Summer down!

At this time of year when school supplies are on display at Target, decorations of orange, red, and brown are available at Michael's and Pottery Barn, and people begin pinning remarks of cold weather and boots on Pinterest, summer is coming to a close.  Most people started their school year yesterday.  Since I'm now in nursing school, I'm on a whole new schedule and I begin September 10th.  I'm jealous of those starting so early especially since I've already quit my job for school and I now spend my days crafting and homemaking.  Sounds fun, but it gets old.

We were able to end summer festivities well.  All summer we've had barbeques, swim parties, and fishing trips.  In our last month, we got to do the final summer activities to close a great season.

First, went on our annual Lake Powell trip.

For the rest of the month, we spent weekends swimming and relaxing.  Clearly Jack is a pro at this.

We celebrated Karsten's 24th birthday.  I didn't get him a gun this year, but he still had a good time with his camo walkie talkies!

Married for a Year

This is over a month late, but I'm bad at this.  On July 16th, 2012, we celebrated our 1 year anniversary!  Doesn't feel like a year at all!  It feels like this has been my life all along.  Every now and then I run into someone Karsten hasn't met and it brings me back to the fact that he's only been in my life for 2 years.  Best 2 years of my life.
To celebrate this momentous occasion, we spent the whole day together.  The romance started Sunday night.  Vegas doesn't get rain a lot but every now and then we get dumped on, especially on this night.  Once our backyard started to look like a lake, we decided we should check on our chickens to make sure they were dry and our coop was doing its job.  Without an umbrella we ran into the rain and immediately got drenched.  After discovering our chickens were dry as a bone and passed out we ran back to the door.  Like in a movie, Karsten grabs me, dips me, and gives me that romantic kiss in the rain that I never got and always wanted.  It was the perfect reminder that even though we've settled down into everyday life together, there is still magic in our relationship.

This was the aftermath of our clothes.  I've never been soaked like this in a Vegas storm!

Our anniversary started with gifts.  I'm very impatient; good thing he loves me.  My gift to Karsten was a custom made stetson cowboy hat and Karsten gave me the most beautiful rose gold diamond heart necklace.  

We spent the afternoon swimming and sun bathing by the pool.  It was so relaxing and probably my favorite day since Karsten was able to take off work to just spend time with me.

After a romantic dinner, we concluded our awesome day with a fairly dated tradition.

This is the top of our wedding cake that my mom froze and saved.

We were told on our 1 year anniversary we had to eat it.  For the sake of tradition, we had a bite.  I'm sort of glad my mom wasn't there to make us eat more than that.

 It was an amazing day to end an amazing year!  For the rest of my blog, I won't be in a newlywed cloud.  I am still wildly in young love with Karsten, but this marks the end of the first year of giggles and glitches.  I can't wait for many, many more years with this guy and hitting more landmarks and growth.