it was a very good year

fair warning...this starts out kind of sappy. donald had to work new years eve and as he was leaving this afternoon i found myself suddenly emotional as i realized that it would be the last time i saw him this year. one of my favorite years. the year we became husband and wife. for me [and us] it's been a very, very good year. around me i see a lot of people [family, friends & strangers] giving 2013 a kick in the rear as it heads out the door, and for some that is very fitting....

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a very merry bearcat christmas

this year during the dyer family christmas festivities our niece maddie requested that we all sing the twelve days of christmas together, which when sung correctly is the holiday version of the song that never ends. during this rousing rendition i recalled another version i penned many years ago entitled 'the twelve days of christmas: sbu style'. and so without further ado, i give you my entry into the great leslie hall door decorating contest of 1997... on the twelfth day of christmas...

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ten four good buddy

time is a funny thing. sometimes i notice how long it's been since i've written a blog post and wonder why it's taken so long for something 'blog-worthy' to happen. or i look around our house and i'm puzzled (or more accurately...frustrated) at how long it's taking for me to get organized and feel at home. and i've written before about how quickly i seem to forget the good things that happen. but then i noticed that today is october 4th...exactly one year since the day donald sent...

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i heart grandparents

grandparents are great. i think it's because they have developed a reputation for spoilage. kids like that kind of thing. though two of my grandparents passed away before i was born, i still managed to acquire a good collection of them. in honor of grandparents day, these are the ones i was lucky enough to know... grandma williams edna williams was my dad's mom. i was only three when she passed away, so i don't have a lot of memories of her. she lived in bartlesville, oklahoma, which...

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half year honeymoon

last week donald and i celebrated six whole months of marriage, which seemed to be good cause for celebration. so we took a little half year honeymoon and spent a day in downtown kansas city pretending to be fancy. we stayed a night at the sheraton crown center in a gigantic, fluffy white bed...which just so happens to be my favorite kind. heading up to the rooftop pool our view of downtown [which donald secretly requested] late night cheesecake in the lobby...always fancy playing...

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#theardensarehere

as if it wasn't exciting enough to have matt and tara fly in from california for our wedding [and kick off the honeymoon with us] we got a double bonus this year when they came back to the midwest with two of my favorite little people. they were in missouri for a family wedding and lucky us got to steal them for a few days on their way in and out [not to be confused with eating at in-n-out, which we sadly do not get to do]. our visits are usually few and far between so we tried to...

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way fun wednesdays

summer is arguably my favorite time of the year. while i love all four seasons almost equally, to me summer is the epitome of fun. as a sort-of-teacher by trade, the summer obviously provides some freedom of time that doesn't happen all year round. and the swimming, staying up late and eating shaved ice certainly doesn't detract from the general feeling of fun. since kim and i don't have the pleasure of living together this summer we have implemented a little something we like to call...

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the camping trip that almost wasn't

we had quite an eventful start to donald's second ever non-parking lot camping adventure. but since his first camping trip involved a group of eight year olds lost in the wilderness [he being one of said children], i guess i shouldn't have been surprised.   camping weekend was scheduled to start not with camping, but with a cardinals game. mark and nicole had some extra tickets for friday night so we headed to the lou, delightfully oblivious to the pending weather events. we headed to the...

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must see movies

donald is a movie guy. and if you know him very well, that kind of goes without saying. i like movies too, lots of them...especially the ones full of singing and dancing. surprisingly most of the movies i love are not on his classic, must see movie list [although i'm pretty sure that the ability to quote back to the beach word for word should really count for something]. with that in mind, it's been a big week here at the dyer house. in our full premarital disclosure of how many must see...

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the big sale : round one

to say that i sometimes get overwhelmed by our house is a bit of an understatement. having never owned a house before, i've never had quite so much living space to deal with and i have discovered that organizing the stuff of two people is much different than organizing the stuff of one. though we have been making progress over the past few months, much of it is not especially obvious. we have yet to 'finish' an area where i can sit and bask in the organization of it all. some days...

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someone is seventy

happy birthday mom...we love you! ...

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that's true love

...

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narcos and flexerols and aleves, oh my

i've never been much of a pill taker myself. i was actually well into high school before i managed to swallow one...i had previously gotten by on chewable children's tylenol and that delicious pink stuff i always requested from the pediatrician. i may take an ibuprofen from time to time, but i'd say i only average about four per year. donald finds this moderately ridiculous and always encourages me to take at least two if i'm having a headache or something, but i'm pretty firm on my one pill at...

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the fun facts

as part of the wedding decor we had donald & shelly fun facts scattered around the lodge. not only did they provide some (hopefully) interesting tidbits about the two of us, they also aided those guests who were anxious to complete their very own donald loves shelly crossword puzzle, which came complete with a matching pen.   and just in case you missed them, here are all twenty four... #1 : donald proposed to shelly on the front steps of the nelson-atkins art museum...

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the d[r]yers

some days i have to stop and remind myself that our wedding already happened. as much as i tried to take time that weekend to look around and soak everything in, i couldn't stop time from racing by. we thoroughly enjoyed the time we spent with family and friends, but just one short month later i can already feel the memories fading. before we left on our honeymoon donald and i jotted down a few memories we didn't want to forget in the hustle and bustle of newlywed life. here are some of...

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a honeymoon sleepover

most newlyweds probably don’t plan to have a friends and family slumber party on the first night of their honeymoon…but i guess that’s what we get for getting married in january! we were scheduled to fly out of st. louis on sunday evening, but due to some winter weather in chicago, that didn’t go down. so instead of leaving on a jet plane, we headed back home for a sleepover at mom’s house...just the five of us! then we were back to the airport bright and early monday morning for a little more...

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the wedding highlight reel

a friend of ours from church was gracious enough to take some video footage of the wedding day and he put together this little highlight reel for us... ...

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the wedding details

these little smile makers were waiting at the check in desk  for the guests staying at the lodge wedding weekend schedules the ceremony programs the statement makers...we had LOTS of tissue paper balls paper bags for popcorn hour table assignments for the reception ...

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the stamp story

our wedding invitation stamps caused quite a stir (and i'm sure the post office just loved me). a number of people asked about them, and many wondered if they had been the only lucky ones to receive them. the story is that the stamps were originally a collection that belonged to my dad. for vintage stamps like these to be worth money, they typically need to still be attached in a large sheet. at some point in the past, my dad's stamps had been torn apart and after a little research we found that...

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seven more days

my little paper chain is getting awfully tiny (and thankfully my to do list is too!) ...

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the wedding party

tara [baines] arden : matron of honor tara and shelly are like two peas in a pod; they think alike, they plan alike and they spend alike. their friendship began in croatia, on a mission trip with sbu. since then, tara has been a great source of encouragement and wisdom. tara lives in california with her husband matt and daughters sophia and tori. kim twogood : maid of honor kim and shelly are the female version of the odd couple. their friendship began at sbu on leslie third south and has since...

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a kc wedding shower

debbie . shelly . marilyn conspiring with my little helpers the flower girls maddie . shelly . sophie the bridesmaids jackie . shelly . kim . missy ...

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