Our Top 11 of 2011

2011 was nuts. Wait a minute, every year of our lives together have been nuts. 

This year was a different kind, not a moving all over the place kind....

the Getting Married kind! :)

WARNING: Photo Overload...I tried to put photos in this post that I hadn't posted before...kind of impossible. I tried.

11. Emerald City Dance grew and grew...and grew some more. We hit 100 kids in one session in 2011 and now ending 2011 had 158 last quarter. In 2011 I taught almost 500 different kids. Summer was fantastic doing 5 week-long summer camps. Funnest thing ever!

10. Matt took me to Disneyland for my first time! I grew up a Disney World girl and I absolutely love Disneyland now. I have a different kind of love for Disney World being that I grew up going there sometimes multiple times/year, having competitions there and meeting Matt there. Disneyland has a different kind of magic. I loved learning it's history from Matt while we were there. My top moment may have been getting to ride in the Lilly Belle which is the railway car designed by Lillian Disney. I loved knowing that her and Walt Disney actually sat in there and then we did too. Walt never made it to even see WDW so knowing he actually set food at DL was an awesome experience! We loved every second of those 5 days!

(Matt used to work here)

(Indiana Jones is now my top 3 rides!)

(First time on Disneyland Space Mountain, ha! Matt: Honey are you okay? Me: I don't like it, I don't like it...crying. HA)

(My first time hugging Pluto since I was Pluto. I fought back the tears for this photo and then had to go sit down and had a moment of super sadness. It was hard. I knew it would be. We told the Pluto and they were awesome about giving me extra big hugs and silliness.)

(This is Valentine's Day! We got to the park SUPER early and were one of the first ones to the park. We then conjured up a plan and at the rope cutting we ran through all the shops instead of on the street. We literally ran...got asked to stop like 4 times which switched us to speed walking...until...yes, this couple is amazing....first through the castle for the day! THEN first on Peter Pan for the day! We completed every single ride in Fantasyland in under 30 minutes. No joke. Here we are on Alice in Wonderland!) 

(Here we are on the Lilly Belle. So cool!)

9. We moved into our 2 bedroom/2 bathroom apartment that is meant to be our long term place until we get a house. When apartment hunting I had a blast because we knew this apartment will most likely be where we have our first baby so I had that in mind the whole time and loved it! Our 2nd bedroom is now our office which has been great to have. With both of us working from home it's super important. We love this place and really don't want to move. 

8. I turned 23 in 2011 and Matt turned 25 : )

7. We went to Mt. Rainier on a whim. I had practice one Saturday morning in July until 11am. Matt came to pick me up and said, "Guess what? We're going to Mt. Rainier and leaving right now!" Matt is not very spontaneous like that so it was so so so exciting! It was incredible!

6. My 11 year old little sister, Cylie spent 6 weeks living with us this summer. It went better than we ever imagined it would. Matt and I both enjoyed having her here. She helped with Cogsy and cleaning so much and was really well behaved. She got to attend both of my wedding showers and help me with a lot of wedding planning because she was here the 6 weeks leading up to our big day! We are looking forward to her coming this summer for 3 weeks!

(Cylie played outside in our backyard for at least 8 hrs/day with all the neighbor kids. She would get annoyed when we would actually go out to do something because she wanted to play lol)

(At the airport, her first time leaving Mommy and Daddy...and for 6 weeks! She didn't get homesick once! Uh oh Mom and Dad...watch out, you may have another mover on your hands)

(She did a lot of wedding planning with me. Some things she enjoyed some she didn't lol. Here we went to the barn to make sure the layout I drew was right.)

(She's awesome at the market. She jumps right in and buys stuff just like a grown up. She's not afraid to yell over the people to the market sellers. It's awesome to see her confidence here.)

(Matt and Cylie got along extremely well!)

(One of my best childhood friends, Drea, visited!)

  

(Here we are on the way to my tea party shower)

7. My Mom, Auntie Cyndie and Kaylin threw my WI Bridal Shower and I had so much fun seeing family. I loved it!

(My cousin Kaylin, My Maid of Honor)

(Both of my Grandma's)

 (My WI Best Friends, Micol and Andrea. Andrea is in France now so came to WA before our wedding to visit and Micol came out here for our wedding!)

(Showing my Grandma all the pictures of Matt and I and telling her all the stories)

(My baby sister, Cirrah)

(Drea, me and Micky!)

