29!

picture from our honeymoon this past october!

splashin on into year 29 of life! the last year of my twenties! but my very first one as chelsea coleen hyatt ;) a little life reflecting from my father dearest --- 

"twenty-nine is the cusp of another great 10 year stretch of your life - the 20's were college, starting a career, courtship and marriage. the thirty's are maybe starting a family! i cannot say which decade of life i have enjoyed the most as all have been better than i ever expected!"

i love that. so cheers to every year always being so much better than you could have ever expected :) i've said it a million times before , but i love birthdays [half and whole. mine and yours] and its truly because as soon as you wake up you feel so special and loved and so tingly and warm and its all thanks to the family and friends and people who really know you and love you despite the good and the bad. and that!!! it's the best way to feel. so thanks!

** and like every single year! thank you mommy for writing this sweet bday post.  and for giving me life - that too!! ;)

hyatts do boston

pre christmas, we flew to boston to spend a couple days in my sisters big, beautiful city! my brother happened to fly in the same day. because he had timeeeeeee-off! which is a phrase i use, never. my time with those two is so golden to me. because i'm the oldest and am just sort of the protector of them. and my time with them. so it was really special  for us to have a night where it was just us siblings [and austin too!] just the healy/hyatt kidz ;) before heading home to connecticut to spend Christmas and the rest of the weekend with my parents :) 

i love boston. i love the history and character and the people!! it's an incredible place and i really love getting to visit. both my sister and brother went to college there and can navigate that city like it aint no thang ;) even colin, who moved to nash a couple of years ago, he's still got it! some things just stay with you. boston is a hard place to forget :) i'm always so impressed with those sibling city slickers of mine. and since they happen to know their way around so well, it always makes our visits that much more fun. i love getting to visit the little hole in the wall hidden gems that other wise i'd never know existed!  

we stayed at the boston park plaza, which is perfectly placed right in the heart of boston, making getting to and from places so much easier. we made sure to enjoy some calamari and clam-chowda on a stroll through harvard square before heading to newbury to explore [and shop!] some more. that night we met up with my workin' girl sister and sort of spur of the moment, decided to go to the boston bruins game. colin is a big hockey lover and the bruins just so happened to be playing the nashville predators. so austin and col used their city smarts to scalp tickets and aawaaaaaay we went. definitely a really fun game to attend, as i image they all are. this spring, boston red sox! i'm making a mental note now to put it on our 2015 to-do list. because while col and bri have been many times before, i haven't! so change that we must.

the next morning, austin and i left the hotel with zero agenda and just started walking :) we found a really yummy breakfast place and then proceeded to go up and down the neighborhood streets. looking at all the incredible townhouses and loving every little detail of the homes there. [and maybe plugging in some addresses into google to see how  much such a place would cost. if you have a spare million dollars - its a really excellent place for you!] ;)  we met up with my brother a little bit after and headed to boston garden, which looks a whole lot different in its wintertime glory compared to it's springtime glory, but beautiful nonetheless! and notable mention: the boston garden squirrels....they are crazy. and chubby. and very friendly. friendly which quickly turned a little bit frightening!  these are not shy creatures! noooo ma'am not the boston garden squirrels. they would let me get right up nice and close to snap their pic which was so very kind of them... and then i'm they started chasing me.  so, the jury is still out on them.  soon after, my sister scooped us on up and to connecticut we headed! and just like that our time in boston the beautiful came to an end :( 

but thank you for having us beantown! you are a fun one. and we will be seeing you in the warmer months! 

keeping with tradition // resolutions!

Christmas eve, 2014

since i was eleven, my family has always written resolutions [which usually tend to be resolutions mixed with predictions, hopes, dreams, whatever!] for the coming year. every Christmas eve, usually after church, we come home, dig deep down into our stockings for that ever growing pile of paper [index cards, post-its, notepads, really whatever we had available at the moment!] and sit in the family room, reading our resolutions to one another. and there's laughing and reflecting and the occasional happy tears, becauseeee, healy girls and happy tears and peanut butter and jelly, it all just goes together so well :)) and once we've finished, we each write a new one. it's a very let your heart take the wheel kind of process. to just write freely, no over-thinking or trying to make perfect.  and once its written, you don't go back and re-read it. into your stocking it goes and there is stays, unread, until next Christmas eve :)  

but we do re-read old resolutions! and that is all part of the fun. reading what your past self was up to/thinking/feeling/dreaming. seventeen resolutions sit in that stocking of mine! so many different versions of myself [but just as wonderfully, the exact same version is there too] and then! fast forward, fast forward, there i am, present day, Christmas Eve twenty-fourteen. sitting on the couch, with my stocking and pile of papers, like i have since i was eleven, except this year! my "first southern boyfriend" [verbatim! circa 2007 resolution?] turned husband, sat there right next to me!  my eleven year old self aaaand my twenty-eight year old self both agree it's kind of the craziest! but best, this growing up thing.

