goodbye 2010. hello 2011.

2010 was a good year for Jason and I...find out why :) Thanks in advance to my iPhone, this blog and calendar for helping make this post possible! ps. click on the month to see all the posts from that month!

january
January started out with our friends Robyn and Joe! Jason was working at the bookstore and the retirement home as a life guard. We'd been our house two short months. My job was getting easier since the other special ed teacher had started work but the drama at work was still coming on strong. Though this month I met one of the best people I know, Sabrina. We started going to WSU Vancouver Alumni events in hopes that Jason would find a good job.

february
February didn't start off very great at all. I threw my back out on February 2nd and was out of work for a week and out of commission for basically everything for a lot longer. I couldn't tie my own shoes, dry my own hair or even lift items of the fridge there for a while... Jason no longer worked for the retirement home and really thought his job at B&N was going places...

march
By March I was starting to get better! We went on our first snowshoeing adventure which is something we really hope to do more of this year! I celebrated turning 27. Jason also got a new job for Columbia Distributing. This had him working Tuesday - Saturday and being exhausted all.the.time!

april
April seemed to pass without much happening. We'd been in our house 6 months and that reminds me that in April Jason and I celebrated our 6 years of "being together" in April. Six, wow! Who'd have thought that frat party 6 years ago would turn into this. I started and finished by third cake decorating class where I learned to stack cakes.

may
May was a month full of eventful weekends. Between friends visiting, bridal showers, ladies breakfasts, and mother's day...we were busy! School was just starting to wind down.

june
June brought the end of school :) and another throw-out of the back :( They happened to happen in the same week which was rather interesting. I didn't work most of the last week of school and had various people packing up my classroom for summer which made for an interesting August. I found that I have an 'extra' vertebrae in my back which should really have made me taller ;-) I spent the rest of the month recovering and participating in thrilling physical therapy sessions! We also started work on Project Deck!!

july
Biggest event is hard to choose from! I would say its a tie between celebrating our first wedding anniversary and Jason getting the job of a LIFETIME! It really is a tie! Jason started working for TransMarine Navigation and it really is perfect for him. We celebrated our anniversary by eating our wedding cake and going to dinner at Stanford's which is where we had out rehearsal dinner. I spent a week and a half away from home in various places in the Mid-West on family and friend vacations. Jason also turned 28 and once again, I was gone during his birthday...next year I won't be!

august
I graduated from Physical Therapy and haven't had the need to go back since! My cousin Emily came to visit and got to spend some 1:1 time with her. We watched (Jason participated in) watching some of our friends Adam and Katie get married and it was my first trip to Bellingham. It is definitely somewhere I would like to go back too. Sabrina and I started out onslaught of country concerts while Jason enjoyed some video game quiet time to himself during those evenings. I made a few cakes for various events and enjoyed it A LOT!

september
Start of year #2 at my school. I will say this year has been MUCH better than last year in so many ways! I started blogging about all my various crafting/caking adventures at madebyACE. We had one of our busiest weekends to date in September and subsequently I got SO SICK from it. We had a blast at Jason's cousins wedding and the Seahawks game in Seattle.

october
We had a pretty busy October! One of the biggest thing I personally did was go to Cupcake Camp! I had such a fun time and it was definitely worth it. Afterwards I dove head first into making cakepops, I've made bear ones, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas ones...and have many more planned for the coming year! We helped our "niece and nephew" celebrate their 1st and 3rd birthday's, respectively. We went to the pumpkin patch. This month Jason had his first "solo" ship so that was a big step up! We started (and then unfortunately soon stopped) making weekly dinner recipes.

november
Looking back November seems busier than October or September! I guess we had a busy fall. We spent some time at the beach with my parents, we went to Blazers games, Winterhawks games, and a few new places in Portland. One of the biggest things for me was I spent my first holiday, day away from my family. We went to Auburn for Thanksgiving since we knew that Jason was on-call over Christmas break. It went successfully, considering I was waiting for the worst after our Christmas Eve disaster of 2008.

december
This was actaully a pretty good December. Though December for me is a two week work month, so that is pretty sweet. We did venture into Portland a few times both with family and friends. We enjoyed many Christmases - 6 to be exact - with various family memers and friends. We were the recipients of many, many gracious and fun presents, and I think we didn't too bad in giving either :) I will say I got a little more spoiled by my husband this year than in years past, since this is the first Christmas in 6 years that he's made more money than me :-)

All in all 2010 was a very fun and entertaining year for us. We spent a lot of time with family and hope to continue with that trend along with focus on getting out to see out friends more too! We have big hopes for 2011 and all that it will bring!

