The Craziest Year Comes To An End

Can you believe it?! 2014 is over!!!!!!!!!

This year has been rewarding, frustrating, stressful, exciting, scary, and beautiful. I wouldn't change it for the world, and I'm glad to have experienced everything I did this year.
Miss Orem, Miss Utah, Getting Married, Student Teaching, Graduating, and now looking for a house and having my first full-time job! It has all been a whirl-wind!

Although I wouldn't change it, there are some things I can learn from it. I notice as I look back on this year that I took on too much (as usual) and stressed out too much. That resulted in not having as much time as we used to to do fun things together. Don't get me wrong, we did lots of fun things together this year, but we've become more practical and driven in our old age ;)
So my New Year's resolution for 2015 is to live it up!
I'm going to make it a goal to not get so caught up in the "have-to's" and start doing more of the "want-to's." I think it is definitely possible to live an adventurous, social, exciting life regardless of budget or time. We're going to do at least one exciting or different thing a week. (i.e. dinner & a movie doesn't count) I'm stoked.
2015 is going to be the best!!!

Here's what we've been up to lately...

Sara gave us three matching scarves! The kids were spoiled for Christmas (we all were). It was such a good holiday.

We went out to Nebraska to the Flanigan household! (Scariest drive ever because of the snow) It was so nice to see family we haven't seen in a while.

Dallin got a Carhardt for Christmas so that now he can be a "real man." His reaction was priceless.

(Dallin is on the right, I promise.)

"Skitching" is our word for a the terribly dangerous activity of riding a sled that's being pulled behind a 4wheeler. It's kindof a tradition to prove your toughness and then regret it later.
I got the big ol' Charlie to ride with me!

Nebraska has a different kindof beauty than Utah. It's a calm, open, free kindof feeling out there. Sounds cliche, but when you're riding a 4wheeler on that much open land it is really relaxing & beautiful.

My dad got a bike trainer thing and I thought it was so cool. I had never seen or tried one of those before.

We went mini-golfing and laser-tagging with Twenen and Kaylynn and it was soooo fun. It makes me want to do laser tag more often! (You can barely see our teeth and my shirt and dallin's hat in the black light of the mini-golf)

I'm used to living my life at the speed of light, so now that things have slowed down it feels weird. At first I loved it, but now I'm getting bored so I'm looking for new hobbies and projects. My mom gave me the "wreck this journal" series and a book so I can work on something when it's slow at work and I'm done writing my articles. I'm thinking about taking up reading, painting, learning spanish, tennis, yoga, redoing the furniture, or photography.  haha Can't sit still for long.

Warning: Kaden Overload Below!

We definitely don't want kids any time soon, but we find being Aunt & Uncle pretty fun! We had a ridiculous amount of fun shopping for Christmas for the little Aaron & Declan, and their reactions to their toys were out-of-this-world. So funny. They both screamed the names of their toys like they had yearned and studied them for years lol
The holiday season was a success; we had a blast. My dad helped us focus on what's important by having us tell a time when we served someone else, and it made me realize that the last time I did that was MO stuff. I don't want to be one of those people who only serves when they have to, so it was a good realization for me that if you don't make it happen, you won't remember and time gets away from you. He gave us a little project to give to money to someone who is in financial trouble, and I'm really looking forward to that because lately I've noticed how blessed we are, and it would be selfish not to give back.

I have sooooo many goals for 2015, and I'm looking forward to so many things. I am excited for everything that's happening in our lives right now.
That's it for now!
-Syd

p.s. I found exactly what I am! I usually never read stupid facebook articles like this, but this one totally summed up my personality. I liked it because now I make more sense to me, if that makes any sense..... http://www.puckermob.com/lifestyle/8-signs-you-may-be-an-outgoing-introvert
(all true except the hating people thing...that's a little intense)