One Year Ago

October 24, 2009

Started out a lot like this.

I probably couldn't tell you how many cokes we had prior to this

But it Sure ended really good

Isn't weird how we think our life is going to go,

and then after one night everything changes?

I love you babe!

Happy one year of knowing each other!!

My Beloved Phone... And a Little Someone Else...

You thought we were having a baby huh? Wrong. Anyway....

Today I woke up around 8:15 to Jim plugging in my phone on the bed next to me. The only thing that went through my head was "I know I left it down stairs last night, He didn't need to bring it to me, and he's very late for work". I went back to sleep (because it's my day off this week so I need to make up for not being able to sleep in Saturday and Sunday) and woke up to a crying dog outside my bedroom (I'm surprised I haven't killed him for doing this yet). As I was going about my morning as I always do, yelling "CHIEF DON'T EAT THAT!" "GET OFF THE COUCH!" "IT'S AMAZING WHAT YOU FIND IN THE TRASH CAN!" I got an email from my dear sweet husband, and this is what it read...

"By the way, I got halfway to work today and then I heard your cell phone receive a text from between the seats in my car. I drove back and plugged it in next to you on the bed. Your welcome. You had a missed call from Melissa at 5:03 am and a text from Taylor."

Isn't he the cutest? Yes. It made my day. Thanks honey!

What a stud :)

On a side note, how the crap do I get Chief to stop chewing everything in sight?!

The first "little" outburst of chewing on things that weren't toys. The Pizza box was on top of the trash can waiting to go outside in the morning. By morning, there was no pizza box anymore.

I also found this under the couch today while I was looking for the OC season 3 box he had chewed, I swept and mopped only 2 days ago.

This was today's latest and greatest. The OC season 3 cover. I couldn't find it under the couch, so I looked in his house. If it's something real good that's where he takes it. Sorry Shelby..

A plastic garbage bag that had a empty bag of toilet paper in it

And probably his favorite thing to chew, his bed.

But how am I suppose to get mad at the little guy?! I mean he's so cute and I love him so much. Wouldn't you?

He loves to sit under my clothes and watch me get ready in the morning. He even hides toys back there sometimes.

How can you get mad at that?!

A Weekend to Remember

On September 24 I got an upsetting text from Jim while I was on my way to work. All it said was "Justin passed away this morning". Justin is Jim's brother in law, married to his oldest sister Kim. He had been sick for awhile and wasn't getting progressively worse. He passed away from natural causes the morning of September 24. Being the good uncle and brother that Jim is he was able to take the rest of the day off work and go get his nephews and take them to get pizza and hang out at our house all day. This weekend we had the same opportunity. Justin's funeral was on Friday, October 1, and it was beautiful. Jim's dad spoke and he did a really really good job. There were a few other speakers and a musical number and I really can't come up with a better word then beautiful to describe it. After the luncheon we took the boys home with us for the weekend. Three boys, I've never baby sat a boy older then the age of 3 so playing with toy trucks was all I ever needed to keep them entertained. This time I had a 12 year old, 9 year old, and a 4 year old. I wanted to do pedi's and mani's, braid hair, and play make up. Jordan, the 12 year old told me with no hesitation, that boys don't do those things, they skate board. That was just fine with me because Jim has long boards and they have scooters so they could do that all day. It was also like 100+ degree's outside so we had to do other things while it cooled down outside.

This would be my 5 boys, hanging out, playing video games

We took a short trip to Target and the grocery store to get out of the house, and to see what I could stumble upon to keep us occupied when it got dark. We decided to make some home made ice cream with the ice cream maker we got for our wedding. At Target I some how ended up in Halloween section and I couldn't have been more excited. They had Halloween Oreo's, so all of a sudden we were making Halloween Oreo ice cream, and Halloween fun fetti cup cakes with orange frosting. I was so excited! The boys on the other hand, well they could have kind of cared less. Jordan was the only one interested in helping me because he is the best helper ever!

Making the cupcakes

Trying to earn my place as favorite aunt!

Our attempt at the ice cream

Like I said, Jordan is an awesome helper

Adding the Oreo's, and someone went a little over board...

