Why, hello there, 2016. You're looking mighty fine!

It's amazing what one day and a swift kick in your own butt can do to change your attitude and outlook on life. I'll admit, just yesterday I was feeling the blues, as I've been a little bit down on life lately. I've had a lot of big changes over the last year, and I suppose it's been a bit more challenging for the queen of change than I realized. I've been settling into my new role of fiancé, I moved away from Denver (again), and the job situation has been up and down {lately down}.  I think I've been getting a little antsy; I haven't been able to book a trip anywhere as we are scrimping and saving for our wedding, and I guess overall I've just been feeling a little stressed and not like my free and easy-going-self. You could almost say I kind of felt like my life has become a little bit dull and status quo, which frankly scares the hell out of me. But last night as we were coming back home from a NYE celebration with the finest friends I know, I started looking back through the year's photos and I saw everything and anything but ordinary and dull. It was so wonderful to look through photo after photo on my iPhone and see what a truly wonderful and fantastic year I'd been having all along.

I turned thirty this year, and not only did I have the best celebratory weekend in San Francisco with my sister, but Colin and Sisterface threw me the most amazing surprise birthday party! I still can't figure out how they pulled it off, but so many family and wonderful friends were there to celebrate and love me that day. I'll never forget it as long as I live!

I felt so honored to have such a wonderful surprise party!

In May I took my annual mission trip to Mexico, where now the little kids know us and are excited to have us come and clean their teeth! It's quite an amazing team, and we continue to educate an underserved community to improve their overall health. (It starts with just a seed).

In May, we added a new member to the family and Bella got a new sister when we brought Cuddles home! She just the sweetest girl has brought us so much joy. We love to watch the two of them play together and take road trips with our traveling dogs. Yes, I think I've graduated to crazy dog mom!

Bella & Cuddles

Cuddles got her first haircut! She loves it!

Colin and I spent our summer tending the amazingly fruitful garden we made in our custom built bed. We were very proud of ourselves! We learned a lot about gardening, and how to NOT plant so many tomato bushes in one teeny tiny little corner :)

In June, last minute scheduled work trip took us to Charleston, South Carolina. I tagged along thinking it would be a fun weekend getaway, but Colin had something else in mind and took the opportunity to propose and ask me if I'd like to be his wife. The first official day of summer became my first official day as a fiancé! It was the happiest and most joyous time in our lives as we were showered in love and support by all of our family and friends.

The end of summer and fall was filled with concerts, hikes, camping at the Great Sand Dunes, hot air balloon festivals, and trips to Crested Butte where we plotted and planned our dream wedding. Happy Happy Happy.

Death Cab, Foo Fighters, Echosmith, Twenty One Pilots

Our camping trip to the Sand Dunes in September

We visited the Alligator Farm and Alien Watch Tower

Hot Air Balloon Festival in CO Springs!

We had a great time celebrating friends' weddings this fall, and one of them included a fantastic trip to Portland, which was Colin's first time there! In Portland, we got to celebrate Alexe & Eric, and I got to catch up with one of my dearest BFFs since middle school, Ms. Marianne Baca. Back in Denver we got to celebrate the marriage of Sarah & Christiaan, and now Colin can proudly say he knows "Too Legit to Quit". I love a good wedding, and I'm honored to have been a part of so many special days.

Monica & Chad's wedding, Arapahoe Basin, CO

Oh, Portland. How I love thee.

Fun at Eric & Alexe's wedding, and Sarah & Christiaan's weddings in October!

Thanksgiving was spent in Lamar with my family, where we got to spend precious time with my sweet Great Aunt Fina, and Christmas was spent with Colin's family.  NYE just brief moments ago will go down in the books as one the best, with the best folks I know.

Thanksgiving at Dad's

Christmas with Colin's Family. I learned to play Canasta! 

NYE with my CB gals and their dudes.

Merry Christmas from Bella & Cuddles!

