fall break

What an amazing fall break! We had a fun visit from Daniel's parents for the first weekend of my LONG fall break. We loved having them here with us. We went down to the bed and breakfast in Fairview for the boys to hunt. Anna and I always just relax at the airbnb, chat, eat, and read. This year we did a fun puzzle together and tried to plan a spontaneous Disney trip. The boys got a deer Sunday night, so we left after a yummy breakfast Pam made us on Monday morning. She makes us the best food! We had fun doing another puzzle with Dan's parents at our house before we left to NY. Daniel and I stayed up until 3:00 am Tuesday night trying to finish the puzzle. We got so close! It's fun to find out that we both actually really like puzzles. So we will be doing lots more of them from here on out! 

The next part of fall break was spent in New York. Oh, New York. I love you. I'm so grateful for someone who is as spontaneous as me. We bought these tickets on a whim like a month ago and I'm so glad we did. I randomly got this TEN DAY (did I already mention that?) fall break this year, so we had to go somewhere! I've always dreamt of going to NYC, so I knew we should go when we saw the good deal. Dang Flights From Home - you're going to be the death of our bank account. 

I loved exploring the big city with my guy. We had quite the experience trying to figure out the subway system. It caused a few arguments and Dan getting a little more upset than necessary (and then me getting upset with him for being upset), but it was a learning experience. Travel is not always perfect! I honestly find that to be the fun part about traveling - the unexpected. 

We took a flight through the night and arrived there Wednesday morning. It was pretty interesting first getting on the subway when we got there. Everyone was on their morning commute to work and we stuck out like a sore thumb with our brand new Costco suitcases. Everyone was only half awake on the subway. We had some time to kill, so we rolled around our very loud suitcases to find a coffee shop. We finally found one and got to sit down to some coffee and avocado toast. It felt so nice to finally sit down and not feel like I was about to get robbed! (hello, culture shock)

We were finally able to get to the airbnb around 9:00 am and decided to take a quick snooze before our Statue of Liberty tour. That was the best nap ever in our cute little Hamilton Heights airbnb. Although it was weird to get used to all of the street noise going outside! 

Once we woke up from our glorious nap, it was a mad rush on the subways to make it to our Statue of Liberty tour. That was so amazing, with some great views! 

The rest of our first day was spent walking all over town - quite literally. We walked eleven miles that day. We stopped at the 9/11 memorial, which was so cool! We regret not doing the museum though. We walked over to Little Italy and Chinatown where we sat outside and had a delicious Italian meal right on the street. After dinner, we walked to the Brooklyn Bridge, which was the highlight of our whole trip. We loved standing there as the crazy city happened around us as the sun went down. It was unreal. That night we spent time trying to find an Irish pub that Dan was desperate to find and then we went to witness Times Square at night. So cool! It was crazier than I imagined. All the lights, people, so much overstimulation. We also enjoyed some yummy cheesecake and a strawberry milkshake at Junior's right in the middle of Times Square. What a day! We were completely dead by the end of it. 

We spent Thursday morning and afternoon trying to find some yummy breakfast. We ended up settling and I got a cheese danish (which turned out delish) and Dan settled for a salad. It was fun sitting in the middle of the city just eating and taking in all of the people. We had an Empire State tour after that. We loved getting to go all the way to the top of the Empire State to see the view. It was quite amazing! It was also quiet up there, which was really nice. We took a quick stop at Grand Central and found some yummy pizza after that. We went back to the airbnb to get ready, but ended up taking a quick nap because we were dying. Best decision ever! The rest of Thursday was spent eating the best pizza ever at Gotham's and seeing Wicked on Broadway (so amazing - chills the entire time) and then eating cereal milk ice cream. WHAT? Yeah, Daniel found it for me and surprised me with it because he knows how much I love cereal. So cute. 

