Since I had so much fun doing this last year, I thought I would do another year in review post.... 2009 was a great year!
January- January was pretty low key. Nothing too major happened, although we did get quite a bit of snow. Josh got to use his new snowblower which made him happy :)
February- February was a bit more busy. We attended a tasting for our wedding and tried so many awesome dishes. I traveled to New Jersey for the first time for a work thing. Got stuck in Cincinnati on the way home and had to spend the night in an icky hotel. Josh was very very very happy that the Steelers won the Superbowl! We had our friends Josh and Emily over to watch the game. Fun times were had by all.
Did some baking for the troops, which was fun. I made several different types of cookies and then sent them off to the soldier I was assigned to. I sent him goodies and then printed out some stuff from my blog so he would know about us. I never heard back from him, but I hope he enjoyed his goodies and that they were still good when they arrived. As you can see, Ariel helped me pack the box :)
March- Against my better judgement I had decided to move forward with the CMA testing. I figured the pay raise would be nice and my time was better spent studying for that that working some crappy part time job. I spent lots of time in March studying. Also made a trip home around St. Patty's day. Found a dress for my Rehearsal dinner and went to a St. Patty's Day party in Madison.
This is me and my future maid of honor, Jenny. 
We had a surprise b-day cake for Jenny as well
My friend Theresa's baby. His shirt said "Little O'Cutie! Love it!!Finished up the month by helping my cousin Wendy's son with his class Flat Stanley project. His school was doing a project to see how many different states their Flat Stanley's could visit (Flat Stanley was a book that they had read- they made flat cutouts of themselves and then sent the cut outs on an out of state adventure.) I did a whole write up for him about Indiana and Fort Wayne and then took pictures of his Flat Dustin and sent it all back to him. Got the cutest thank you note. It was pretty fun. The cats enjoyed it too!
April- Decided to do the 30 Day Shred every day in April since there were 30 days. Ended up missing 2 I think but I definitely had results. Lost like 20 inches overall and maybe 10 pounds. Could definitely feel a difference in the way my body felt though. Oh yeah, Jillian Michaels is a huge bitch. I really started to hate her one liners by the end of the month LOL.
May-We did a lot of work on the yard this spring/summer. We were planning on having the Rehearsal dinner at hour house so we wanted the yard looking good. In May we put down some mulch... looked pretty nice!
After much studying, I passed part 3 of the CMA exam! 2 down, 1 to go!!
I was at the mall one day and decided to stop at the MAC counter for a makeup consultation. I was thinking about doing my own makeup for the wedding, but it would have cost me like $150 to buy all of this makeup. I ended up just getting it done at the salon, but i loved this look. 
Did quite a bit of traveling in May. Went to Raynham, MA for work and then to Chicago that weekend for my Bachelorette party. My party was awesome! We stayed at the Hotel Allegro in Chicago and had dinner at a Drag Show! So much fun! Thanks to my awesome MOH Jenny for putting it all together!
June- Wedding Month!!! YAY! June was also my birthday month, but it pretty much went by unnoticed due to the wedding, which was fine :) Most of the month was spent finalizing wedding details and last minute preparations. I started some wedding recap posts here and here and here. I still need to finish those up, but here are some highlight pics:
July- After the wedding, we took a few days to relax... well, I relaxed, Josh had to go to work. Then, on July2, we headed to Maui, baby! It was soooooooooo fantastic. Best trip of my life. Can't wait to go back. I also plan on doing a honeymoon recap (I am a blogger loser- it shouldn't take 6 months to blog about these things, but hey, I've been busy!) but again, here are some of the highlights:
Views from our condo
Me with my first Lei of the trip :)
Tired and happy after a morning of snorkeling!
Haleakala- beautiful volcano. We never made it to the top, but it sure was pretty to look at!
4th of July dinner cruise
We went on a helicopter tour of the West Maui Mountains!
Went to a Luau, got some sun:
We loved every minute of Maui! Can't wait to go back! After returning home, I decided to suck it up and start studying for part 4 of the CMA exam, which I would have to take in august. I spent most of the rest of july and august studying every free minute. It pretty much sucked.
August- Traveled to Pittsburgh at the beginning of the month for Josh's Dad's 50th birthday. Spent some time with his family, which was nice. After we got home, we added a member to the family.... Daisy.
Daisy is a black lab/german shepard/beagle mix mutt that we found on craigslist. She was a bargain! Note to self... Never again get a puppy in the same month you are trying to study for a big exam. It was a rough august, but we made it through! I took my exam on Aug 28, but since part 4 was essay, I didn't get the results until mid October.
September- Went home by myself for a weekend visit to WI. Saw my friends Melissa and Barb and then had dinner with my friend Jenny... It was a great time. Spent the rest of the weekend with my parents since I hadn't seen them since the wedding. It was a nice break away from the dog and all of her craziness! My friend Liz came to visit me the next weekend. It was great to see her. We had kind of a lazy weekend but it was great to catch up! Hopefully she comes back soon, even though she thinks I live in the middle of a cornfield. At the end of the month we did our first home improvement project, painting the bedroom. I think it turned out pretty well!
October- October was another month with lots of travel! I headed to Iowa for my friend Rachel's wedding. It was so much fun to see Rachel marry Jason and to see so many old friends!
After the wedding, I headed up to Madison for the Badger homecoming game. Tailgated with my amfam girls, which is always a good time. My Mom came too! This trip really made me miss Madison.
After getting home, I FINALLY got the result of my exam....... I PASSED!!!! CMA OVER! WOO HOO! Seriously, this was a big deal, mostly because i didn't want to have to study ever again. YAY! For Halloween, we dressed Daisy up and took her to the Petsmart because they were having a dog parade. It was so cute!!
We also carved some pretty awesome pumpkins... Mine was the skull... Josh's was supposed to be a bug- they looked great!
My parents came to our place for Thanksgiving- we had a really nice time! I made dinner and we finally got to use my great grandmothers china that my grandmother had given me as a wedding present.
We got up early to shop the next day, but ended up doing most of our shopping online. God, I love the internet and Amazon.com.
After my parents left, got the house decorated for Christmas. We changed it up this year and put red lights/ornaments on the tree instead of blue. The cats are still obsessed with climbing the tree, but thankfully didn't knock it over. Yet.
December- Traveled to WI for my Dad's 60th birthday. Took Daisy with us which was her first major road trip and the first time she met Bella, my Brother's dog. Daisy also got to see snow for the first time, which she loved. We all had a great time!
Came home, and then I went to Raynham, MA for work. Got to ride on one of the company private jets, which was pretty freaking sweet. Came home from that and then we headed back to WI for Christmas with the family. It was great! We spent lots of time with them and also watched the Packers vs. Steelers game at my friend Jenny's new house. Josh was nervous about watching the game in enemy territory, but we all had fun :)
As I blogged about here, Santa is a reader of my blog and was very good to me :)
I took the week before Christmas off and spent much of the time being very very very lazy and doing nothing but surfing the internet and watching TV. It was heavenly.
That pretty much brings us up the present, New Years Eve, 2009. We are heading over to Josh and Emily's tonight to ring in the new year with them. Should be a great time. Can't wait to see what 2010 brings!
