Happy “future” Valentine’s Day!

So as most people guessed correctly on facebook, my Valentine’s Day present 2011 (or at least the most amazing one) is that we will be bringing a little bundle of joy into this world.  I am officially 11 weeks and 2 days along and due on February 12^th (hence the Valentine’s Day present).  That is as long as I am not like my mom and deliver 2 weeks late so the baby is born Feb 26^th or like my friend Diana and deliver 6 weeks early so the baby is born January 1^st.  So hopefully all will go as planned and we will have a healthy baby as an awesome Valentine’s Day present this coming year.

We are incredibly excited about this unborn child and feel completely blessed as we know it has come in God’s perfect timing.  Just a little background into that, we have been telling friends for a while now (since January 2009 to be exact) that we were not doing anything to keep from getting pregnant.  And if I had it my way, we would have been pregnant much sooner.  However, God had much better plans.   He wanted me to have the opportunity to grow through the waiting and trusting him with my desires.  And to be honest, I was hoping to be pregnant so I didn’t even have to start my Master’s degree in the first place.  But God had other ideas in mind.  We were blessed with a pregnancy earlier this year, only to experience miscarriage in early March which was heartbreaking, but it made God’s timing even clearer.  If that pregnancy had been successful, I would not have been able to complete my student teaching this fall and graduate in December. 

So even though I still struggle to see the purpose in getting a degree that I know I will most likely not use for several years, I know that God has a plan for it.  This baby will come in February, two months after I graduate, confirming His timing perfect.  I have been off from school and work all summer which has been a blessing since I have been exhausted and nauseous most of the time.  I will complete my Masters and graduate on December 18^th which will put me right around seven months pregnant at the time (meaning I won’t have to be rolling across the stage to get my diploma).  Then I will have almost 2 months (hopefully) to prepare for our precious bundle of joy to arrive in February.  It’s pretty amazing to see how God had worked and he has worked in so many smaller ways that I wouldn’t even want to begin to write here so as not to bore everyone to death.  But this pregnancy is not only a blessing in itself, but has been a huge blessing to see the process God has brought us through to get to this point.

Obviously we are not in the clear and anything could happen to change circumstances with the baby’s health, etc.  But we are trusting God that this baby will arrive healthy this coming February and that miscarriages and other obstacles into growing our family are behind us.  And we are looking forward to the wonderful opportunity of bringing a life into this world and showing them the love of Christ.

At this point baby and I are healthy.  As I said, I am just over 11 weeks pregnant and this past week we were blessed with the opportunity to see our first ultrasound and here our baby’s heartbeat.  It was such a wonderful moment to confirm that the baby was alive and well and that everything was on track so far.  Here are some pics from that day we would like to share with everyone:

Here's our first glimpse of our beautiful baby!

Then we got to hear the heartbeat (176 and strong) and it was so awesome!

Basically to sum it all up we are super excited and ask that you pray with us as we begin this next stage in our lives.  We know we have no idea what is up ahead, we just know that with God’s help we will be ready for whatever He has in store.

Happy July 4th!

Ben is finishing his time up in the math department at work and will be moving up to a new department.  And of course that means it's time for train-up again. So July 4th was the only day that Ben had completely off.  I spent the rest of the weekend relaxing and hanging out with the pups.  They had been sick all week, but thankfully this weekend they were finally both better.

My crazy cute puppy I got to hang out with, so glad he's feeling better. :-)

On the fourth we went to church and then hung out all afternoon at home.  Then we drove down to Patriots Point to claim our spot in front of the U.S.S. Yorktown.  We met up with our friends Ryan and Matt and his girlfriend Nikki.  We sat on our blanket, ate lots of yummies and played a bunch of rounds of Monopoly Deal while waiting for the fireworks to start.  Lots of fun!

I finally remembered I had my camera just before dark

Then the fireworks finally started a little after 9pm.  They shot all the fireworks off the U.S.S. Yorktown's flight deck and you could see them all going up over the harbor.  It was gorgeous!  I have never seen fireworks so big.  They did all the fireworks with music playing over the loud speaker.  It was definitely the best fireworks I have seen.  Once the fireworks ended, we waiting in the car for about an hour and ended up playing a round of Monopoly Deal while we were inching our way toward the exit of Patriots Point.  Good Times.

They shot all these crazy ones right off the deck, awesome!

This isn't even zooming in.  They were the biggest fireworks I had ever seen!

