Dear family and friends,

I wasn’t going to write a Christmas letter this year, because 2012 was kind of one of the greatest years of all time.  But then I thought that maybe I would write a Christmas letter because I did it last year, and I like to write and talk about our life.

Our year was a lot calmer than it was last year, though seems to have gone doubly fast.  We celebrated our first anniversary two months before our original wedding date – June 8, 2013 – which is still really weird to think about.  My parents hosted a wonderful brunch and we had a wedding cake and my mom even went as far as getting a floral arrangement that was put together with the same flowers that were in the arrangements on our wedding day.

For our first anniversary, Peter and I talked about no gifts because we were looking for new living room furniture.  So I didn’t get Peter anything.  And then two days before our anniversary, one of Peter’s close friends from his hometown got drafter to the Cowboys.  It was wonderful and exciting.  And then, one of my coworkers said, “You know Sara, the Packers play the Cowboys in Dallas this year.”

After a few hours of deliberation, I decided that for our anniversary, I would get Peter tickets to the Cowboys v. Packers game in Dallas, with one stipulation: he had to bring ME to Dallas with him.  I made sure that I delivered that news when he was elated that I got him the tickets.

I kept the secret for about 10 minutes after Peter got home from work the day before our anniversary and then legitimately practically forced him to open it.  It was a good thing that I got him the tickets, too, because he got me beautiful diamond earrings.  Win-win for everyone, I’d say.  Though I DID tell him not to expect such an extravagant/creative gift for anniversary number 2.

Our friends had a lot of babies, and then we welcomed our nephew Joshua into the world.  All of these babies around kind of makes Peter and I like ummmm maybe we’re not super ready for kids since sometimes we like to eat ice cream for dinner, but we DO love snuggling all the new babies in our lives!

The rest of the year was pretty mellow and awesome.  So mellow that I can’t remember specific details until closer to the fall.

We went to quite a few Packer games this year.  Peter bleeds green and gold.  I do not.  Although, I do think that in general you could say that I enjoy the Packers.  All it took was marrying a die hard Packer fan, living in the Frozen Tundra for 3 years, and going to 3 Packer games in one season.  GREEN AND GOLD OVERLOAD.

Packers vs. Lions
October 2013

I think that our greatest accomplishment for 2013 was that we survived our first year of home-ownership, though just barely.  JUST barely.

We are soooooo lucky to have such great neighbors that were (and still are) VERY willing to help us when they realized that we were helpless.  One couple actually told me that they couldn’t believe that I grew up on a farm, because we were some big city slickers.  I can’t help that we didn’t have a vegetable OR flower garden.  And that we didn’t think about what it meant to own 3 acres.  Or need a lawn mower.  Anyways, they seem to enjoy our company and our naiveness, so that’s nice.

In conclusion, our year has flown by, and every day we find that we are far more blessed than we could ever deserve.  We are at a wonderful place in our marriage, relationships, and careers.  What we could have ever done to arrive here is unknown, but we could never be more gracious.

We are also thankful for all of you who add so much to our adventure by sharing in our stories.

Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals.

Sara & Peter

One of my friends told me that he never has to guess what I’m thinking because either my face reads like a book or I blurt it out.


I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing.  


I actually told him this story, and he said, “Why would you ever tell anyone that?”  And I responded that it’s a funny, albeit quite embarrassing, story and that it’s too good not to share.


I have a friend that I’ve been referring to as “my new friend B” for months now.  Like, almost a year.  I don’t know why I do it either, because we talk on an almost daily basis about things that you don’t talk to about with new friends.  Like telling stories about the time you were traveling and got a nosebleed in the hotel shower and it looked like an effing crime scene and you didn’t know what to do because THE BLOOD WOULD NOT STOP AND BLOOD MIXING WITH WATER LOOKS LIKE A SHIT TON OF BLOOD.  And then she’ll laugh with you and say, “I’m sure that was horrible, but it sounds hilarious.” And then you think, it wasn’t really that horrible, and I’m so glad we’re friends.


I suppose that I can stop calling her my new friend now, after sharing my horror stories like that with her.

Anyways, the other day B and I went to lunch.  There is a new Mexican restaurant in town and we thought we’d give it a shot.  Note: It’s delicious and cheap, and we will be returning.


B and I hadn’t seen each other for a while because I was out of the office for work for about 2 weeks, so we had a lot to catch up on.  We took my car to the Mexican restaurant.  This is important because you need to understand that we were sitting low to the ground.


