This is totally gonna be a photo blog. =)

I just wanna start this post off with a picture of Sam. Just because he is so dang cute and this is one of my fav. pics of him--

I know!! This post is long overdue. I have been wanting to write it for forever. I just knew that it was going to be really long and take some time, and I just couldn't bring myself to spend the time on it recently, especially because of everything going on. These past couple monthes have flew by and definately been a whirlwind of events. I cannot believe how each year I grow older, my life seems to fly by even faster. It almost sort of scares me, even though I am so eager to see what the future holds for Chris and I.

I think I left off in March.....Sam was born that month. And St. Patrick's Day. I have never really celebrated it before because I was always working. We just happened to have that weekend off, so we decided we were going to go downtown. Chris's cousin Derek came to hang out with us too. We started out at the Black Rose, and Irish restaurant downtown. They were SO packed, it was crazy. But we had some amazing food there. After that we went for a drink to Giradellas, and then off to San Chez for dessert and some irish coffee. Then we met up with Anne, Lindsey and Dani at McFaddens, which of course it was crazy there, but we had a good time.

A couple weekends later I finally got to go down to Ohio and see Jess and Trish and the baby! He is soooo cute, I loved spending the weekend with them. Sam is such a sweet baby. It is amazing how big he has gotten since then, babies grow so fast!! Here are some pictures from my trip to Ohio:

awww so sleepy!!! Me holding Samuel The happy family

A couple weeks later I went home for the weekend to Vassar to visit my family. They have a cabin in caseville and every year they have "clean-up days". We seriously worked our butts off raking some leaves (everyone did but in this picture it's my sis Meg and me) .

They also let us use the chain saw...what were they thinking, haha?!

We also took a walk down to the lake and took some cool pictures, beautiful isn't it?






May and summer came fast, I was so excited for the warm weather. I couldn't wait to get out to the pool at our apartment and take advantage of it for a while before we moved into our house. I definately wanted to hit the beach a couple times too. For Mother's Day weekend we stayed here and went to Muskegon. Saturday night consisted of going to the Great Lakes Downs to the horse races. I had never been before, it was so much fun!! The one time I bet on the horse that was doing so well, he lost. I was disappointed, I thought maybe I would hit it big, haha! Our dinner there was actually really good too, and the horses were beautiful.

Sunday we went to Dockers for a Mother's Day Brunch (good food again!!) We love good food. =)


Afterwards Chris and I went to the driving range. I have ALWAYS wanted to do that!! Sooooo fun, but I am not gonna lie, I was definately not very good. Chris is so funny too, he gets all mad at himself, it's cute.



Here is some shots from Grand Haven when we went to the beach one day--what a mistake, it was so windy, but I was determined to stay for a while since we had driven all the way out there, but yeah, we totally got covered in sand, it was so gross...I swear it was in my hair for like two days....

The last weekend in May was great. Chris's cousin Tim and his wife Megan came home from Texas on a break from the Army. Tim has to go to Iraq soon, so they came home one last time to see the family before he leaves.

Chris, Derek, Tim and Todd *the four cousins*

I have never really gotten to hang out with them before or get to know them so it was really nice. That sunday his cousins Derek and Todd had a family BBQ at their house and everyone came. Once again...soooo much food.

Why does everything always revolve around food? It's amazing to think about how much I have eaten in the past couple years of my life, crazy!! ANYWAYS!
They just had a daughter Abigail and she is so sweet. Definately one of the best behaved babies I have ever seen, she rarely cried!

We also played a game called Washers. This is me for the win. I rocked it out...haha!

Chris and I had been looking forward to the 3rd week of June for so long. A whole week off (well Chris anyways, I was only supposed to get 5 days off, which is still better than nothing) for a vacation with eachother to do whatever we wanted. We were so excited but the week definately got off to a rough start. On monday morning Chris had to drive to Muskegon to get his upper widsom teeth extracted. I also had my yearly check-up that day which to all my lady friends out there reading this, you all know exactly how much FUN those are...uhhh yeah probably not, but yeah....so my doc. is doing the breast exam and all of a sudden makes me funny face. I'm like uhhh....what? "I found...a little lump." My stomach was in my throat all of a sudden. She told me that she wanted me to get an ultrasound done. I so badly wanted to be positive but it was so hard, all the worst thoughts were going through my mind.....what if it is cancer, what if I had to have my breast removed, I want to be able to nurse my children, what if I couldn't? I would be devastated? The situation just made me want to throw up.

