Adventures of Newlyweds in Kansas

I think spring is officially my favorite season, now only if you could reduce the wind in Kansas it would be perfect. We purchased a new dining set and fire pit for our new deck and have been enjoying them because the weather has been pretty nice for at least a few weeks.

So I have been on a several month hiatus for no reason really haha

This year has been slightly busy so far. I forgot to upload any photos from NYC but we had a really great time there. It wasn't nearly as cold as I imagined it would be and the people were nicer than I imagined. I would love to go back in the early summer some year to see the things we missed.

We also booked our September vacation to Europe! I haven't been planning it really so far because we can't completely decide where we are going. We are flying into Zurich and staying for 18 days, we are really excited to go back!

We also decided to go to Rapid City, SD for our Anniversary this year. We hope to do some site seeing and hiking and chilling in our private hot tub at the B&B we are staying at. It is going to be nice and relaxing.

So after such a busy 2009 I figured 2010 would be more relaxing, but I'm pretty sure I was wrong. We stayed busy with KSU sports, traveling, home remodeling, and work. Here is a month by month overview with a few pictures.

January: wow can't remember back that far and I didn't take a single photo that month to remember what I had done, oops!

February: Drove far too long to the Grand Canyon and Vegas with Jason



March: I spent all month on a rotation in Kansas City, KSU basketball made it to the Elite Eight and we made a trip to Oklahoma City to see a prior round vs BYU















April: went on a work trip to Vegas and Derek joined me, put a garden in the back yard and landscaping in the front yard, installed a new garage entry door















May: went to Washington DC for our 1st Wedding Anniversary




















June: Spent a week in San Antonio for work, put in a shelving unit in the guest bathroom, got a new fridge!















July: Went to San Diego with my family to see Mindy and Tommy get married, started painting the exterior to our house (finished in September I believe?)














August: did nothing really except try to stay cool and went to a Hanson concert in KC

September: made homemade sausages and went to lots of KSU football games

October: I spent all month on a rotation in Kansas City for work and Derek (with a bit of my assistance) built us a nice deck (it is done in real life I just don't have a completed photo haha)















November: Got a new stove for an early Christmas present, went to Colorado to see family over Thanksgiving





















December: Went to Red Cloud to celebrate my aunt's 60th Birthday, went to Topeka for Chirstmas, and did the first part of our NYC trip for the Pinstripe Bowl!



















That's mostly it for 2010! I'll come back later with an update on our trip to NYC for NYE and the Pinstripe Bowl. I'll say 2011 won't be as busy as 2010 or 2009 but who really knows until it happens but I could use a little rest and so could our bank account!

Yesterday we had our first "real" snow in Manhattan. Only got a slight dusting, but it snowed long enough for me to at least see it on the ground for a few hours. The wind was blowing like crazy also and knocked over two chairs and a grill off of our deck.

In non weather related news, Lindy and I had our parents up yesterday for a holiday dinner. The food was wonderful, Orzo rice (my fav), turkey, green beans, jello salad and some ginger snap cookies. Lots of wine and beer was served too :). It was great to have family up to do things like this while we are living close to each other.

Lindy and I are also very excited to be going to the Pinstripe bowl in NYC featuring our Wildcats and Syracuse. We have all the stuff ready to go, plane tickets, etc. and it should be an awesome time. I'm sure we'll have lots to share after that trip is over. I'd also like to announce that I have setup an online cookbook for Lindy and I to keep track of recipes we like. It will be growing as we make new things and put our favorites on it. Check out cookbook.derekandlindy.com!

We spent the weekend of Thanksgiving out in Colorado visiting my family.  My parents rented a van (haha) and my parents, Kali, Derek, me, Mia, and Bristol all loaded up and we headed out!



Oh how I don't think I miss road trips!  We'll about 10 hours later we arrived in Ft Collins at my Grandma's!  Thursday we had a huge, yummy feast at my aunts house.  Friday we went out shopping in the afternoon and got our hair cut by my awesome cousin.  After this we went to a piano bar where we drank far too much, oops, those fish bowls were amazing though!



Derek and I danced towards the end of the night to our wedding dance song, I'm sure it was absolutely horrible, but my mom has all the photos.  Saturday we bummed around and my little cousin Ariston and aunt Teri visited from Denver.  Sunday we got into that van again and drove all the day home!

I have been sick since returning and Derek has been great!  He got me medicine and even went out to get a humidifier at midnight the other night.  We also got me chocolate and pretty roses!  I have been very spoiled.  Well today I finally went to the doctor cause I got sick of coughing and keeping us both awake, and apparently I have bronchitis, but now have medicine to make it go away and some powerful cough medicine so hopefully I can sleep through the night. 

So today my very early Christmas and Birthday present from Derek arrived!  I found a stove I liked for 40% off at Best Buy last week so we decided to order it a bit early.  I find it gorgeous and can't wait to have a flat top stove instead of the crappy coil top.   Derek's presents also arrived in the mail and are all wrapped up and ready to go under the tree when we put that up.

Here is a photo of my new stove, we now have all matching appliances!

So recently I made some goals to cook a few random foods I have never made but felt everybody should know how to make.  Well today I did my first recipe:  Cinnamon rolls!  I used this recipe:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Clone-of-a-Cinnabon/Detail.aspx

 I didn't use a bread machine and I think they still turned out great!  They took awhile, about 3 hours total but a lot of that was waiting.  I also increased the frosting and cooked at 350 degrees for for 20 minutes instead.  We might of had only these for dinner... oh well.   Here is a photo of the whole pan (it makes a ton) and Derek's dinner, well he might have added another to his dinner too.

Derek's quote "Best cinnamon rolls he has ever had."