Our last day was spent sleeping in a little (we needed it!) and then booking it to Wall Street, which ended up being so cool. We found some cute souvenirs there and got some hot dogs and Dan got some Thai food at a cart. After that, we stopped and walked the NY High Line for a little while and then made our way to Central Park. Central Park was beautiful. We loved just sitting on the bench people watching for a couple hours. We had some pretty yummy ramen after that and then we did our night cruise, which turned out SO amazing! We saw so many cool sights. It was awesome to be able to see New Jersey, New York City, and Brooklyn all fro the water at night. It was chilly, but so cozy at the same time. After that, we realized we were out of time on our trip, so we quickly got more pizza and found a flight of ice cream. So yummy!

We had to be up early the next morning. It was pretty crazy running all over trying to catch subways and trains to get to the airport on time. We at one point ended up on a train and hadn't even bought a ticket, so that was embarrassing. Overall, it was an awesome trip. Definitely not a relaxing vacation by any means, but one that I'll remember forever. New York is so different from where we live. Life is faster and crazier and I even had to remind Daniel a million times to slow down and enjoy it. But it was cool to see how people live over there and how they solely rely on public transit and their own two feet to get around. We will definitely be back someday! 

The rest of fall break was spent having our annual Halloween party on Saturday. Dan dressed up as one of the guys from BASEketball and wanted me to do a complete photoshoot of him (the only time that has ever happened). I was just an alien. Can you tell who loves Halloween the most? It was a fun night, but I'm getting old and ready to just start having a more chill Halloween party... next year. 

It was so nice and much needed to relax all day Sunday. Plus, I had Monday off to get all of my to do's done! So grateful for a break. It was much needed and so good for the soul. 

Next stop... Amsterdam! We leave in eight days! Can you tell we have the travel bug?

xx Kenz

D A N I E L

I'm not really sure how I found you. Scratch that. I know how I found you. I know that you had to make the choice to move here from North Dakota at some point and that my sister had to work up the courage in your class all year to talk to you and that my dad had to get involved and go to Parent Teacher Conferences and that we had to move from our old house for my sister to even attend where you taught and that your old relationship had to come to an end. But, I'm just not really sure how I got so lucky... so lucky for all of those little things to happen. 

Sometimes I think about what would have happened had I ended up with one of the others from the list of dweebs who couldn't quite make the cut. Life would be completely different. 

There was this one random night back in 2017 when we were out celebrating Ash's 16th birthday at the Spaghetti Factory as usual, when it was decided that mom and dad would go to Parent Teacher Conferences and talk to this "Mr. Silva" guy. Grandpa even offered to go with them at one point to arrange the marriage. I didn't think anything of it. Thought I might get an awkward free dinner date out of it, so hey, why not. 

But after some time talking about Ash at the conference, my dad shoved my picture to the face of Mr. Silva and long story short set us up. Of course Dan, red as a tomato, brushed it off with, "You have my email." Yeah, right. I emailed him and got complete crickets for a week. Until one day I got a random text from Mr. Silva and the rest is history. 

See, the thing is... I thought I had my whole life planned out when I was ten. I'd marry a Mormon, get married in the temple, have five kids, yada yada. The man I married couldn't have a beard, or hunt, or not be a Mormon, or... you get the point. You see, life never goes the way you plan it, cause you often times end up with that atheist bearded hunter... the one you swore you'd never even lay eyes on. Well, here I am. Happy to announce that when life goes the complete opposite way from the direction you had planned, well, it actually becomes everything ever wanted. You just didn't know what you needed when you were ten years old. 

Well Dan was worth it. He was worth every damn second of heart break and sadness. Because now I can't imagine my life going any other way. He is my safe place, my peace, my home. I said this in my vows and I'll say it forever... You don't want to find someone who only gives you butterflies, but someone who makes you feel safe and at home. 

Dan is the best kind of human. He's the kind who will try everything he can to make me laugh. He will help anyone and everyone who needs it. He will let me go workout while he does the grocery shopping. He'll cook me dinner and breakfast and make sure that I have my dessert. He will turn the lamp off every night. He'll love me unconditionally, wiping my tears, and holding me when I can't go on. He'll support me through the hardest times and smile with me during the happiest ones. He'll let me choose Chickfila as our Friday night out meal, like almost every time. He'll go with all your crazy travel dreams. He'll let me boss him around and nag him about getting the crumbs out of his beard. He'll make sure we keep up on my favorite shows. He'll get me special presents and flowers on the most ordinary days. The list goes on and on and on. 

