Sister

Sometimes, at the end of the day, I get a FaceTime request from this little 4 year old sister of mine. We chat about roller skating, her bedroom, her new pumpkin pale for halloween, and life. You know...the good stuff.

Couldn't love her more if I tried.

Thankful Thursday

Yesterday was a hard day...my dad was out this way due to business meetings in nashville and had tuesday night available to come visit us. It was heavenly, even if for just a night, to have a piece of home with me all the way out here in kentucky. The hard part came when I had to hug him goodbye the next morning and he returned to nashville for his meetings. To say that I was emotional yesterday is a complete understatement. insert random breakdowns and lots of tears throughout the day (i'm blaming pregnancy a little....)

SO, i decided that instead of dwelling on the things i'm missing, i should concentrate more on the things i'm thankful for. Because really, the picture above says it all doesn't it? So it got me thinking about some of the things that I have to currently be grateful for....

.that i was able to see my dad, even if it brought on feelings of homesickness
.the cool fall weather we have been having all week and that we have been able to leave the windows and doors open. love.
.the $20 portable screen door that i bought at home depot.
.that chris is willing to work so hard to make ends meet. money is such a huge stress...like all the time...but chris takes it all in stride and continues to work hard
.for a good friend telling me that sometimes its ok to relax, let go of stress, and enjoy myself a little
.netflix. probably the best $7 we spend each month (sadly). except now i'm all caught up on the shows that i was watching and well...thats depressing. ha.
.for little baby kicks that reassure me everything is ok with baby girl
.for fun baby gifts sent out with dad from soon to be grandma.
.our puppy marley girl. she has gotten very protective over me since being pregnant and is always nuggled up right next to my stomach. we're practically best friends these days. really.
.sub teaching orientation on tuesday that HOPEFULLY means i can get subbing within the next 2 weeks. fingers crossed.
.that in almost 12 weeks we will be ready to welcome baby girl. surreal.

Thankful to have so many things to be grateful for. Hope you do too :]

The Great Move...

to kentucky....bowling green to be specific. it came as a "shock" (i guess i have to use shock lightly because applications were sent in so its not like i was completely taken by suprise, but still...)and yes i cried. a lot.

To go back in time and explain how this all came to pass, we must start on Friday April 13th. Yes, Friday the 13th. We were living with my parents, entertaining the thought of Chris going to grad school, not totally sure of our next move, truckin along and trying to figure things out. Chris had put in an application to Western Kentucky University for a couple different reasons. He had a connection with a professor at WKU in his chosen major (who ironically moved the first weekend we were here...jokes on us)he didn't have to take the GRE to be considered, out of state tuition was only about $30 more per unit instead of thousands, and it was only an hour away from his entire family in Tennessee. We figured he would get in, but the reality didn't totally set in because it seemed pretty far away. Back to that friday. Chris was at work. We had enjoyed a delicious lunch of in n out with some of my college roommates who were in town earlier that afternoon. I was home babysitting my younger siblings. A pretty uneventful Friday night. Until i found out I was pregnant. and suprised chris after work. Shock. Excitement. Nervousness. Panic. Joy. We were going to have a baby. Less than 24 hours later we found out Chris had been admitted early for grad school at Western and would immediatly be able to register for classes. While i was of course so excited for him, my heart broke. I knew that it was the right move for our future, but it didn't make it any less difficult. (don't even get me started on breaking the news to my parents of moving right after telling them they were going to be first time grandparents....talk about heart breaking...) July 5th we started our journey across the country and arrived in the south about a week later. The first of August we made our way up to Bowling Green, stumbled on a great 2 bedroom duplex, and here we are.... The south is definitely a new experience for a girl born and raised in (the great state of) California. Since being here I have: .survived multiple thunder and lightening storms (they are terrifying)

.dealt with humidty. not a fan. .fallen in love with southern white cheese dip .adjusted to thick southern accents .seen lots of amish/mennonites .facetimed with family as much as possible .gotten bigger and bigger as baby girl grows

.and sent Chris off to his first day of grad school

While everything is still so new, and a little bit hard and heart breaking sometimes still, I know that it will be worth it in the end. I figure that this will be a good way to keep my family and friends back home in the loop. Until next time...later y'all.

2012

How is it possible that it's almost April of 2012?? I remember as a kid thinking how SLOOOOOOW the year took to go by (mostly because i was always counting down until my birthday and Christmas) and now it seems like the year flies by before i can blink. guess that means i'm getting old. boo.

We are pretty boring. I read all these fun, insightful blogs thinking of how exciting and glamorous everyone's lives are (seriously, does nobody else work these days?? kidding. kidding) and then think we are pretty boring (i guess thats the trap of blogs huh...oh well).

We pretty much sleep, wake up, work, watch our shows, and repeat the process. We have managed to sneak in some fun things here and there though, with some exciting things to look forward to.

.we celebrated our 1st anniversary! woohoo! it was on a sunday (boring city!) so we went to church. and now that we are in april i can't even remember what we did on saturday to celebrate (probably went out to eat somewhere yummy).

.we got a puppy (for christmas) and have loved (and hated) potty training and making her all ours. She is quite cute and we love her to pieces. Chris can often be found repeating "i love her. I really love her" on different occasions. should i be worried?? marley girl successfully nuggles in right between chris and i almost every night and is pretty content to be on our heels wherever we go. can't complain :]





.we moved from our little apartment into my parents old house and have been there for about a month now and will be moving (most likely back in with my parents...see i told you, we're glamourous) until we figure out what we are doing with our lives.

