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.