Offseason.. Where did you go?!

Holy cow, it is already January and we have left our offseason home in Alaska and are getting ready for spring training! I say this every year, but it seems like the offseason goes by faster and faster.

Okay so lets rewind. Towards the end of last season Cy was promoted to the Astros AAA team, the Fresno Grizzles. They spent most of the last month of the season on the road, so I just lived out of my suitcase and met up with Cy on road trips, and then spent the time in between split between my grandparents and in laws. It was a super fun whirlwind, but I was definitely excited to be DONE for awhile after so much travel haha!

Our offseason in Alaska was wonderful and all too short, as usual. We love our time and community there. A few highlights:
- My best friend gave birth to her perfect baby girl!
- We completed our first round of Whole30 and oh my gosh it was a game changer!
- Cy spent lots and LOTS of time in the mountains hunting. The boy loves him some nature.
- I spent lots of quality time with my quilting ladies and finished several quilts! We had a wonderful time at our quilters retreat at the Second Star in Homer.

- My mom and I had so many fun lunch dates

- I accomplished some projects for my business!
- Our family came to visit!!! Cy's mom, stepdad, brother, and my sister in law all came up and spent Thanksgiving with us. It was so fun and special to have them!

- We celebrated our 3 year anniversary!
- I teamed up with my sweet friends Becky and Carol to have a booth at our local craft fairs leading up to Christmas! We had so much fun together. We have some great ideas for next year, get excited ;)
- Cy took a trip to Idaho to hunt with his dad, brother, and grandpa
- We made a trip to Texas for some of our best friends weddings! We don't get to spend nearly as much time with all of them as we would like, so we treasure the time together.

- My mom, sister Hope, and I binged watched the first season of Stranger Things together (I love to binge watch. Mom does not. LOL)

All in all, it was so full of great things and we wish it wasn't over just yet! But baseball never stops ;)

Currently we are in Idaho for a few weeks visiting my in laws and for Cy to work out and throw in preparation for spring training. After this, we will head to Dallas for a bit and then it is off to Florida for spring training!

One of my intentions for this year is to get back to more regular posts here. I love looking back on my old posts, it is like a scrapbook of sorts for me. I need to get better about documenting these memories.

Thanks for reading!
xo, Han

Guess who's back, back again! Catching up...

Okay so it has been approximately 37 years since I posted here. Actually like 10 months, but still... VERY overdue for an update! Here's how our offseason went :)

We wrapped up last season with a trip to the playoffs but didn't win, which meant it was time to hit the road north to Alaska for the offseason! My dad bought a truck in Dallas, so we picked it up and drove all the way home to Kenai for him. The trip though Canada was absolutely amazing- if you're into traveling at all, you 1000% must make this trip at some point. British Columbia, in particular, is beyond breathtaking, and it was just amazing to be completely surrounded by such vast, mind blowing beauty.

A little wildlife! We saw caribou, bison, and a grizzly bear along the way.

We made it!!

Our offseason in Alaska was wonderful, to say the least. It was so nice to spend that much time living near my family and best friend after so many years of living in Texas. We also loved the quality time we got to spend living alone- we are so blessed and thankful for the wonderful host families who have opened their homes to us each season, but it is really nice to be like a normal married couple and live by ourselves in the offseason lol.

I really enjoyed going to quilt group each week! We moved to AK when I was 4, and at the time both sets of grandparents lived on opposite sides of the country. Some ladies at church took my sister and I and loved us as their own grandkids, one of which being Becky Moore. She is a very gifted quilter, and made sure to teach us that skill over the years growing up. This offseason I was able to spend time with Becky and the quilting ladies and whip out a few quilts of my own! It was so wonderful to have that creative outlet as well as spending time with the wonderful ladies I get to call my friends there.

I also joined the world of direct sales with a company called SeneGence, best known for their "magic lipstick" LipSense. If you want to learn more about that, join me over at bit.ly/loveandlipstick - it has been such a fun thing for me :)

Cy spent the offseason working diligently to FINISH HIS DEGREE!! Whoop whoop! He officially graduated from DBU with a Business Management degree and a minored in Marketing. I am SO proud of him. He took an almost double course load in order to finish in December, completely online. Big thanks to DBU and Mrs. Patty Whitely for making it possible for him to finish online. It took a lot of dedication to sit down and get his classwork done each week when there was the option to be out hunting instead. This year, he is really looking forward to having more freedom with his time :)

Under my needle- a quilt for my Granny!

Family Christmas pic taken by my now brother in law Trevor Wagoner :)

Our daily drive

One of the quilts I made, a baby gift!

It was our year to spend Christmas with my in-law's in Idaho, so we got to enjoy some time visiting with them before heading south to Texas to get ready for spring training. My sister Haley got engaged over Christmas and married at the end of spring training which was also a big highlight!!  More on that later :)

My sister in law Jamie and I *love* getting all the Dutch Bros coffee we can when we visit!

We started a new tradition at Cy's moms house- the Christmas Decathlon! SO much fun. 

I am really hoping to get back into the routine of posting here more often, so keep an eye out for the next post with a recap of Spring Training- spoiler alert, Cy was invited to to Big League camp so it was really exciting!

Thanks for reading :)
xo, Han

Time Flies!! Offseason Recap

on the road again!

How on earth is it spring training time already? I truly have no idea how the offseason flew by so fast. We are currently in Florida for spring training, and on the drive here we couldn't stop remarking on how it seemed like we had just barely left.