The parking lot for this restaurant is kind of confusing.  As we were getting closer, B and I had the following conversation:


Sara: Can I get in through the Subway parking lot?  It looks like they’re connected.
B: I think so.
Sara: Ok!


As I continued driving, we were chatting and being friends and having a grand time.  I pulled into the Subway parking lot and was getting ready to cross over into the Mexican place parking lot when all of a sudden 

We went off a CLIFF and I was like OH MY GOD PETER IS GOING TO KILL ME BECAUSE WE ARE GOING TO TRADE MY CAR IN NEXT WEEK AND ALL I HAD TO DO WAS KEEP MY HONDA SAFE.


Dialogue in the car when we thought we were plummeting to our deaths:


Sara: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOHMYYYYYYYYYYGAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD! AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH


B: HOLY SHIT!

Can you tell which of us is more dramatic?


If it was just me in the car, I would tell you to take my word for it and believe me that it was a CLIFF that we drove off of, and then expect you not to believe me.  But guess what.  B was in the car too and she attests to the fact that it looked like flat ground and NOT A CLIFF.

When I parked the car, I immediately got out to check the front bumper, because by the sound of our off-roading experience, there was SURELY damage.


All I saw was a little crack.  PHEW.  B was like, “But there’s a crack” and I said, “oh, that’s been there for a while…. Don’t tell Peter about that one either.”


We had a good laugh about the little incident after there was no visible damage, but then B told me that she hoped there wasn’t undercarriage damage.  So that was unsettling.


A few days after my off-roading experience, Peter and I went car shopping and got a new SUV (yahoo!).  I was kind of nervous when they took my Honda away to appraise it.


Peter: Sar, why are you so nervous? We know the car is in good condition!
Sara: Oh, well, you know how I get nervous over stupid things! *wipes sweat from brow*
Peter: You’re being ridiculous.
Sara: Yep, just me overreacting about nothing again ha.ha. *gulp*


The good news is that there was nothing wrong with the undercarriage of my car.  On our way home, I told Peter about my and B’s little adventure.  


I always know how to make him proud. 


Last week, I got this text from B:

As an abnormally overly emotional being a woman, sometimes you just have those moments when you start to cry even though something isn’t even a big deal and you KNOW it’s stupid but you just can’t stop.  Especially when you’re overly hormonal for womanly reasons.

We live in a neighborhood in which people take pride in their lawns, which is obviously not the worst thing in the world.  We could live in a dump.

Our neighbor across the street is out on his lawnmower every 4 days, double mowing his lawn so it has those fancy criss-cross lines in it.  We compliment his lawn.  He says “I’m just putzin’.”  Well.  If that’s putzing… We’re assholes.

Our neighbors to the north have a bagger and mow trails into a part of their 5 acres so that their 5 children (all boys – our new favorite entertainment… more on them later) can ride their 4-wheelers and dirt bikes along the paths.  

Our neighbors to the south have beautiful landscaping with no weeds and so many pretty shrubs and flowers.  Their son is the one we’ve contracted to mow our lawn for the summer.

And then there’s us.  New homeowners.  Moved into our house at the end of last summer with no thoughts of a lawnmower or weed-wacker, let alone a bagger.  (I should say that I didn’t think about a lawnmower – my logical husband did.)  We have a ton of landscaping that weeds seem to love, a huge garden that we are have no idea what to do with, and a lawn that grows faster than you can even SAY lawnmower.  We are the assholes that have a huge beautiful lawn without the means NOR the knowledge to take care of it.

Last week, Peter and I were both traveling for work, him in Houston, me in Canada.  We were both gone for only 3 days, so we didn’t even have anyone pick up our mail.  On Friday when we got home from work, I told Peter that he should ask our contracted lawnmower to mow the lawn.  He said ok.

On Saturday, we were gone all morning and for the first part of the afternoon.  As we were pulling up our road around 3, Peter said, “Hey, I think our lawn was mowed!”  Great news!  And then we drove closer.  I said, “Hey, I think our neighbor weed-wacked around the landscape!”  What a fantastic day!

And then we pulled up our driveway.

Sara: … I don’t think Neighbor Kid did this.  The lawn is cut… diagonally.

Peter:  Oh my God.  Did Neighbor Across The Street mow our lawn?

When we got into the house, I looked out back.  There weren’t any lawn cuttings in our lawn. And it was DEFINITELY mowed diagonally.  I went back out to the garage.

Sara:  Umm, Pete?  I don’t think Neighbor Kid did this…

Pete: Oh my GAWD this is SO EMBARRASSING.  I THINK NEIGHBOR ACROSS THE STREET MOWED OUR LAWN.  

