2015 in Review

Well 2015 was an eventful year for us. I’m not even surprised that it flew by so quickly. Matt finished up his 3rd year in Dental School and started his journey towards the finish line. I started working on the Marketing Team at Missouri Star Quilt Company and hit my 5-year anniversary with the company. We spent countless hours at the gym trying to counteract my habit of cooking more food than we can eat. We went on spring break to Ikea here in KC and treated ourselves to some gardening tools; it was a party. We then used those gardening tools and planted a wildflower garden in a small patch behind our apartment. It grew much wilder than we had planned and by the end of summer we had flowers taller than us. Who knew that a wildflower mix would really grow wild? The lawn care guys weren’t too pleased with our addition to the property. We used the wedding gift from Matt’s parent’s and went on a cruise to the Eastern Caribbean where we ate too much food, swam with sting rays, zip lined through Costa Rica, went horse back riding down the beach and collected all the sand and shells we could sneak back onto the boat. 

We tested out our parenting skills and babysat like champs for some extra dough on more occasions than we can count. We parted ways as teachers for the Valiant 11 Sunday School Class and I joined the Primary Presidency after being the Assistant Girl’s Camp Director and Matt took the daunting task of Seminary Teacher for the school year. We lost Matt’s wedding band in a blow up obstacle course, prayed like crazy and retrieved it a week later. That was truly a miracle! We vacationed to Schlitterbahn and rode the world’s tallest waterslide, Verrückt and it was awesome. We got two kittens and named them Batman and Robin. They stole our hearts and continue to steal many hours of our sleep. We cheered for the Royals and bonded with the entire city over our boys in blue. We then searched relentlessly for special edition World Series Shatto Bottles and were unsuccessful.  We raced in a 5k Wipeout Run and finished strong with a kiss at the waterslide finish line. 

We hit our one year anniversary and surprised each other with roses. Bacon roses for Matt and real ones for me. Thanks to my sister, we were able to treat our selves to dinner and a movie! We made our Halloween Costumes from scratch and scared the neighborhood kids when we dressed up like Jack and Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas. We’re already brainstorming for next year.

We watched all of the Star War movies in chronological order for the first time in my life. I surprised myself when I became excited for the next movie to come out!. We spent Thanksgiving at my parent’s house and ate nothing but leftovers for an entire week. My mom really knows how to cook for an army! Matt devoted most of his time to studying and passed the second set of National Dental Board Exams, leaving him with a single semester of school left before he’s officially Dr. Connell. We spent Christmas at Matt’s parent’s and played the rolls of an angel and a Shepard in the family nativity on Christmas Eve. Matt’s sister put together a whole program with narrators and music. Matt made me cry when he sang a solo, “What Child Is This?” while his sister played violin. 2015 was a great year for us. We smiled everyday. We laughed until we cried.

We learned more and grew closer together. We made new friends and spent time getting to know our family better. We helped each other accomplish goals and continued to better ourselves. Cheers to an ever better year in 2016.