The offseason was soo good to us. We lived in Dallas with two roommates (MiLB life, y'all!) Dan and Nash, who were Cy's teammates at DBU and now play with the Indians and Blue Jays, respectively. We all had such a great time living together! Dan and Nash both have the sweetest girlfriends, so it was fun to all hang out. About a month before we left, our newlywed friends Drew and Kassie flew down to Dallas to get ready for spring training and stayed with us a bit too. It truly was SO fun having everyone together! PLUS my sister Haley was literally 4 minutes from us on campus at DBU, so we saw her pretty much every day- I couldn't ask for anything better!

Of course, by now you probably know that in November Cy got traded from the Brewers to the Astros! So that brought an exciting change to our life :) So far we are loving our new organization, and it seems to be a perfect fit for Cy.

I graduated with my Bachelors of Science in Communication Theory in December, and started working as a personal assistant shortly thereafter. This job is absolutely fantastic because it is ALL ONLINE! My bosses live in Delaware and I do all of my work remotely. Perfection!

We spent Christmas with my family in Alaska, and it was wonderful. Christmas at home is so special for me! We had a good amount of snow, which is always fun. We got to participate in Bethlehem Revisited, which is a production my parents church puts on every other year. Everyone in the church dresses up and gets into character, and they set up a huge area outside that is made to look like the streets of Bethlehem at the time Jesus was born. The community loves it! We also got to spend time with my lifelong best friend Courtney, her fiancé Dawson, and their perfect little boy (my godson) Cohen. Living away from home gets exponentially harder when you become an auntie ;)

This offseason also brought several weddings! After Christmas we headed to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho for Drew and Kassie's wedding, it was so gorgeous and SO MUCH FUN! The whole bridal party was filled with couples and best friends, so it was just a nonstop party- I wish we could do it again!

Looyenga Photography

The next weekend back in Dallas, I had the honor of doing my sweet sorority sister Chelsea's hair and makeup for her wedding. She was SUCH a gracious and joy-filled bride!

Elisabeth Carol Photography

The next two weekends were dedicated to my college roommate & bestie Sedona's bachelorette party and wedding! I did Sedona's hair and makeup for her first date with Cash our freshman year, and it was so surreal to finally be doing it again for their WEDDING! It was so much fun celebrating with our besties, Sedona's day was a dream.

Cottonwood Road Photography

Cottonwood Road Photography (via instagram)

After getting back to our normal when the month of weddings quieted down, we only had about a month left of offseason and Cy started really getting down to business with his training and prep for the season. DBU baseball had their alumni game and opening weekend before we left, and it was so much fun getting to visit with all of our college baseball crew!

My brother and sister in law came to visit the weekend before we left, and we had SO much fun just hanging out and laughing together before we all head out in different directions for the season. Jamie, Kassie, and I made a super quick trip to Magnolia Market in Waco too!

All in all, our offseason was fantastic. And while it went by way too fast, I am so excited to get this next season rolling! We are in Kissimme, living with an INCREDIBLE host family, and excited to be making new friends with our new team. Cy is one of only a small handful ofpitchers invited to micro camp (super exciting!) and is enjoying it a lot, and full minor league camp will start on the 9th.

Thanks for bearing with my sporadic blogging in the offseason and keeping up with our wild life :)

kiss kiss, Hannah

Anniversary Trip

In the madness of the trade a couple weeks ago, I totally failed to mention the trip we took for our anniversary! We celebrated 1 year as Mr. and Mrs. on November 7th. My oh my how time flies when you're... traveling across the country multiple times for baseball ;) But really, it's crazy how fast our first year flew by. We have laughed and loved and grown so much together.

To celebrate our anniversary, we took a little 2-night getaway trip to Wimberly, TX in the beautiful hill country. We stayed at the Three Graces Cabin (totally recommend!!) and enjoyed some quiet time to just be together and relax.

We got in pretty late Sunday night, and since we were still pretty full from lunch (we got together with family to celebrate my Granny's 80th birthday!) we decided to just stop at HEB and get some snacks and dessert. And when I say snacks, I mean I got fancy crackers, cheese, and salami, and Cy got a Lunchable ;) We soaked in the hot tub for a bit, and then settled in to watch a WW2 documentary on Netflix. Married life!

The next day, we had a light breakfast of farm fresh eggs (left by the property hosts from their very own chickens- so cool!) and some fruit, before walking around the beautiful property the cabin is located on. The cabin is located on 10 acres, and the owners have an adorable airstream trailer and the cabin that we stayed in available for rent. There is a creek that runs through the back of the property, and it really is just so peaceful!

We headed down the road into town for brunch at Mima's cafe, it was so tasty! Then we had a leisurely walk around the town square and enjoyed walking through all of the adorable, unique shops.Throughout the town area, there are tons of these giant, decorated boots, they are so cute.  We headed back to the cabin, took a nap, and watched a movie. Yay vacation!

That evening, we made the beautiful drive to Driftwood to have dinner at the famous Salt Lick BBQ. It was SO GOOD!! We went early enough that we didn't have to wait for a table at all. We love trying new BBQ places, and this one might just top the list. Also, we got a piece of the blackberry cobbler to-go and had it with coffee the next morning, it was out of this world. 

We started a fire and roasted marshmallows for s'mores when we got back to the cabin, and then soaked in the hot tub for awhile before we went to bed. It truly was so peaceful and quiet.

The next morning, we had a tasty breakfast at the Wimberly Cafe and grabbed coffee and Maui Wowy before hitting the road back to Dallas.

All in all, it was a wonderful trip! Sweet, quiet, and relaxing. It was great to have a little time by ourselves to just enjoy each others company and reflect on our first year as a married couple.

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving!! As always, I really appreciate that you take the time to follow along with our little adventures on this blog. It means a lot!

kiss kiss, Han


* If you're interested in staying at the Three Graces Cabin, we couldn't recommend it more highly! It was a great location, super quiet and private, and adorable. We booked through AirBnB, but just google "Three Graces Cabin Wimberly" and it will pop up.