My Christmas Surprise

This year I guess my husband wanted to get me something extra special for Christmas. Back in November he asked me which weekend we had free in December and I told him the weekend of the 5th, so he told me to keep it free and that I would have to deal with getting my present early this year (fine by me!) So I figured that we were probably going somewhere or going to some sort of show or something. He told me he would let me know what was going on the night before so I could be prepared if I needed to be. Well on that Friday night when he got home from work at 1 am, he woke me up and gave me a card. First of all, it was seriously a REALLY pretty card. On the inside he had wrote "I didn't get you perfume, but I still wanted to get you Romance. Love, Chris" (One of the things I wanted this year was some RL Romance perfume.) Anyhoo, and then folded up was a printed off online reservation to stay at the Amway Grand downtown. I was like YESS!!!! I have ALWAYS wanted to stay there, and seriously, how freakin sweet is that?! And not only that, but he booked us the "romance plus package." We got to check in early and check out late, access to the pool/hot tub/exercise center, a $50 voucher to any restaurant in the hotel, which there are a ton to pick from, and they brought champagne and truffles to our room that night. Needless to say, I was pretty stoked. And he already had it all worked out for our dogs to be taken care of (we only live like 3 miles from downtown.)

It was a romantic snowy afternoon! This was one of the views from our room!

After we checked in, we walked over to Hop Cat and grabbed a quick bite to eat for lunch. They have really great food there and some awesome beers *they were rated 3rd best beer bar in the world!!*

Me by one of the really pretty trees at the Amway.

After that we changed, went back out, and went ice skating in the rink that is seriously like 100 ft. from the hotel. I wanted to bring the camera and take pictures, but it was my first time ice skating ever! I was nervous one of us would fall and the camera would break or something. It was SO fun though. I was nervous I would fall, but I didn't, and Chris actually ended up falling a couple times.

We were cold after that so we went back and used the pool and hot tub, and then got ready for dinner. We ended up choosing to eat at The Grill at the 1913 Room. The food was amazing, the chef there is really talented.

And then last but not least, our dessert. It was a really unique presentation.

After dinner we chilled in the room for the rest of the evening. It was fun watching the Food Network and just hanging out, sleeping in the next day, and having breakfast in bed.

Oh, and he also gave me some diamond earrings.

How did I almost forget that?!?

It was a really great weekend. I am a lucky girl. <3

Christmas Card Pics

It was a trip trying to get the dogs to cooperate for these. Some of them are seriously hilarious.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Love,

The Ostranders

Bridge Run and such....

My race yesterday went great. I beat my time from last week, and came in 7th place in my division with a time of 26.28 minutes. (37th out of 286 females, 114th out of 391 overall.)
Pictures soon to come.

Also, only 23 more days until we are in Paris.
;)
Things are going great, how could I not be happy about life right now?

Fun weekend and my first race!

This past weekend was a lot of fun. It actually started out on Friday evening (cause the weekend ALWAYS starts when you get out of work on Friday!!) when my coworkers and friends, Jessica, Dave and I all went to the Galley restaurant for dinner. They were holding an all you could eat spaghetti dinner for donations towards the Wiersma Family. We were also able to pick up our race packets that night.


Rachelle, me, Jessica and Dave

Saturday morning came and went in a hurry. I had looked forward to this morning but had been somewhat nervous all week long. For being my first 5K I thought I did pretty well. I came in 4th for the women (it was a small race, so not that big of a deal) and I ran it in 26.53 minutes. I was pretty happy with my accomplishment. My goal was to run it in under 30 minutes. We all had a lot of fun, but most importantly a lot of money was raised for this family. It was an honor to be able to participate in this event for them!


Us before the race started.


Us at the finish line, all nice and sweaty, haha.

A couple hours later the family came and the afternoon was spent doing some work for our side business, going to some bike shops, and walking the dogs in East GR. For dinner we went to Peppino's for pizza and then went to the GVSU vs. SVSU game. It was a lot of fun! I could not believe how many Grand Valley students were there, it was packed. I wasn't really rooting for either team to win since I feel impartial to both of them. SVSU is back where I am from, but I never went to school there. And GVSU is the University in the city where I live. I like them both. Unfortunately SVSU didn't just lose, they got beat bad. It was such a fun game though!





