* All photos taken by my beautiful roommate, Lauren Ellis. This is us:

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This year (so far) has been a busy one, but it’s been so full of love and time with great friends and sweet family. Towards the end of January me, Tyler and two friends of ours took a road trip to Atlanta. There we has lunch (at West Egg–wich is so good!) with a good friend from Iceland (and his recent wife) who now live in Finland. We had such a lie-giving time. It felt as though we’d all been around each other all the time–it was such a sweet time.

Then the last weekend in January was the big trip to Washington to meet Tyler’s family! Which sounds a bit strange to just now be meeting them because we are getting married in only 37 days! It was a great trip though. I really liked his family and enjoyed spending time in the Northwest.

DJ, Tyler’s best man, and Karin, Dj’s wife, through us a wedding shower and I was able to meet not only his family but his long-time friends!

And just before we flew home we explored Pike’s Place Market :)

Tree-houses, Road-Trips, Travels, Family, Friends….oh it’s been such a great start to a great year!

breakfast :)

…then we spent the day there exploring! This treehouse, built by Horace Burgess, stands over 97-feet tall thanks to the 80-foot white oak tree it was built around which also happens to be about 12-feet in diameter at its base. It has 11 floors, about  8,000 to 10,000 square feet, and is held together by roughly 258,000 nails!

We got to meet Horace himself while we were there. He shared with us many stories about his life and how God told him to build this treehouse. In 1993  he had a vision of this treehouse and started building it as soon as God said “go.”

I asked him if he ever felt like Noah, “exactly,” he said. People thought he was crazy spending all his time and supplies building this treehouse, but he continued being faithful to what God showed him. What I love is how he freely opens it to the public so they can enjoy this heavenly place. Donations are accepted but he has no desire to make money and turn the vision God gave him into a money-making tourist stop. Instead he hopes everyone leaves feeling blessed. Someone should most definitely make a movie or write a book about Horace’s life.

So, cheers to the new year. It’s going to be an unforgettable one– I can feel it!

Hope you all have a wonderful New Years Eve, can’t help but love this little ditty by Zooey:

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There’s so much more. The small things in each day for which I am so thankful. And each displaying the Father’s kindness, goodness and faithfulness. With the saying “the way you finish your 2011 will determine your 2012,” my 2012 is going to be pretty amazing and I cannot wait!

What about you? How was your 2011?

How did that happen? It seems like not too long ago we were starting the school and now we are almost finished with our first trimester!

Hoping to blog soon, but for now visit www.tylerandfelicia.us :)

Friday morning I woke up really early with the lovely Kelsey Edgecombe (who had spent the night before) to take her to work at Starbucks. I decided to go ahead and just stay there and get some work done, send some emails, etc. My mom texts me and says “Tyler is here and he’s fixing you breakfast so you better get home.” So I rushed home only to find that nobody was there, weird. I found at the kitchen table was a plate with scrambled eggs (in the shape of a heart), toast, fresh-cut strawberries, juice, basically the breakfast works and a letter. I was so blessed and thankful! What a pleasant surprise! I texted Tyler to thank him and tell him how wonderful the breakfast was. He told me to stay put because there was a surprise coming at 9:30.

He wrote me a letter in banana grams!

Sure enough at 9:30 there’s a ring at the door bell and I open it to see a friend of ours that he works with, Debbie. I blankly stared at her and said “what?” I had totally spaced on the fact that she’s a massage therapist! She was there to give me a massage! Yesssss.

After the massage I thought the surprises were over, I texted Ty once again, thanking him for the wonderful morning. But he had yet another surprise, he had hidden a bag full of The Body Shop products so I could enjoy a bath after my massage! Honestly by this point I still had no idea anything was going on. He does sweet things for me quite often, sure this was a bit over the top, but I was still not thinking proposal!

After my wonderful morning I went on a previously planned shopping date with my girlfriend Lauren Goodwin. After all, the rest of the day was supposed to be girls day… after shopping we met up with our friend Lauren Ellis to get our nails done.

While getting our nails done we decided to have a cuddly girls night, stay in, watch a movie and eat pizza. In addition to all the above Ellis suggested that we take Goodwin to this mini-lake she had never seen before, in cool springs (It’s been a sort of tradition for Ellis and I to do this, so it wasn’t weird).

When we got to the lake parking lot, all of us got out of the car. Ellis handed me a letter and then they both ran to the car and drove away. Now I knew something was up. In addition to a wonderful poem, the letter had instructions to “meet me at the dock.”

To get to the dock you have to walk up over a hill, so I couldn’t see the dock from the parking lot. As I walked up over the hill I could see the dock covered in candles! It is about a 2 minute walk to the dock and I knew what was coming, I just wanted to scream “Yes!” from where I was walking!! But I waited. He met me at the end of the dock with a bouquet of flowers, sat me down on a bench, got down on one knee, said a beautiful speech that I can’t remember because I was crying and too emotional and in the process of being proposed to!!

I said yes (of course), but it doesn’t stop there! He took me out to a really nice dinner and then suggested we go to Kim & John Chandlers house to celebrate with them and show them the ring.  We walk in and 40 of my favorite people were in their house to celebrate! Tyler (and friends) had planned a surprise engagement party following the proposal! Woohoo!!

So. Much. Fun.

*All photos by Madi Flournoy