(I love them so so much and love that we are still friends, since Elementary School! Hehe we used to all be in Brownies together.)

(I love that my Mom printed out the "Will You Marry Me" pictures)

(My Mom and Auntie Cyndie :) )

6. My friend, Haley and my Sister-in-Law, Megan, threw my WA Bridal Shower and it was a real vintage tea party, so cool! Loved that too!

(It was beautiful)

(One of my Dance Mom's made this cake!)

(Megan, me and Haley. Megan is my sister-in-law and I used to nanny for Haley's kids and we are now friends.)

(Maclin Parker and I. I nannied for him from the time he was 11 months until 2 1/2. He walked Haley down the aisle at our wedding and Charlie, his big sister was one of our flower girls.)

5. I was a wedding planning machine! At least for the first 8 months of 2011. August was intense. For the good and the bad. I was ridiculously stressed and then shocked everyone on our wedding day when I was the most calm bride ever! 

4. We had our Rehearsal Dinner at Ivars Salmon House. It was great spending time with our families.

I unfortunately do not have any pictures on my computer from this night. My mom does :)

3. We got married! It was honestly the best day of our lives! Looking back we still cannot find anything that we weren't happy with! Isn't that amazing?! The whole entire day all I remember is laughing, smiling and feeling this intense feeling of love towards Matt. I can still remember how it felt at the moment when we were officially husband and wife. It was the biggest feeling of happiness and relief that we could move on with our relationship. It was a feeling of excitement and calmness all at the same time. I will remember that forever and ever. Our wedding day was perfect. No seriously, it really was. I feel so so blessed that it turned out that way. God, and our awesome families did that. I wish we could re-live that day. We have some exciting plans for renewing our vows for our 10-year, maybe that day will feel super happy like our wedding day did :) I loved every single second of it. It was better than I've ever imagined...that is a hard thing to achieve...I imagine some pretty incredible things lol.

(It was a sunny sunny day in Washington. I couldn't believe it. How did we get that lucky?!)

(I love this picture because you can see my tears and how happy we were at the moment we became Husband and Wife)

(The beginning of forever.)

(My little dancers performed before the reception to get the party started! They worked so hard all summer and now to refer to me before the wedding as "Wedding Miss Chelsea"...like "Oh, you don't want to know Wedding Miss Chelsea! She wasn't nice." HA. I was pretty hard on them because I wanted my family to see what they could do. They did great and I was so so proud!)

(I loved having my friends there. Micky and Jenna. Jenna was also one of my closest childhood friends since 6th grade!)

(Everyone danced. Everyone! It was my dream come true. All I wanted was for everyone to dance, and they did. It was amazing! Matt even busted out the worm. He had to dance for me to get the garter lol. I I believe it was Ice Ice Baby lol)

(Everyone always tells us you will have no time together at your wedding. Well, I remember Matt being with me at least 90% of the time! We were completely about eachother. I loved it!)

(I love this. Both of our families all mixed together. This is huge in our living room now!)

(Matt's friends flew in from all over the country! I was so so happy for him. He hadn't seen any of them in 6 years!! And here they all were. What good friends!)

(I was excited to meet them and be able to know their personalities from all the stories I've heard! I hope we get to see a lot more of them. They're so funny.)

2. Our wedding night was awesome because our room was a suite and was huge and fancy. Just like I've always imagined it being. I loved walking into the hotel in my dress and Matt in his tux arriving in our vintage car. It was awesome! We honeymooned in Sunriver, OR. Arriving there was awesome, the man at the desk said "Welcome Mr. and Mrs. Lanese." Hehe. I still get excited when I get to sign my name or call Matt my husband. I hope that lasts a while more, it's fun. It was such a relaxing week together. We had such an amazing time. I can't wait to go back again in 2012, 2013, 2014......

Ok, I can't do a #1 because nothing beats our wedding and honeymoon. So there you have it, our 2011. There were other exciting things from this year too : ) Matt's brother and sister-in-law, Megan had twins and I got to help a lot when Megan was pregnant and after they were born : ) Mel, Matt's sister, got engaged : ) My whole entire family was here for our wedding, including 2 of my exchange students from growing up, Jan from Germany and Renato and his gf from Brazil. Amazing.

From Left to Right:

Cirrah, Jan (Germany), Cody, Caleb, Dani and Renato (Brazil), Cylie, Me & Matt

This year was awesome. Good luck to 2012 in trying to out-do 2011...you have a lot to live up to...