Blue Moon Highlights!

It's been so long since we've sat down and thought through what's going on in our life. And maybe that's because for the last year or so, we have not had any big changes. In february marks one year we've been in our 1st house. We love it! In one year, we've made so many changes. I've proud of matt for improving and fixing so many things in our house. This is his first time with a lot of those things but he's pushing forward and learning like crazy. Just in the last few months, he has installed a screen door, fertilized the lawn, hung a mirror and a fan, fixed the sprinklers and so much more. We are trying to settle into things slowly so we don't regret where we've hung anything or decorating a certain way. We love owning a home. We are having fun calculating and thinking through our different spaces and figure out how to best use them. It's been a blast. We've painted the interior of the house-- yellow sunshine. Matt has a dojo workout space; I have a Mom Cave craft room. We are loving being home owners!

We are so thankful for our lives here. Sometimes there are so many blessings, we can't keep up. For instance, we were actually gifted the opportunity to take our girls to Disney over Christmas! We'd been wanting to, but hadn't been able to free money to do it. So getting a gift to take the girls was such a delight. Because of another generous gift, we were actually able to take the girls a second time. Matt & I are holding the same jobs we've had for awhile now. I continue working at our church as the director of creativity & communication. Matt is on-air and working as the promotions director at the radio station. We've both been picking up a little freelancing as well. And Matt's rockshow, Level 6, is now playing across the country in several cities-- including minneapolis!

We are thankful for family who has traveled to visit us over the years we've lived here. Just in one year's span we've had my mom, matt's mom, matt's sister, my sister... my mom and sister just visited again and now matt's sisters are coming very shortly! We haven't been able to visit as often as we would like, so we are very grateful family has made the effort to visit us!

But speaking of not visiting as often as we'd like, Matt & I have focused on budgeting a bit the last half year. We are taking more control of the daily, weekly & monthly flow of our money. We were never big spenders. We were always good at not spending money and being sort of intuitive with when we needed to take it easy, but we never really had a budget. But, having a budget has been so freeing. We know how much we can spend on each category every month. There's no longer guess work involved. and the beauty of it is that we now have goals and other things we are saving for. So now, we are planning to visit our families 1-2 times a year. We actually have a plan in place so we can do this instead of watching the years roll by and never being able to afford it on our own. I'm proud of us!!

We are very much looking forward to this summer. We are planning our first purposed trip to see family. Really want to plan in some fun days while we're there and really think through it. Matt is also returning to Comiccon and bringing a friend with him this time around. Our friend is going to help Matt build an epic shade off the back of the house, too! Stoked for that. After summer is over, I get to look forward to turning 30... and this August, we celebrate our 9 year anniversary.

Speaking of our anniversary, Matt & I having been having fun planning our 10-year anniversary celebration for next year! We rented a castle, booked one of our favorite artists all in California's central coast & wine country. It's still 1 1/2 years off, but we're getting organized now and hoping some out of town friends and family come. Save the date cards are being sent out the next few weeks!

All for now. I hope to do better again about reflecting on life on a somewhat regular basis!