Out Hunting.

I must say that after going bow hunting and gun hunting multiple times I do like them both but when it is cold out like it has been, gun hunting is way better. It is amazing that Brandon and I can sit up in a tree stand and deer will walk right underneath us during bow season, but sitting up in a blind with a heater at my feet is so much more comfortable. The freezing wind constantly blowing in my face with only hand warmers in my gloves to keep me warm didn't work out for me very well. Now that gun season is here I am able to sit right in front of the Mr. Heater with the warmth surrounding me and the glow warming up the whole gun blind.
Of course we usually keep at least three of the windows open so I am still not completely warm, but it is still way better than sitting out in the open twenty feet in the air feeling like a marshmallow with all the layers of clothes that I had on. I was so happy to throw some of the under layers from bow season up at the top shelf of the closet. Also, now that Brandon has filled both of his buck tags, we go out there just to try and fill mine and some doe tags. It is also a lot easier for me to move around a little bit. It is so hard for me to sit still for a couple hours. Sitting up in that tree stand I was constantly getting reminders from Brandon that I shouldn't be moving so much because the deer could see us. Now I still get a few reminders when I forget that the deer could still possibly see us from the chest up through the windows, but at least I am able to move my feet around more.

Christmas Lights.

My boyfriend's mom's house is always completely decked out with Christmas decorations and lights during the holidays. This year I was fortunate enough to be able to share the experience with Brandon of finding all the Christmas stuff that still worked and setting everything up in the freezing weather... After finding everything that worked and putting it all up it took a total of multiple hours outside for three consecutive days. The first day was completely crazy with me dragging around an extension cord and plugging in all the figurines, candy canes, blow up snowmen and other crazy Christmas stuff. Then we moved on to all the totes filled to the top of Christmas lights tangled like someone spun them all together just for fun. Maybe they even tried to weave them together like a basket or a rug, who knows! I do not even want to know how long it took us to untangle the dozens of strands to find out that half of them did not even work! It is so irritating to find lights that are really bright and pretty and to find out that only half of them or not even half of them even work. Ahh. It was crazy. Some of the strands that only some of them worked we tried to fix by finding burnt out bulbs and replacing them with ones that worked. We also tried changing the fuses in the light strands that did not work at all, but half the time that didn't even help. It was pretty sad having to throw away a bunch of beautiful lights and blow up Christmas decorations because they were made cheap to only last a few years, but there was nothing more that we could do. In the end we ended up putting up everything that worked, and buying a few more strands even though we probably didn't need them and it looks amazing, like always.

Gymnastics.

In our small town of Bad Axe, Michigan, we have a small dance studio. I've never really been interested in the dance aspect of the studio, but I am interested in the gymnastics tumbling class they provide. When I lived in Phoenix, Arizona I started gymnastics when I was three years old. Starting the balance beam, the bars, and tumbling, but once we moved to Bad Axe they didn't have anything like that within fifty miles of where we lived so I had to settle with Sherry's Dance Studio and Gymnastics. I've grown to love this little studio though. After being a part of it for over ten years now last year was supposed to be my last year, my senior year of high school. The past two years though, I was assisting my gymnastics instructor with teaching the children and I was able to come back this year and not only help teach, but also participate in my class.

some of my little water cooler monsters!

I have to say teaching children ranging from five years old to high school seniors is definitely an experience in itself. There is never a dull moment especially with the five and six year old class! They do get a little irritating sometimes, but there is with everything people do. One of my favorite things that the children do is when one student gets something the whole class seems to think they need it too. I had one little girl that wanted a band  aid for her finger and less than two minutes later I had two more students that also needed band aids... There is one class of seven to nine year olds that think they are constantly dying of thirst. After allowing one student to get a drink from the water cooler, there would always be at least five more students behind the first one asking for a drink too. I don't know what they are thinking, that we're having a work break and everyone tells jokes around the water cooler?

Mario.

The New Super Mario Bros. for the Wii has to be one of of my top favorites for the Wii console. When I got the game about a year or two ago my friends and I were immediately obsessed with it. We played it as much as we could. Just about every single weekend during the winter and maybe sometimes during the week if we had a snow day or something we were sitting right there on the floor in front of the big screen tv, legs crossed with a Wii remote in our hands while the guys were outside doing whatever boys do... All spring summer and fall this year though I had never put the game into the Wii console, that is until a couple weeks ago when my boyfriend, Brandon, and I decided to play it one day that we were cooped up in the house. From that day on Brandon and I played the New Super Mario Bros. every morning that we had the chance to, and at night on nights when we had nothing to do and could not find a movie to rent that we hadn't already seen or wanted to watch.
We tend to get a little on edge while playing this game. If someone walked in and didn't know any better they would think we were crazy and sat on the couch everyday playing Super Mario Brothers and constantly arguing and yelling at each other. Usually though even though we get a little irritated when we bounce on each others head, accidentally kill ourselves or each other, or have to constantly repeat a level because we can't beat it, we know that we are just messing around and don't really get actually angry with each other. I'm going to be sad when we beat the entire game, we are already at world 9, the last world!