On Monday, Ben had to work all morning, but he came home for dinner.  Since we got all of our yummy organic meat, we decided to make a full blown breakfast meal for dinner.  We had pancakes, biscuits and sausage gravy, bacon, sausage, and eggs.  Yummy!

Too much food, but oh so good!

Family Vacay 2010

This past week Ben and I were blessed with the opportunity to spend lots of time with my side of the family.  It was so much fun to be able spend a whole week relaxing and enjoying each others company.  On Saturday morning we flew out to Kalamazoo, MI.  We arrived around lunch time and then once Cody and Justine got to my parents house we headed down to Chicago to meet up with Camden.  (His flight was delayed in Chicago, so he just stayed there since we were all going to be headed there anyway.)

When we got into Chicago on Saturday we hung out at the hotel for a bit and then went out to Firkin and Pheasant with my uncle and his family.  I got an amazing turkey burger and Ben got a yummy burger too.  It was nice to hang out and chat for bit with family we hadn't seen in a bit.  They were all in Chicago for fathers day to visit my cousin Scott.  Gotta love good food and time with family.

Then on Sunday we took our time getting ready and headed down to Wrigley Field.  The game didn't start until 1:20 so we went out to eat at Einsteins Bagels for breakfast and had a good time hanging out.  Then we walked around the streets surrounding the field until they were letting people into the stadium.  We got in the stadium just in time to watch the Angels batting practice and explore the stadium a bit before the game.  It ended up being quite the blowout, but we had fun anyway.  My favorite part was at the end once they one 12-1, they played a song that everyone say along and part of it was stuck in my head for the next week.  "Hey Chicago what'd you say, Cubs are gonna win today!"

Family pic outside the stadium

My favorite pic of the boys

Cody and Justine

Ben and I

My wonderful parents

Post game family pic

After the game we wanted to go to this pizza place that Cam had been recommended called Pequads.  We had looked at it on the gps and it was only 2 miles away so we decided to walk.  Ben warned us that it might not be such a good idea, but we were thinking the traffic was so bad that it would take us forever just to get the car so we just walked.  It ended up taking us a little over 45 minutes just to make the 2 mile walk and needless to say we were starving and tired once we got there.  It was wonderful pizza and we had a great time hanging out, but there was no way we were walking all the way back to the car.  So we called a taxi van and road in that on the way back to our car.  Much better!

We spent Monday and Tuesday just relaxing in kzoo.  I got to play the piano a lot, we did some shopping and played cards, wii and more.  Plus we had fun helping Cody's kitties get acclimated to my parents place because they are staying there for a little bit until Cody moves to KY.  Plus I got to visit my friend Siera for the first time in a year and it was great to hang out for a bit with her and her fiancé.  Good times.

Cody's cute kitties Griffey and Peanut

Enjoying my piano again while Ben and Cam slept

Then on Wednesday after Cody finished his final we headed to Sandusky, OH to go to Cedar Point.  It is an amazing amusement park that has 3 of the worlds largest roller coasters.  We just hung out at the hotel on Wednesday night and then we spent the entire day on Thursday at the park.  We had a blast riding rides, eating food that is awful but oh so good, going to see some shows, and simply spending time together.  We spent from the time it opened at 10am until the time it closed at 10pm in the park.  It was a lot of fun, but lets just way we needed no lullaby's that night.

Figuring out what we are going to do

My beautiful mom and me on the train :-)

Then Friday morning we headed back to Kzoo to spend one last day.  We relaxed and played games all afternoon until my dad and mom were finished making us an amazing homemade breakfast for dinner.  They made homemade pancakes, homemade biscuits, sausage, bacon, homemade gravy, and eggs.  Yummy!  Then we played a long game of phase ten and roasted s'mores out back.  It was a great last night with the family and then we headed back to Charleston early Saturday morning.

Summer is finally here

School is finally over, I took my final exam today while the kiddos napped at work.  It was quite the exam, but it is over and hopefully I get a decent grade in the class.  So glad it is all over!

On a sadder note, I also finished my last day of work today today.  I had to say good bye to all my kiddos.  Sad day for sure.  I am going to miss working with them everyday.  It was super cute though because I got hugs from all of them before I left.  Loved it!  I am also going to miss getting to hang out with my coworker Debbie every day.  It's amazing how close you get to someone when you work with them every day.

