And where you go we'll follow.

So, we took a road trip/bus trip/crazy trip to Chicago. On July 6, we embarked on our first ever Roaddron, with none other than the Cauldron, for the Sporting KC vs. Chicago Fire game. And boy, oh boy, it did not disappoint.

This was, essentially, our schedule:

Saturday - 8 AM: Depart for Chicago
6 PM: Arrive in Chicago
All night: explore the city, drink all the beers, sleep

Sunday, 10 AM: Leave for the game
11 AM: Arrive at stadium. Is that a minimum-security prison? NOPE, just Toyota Park.
11:10 AM: Tailgate while everyone gets sunburnt because hello, sun.
2 PM: Get escorted by security in to the stadium, where we proceed to sweat our faces off.
5 PM: WIN
(Monday) 3 AM: Arrive back in the motherland

There are literally so many things I could say about this trip, but really, I just can't describe how amazing it was. Traveling to see our team put out the Fire...there's nothing like it.


Snickerdoodles for the road, because c'mon.


This would be Jimmy John's, delivering a crap ton of sandwiches to us on the shoulder of an on ramp. Yep.


I will say, I have missed the gratuitous bean photo ops.


Down by the river.


Oooooh baby, I love that boy.


BAM. Chicago.


Oh so sexy.


I title this "We're coming for YOU, Chicago."


The part where my husband said, and I quote, "I'm a salty sailor baby." I die.


Just some proof that our stadium is better.

And in case you were wondering about the title of this post, there's a cheer that goes as such:
We love ya / We love ya / We love ya /
And where you go we'll follow / we'll follow / we'll follow /
'Cause we support the Wizards / the Wizards / the Wizards /
And that's the way we like it / we like it / we like it /
Wooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh / Wooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh / Wooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh / Wooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh

That moment when your dreams change and suddenly you're like, "Oh, crap..."

Let's talk dreams.

Or maybe a better phrase is 'life goals'?

Because I have had more life goals than years I've been alive, and in the past year especially, I've learned how terrifying it is when your goals change, and you realize that your life isn't what you thought it would be, and you kind of feel OK with that, but you're also thinking, "Crapsicles. I need to have all the answers because LIFE."

The spark that lit the fire for this post: Almost as soon as I knew that my man was thee man I wanted to spend forever with, I had a plan (type A all the way). We were going to get married after college (January 7, 2012, what what?!), move and find jobs (done and done), work a few years (getting there) and then start thinking about the possibility of a little soybean somewhere around 25ish.

And then, over the course of many moons, I decided that maybe that plan wasn't so much exciting for me as it was terrifying. Not just for the possibility of becoming parents at 25, but because I kind of anticipated more things happening that didn't. For one, I was unhealthily overcommitted and over-involved in college. I kind of thought that, when I got married, that passion for being involved would just sort of...die. And it didn't. And the more I got into my career, the more I kept telling myself that I needed to start making something of myself. And I realized my goals and the timeline for those things had changed.

...Terrified.

We've also got the whole 'what on this planet am I doing with my life?!?!' thing. I'm very blessed to love what I do and those I work with. But. I am a realist (or maybe a glass half-empty person, which have you), and I know that there will most likely come a point in my life where I leave what I'm comfortable with for something I'm not comfortable with. And then I think I'm crazy because why on earth do I ever want to leave what I love and feel confident in, but it's this thing called 'growth/professional development/a career' and it needs to happen.

The beauty of life is that it's always changing and full of surprises, and the ugly is that it's always changing and full of surprises. Life is scary, and the fact that not even I know exactly what I want to be or do or accomplish is ridiculous. But I tell myself I'm 23 and I've got time and as long as J.Crew doesn't take all my monies, everything will be alright.

Thank you for reading my attempt at poking a little fun at how terrifying can be. Why cry in a corner when you can laugh out of fear?

I'm alive, I promise.

You guys, I know.

It's been crazy bananas long since I word vomitted on the interwebs.

I've got at least four excuses, but they're just mediocre, so let's skip that and jump right in, shall we?

Marriage is super. Can't tell you how hard it is to believe that it's almost been a year and a half - como se what?! Some exciting things are percolating in Casa de Swanson (NO. NO, parental units/friends placing bets - I'm not preggers). For one, we're crossing our fingers that in six months, we'll be packing up our apartment and moving to a bigger nest...like a house! Probs just going to start out renting because buying a house is lots of monies, but hey, there are a lot of $20 bills that could be found on the streets between now and then. Also, the housing market [insert statement that makes me sound like I know what it's doing].