Sunday just consisted of getting things done around the house and ready for the week to come. The highlight of my day was probably getting new tires and an alignment done on our car. It has been over two years and the tires were bald in some spots. And it is SO nice to drive it now, especially since it isn't shaking and pulling one way or another, haha. And let's face it, I live in Michigan people. Sometimes the snow here gets a little crazy and trying to get out of our driveway in a little low to the ground Corolla can be quite a task. So yes, me=happy about the new tires. Just in time for Winter to come!

This week is going good for far. I cannot believe we are half way through September already. One month from yesterday Chris and I will be in Paris!!! We are so excited, it is going to be awesome! Also, I will be adding some new running events to my list on my sidebar soon. It is going to be a busy Fall season, and I am super excited about it. So far I have ran 36 miles in 24 days. I think I am doing pretty good so far!

Widget

Lots of stuff going on.

Things are super busy as always. Right now I love it though.
We are coming into our favorite time of year: The Fall and the Holiday Seasons.
I am trying to cherish every minute of every. single. day. I love the weather, the atmosphere, the smells....I bought a bag of apples at the store the other day and they seriously just smell SO good. Every time I go into the kitchen I cannot help but to smell them. Chris and I keep discussing how sometime soon we cannot wait to get some apple cider and sugar-covered or pumpkin donuts. We always heat it up in a saucepan on the stove and Chris always "spices" it up. Literally. Cinnamon...nutmeg...and topped off with just a little brandy. We are going to wait until it gets a little bit cooler outside for that though. I think it probably won't be too long...we got a nice glimpse of that cool weather last week. I think it will return the beginning of October, just a guess.

Chris is doing his internship right now and so far it seems to be going really well. I am happy that he loves it and is passionate about helping people. I know he will do really great at it. Besides the long hours and lack of sleep, he is handling it well and so far not seeing each other much has not been too much of a strain on our relationship. In March we will have been married for 4 years. As time goes on I notice that we have better communication, and work more as a team, which in turn makes getting things done around the house and coordinating our schedules much much easier. I am thankful for him, he is such a great husband.

Since it seems I have a lot more free time during the week while Chris is gone I have been doing a lot to keep myself busy. I have a few 5K's and bike events coming up soon that I have been training for. I am pretty proud of myself, I have never been able to run 3-4 miles without stopping and now it is almost effortless. Of course some days are harder than others, but it is going great. I am also trying to bike to work every morning that I can, as long as it is not raining. I love it! I have gotten an opportunity to spend evenings with friends and catch up. I am much more willing to clean, prepare meals and keep up the laundry while Chris is at work. I blame on the fact that handsome face and charm are not there to distract me. I am also looking forward to all of the new season shows that start this week for the Fall line-up.

I am looking forward to this weekend!! Saturday morning is my first 5K. I am doing the Quest for the Cure...and I am pretty excited and nervous at the same time. That afternoon we are setting a monument, and then in the evening go to the football at Grand Valley because they play SVSU. I think it is going to be a lot of fun, and I always love it when we get to hang out with friends and family.
All in all I am really looking forward to this season, and feel so thankful and blessed.

Touching Story

If you have a minute, please check out this blog: http://mkwiersma.blogspot.com/

This poor family has been through so much. And talk about a small world. I initially heard about them through a coworker a couple weeks ago. Then today I was talking with another coworker about running and she told me how there is a 5K that I should do in a couple weeks as a fundraiser for this family, and it turned out to be the same one! I was looking through the brochure and decided to look at their blog and realized that I had read it before. A bunch of us in the office decided that we were going to do this 5K and then the word got out. It turns out a bunch of other people in the office know the family as well, but didn't know about the others who knew them. Such a small world.....

