's all that matters to us.

Between building our house/shop, the wedding, and me finishing college it has been a crazy year but well worth it.

We don't have internet at our house, and we probably won't for a while.  If we need the internet real quick for something we will have to survive using my parent's dial-up or his dad and step-mom's high speed.  Basically, until we have internet of our own we won't be on here for very long.

Balloons

"M" and I ("A") are getting this Saturday (September 4, 2010) at my parent's farm in Creston, Iowa.  We, along with our family and close friend, will be releasing balloons after our ceremony, rather than blowing bubbles or anything like that.  If you found one of our balloons that we release, this is where we would like you to comment at.  Please let us know the date and location in which you found the balloon.  If we get time, we would like to assign each balloon a number and assign that number to an individual guest, so if you see a number on it (Example: #5) please give us the number that corrisponds with the balloon that you found.  We are curious to see just how far the balloons will travel before popping.  Thank you for your cooperation.