Work is great. Love my job and coworkers. E likes at least one of those things (two points to whoever guessed 'coworkers'). Not going to lie, the past few months have been a little strenuous for Eric. Huge project + unreliable coworkers + hard programming crap = no dice. But he's a champ and pretty much amazing for working so hard. And there's always pie.

Corporate challenge. You probably haven't heard of it, but it's been sucking my social life dry the past month and a half. Since the beginning of May, I've learned to play racquetball, tennis, soccer, softball, disc golf, I'm running my first duathlon tomorrow, and I'm also learning how to swim the butterfly in two weeks. Ridiculous? Yes. But I've gotten to know a few more people at work, and I've conned myself into substituting corporate challenge sports as workouts. Muahahahah.

Favorite things in my life as of late. Perrier, with lime, specifically. San Pellegrino. Yogurtini - strawberry kiwi sorbet loaded with fruit for liiiiife. Freeze pops every...single...day. This skirt. These cleaning products (slowly transitioning my entire supply!!!). These shoes. This wine. This collaboration. This publication. Any of this jewelry. And of course, duh.

Speaking of, Sporting KC. We're not talking about how we've lost the last four home games, because my blood pressure instantly rises and hello, I'm 23 and have always had good blood pressure. But seriously, what the dump, defense? Jimmy can't do your job and save goals. Moving past it - on July 7, the man and I are taking part in a Roadron to the Chicago Fire game, where we will hop on a motor vehicle with a bunch of other SKC-obsessed peeps and road trip it to Chitown for the Sporting vs. Fire game. It will be crazy and possibly the quickest semi-long trip I've ever partaken in. So much excitement - expect a post later.

Alright, peeps. You haven't missed much, but I've certainly missed blogging. Happy to say I'm baaaaack

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1 year - whaaaaaaat????

Holy poop, Eric and I have been married a year.

...Excuse me?

Yes. One year.

Obviously, this is crazy town.

Clarification: the fact that it's already been a year, not the fact that we made it a year. Although that could be argued, maybe...?

I've been thinking about trying to do a "all the things I've learned in my first year of marriage" post, but 1) thinking of all of those things is hard, and 2) there are so many...?

I will, however, tell you one thing we learned when trying to figure out how we were going to celebrate our anniversary. We tried and tried to plan a weekend trip or something super romantic, and we came up with nothing. No ideas. No exciting trips that wouldn't cost two appendages per person (why is traveling in winter SO expensive for how unenjoyable it is?).

So the weekend before our anniversary, we stopped stressing about making our anniversary super romantic, and decided to do something we still enjoy - snuggle on the couch, watch a movie and eat cake. And it was perfect.

Lesson learned - don't put tons of pressure on yourself to come up with a super awesome plan for celebrating. If it's stressing you out to plan something, go the simple route and let yourselves focus bask in how awesome your relationship is and how much you love each other, because you should definitely love someone if you marry them. Just sayin'...

And we had cake!

Christmas in pictures

Guys, how was your Christmas? I'm finally getting around to posting some Christmas pictures. Ridiculous, I'm aware.

We spent Christmas in Indiana with Eric's family. Lots of fun happened, even after our day in the city.

























friends // pretty presents // presents under the tree // Amaretto & Coke // Sangria I made // ...more alcohol/where my bro-in-law took over the camera? // HUGE flame // presents! // for sure stealing that wrapping technique // Munchkin // Munchkin + wine // a glimpse of the Dr. Who sweatshirt

I love the holidays. ::sigh::

Friends, games & drinks

My good friend Mike was in town this past weekend for a conference. He brought along his friend Nicole, whom Eric and I decided is pretty amazing essentially right after meeting her. Which was awesome, considering they crashed at our apartment. 

Between Mike and Nicole's conference, and my and Eric's jobs, we hung out as much as we could. Saturday night was freakin' sweet - we went out for thee best barbecue, came back, I made margaritas and then we played Settlers.







Like I said, pretty.freakin'.sweet.

...

Some days, a big glass of super sweet/juice-like wine and a good book can make some really crappy things seem less crappy.