Christmas - Part Five...

We finally celebrated Christmas with the 6 of us on Wednesday. A little strange to open presents closer to New Years than Christmas but that's how it was. While I wasn't a total fan of this at first it was nice to have us all together. We (Jason, Tony, myself) had gotten to open our "big" present on Christmas Eve but the rest waiting until today because Kellie, who is an RN and works in Tacoma, could not be here until that day.

We started out with dinner at the local Billygans Roadhouse. We were all kind of tierd of cooking after 3 other celebration meals! Then headed back to my parents for presents and dessert.

the tree at my parents.

us ~ Christmas 2010

my hilarious parents! i think this one picture describes them to.a.T!!!

Christmas - Part Four...

Living out in Washington State we don't have any "blood family" within 3000 miles...but we do have a bunch of wonderful friends who are really more like family! We love our family friends. We do Christmas dinner with the McLean family when the year allow it. Sometimes one family or the other is on vacation and it doesn't happen but it is just great when it does! This year we didn't have family dinner until 28th but it was worth the wait. While we weren't all there...many of us were. We sat around, drank, laughed, and enjoyed each other's company! We had a wonderful dinner with smoked turkey, potatoes, salad, and corn.

getting dinner ready. notice Bree and I are absent from the picture ;) we kept the couches warm.

table is set...

cake is made...

recipe from Annies-eats

chocolate cake with peppermint fillind and white chocolate frosting

Conor trying to teach Bree how to get the puzzle from the Christmas crackers done.

A + B = Cute Christmas Crackers!

Kathy and Steve getting Conor to take home the Christmas cookies. As if he needed help.

sunday snapshot (at year's end)...

I totally missed last Sunday, the 19th. Jason's family had just left (more on that later) and was trying to get all my Christmas shopping done! Here are my favorites from last week.

ice covered light house...not the best idea...

oh, the memories of Switzerland!

Really, this is sad they are living in this condition but they obviously did something to deserve it...

This week NBC's Week in Pictures posted their "Year in Pictures". Go ahead...take a look and remember the year 2010. I'm drafting a post reviewing our year...its been a good one and we're looking forward to 2011 and the changes it will bring!

Christmas - Part Two and Three...

Christmas Part Two and Three include the same rowdy group of people ;-) Jason, myself, my parents, and my brother. Part two was at my parents house on Christmas Eve complete with traditional meat fondue, baked potatoes and Christmas Crackers. We got to open one present, the rest are being made to wait until Tony's fiance Kellie can join us. I opened my Cricut which I was totally excited about until I got home, realized it had been very used, and had to wait until Sunday to return...but none-the-less it is currently working fabulously :) I'm sad to say I didn't take any pictures of this, though my Mom did, so I'll update with pictures when I can.

Christmas part three was at our house! We decided since we are having 6 different celebration days, yes, 6...that we would do something a bit different for dinner. This year we decided to make a Shepard's Pie that my fabulous friend Robyn had posted on her blog and we had actually made a week or so ago as a trial run. It was delicious and easy!!! We just used ground beef but you could certainly used cubed beef, lamb, turkey, anything really. This is one of those meals that can be adjusted to taste and I have a feel this is only the beginning of our Shepard's Pie creations!! We also had green bean casserole (my fav) and "corn mush" which a less-class way of saying Chevy's Corn Casserole (my Dad's fav). The green bean casserole is a requirement and the corn has turned into an Eeds Family Christmas tradition!

Christmas Morning. Jason got up 'early' to turn on the fire and tree! Aw :-)

Merry Christmas!