This year was not without hard times, though. We've had some hard family issues, and in November we lost Colin's Grandpa Ed Cox. We were fortunate enough to spend a lot of quality time with him throughout the year and in his final days. I never knew a grandfather growing up, but Grandpa Ed and Colin's other Grandpa Wayne are the best grandfathers anyone could ever wish for. Grandpa Ed was such a wonderful man and I feel blessed for the short amount of time I got to know him. He loved God first, and his family more than anyone I've ever known. He prayed over us continually, and he treated me like his own granddaughter. I'll never forget that beautiful smile and those great big bear-hugs. Family dinners and prayer time won't be the same without him, but we know he is happy and healthy and whole again in Heaven with Jesus and his lovely wife, Donna.  The only good thing that comes with dying is the family time spent together. We were happy to spend so much time with Colin's sister Randi and her sweet Hannah & Connor. For those two kiddos being only 2 and 1, living in Florida, we sure are lucky we get to see so much of them! I've been in love with my new role of becoming "Auntie"! Lots of beautiful kiddos in the Cox/Siegmund family that I now can claim as my own. This winter we were also blessed with two new little nephews, Bentley & Ronan, born just a week apart. Nothing but tons of love to go around in this new family I'm joining :)

Colin & Grandpa Ed Cox

Fun @ the Royal Gorge with Hannah & Connor

Flash forward to 2016, and already this is shaping up to be a fantastic year! I'm training for my next marathon, planning our dream wedding, we have lots of other weddings to attend, and hopefully we can take a little trip here and there. How silly of me to think for a split second that my life was becoming dull. I have more love than I could ever hope for, more to look forward to than ever before,  and I have a partner that stands by me and encourages me to live up to my full potential. I know that though Christ all things are possible, and I will continue to {{TRY!}} to live each day thankful for all that I have.

Here's to 2016 becoming the best year, yet!

Oh, Charleston. You had me at "hello".

The first weekend of Summer, was the best weekend of my life. We took an impromptu trip to South Carolina, as Colin found out that he had to spend a week in Sumter for work. It worked out that I was able to join him for a few days, and we decided to make a mini vacay in Charleston!  So a week before we left we bought plane tickets and off we went! I was so excited to go, as I have always wanted to go to Charleston! I'd always envisioned Charleston to be such a lovely and romantic little city, and it was all that and more!

Friday night {{technically saturday morning}} we took the red eye out of DIA at 1am. We landed in Charleston, SC Saturday mid morning and picked up our rental car.  First stop: Southern Breakfast at Sunflower Cafe! We had ourselves a true southern breakfast complete with fried green tomato & crab eggs benedict, beignets, and chicory coffee. We were fueled and ready to hit the ground running! Oh, if I only knew what was in store :)

We arrived 2 days after the tragedy at Emanuel Church

We made our way to Cypress Gardens, which was the most beautiful place I think I've ever been! It was this beautiful swamp land {trust me, it really was beautiful!} with these amazing cypress trees and lily pads galore! We rented a little canoe and the two of us just paddled around the getting lost in each other and the beauty before us. It was so wonderful and romantic! It was just like a scene out of The Notebook.  We paddled around the water admiring all we could until we couldn't take the heat any longer. We were both dying of heat and humidity (welcome to the South!) We left the gardens and headed into the city.

Our perfect little canoe on the perfect little day.

Charleston was just as beautiful and as perfect as I ever imagined it to be! The colonial and plantation  style homes were so charming, and the cobblestone streets created the perfect finish to this old american city. We made our way through the Old City Market as we wandered through the streets of town.

After finally getting checked into our little airbnb home, we freshened up and got dressed for dinner. My sweet Colin had made reservations at this amazing restaurant called Cypress. {{I suppose this day was our Cypress day!}} We had an amazing meal together and sat for a couple of hours just talking and being all in love with one another :)

Our cute little place for the weekend!

