2015 In A Nutshell

I'm a terrible blogger. There, it's out in the open, we've all acknowledged it and we can move on. I always liked the idea of having a blog, but I always thought my life was too boring so I just waited hoping exciting things would happen to me, and I learned that isn't how life works. Adventure is out there, go find it.
So I've decided to revive this blog, mostly at the prompting of my momma who thinks I should be a food blogger. I kind of have to agree because I like food, I like to make food, and I like to share my opinions in the form of writing. Not talking, though. I hate talking. The original intent of Subject of Change was that it would be the place I document the way my life has been changing, now it will be about food, and adventure, and my dog, and anything else that strikes my fancy.
For now, I'm just going to fill you in on the big things that have been happening since my last blog post, including pictures because everyone likes pictures.



It's been nearly three years since I moved from my beautiful Texas, and that brought a whirlwind of change. As the nineteen year old who left Texas and everything she knew behind, I hated change. I don't know where the courageous streak came from, but I bought that ticket and I left. The twenty-two year old typing this out has become grateful for change, and even more grateful that my nineteen year old self found that courageous streak. We've since said goodbye to our Hawaii home, but I learned so much about people and places and myself, also how to raise a mostly polite German Shepherd. Hawaii was magic, and that's the best way to sum it up.

Cute things first. Puppy! This is Artyom, she's my first dog. 

She's much bigger now, but she's still the love of my life.

She also keeps me from being an anxious wreck.

Windward Oahu from the Old Pali Highway. This was the side of the island I called home.

My two best friends. Rob on the left, Dan on the right.
Our trip to the Pearl Harbor Memorial a few weeks before we all moved off island.

Our house the night before we moved out. We had the top floor unit and the middle garage. I learned to drive stick in that truck.

Artyom all grown up.

Lemme tell ya, life is so much better when you have a dog.

My partner in crime and the one who taught me to two-step, Alex.

This girl and I met at the time we needed each other most, so thankful to have her in my life!

Pictures that needed to be in the post but I didn't know where to put them.

Top to bottom, left to right: little sister-in-love Alex, big brother Seth, big sister-in-love Jessica, and apparent disney princess/cousin-in-love Heather.  

But, it’s been seven months since we left Hawaii.

I can’t believe it’s been that long. It’s still bittersweet, I miss it a lot whenever I see pictures. I miss my friends, I miss my neighbor, I miss my weekend hangout spot.

So much has happened since we left our little island for California.

Rob finally met my family back in August, they like him, he likes them. He also likes Texas, but how could you not? We have Rudy's, and Kolaches, and guns without bullet buttons. Ya know, the good stuff. 

I also bought my first car while I was home this summer, we lived out of it for about a month afterwards on a road trip through twelve states, and five national parks. Texas, Colorado, Wyoming,  Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and California. It was one of the greatest adventures of my life, I'll make more posts about it soon.

I fell in love with Colorado.

I felt very small in Yellowstone.

Hiked up river in a Canyon in Zion.

Rob is bearded now.

December brought us back to Texas. We had already been planning to spend Christmas with my family, but to sweeten the deal Dan fell in love with a Texan. So we spent the weekend before Christmas celebrating with them, sharing a lot of laughs, making a lot of new friends and memories.
The weekend came to a bittersweet end and Rob and I made the drive back to my hometown to begin the holiday festivities. Rob didn't meet a lot of my extended family in August, but as with most families during the Christmas season there were a few family gatherings to go to. I think it may have overwhelmed him a bit, but he shook hands and smiled and seemed to get along with all of them well. He's great, I love him, and I'm glad my family loves him too.

This is about where the happy tears started.
I love y'all, I wouldn't have missed this day for anything!

Christmas morning with my Momma, little sister, and Cash. 

All in all, 2015 was good to us. It was adventure, it was the best year I've lived so far. I hope I can say that about the years to come.

When Rob and I got back from our National Park hop in September, we started looking for our own place in San Diego. He did most of the work, not gonna lie. He's good with people, knows the right questions to ask. I'm just awkward. It was stressful to say the least, lots of driving, lots of applications, lots of hand-shaking, and lots of no's.

Finally, on January 26th, we signed a lease. After months of house hunting it all came to a close. You can imagine what a relief we both feel now that we finally have a place to call home.

For the first week most of our stuff was still in Anaheim so we were sleeping on our camp bed with our sleeping bag in the living room, I didn't mind it at all. I remember being a little kid and moving to a new house, we didn’t have our beds set up yet so we all camped out in the living room together. It was so exciting to my little self, and it’s still exciting to my twenty-two year old self.

That being said, though, it’s nice having all of our stuff here now. Unpacking is stressful, but it’s nice seeing all of the stuff that made our little Hawaii house a home bringing our new house to life. 

I can't wait to see what happens in this house, I look forward to sharing it all with you.

Here's to a new year, a new blog, a new house, and a new outlook on life.

Much love, Erin