Thank a Veteran today and tomorrow and the next day and the next...

Happy Veterans Day! Hopefully this day reminds you to be thankful for your freedom and for those who serve, have served and will serve to protect your freedom. I hope this isn't the only day you are thankful for those men and women who have fought for you.
I have a special Veteran in my life.
My favorite sister.

How cute is she in her helmet?!

My sister served in the Air Force for 6 years, 1 of which she served in Iraq, and I couldn't respect her more for her bravery and love for her country.

Thank you to all the military men and women who do not get nearly the credit that they so rightfully deserve.

Grace is a beautiful thing.

I know my blogging has not been up to par lately. I'm thinking about doing this 30 day blog challenge that has been going on this month. I would be 10 days behind but I don't think it matters too much. I think it will be fun and it will get me to blog more.

Lately I have been very thankful for God's grace. It's something that I know I take for granted on a regular basis but lately it has been much more apparent to me. Last night I read Genesis 7 which is about Noah and his family in the ark during the 40 days and 40 nights. I could tell this story backwards since I was 8, but I've never looked at in the way I did last night. Noah, being human had to have struggled with being crammed in an ark with his family and every animal imaginable. He must have had moments where he felt like it would never end. 40 days can seem like an eternity. But God delivered him and his family and kept his promise to Noah.
There are times when I battle with my anxiety and wonder if it will ever end. Will I ever find relief from my daily worries? Well, God has yet to let me down. He has pushed me, but only for my benefit. I went through a period of terrible anxiety around this time last year. With the wedding coming closer, graduation a few months away and stresses of money, my mind just wouldn't quit. Those couple months felt like eternity but God delivered me through it. I am so thankful that His grace is abundant and that He never pushes us beyond what we can handle.

Bless my homeland forever.

I just watched Oprah's Favorite Things episode featuring the entire Sound of Music cast. It brought back such great memories of dancing around my living room singing "I am 16 going on 17.." But nothing warms my heart more than when Christopher Plummer sings Edelweiss to his country Austria. Perhaps it has to do with the fact I just found out that I am 25% Austrian.  All this time we thought we were German. I must have always known in my heart that I was Austrian because I am deeply attached to this song. I couldn't find the particular clip that I love but here is clip of him singing Edelweiss to his family for the first time. Oh how I love the Sound of Music. I can't wait to watch it with my children and grandchildren. What am I saying? I can definitely wait. ; )

"I feel like I just licked a florist."

Helloooo everyone! I am back and ready with some blogging.

While I was gone David and I celebrated 4 months of wedded bliss. We decided we should break into our cake top to celebrate the occasion.
Here is how we justified not waiting for our 1 year anniversary:
1. We kept hearing over and over again how tasty our cannoli filled cake was and we were jealous because we only got a small bite each.
2. Many of our friends who waited the whole year for their cake told us it tasted like freezer. Well I myself have never tasted a freezer before but I can't imagine it being very tasty.
3. 4 months is monumental. Many celebrity marriages don't even last this long.
4. We like cake and wanted to eat it.

Here is our cake:

My reaction, "Oh look David some of our flowers are still on the cake. I loved our flowers."

David then proceeded to take a bite out the cake to "test it out first." He then danced around the kitchen hoping that would somehow make it easier to get the disgusting cake down into his stomach.

He yelled "I feel like I just licked a florist!"

So maybe it's not good when the flowers are kept on your cake for four months because it will in fact make the whole cake taste like those exact dead flowers.

You learn something new everyday. ; )

Slacker...

I have been majorly slacking on my blog lately.  I decided that I am most interested in blogs when there are pictures up. So I would like to share the same with you. Unfortunately I'm not the best at whipping out my camera at any given moment so I'm going to try and work on that.
We'll catch up soon. I will try to deliver what I've promised.

I'll celebrate you and you celebrate me.

This past weekend David and I celebrated our Birthdays. Yes, both of ours. 366 days after David was born, God decided to bring David's wife here too.

We celebrated David's birthday with a little baseball at Camden Yards seeing the Yankees. (Shout out to Kimberly and Jason for buying us the tickets for our b-days.) We had so much fun even though Joe G. is the worst manager in baseball and blew the game.

