Memorial Day: Our Kickoff to Summer

 

Happy Memorial Day!

 

 

I hope you all had relaxing day spent with friends and family, while remembering those who have served our country and given us the freedom to enjoy such a day!
 

Matt and I had a very relaxing day! 


We did a little bit of nothing in the moring….

 

….then we grilled out for lunch....

 

….followed by an afternoon stroll in the park….

 

….and finished the evening off by eating watermelon on the front porch.

 

In our house, Memorial day weekend is a kickoff to our summer season!   This weekend was no different.  We had such a great weekend together that I’m sort of dreading going back to work tomorrow:(  But such is life, I guess.

 

Before I sign off for the night, I wanted to share a few Instagram pics of our day. 
 

 

 

 

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A Very Country Wedding.......

Along with my husband turning the big 3-0 this month, another big event for our family took place in the month of August.  On August, 11, Matt and I drove an hour south to watch my baby brother get married.

I only had my I-phone with me to take pictures, but I wanted to share of a few pics of their special day on my blog.

My mother, though very happy for him, had a hard time…..

….. watching her baby…..

….the youngest of eight, officially leave the nest and get out on his own.

It was a very country wedding filled with barns, hay bails, wagon wheels, lots of country music and cowboy décor.

Even the bride came in on a tractor….

….wearing a pair of cowgirl boots under her dress.  Her flower girls came down the aisle in cowgirl boots as well.

Instead of a unity candle, they stuck with their country theme and tied twain together.

And even the wine glasses were mason jars filled with sweet tea.

I understand that not everyone dreams of a country wedding.  Everyone is different, and that’s the beauty of it.  Some prefer church weddings.  Some prefer beach weddings.  Some prefer Vegas.  I think back to my own wedding that was in a garden and remember that I walked down the aisle barefoot.  The great thing about weddings is that they can be a beautiful reflection of the bride and groom, and my brother’s wedding reflected their personalities perfectly.  If you know someone planning a country wedding, I hope some of these ideas help.

I wish my brother and new sister-in-law the best of luck in their new lives together.

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My Husband's 30th Birthday

The big 3-0….it’s a big deal for some!  Leaving your twenties is like saying goodbye to your younger years as you officially embark on a real grown up life!  For many, marriage, kids, a career and mortgage are all a part of our thirties.  It’s a good thing really…I don’t know why it seems so scary.

On August 4 of this year my handsome husband began this journey.  Although he tells me that he is still 29.  You see, my husband was adopted from Taiwan.  When he was twenty-five and buying his first home, he discovered that social security had the incorrect year of birth on the official SS document.  For that reason, he likes to think that he still has one more year left before the big 3-0, but let’s face it…..my mother-in-law would have known when she brought him home if he was a year younger than what he really is.  Sorry hun, but there’s no avoiding it…..you are 30!



Celebrating 30 can be a lot of fun.  Me, well I want to get away and go to Vegas when I turn 30.  We’ll see if that actually happens.  Pinterest has some great 30^th birthday party ideas as well, but my husband is more of simple kind of guy.  A few weeks before his birthday, he sort of hinted that he wanted a surprise party.  Although he would never admit it, that’s the vibe I got from him.  I immediately began making arrangements to have a surprise party for him the week before his 30^thbirthday.  I wasn’t able to make a cake without him knowing about it, so my mother-in-law graciously picked up a cake for us before they got to our house.  As far as dinner goes, I stuck with a crock pot meal.  He had no idea how much food I was preparing, and it was easily prepared.  It ended up working out really well, because his brother was supposed to be coming up to help with house projects that weekend.  Matt thought he was going to spend the day working.  He had no idea that family was coming up to celebrate with him.  That explains the clothes that he is wearing in this picture.  Now you know what he looks like on a Saturday afternoon when we don’t go anywhere.  At least I got him to shower that morning, because he wasn’t even going to do that!



Matt may have been the reason for the party, but our niece, baby Anna, stole the show.  She was only a few old weeks here and is absolutely precious!



A week later, Matt and I celebrated his actual birthday together.  I told him that I had the entire day planned for him and that he would love it!   Because my husband is a lover of food, particularly Asian food, I planned an entire day around some of his favorite food!

We started our day off at TaiwanTea House.  It’s located on 82^nd Street in-between Castleton and Keystone malls.  It was our first time trying this restaurant, and it was awesome!  I found it when researching places to take him for his birthday.  I ordered the family tofu with shrimp, while my husband ordered the general tso's chicken.  The food was really good.  Not at al like what you get from Americanized Chinese restaurants.  It was fresh and authentically Chinese with an American twist, if I can say that.  Each meal comes with the soup of the day and two crab rangoons.  We didn’t know that though, so we ordered a plate of crab rangoons as an appetizer.

I also tried the peach boba tea.  It was very good.  It tastes less like tea and more like a fruit drink.  We’ve been back a couple times since his birthday, and I have found that the coconut boba tea is my favorite.

Boba is little round, gummy like things in the bottom of the drink.  With a large straw they get sucked up with the tea and are chewed like candy.  Very unique to our American ways, but I quite enjoy it.

Ok, enough about our new favorite place to eat.  So after lunch, we did a little birthday shopping….

….and then headed to Shanghai Lilfor dessert.

Yes, I said dessert.  Only my husband would enjoy dim sum for dessert.  He said that it wasn’t nearly as god as the dim sum he had in SF, but it’s the best you’re gonna get in Indianapolis.  Shanghai Lil is pricy, and if your trying get filled on a meal, be prepared to spend a lot money.  Because we just ate lunch, we didn’t order very much.  We ordered just enough for a snack….or I guess I should say dessert.