Today was just sucky. I'm not going to expound on the details, but it was one of those where you just want to go to sleep so that the day can be done. Fighting the urge to do just that, I poured a huge glass of some blackberry cab and sat down with a book. Let it be known that no, I was not drunk, and no, I don't recommend always drinking when you have a bad day. But if I'm entirely honest, the physical motions of sitting down with wine and a book definitely helped calm my anxiety.

Cheers to good days and hoping bad ones are far and few between. Really, I just wanted to share a picture of some wine and Christmas ornaments in a bowl.

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

In the city

Yesterday, after getting to Indiana late late on Friday night/early early Saturday morning, we ventured to Chicago for a day of seeing "The Hobbit", walking around Navy Pier, shopping on Michigan Avenue and ending the day with dinner at a Bosnian place in Lincoln Square. It was a good, tiring day.

Airport dates

I'm sitting in a leather chair next to Eric, waiting to fly out to Chicago. We've been here for a few hours waiting for a flight that was supposed to take off 45 minutes ago...before it was delayed to the same time that we should have been landing in Chicago.

Typically, this situation would piss me off. I don't like traveling - not to be read as I don't like places. I like places, I hate getting there.

Maybe it's the Christmas season or the Starbucks finally kicking in, but I'm shockingly okay with this.

Eric and I have been really busy lately, and it's been a busy that has resulted in us spending Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights separate. We're definitely thankful that our schedules have been picking up and that we're enjoying all we've got going on, but honestly, by the time Thursday and Friday roll around, we're super tired from the first half of the week and we don't really think about putting energy into spending some quality time together. And looking into the new year, it's only going to get busier.

Quality time together in a marriage, even without kids, is harder than it sounds. This is something we've talked a few times about recently, and something we're both working towards. For us, it means eating more meals together, even if it's grilled cheese before I head to volleyball. It means talking in bed until neither of us can form coherent words. It means using commercial breaks to give Eric hugs and kisses while he programs and I watch The Mindy Project.

So tonight, I'm actually a little thankful for the extra time we've spent in the Kansas City International Airport. It's quieter here than usual, and we've caught up on things - devising a plan to buy black tights because I forgot mine in the dryer, finding a slip cover for our couch, why sleeping with our down comforter is a blessing (it's super warm and fluffy) and a curse (it's super warm).

Cheers to taking advantage of unexpected time together.

Picking sides

A few weeks ago Eric and I got to hit up a KU game via season tickets from my boss. Since I first started working at BRR, there have been a few instances where I've been asked where, since I'm not a Kansan, my allegiance when it comes to D1 sports lies. Depending on who was asking, I would switch between K-State and KU (never Mizzou - that opens a can of worms no matter who you choose).

After the KU vs. San Jose State, I think I can safely say my cheers belong to KU...for now. The experience at the historic Allen Fieldhouse is nothing short of phenomenal, and being a lover of college basketball, I was enthralled with the game. Also, Mass Street in Lawrence is our next day trip. So.many.fun.things. And pizza.





Kudos to Eric for being a trooper. Basketball isn't really his thing.

A little late [our Halloween costumes]

I had every intention of posting these on November 1st, but that was before Eric's camera cord went missing, and far before I thought to look in his camera bag that's hidden in the spare closet. Obviously, things like that happen to everyone, right? ...Right?

Anyways, I have to say - we pretty blew Halloween out of the park this year. Eric decided obsessively early that he would go as Dr. Who, which should definitely not shock you based on this. Since I've rocked '80s jazzerciser too many times, I happily accepted Eric's proposal to go as the Dr.'s sidekick, Amy Pond.

We set out to gather everything for our Halloween costumes, using pictures like below as inspiration.



...And then we realized that 1) I don't have red hair, 2) finding a wig that only looked medium-fake would take a while and cost cash monies, and 3) I didn't really want to dye my hair.

Finally, we came up with a fantastic idea. I would go as none other than Dr. Who's police box/time machine thing, the Tardis..

The second round of inspiration:



So I found a cheap sweater dress at Old Navy, bought some squares of $.25 felt, grabbed some vinyl letter, cut up an old black headband and dedicated four hours to hand sewing. We were both super pleased with our costumes, and seriously? C'mon. On a married couple scale of 1 to awesome, we're basically the freakin' coolest.



Also, our friend and gracious party host Casey had a sweet Zelda costume. Complete with tights, a shield and sword.