Here are some pics on the lovely day of September 19th. 23 years after the day my best friend and love of my life was born.

The next day just happend to be my birthday. Followed after a long day of work and volunteer training. I came home to this:

 

AND this:  my new (blue!) mini ipod shuffle. I'm cheesin pretty hard for this picture.

All in all it was a pretty great B-day celebration. Love my hubs!

Our Whirlwind Weekend

We finally have our internet back! We've been going a couple weeks without it due to a network change, hence my lack of blogs.

Last weekend, David and I went to "Chicago" (really Geneva,  Il.) to celebrate KG and Gretch's wedding. It was so great to see so many of our friends again but also bittersweet because we're not sure when we will all see each other again. It's really hard living so far away from all of our friends. We have truly gone back and forth with the idea of moving to the midwest.
Here's our pros and cons list for moving out there that we made in the car. (speaking of car, I have an interesting story about our car which I will get to.)

Pros:
1. We love our friends and want to see them way more than once a year.
2. The cost of living is SO much cheaper than NJ. We could be living in a 2 bedroom, 2 bath with a backyard for way less than our 1 bedroom, 1 bath, small apartment.
3. With Dave's experience at his job now, he could probably land a job in Chicago. (but then again with the job market, you really never know.)

Cons:
1. We really, really love living a hop, skip and a jump away from the ocean. We take advantage of living near the water any chance we get.
2. Both of our families live near us. When we want to start poppin out the babies, we definitely want them to be near their grandparents...(even though that will not happen for quiteeee some time.)
3. We both LOVE our jobs. David comes home with a smile on his face after driving a 1 hour commute just because he is so happy with his job. I really couldn't ask for more. AND don't get me started on my job. I had no clue what I would be doing after I received my diploma and God has placed me in the perfect job. I really feel like this is the place where I should be and I love the work that I do each day.
4. It's JERSEY! Everyone knows David and I are the big "New Jersey Talkers" but it's true! This state has everything you could need.

So it looks like were staying, at least for the moment, unless God has other plans for us.

Now onward to our car story. (Boy this is a super long post...I wouldn't be offended if you just stopped reading, but my office is being used for an interview and I don't have anything to work on without all of my work materials in my office..so blogging it is!)

David and I drove out to Chicago in our "reliable car." We planned on leaving Saturday night after the wedding and stopping in nowheresville, Ohio for the night. As Saturday night approached, we decided to stay at KG and Gretchen's apartment and drive back in the morning due to tiredness, not wanting to say goodbye to our friends, and saving money on a hotel. We began our trek at 8am on Sunday. At 8:20am we decided we should stop for gas. As David got out he noticed steam coming from the hood of the car and some leakage under the car. (not cool) David looked under the hood while I asked him a hundred questions about the car, none of which he answered. I knew right then and there, we were in trouble. We just had the water pump fixed so we didn't think it could be a big issue. We passed by about 10 closed mechanics (because it was a Sunday) and finally found an open Firestone. After some time we received the diagnosis. The timing (not belt but some other word that I cannot think of at the moment) had a huge leak in it. "This is the biggest leak I've ever seen," were the wonderful words of our mechanic. That made us feel terrific. Oh wait, the best part was that it would take $1150 American dollars to fix.

Thankfully Justin, Katie and Kyle stopped by to give us some support before they drove back to Indianapolis. We all decided that we had no other option but to fix the car. (and trust me, we went through all of our options.) Oh and another great thing, it was going to take the mechanic the entire day to fix so David and I would have to miss work on Monday.

On the upside, the 5 of us went out to breakfast and then to IKEA (my first time!) The store is amazing and brightened our day. It was also a plus to spend some more time with our friends. We also bought a really cool 10 dollar lamp. The lamp is now up on our bookshelf in our living room. Everytime we look at it, we say to each other. "It's ok our car broke down and cost us a ton of money because we got that awesome lamp at IKEA."

At 7pm our car was finally ready. We made it to Cleveland, Ohio and stopped at a hotel. The next morning we finished the trip and FINALLY made it home. We have never been so thankful for our little apartment. Needless to say, next time we're flying.

