2 Years

I am a week and a half behind, but Tyler and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary on the 29th.

I can definitely say I love him way more than the day that I married him & am looking forward to forever with him.

HAPPY 2 YEARS TO US!

Congrats to Nat-Nat!

May has been a fun month but a month that has made me feel rather old. My little sister is 5 years younger than me and so after my own high school graduation I felt like it would be ages before it would be her turn, but low and behold "ages" has come. In ways it has flown right by and in other ways it has felt like more than 5 years, but either way I feel a little old. She's seriously going to be joining me at school next year. We're planning on taking a few classes together which seems so strange to me, because the last time we went to the same school, she was in Kindergarten and here she is, all grown up and graduated! I've been joking that she'll probably graduate college before me and it really is pretty possible. She's much smarter than me and got lots of college credits while she was in high school. I'm so proud of her for graduating and can't wait to see what the future holds for her. Today as I sat and watched her graduate I had to fight back emotions (another sign of my old age, as a youngster I had no emotions). I didn't feel the slightest bit emotional at my own graduation and certainly didn't think I'd want to get all emotional today, but knowing what it has taken Nattie to get to today brought up this overwhelming sense of pride. She has endured more in the last 2+ years than any high school student should ever have to. Her sophomore year went very well for her, but come junior year her health took a dive and she's really never recovered from it. She has struggled with quite a few different health issues for years (also something no young person should ever have to have) but last year they just simply got out of control and she had to miss a lot of school which meant for a lot of make up work for her...and by make up work, I mean entire terms of work. This year was slightly better but still a challenge and her health still made it really difficult for her to be at school and drag herself out of bed everyday, but after lots of sacrifices, tears, and hard work, she made it and I couldn't be more proud of her! Way to go Nat-Nat!

Seminary Graduation (last week)

Graduation Lunch at Riverside

A Few Pre-Graduation Pictures

Post Grad Pictures

A Year of Change is Right!

I've mentioned several times that I thought 2012 was going to be full of change and I wasn't kidding! I started a new job 3 weeks ago and Tyler has been working at his new job for a month or so now. Little did I know our jobs would GREATLY change how much we see each other. Basically, we're lucky to see each other for an hour straight, no lie. Last night we had a whole 15 minutes where we were together and tonight we didn't overlap at all. We don't even sleep at the same time. We were really lucky before to have very similar work hours and had a lot of time together, up until last semester in school we even had school the same night so we were only away from each other the one night a week and we actually in the same building! The time away has been alright, but I'd love to have a few hours straight to spend with Tyler! It would sure be nice! I even work Saturdays, which is his only day off. I've had my moments when I get super frustrated by our schedules but then I realize that this too shall pass and so then I just see all the humor in our craziness and laugh!

23.

 I had a really great birthday this year. I spent the entire day with my mom. We did lots of shopping and went to lunch. Then, once Tyler and my dad were off work we went to dinner at Outback.

Did I mention I got spoiled?

Yes. I do like Pink just a little bit.

New Years!

Our new year is already off to a great start...

We partied it up with some family on New Years Eve and had lots of fun. We ate food...unfortunately it wasn't very good food...thanks to my nacho cheese disaster. Note to Self: Try out the recipe before deciding to make it for company.  We enjoyed some way overdue sparklers! (We bought them with Misty & Russ on the 4th of July, because we were dying to do them and then ended up waiting 5 months to actually use them.) And yes, as you can see, we struggle. Our logic was that we could just do normal 2's and then flip the picture...didn't think about the fact that when they flip, they say 2102. We enjoyed playing/watching the kids play Just Dance on the Wii. By eleven our place was quiet and empty but I insisted that Tyler had to stay up and wasn't allowed to go to bed before midnight. We watched the ball drop and drank us some bubbly! No pictures (besides the firework ones taken by Misty) because I thought I had lost my SD card for my camera :( turns out it was where I had it all along.

On new years day we went to church and it was our first week as Sunbeam teachers. We got to move up with some of our nursery kids to primary. It was a fun new experience for us and they're super cute. In sharing time we had learned about choices and consequences...one of the examples of a good choice was cleaning their room...so when we got to class that was definitely engraved in their minds, because when we asked them what they liked to do for fun they said things like clean their room and pick up their toys...haha. Guess their parents will be pleased? Hopefully they will learn something from us...at the end of class Tyler asked them if they remembered what they had just learned and they all shook their heads no. Looks like we're going to have to step up our game. For dinner we had fondue, which is a Schaefer family New Years tradition...one of my favorites!!! Only now at our house, we do it better without any gross shrimp!

On Monday Tyler had to go back to work, but I had the day off so I went to a movie with my family. We went and saw War Horse because my dad has been dying to see it. I loved it! I expected that I would, but didn't expect it to be quite as good as it was. I know a bunch of people who thought it looked so boring (including my husband) but its far from that. Its a pretty long movie and I hate long movies...even if I'm enjoying them I usually get super anxious for them to be over  but I didn't feel that way at all in War Horse. I didn't cry, but it definitely gets to your emotions. After the movie I was thinking about it and decided that it was the best movie I'd seen all year. And then I realized the year had just started so that wasn't saying much, haha. So I guess we'll see if any movies can beat it this year. After that we went to dinner with the family and then called it a night! Spending time with family is always great!

As you can see...Nate really loves pictures.

Next week we will start school up again, which I dread but am also really excited for. Last year at this time we weren't in school because life was just too crazy, so I'm excited we will be going this semester because it means we're one step closer to being done...unfortunately we still have lots of steps to go but progress is always good! Tyler finally has a major and is all done with his generals so that has made things a little more exciting!

I told Chelsey a few weeks ago that I feel like 2012 is going to be a year of change. I honestly have no clue what is going to change, I'm not even sure why I think it, but for some reason I just do, so I guess we will see!!! It is 2012 so who knows, maybe the world will end ;)