R & R

The biggest blessing over these last couple weeks has been the amount of rest available. Jake & I took our honeymoon at the end of January 2012 and used all of our vacation leave.  Trips since January have been limited and mostly over holiday weekends. Which are usually busy and not relaxing. We weren't behind on anything so being able to just stay home with no commitments was huge for us!  It did make me feel like I wasn't doing something I should be doing, sometimes I get restless and feel like relaxing is wrong.  But God knows we need rest and our souls rejuvenated so I am very thankful for having this time.

In the spirit of recapping 2012, I like most can say, wow, that flew!  

January held our wedding and honeymoon in Spain.  I'm sure there was more in early January but I was in limerence so can't remember much else : )

I think most of February was just trying to get settled in to a routine in a different stage of life.  And telling lots of people about our adventure in Spain.  This was also the last time I saw my mentee Kaneesha.  She was beginning the process of going back with her mother. 

In March my sister Stephanie gave birth to her first biological child.  Ithan Santiago Rinkenberger Bahr.  Chel flew down to Mexico from Denver around the same time and so we were able to spend a couple days with her while she was here.  We also started a bible study called Crowne Financial, took some HS boys to Rangeviews State game in Boulder, and Anthony Martin to his boyscout racecar evening.  Work was busy as well since both of our maintenance managers quit, one in January and one in March.

In April I flew to Kansas City for my sister Chelsie's bach-ette weekend.  We had a great time doing a lot of catching up with our friend Lindsay, the Maria's, and my mom & aunt.  Steph even joined us through skype! My friend Abby & her family were in Breckenridge over Easter so we spent an evening with them before coming home for our Sunday school Easter program.  I also won volunteer of the year through Arapahoe County Human Services.  I thought I was one of many who were awarded this so I ended up blowing off the awards ceremony.  I felt incredibly dumb when my supervisor dropped off a large 'trophy' for me and told me I was the only one that received this award. : / 

Chel & Lee got married in May and so I flew in to Wichita late Thursday and Jake and a friend, Jared, traveled down later.  On their way back to OR after the wedding, they had an 8 hour layover so we got to spend time with them as newly weds...not that exciting.. ; ) My parents drove Chel's stuff out to OR a couple weeks later and so they stopped overnight as well.  May also began the search for new renters as the girls living in our house gave notice that they planned to move out mid-June.

June & July were incredibly busy months!  Most of June was spent repairing the house and looking for new renters.  Jake also had a mens retreat in early June and I had all the little girls over for a slumber party.  The new renters moved in the last weekend in June which was also during vacation bible school.  At the end of that week we headed for KS for Aaron and Maria's wedding.  In July we hosted Kanorado in Colorado and all of Jake's siblings came out for a week.  A friend with a little girl that has a G-tube was out for 3 days and stayed with us and used my car.  Also during this time if we had any free weekends we spent it working on the landscaping at the rental.  

Renovated front yard

Aaron & Maria's Wedding

Fishing Lake in Breckenridge

Kanorado 2012

 In August, we helped our friends in Winter Park work on their house.  Actually, Jake did.  I babysat!  Later that month an 18 year old named Josh moved in with us.  We also participated in the Western Churches Invite and kept quite a few guys at our place.  Weekends slowly started slowing down as we finished the rest of the yard at the rental. Oh and I turned 27 and tried my hand for the first time at making my own birthday cake!

September brought no cold weather.  And now in January when it's freezing, quite literally, I'm wishing that there was still no cold weather.  When Kev went back to school, Kerry started working evenings at a bookstore.  So we had the pleasure of getting to watch Harper once a week.  Jake cut down our apple tree, as it's life span was ending.  But he ordered 8 more fruit trees so I guess no worrying about no fruit!!  We also visited Jake's Gpa Hodel in Roanoke.  Our nephew Graysen had been born the week before we got out there and so we were able to see the little guy, dual purposed trip!

I started one on one Spanish classes in October.  We also started working on our own backyard, pulling up old tree limbs that had been left in a ginormous pile in the middle of the back yard and cutting down more of a dead Cyprus tree.  When we finally got it cleaned up, we made an incredibly large compost pile of anything compos-able and have a very promising wood pile started. We also picked bushel beyond bushel of apples and tomatoes and loved having fresh pico and apple sauce, pies, dehydrated apples...anything with apples really : )  

I wasn't joking!! Many bushels!

I finally got to meet my nephew Ithan in November and it was hard not to spend all of October waiting for this trip. Thanksgiving was at our house and we hosted 9 people under the age of 28 and then my dad : )  We tried our hand at a Pumpkin Ale homebrew.  Kev has brewed before but this is a first for the rest of us.

And here we are ending with December.  It was full of programs, caroling, house parties, and all kinds of work related activities. So at the end of this recap for 2012...many blessings and well wishes for 2013!