One Year Anniversary!

It’s hard to believe that on Tuesday, Trent and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary. It feels like this year has just flown by. Just yesterday we got engaged and planned our wedding… then we had became husband and wife… and now here are with a year of marriage under our belts…

Me and my hubby on our wedding day

This past weekend we got all of our stuff moved into our new house and got some stuff situated (more on that later) and then both Trent and I took the day off yesterday to spend the day together and get a few more things done.

We started off the day by bringing Mattie into the doggy daycare place to check it out and get her applied to start going there. We decided that we would bring Mattie to day care a few times a week so she wouldn’t just be cooped up in the house alone for 10 hours a day. We have been lucky that Trent has always been able to come home to our apartment at lunch time each day and let Mattie out and hang out with her and he had a commute that equated to a 1 minute walk, so Mattie was never home alone for extended periods of time. So anyways… we brought her in and filled out some paperwork and then got to see the play room where she’d hang out with all the other dogs that will be there during the day. As we were standing there discussing it all, I got a little emotional just because I don’t want Mattie to be sad or scared. I don’t want her to think we’re dropping her off and leaving her or not coming back again and all that, so it was just a little sad for the moment. I am really certain that she will have a lot of fun playing with the other dogs and will be a lot better at day care during the day than she would be at home all day alone. I will just be very excited when she gets to the point where we can tell she's excited to get to day care and not be afraid of it or think it's the vet or something!

After we were finished checking out the doggy day care, we made our way back home and did a few more things around the house. There are plenty of boxes to unpack and stuff to put away and things to be washed, so we didn't have any trouble keeping ourselves busy on our last day off from work.

Later that day, my sister was in town for a meeting, so she got to stop by and say hi and take a look at the house, which was great! She even got to try out her new room where she gets to stay when she comes over! Haha!!

Yes, she is in our linen closet...

Then, Trent started up The Big Green Egg (our grill) and prepared to make our anniversary supper. We had pork chops, asparagus, and baked potatoes all made on the grill. It was delicious! (As is everything else that Trent has grilled so far since we moved in.) It is so awesome to be able to grill out now and I am definitely loving it!

Trent grilling our anniversary supper

Over supper, we talked about how fast the first year of our marriage went and about the exciting things that happened over the course of the year. Among the highlights were our honeymoon to Costa Rica and our house hunting journey. We finished up supper with some cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory. YUMMM!

Out on our deck at our new house
on our 1st Anniversary

It was so great to be able to spend a relaxing (yet productive) day at our brand new home together for our first anniversary. What an amazing way to round out a wonderful year! I love Trent so very much. He is the greatest husband and most caring 'dad' to Mattie. He spoils us both with love and I can honestly say that I have everything I could have ever wanted because of him. He constantly goes out of his way to do things that will make me happy, even when it's not something he really wants to do. He calls me out when I'm being a snot and really knows how to make me laugh. I am the luckiest girl in the world and I am so blessed that Trent came into my life. Only God knows what lies ahead of us, but knowing I get to experience everything with the man of my dreams, only makes me excited for all that is to come. Here's to what the next 100 years have in store for us!

Catch Up

It feels like quite a bit has happened since the last time I posted, so I just wanted to do a quick catch up of what's been going on in the past few weeks!

1. We had a family weekend in Des Moines. I can't believe it has been almost a month since this happened! It was actually part of us kids’ Christmas presents, but we were all very busy through the first part of the year and my dad was busy coaching his basketball team to the State Tournament J So the end of April was the first time that we could all get together. It also turned into an anniversary celebration for my parents. They have been married for 30 years!

We all met up at our hotel and my mom and sister and I went and got our nails done and then we all went out to eat and other shenanigans followed by heading back to the hotel and hanging out in the hot tub for a while followed by staying up and playing some games in the lobby of the hotel. I love family time and I hope that we get to do this again next year!



Family picture after eating out.

2. Our house appraised!! After we lost our last house we thought we bought due to it not appraising for the amount we has agreed to buy it for, we were not going to be completely certain that we had our current house until we found out what it appraised for. Thankfully, it did! It was such a relief to finally make concrete plans on when we were going to be closing on the house and moving and actually call it our house! We close on the house TOMORROW! Let the fun begin!
3. I took my 3rd CPA exam test. I took the test on Friday the 11th. I was VERY nervous for the test. I just didn't feel ready and confident with it and wasn't really sure how to get to the point where I was confident in it. So I just had to go for it. I really couldn't tell you how the test went. There were a few things that I know that I for sure got right, but there are things that really could go either way. There was probably only one or two questions that I had never heard of before, so I at least had a chance on all the rest of them! I used pretty much all of my time with this test. I think that I clicked out of it with less than 30 seconds left! So we'll see how it goes... I will find out about the test this week (today or tomorrow). It makes me super nervous to even think about it, so I just hope for good news...