A new Annie tradition. I get a teddy bear poking out of my stocking!!

Our table is set for Christmas Dinner!

We played a little bit of the Nintendo Wii, talked to some family on the phone, and played a few rounds of Scatergories - which is one of my favorite games!!

Christmas - Part One...

We had our first Christmas celebration on December 17th - 18th with Jason's Mom and two brothers, Matt and Chris. The three of them came down from Auburn for the night. They got here pretty late so we just hung out for a while before heading to bed. The next morning we got up and had a breakfast I'd made the night before, Company French Toast, which is from my Aunt Amy. It was just as yummy as I remember it being when I was a kid!

We had out Christmas present exchange that morning also. We decided it was more fun to get presents early and to see each other open them! Jason's brother's did an AMAZING job on presents. They got me a bunch of Martha Stewart books and Jason video games! They certainly know our tastes!!

Matt and Chris are so happy about shirts :)

Then we headed out for a little adventure in Portland. First we stopped at Powells - City of Books and while the browsed, Jason and I ran across the street to do a little shopping. Then we ventured over to Big Town Hero to check out their sandwiches. See, Jason and I LOVE sandwiches!!! We have a favorite place in Olympia Port of Subs and we plan our trips North especially around stopping there for meals! Big Town Hero is a close second in our hearts now!

Then we headed to Voo Doo Too to get some doughnuts!! We LOVE Voo Doo and Chris and Matt had seen it on Man VS Food and wanted to try it. We decided to go out to Voo Doo Too, instead of the main one downtown, because it happens to be right next to the sandwich shop! Best street corner ever!!!

The visitors.

After that we went home and the boys played video games and Susan and I cut out all my cut out cookies! It was a great treat to have them all visit us.

teddy bear toss!!!

Really, I'll go to anything that is an excuse to carry a teddy bear around. I do love teddy bears, even my students know it! Though the opportunity had never come it, it finally did this year!!!

My friend Shelley invited us to go to the Teddy Bear Toss that the Portland Winterhawks host every year. It is a night where you bring a teddy bear to throw onto the ice at the first goal. All the teddy bears (or any other stuffed animal type) gets donated to local charities and hospitals. That night I think they said the crowd donated over 12,000 teddy bears or teddy bear friends!!!

We went with Shelley, her various family members, and Sabrina. It was a very fun game. It was actually Sabrina's first ever hockey game...and she thinks she might be a fan! We won too, which is always good!

Our teddy bears saved our seats!!

Buddies with their teddies!

Tom-A-Hawk was loving it!

tarps and tarps of teddy bears!!

:)

The cheerleads let the little girls have the pom-poms. how cute!!

one.

two.

three.

four.

see the puck in the net?? The Canon takes great pictures!!

Sorry for the jitteriness of the video. It was my first time taking one with the Canon. I might need to get a mono-pod for video making. Plus I was trying to throw a teddy bear. Mine leaves the screen at about 8 seconds in.

Suite 17...

I've been to Suite 17 many, many times. I've seen the Backstreet Boys, Nsync, Christina Aguleria, Tim and Faith all from the suite. But I had never gone there without my Dad. Last week I did. See, Jason and my dad work in familiar fields and know some of the same people. Turns out Whit, who runs the tickets for Suite 17 and who's very good friends with my Dad, is also friends with Jason's bosses. Anyways, we got to go to a Blazers game with some of Jason's coworkers!! It was my first time meeting all of them and it was a fun time.

One of the ladies who works with Jason had two little girls and I found them much more entertaining than the actual game! I'd brought some of the 'thunder sticks' from a previous game we went to to keep them entertained...and they worked like a charm.

inside the suite.

us.

this is one way to watch a Blazers game...

they did NOT want anything to do with the moscot.

the view.

this is ANOTHER way to watch a game...

We had a fun time and the Blazers won! Not a bad way to spend a Tuesday night.

sunday snapshot...

