a post with a lot of words and only 1 photo

before diving into 2013 i think i should wrap up 2012 with a top ten of the year:

top ten of 2012:

cafe rio opened 5 miles from our house, we take taco tuesday very serious in our house.

lots and lots of visitors (we love visitors!)

jessie trip to nyc while steve slaved away for the election

first cherry blossom season in dc, absolutely breathtaking

moved to a bigger apartment, yay for more closets & hardwood floors

disneyland and the beach with some of our favorite people

billy elliot, memphis, newsies, momma mia! the year of many musicals

hottest DC summer on record. yikes

anniversary spent in utah, thanksgiving in new jersey and christmas in texas

celebrating the 2012 election on november 7th at 3am - about sums up steve's year

2013 started out busy and hasn't slowed down since! we visited friends in brooklyn for a weekend and spent the weekend laughing, eating and visiting the basketball hall of fame. we had the best time! steve had some great job interviews and got 2 job offers in a 12-hour period then had to decide in the following 12-hours what job he wanted to take. it's tiring just thinking back to that 24 hour period... yikes. while both were really great opportunities and we felt incredibly blessed to have the option, (even though sometimes i would prefer to not make a choice, i'm awful at deciding anything and everything). i was so proud of steve for putting a lot of thought into it and taking the offer that will be best for our family and his future. he said farewell to the campaign trail and joined the dc consulting world! the day after he made his decision we left for vancouver for steve's grandpas funeral. while the purpose of the trip wasn't ideal, it was fun to see and spend time with family. steve's been busy with another semester of grad school and i'm keeping busy with primary and deep cleaning/reorganizing/redecorating our apartment! this is my favorite photo (and moment) of 2013 so far. we purchased this chair and of course we thought it would fit in our car and of course it didn't so instead of getting a truck we decided to shrink wrap it to the top of our car. of course this we did this during one of the coldest weeks of the winter. driving home during rush hour with the windows down and this on top of our car was probably the most beverly hillbillies moment we've had. and that is saying something because we do these kinds of things all. the. time.