Happy September

I'm very excited to spend September in New Jersey for the first time in 4 years! Spending the day at the beach on a warm September day is pure heaven. The bennies have packed up and moved back to Staten Island, the weather isn't blisteringly hot, and everything just seems tranquil. There aren't too many things I would rather do then sit on the beach with a book on a September day.

I've always loved this month (kind of due to the fact that I was born on the 20th) but it was also bittersweet because September always meant school was starting. This is the first time in 17 years that school is not in the equation. It feels wonderful.

Anyway I need to get cleaning and baking. Dave and I are hosting a fantasy football draft party tonight. Yup, a lot of boys fighting over football players and little ole me. On second thought I may go out shopping. ; )

2 months o' love

Today is David and my 2 month anniversary of our wedding day. In some ways it seems like time has flown but in other ways it seems like we have already experienced so much. Marriage is honestly the greatest thing. There had been a few people, usually ones that didn't know us very well, question why we would ever want to get married in our early 20s. I'm not going to lie, these attitudes discouraged me. But now that I'm married to the greatest man I know, my only thought is "I wish I could have done this sooner." Take that mean people.

I feel like I have learned so much in these past two months and I can't even imagine all I will learn by the time we are old and gray. I'm excited to find out, but I can wait on the gray hair part.

Here are 10 things I've learned in the past 2 months:

1. Setting a budget isn't as hard as I thought. I think we officially have a budget that we stick pretty close to and it hasn't been too difficult. ( I say this now)

2. When buying produce for 2 people, buy less. I've thrown away a whole garden of rotten vegetables because we didn't get to it fast enough.

3. Louigi's icys trump all others. We buy in bulk.

4. God reminds us each day to trust in Him and has blessed us with the most incredible opportunities for work.

5. David and I are learning to not always assume that something bad is going to happen. We have had our share of unfortunate events occur in the past but we cannot and will not let it affect our outlook on life.

6. When something unfortunate does occur, don't panic. It will all work out and God has it in control.

7. We have the best bed in the entire world. We bought this mattress pad that I think was made for kings to sleep on. It feels like heaven and it is very hard to make yourself get out of. Having a handsome man laying next to you is also a huge bonus.

8. I'm not as bad of a cook as I thought I would be. I'm still no Paula Dean but it's a work in progress. David on the other hand has surpassed Emeril. The man can cook.

9. The food network channel is our absolute favorite channel. Chopped being at the top of our list.

10. My husband is the kindest person I've ever known. (at the risk of sounding extremely sappy)  When it comes to dealing with me as his wife, he make me feel like my chicken casserole dish is the greatest thing he has ever eaten. (I'm eating it too babe, it's really not that good). He thanks me every time I do the dishes or Swiffer wet jet the floor. He is extremely helpful around the house and is such a hard worker. He is the most appreciative husband I know. I just hope that I show the same appreciation for him in return.

planes, trains and automobiles

I will never understand all that goes into cars but I am so thankful for the people that do. Our Ford Taurus decided to overheat and nearly explode recently. Thankfully my husband, father in law and friend all know how to take apart car and put it back together again. Four and half hours later last night the men came in feeling very discouraged. I'm not even going to try and explain why the water pump still wasn't working after replacing it because I'm sure I would have it all wrong. They all tried to explain it to me but speaking car is liking speaking another language. I just nodded my head and said "oh ok." Thankfully we also have a car shop literally located 2 doors down. We took the Taurus there this morning and badda bing badda boom, ($270 dollars later) we have our car back.
I'm just so elated that I don't have to keep hitching rides with people. It made me feel really sorry for many of the parents in my program. We have a Back to School event tonight at work and many of our mothers are scrambling to find transportation so that their children can benefit from free backpacks and school supplies. I was going crazy without our second car and it was less than 48 hours. These parents have to "hitch rides" on a daily basis. Just another little lesson in life to teach me to count my blessings and to stop whining when I don't have my normal luxuries.

So that's my thought for today. I've decided to begin this blog not because I have such an interesting life that I think everyone should read about, but simply because I enjoy writing, I have more time since I've finished school, and it will be fun to look back on these posts a few years down the line. So enjoy.