Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year ♥

I will begin with saying I am not religious, and I believe in nature and a higher deity. That being said, I sometimes get asked (usually by Bear), how can I love Christmas so much as it really has no religious meaning to me. There are several things that make me truly appreciate this holiday and today I will talk about these things that I do not really openly discuss.

Lights, Glitter, and Decor

My reasons aren't really in any particular order and this first reason probably sounds shallow to some, but for some reason I really enjoy decorating and definitely love the lights. There's something about lights that really amaze me. I love fireworks, holiday lights, flickering lights... lightworks just really make me feel... happy.

That being said, this year I was able to decorate more outside and it really made me happy. I love the puppy too! I think that's my favorite decor to date. I guess with decorating comes shopping, and I got to admit that I probably have some mild shopping addiction.

This weekend we celebrated November Twentieth-first.

​What is this?? You may ask.

While we did plan to get married when I arrived in the U.S., we didn't really plan a date. I was hoping to do it on a certain fourth - to kind of match the day we became official, July 4th. I thought to myself, probably December 4th would be a good date. There is quite a long story behind it, but let's just say some no-good person was trying to get me in trouble and give reason to deport me so a wedding rush we had!

Bear's mom was eager to get it done, like right now! So what better day would be than the coming weekend, right? Of course! It's the day right after my birthday. On November 20th and 21st, 2015, we marked the first November Twentieth-first.

Some people may think, oh such a cute term! 

No. That's just Bear not remembering which was the birthday and which was the wedding day. Whether it's true or he's just playing with me, that's what he led on and I would assume the former that he couldn't really remember.

Me: I want another puppy. I think Hans would really love to have a sibling. See how he cries every time we drive by another puppy and how happy he gets when  he's in daycare?

Bear: We can't. We don't own the house and we don't have enough room for two dogs.

So we bought the house. And got a puppy :)

Okay, I lied, that's not how it went.

We've been planning to buy the house we live in for a few years now. Unfortunately, life happens and things change, and we were unable to move forward. See, I'm the kind of person that when I set my eyes on something, I have to get it. This is taking too long. So I told myself and Bear - we're getting the house this fall. 

Bear shrugged, sure. What better way to seal the deal than to make sure you're getting the best home warming gift to the family? Get a new family member. I put us on a waitlist for late 2020 or early 2021. And by October 25th, our Ein was born.

The day has finally arrived, this is it!
It was a long and expensive process but I am not officially a U.S. Citizen.

I previously maintained a blog detailing the whole K1 Visa process. Unfortunately, I had to shut it down due to the image hosting fiasco brought to us by Photobucket. Every image disappeared and rendered my blogs, well, useless. Anyways, life went on and so did the visa and permanent residence process.

This whole topic is a long story in itself so I'll give this post a different approach.
​

When I moved to the U.S. almost five years ago, I wasn't really eager to make new friends. I'm a firm believer that true friends come to you, just like love. We will meet people that are just meant to be our forever friends. I met some people that I'm really good friends with now, and I truly am happy to have met them.

Reflecting on these things, I realized that my closest friends are the ones I met almost two decades ago when I was 16. Aside from them I have one best friend that I met less than a decade ago but our love is different story lol.

I just wanted to take time to sit back and reminisce, and also realize how much we've all grown.