He's so selfless and loving and genuine. I can't believe I found my best friend.

Cheers to us!

xx Kenzie

i still have a bunion

I'm back. 

It's been almost forty-four months since I've shown face on here. And I still have my left bunion. It has actually really been hurting lately, so I should probably think about getting that removed. 

I'm not really sure how you start a blog post after it's been this long. It's almost awkward, like neglecting a best friend and then expecting them to just come running back to you when you remember them.

I guess life just really got crazy. And the really crazy thing is that when I was writing that last post, some really really sad stuff was about to happen in my life, something that I would have never seen coming. I was pretty optimistic that 2016 would be my year after a hard 2015, but it wasn't. My family went through one hell of a year that next year. I was living out one of my worst nightmares, the kind of nightmare you just want to wake up from so badly and even when you do wake up, you go back to sleep only to find that the nightmare keeps going on. Not only that, but it was one bad relationship/fling/whatever you'll call it after another. I was hanging on by a thread and you could tell by just looking at me. It also didn't help that I was knee deep in getting my bachelor's. I'm spinning just thinking about all of it.

But, things eventually got better.

As everyone knows, the sun usually shines through. Even on the dreariest of rainy days. I'm so grateful for my little Sterling Village Apartment, just two of my best friends and me. We moved in there the fall of 2016 and that became my little oasis for the next year. I loved sharing a room with Madi and having deep chats as we fell asleep every night, taking hot baths in my big tub after long days as an intern, plunging the toilet with Madi only for it to overflow every time it got clogged, hiding out in the closet reading Fifty Shades of Grey, buying too many bed sheets, eating way too much McDonald's because I'd never been so physically and mentally exhausted, having late nights on our back patio, and just watching movies and shows together staying up way too late.

Eventually things got better with my family too and we enjoyed an amazing Christmas all together as a family again. One of my favorite memories from that Christmas is the night we all put up the tree together and once we finished, us kids were hanging out in the kitchen. As I looked down into the dark family room, with the tree lights twinkling, I saw my parents cuddled up on the chair, a sight I never thought I'd see again in my life. This is a moment I'll cherish forever. It was like a chance to start all over, a fresh start for my family.

This next part deserves a separate blog post, so I'm going to be brief for now. 2017 also brought me Dan - my safe place, my person, my stay-up-way-too-late partner, my love. I guess you could say life got a lot better. I finally found someone whom I could trust and be my complete self with. And do you want to know how I got so lucky? Ash. And my dad. And Parent Teacher Conferences. And an embarrassed tomato-faced guy who took a leap of faith and texted his math student's sister. That's how.

So here I am today. I'm sitting at a table in a cozy home that has become ours. We're married now. I'm Mrs. Silva. We live a simple life. I teach fourth graders and Dan works for a roofing company. We have a dog, Tilly. She's staring at me right now with her cute face. She's my soulmate, dog-mate, whatever you want to call it. BUT I LOVE HER with all my heart. Never thought I'd be such an obsessed dog mama. Also, crossing my fingers and toes I'll be a real mama soon. We like to hike and camp and meal prep and visit our Cali fam and poke each other's yawns and stay up way too late watching shows and eat dinner together and travel to cool places and eat Taco Bell sometimes and save money and talk in each other's voice and spend time with the people we care about the most. It's a simple life. But you want to know what? It's all I ever dreamed of. I told Madi the other day I feel weird because everyone has all these big dreams, but I don't feel like I have any huge ones. Just some normal ones, like becoming debt free and waking up with more than ten minutes to get ready and being a good wife and mama when I have the chance. But I realized it's because I'm living my dream life. I've got my husband, my family, my best friends, Target, and my best gal pal, Tilly. This is all I ever wanted for my life and I'm living it right now. My best life.

Life still has its hard things. My family still has their struggles. I still have bad anxiety at times. Teaching can be really really hard. Staying motivated can be hard. But what I've realized over these years is that the hard times are what make the good times really really exceptional.

That's just life. It rains, but then a rainbow appears. There's always one there if you just look for it.

xx Kenzie