Bronner's.

Last weekend my boyfriend and I drove down to Bronner's Christmas Wonderland in Frankenmuth, Michigan. Apparently it is the world's largest Christmas store. I hadn't been there in about two or three years and Brandon hadn't been there since he was a kid, so on our way back from Bay City after Christmas shopping the day before we decided to drive there and check it out. Turning into the parking lot there was cars everywhere. It looked like we pulled into a busy airport parking lot or something. It had only opened about an hour before we arrived and the parking was completely crazy. We ended up driving around in circles for what seemed like forever and thankfully found one that was not a terrible hike from the entrance. Walking into Bronner's brought back the memories of the craziness. I forgot how packed it was and all of the people bumping into me constantly. I was glad that I made the decision not to bring my purse because i would have had to constantly be checking to make sure that I still had it and that no one tampered with it. We got handed a map when we walked in and I was very thankful that we had it when trying to figure out where all the different ornaments were. We didn't go in there for anything specific, so we just kind of wandered around the different sections and checking everything out. We were a little disappointed in the selection of dog ornaments. Brandon has two Yorkie's and the Yorkie ornaments did not look very realistic compared to some of the other dog ornaments. So in the end we decided to get one that said "I <3 my Yorkie." We also found some pretty unique trees and ornaments like the Bud Light and Budweiser ornament and tree and a tree that had deer antlers coming out of the center of a tree. 

Christmas Trees.

Christmas is always a crazy time of year. With all of the different things such as the outside Christmas lights going up, finding the different ornaments and other Christmas decorations, and putting the Christmas tree up, I just about lose my mind. Thinking about Christmas trees, I almost want to slam my head against the wall. I am usually the one that gets the ambition to get out the Christmas tree and all of the other Christmas decorations at both my mom's house and my dad's house. Usually with my mom, we will go out to a tree farm and pick out a nice real Christmas tree... usually on like one of the coldest days of December! This year though, my mom and her husband, Bob, decided that they wanted to buy a fake Christmas tree because in the long run it was cheaper and the one they had picked out was on sale. So they ended up buying a pre-lit tree that looked like it was frosted with snow. On the bright side though, my mother and I no longer get dozens of scratches along our hands and arms while trying to string lights around the tree. We always looked like we were attacked by vicious cats or something by the time we were done with the lights and ornaments. Another plus to this is that when we hang the heavy ornaments we can bend the branches so that the ornaments do not slip off the ends. I also have to think about my Christmas tree at my dad's house. I am pretty sure that it won't get put up by my brother, my dad, or his girlfriend, so it looks like its up to me to get them going on putting that one up too. I know from experience that there is no way I could bring that huge tree up from the basement and put it up by myself!

Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving has always been a crazy time for me. Getting together with family is right up there at the very top of my list, but sometimes it gets pretty hard to actually find the time to see all of them. Since my parents are divorced its usually pretty hectic when the holiday season starts approaching. I have to figure out how to work my schedule around two separate thanksgiving dinners. The two sides of the family do not usually make it fair either. Whats the fun in having thanksgiving for one side on a different day or one at lunch and one at dinner? I'm pretty sure they think, "hey lets plan them at the same time so it is really hard for Ashlynne and Ryan to come to both dinners at the time that we actually eat!" It is not just my dad and my mom's family either. I also have to add in my boyfriend and his family as well. With my boyfriend also having divorced parents I thought it was going to be super difficult. Four different thanksgiving celebrations on the same day did not sound like fun at all. After talking to Brandon though, he told me that for Thanksgiving his dad's family usually does not get together. So, we only had to deal with three Thanksgiving dinners on Thanksgiving day. Brandon's mom was also very helpful with this problem. She tried to work around both side's of my families dinners. Another issue with our Thanksgiving schedule was that Brandon and I had planned on going out hunting during the afternoon. My dad's side of the family always has Thanksgiving at my house around 3:00 or 4:00, but my aunt Jackie decided to have it later, around 5:00. Usually this would be a good thing with working around my dad and my mom's schedule, but with hunting we don't get done until dark. So we ended up going to my mom's, hunting, my dads, then to Brandon's mom, being fashionably late to all three dinners.