It may all be over for now, but it's summertime!  I get to be free for the next month and a half.  I don't have to do anything until August 17th.  No work, no school, just house stuff and fun!  I am looking forward to lots of rest and relaxation and time to take care of myself and hang out with friends.  Yay for summer!

Memorial Day Weekend

This past weekend was a much needed 3 day break.  It was nice to get to spend 3 whole days with Benny.  Granted most of the weekend we spent cleaning up the house, we also did our fair share of relaxing too. The puppies loved the fact that we were home for 3 days too. :-) Sunday was my favorite day though because we got away from housework for the day.

gotta love the pups lounging on the couch :-)

We went to church Sunday morning and then headed over to Folly Beach right afterward.  It was a bit concerning at first because there was so much traffic to get on the island, but once we got there the beach wasn't hardly busy at all.  We set everything up and had a nice picnic lunch on the beach, yummy egg salad sandwiches.  Then we played some football along the shore waiting for sunscreen to dry (much needed sunscreen for sure).  Good times....I love playing catch on the beach. :-)

The set up

Ben's best friend for the day, 50SPF!

Enjoying our time together :-)

Then we had a blast boogie boarding together.  It's nice because this summer we each have our own since got my board from my parents that I had when I was little. (not quite the fancy one that Ben has but it works)  After that we spent quite some time just relaxing and reading on the beach.  I really enjoyed that time a lot and was able to do some of my Bible study which was very refreshing.  I am working through a Beth Moore study called Breaking Free and it has been very challenging of late in talking about how we have to put away our selfishness and pride in order to truly experience the satisfaction that Christ provides for us.  Definitely something I am working on.  After relaxing on the beach for a while we packed up and took everything to the car.  Then we headed down to the beach for an adventure walk down the island.  We actually ended up finding some neat islands that you could walk out to and now Ben wants to see if he can swim from Folly to the next island over.  It didn't look too far, but I said I would be bringing my boogie board just in case. :-)

yay for boogie boards!

Refreshing reading

packing up to go on our walk down the beach

After we were plenty baked from the beach we went home and showered, then headed out to Fleet Landing for dinner. (We had a gift certificate there from Ryan that we were finally able to use.)  Supposedly it has the best seafood that downtown has to offer, but I am not sure why some people think that.  The food was great and so was the atmosphere, but the menu really didn't have that much seafood to offer and most of what was offered was shellfish...interesting.  Ben and I went with non-seafood choices for the most part as a result.  For appetizer we did get crab and lobster stuffed hush puppies though which were fabulous.  But it was just refreshing to have a nice dinner out and forget about everything that needed to be done.  Never a bad time spent with Benny for sure!

what was left of our crab and lobster stuffed hush puppies

Ben's pimiento cheese rib-eye with yummy potatoes and green beans

My wonderful fresh veggie angel hair pasta with fresh mozzarella 

That's pretty much it.  Back to the daily grind....

Anniversary Fun in Hilton Head, SC

This past weekend Ben and I were blessed to be able to spend a weekend away together in Hilton Head to celebrate 3 wonderful years of marriage.  We didn't do a ton of touristy things but we definitely got in lots of rest and quality time together.  We stayed at the Comfort Inn about 500yds from the beach and, even though it wasn't beach front like Ben wanted, it was great.  Ben's favorite part was the fact that it had a king size bed.  He really wants us to get one of those eventually.

When we first got there on Friday afternoon we checked in, then went down to check out the beach and did a bit of walking before heading over to find a place to eat dinner.  Unfortunately I forgot to use my camera this night so I don't have any pictures, but we went to a place called Hincheys and had a nice yummy dinner.  Ben got a full rack of ribs and I got a yummy salad.  After dinner we walked around a bit more and then opted to go back to the hotel room to relax before going out for ice cream.  However, we were both so pooped that we ended up falling asleep and never making it out for ice cream, oops. :-)

our view from the room

Then on Saturday we enjoyed a continental breakfast and went to a timeshare presentation.  It was interesting, but not for us at this point in our lives.  But we did get $50 and 6 free nights in an area of our choice so it was worth it.  After that we went back to get ready for the beach, grabbed some ice cream and pita wraps, then spent some time bumming it on the beach.  Forgot the camera in my purse, so no pics of this, but we had fun reading, swimming, and napping on the beach.  Unfortunately Ben got burnt, but other than that it was a great time at the beach.

