Off to a good start!

Though my blogging my be somewhat inconsistant and sporadic (does that word remind anyone else of the movie "Clueless", or is it just me??), I hope it's not because life is boring and un-blogworthy.  Well, let's be honest, many times it is!  But as I've gotten older, I've learned that that is a-ok with me :)

The past few weeks seemed to fly by... we hit the CU/Baylor game in Boulder (the Buffs actually won, which was odd), had Kristen and Thomas over for dinner and a game of Settlers (and boy is baby Katin gorgeous! Thomas said we should get "one" soon), made dinner for my family, shopped for a new side table  in our living room (exciting stuff!), finally started to use Google calendar (wow, it's pretty smart, not sure why we weren't using it before), welcomed from afar the arrival of Nathaniel and Kim's adorable baby, Penny, hung out at Matt's work's holiday party, dyed my hair brown, and spent a few days in the mountains at my dad's new condo with some great friends.  All very fun stuff.  We feel very blessed to have friends and family close by to spend time with!

Here are a few pics from last weekend:

Getting ready to head to the Museum for the Medtronic party (with my newly brown hair!)

Catching the Genghis Khan exhibit at the Museum with Lindsay and John (not sure why I'm standing so awkwardly!)

Arriving in Frisco!

Getting ready to hit the rink in Keystone with Joe and Keri

One of my 30 seconds on the ice :)

ice skating... or something

The really good skaters

AMAzing breakfast in Frisco

cute streets of downtown Frisco

Speaking of friends and family, I'd be foolish to not mention the tragedy that happened in our world this past week.  Though we don't know anyone personally affected by the earthquake in Haiti, we have heard an enormous amount of heartbreaking stories this week, and our prayers go out to those that have lost their homes, their families, their livelihoods.  A great friend (with a HUGE heart for the world) directed me to Partners in Health, an organization that is doing amazing work in Haiti (and has been for quite some time).  We chose to support them in our own small way, along with Matt's former company's relief organization, as their staff there too were dramatically affected by the earthquake.  The images and stories are heartwrenching, and we pray that God will heal their land swiftly.  We are blessed to live in a land with solid infrastructure and resources aplenty.  May we never forget to share our blessings with those less fortunate.

Of far less importance, I would be remiss to fail mentioning that the Vikings are one game away from the Superbowl... after all, this is technically Matt's blog too.  This is in his honor:

The Holidaze

2009 was the Larsons' first Christmas as an official "family" (yes, Lincoln generally counts/acts as a child).  It was a holiday season filled with decorating our new home (SO much fun, though taking it down was NOT so much fun), lots and lots of snow (in fact, it's snowing as I type), and new Christmas traditions.  Growing up, I never had too much of a tradition for Christmas... I think the main ones that stick out in my mind were watching White Christmas with my sister and opening new pajamas on Christmas Eve.  Pretty exciting stuff!  Now that I'm one of many "split" families, each family has started a few of its own new traditions (dinners with my stepmom's family, video games with my half-brother), and starting my own traditions has been something I've been really looking forward to for quite some time.  This year was a great start.

Matt and I were fortunate enough to find a church in Wash Park that we've really grown to love.  We've met new friends and more importantly been very challenged by the sermons and principles of the church.  A few Sundays before Christmas, we had a guest speaker talk about the role of consumerism not only in our lives, but in our faiths... and Matt and I were both extremely moved.  I don't think anyone can deny how materialistic we all are (though blessed as we may be), and it was truly challenging to hear the words of someone who lives a much simpler life.  (If you're interested in the awesome teaching, you can find the podcast from Dec 13th here.)  We decided to try to focus a bit more on the true meaning of the Christmas season and a bit less on the "gifts" that we were so obsessed with buying for others.  I think we'll always be easily distracted by "things", but it was nice to know we were able to give "gifts" to others by bringing joy to the less fortunate near and far.  As is always true in my life: baby steps.

Matt played piano at church on Christmas Eve, which admittedly, I had been a little perturbed about since we were supposed to have dinner with my mom that night.  But, as usually happens, God totally put me in my place when my mom, her husband, and my half brother joined us for the service, and my mom and stepdad (who usually are what I'd probably call deists and don't care much for Christianity) were dancing with joy to the music and singing so loudly to the Christmas hymns that they nearly lost their voices!  It was my small Christmas miracle.  :)  We came home as a family to what I hope will be one of our own new traditions: my mom made her amazing, homemade enchiladas, we drank some wine, talked and laughed, and watched some of a Charlie Brown Christmas (I think I napped at that point).  But most importantly, we were all together in our new home, which was filled with a lot of love that night.

 

 

 

We also spent Christmas with my dad, stepmom, and some of her family which was fun as well.  The dynamics there are still a work in progress, so, hopefully I'll have more to report next year :)  Unfortunately, the one birthday tradition that I was looking forward to (biscuits and gravy!) was missed.  But that's ok... for my waistline.  ;)

Thankfully a few old friends were in town (they must be old, because we celebrated our TEN year high school reunion this past summer... yikes), so we had them over for drinks.  So great to see everyone, I hope we can always keep up these visits, no matter where life takes us.

New Year's Eve came much too quickly, as I was certainly not ready to go back to work (that's an entirely different blog).  But, in one short three day weekend, Matt and I really started to feel like things were truly coming together for us here in Denver.  We felt so much more at home as finally there was no shortage of things to do!  We spent New Year's Eve with some awesome new friends (which we are so much more grateful for than we could write in a blog), and visited a few other friends over the weekend.  We also caught Avatar at the Imax (in 3D of course) with Zach and Casey.  Pretty sweet.  Overall, we're definitely looking forward to the coming year!

