So Long 2011...Hello 2012!!

Well I can safely say we held true to our new years resolution for 2011. This past year has been quite the journey testing out new workout programs and pushing ourselves to get into the best shape possible. We are now more aware of what we eat and strive to do at least 30 min of working out 6 days a week. 2011 was a great start to a well-balanced lifestyle.

And now onto 2012. Reid will look forward to graduation from law school and Tara is thrilled to finally be settled somewhere. I would say our resolution for 2012 is good fortunes. Good fortunes in Reid finding a job, building a new friend base and maybe an extra surprise thrown in as well.

We hope to wrap up our last few months in Spokane with more times with friends, more camping, hiking, snowshoeing, and skiing adventures and finally being able to sit back, relax a bit and prepare for our new venture after graduation.

Happy New Years!!

Holiday Celebrations

Christmas Eve: we started a new tradition this year by ordering Jack Stack for our Christmas Eve dinner. It was so delicious that it is one that will most certainly be carried on. We invited some friends over who were very thankful we shared our BBQ :) After our dinner we moved on to our next tradition of opening our Christmas morning pajamas. Ended the night with the clay-mation version of Rudolph and the Island of Misfit Toys.

Christmas Morning: we started the morning with our stockings. Each year we both think our stockings aren't very good for each other, but we always love them! Tara got lots of new workout clothes and Reid's favorite was his Michael Buble Christmas cd...that and his Christmas countdown decoration.

For our Christmas breakfast we had fruit salad, cinnamon-oatmeal pancakes and OJ! Delicious. Breakfast was followed by opening our presents which is always fun!! Even Snyder joined in and dug a treat out of his stocking. Patti (Reid's mom) sent Snyder a holiday outfit which he was a team player and sported for 2 seconds, lol!!

After all the Christmas festivities were over, we decided to head out to Riverside State Park in Spokane and do a little hiking. It was nice to get out and enjoy the outdoors but not nice to get back to our car and find a ticket for not having a permit for parking inside the state park.

Birthday Celebrations: after hiking we headed home and made Reid's birthday dinner...pizza! Tara was not feeling the baking this year (and we were not really feeling the idea of having lots of left-over dessert) so there was no birthday cake but instead put candles in the pizza! Tara actually surprised Reid this year with his birthday gift of some hiking shoes, a Mt Rainier summit t-shirt and a geo-survey point for Mt Rainier. He said the gift was "very thoughtful."

We completed the night with some K-State basketball and our holiday beers! This was a wonderful Christmas and we hope everyone else had a wonderful holiday as well.

Holiday Treats

After much thought about what kind of cookies to make and who we wanted to give them too, Tara finally settled on making holiday cupcakes this year.

We made German Chocolate cupcakes with peppermint icing made from greek yogurt and confectioners sugar. They are shaped to be little peppermint teacups (thank you Betty Crocker wedding edition cookbook for the idea)

For delivery to friends Tara put them in a cute snowman bag. Hope everyone enjoys!

Snyder's Thanksgiving Blues

For Thanksgiving this year we had planned to travel to Texas to be with Tara's family. Unfortunately the day before we were scheduled to leave, Snyder had to get stitches in his paw for a gash in his paw pad. The poor guy is still trying to recover and his mean parents don't let him exercise off leash. Hopefully only a few more days of restricted exercise and he can go back to being his crazy self.

The only good thing that came from his trip to the vet was a festive Thanksgiving bandanna!

As for mom and dad, their Thanksgiving wasn't ruined. We put together a last minute meal of roast, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and biscuits. We found a few friends, invited them over and had a wonderful Thanksgiving after all.

**Update on the happenings of Snyder: Just today Tara took him for a walk and out of no where a Golden came over and attacked him. We tried to run away but the dog kept coming back and got to Snyder 3 or 4 times before a friendly witness grabbed the dog so we could make the get-away. Snyder got a small abrasion on his chest and either another abrasion or small puncture on his rear. Poor guy!!**

RIP Little Birdie

For my 13th birthday I convinced my parents that the best present in the world would be a little birdie. Of course I have the best parents in the world because I got Angel, an adorable cockatiel for my birthday.

I loved that bird when I first got it and would take her out of the cage and she loved sitting on your shoulder. We even got her to "whistle" at you and say "Angel pretty girl" and "Sweet baby."

As it was time for me to leave for college I am sure my parents weren't too thrilled that they were now "stuck" with the bird. But all-in-all she was good company.

My dad called me yesterday to say that Angel was no longer around. I will miss your chirps little birdie. RIP Angel

My First Hunting Trip

Last weekend Reid took our "dog child" out on his first hunting trip. We were both working on him in the weeks building up to the trip on some training techniques and he didn't catch on or seem interested at all. So going into the trip Reid wasn't expecting much from Snyder...

(Give me the bird Chris....come on give it to me)

But he surprised us all and took right to it! His "dog friend" Banks had been hunting before and after Snyder watched him flush out a couple of birds Reid said it was like a lightblub went off and he instantly understood what was going on.

Reid said he was proud of Mr. Snyder and hopes to be able to take him out again!! Successful first father/son hunting trip :)

Here's To You Jeep Liberty

Dear Jeep Liberty,

You came into our lives 3 years ago from a car lot in Manhattan, KS and today you rest in our car port in Spokane, WA.