While we made cupcakes and ice cream, they played video games

Seriously, that smile melts my heart, and the tongue taco, well it cracks me up

Chief loooooooooooooves Steven, this is the only picture I have that "shows" it

Finished cup cakes

He's my favorite

Steven doesn't like sweet things, so he wasn't in the picture, but Aaron and Jordan do

Ice cream for breakfast!

Jordan told me that the freezer was ready for use, but it actually wasn't so our ice cream didn't set up right. I just put it in the freezer and we enjoyed it for breakfast! All in all, the weekend was really fun! Our dog is still worn out (and I love it) and I got to get to know my nephews better. They are so cute! I might be sticking to just being the favorite aunt for the rest of my life, It's rough being a mom! I don't know if I can do it!

The Little Gingerbread House: Part 2

As you know from before, MY amazing cousins Billy and Kati offered for us to live in their house. We so kindly accepted with almost no idea what was in store for us. After many home improvements such as, washing walls, replacing the faucet on the kitchen sink, taking apart the garbage disposal to find things like a plastic bag and a nail, and some cigarette butts. That's since we've moved in. So I thought I would let you all take a look at how far we've come from the last gingerbread house post. I'd like to start off with this,

Our oven is so clean! Jim hired a small cleaning company to come and clean our house before we moved in and if I do say so myself they did an AMAZING job!!

This is our Kitchen after it's seen a little lovin'

Our cute little living room where we spend 99% of our time

View from the stairs

Our super cute end table decorated from our reception haha :) thanks mom!

This is part of the odd long space behind the TV. I wasn't sure what to do with it because we had an area for the table all ready. But I think I have an idea now.

This is where a table would go, but I think I have another idea like I just stated

This is our bedroom. Our bed is so big I couldn't even get a picture of it from outside the door

Our bathroom

This is probably my favorite part of the bathroom. I want the matching trash can!!

Jim complained that our bathroom was a little too grey so I spiced it up with some yellow towels from Ikea! Sooooo cheap

This is our super cute spare bathroom

We really have had a lot of fun ever since we got married. I've come home a few times now to a husband who is putting dinner in the oven

And I've even been as spoiled as waking up to home made French bread on Sunday morning

Don't mind the shape, Jim made it in our bread maker. It was Delicious!

But best of all.............

Chief

Yes, we caved. It took a little over a month for us to become one of "those" couples who gets a dog and become obsessed with it. It wont be long until all of our pictures are of chief and we start looking at sweaters for him for the Christmas card. Just kidding. We are not THAT weird. But seriously. We love him. Can I just say we got SOOO lucky?! He's such a well behaved dog! He understands what we say to him, he sleeps through the night WITHOUT an accident, and he's potty trained. We've taken him on a few walks around the neighborhood and he refused to be on his leash. But he wont wonder more then 5 feet in front or behind us. He loves to be around us and I'm constantly tripping over him. The ONLY problem I have with him is his breathing when he sleeps. It seems like he has nightmares while he sleeps. His breathing is so heavy and deep. But we love him. This is what we've done with the area for the table...

It's where Chief lives. He loves his pillow now that he's gotten use to being able to get on it.

He loves water. love love loves it!

He refused to jump out of the bath tub after. I thought it was because he didn't know how so we lifted him out and started going back down stairs. He then ran back into the bathroom and jumped into the bath tub expecting us to turn it back on.

He is so cute. He just loves to lay by us and be in the way :)

So it is true. We are THOSE people. I hate it, but I love Chief!

The Honeymoon

Beware of REALLY long post and LOTS of pictures!

Jim and I thought long and hard about what to do for our honeymoon. We thought about Disneyland, multiple different cruises, or maybe even just a week in Rocky Point. I'm here to tell you my friends, we had the BEST honeymoon ever! We got married on July 29, had another reception in Utah on August 6, and then on Sunday, August 8 we headed to the airport for our red eye flight to Atlanta and then connect onto Miami. We decided that a cruise was the best bang for your buck. When we first walked out of the air port this is what happened...

It was such bad humidity that Jim's glasses fogged up!

On Monday, after traveling ALL night and being exhausted, we arrived on the boat, at lunch, and we were ready for a nap. We were finally allowed to get in our rooms and this is what we found...

