we went out to colorado this weekend to celebrate eric's cousin natalie's wedding.  his whole family was there and it was great catching up with people we don't get to see very often.

natalie and the wedding were both absolutely beautiful!

also, my beautiful, pregnant, sister-in-law was a bridesmaid and we hadn't seen her since she was barely pregnant.  her bump is the cutest and i couldn't handle it!

we spent this christmas in colorado with eric's family.  it was cold and snowy just like everywhere we have been in the last month, so i guess we're meant to be cold this winter :)

while there, we went up to eric's family condo for a few days. my brother came out and the conditions were perfect for some boarding.

holy snow, the mountains were snowy and cold.  great for boarding, but we were happy to get down from the mountains and spend some quality time with eric's family.

 ^^magnet letters x-mas gift i made for a friend^^

 ^^templates for these here^^

 as much as we love seeing family, we also love being home.  for the first day of 2014 we had our favorite breakfast with black-eyed-peas as a side and snuggled up our girls.  it's the only way to start a great day which makes it the perfect way to start a great year.

^^sister love^^

well in less than one month's time, eric and i will have been to more places than two people should be.  here's a map of the last 25 days.

monkey mia, perth, auckland, san fran, dallas, denver, chicago, dc, and now nyc!  once we arrived back in dallas it was time to begin our long road trip to complete the road trip circle.  back in march we started in dc and have finally arrived back home.

the drive from texas to colorado looks like this:

 lots of wind turbines and oil rigs...

 and can someone tell me if there's anything classier than take-out olive garden and sharing a corona familiar on a hotel room bed?  it was a highlight.

 yay colorado!

 ^^"mom, did we move to colorado?"^^
the drive from colorado to chicago was pretty much this the entire way:

 luckily we got to stop in chicago to visit our friend lady the beautiful dachshund :)

 back on the road the girls took turns driving.  with eleven states under our belts, we made it home!
neither of us are particularly talented at taking pictures of state welcome signs... we missed indiana, maryland, and virginia, but we tried.

^^night time driving entertainment^^

we went to colorado for what felt like 5 minutes over the weekend and had a great time seeing eric's family though the visit was way to quick! 

saturday morning we had brunch and went ring shopping in boulder, and then spent the afternoon and evening in denver at a good friend of eric's wedding.  it was a beautiful day full of friends and family and i only wish we could have stayed longer!