You have taken us on many road trips, moved us half-way across the country and our favorite driven us up tiny dirt roads to trail-heads to experience the beauty of the mountains and we couldn't have asked for a better travel companion.

You survived one minor car accident and we still don't know why you keep telling us we need to check your engine but you do a great job driving Reid back and forth, up and down the hill to work and school, so keep up the good work.

But today we want to celebrate because we can finally call you "ours" as we mailed off your final payment. So from Reid and I both, Welcome To The Family Jeep Liberty!!

Happy H'owl'oween!!

Reid and I aren't much of a halloween celebrators but we do like to carve a pumpkin each year. Here are our pumpkins...

After a lot of debate about what we should carve, we settled on a "bat cat" from our carving book. However our pumpkin was only big enough to fit the head, lol.

This year Tara tried pumpkin painting with a friend. It was a lot of fun and way less messy!


Hope everyone else is having a fun and safe halloween weekend. We have struck out the last two years with no trick-or-treators so this year we did not cave in and buy candy because we didn't want to be stuck with all the left-overs.

Workout Buddies

As I mentioned earlier, Reid and I started working out together and have loved the results we've gotten. We got started on the P90X which is where we saw all of our changes. It was challenging at first trying to stay motivated/committed and fit the hour long workouts into our schedules, but now that we've been doing it for a while we have fell into a routine and can't imagine a day of no workout!

We started the program back in December 2010 (pictures on the left) and were off and on with it through July 2011. In July we re-started from the beginning and also decided to follow the diet plan that accompanies the workouts. The pics on the right were taken October 2011!

Tara has decided to take a small hiatus from the DVD programs and is currently working with a workout routine she created while Reid has started to tackle the Insanity program.

Aside from our new "love" for fitness, we stay extra busy working Snyder who loves the cooler fall weather and all the squirrels. This past weekend Snyder enjoyed a mountain bike ride and a trail run!! He fits right into our active family :)

It's Almost "The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year"

Well I think fall is the most wonderful time of the year but Reid would beg to differ. Anyways this year we made Amazon Wish List's for Christmas and wanted to share them...

Tara: http://amzn.com/w/YJH0BXJVDOQ3

Reid: http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/33X02LHHFCFNR

Purple Pride Weekend

This weekend Reid and I participated in a 5K mud race called Hell Run in Seattle. We found out a week or so before that our start time was the same as the K-State game time so we went for the K-State themed costume...

This race was much better than the 10K Dirty Dash we ran in Spokane earlier this year. Much more mud, better designed course and better obstacles to tackle. We enjoyed ourselves despite the chilly/misty weather

Posing with our muddy shirts...we were unable to get a pic right after we finished so this is after we rinsed off in the showers provided. We left the shirts untouched to you could see some of the muddiness we encountered.

K-State wasn't getting blown out by Baylor so we decided to drive into Seattle to catch the 3rd and 4th quarters at the alumni watch party. At first we were bummed we made the drive in because K-State fell to a 9 point deficit but they made us proud and pulled off the upset!! Should be a fun Thanksgiving when we go to Texas (my cousin and husband are Baylor grads)

Back to the grind this week though as Tara is finishing up her P90X program on Wednesday and Reid gets to look forward to his first midterm.

Snyder's Obsession

Fixated on the cat sitting on the neighbor's deck below us.

We're Back!!

I've decided to start writing again...now that I have more free time. And why do I have more free time? Well I am no longer coaching gymnastics. Ever since I went full-time with my job at LexisNexis, I didn't have enough time, or interest, to continue coaching. So I kept it up through the summer and recently coached my last class last week.

So what have Reid and I been up to? WORKING OUT!! We starting doing the P90X program and became addicts. Just recently in July we started the P90X program while following the nutrition guide and have both seen amazing results. We have never felt better about ourselves!!

Reid recently started his final year of law school (yahoo!!) and is keeping busy this semester with classes, extra-cirricular activities, interviews, work and much much more! I barely see the kid these days.

Well that was a brief (I mean really brief) run-down of what we've been doing. I'll be posting more frequently to keep you updated on our exciting lives (haha)...

Happy New Years

Well Reid and I didn't ring in the new year out on the town or even watching some celebration on TV. This year we decided to hit the hay and welcome the new year fresh off a good nights sleep. Yup...we were the "old balls" in bed at 10pm...woo hoo!!

But in other interesting news...Spokane had a snow storm that dropped 9-10inches of powdery snow. Reid and I have both enjoyed taking Snyder to the park to play in the snow. He loves digging his nose in the snow to hunt for the ball.

(This is the road in front of our house the day of the snow storm)

(Our backyard day of the storm)

(Getting out to run some errands...there is still all the snow on the trees 2 days after the snow storm)

Reid and I didn't really have any specific New Years resolutions. We both hope to continue our active lifestyle by finishing up P90X and getting out and doing more hiking. We already have plans for a trip to San Diego and Portland which we are excited for and we also may head to Phoenix with some of Reids law school classmates.

We are both very excited to see what 2011 has in store for us!! Hope everyone had a wonderful New Years!!