4. We celebrated my cousin, Danielle's high school graduation with a party at her dad's house. A lot of people came to celebrate with her. We had fun hanging out and eating all of the good food. (And there was a lot!)


Cousin picture!

 5. After Dani's graduation party, I spent the night at my parents’ house and got to be there and hang out until it was time for us all to go to a friend’s wedding in a nearby town. It was a beautiful and fun wedding. I got to see some friends from college that I hadn't seen in quite a long time, so that was a blast. I wished my mom a Happy Mother's Day morning and then was off to Trent's parents' house.

6. We spent Mother’s Day at Trent’s parents’ house. We grilled out and sat out on the deck for a few hours. It was a beautiful day. Trent helped his dad do a little work on their yard and I got to play with our nieces in the yard. A wonderful Sunday!

7. We started packing all of our stuff throughout this past week to get ready to move. Our apartment now looks a little like this…

8. I went on a little mini family trip to Huron, South Dakota to celebrate my cousin Spencer’s graduation. They had great food and it was so fun to see family that I hadn’t seen in a while. And there’s nothing like riding 4 hours in a van with your family and grandparents!



My Great Aunt Jeanne, cousin Angie, Grandma Kock,
and cousin Chris at the graduation party

Hopefully that encompasses most of what's been going on over the past few months. Other than that, I've just been working and taking a little break from studying, which has been nice! Hopefully I get good news on this test and I can look forward to only having to study for one more test!!

I also can't wait to document our experiences in our new house! We had our walk through yesterday to make sure everything was A-OK before we took possession. The current owners were in the process of moving out while we were there, so we got to meet the wife of the couple. She was very nice and I thought it was kind of cool to be able to meet her and hear how much she enjoyed living in the house and the neighborhood. Also, seeing their stuff getting cleared out of there and seeing some empty rooms just got me even more excited to get our stuff in there! I am so excited that the time for us to move is almost here... FINALLY!

Halfway there!

I am sooooo happy to say that I passed my second CPA exam test! I had to retake this one because I had failed it back in February, but this time I came out on top! Not without a lot of nerves first, though!!

I knew that, according to the score release schedule, my score would be released sometime between today and Monday. Originally, I was contemplating not looking to see whether or not I passed this test until after my next one that I'm taking next Friday, but when it came down to it, I had to know...

I knew that today was going to be the day when I saw on Facebook this morning that the site, Another71.com, has posted "The 'powers that be' are officially saying Monday ... so all signs point to Friday for Score Release." I then proceeded to watch online all day as other CPA Exam test-takers announced when they got their scores.  I took the Audit section this last test and by the end of the work day, I had concluded that pretty much all of the Audit test scores had been released. Therefore, I knew mine was most likely out there for me to see too. Although I had decided that I was going to look to see my score today, there was no way I was going to look at it while I was at work. I decided this based on my experience with this test the first go around. After seeing that I hadn't passed the first time, I couldn't help but cry. It was such a let down and I was so discouraged and sad that I had to go through that all again, and I didn't want to have to hold back my sadness all day at work if this didn't turn out well. Therefore, I waited...


I went all day knowing that today would be the day that I knew for sure whether or not I would have to retake this test. I was pretty nervous whenever I would think about it, but I didn't get REALLY nervous until it was time to go home. I almost didn't want to go home because I was fearing the worst...

After work, I went and grabbed something to eat for us for supper and then made my way home. After we sat down to eat, I got my laptop out and went to the NASBA site to check my score. At this point, I really felt like I was going to throw up because I was so nervous and worried. I put in my information but I couldn't push the button to allow my score to come up so Trent offered to do it for me. I handed the computer to him so he could do it but peeked around to see what it was. Then... he pushed the button and this is what we saw:

Now, that looks a lot like a 70 at the bottom of the screen, doesn't it??? Well, you need to get a 75 to pass. So when I saw that, my heart sank. I grabbed the computer from Trent so I could get a better look and really take it in because I was kind of in disbelief that this had happened AGAIN. So I scrolled down and saw this:

I yelled, "It's a 79! I passed!" What a relief!! I was still shaking afterwards while we continued to finish our supper and it really took a little while for it to sink in! I'm halfway done!! I can't wait to get this all over with and finally 'get my life back' as some would say. :)

I've got my next test this coming Friday and then we close on our house and get settled in a week and a half after that and then hopefully just one more to go in late July or early August! Bing bang boom, DONE! Right?! Let's just hope it's that easy!

Have a great weekend!