Politics in 2010

Having been out of the political scene for a year now, I can't say I'm very fresh on the issues/people/campaigns.  Aside from a friend that's running for Congress in Eastern Colorado, I've lost touch with most districts and their upcoming elections.  And despite all the chaos and mud-slinging, I have to say that I do miss a lot of it!  After learning last night that Gov. Bill Ritter is not seeking re-election, I found myself getting up to speed (well, as much as I can at work) on the race and the craziness that it will soon become!  I'm repulsed at the thought of Ken Salazar running for (and even worse, winning)  the position, but Mayor Hickenlooper doesn't bother me quite so much.  I'd love to see some fiscally conservative leadership back in the state, but for some reason (maybe it's his mustache), I'm not yet keen on Scott McInnis.

Too bad Wayne isn't running.  I'd love to work for him again, and would definitely be proud to campaign for him and his desire to balance the budget and control spending.  Plus, he happens to be such a decent human being, something you don't find much in politics these days. 

I digress.

Denver Post article on Ritter's dropout: http://www.denverpost.com/ci_14130197

2009: Year In Review

Wow, where do we even begin.  2009 was the year of more changes than Matt or I could have ever imagined.  After packing up all our belongings, loading them into our tiny cars, and driving across the country from DC to Colorado in nonstop snow (with pit stops in Chicago and Minnesota), we said goodbye to Washington, DC and hello to Colorado.  We got married in March (and those of you that flew in or were in town will likely never forget the blizzard that was our wedding week/weekend...my cousins even totaled their rental car trying to drive from the airport to Boulder), we looked for and found (...though emphasis is on the "looked for" part) new jobs, bought a new home, made new friends, found a new church, etc.  It's been a busy year!

I'm not sure if it's weird to say this or not, but I think the moving across the country thing was the hardest adjustment for both of us - even harder than adjusting to married life (which hasn't been all that hard... Matt's a wonderful - and very easy going - husband.  He puts up with my insanity pretty well)!  Leaving DC was very sad for both of us - and we still think of/miss it ALL the time.  We really miss our friends, the fun places, the adventures, and the access to so many other fun cities nearby.  It's been difficult moving to what feels like a new place, trying to meet new people, and fighting the non-friendly job market.  Slowly but surely we're getting accustomed to life in Denver, we're meeting more people, and we're hoping to really build a home filled with joy, laughter, and love (and a crazy dog).

SO - before I ramble too much, here are a few pictures from the year.  It's been a great one, a year filled with transitions of all kinds.  We're VERY much looking forward to 2010 and what it may have in store.  A few things we're hoping for include:
* Lincoln magically becoming a behaved dog
* Winning Powerball
* Seeing the Twins win the World Series (that part was from Matt)

 

Visiting NYC in October to watch Bryan kick butt in the marathon (also got to see my great cousins and a few friends that live in Manhattan).  We love that city!

Visiting Seattle in October for Emmett's wedding - we did it all (Space Needle, Aquarium, Harbor tour, Science Center, original Starbucks, Pike Place Market... we were TRUE tourists, and it was awesome)

Vegas with the ladies for my bachelorette party - it was amazing :)

Honeymooned in Cancun!  We want to go back... um, now.

Winterpark with Bryan and his fam in February

A few fun wedding pics

  

  

Rockies games at Coors field (our apartment was a 15 min walk from the stadium, which was nice.  And Matt refused to wear a Rockies jersey when the Nats came to town.  Who knows)

A couple Christmas pics

(we hosted my mom and her fam at our new house for Christmas Eve - she made her amazing enchiladas)

 Catching a CU game at Folsom (disappointing season to say the least):

 

Jamming at my mom's house in New Mexico

Catching a Broncos game (the one where they lost to the ahem-Raiders!  What?  Who would have thought... I bring Matt to CO and we have no good football to watch!)

Our new home :-)

Other highlights from 2009 include getting to go to DC a few times (for work, but more importantly to see friends), catching a few concerts (the Killers at the Fox in Boulder, Jimmy Eat World, Death Cab at RED ROCKS, Ten out of Tenn, Appleseed Cast, and some other randoms), Matt trying to learn to snowboard in NM with my stepdad (he spent more time on his butt than on the board), driving to MN for Thanksgiving (and a quick trip in August - I mean, a 14 hour drive, not bad right??), TEN YEAR high school reunion (woah, I feel old), spending the weekend in Aspen for the McCready (Law Dawgs!!) wedding, lots of trivia nights at the Tavern, and the list goes on.

Looking forward to 2010!

Here We Go

Sometimes I wonder if technology has been detrimental to our "communities" as more often than not, I know I prefer to email or text someone over calling them anymore (sad, but true). I'm the first to admit that Facebook/texting/blogging/emailing have in many ways taken the place of real life interaction with my friends/family... which sometimes seems just plain ridiculous! (And I also admit that I need to get better at non-computer based communication.) BUT, I've realized that in some ways, all of this fancy technology has really brought people together in a much different way than before... in one afternoon (today - happy first day of 2010!), I was able to catch up on the blogs of about ten different friends and see just what's been going on in their lives. And not just read or hear about their joys and adventures, but see pictures and movies about them, too. I mean, you really can't beat that.

So, in that light, I've decided that the Larsons will start a blog. We really don't have much exciting news to report, so there may just be a lot of random pictures of our cute but crazy dog, Lincoln, and who knows what else. But hopefully, we can start chronicling some of the joys and adventures of our lives as I've been able to watch other folks do. What a fun snapshot of life to keep!

Wish us luck. And witty writing skills, because I'm severely lacking in that department. :-)