Turkey, Turkey and Tacos

Nik and I had the opportunity to get out of Portland for the Thanksgiving weekend and travel down to see family. We left Wednesday night and returned yesterday. All in all we spent over 27 hours in the car in a 5 day span. WOW!

We spent Thanksgiving at his brother and sister in-laws house and had a wonderful turkey dinner. We were able to spend time with his Baba and the rest of the family and it was great to see everyone.

Steve and Susie

Three generations of Kosach

The next day we had Turkey dinner at my Dad's house. The whole family was there including all our dogs. Four men, four women, 2 little girls, one in the oven and three dogs enjoying time together. This was to be the only time of year to get the entire family together and we were blessed that it all worked out. We had another wonderful dinner of turkey, stuffing and all the fixings and we spent the rest of the evening watching the UNR vs Boise game. It was an exciting game with the best company.

On Saturday, we spent the day at my moms. Addie and Cameron decided to take the day to spend some time together while they had all this family around to watch the girls. Nik and I volunteered to watch the nieces and we had good company with mom hanging around. We made forts and played silly games with Callie and Avery. Later Zach and Nik went to the shooting range with my dad, while Sarah, my mom and I took over the sitting.  That night for dinner we had my aunt, uncle and a couple cousins join the rest of us for a taco dinner. Ali and Mariah were even able to join, it is always wonderful to see them.  It was about 20 of us and a lot of love.

Sunday, Nik spent that day hanging out at his parents house, while I went shopping with my mom. It brought back memories of all the wonderful days my mom and I would spend together when I lived in Reno. I miss that. That night Steve and Gail took their turn of making us dinner. It was delicious as always.

It was a perfect Thanksgiving with family and more family. Steve and Gail were so kind to let us stay at their house and we had some many exceptional meals with the best company I could ask for. Thank you everyone for the perfect weekend. We loved every moment of it.

Happy Birthday Nikolas!!

Nik has official arrived at the year 27. In the last year he finished his masters, played professional baseball in Germany, traveled the world and met me. It was a great 26 for him and I can only imagine what 27 will bring. We enjoyed the weekend with friends on Saturday for dinner, darts and basketball shootout. It was a blast seeing Nik's face when we arrived at one of his favorite breweries only to stumble upon a bunch of his friends waiting for us to arrive. Yesterday we played soccer in the rain/sleet at his old University with some friends and then we made slow cooker chili and I made him his favorite cake (confetti cake with rainbow chip frosting). It was cold and wet, but a lot of fun and a great way to get out even when the weather is bad. 

Today (his real birthday) the agenda was work, but of course I still had to make sure he had a good time when were together. For dinner we went Matodors, a mexican restaurant down the street. He got to open a few presents and we ha dessert at Papa Hayden's, a place famous for their dessert menu. 

Nik I love you dearly. I am so happy to have you in my life and I look forward to the many more birthdays to come. Happy Birthday Mr Nik!

Life as we are learning to know it

The weather has changed and it is officially fall almost winter. Our time change happened last weekend so it now gets dark around 4:30 PM. Yikes, that is early!! It has become very brisk in the air and we are seeing a lot more rain. I don't mind the light drizzle, because I am still able to walk to work and school. It is when it downpours that it makes everything more difficult. Luckily I work for a company that readily supplies me with the right outerwear. Wanda, on the other hand, hates the rain. We don't get it because she loves to swim and get in the water. But, for some reason she hates the pitter patter on her back when it's raining. We decided to get her a raincoat, which is slowing starting to make some progress. She doesn't like the raincoat, but we figure it is better than nothing. Actually when the hood is off of her head, she doesn't even really notice it is on. 

She looks miserable

I am very proud of Nik. He has successfully landed a new job. After only being home for about 6 weeks, he was able to score a good job with Everest College. He will be an Enrollment Counselor for high school kids. His job will be challenging, but he is a hard worker and will do wonderful helping kids who would not be going to college, enroll and get started. 

I have been busy busy with school and work. We are now headed into the holidays with work, so I spend my days running around managing my store. Then, in the evening, I jump on the street car and head to the other side of downtown to go to school. Nik has been wonderful making my lunches and dinners and picking me up after school. He has also been so helpful with Wanda, taking great care of her everyday. Now that he has a job, we will have to figure a balance of all the things we have going on. I have no doubt we can accomplish this, because we have already done so much in our short time together. 

Anniversary

One year ago Nik and I spent Halloween weekend together for the first time. We met in early October, but this was the first time we were actually able to spend some time together. He dressed as Rod Stewart and I was a baseball bat (play on words). We have been inseparable ever since. Maybe by distance, but never in heart.

In the past year, we have traveled all over the W and NW of the US. We have gone to Thailand, Germany, Montenegro, Croatia, Italy and Austria together. Nik has played professional baseball and I have gone back to school and started a career with a great company. We moved to Portland and we  moved in together. And now we are engaged. This was by far the best year of my life. 

On Sunday for our anniversary instead of dressing up and going out to the bars, we decided we would spend it out in Hood River. Hood River is about 60 miles outside of Portland. It is a small town right on the Columbia River. Windsurfing, kiteboarding, mountain biking and of course all the winter sports are very popular here. We took a tour of Full Sail Brewing, then walked around town and took Wanda swimming in the River. It was a wonderful and perfect day to the end of our first year and beginning of our years together. 

We got back into town just in time to watch the Giants play in the World Series. Yay, they won, which made for an even better ending to the best year.