Life Lately- Winter 2022

Life lately towards the end of this past winter was primarily taking advantage of FINALLY no more wedding planning! We were ecstatic about that! For the end of January and much of February, we had been catching up on other house and life tasks and also just living some life, reading more books, and spending quality time together.

While there are NOT a lot of things I truly love about loving in North Carolina, I will say that it has the absolute best weather of anywhere I've lived (Illinois, Michigan, Texas, and here). It seemed to transition to spring here the last week of February; that's when our flowers started blooming, the air started to feel like it, it started to smell like spring, the daylight started looking like spring, it started warming up quite a bit (although we definitely get sporadic warm days all year long), and our windows could remain open the majority of the time.

BUT, this post is about our winter, so this was all about life before that amazing spring transition happened.

I do love winter here too- it cools off and gives us those cold temps especially at night and in the morning so it feels seasonal, but I still don't need anything more than a sweatshirt or light fleece to walk the dogs in the daytime throughout the winter.

Anyways, we woke up one late winter weekend morning to some snow! That was the first time we've seen it since living here in North Carolina (although my mom saw it when she was dog sitting during our honeymoon!) It's definitely not the amount of snow that I used to walk to class in at Michigan State, but it still makes me excited! If it's cold, I want snow. Of course, it only lasted like 3 hours here.

Shane woke up Cash and had them go outside to play. Cash lives for cold weather this time of year. Caylor is mostly indifferent about it, but she was excited about the snow.

This is Caylor's one vice. She only tries to jump on this table, and never attempts this at other houses or inside, so we let her have it. It's her one place to escape Cash Cash.

Towards the end of winter, we started enjoying being in town for more than a weekend or two (first time since August!) and getting back into our Sunday routine of going to church. We LOVE Pastor Jason at our church. We got our start at one of the biggest churches in the United States, and many of those guys were outstanding, but I think our pastor at this small(ish) church in Jacksonville, NC is hands down one of my favorites. He is HILARIOUS, real, and such an engaging speaker with truly life-changing statements. Two of our closest friends here go to church with us too. It's pretty much all military that attend, so it's a nice place to make connections too.

(Shane was wearing his Papa's coat this day 🤣)

There seemed to be more than usual coldish days cuddled up inside reading. Even Cashy spent more time inside this winter! 

By the way, this dog bed cover is one of my most genius ideas (and trust me, they are few and far between). Our dogs track in so much mud, and this was an expensive bed I didn't want to have to take the cover off to wash frequently because it looked difficult, so I ordered a baby's fitted crib sheet from Amazon to cover it with. It stays on super well and also comes off to wash super easily!

I end up going to the library about once a week, and Shane sometimes joins me. This was all the books we had to check out for my mom when she was coming to visit to dogsit, and she only read 1/2 of one due to how needy Cash was!

I love my Caylor cuddles!

As long as they get their two long walks a day, these pups are otherwise pretty much perfect. They've come a LONG way (mainly Cash...he had the most room for growth) since they turned one.

We tried out our popcorn maker from my dad- shopping with him for Christmas always benefits me. This was surprisingly quick and easy to make popcorn with- and it just makes weekend movie nights that much more exciting.

Cash split his nail and his quick was fully exposed for a few days so needed some TLC. Caylor's expression in this just kills us!

We had a warmer day so took the pups to run free on the beach. This was the first time without their leashes on at the beach, and we almost regretted it for the first 5 seconds when they sprinted...and sprinted... and sprinted... and sprinted before hearing us and turning around. They've done much better with knowing their beach boundaries since.

Shane and I went to Wilmington to pick out new glasses for me. This is YEARS overdue, and I'm super excited to be able to have glasses that I can actually see with now.

All the ones that I tried on looked exactly like the ones I already had, so Shane encouraged me to mix it up. 

Who do you think is going to wear them better? 

We celebrated our good friend Rebecca's 35th with her and her family! Blake and Shane became good friends on deployment, they started going to our church when the guys got back, and we all just instantly clicked. I think we've hung out every weekend that we've been in town since.

We bring our dogs over to play with their dog and their new puppy, Bane. Caylor LOVES her some Joker.

When we went to pick up my glasses in Wilmington one weekend, we went to Red Robin (the BEST g-free burger and bun!), walked around Michaels for some scrapbooking stuff and seasonal decor, and then finished off the night by walking around Barnes and Noble together. This one looks great! I've never read one by this author. Have any of you?

Trying out my new glasses!

Winter has also been busy, busy, busy with work for me. I couldn't be happier to be working from home. This was the end of the workday, and Caylor was ready for me to switch locations out of the office.

We enjoyed having our friends in New Bern, Shane's friend from OCS and TBS (training a few years ago), and his wife over for the first time since before Shane's deployment. Rod recently left to do the same deployment now, so it was nice to spend time together before he's off! Here's a quick pic I snapped after we grocery shopped and as we were getting the apps, dinner, and dessert all ready. We love hosting friends over for dinner on the weekends.

Andddd we also spent one of our weekends dogsitting for our friends. By "we" I mean "Shane", because as clearly obsessed with our dogs as I am, I am STILL not an other dog person! We had 4 dogs for 5+ days...

And that's life lately for this past Winter! You can see we made the best of enjoying the little things.