Being that it's our first Christmas together as a family this year, I went a little overboard - especially when it came to our Christmas cards. We not only ordered cards (coming to a mailbox near you soon!) to send to friends and family, but I also created a visual Christmas letter to share as well. In the interest of saving trees (but mostly money #thrifty) I decided what better way to share what we've been up to in the past year than to put it on the internet!?
As you can tell, 2015 has been a whirlwind but it's also, undoubtedly, been the best year yet! Between celebrating our marriage with friends and family in May to adopting Winslow to exploring our new home and sharing it with the ones we love (whether that's in person or through our blog) we've been busy but happy and blessed through it all. Next week we'll be taking time off for a brief holiday visit back home. Four days surely won't be enough but we're more than thankful for any time we get to spend with our families who are now 1,500 miles away from us. Hopefully you'll hear from us again before the start of the new year but if not, we're wishing you the happiest of Christmases and New Years. May they be filled with friends and family near and dear as well as reflection on what this season is truly about. Love, the Christopherson Family
0 Comments
I often think about how lucky (more like how intentionally blessed) we were to find the apartment we did. With three short weeks notice to find a place in a college town in June, our pickings were slim and further narrowed by pet restrictions. We spent days calling apartment after apartment and reading reviews from 1,500 miles away and finally we found an apartment. One apartment. That's it. Our first place together was hardly a decision but like I said, we've actually been very lucky to call our tiny (reminder: 500 sq. ft.) apartment home. Living on the first floor, we have a small patio with seating for cool, summer nights and even a tiny backyard with two ponderosa pines perfectly spaced for some prime hammocking. Parking is plentiful. Our complex is pet friendly and even has a small dog park. Best of all, at least in Johnny's opinion, WE HAVE A DISHWASHER. On top of all this, we're less than 10 minutes away from both our places of work, downtown, TARGET, and best of all, in my opinion, this place: We stumbled upon Arizona Mountain Inn and Cabins not long after we moved to Flagstaff. Just around the corner from our apartment complex and just down the (unbeaten) trail where Winslow loves to run and chase a squirrel or two (or a bird - he doesn't discriminate), Arizona Mountain Inn and Cabins is sheltered beneath a pine forest and tucked away from the relative bustle of Lake Mary Road. At first we thought the place was cute and would be a nice place for our families to stay when they visit, and then the snow hit and it turned into something magical. Lately, I keep finding myself going out of the way to catch a glimpse of the tiny A-frame cabins. I've mapped out a mile long loop that I like to take with Winslow when I get home from work that allows me a distant view of three picturesque cabins set up along a ridge. I say it's for him - to burn off some energy - but I know better. It's for me. Yesterday, during our biggest snow storm of the season so far, and after getting done with work early for our annual volunteer day, I hit the trail with purpose (and Winslow of course!). Instead of taking the "back way" as I usually do, we marched up the winding dirt path that leads you from the main road to the property. I passed the abandoned, slightly creepy (as some friends I shared the cabins with pointed out) playground. The world was still except for few snowflakes leisurely drifting to earth (thankfully, the especially haunting merry-go-round was included in that stillness). I rounded the bend and slid down the path (literally) to my favorite cabins - the picturesque ones with the decorative trim. The friendliness and invitation displayed by the cabins extends to the staff as well, I noticed as a worker passed me in a truck with a smile and a wave. I decided it was impossible to be anything other than happy and at peace in this real life winter wonderland even in spite of the treacherous weather conditions. And so, simply, that's what I was; happy.
Is this something that happens to everyone when they start adulting? Is everyone else suddenly as obsessed with plants as we are? Before Johnny started his job after we moved here, he spent a month making our tiny apartment (have I mentioned we share 500 sq. ft. with each other and a commanding dog?) feel more like a home. Part of that process included creating a small garden in our "back yard" (we live on the first floor of our building luckily and beyond our patio are able to utilize the outdoor space for plants and hammocking between two of the ponderosa pines out our back door). Johnny's parents' parting gift to us, after helping us move across the country, was a couple plants for our little garden. After Johnny had those planted, we wanted more, including indoor plants. I haven't always had the best luck with plants, even succulents which so many people claim are "easy" but that hasn't stopped me from trying to be a better plant mom. This weekend when we were out running some errands and shopping for Christmas gifts, we decided to stop at a greenhouse near our apartment and we'll certainly be back again (signed up for their rewards points yeah!) I have unfortunately failed as a plant mom for some of our succulents we had gotten earlier this year at Home Depot and some of our currently living (but not quite thriving) needed a refresher so we not only purchased a few new plant babies but also made a point to ask some questions about proper succulent care. I knew succulents don't need to be watered very much, but it turns out I was probably still over watering. Our other mistake came with drainage - or lack thereof - so for our planters that don't have built-in drainage, we purchased some gravel to put at the bottom to act as a natural sort of drain (and on top purely for aesthetic purposes). As a last ditch effort to be the best plant mom I can be, I rearranged our living/dining space to maximize the amount of light available to our new (and newly refreshed) plant babies. Hopefully next time we go to the nursery, it will be to purchase additional plants (a hanging plant is next on our list) not replacement plants.
For those of you looking for cheap (or even free!) date ideas this holiday season, escape the cold and browse your local greenhouse. Ours even had free hot cocoa, coffee, and Christmas trees galore to admire! Whether you buy some green friends for your home or just look around, it's a guaranteed good time and definitely one of our newest favorite "dates." |
Archives
June 2017
Categories
All
|