I quickly left and called Chris, he had just gotten home. I felt so bad unloading all of this on him when he had just gotten home from his surgery. I told him what had happened and while I sobbed he just held me and said everything was gonna be OK, he was so supportive. I had an appt. at Blodgett right away so he came there with me and I had the ultrasound done. The doctor came in to look at it himself and we decided to do a biopsy. We ended up doing it within the hour. I had to call work and tell them that I couldn't work or lift anything for 48 hours. They didn't want me moving my arm in any kind of repetitive motion or doing anything stressful or to raise my heartrate. They had to put a needle in my breast to numb me with the lidocaine; make an incision, and then put these little trigger things inside me to shoot out chunks of the "fibroid", I watched pretty much everything as I was awake, it was pretty interesting actually, definately quite the experience. That night I had to lay around and put an ice pack on my chest every 1/2 hour. I never thought that my first ultrasound would be on my breast, I thought it would be when I was pregnant one day. Needless to say I found out the next week that, Praise God! it was benign......now I just need to make the decision whether or not I want to have it removed.
And that was how my vacation started two days early, which I guess I wasn't too disappointed about, despite my distraction in the back of my mind, I was determined to have fun on my vacation with my husband, especially since we don't get to spend that much time together.

Tuesday we were pretty lazy all morning, in the afternoon we went out to Reeds Lake for dinner, we got a pizza from the Nantucket bakery in East GR, got a blanket and enjoyed the awesome weather. Later that night we watched the Departed, pretty good movie, kinda crazy though.

Wednesday morning my good friend Thea picked us up and then we went downtown to pick up her husband Jason from Kendall (he is a teacher there) and we drove up to Lake Leelanau, where her aunt and uncle lived. SUCH A GREAT TIME, what a fabulous little peninsula. When we first got there we visited about 6 different vineyards and did some wine tastings.

That night we went to this "dinner in a Barn" on a Hydroponic Tomato Farm. Thea's uncle played acoustic music during the dinner with his friend, the food was pretty good.

Thursday afternoon we drove home and went to Muskegon that night until Saturday morning. That afternoon we met back up with Thea, Jason and her parents in Fennville for the vineyards "Open House for the Season". It was very reasonably priced at like $7 a person and we got to taste so many different wines and eat cheese and other great food. Afterwards we went back to their condo and we played croquet, I've always wanted to learn how, it was so fun!!! They also have a little french bulldog named Audrey she is so cute!!

The next week consisted of going back to work, Chris starting school back up, and starting to pack up our apartment.

Friday, June 29th, we closed on our house. We are officially homeowners. It is so exciting, I love it!!!

The week we moved was hell though, haha. I never want to move again.....it's so stressful! I know that eventually I"m going to start looking for something and I'm not going to be able to find it anywhere. We spent SO MUCH TIME painting.....a couple of nights I was here until almost 3 in the morning painting...I was seriously running on no sleep.

I have to send out huge thanks to my mom-in-law Jeanne and her sis Barb, and our amazing friend Julia who all helped us paint. Joe and Erica for lending us their truck, I don't know what we would have done without it. Chris's Uncle Ted for helping us move the washer and dryer. And Jason and Andrea for helping us move a TON of stuff on thursday evening.
Friday consisted of the movers coming to the apartment to get our sofa, tv and mattresses. Our stove and refrigerator were delivered to the house.....OH YEAH, we ran out of hot water around like wednesday. I didn't call to have the gas turned on. I didn't know....!! No one ever told me that you had to do that....so yeah, they couldn't come out until today (wed. July 11), so we have had no hot water for the past week....so thanks AGAIN to Julia and Mike for letting us into their home and letting us use their shower....they are such a blessing to us. It's amazing how we are going to Mars, and got into this house church, and met such awesome people and how everyone helps eachother out, it's so great....we would probably be lost without them all. God is so good!! Sears is also coming back out on friday because they wouldn't hook up our stove since the gas wasn't turned on, so we haven't been able to actually cook anything either which isn't very fun. I"m totally ready for some normal food.

This past weekend my family came to see the house. I haven't seen them in forever, it was so great! They all said how they loved the house, it was so nice to get to share it with everyone. Bob and Jeanne met us here too, and we all went out to Mangiamos!

Later that night we all stayed at their place in Muskegon and watched movies...and of course, played Dominoes.

Sunday morning we went to church at Calvary, which was nice because I've always wanted to go there. We go to see Ryan and Angela, and also got to see Maya for the first time, she is such a beautiful little girl and just as sweet as I imagined her to be. I also got to meet Cadie Rae finally! We went for a short walk on the beach and took some pictures with the family....Afterwards we had lunch at Dockers....then the fam. was off to go back home, and me and Chris were back to GR for our house church.

Bro-in-law Pat, sis Meg, my "dad and mom" Randy and Dorothy, me and Chris

Chris's dad Bob and me Chris's mom Jeanne and me

We went to Jason and Andreas and had a little cookout and ended up playing beach volleyball for like two hours, it was sooooo fun. I haven't played volleyball in like forever! I am still sore today, haha. So this week was back to work again. Tomorrow is my day off and Chris has the day off too so we are probably gonna bust out the weedwacker and lawn mower and get some yard work done cause the grass is seriously WAY overgrown. Should be good fun...atleast the weather has cooled off for a couple days. I am just so happy to be settled in the house now. =)

Ok I wrote this post like five days ago and have been working on it like every day just trying to get the pictures and format all perfect, so I hope you all enjoy it!!!