Sara: How are we going to find out who mowed our lawn?  This is SO embarrassing.

Pete: I’m not sure if someone did this because they’re nice and they think we’re nice, or if it’s a passive aggressive sign to get our shit together and keep our lawn mowed.

Sara:  I’m SOOOOO embarrassed.

So then we stood on our patio and stared at our freshly mowed lawn a little bit longer.  And then we started laughing because we were so embarrassed and in disbelief that our lawn was not only mowed, but also bagged.  

A little bit later, our neighbors to the south were outside, so we went over to their house.  Separating our yards is a mini creek, and it rained quite a bit at the end of last week, so the creek was basically a raging river.  

What the creek actually looks like:

We were talking to our neighbors and Peter had the brilliant idea of hopping across the river to see their garden.  I was like ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh now I’M going to have to hop across this river, and I have the grace of a newborn calf.  So, Peter jumped.  And obviously made it just fine.

Of course that’s not what happened.

Peter roto-tilling the garden.

If you know me for even five seconds, you know that I am a huge scaredy cat.  Like, afraid of my own shadow scaredy cat.  


Anyways, owning a home has not made me any less of a scaredy cat.  One day the power went out in our cul-du-sac, and Peter wasn’t home from work yet.  I called him to tell him the power went out, and he told me that I had to go in the DARK SCARY BASEMENT to check to see if it was flooded.  I ran down, put my foot down and it was dry, and then I ran back up the stairs and declared that I would NOT be doing that again.  


And once it’s in my head that I’m scared about something, I am a wreck, jumping at the littlest things and gasping when I hear any noise.


The other day when I got home from work, as I was pulling into the garage, I noticed something was off.  A big something.


The door from the garage into our entryway/kitchen was wide open.  


Too many episodes of Law & Order flashed through my mind as I considered backing out of the garage, closing the door, and waiting until Pete got home from work so he could be manly and check everything out.  But then I thought that the murderer in the house would have heard the garage door open, and was probably hiding somewhere so that he could get me when I came in.


So I sat in my car considering what I should do, and TRYING to think logically about the situation.  The man-door to the garage was still locked.  Nothing in our garage was out of place.  


As I got out of my car, I left the garage door open in case I had to make a fast get away.  And then I glanced around the garage looking for something to carry with me as I went into the house (note: buy a baseball bat).  Tennis racket?  No.  Plastic shovel with metal edge?  Maybe…  New garden shears that aren’t out of the cardboard?  Yes.  So I folded the edge of the cardboard down so that I could stab someone if needed.  Kind of like this…

You get the point.


I had also taken out my phone and dialed 9-1-1 into the keypad with my thumb hovering over the “call” button just in case I had to stab anyone.  I was ready to enter.


I walked through the house turning on all the lights with the garden shears leading the way.  I was suddenly very aware at how loudly I breathe.  

After I checked all of the closets, behind the shower curtains, and all corners of our suddenly gigantic house, I walked over to the basement door and chain-locked it.  That thing has never come in so handy.  

I texted Pete that he left the door to the house wide open and that I thought someone broke in, and his response was “whoopsie.”  Uhhhh, yeah.  Whoopsie is right.

When he got home I made him check the basement.  No one was hiding down there.

Then he saw the hedge trimmers on the kitchen counter, and asked what they were doing there.  I told him that I needed them to protect myself.  


He laughed.

I asked for a home security system.

So last summer when we saw our house for the first time is was sooooo nicely landscaped and had a HUGE yard and Pete was like “This yard is perfect for a dog!” and at the same time I was all “This yard is perfect for a pool!” And then we stared each other down while our real estate agent got uncomfortable.


We are especially good at making people feel uncomfortable.


Since we moved into our house on the last day of August (30 days has September, April, June, and November) August 31, and last summer there was a drought, we were all “Look at how great this landscape is!  Look at how awesome this yard is!!  We have a fire pit!  Let’s have a party!!!” and we paid the neighbor kid to mow the lawn once and we were happy and naive.  


Then winter happened and we had the Amazon River at the end of our driveway aka a lot of moisture going on.  THEN spring came about 2 months late, and everything started growing.


And by everything I mean the grass.  The flowers.  The plants.  And the weeds.  At this point, I regretted two things.  1) Not taking pictures of the landscape when the previous owners had it done so that I could tell what should stay and what should go. 2) Buying a house that had a shit ton of landscaping and lawn.  