.i worked in real estate for a whopping three months and decided i mostly hated it (the office part, not the real estate part) and promptly quit with almost no back up plan. luckily things fell into place and i am now working as an instructional assistant to a 4th grade boy with asperger's who loves video games, batman, and snack time. I LOVE hanging out with him for 3 hours each day and hope that he loves it too. I also work at my uncles tax office. he hooked us up with a sweet tax return (hello dolla dolla bills!) and we are really tempted to buy hawaii plane tickets but go back and forth between being responsible (boring city!) and splurging on a fun trip.

.chris is moving up the ladder at olive garden and will hopefully be working towards management positions in the near future. also, he wants to move to kentucky for grad school. once a southern boy, always a southern boy. he receives compliments on the weekly, and our favorite one came in last night...



it's all good unknown guest, i think Chris is "damn good people" too

Other than that, we have enjoyed a super mild winter (woohoo!!), bought a new car, and are looking forward to a long weekend trip to DISNEYLAND!



I hope to update more and not always do "life updates" when i post.
Shout out to my best friend britt in spain, thanks for the reminder that i haven't posted since last year :] love ya!

"I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas...."

ok. not really. i'm perfectly content with a christmas sans snow, although it is pretty.

i suck at blogging. i was texting my sister in law about a certain christmas gift that we (chris and I) received in the mail today from his grandparents in tennessee, and she said i should blog about it. annnnd now that i've uploaded all of these pictures that picture isn't even here. note. we got a country ham. its pretty funny (and i think chris is actually pretty stoked on it). i'll have to do another post about it. and yes...the box smells like ham. poor delivery man. haha

we have, like always, been busy. so instead of going into detail about everything, i'll let the pictures do the talking with a brief rundown.

In the last month or so we

.spent thanksgiving in beautiful and relaxing lake tahoe at a cozy cabin
.put up christmas decorations....our first christmas tree. i love it!!
.made homemade christmas candy (long time family tradition)and looked at christmas lights
.celebrated the husbands birthday at Lucille's, a yummy southern restaurant
.traveled to Las Vegas and St George (my mom and I) for a good friends BEAUTIFULLLL wedding. really. it was perfection.

We have had a crazy whirlwind year (uhhh what happened to 2011???) and have been so fortunate and blessed. Can't believe we are coming up on our one year anniversary!! whoa baby!

Merry Christmas (lets get real, i'll probably not blog again before then....) Enjoy the pictures.





















note...if you are ever in vegas or st george (or parts of utah) you MUST get custard at Nielsen's. its to.die.for.


the beautiful wedding. after the ring ceremony, as they were walking down the aisle, baby bunnies were released. it was so adorable and perfect!

YUM!

Last night i tried a new recipe and after devouring our plates (i mean...eating like civilized adults) Chris looked at me and declared it "one of his top five favorites", or something like that....its that good!

I shared a picture of it via instagram and had a request to put it here on the blog. you'll thank me later!!

HERE is the recipe. I'm a lover of pretty much every tin foil dinner I have ever had. This did NOT dissapoint. If you try it, let me know if you liked it, or added or subtracted anything...

Oh and the best part...it took me about fifteen minutes to prepare (thawed chicken while cooking bacon, then assembled) and took about 35 minutes in the oven.

NOTE. Chris hates ranch. This recipe calls for the use of some ranch, so i just omitted that part, added a little salt and pepper, and it still had a ton of flavor (and truthfully, even though i like ranch, i don't think i'll use it in this recipe). Also, I didn't follow exact measurements when it came to putting stuff in the foil (helllllooooo bacon...yum) and it was still so delicious!!

Life 'n Stuff

We have been BUSY! Is it just me or has this year literally FLOWN by?! I can't belive Thanksgiving is just over a week away and that Christmas will soon be upon us!

Some updates:
-I started a new job at a real estate office. It's a good learning experience and I'm really grateful to have a job with consistent hours and pay (40 hours a week)
-Real estate is a foreign language. its been quite the adjustment trying to figure out all the lingo and abreviations...and i thought our church acronyms were bad! ha!
-i don't love it, but thats ok because i'm learning something new and yada yada :]
-i celebrated turning 24 the beginning of this month


-Chris just started an AIT (administrator in training) program at a nursing home facility with a good family friend of ours (who happens to be a MAJOR big wig in the CA association of nursing homes ie President of the entire thing) SO he is learning the ropes at a really awesome facility from a really smart and connected person.
-he works double duty pretty much every day with no days off (still working at the olive garden serving AND now working the ait job....)he is working really hard and i'm really grateful for that, even though we sometimes don't cross paths until about 10 at night....right in time to go to bed and start the whole process over the next day!!
-he is loving all the football on tv when he gets a chance to sit down and watch it (and i'm a little bit thankful that there is ONLY football to compete with this year instead of football AND basketball :])

Now some pictures....

We celebrated my bithday at a yummy little mexican restaurant in downtown sac. It was delicious and they even brought me a yummy dessert with a sparkler on it and sang to me in spanish. so fun!


I got spoiled with a pretty new white iphone! I was soooo excited. I've had a stupid old phone for a loooong time now and was definitely do for an upgrade (lets just say the old phone would randomly turn off mid text, mid call, mid anything...it was NOT awesome)


We celebrated 11:11 in style. This is chris's work celebration at the nursing home. they stay classy with 11:11 twix bars and sprite shots!


I even captured the moment on my phone and got a cute text from the hubs!


As I was going through my iPod touch to see what I wanted to carry over to my phone, i came across these pictures that we used for our wedding video! us as littles! maybe our future littles will have deliciously chubby cheeks and big puppy dog eyes?! here's to hoping :]


And lastly...happy 10 months of marriage! Seems SOOOO crazy that we are already at 10 months. I still feel like we just got married! and that we just moved back to the mainland from our newlywed tropical island bliss!


also...if you don't have the instagram app yet...get it!