The roses from Tyler..."just because"















Well, unfortunately, our pictures from 2008 aren't all that great. They are quick snap-shots, one of us looks bad, etc. So we set out to the lake to get a good picture for our Christmas card. We didn't really end up with any spectacular, we used the picture at the top of the page. It is a cute winter picture though. Here are some of the shots we took just for fun while we were out at the lake.

My "strike a pose" husband

Josey...all smiles in the snow!

I haven't blogged for quite a while. I have some new pics but haven't put them on my computer yet. They are of Tyler and I on a date night...it was spur of the moment but the best part was Tyler bought me yellow roses before we even had the date planned. They were awesome!

Life has been good, busy, but good. I changed offices at work today...and I'll finish tomorrow morning (Saturday) at 7:30am! Yuck! I tried to go to a play tonight with some friends but it was sold out. The cool thing is that my running partner wrote and directed the play, I am so pumped for her that it was such a sucess. We are going to try and catch it again tomorrow at 2:00.

December is such a great month. Last weekend we had my work Christmas party, it was a lot of fun! Afterward, Tyler and I watched my bosses daughter, Katelyn. We love her to death, serioulsy, I might steal her! It is so fun to watch Tyler with her, but not fun enough to have one of our own. :-) We are happy being "just the two of us" right now, so we'll continue watching other people's babies. The best part was Katelyn sleeping next to me in bed, so sweet!

We are going to Oregon for Christmas, I have been asking my mom if we can bake a bunch of stuff for months. I am pretty excited to try some new things, maybe some pies and other goodies. Before I can get too excited I have to finish finals. I have three left, I'll be done on Dec. 18th. Next semester should be much more enjoyable...yay!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend, I'll try to post some pictures soon!

Mr. and Mrs. Nels Olsson

My mom is a married woman. She married Nels on September 27, 2008 in one of his fields. It was a beautiful day, and what I am most taken back by are the pictures. Usually I have to remind my mom to "smile real" so that we get a good picture. There was no need to remind her to "smile real" on her wedding day, these smiles are for real!

The Lord is blessing their marriage and they are learning a lot about each other. Congrats to Nels and mom! I love them both!

Friends

Today I caught up with a friend from high school. Her name is Alyssa and she is a doll! It was so fun to catch up with her on the phone, although I need to get her out to Idaho soon! I am thankful that we can see eachother/talk on the phone only 2-3 times a year and I know that she loves me and that I treasure her friendship. Although I am thankful for that fact, it also makes me wish I could see her more. So, here I am, declaring to the world, that I am going to call Alyssa more. She is such a great friend and deserves more than 2 or 3 phone calls a year. I have a lot of friends that I need to call more. It is so fun to see how we are all changing and enjoying life.

I guess the message of this blog is, don't sit around and wait for someone to call you. Call them, it'll make their day and in turn, yours will be better as well. We are all busy, we all value our time, so let someone else into your day. You will find true joy by putting others before yourself.

Glass Half Full

Well, I am proud to say that I have revamped my outlook on life. I wouldn't say I had a negative outlook, I would say I was a realist. I am a list maker, I go through steps to accomplish a goal and if something doesn't seem feasible I move on. Tyler on the other hand is an optimist. He dreams big!

For the first year of our marriage I can remember Tyler saying that I was "downing" all of his ideas and I had no idea what he meant. I didn't think I was downing them, I just didn't understand how he was going to accomplish his goals. To me it seemed like a waste of time to dream of things that were out of reach.

Well, this summer, while attending a huge conference for work, my outlooked changed. There was a speaker who spoke to women about our outlook on life. She opened my eyes to my negative attitude. So, I took to heart everything she said and went home and tried it out. In the first weekend that I was home Tyler told me that he loved the new Macey. I was laughing more, shaking things off that really didn't matter, and dreaming big. While Tyler noticed the change and people at work noticed the change, no one else really commented. Then, in October, peopel started to notice. My father in law commented that I seemed so much happier. AND I AM!

I have really re-written my outlook and it has benefitted nearly every area of my life. It is so cool to see Tyler now too. I think before, when I was being a "realist," I was crushing his optimistic spirit. Now we both spend most of our time together laughing. Don't get me wrong, I still have my moments (or hours) when I am not so pleasant, but they are fewer and farther between than before!

Anyway, if you can relate to this at all, I would encourage you to change your outlook! We only live once, and why look back and think "I should've laughed more." JUST LAUGH!

Being lonely...a feeling I am not used to

Well, Tyler was called out on another fire on Thursday, August 28th. He found out at 11:00pm on Wednesday and left at 4:15am on Thursday morning. While I am so thankful that he is able to go and do something he enjoys for great pay, I am surprised by how lonely I am this time. I think the short notice doesn't help and he has to call me from someone else's cell phone so we only talk for 5 minutes so that we don't use all of their minutes. I am not a lonely person, I am an only child. My sister-in-law and cousin hung out with me for over 24 hrs...as soon as they left I was all teary eyed. Ahh! Not used to this. Although it is a wonderful feeling to know that I miss him so much because he is the love of my life.

Clean Clean Clean

Well, although I don't mind cleaning and organizing...I just can't keep up. So this last weekend we had a garage sale, got rid of most of the stuff we put out and made $150! Even though some junk is out of the house it was still a MESS. So, I asked my sister-in-law if I could hire her for a weekend to clean my house. She said yes, and now my house is amazing! Seriously, I love it. And now it is easier to keep up on the cleaning. I feel so blessed that she would help me out like that. It was so great because it was the weekend before I start school full time while still working full time. Yikes! Friday we are having some friends over for dinner and I am not stressed about my house being clean at all! What a great feeling! Thank goodness for Tara, my wonderful sister-in-law.

My Man is home!

Tyler came home today from a fire in Burns, OR. He goes out on a fire or two each summer and works with the water pumps and weed wash. It is a great opportunity for money and it is so good for our marriage. I don't know what it is, but when he is gone/I am gone we learn so much. This time I had to do his "chores." Tyler does all of the yard work (I help and do flowers). We don't have inground sprinklers so he is always outside watering, moving the sprinkler, planting grass, laying sod, spreading fertilizer, etc. While he was gone I watered a couple of times a day, took the garbage out, etc. It made me realize how much he does to keep our house a home. It was such a blessing to have a couple of days to realize that I really don't do it all and I am blessed to have a helper. I highly recommend a few days apart for every couple. When he got home I saw him for about 15 minutes on my lunch break. I think he made me laugh the entire time! It is so nice to have him back, we both feel so blessed. We have been married for a little over a year and the best thing about marriage is even on the hard days when we don't see eye to eye, we know that we are with the person that will love us forever. I am reminded daily that no day is truly a "bad" day.