Weekend Fun

This weekend we traveled to Indiana and then down to Ohio to celebrate 3 Birthdays and an engagement! It was a lot of driving but worth the fun, and such a busy day!

The newly engaged couple, Marideth and Jesse!


Nataleigh is such a good girl and getting so big so quickly. She did great on the long car drive down, and only fussed for a while on the way home on Sunday.


Cousins Samuel and Nataleigh were so cute playing together. He kept calling her baby, baby! It was so cute.


They are adorable!! And Nataleigh is getting so strong, she can stand on her own now leaning up against things for a long time.


Nataleigh trying on some of her new Easter goodies, love the ears and new flower headband.




Sam was pretty excited about opening his Birthday presents. He turned 3 this month. We got him an outfit and the movie UP. He got some of the cutest outfits and little shoes too!! It is so fun watching kids open presents.


Jesse and Sam


It was a fun trip but I have been exhausted! I have slept so hard the past two nights that I have not been waking up to my alarm (Chris either!) and I have been running late getting ready and to work for the past two days, haha.

Some Of My Fav Pics from Christmas

2009 in Pictures

January- "Celebrating for what we thought would be the last time as we started TTC."



February- "Birthday celebration for my brother Jesse and I, with our family."



March- "Chris at Six One Six, celebrating our 3rd Anniversary."



April- "Maegan and I at her Bridal Shower (she is my BF from HS)."



May- "Casey and Maegan get married!"



June- "Megan, me and Emileigh at Em's baby shower."



July- "A joyful month as niece Nataleigh is born."



"A sorrowful month as nephew baby Liam is born still."

Liam Charles KELLY
07/23/2009

August- "Chris' 29th Birthday!"



September- "My first race!"



October- "My in-laws 30th anniversary."



"Our 3rd anniversary of our wedding."



"EUROPE!!!!"



November- "Em and Mom celebrating more Birthdays!"



December- "Christmas"

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!