OMG! I am caught up!!!

This is it people!! I am caught up on my blog posting!! I don't know about you, but I am proud of myself! I haven't been this dedicated to blog posting since my time in London 4 years ago! And then it was mainly for my mom... ha! This is for me...

As I embark upon this new adventure of marriage it is all too apparent to my how much I need to document my life and the first few years of marriage for my husband and I and for my kids. I love looking through old pictures of my mom and dad when they were newly married. As one of their kids it is hard for me to imagine what life was like before my brothers and I came along, so it is like looking at completely different people... I would hate to deny my kids the opportunity to view Aaron and I that way.

Granted they will probably not scroll through my blog, so this brings me to the next reason for my blogging... to more easily translate into photo albums! I am wanting to get back into photo album printing and so this is like creating a photo album! I will eventually take the pictures and these blog posts (OK, maybe not this one) and simply copy and paste my memories in to printable albums. It is what I did for England and I am ready to do it for this new season of life :)


So to truly bring you up to speed on life with in the Mertz family since our Australian friends left...

- we got home and settled back into life just the two of us

- I quickly realized I had raging insomnia... after trying many different things, I finally started taking Melatonin every night before bed and it has helped a lot

- We have truly started our post wedding hermit lifestyle! While most people go from a wedding to a honeymoon and then a good couple of months of doing absolutely nothing and just getting use to living with each other... not us. We got married, had a little honeymoon and then went into full holiday mode! We didn't even have time to move me in until 2 months later and that was quickly followed by house guests... so when Phoebe and Liam went home, it was the first time that Aaron and I had nothing on our plate!

- Granted it took some getting use to for me to not schedule every night of the week with some activity - from Worship practice and family dinners with both the Thompsons and the Mertz' and a lot of evening drinks and dinners to catch up with friends I hadn't seen since before the wedding. So Aaron and I had to learn to not commit to more than 2 things a week in the evenings... it has been so great for us.

- We have the best of friends!!! We have so many amazing people in our lives that we get to share this journey of marriage with. Friends who have gone before us and have been married for decades, other friends who have only been married a few years but have immense wisdom and perspective. We also have awesome single friends who pour into our hearts better than most. We are blessed people!

- With nothing on our plate, we have enjoyed dreaming of future plans (way several month into the future plans though)... we have several more Disneyland trips in mind before our annual passes expire in November. We have been 3 times since we started dating a year and a half ago and we have already booked our 4th trip... at the rate we are going we are hoping for at least 2, maybe 3 more trips before November! We also have plans for a trip to the east coast to visit Washington DC and New York! I have never been to DC and Aaron lived there for 6 months in college... Aaron has never been to New York and I was there 5 years ago, but it was on a tour with a high school group as a chaperone and so it was not a true New York experience. 

- Also along with our new hermit lifestyle we had started truly observing and learning how the other person lives... for example, I am messy, Aaron is clean, I like alone time, I don't like cooking or folding laundry, I have lots of home decorating projects in my head, we have a hard time committing to watching only one TV show at a time... we are currently part of the way through as many as 5 different TV shows and we need to learn to finish a series before we start another. ha!

- Communication, communication, communication... Aaron and I are learning a lot about communication. We communicate differently in a lot of ways and at different timetables. This has been very interesting and fun for us to learn... there have been tears and moments of silence... it will be a journey we will be on for the rest of our marriage, so we are learning to do it better each day.

- I have also learned that being married... even on the hard days... is still more rewarding and fun and exciting than when I was single... I wouldn't trade one second for the world!

In future posts I will probably elaborate on some of these wonderful moments and lessons in marriage.

Since you may remember my hatred of blog posts with no pictures, here are some images from the last few months of marriage...

Moving Day!! It was quite a process to settle my stuff into the house... it continues to be a process :) I am enjoying it however and love being able to sit and organize in complete focus for a while. Aaron was surprised at how organized I am and commented that our linen closet looks like a magazine! ha

 Fruits of home decorating and organization! The orange chair has won and will stay in the living room :) Aaron did not always love the chair, but after it sat in our living room for a couple months and everyone who walked into our house loved it, he has finally come around and appreciates its beauty!

Aaron and I eat out a lot! We keep telling ourselves that this won't always be this way, so we want to take advantage of the double income and enjoy the fun culinary experiences Phoenix has to offer.

Fuego Bistro in Phoenix!

Now that we are hermits, we have taken to watching a lot of movies and TV shows on Netflix! Our back room has become a movie room of sorts and we cuddle up on Aaron's old couch with blankets and low lights and it is like we are in a movie theater.

This is what love looks like... haha

In my pursuit of domesticity, I have realized my hatred for folding laundry... true hatred.

This was our Valentine's Day feast! We decided instead of spending a ton of money at Postino's, we would create our own cheese and meat board. We sat out on our back patio and brank wine and Apple Brandy (his gift from me) and enjoyed the beautiful weather. I don't know how exactly it happened, but I ended up reading to Aaron from some of my high school journals about my unrequited love for him. We laughed so hard we cried! It was awesome!

As the weather gets more beautiful in Phoenix, Aaron and I took advantage and rode our bikes from our house to downtown Phoenix (about 15 minutes) and had lunch. It was glorious! We even rode around one of the super nice neighborhoods near Encanto Park and dreamed of one day living in those beautiful homes... not gonna happen haha.

While Aaron and I are in no hurry to have kiddos of our own quite yet, I must say we have thoroughly enjoyed taking my nieces out on dates or having them spend the night with us! Elsie got a picnic in the park and she is quite smitten with Uncle Aaron now! Elsie is just so funny and talkative and silly and sweet! I absolutely adore her!

For Emolyn's 5th Birthday we had her over for a special sleepover! Her and I made cookies and pretended to have a cooking show. At some point in the "show" I told the "audience" that we would be having a special guest on our show when he got home from work - Aaron! She giggled and turned to me and asked, "Aunt Miranda, can I tell them the secret?" I was a bit confused, but said yes. She turned out to the "audience" and said "Aaron is actually UNCLE Aaron and he is Aunt Miranda's husband. They got married and it was beautiful and I was the flower girl!" My heart melted and I had to hold in so much laughter cause she was so serious! I love that little girl my heart could burst!

One of the perks of marriage is that Aaron is a great cook and enjoys it way more than I do! After a long week of crazy insomnia and stress at work, Aaron made me breakfast one saturday in our new Waffle maker complete with fresh blueberry syrup and fresh squeezed orange juice... yep! He's a keeper :)

And there you have it... a picture of my married life so far :)