Yes, that really is the full name we've given him. #dogparentwin
According to the vet records we got when we adopted Winslow, formerly known as Milford, today is his fourth birthday! Since my last post about Winslow, we're still working diligently to curb his separation anxiety and things are getting better. He's a spoiled little pooch and spends his days at doggy daycare while we keep working on figuring out what works for him to help him feel okay when we're away. He's happy though and that's all that matters to us! Of course I couldn't let his first birthday in his furever home pass without taking the opportunity to snap some fun pics with our new camera. Happy fourth birthday Winslow! You're the sweetest dog I've ever known and we are so lucky to share our lives and home with you! Here's to many more years of goofy pictures and sweet puppy snuggles!
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A year ago, when Johnny and I were dreaming of our first apartment together we imagined it'd be located in some mountain town with big windows that filled each room with diffused light, perfect for pictures. There'd be lots of walls to fill with the artwork we'd already started collecting. The kitchen would be open and airy so that we could cook our meals together. And, most importantly, there'd be a dishwasher... In reality, we got the dishwasher. So yeah, our first apartment is far from perfect. We share one bedroom and 500 square feet between the two of us, Winslow, and Gus (our guinea pig who surprising takes up a lot more room than you would expect!). Sometimes I still dream about that light, airy apartment with barstools, a sectional couch set against an exposed brick wall, and room for guests, but 500 square feet has been good to us. We share one small closet and a set of drawers so we've simplified our wardrobes by selling stuff on eBay or by bringing it to the Fashion Runway Exchange (basically a Plato's closet). Despite the unavoidable high cost of housing in Flagstaff and how convenient it would be to have a second bedroom, our small place has allowed us to save money to put towards our future goals and weekend excursions. All in all, I like where we live. We have a great patio and a small "yard" with two pines spaced just perfectly to string a hammock between. We're not far from campus or downtown but we're surrounded by forest so it feels like we live in a more secluded area. Best of all, we've made these 500 square feet feel like ours. Below you'll find some pictures of our first home. I think our tiny place will surprise you. It's tight but totally livable. What you won't see are the many baskets, deep cabinets and drawers, and hidden storage we have scattered throughout our place. What you wouldn't know (if I wasn't about to tell you) is that sometimes we feel like we're constantly cleaning because even the tiniest mess can seem like a disaster in this small space. Thankfully for us, we both enjoy cleaning. Small living has its quirks but also its advantages. I'm excited to see what our next place will be like, hopefully full of big windows and light, but for now we continue tiny living and making this place more and more our own. 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 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." |
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