Just one today folks. It really is all the energy I have. It was a very busy week in the Eeds Household consisting of things somewhat out of the ordinary: Blazers game, staff Christmas party, Winterhawks game, cookie exchange, along with holiday shopping (which really means a lot of sitting in traffic). Here is the one Week in Pictures that I liked. A lot of them had to do with the destruction of fire this week...must be in the air.

I've never been to a ballet...at least that I remember. Maybe that's why I like this so much...

sunday snapshot...

I honestly can't even remember if I was on time with this last week or not! OH well, here it is, on a Sunday none-the-less! There were a lot this week that I loved and I picked the following four but you can always go here to see what ones you'd like for yourself!

can you imagine a. working with ropes of molten proportions and b. only working in one hour shifts...

Owls make me think of my friends Sabrina :)

I love the light and the fact that I've been in this exact church in England - even if I'm not a fan of religion, I respect it.

turtles! turtle! what an amazing site this would be to see!!

closet to craft room...

For those you who don't read my other blog (but you should!) - madebyACE - I thought I'd post this over here too! Enjoy.

I have been dreaming about this post for a long, long time! Really since we moved into our house I've been scheming a way to get some space to myself and I had that, until my husband got his new job he needed a space at home to have his computer up full time because the shipping business never sleeps! Well, he unintentionally took over my "craft" room which really was an old desk I used to every-other month make something on.

So this summer I formulated a plan which began with me telling my plan to my husband just enough times for him to realize I was serious while at the same time not being too annoying...I don't know if I was or not but I got what I wanted :)

We have a 3 bedroom house. Our room, the little brown room (someday the nursery) and the green/brown room (currently guest room/Annie's new craft room!!). That really is how we refer to them. The little brown room is currently where the desks are and the green/brown room has the guest been and now my very own space. Someday we will have kids and they will eventually move into that room but really, AT A MINIMUM we have 2+ years until we have little ones that are mobile and require space. I mean, hey - we aren't even pregnant yet. So...

I drew my plan out. I suggested we go to Home Depot and conveniently had the whole thing measured out. We bought the supplies. And Viola - the new craft room was born! PS. My husband did get a new tool out of the whole thing - an air compressed nail gun. Yeah for him!!

Enjoy the pictures!!

Before. Our house did not come with closet doors...

During...We measured a desk I liked the height of to get a good height for this desk. I cannot wait to get a new chair (it is next on my list)!

After. Well, after for now. Much, much more to come!

Our closet had this little nook that I thought would be great for shelves. At one point I had this genius idea to make the shelves roll out by putting the same type of mechanism that a keyboard uses on a desk. But then I soon realized that if I did that then I would not even be able to pull them out because the peg board would be in the way. Good thing I realized that before we installed them!

During.

After.

I My handy husband still might add one more shelf but I"m only 5'3" so I'd  either have to stand on something or store rarely used items up there...we'll see.

:) I need to get more peg board hooks!

I LOVE the frame around the peg board. It makes it look really finished.

My little shelf. Husband made.

:)

I have a few more plans in the works as far as additions go. On the right side in the above picture I am going to hang curtain rods to work as ribbon holders. You'll see soon hopefully! To the left of this work station I hope to someday put a Cricut Machine (hint! hint! Santa Parents) and a little shelf to hold fabric. I want to get a chair and hopefully even recover it, as I've never done that. Also I want to make curtains for the room and install some additional lighting. And probably much more that is just all that is on the to-do list now!

I want to figure out the total cost and supply list to see what this really cost because we bought many of the supplies over a week or two's time...maybe I'll do that tonight. I don't think it will be too bad and I won't include my husband's new tool ;-)

Also, I would like to point out we used the old paint from when we painted our house a year ago! We still had it in the garage and the pluses about that are it matches and it was "free".

And a HUGE thanks to my husband. He is really the one who made this happen. Though I did help measure and hold supplies for him in the garage :)

And lastly, here are a few links to various websites I found when I started really looking into this possibility. Many are much more elaborate that mine but I pulled from most of them somehow. I literally just googled "closet craft rooms" or some variation of that.

• tipjunkie craft-room-organization
• Craftster.org
•  stampin with markies mom
• stampinat6213
• tipjunkie.com interior-design-craft-room