Anyways, back to the Wiersma family. Kate ended up going into labor sometime between 21-22 weeks. The doctors tried to stop it but after being on the meds for a while I guess she got very ill and then they didn't know if she would even make it. They ended up delivering the babies after 23 weeks. Maxwell and Wesley have several medical issues, and are still in the NICU at Spectrum Health. Three weeks after they were born Kate's mother passed away. I do not know many details but she had some sort of cancer. Shortly after that, Kate's father lost his job, and now Kate and Mark are possibly losing their house. It is such a sad story, I guess it just really gets to me. All they wanted was to have children and become a family. Twins...what a joy! And now all of this has happened, my heart just really goes out to them. It just goes to show that you never know what will happen with a pregnancy, and now they are going to have so many doctors bills (especially since there are two babies.) I just could not imagine. They pretty much need any sort of financial help that they can get.

To help them out, we are running in the 2nd Annual Quest for the Cure. It is on Saturday, September 12, 2009. If anyone would like to make a donation, or pledge for my run, that would be amazing! You can also donate online at: www.quest4cure.org. I know that my small contribution will probably not make that huge of an impact on their lives, but every little bit helps.

Babies Galore!

Congratulations Todd and Shauna! (Chris's sister)

Rowan Julia Johnson



Rowan Julia was born at 4:18 am on August 9th, 2009. She was 8 pounds 8 ounces and 20-3/4 inches long. Another new niece! They live in Maine. Hopefully we will get to visit there next year, Chris and I have always wanted to see Maine.


Ayden was born August 10th at 10:32 pm (11:32 pm our time) weighing in at 7 lbs. 5 oz. and 19.5 inches long. He is my new little nephew born to my little brother Joe and fiance Tiffany.



He is a cutie, no?
The problem is that they live in Kansas, and I have no vaca time left this year. It would probably be about a 12 hour drive from Michigan to there. I am trying to figure out how I could utilize a 3-day weekend coming up here soon over Labor Day so I could go and visit. We will see I guess! I really want to meet my nephew, it kills me that I couldn't be there at the hospital. Hopefully I will get to see him soon!

Liam Charles Kelly

Liam Charles Kelly, infant son of Patrick and Megan went to be in the arms of Jesus on July 23, 2009.


I have been wanting to post about this for a while now. It is just such a heavy topic, that I wanted to wait. I wanted to think about everything that has happened in the past couple weeks, the past couple months. It is been indescribably saddening, and emotionally draining.

I cannot even begin to understand what it would be like to lose a child, and I am sure that my words here will not remotely come close to the pain and heartache that my sister and husband have had to deal with over the past two weeks, since Liam was born still. Liam was a fighter, and his precious little heart remained beating for quite some time up until the birth. Megan had gone into the hospital two days before, because her placenta was starting to tear away. Ironic considering that it had absolutely nothing to do with Liam's heart condition and his hydrops. When they got to the hospital, they were surprised to learn that Liam was still alive, and everyone was so thankful and continued to pray. She kept having contractions until Thursday when she finally gave birth at 29 weeks. The doctors from Ann Arbor had told the doctor in Saginaw that they believed that there was a 100% chance that there was no way that he was going to make it. It was the worst news possible. There are so many questions here. It just doesn't make sense. Why would God let this happen? Has he not heard our prays for the last several months? Why Liam, just a small, precious innocent baby? Also, Liam was born a short seven days after Nataleigh. It is best said when asked, how do you feel so much sorrow, and so much joy in your heart, all at the same time? We will never really understand why all of this happened. But God is glorified in all things, and everything happens according to his will and purpose. His timing is perfect. Sometimes it is hard to remember those things, especially in the middle of our angst and confusion.

On Monday, July 27th 2009, a memorial was held. The service was beautiful. Some friends sang a couple of songs and touched everyone's hearts deeply. I believe it truly was a day that friends and family will never forget.

Hopefully time will heal the hurt, the pain, and the suffering. Liam Charles will always be loved, and hold a place in our hearts forever.

In loving memory of Liam Charles Kelly, who entered into eternal life with our Savior on July 23, 2009. May he never be forgotten.

Introducing the adorable Nataleigh Grace.

Isn't she lovely?

