Happy 2013!

Coming from a family that always sends a yearly recap with their Christmas cards, I didn't really feel like I could skip out. Strangely, when I was planning this letter, I kept thinking 'I have no idea what I'm going to write about - nothing really happened this past year'.

That's why it's strange - essentially everything changed in 2012.

First, I became a Swanson on January 7 after three years of dating/being engaged to Eric. The day was so fun and everything felt like us. We were blessed to have so many friends and family make the trek to South Dakota to celebrate.







Seventeen days later, with a honeymoon in Cozumel, Mexico in between, we moved to Kansas City - Overland Park, Kansas, to be exact. And we love it. Eric and his parents did a wonderful job picking out our 2-bedroom apartment, and we couldn't have asked for a better location. There's a wonderful outdoor mall and our favorite barbecue place only a mile down the road. Yes, please.

Maybe you're asking 'why Kansas City?' Before we got married (but after lots of stress about the future), Eric was offered a job as a software engineer at Cerner Corporation, where he started working shortly after we moved. For a few months, I played housewife until I got a job as a marketing coordinator at BRR Architecture, Inc. We're both extremely happy with what we're doing and the way that everything fell together.

In May, we trekked back to Chicago to walk the stage in graduation. Eric and I both graduated in December 2011 but waited to participate in the actual graduation ceremony until May so we could walk across the stage with friends. It was great to officially close out our college careers with all the wonderful people we started them with.



Since moving here, we've formed a great group of friends in Kansas City, because while we love all of our friends from afar, we were sort of becoming hermits without a friend group in KC. One of our favorite things to do with friends is go to Sporting KC games. Sporting KC is Kansas City's major league soccer team, and they're awesome. We've become instant fans, and I've blogged about them before (check here and here).



After a busy summer of graduation parties and weddings, things slowed down in the fall - enough for me to run my first half marathon! The experience was great, and while I don't think it will be my last half marathon, there are definitely no plans to ever run a full marathon or change my career to a professional runner. Also, for anyone considering running a half marathon, be prepared for how terrible you smell after 2+ hours of running. We're talking a threatened skunk meets a dead opossum with wet dog. That bad.



The fall culminated with us spending Thanksgiving in South Dakota and Christmas in Indiana. Both holidays were a hullabaloo of family gathering. We've had fun.

And for all of those wondering, we finally found a church! For the past six months, we've been attending Christ Community Evangelical Free Church. In the next few months, we anticipate becoming official members and hopefully getting involved in praise teams and Bible studies. We're big fans of everything about the church. Except the crazy, salted-caramel-mocha-nut-soy-whatever coffee creamers. No dice.

Summing up the year, I can't believe how much has changed and how fun it's been. Marriage has been a lot of fun, a lot of work and very humbling for both Eric and I. We find that different days bring new frustrations, but overall, every day gets more fun. If I had to describe the past year, I think that's the word I would use. Fun.

To all reading this, we sincerely hope you had a wonderful 2012 and that 2013 only gets better.

With all the love,

Eric & Ashley Swanson