Finally one day in May when it was nice outside, I was all motivated and feeling earthy, so I decided to go out and pull weeds.  And pull weeds I did.  For two and a half hours.  

No, I could not move the next day.  But I went back outside and pulled weeds for three more hours.  And then the NEXT day I was like OH MY GOD I WANT TO DIE HAVING NICE LANDSCAPE SUCKS WHEN YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO HAVE SOMEONE PULL WEEDS FOR YOU AND YOU DON’T HAVE KIDS THAT YOU CAN MAKE DO IT.  (We are clearly not ready to have kids if the two times we’ve talked about having kids were when we wanted slave labor to shovel the driveway in the winter and pull weeds last week.)


BUT.  Worse than not being able to move for a week is looking like a schmuck for the summer.  Ok, well, I looked like a schmuck when I could hardly walk/stand/sit/move, but we live in a nice little cul-du-sac that has 5 houses, and our house is the dink.  I mean, I ADORE our house, but it really is the dink of the neighborhood.  


What I’m trying to say is that we need to keep up with the Jonses, so to speak.  They all have nice lawns and landscape, so come hell or high water, we will have a nice lawn and landscape too.


The landscape part we have mostly under control with the help of my supportive Facebook friends, and NOT the help of my a-hole sister who just said, “I don’t think you should have pulled that one.”  Well.  I KNOW that.  But we had to pull the plant because there was a huge grass plant intertwined and there was no way to get rid of the grass without getting rid of the whole plant.  But seriously, right now on my Facebook there are some pictures of plants that I don’t know if I should pull or ignore.  Help.  Also – you Facebook friends are really making me laugh because a handful of you were like “You are cracking me up!” with my questions about plants, and I’m not trying to be funny.  I just have no idea how to figure this shit out.  So if you want to come to our house and identify plants vs. weeds, you are more than welcome.  I will cook for you.  And Peter will buy you a Summer Shandy.


ANYWAYS.


After many trips to the local hardware store (Tangent: One day Peter came home from the hardware store, and he declared, “Today was the best day of my life!” and then I glared at him and he said, “The SECOND best day of my life!!!!” And then he proceeded to tell me that Vern, who owns Vern’s hardware, knew his name.  “Sar.  It was amazing.  He said, ‘Hey Pete!  Come here, I want to show you something!’  So then I looked around, and I realized hey! he’s talking to me! So, he showed me a joke that his sister-in-law sent him on the computer, and it was really funny!  Can you believe he knows my name?!”), we came home with a shovel thing, a little hand hoe thing, some gardening gloves, weed killer, and some candy.  I actually don’t remember where I was going with this because I’m watching Newlyweds: the First Year on Bravo right now and I keep getting distracted.


I’ll start over.


Over the weekend, Peter and I spent all day Saturday working outside again doing more weeding and looking at our huge effing vegetable garden (Ok, we think it’s huge, but all of our super outdoorsy neighbors are like “That’s tiny!” uhhhh… riiiiiiight…) and trying to think about what we’re going to do with it.  I got sunburned and Peter got a little pink, but now he’s already really tan.  On Sunday, we were both hobbling around the house because clearly we are NOT outdoorsy people.


The best news of the day is that the neighbor kid is going to mow the lawn this summer, so we REALLY won’t look like the schmucks of the neighborhood.  


Also, we have a ton of mosquitos already, so we both have tons of mosquito bites.  

I’ll put up pictures of our lawn soon.  I should actually take the pictures like, tomorrow because the lawn is mown and the weeds are pulled.  I think.


It’s only May.  What the hay am I going to do when it’s 100 degrees and 100% humidity in JULY and I have to pull those damn weeds??  Because we all KNOW that the last thing I want is for people to judge me based on the outdoor appearance of my house!


Disclaimer: I know that this whole post is categorized as the hashtag that I see people putting on Facebook #firstworldproblems.  I also know that it is classified as #stopbeingspoiledandappreciateyourlawn (it’s really hard to type that without using spaces).  But hey!  Freedom of Speech – I can do what I want.  But don’t stop reading; I like you!  I won’t complain in the next post!!

We knew he was going to be a boy in March, not because the ultrasound told us so, but because that’s when he started giving his mom trouble.  Boys are always the trouble makers.

 And, continuing the pattern, Jen had to go back to the hospital after being home for a week on April 29.  This time, she REALLY was going to stay there until the end of the pregnancy.  They moved the c-section up to May 10, because the baby would be just fine being delivered at 36 weeks.