Cypress

After the after-dinner-coffee & dessert, we decided to finish out the evening by taking a stroll down by the water's edge. Feeling tired from a long day of activity, travel, and basically no sleep since 5am friday, I'll admit I was starting to go downhill and possibly maybe even a little grumpy-pants. We parked it on a cute little bench where we took a selfie. After sitting in silence for a few minutes, just taking in the fresh sea air, Colin turned to me and said, "I have something really important I want to ask you..." My heart started beating so fast as he proceeded to get down on his knee, and pull out the most beautiful ring I'd ever seen. He held it and waited for me to say "Yes! Of Course!" before sliding it onto my left hand. I couldn't believe all this was happening, yet I was beyond ready and just more than anything, thrilled. Surprisingly, I didn't even cry. Of course being a girl, I'd sometimes daydream of that moment that perfect man might ask me to marry him, and I always assumed there would be tears of joy, but there was none of that. Just shrieks of laughter and bliss, and the feeling that everything just felt so right, were all that overwhelmed me. Of course, now that we had this new excitement happening, those tired feelings all went away.

Enjoying the sunset with my handsome.

Admiring the sky just seconds before Colin asked me to marry him

I could hardly breathe! The future Mr. & Mrs. Cox! 

We wanted to celebrate, just the two of us. We drove around looking for any sort of a liquor store to no avail (yes, you know you're from colorado when you forget that you can actually buy booze at grocery stores and gas stations, basically in every other state!) We finally found a gas station convenience mart where we bought a bottle of Prosecco and red Solo cups. We found another little park bench just a few blocks where we were staying, and polished off that bottle of bubbly, just the two of us.  We forgot that we had been awake since basically 5:30am Friday morning, and celebrated until midnight Saturday night. I just couldn't waste a moment of such a wonderful day.  We laughed, and then finally I cried...and we dreamed and schemed of all the wonderful things in our future to come. It was truly perfect, walking back and falling asleep next to the man that I will get to fall asleep next to for the rest of my life.

We went back home to change into some comfies and reenact the proposal again! I couldn't get enough :)

Our gas station champagne stop

Our midnight toast. Life is SO good.

We were up and at it again the next day at 5am. We made our way back down to the water to see the sunrise. It was so quiet and still, and for just a couple of hours we had the whole city to ourselves, my fiancé and I. We had breakfast before another full day of exploring charleston. We enjoyed the cobblestone streets that set the stage for the beautiful plantation style mansions along Battery Row.

My first east coast sunrise over the water

Thanks, Delayna, for the recommendation!

My ever so handsome, fiancé 

Having so much fun with our little secret ;)

We drove out to the Charleston Tea Gardens where we spent the afternoon sampling and learning all about tea! It was really quite fascinating and educational learning so much about tea. It was probably one of our favorite things we did all weekend. Trying to pack the most into our Charlestonian weekend, we visited the Aquarium. We were sweaty and smelly and raggedy from running all over the place, but we didn't mind. We had such a great day. By far, the best thing was simply just walking hand -in-hand with the love of my life, almost having this fun little secret before the whole world knew we were engaged.  We ended the day with yet another fantastic meal at Oak, and enjoyed a quiet walk around town under a full moon. It was the most perfect ending to the most perfect weekend. This was better than any dream I've ever had.

Having fun on the Tea Trolly

Our beautiful last night in Charleston. I just didn't want this weekend to end.

Sadly, the weekend came to a quick close. Monday morning we drove to Sumter, SC where Colin would be working for the next week. It was a tiny little town with not a lot going on....But fortunately they DID have a Starbucks! While Colin worked away, I sat and sipped coffee and "worked away" daydreaming about the wedding. It was a nice and relaxing couple of days in Sumter as we slowly started calling and texting family and friends to share the good news, and by Wednesday I was back home. The week ended and soon Colin was home, and we began to resume our new normal lives. We are so exited for this new adventure. I am so honored and lucky, and everyday I wonder how I got so lucky to get such a wonderful and amazing man. I have no doubt in my soul that I am the luckiest gal on earth, and I really have the best guy I could ever hope for. The Lord has truly been so good to us, and I am thankful every day. I really can't believe I get to spend the rest of my life with him. I hope he's ready ;)

And so begins the wedding planning....ohhhhh boy.

Just can't stop staring at my beautiful ring. I love this man of mine and I can't wait for forever!