Thursday late morning we got the call that it was official, my sister-in-law Emileigh's water had broke. I could barely wait to get out of work at 4 pm to get home, pack my bag and make the drive down to the hospital.
Emileigh's labor was relatively quick it seemed. Her water had broke around 8 am. They went to the hospital and had the pitocin started around 4ish. When I got there around 7 pm she seemed to be doing OK, she was having some contractions and they hadn't checked her yet so she had no idea how far she was dilated. Within like half an hour the contractions got a lot worse and she was in a lot of pain. Soon after that my brother Nathan and her decided that she would try some Demerol to help take the edge off the pain, so they gave her that mixed with Phenergan. Their original birth plan was that they were going to try to do the labor as natural as possible. I think it was around like 8:45 pm when she decided that she really wanted to have the epidural. The anesthesiologist was called, but a couple minutes later we were all standing around and all of a sudden Emileigh was like "I feel like I need to push!" I remember for a moment it was like we all just sort of looked at eachother like oh my gosh, this could be it! Sure enough, when the nurses came running in and checked her she was at 1o cm, and there was no time for the epi. I was proud of her, she gave birth with out the epidural! I know that it was probably not very easy, and afterward she said that it was the worst pain that she has ever experienced. She also had a 3rd degree tear down to the muscle.
It was a pretty exciting and eventful evening. Even though I wasn't able to be in the delivery room when she was born, it was special enough just to be outside the door. It was definitely an experience that I will never forget.

Nataleigh was born at 9:37 pm, weighing in at 5 lbs. 13 oz. and 18 inches long. She was 3 weeks and 2 days early.

Nathan, Emileigh, and baby girl Nataleigh Grace (Notice how it's a combo of their names? Kinda cool, huh?) I also thought that Emileigh looked pretty darn good afterward, she doesn't even look like she just had a baby, haha!



Group Photo



We finally got to hold her the next day!





Niece Nataleigh and Nephew Samuel...what a difference 3 years can make in size!



And last but not least, another picture of precious Nataleigh sleeping. She is so cute and so little....such a little peanut!

10 things I am thankful for today-in no random order.

1. Our amazing, hope giving, gracious Father.
2. My incredible husband. He truly is incredible.
3. My family. I would be nowhere without them.
4. Having transportation.
5. Being able to have money to bless others.
6. Air conditioning.
7. My ability to be active.
8. Our church family.
9. Our pups who love us unconditionally.
10. Popsicles.

I know some of those are random. But those are the things I am truly thankful for at the moment.

Megan and Pat's Baby

I have not had a chance to update on this blog about my sister Megan and her husband Pat's baby. They found out a couple weeks ago that he may possibly have a heart defect and then it was confirmed when they found out that he had something rare called Hypo-Plastic Right Heart Syndrome, or as they recently found out more in depth, Tricuspid Atresia. They are two of the strongest people I know. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers. You can read more of their story here: http://patmegkelly.blogspot.com/

Busy busy and a BIG announcement.

So like I am always saying, things have been super busy. Memorial Day weekend we had a get together or BBQ every day. The housework, the yard work, the laundry...it never seems to be done. Work has been busy, and then this past weekend my friend got married and I was in her wedding! It was a really great, fun weekend but we were all over the place. And this always includes a lot of driving. Hopefully I will get some time to post some pictures. I often wonder with our busy lives...how would we be able to ever throw a child into this mix? I guess that is just how it is and you work it out when the time comes.

But anyways....the real reason I wanted to post...

We are going to Europe!!
Chris is so excited. I have never seen him get so excited...it was hilarious, when we were booking the trip that is. He loves to travel, and he is constantly talking about going to Europe. So we found a great deal and figured why not?? We might as well do it now, while we can, and while it's cheap! So in October we are flying to Paris ( I have a slight obsession with the Eiffel Tower so I'm pretty stoked about this myself). We are staying there for 3 nights, and then flying to London, and staying there for 3 nights. It will be an 8 day vacation all together, and we cannot wait! I have also had a little obsession with England ever since I saw the movie "The Holiday". After that I always told Chris that if he ever wanted to move there I TOTALLY would, haha. I guess I will make a more educated opinion about that after I've actually been there. Either way we are super excited and cannot wait. And now I am off to google and amazon to see if I can find "used" Rosetta Stone for cheap. To learn some French of course. :o)

Another Awesome Verse

I know it probably seems like I am posting these a lot lately, but I can't help it! They are so great!

Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death? ... I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can't, and life can't. The angels can't, and the demons can't. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can't keep God's love away. Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:35,38-39 (New Living Translation)

ahhh!

I know, it seems like I have dropped off the face of the earth. My house looks like it as well, haha. Things are super busy! Post coming soon...

Awesome Verse

I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

Ephesians 3:16-19 (New Living Translation)

I am super stoked.

I just spent like 400 of my coke rewards points on magazines.

(Yes I know, I'm a nerd, I do coke reward points.)
The funny thing is, we don't even drink soda.
A couple of years ago my friend and her husband thought it would be funny to start collecting them for me as well after I started collecting them at my old job. Now I have bags of them in a closet at home. It's ridiculous really.

Well today I had some free time at work and put in 120 points worth (that is all they will allow in a week time period.) And then I spent them all.

Sometime within 4-6 weeks we will start receiving our one-year subscriptions to:

Better Homes and Gardens
and
Entertainment Weekly

Woo hoo! I can't wait!

Our Family Is Growing

Yep it is true.

Many who know us already know this, but we love animals, dogs in particular. Especially my husband, I have never seen someone who loves animals so much. So naturally, after we bought our house we invested in our first furbaby, Niles. (Yes, it is after the show Frasier, Chris LOVES that show.)

I know...cutest puppy ever, right? We got him at 6 weeks old, he was so tiny!





He has not been what I call a cheap investment, but is has been worth it. I have never seen an animal love two people more unconditionally. Even if we are mad at him, he forgets about it and still loves us the same. But yeah, the first couple years are rough. Between the vet visits for vaccines, and the neutering, and the heart worm meds and food and toys...wowza.



Totally worth it though. Not to mention he listens very well, and we can trust him. He is a great dog. Boxers are great dogs in genenal as they are incredibly smart, and good with children, which was a MUST for me. I love the fact that I can put my hand in his mouth, play with his face and do whatever else...and know that he would never bite me.

Well a couple weeks ago an aquaintence of mine casually asked me if we knew anyone who would want a boxer, or if we would want another. I was like uhh...maybe? We had toyed around the idea of getting another so that Niles would have a little friend to play with. We decided we would go and have a look at him and see if him and Niles would get along. Of course they played like crazy and we thought he was a really nice dog. We agreed that that weekend he could come and stay with us and we would see how it would go. Needless to say, he has been with us ever since. I felt bad for the family that had to give him away, but all they cared about was that he went to a great home. And the best part was that they gave us everything... EVERYTHING for FREE! They gave us the dog, his huge crate, his bed and toys, food, rawhides, bones...everything. We just couldn't pass this us, and we felt bad for him.

So...introducing...Siggy! (Chris wanted to change his name to Frasier..haha...I'm like seriously? We cannot do that to a two year old dog. That is just mean.) And yes, he is giving you the side-eye.



If I thought Niles was lovable...I was sooo incredibly wrong. Niles is more the type of dog that wants to play 24/7. Siggy on the other hang...he just wants your lovin. He would be totally content to just sit by you and let you pet him all day long. He is such a sweetheart.

And the best part is, him and Niles are best buds. It is hilarious. They are so cute!





Yeah, I even caught them snuggling on Nile's bed together. It's official, they are cuddle buddies.



Sooo cute. I love it.

Blog Slacker

That is me.

I have wanted to post but things have been busy, and I usually try to post at work sometimes when I am slow, but we have been super busy here as well!

A lot has been going on. Let's see. Regarding my doctor's appointment...my ultrasound came back completely normal. Then they wanted to do blood work. That also came back completely normal. Both good news for sure, but still doesn't pinpoint what was wrong with me. They put me on a 24 hour clear liquid diet. That was a lot of fun. Let's face it, I love to eat, and drinking liquids for an entire day just isn't my style. But I sucked it up and once it was over had a yummy dinner. Anyways ever since then I have been on Prilosec and Zantac. They seem to help I guess, I haven't had any issues ever since, so that is terrific. I am just wondering if this is something that I will have to take forever? Who knows...once my script runs out I will def. by calling and asking some more questions. We will see how it goes I guess.

