Boston!

Nathan and I had a very busy July filled with fun travels!! For our joint birthday present, my parents gave us a trip to Boston. I graduated from Boston University in 2006 and haven't been back since. We had a great weekend! I got to show Nathan around the city and introduce him to my wonderful college friends!

Nathan by the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

By the Charles River. So beautiful!

Memorial for fallen soldiers at the Old North Church. There was a dog tag for every soldier lost in Iraq and Afghanistan. It really took your breath away.

200 Days!!!

Nathan and I are getting married 200 days from today!!!! I feel like we've been engaged forever and we still have forever left until we're married, but I can't wait!!! I am sooo ready to be Mrs. Nelson!!!

We have been very absent from the blogging world as of late. I had a hectic summer semester and I am happy to report that I have finished all of my masters coursework! I start student teaching on August 17 and will continue through Thanksgiving. Come December I will finally have my masters!!!

After finishing a crazy month of class, Nathan and I went on two wonderful trips. I promise to update with pictures and stories soon!

The Wedding Website is Up!!!

http://www.mywedding.com/natesandkatesforever/

Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. Hansen!!!!

This past weekend Nathan and I were in California for his little sister Loral's wedding! She looked absolutely stunning and the wedding was incredible! I had the chance to meet more of Nathan's wonderful family and we had so much fun all weekend long! Congrats Matt and Loral!The beautiful reception in Santa Barbara

Things We Have Learned About Bella

May 8th was the 6 month anniversary of Bella joining our little family! Here is some of what we have learned about our sweet little pup over the last 6 months!

Bella is a big fan of playing fetch at the dog park, but...

...is often distracted by stick and leaves.

She has not quite grasped the whole camera concept. She thinks it is yet another object that needs to be licked. She gets herself stuck in some pretty interesting places including underneath my hope chest and underneath her puppy stairs. She has yet to learn how to prevent this from happening.She LOVES her candy cane bone. She has been working on it since Christmas. There is only one small scrap left. I'm not quite sure what we're going to do when it's gone...She is also a big fan of puppy cupcakes from Sprinkles! She may look uncomfortable, but she's not!If you're eating, she's your new best friend!She likes to be a part of pretty much anything we're doing.

We have also discovered that Bella LOVES her grandparents! I need to get a video of her reaction upon reaching the front door of both the Ruggeri and Nelson households. She goes CRAZY!

Nathan, Bella, and I would also like to take this chance to wish our wonderful mothers a happy mother's day!! We love you both so very much!

And happy mother's day to all of the mothers out there! We hope that, at least today, you get the recognition you so very much deserve!

Long Overdue!!

In April, Nathan and I spent a fun weekend in Calgary with Peter and Anne! We wish we could have stayed longer, but we definitely took advantage of the little time we had! Peter and Anne were fabulous hosts and it was such a bummer to leave! That just means we'll have to make another trip up there (if the Mathews will have us, of course!) Here are a few pictures from our fun weekend!

The group at the top of the gondola in Banff!

It was absolutely BEAUTIFUL!

I'm a huge hockey fan and the Calgary Flames were in the playoffs. Although the games were in Chicago, the atmosphere in the city on game day was electric and so fun to be a part of! Peter and Anne took us to an INCREDIBLE sports bar in downtown Calgary called Flames Central. It is completely decked out in Calgary Flames logos, there is a huge big screen where everyone can watch the game, and everyone there was a Flames fan. Nathan and I bought Flames shirts so we could try and fit in!

Here is a video of Flames Central. Please excuse my singing. They used to play this song in between periods at Stars games growing up. They stopped playing it when the Stars moved to the American Airlines Center. Needless to say, I was VERY excited to hear it!

Thank you Peter and Anne for such a wonderful weekend and congratulations to you both on your big job news!!!!

Congrats Big Bro!!!

My big brother, Tony, popped the question last night and to the whole family's surprise, Ashley said yes!!! I could not be any happier for them! Ashley is fabulous and we're all so excited to welcome her into the family!

Hard to believe that the Ruggeri kids are both engaged! How did we get this old?!?

Not to get mushy or anything, but the fact that we're both getting married has made me seriously reminisce about when we were little. For those of you that didn't know us when we were younger, Tony was a terror and I was his (often uninvited) sidekick. Well, let me restate that; I was uninvited unless he needed someone to test out one of his McGyver-esque inventions. I will never forget the day Tony built a zipline over the pool (this, of course, was not out of the ordinary) and I was selected as the crash test dummy. Let's just say that Tony ended up rebuilding the zipline because it didn't quite hold. I, unfortunately didn't make it to the pool. From personal experience, landing on a pad from that high isn't much different than landing on cement!

Although he would never admit it at the time, he took care of me. There was the time that I got my head stuck in the front railing. I was playing hide-and-go-seek with our neighbor. Base was the front porch. I thought I could take a shortcut to base by climbing through the railing. My head was the only part that fit. Benjamin (our neighbor) had a habit of running away when I got myself in these situations because he thought he would get in trouble. I think I was stuck in the railing for a good 20 minutes before Tony got home from school. He nonchalantly walked past me into the house. I thought he would leave me there, but the second he stepped foot in the house I heard, "mom, Katie's stuck in the railing!" Tony saved me again! Also, when I fell in the pool during winter with all of my winter clothes on (and Benjamin froze and didn't know what to do) Tony was the one to yell at him to go get my parents and try to pull me out himself. Yeah, my big bro has been pretty good to me!

And, naturally, all of this happy reminiscing makes me think of the one time I thought I lost him. We were pulling Christmas decorations out of the attic. We LOVED going up in the attic, so we were pros by this point. I was having a conversation with Tony and asked him a question about one of the boxes. He didn't answer. When I turned around, Tony wasn't there. I looked down and Tony was lying in a box on the garage floor, not moving. Of course, in my little kid brain I thought he was dead. I will never forget how I felt as I ran in the house to get my mom. It is making me cry now, just thinking about it. I honestly thought my big brother was gone. Of course he wasn't. He was just unconscious. He had fallen backwards out of the attic. He hit a step on the way down and, by the grace of God, landed in a box of blankets. BLANKETS! Still, to this day, I cannot believe how much God was looking out for us that day!

So, the moral of all the blabbering is that I thank the lord everyday that I was given Tony as my big brother. I look up to him as much today as I did back then. Needless to say, I have very high standards for who should be with my brother and I never could have imagined him finding someone as perfect as Ashley! So, congrats Tony and Ashley! I love you both and I can't wait to build many more happy memories together!