I was pissed. I was soooo pissed. There was a card on my bed that said something to the point of we are glad you decided to honeymoon with us, please join us for a honeymoons celebration... You would think someone would use their head for this one. But we got it sorted out after we took a nap.

This is what we came back to after dinner the second night.

We then left the Port of Miami and headed for Key West, Naussa Bahamas, and then CoCo Cay (a small island owned by the cruise company). It. Was. Amazing.

This is leaving the Port

Leaving the port

That night we just hung out on the boat and went to a show and had dinner. Dinner was always interesting at our table. Somehow, and I have no idea how, we got stuck at a table with 4 people that we had NOTHING in common with. The other 4 people were at least 30+ years our seniors, and from Canada. This made meal time a little dreadful for me, but Jim always seemed to keep up with their conversation. Anyway...

Our first stop was Key West. It was soooooooooo cool! I HIGHLY recommend going there some day.

It was raining while we were there, but I still had fun.

A Lady walking by was so kind to give me her poncho which was wet on the inside and out. Needless to say we found somewhere else that sold dry ones.

After we bought poncho's we found this "little" gem outside the art museum. Yikes!

We made a quick stop at the Key West Toy Factory, it was pretty cool.

And took a train tour of Key West! This was probably one of my favorite things we did! I fell in love with this place and am seriously considering moving there!

Of course, we ate such good food the whole time! This place was called Two Friends, or something like that. They had the best french fries and a really good sandwich. I'm sure Jim's fish was good, but fish is gross so he can be the judge.

Being in KEY WEST you have to order KEY LIME PIE. Duh. It was good. I'm not a Key Lime Pie fanatic and neither is Jim, but when in Rome...

We sailed all night and morning from Key West to Naussa. We arrived at 1:00 pm and we were soooo excited to spend all day trying to figure the place out. We knew we wanted to go to Atlantis, and also see a lot of the town. We we did, and this is how...

SCOOTERS!!! So fun, so scary! They drive on the other side of the road!

Yes, we had twin helmets. Blah

After a small scooter tutorial in a very small ally, and a man trying to twist my wedding ring off my finger, we were off for 3 hours to see what we could find! And we found great things!

A nice resort with a nice beach, opposed to the free pubic beach that I was a little scared of

We found Atlantis! Absolutely Amazing!!

Coolest fish tank ever! (don't mind the wet bathing suit)

I tried to get a picture of him and the giant sting ray

We ended up walking IN the exit to the aquarium, so we got that for free.

Star fish!

We did a little shopping :)

This street was so cute! and full of great shopping!

And we found our next house! It's pink!

It was so fun! I was a little scared driving around on scooters, but it really was worth it!

The next, and last day of the cruise we went to Royal Caribbean's private island CoCo Cay. It was so fun! We did a little snorkeling (not so fun, well I just can't handle the water in my ears) and a kayak tour where we got to hold star fish, and we saw a bunch of sting rays swimming below us. We don't really have pictures of that because well, we just don't. But I do have this little gem...

Yes everyone, that is my husband. What a hunk.

After such a fun relaxing time on our honeymoon we knew it was time to come home. On Friday we got back to Miami and were off the boat by 9:00 am. Our flight didn't take off until like 7:30m, so what is there to do in Miami when you are sun burned beyond belief, exhausted, starving, and ready to be on your way home? I'll tell you, eat at the Hard Rock Cafe, and then take a boat tour of the harbor. It was fun actually, I just wish that we were able to enjoy it a little more. It was really really sunny, and very humid so for us it was unbearable to be outside.

BONUS! By the time we are done with all that it's time to head to the airport and get home! But the airlines had a different plan. Our flight was delayed before we even got there, and then delayed twice more due to them having to change a part on our plane. Once we got on the plane we found out it was delayed yet again due to the weather in Atlanta where we were suppose to catch our connecting flight to Phoenix. We missed our flight and because our original delay was due to maintenance Delta was so kind to pay for a hotel room, and 6 meals at any airport or our hotel for the two of us. We were finally settled in at 2 am in Atlanta and up at 9 and to the airport to catch our flight home. It was a nice little extension to our honeymoon... NOT! But we are still married, and it was still the best vacation ever!

My poor exhausted husband after delay #1 in Miami.

Thanks babe for the AWESOME honeymoon!! Let's do it again!