What else...OH! This is sorta big. :)
Saturday was our 3 year anniversary. I love my husband. He is amazing, and I am so lucky to have him! Friday night we just hung out and relaxed. When I had gotten home from working out he had gone to the Gourmet Food store that we love and got a couple different dips and some crackers, and also some beverages. I bought him a cute little card. Saturday we slept in. I got up and went to the gym, he worked on the upstairs and took Niles rollerblading. After I came home I cleaned up the house for a bit. That evening we had a dinner reservation at Six One Six in the JW Marriott for dinner. It was pretty good. Not my favorite restaurant for food, but our appetizer was this Spicy Tuna Tempura Roll and that was amazing. Our dessert was really good as well. They make these homemade little donut rolls with pineapple bits in them, covered in sugar. They serve them warm with this cream cheese sauce to dip them in. Delish, I know. After dinner we went to Fridays in the mall and had a drink while waiting for our movie time to come. The March Madness basketball games were on so that was kind of cool. I had a coffee drink because at that point I was starting to get a little sleepy! I swear that is the only time I can drink caffeine. Otherwise I am a nervous wreck. We went and saw Slumdog Millionaire. Talk about an interesting movie. It was pretty good but there were definitely some parts that were really disturbing. I would reccommend seeing it.

Sunday was a busy day as usual. We got up, went to church, drove straight to Muskegon to have lunch with Chris's parents and grandparents. We celebrated his Grandma Billie's birthday and our anniversary. Afterward we went to my in laws to hang out and watch a movie and eat some ice cream cake (my new favorite!) Then we went to house church for the evening and by the time we got home it was almost time for bed. Sigh. The weekend always goes by way too quickly.

So I have also been training to run my first marathon. Exciting! It will be the Fifth/Third River Bank Run in May. I am still debating whether or not it will happen depending on certain circumstances but it has been something that I have been looking forward to. I am only doing the 5K so the training isn't too vigorous. I hate running. But this has been forcing me to do it, and I always feel so good afterward. The training schedule even allows day where you are either off, or just walking for like 25-35 minutes. So easy, I can do that! Usually on those days I will try to do a spin class though.

We also may be adding to our little family of 3 this weekend. More to come on that later! ;)

Doctor Appointment

So I have an appointment today at 4 pm. I am pretty sure that I am having gallbladder attacks. It has been happening for almost a year now, but recently they have been getting worse and more frequent. The final straw was last week when I had one at work after eating something that wasn't even that bad (half a sandwich and a salad), I cannot deal with that at work!! I am the first person people see when the walk in, and I have to answer the phone constantly. And that is really hard to do with terrible pain and discomfort. After a couple days I thought about canceling my appointment and trying to suck it up but then I had two more at home last week, so nope, I decided to definitely go today. Hopefully we find something out tonight.

Valentine's Day

I know this post is a little late but we had such a good day, I want to remember it.

We started off V-Day by sleeping in.  After we finally got up and around we went to run some errands, pick up some stuff for our dinner, and rent some movies.  After we got back home we just relaxed and I even got to take a nap. I love days when I get to take naps!

Finally we started to make dinner. On the menu this year was Salmon, with a spicy-sweet or mustard dill sauce.  Shrimp scampi and aspargus, with gouda mashed potatoes, and also gouda cheese with crackers.   And to top it off, some white wine.  My favorite was the shrimp scampi and aspargus, it was buttery and garlicy and so good!

After dinner we decided to watch "Nights in Rodanthe".  I thought it was going to be more of a romantic comedy, but not so much, it was more of a romantic drama.

WRONG movie to be watching on Valentine's Day.  The ending is incredibly sad, and I ended up sitting there just crying and crying, it was awful.  Seriously, the movie ended and Chris just looked at me and was like, "Well that sucked!!!"  And me blubbering was like "I know...I know..." Uhh it was terrible, don't rent it if you are trying to have a romantic evening!!!   The best part about the movie was our dessert that we ate while watching it, haha.  We had got a couple different flavors of truffles from this gourmet food store. Chris has surprised me with them in the past because he knows how much I love them.  I love chocolate!