so there we sat, me reading my resolution from last year. my predictions and thoughts for 2014 and the incredible year austin and i were about to embark on.  that moment, was a sweet one. so, you know, tears. they accompanied me. but i also think some of that teary-ness was because austin was there. and for the very first time, he was experiencing this long standing tradition of ours, one that is really sort of sacred to us... and as my husband!  forever, it has always been us five. but on that Christmas eve, for the very first time, there were six :)  i love these traditions. i love continuing them and seeing austin write his very fist resolution. i love my family and oooh how i love their hearts. so! very! much! until next year resolutions! and the year after that, and that, and...........that. [x a lifetime]

a healy christmas for us hyatts ;)

christmas week has officially begun! we are off to boston this evening to channel our inner city selves and spend time with my sister in that beautiful chilly city of hers! and it just so happens, that touring brothers of ours has time off ! ! ! so he will be there as well! it will be austin's first christmas spent with the healy fam. yay yay!! we are sort of squeezing in all our northern fun like we tend to do every year! [except no quick stop in manomet! unless we get reaaaally spontaneous] so it's boston for a few days of sibling togetherness, then us siblings and husband [mine] are headed to connecticut to see my parents and really dig in to all our christmas traditions and such ;) will stone have a christmas stocking? will he join in our christmas eve tradition of writing yearly new years resolutions? [does he even have a choice?] will my mom give him an ornament pre christmas like she has always done with us forever and ever? will santa in the form of my cute dad wake us all up with jingle bells? stay tuned!  my five most favorite people in the entire world. it's going to be so merry for us marrieds. see you sooon!

life things as of lately!

well hey! memory documentor of mine. life these daysweeksmonths have just been busy! i suppose that that does tend to happen when you mix in a wedding, honeymoon, new jobby and the buying of a house in a span of three-ish months! so, future chelsea self, here are just a couple of little 4x4 iphone photos to document some key, key things! like the painting of our home. the seller had a couple of rooms painted a light turquoise color - mainly the kitchen and while i sure do love me some turquoise, not so much in the kitchen. so pre moving in we were painting maniacs. but its done! thanks for your help char ;) and thanksgiving! we spent it in atlanta this year with stone's familia. since we had to miss my family's woodys walk pre meal in connecticut, we took our own! becauseeee, traditions ;) every year my dad has us pause in silence for one quiet minute to soak in all the goodness and give thanks and so us hyatts made sure to do just that. except, had to start the clock all over again because our little walk was by a golf course and in our minute of thankfulness a golf ball landed right in the middle !!! dangerous those minutes of silence. but we completed and then we were off to eat and give thanks and visit with some family loves. the next morning brought us black friday. i've never done the whole black friday shopping, get up early thing, but there were a couple of things stone was showing me in the newspaper at lowes and since it was right down the street from us, okay fineeee let's go. [but first. coffee] and so at 6ish we popped on over and left with a whole cart full of things. but my favorite purchase was definitely the outdoor heater. it's a necessity i tell you! and lucky enough stone is so handy and could put that all together with really no assistance from this girl. so! a couple of random recaps, yay :) the end! happy weekend!

keeping with tradition!

1981

2014

our pine beauty is up! and so sparkly and cozy! it's the first married christmas for us newlyweding hyatts and with that, more tradition things. because why do i ever do what i do ;) soo as this one goes, for thirty-three years, my parents wedding ornament has always been the very first ornament they hang on the christmas tree. growing up, we would always wait for the kat and paul wedding ornament version to be hanging from the very top before we claimed our favorite ornament spots [middle school chelsea would never put anything higher than my parents ornament, but she would always make sure her chelsea ornaments were higher than a certain colin's or brianna's hehe] its a sweet tradition and in a ways its like the cutting of a big fancy red ribbon to say, we are open! open for holiday celebrating and tree decorating and all things cheery and merry and bright.  

i think over the scope of a lifetime of christmas' our tree has fallen twice. and with its fall, down went the ornaments too, including my parents wedding one. hitting the floor and breaking their beautiful heads off! sad. sad. sad! luckily, glue rescued it for them/us/everyone. [and one year, it tried falling again, but superkat got their just in time, and i really do love her telling of this story]

so christmas 2014! my dearest mommy gifted austin and i with our own wedding ornament. and we made sure it was the very first one on our tree. and that's how it shall remain. this year, next year, and forever and always, amen.  

trumpets!

i do nooot like getting behind on my important family stuff. and i really don't like missing out on anything worth obsessing over, but i have been a bit distracted as of lately with so much moving, working, newlyweding going on! sooo! for a while now, i have been dying to find a way to watch one of my sweet cousins, rosemary, in a performance she had a couple of weeks ago with her a capella group, sweet signatures. and low and behold! there were a couple of videos floating around the interwebs! yay, yay! so, this morning i finally got to watch one of rosie's solo's - a rendition of jason durulo's "trumpets"  and ......chills! it made my heart so incredibly happy and PROUD! [i cried happy tears. ha! happy crying, it's my thing]

i remember having this particular song stuck in my head on our wedding day as i was getting ready with my loves, so i've loved it for a while. but thiiiis version. oh its even better. sung by the most gorgeous talent and girl...i can not stop playing. so i won't ;) aaand then! then, i stumbled on more video footage from this performance of theirs, so clearly. date tonight with some unpacking of boxes and the sweet signatures]  rosie!! we are so, so proud of your incredible self and can not wait to see moooore! <3