Saturday after the beach we decided to go out for a fancy dinner and thankfully I brought my camera for this occasion so I got lots of nice pictures.  We went to Topside at the Quarterdeck in Harbourtown.  We had the first reservations of the night so we had great seats right by the window with an incredible view of the sun going down over the harbor.  Plus we had absolutely fabulous seafood that looked amazing and tasted even better than it looked.  We started the meal with crab stuffed oysters and pimento cheese n' bread.  Then Ben had crab stuffed lobster, steak, mashed potatoes, and fresh veggies.  I had crab stuffed flounder with the best corn pudding ever with fresh veggies as well.  We ate every last bite of it and loved it!  After dinner we went out on the pier to watch the sun go down until our 3hr parking limit was up.  I had a bit of fun with the camera taking pics of the sunset, the flag, and us.  Good times and we had a chance to really spend some time chatting and enjoying one another's company.  (It doesn't really get any better than that.)

yay for yummy romantic dinners with a view!

Ben's yummies

my yummies

my favorite flag shot

our dinner view

sunset highlight (more on Facebook if you're interested)

After than we headed over to Coldstone (our favorite); I got Oreo cream filling ice cream with cookie dough and Oreos, and Ben got cake batter ice cream with cookie dough and graham cracker crumbs.  They were both yummy ice cream goodness and we definitely ate way more food than we should have but it was good going down. :-)  Then we went on a night walk down the beach.  This is one time I realized that there is definitely a difference between living a 1/2 hr or 500yds from the beach.  It would be great to be able to walk the beach every time and, if I could, I probably would walk the beach every night. :-)  Again it was some great quality conversation and time spent with one another and we walked for about an hour.  Love it!

Sunday morning we slept in, packed up and then had some yummy continental breakfast again.  After that we went down to the beach for one last walk before heading home.  We were able to talk a ton more, take some fun pictures, and see dolphins swimming not to far off shore.  (We actually saw a ton of dolphins this trip.)  We didn't spend much time at the beach since Ben was still burnt from the night before, but it was really nice to be able to spend some more time away from the "real world" and be able to totally focus on one another.  After that we headed home, stopped for Taco Bell on the way home and that was the end of our well-worth it anniversary trip for this year and hopefully many more to come. :-)

A final shot of the trip...good times

A quarter of a century old....yikes :-)

Today I am officially 25 years old.  I don't feel at all older, but it has been fun celebrating the occasion.  This morning Ben was very glad that I went for a run because that gave him a chance to set up a surprise for me.  When I got back from my run he had put up some Happy Birthday banners and balloons all over the kitchen:

He had beautiful flowers too:

There was also a very sweet card with his present for me which was the first two soundtrack CDs for the show Glee.  LOVE IT! I have been listening to it all day and it is definitely amazing:

Then I went about getting ready for the day and it wasn't until I was about to walk out the door to leave that I realized there were little white notes all over the house and my car with things that he loves about me.  He made 25 total, but I have only found 23 of them and he can't remember where the other to are to help me find them.  Oh well, it made me feel super special and loved.  Plus he had more flowers in the car too.  Love that man for sure!  Here is a pic. of the 25 things that he loves minus the two I can't find:

Then after work and homework I got to celebrate more.  However I was a bone brain and didn't remember to take my camera out to take pictures.  Oh well, it was still fun anyway.  We went downtown and walked to Mellow Mushroom for pizza.  And it was AMAZING!  I have heard so many good things about it, but this was the first time we were able to go.  We got parmesan garlic pretzels for appetizer, then a white pizza and a potato pie.  It was some of the best pizza I have had in my life.

After pizza we walked to market street where we were planning to get my favorite ice cream, cinnamon crumb-cake, from Kilwins, but they are crazy and swapped out that flavor for some yucky chocolate flavor.  Needless to say I didn't waste any money there because I was mad they didn't have my fave anymore.  They won't get any business from again unless they get it back.  We couldn't go without ice cream though since I was looking forward to it so we walked down the street to Ben and Jerry's and I got Imagine Whirled Peace ice cream, that was a mixture of cinnamon and sweet cream ice cream with chocolate and toffee pieces.  It was actually quite yummy and a pretty good substitute for cinnamon crumb-cake. :-)

It's been fun day and now I am home relaxing with Benny.  I am so thankful for the past 25 years that God has blessed me with and I am looking forward to seeing how God continues to grow me as I venture through my next fourth of a century. :-)