Last Sunday marked ONE YEAR for us! To celebrate (and allow me the chance to reminisce), here is a look back at our crazy busy year!

 

Month 1 (March): 

Straight from the wedding, we headed to San Antonio for a little mini-honeymoon. We hit up the Riverwalk, the outlet malls, and MANY fine eating establishments. I didn’t take a single picture as far as I remember. 🙁

Two weeks later (March 18), we attended Steven’s Match Day ceremony to (finally!) find out where he would be completing residency and where we would be moving.

He matched at his first choice of Scott and White Memorial Hospital for internal medicine! (I was so stinking proud of him, I couldn’t hardly stand myself!) We left that afternoon, and met with a realtor the next day to find a house in the area. Turns out even on the next day, most other incoming residents had beat us to the punch with contingent offers based off match day, so we chose from the remaining houses. We love our house and the location of our neighborhood so it all worked out! (And no, we didn’t get to keep the porta-potty…)

At the end of March, our sweet Ruger was born, and we started getting weekly updates on his development!

 

Month 2 (April): 

April was filled with finishing up rotations and packing our tiny apartment to get ready to move. We had a storage garage at our apartment complex that we slowly moved everything down to so that we could move everything right out on moving day and get going!

We celebrated being done with rotations the next to last weekend in April. We packed up our necessities for the next few weeks and based out of Midland at Steven’s parents.

 

Month 3 (May):

Let me take a deep breath before I jump into May… 😉

The first week, we flew to Honolulu and Maui, Hawaii for our belated honeymoon!

 

We flew home, and drove the next day to Lubbock for my AuD graduation…

 

Then a quick trip up to Amarillo for a load of stuff, then down to Temple the next day to close on our house!

And then right after closing, we drove up to Canton to pick up baby Ruger!

From Canton, we went on to Dallas to introduce him to Uncle Avery and Aunt Shelby, then back down to Temple to accept delivery on our new washer and dryer, and then back to Midland to pick up Steven’s dad from Africa, and on to Lubbock for Steven’s MD graduation, all between Monday and Friday!

Again, we went from Lubbock up to Amarillo and packed up ALL the rest of our stuff and with three U-Haul trailers, moved our life 7 hours south to Temple.

We stayed a few days and unpacked some, and then drove back to Midland to get ready for the family fishing trip!

 

Month 4 (June): 

From the last week of May through the first week in June, we spent 10 days at Choke Canyon State Park on a family fishing vacation. Steven taught me how to run trot lines and drive the boat, and we had a lot of fun together!

We came back to Temple and I started my new big girl job! Later that month, Steven had orientation and then started residency at S&W.

Month 5 (July): 

We spent a good while getting adjusted to the much higher humidity in Temple and enjoying weekends at the lake. Ruger learned to jump off the dock and retrieve a dummy at  the tank at my grandparents’ land.

 

In mid July, I went to Dallas for a wedding shower for Steven’s brother (Avery) and his fiancee (Shelby) (Steven was working nights that weekend).

 

The next week, we celebrated my 27th birthday! (And Steven had the whole weekend off, which was the BEST gift!

 

Month 6 (August):

At the beginning of the month, we headed to Dallas for Avery and Shelby’s wedding. We celebrated our six month anniversary at their rehearsal dinner.

And welcomed the last Mrs. Smith to the Mrs. Smith Club!

And the next night, we watched them get married, we danced the night away, and sent them off in a blaze of sparklers!

 

The next week, we decided Ruger needed a brother, so we contacted sweet Bonni and got put on the list for Gump. He was born that next Saturday!

 

Month 7 (September): 

We spent part of Labor Day weekend at Lake Belton with Ruger…

 

And then later in the month, Steven’s mom and Avery and Shelby visited for a few days. We celebrated Rae’s birthday…

 

And the next weekend, we went to Midland to watch a game in the inaugural football season for UT Permian Basin, Steven’s alma mater!

 

Month 8 (October): 

Right off the bat this month, my BFF Hannah came to visit and we went to pick up Gump!

The next week, we celebrated Steven’s birthday!

In mid-October, we headed to Dallas to check out the State Fair for the first time!

 

Month 9 (November):

This month, we spent a lot of time at the field near our house working with the boys!

 

For Thanksgiving, we drove to Midland to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas…

We took our Christmas card photo…

And Steven and Ruger did a lot of quail and crane hunting with his dad and brother…

It was a great first holiday season with all of us there together!

 

Month 10 (December): 

I LOVED decking out our first house for our first married Christmas!

 

The boys were finally able to sit still together for pictures!

We went to our church’s Candlelight Christmas Eve service…

And celebrated on Christmas day with just the two of us because Steven worked in the morning.

The next week, we both had a week off, so we had Christmas with my family, and enjoyed hanging out together for several days!

 

Month 11 (January): 

We started the new year off with a bang– we drove to the Dallas area to pick up Boudreaux on January 1!

 

Later that month, we had Steven’s parents with us for about a week for his mom to have her knee replaced. I enjoyed another week off work, and helped with her recovery.

 

Month 12 (February):

Most of February was spent hanging out together as much as we could because Steven was getting one day off a week on the wards. We made day trips to Round Rock and Waco, and hung out with all three dogs. I finally bit the bullet and cut length off my hair, and Steven started intensely preparing for the last of his STEP exams at the end of March.

At the end of February, we decided to enroll the labs in formal retriever training. They will be there for five months, and will come home just in time for next hunting season. We will be going to visit them every 1-2 weeks and are looking forward to their progress.

And now we’re back to March! I’d say a lot has happened over the last year!