After the movie I was so mentally distraught that I ended up trying to distract myself by trying once again to find our engagement pictures.  I have been looking for them for a while, I know they are somewhere in this house!!  Well I found just the opposite. I found a box with stuff that Chris and I have given eachother throughout our relationship.  We ended up sitting on the bed, and reading through cards from the past couple years. I was already so emotional from that stupid movie that I just ended up sitting there crying some more. It just made me realize even more how much I love my husband and how awful it would be to ever lose him. We just sat there and talked, and laughed, and just talked about how much we value eachother and are thankful for our relationship.  And also how much some things have changed.  It was a really great way to end the evening. I love my husband so much!

And finally....Part Three.

The weekend right after my Birthday we were finally able to spend some time with Chris' family and celebrate. They came to GR to visit and we went out to eat at Kobe Steak and Seafood. It is a hibachi grill, we love that restaurant!

Bob and I on the ride there



Chris and I at the restaurant



Aunt Barb, Jeanne and Bob



After dinner we headed on over to Cold Stone Creamery. Mmmm I love ice cream. And we discovered that they have the most absolutely amazing ice cream cakes. I must say, these may need to become a tradition for me. I may demand it (yes they are that good!)
So picked up a little of this:


"A Cheesecake Named Desire"

and a little of that....!


"Chocolate Chipper"

And they were both incredible, and we had yummy leftovers for a good week.

AND I got an awesome present!!!
One thing that I really really wanted for my Birthday was a Heart Rate Monitor, and preferably one that also told how many calories you burned when you were done working out. Low and behold my in-laws got me this:



It is sweet! I have used it several times so far, and I really like it. You can set it so that it knows that you want to be within a certain range, and if you are either below or over the range it beeps at you. There is function when you are done to not only see the calories burned, but to see how far you went/worked out for, and how long. Not only that but it has some sort of special sensor that blocks out other heart rate monitors from interfering with yours, therefore no getting a mixed signal from someone else. I really love it!

Well folks, that is all for the Birthday posts. It was a really great week.

My Birthday-Part Two

So my birthday was on a Thursday this year, and typically I would take the day off a work but I decided I would suck it up since I wouldn't get to spend the day with Chris anyways. It ending up being a really great day. Not only did I get tons of birthday wishes on myspace and facebook, but also text messages, emails, and phone calls etc. Also, some of my coworkers made it really special, when I got to work there were some presents on my desk, and my boss also took a group of us out to lunch. It was really nice.

After work I went home and relaxed for a little while and when Lauren came home from class we went to The Bob and had dinners at Gill's.

My celebratory drink



On your birthday you may choose to have a lobster dinner for free. I LOVE seafood obviously, but have never eaten a whole lobster by myself. It was really good. Poor lobster, little did he know he was going to be devoured that evening, haha!



Lauren and I



And what is a birthday dinner without some dessert, and chocolate at that? Not only was the set-up creative and pretty, but it tasted great too.



Chris missed a great dinner, I wish he could have came with us (he had to be at class that night, but met up with us later.) Thank you Lauren for being a great friend and spending the evening with me!

My Birthday-Part One

So like I said in my previous post, my Birthday week was like a week long celebration. It was seriously amazing! And my best birthday to date that I can recall. It started off the weekend before. Chris and I met my family in Lansing and had a late lunch at a place call Jimmy's Pub. We also celebrated Jesse's too, since our birthdays are only two days apart. It is fun to have someone to celebrate with and they even surprised us with a cake from Zehnders (one of my favs!)



Jesse and I opening some presents



Opening Anne of Green Gables, one of my favorite presents this year! I must have been shocked or something, haha...



Sam opening his Valentine's day present from his Grandma and Grandpa, he is so cute!



Chris and I



Patrick and Megan



Jesse and Trisha



Emileigh, Nate and *baby!*



It was a short time that we were able to be together, as we all had to drive our seperate ways (including Ohio and Indiana, we hate living so far apart!) but it was very special none the less, and we always have a great time.