 

After lunch, shopping and dessert, we stopped and picked up our dinner and dessert for later.  We had a nice birthday nap before eating our dinner at home.  And of course dinner was none other than one of my husband’s favorite meals…..sushi. I had never even tried sushi until we started dating, but I have definitely grown to enjoy it right along with him.

Last meal of the day was birthday cake.  My husband is not big on sweets, but he really does enjoy Gigi’s Cupcakes, especially the lemon poppyseed and strawberry shortcake cupcakes.

Unfortunately, I dropped the box when getting out of the car, so they weren’t too pretty when we got home.

They still tasted great though.  My husband can have his fruity cupcakes, I’d much rather have the chocolate ones.  I ordered the classic red velvet and the white midnight magic.  Best food of the day if I do say so myself!

 



Overall, I’d say that my husband had a pretty good thirtieth birthday that suited him perfectly!



 

 

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Reflecting On My Year

It’s hard to believe that this year has already come to an end.  Where did the time go?  As I'm sitting here watching New Yorks Rockin' Eve with the hubs, I can't help but reflect on this past year.........

It seems like we were celebrating the arrival of 2011 just weeks ago.  The year started out in sunny Miami for me.  That's where I set sail with Matt and both of our moms on a five day Caribbean cruise.

We had a wonderful time, but we were anxious to get home and find out news about the closing date for our house.  We unexpectedly closed on our home the day we got back from our trip.  We had one week to be out of our old house, and we hadn’t even started packing nor did we have a closing date arranged for our new home.

The timing for everything worked out, and we were able to close on the new house within the one week time frame.  Due to our work schedules, we only had one day to rent a truck and move into the new house…..in a snow storm no less.  I feel very blessed to have had this home shelter us from the ever changing weather of 2011.  It's sheltered us from winter snow and ice storms, spring tornadoes and thunderstorms, extreme heat of long summer days and steady cold raindrops of late fall and early winter.  I am thankful for the home the Lord has given us.


After moving into the new home, I decided that I wanted to journal my life's journey of being married and owning a new home, so in February, I entered the world of blogging.   Although keeping up with my blog has been time consuming, it has been something that I have truly LOVED doing in my spare time.  I’ve learned a lot since I wrote my very first post, and I look forward to learning so much more as I endeavor to grow my blog in the future.

Blogging gave me the push that I needed to use my creative side more and complete several DIY projects in 2011, all of which I’ve shared with you here my in my little corner of the internet.  It has been a true joy for me to create on a budget.  I look forward to sharing many more projects on my blog in the year to come.

While I love to DIY, traveling is something that both Matt and I really enjoy.  We had to postpone some of the bigger trips we had planned for 2011,  due to some budget adjustments after buying the house in January, but we were still able to fit in several small road trips here and there, all of which I've shared with you on my blog.   Before we bought the house, we already had the January cruise, February weekend getaway to Gatlinburg and March weekend getaway to Cincinnati  paid for.  That left us with enough in our budget to go to St. Louis for Fourth of July and New Buffalo, Michigan/Chicago for Matt's August birthday.   Getting away from our ordinary routine is so important to us that we even stayed in a nice hotel right here in Indy for our anniversary weekend.  We had a great time exploring our own city without spending too much money.  Looking back, we were able to do a lot of small getaways this past year on a tight budget, and for that I am thankful.  I will always cherish the memories we share when we can getaway from the hustle and bustle of our every day life and spend quality time together.

Another thing I got to do in 2011 is catch up on some reading.  Reading for pleasure is something that I really enjoy, and as I shared with you in a post earlier this week, I spent many nights curled up in bed with a good book during 2011.  I've already started my 2012 book list and can't wait to get started.

When I wasn’t spending time with my husband, working on projects for the house, writing post for my blog or reading a good book,  my time was spent at work with the girls that I nanny for or at the library working on classes for my masters.  I only have a few more classes to complete for my masters and would like to finish up in 2012.  As far as my job goes, I feel very blessed to have a good job in this economy and even more blessed that, unlike so many, I actually like my job.  I've been able to watch the girls grow up, and like each previous year that I've been a part of their lives, I've been able to make a lot memories with them.  Even when they no longer need a nanny, I will always have those memories and will forever cherish them.

While my job has gone well this past year, I can’t say the same for Matt’s job.  He started work with a new company at the beginning of 2011 and was really excited about what seemed to be a promising future for our family and his career…..but sometimes things don’t go as we think they should.  In November, Matt unexpectedly lost his job, and while he is aggressively looking for a new job, he hasn’t found one yet.  I haven’t really talked about this on my blog.  Sometimes I think if I don’t talk about it, it will go away….but the reality is that it isn’t going away, not tonight anyway.  We will wake up tomorrow morning to a new year, and it will still be a new year where we are forced to live on one income.  There’s no doubt that these past two months have been trying for us, seeing as how we base our monthly budget off of his income, not mine, but we trust that the Lord will provide our needs.  We don’t have to understand why bad things happen, although I really wish I did understand this.  All we have to understand is that God has a plan for us, and it will unfold in his time, not ours.  So while Matt and I didn’t buy each other Christmas gifts this year or go out to dinner for New Year’s Eve, we still have each other and that’s what’s really important to us as we say goodbye to 2011 and awake to a new year.

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Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from Our Family to Yours!

May we never forget the real reason for the season.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:  and the government shall be upon his shoulder:  and his name shall be called Wonder, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.  

 Isaiah 9:6

We hope you have a blessed day celebrating the birth of our Savior.

The Asher Family

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Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from my family to yours!

While I took the girls that I nanny for trick-or-treating….

……Matt stayed home with our girls (Molly and Chloe) and passed out candy.

Once trick-or-treating hours were over, Matt and I hit the couch with the bowl of left over candy:)

It was a good Halloween. J

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