Hey all! As many of you know (hopefully), not only did we usher in the beginning to a new year recently, we also ushered in the beginning of a decade. Therefore, my typical "yearly review" took the opportunity to expand.
In the last decade I: graduated high school, graduated college, successfully held my first post-college job, met the love of my life, completed my masters, became licensed for practicing social work, bought a house, got a dog, and got married. WOW.
Now let's take a look at just this past year: Masters, licensed, house, dog, married.
I think after reviewing this, I believe my New Year's resolution is definitely to slow down!!! I also have taken up James' challenge of no fast food for 6 months and no fried food at restaurants (excluding some of the fried sushi). We shall see how this goes. :)
Duncan is now reminding me that it's time for him to eat, so I need to wrap this up.
Hope all is well with you and yours, and may this year be better than your last. :)
Peace and Love,
Jeff and Heather
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Friday, December 25, 2009
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas! Our dear friend Joe put it quite well when speaking of the birth of our Christ, so I am going to direct you to his site.
We spent much of yesterday attempting to travel. I say attempting, because for those of you living in caves, the midwest has been hit by a blizzard! AAAAHHH!!!! We anxiously watched the weather for days leading to the upcoming trip. We planned our routes based on forecasts and set off early in the morning. We had one stop to complete, but more about that later.
It started with rain and winds as we left the city. After we passed through Ottawa, it began to sleet. Stop here or continue on, we wondered? After phone calls to various friends along our chosen route, we decided to press forward in our journey. Soon we noticed an evident slowing of cars, the beginnings of snow gathering alongside the roads, and finally saw it: the first of many cars sliding into the ditch. Jeff began to sweat as our car began to slide sideways. We slowed our speed to under just 5 mph. Semi after semi after car after car after car appeared in the ditch. I made the decision. My sweet husband volunteered to keep pressing on until we could go no further. I pulled the plug on our mission 11 miles before and we headed back to the city.
It is now Christmas day, we are spending the day as a brand new family together. Our one and only attempt to leave the home this morning for mass was thwarted swiftly as it became stucker than stuck.
On the bright side, Duncan absolutely loves the snow, has been disappearing in and out of drifts all morning, and has made the disappointment of being from my extended family (and Jeff's until the roads are clear) more bearable.
For our stop, for those of you curious and still paying attention, we went to visit our wedding photographer and pick up our AMAZING photos! :) They did such a GREAT job!!!!! We are really pleased!!!!!!!!!!! There will be instructions on my facebook page on how to access and view them, and if you are merely a reader of the blog and not my FB friend, I ask that you please email and ask for instructions. :)
Merry Christmas to all!!! May God bless you as you celebrate the birth of His son!!!
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Welcome to Florida, home of the U-Turn
Hi faithful readers! I pray this finds you in good spirits, wonderful health, and even better luck as the Christmas seasons falls upon us.
We are back safe and sound from our honeymoon. For those of you who do not know, we went to Fort Myers, Florida, home of the U-turn. And some other stuff, I'm sure. But mostly the U-turn.
Day 1 of our honeymoon brought us untold adventures. Upon arriving, we rented a Mustang Convertible. It was excellent, loud, and gave Jeff the opportunity to get us lost time after time without feeling his manhood threatened. :)
Vroom vroom! That said, our first big purchase on our honeymoon was a GPS, who we lovingly named Tabby. She caught the Florida spirit near the end of our honeymoon by instructing us us to make U-turn after U-turn after U-turn (and even had us circling city blocks several times before admitting our destination was on the right). As our previously Googlemapped directions took us to the property rental office (and not our beloved condo), we felt this was a necessary purchase. Hooray for Day 1! :)
Day 2 brought untold adventure as we went in search of the necessities: groceries, parking passes, and Bank of America. Now, let me tell you, this is when Tabby began to show her sarcastic nature. From our starting point, the nearest Bank of America was around 12 miles away... after an hour of driving, Tabby took us to a location on the beach. Literally. No Bank of America anywhere. We then drove through barrios and ghettos before U-turning ourselves until near dark. You'll be happy to know we later realized a Bank of America a few mere blocks from our beginning destination.
Day 3 was wonderful and wonderous, as we explored the exciting winter homes of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. We were especially excited to peer into the rooms , guest houses, pool house, midnight garden, home office, garage, and laboratory of these fine gentleman (it was honestly really cool). As walking their acre of property took much of the day, we continued the adventure by wandering the area around our condo (which was actually inside a spa/resort facility and was on the beach and BEAUTIFUL!). Pictured are Thomas Edison's home and Jeff and I breaking the museum rules by entering a restricted area to be next to the SAH-WEET car!
Day 4 was Thanksgiving. For our first meal as a married couple, we decided to be really traditional... so we had fish and rice. And then we walked around on the beach, gave thanks for the wonderful weather and beautiful views, and retired to watching movies and cuddling the remainder of the day. Happy Thanksgiving to us!
Day 5 we learned a LOT more about Florida driving as we journeyed to Tampa Bay to visit the Florida Aquarium. It was nice, but I was a tad disappointed because I expected larger and more oceanic fish with us being in FLORIDA and all. However, I really enjoyed looking at fish at a location other than Red Lobster. Behind the Aquarium was the SS American Victory, an old ship dating back to WWI. Jeff and I promptly left the Aquarium and toured this wonderful ship. We even got to go into the cabins and on the top deck. It was really neat. Lastly, we found something that took the rest of the day: IKEA! I was so excited I make Jeff stop. We spent the remainder of the day browsing the aisles and remarking at how smart those Swedes are.
Day 6 we found ourselves journeying south to Naples to the Naples Zoo and Botanical Gardens. After going around the same block twice, Tabby admitted the location of the entrance. As with the aquarium, I found myself searching for many more wildlife than was found at the zoo. It was certainly an enjoyable time, but I was a little disappointed as we missed alligator and snake feeding time. They also had wonderful trees and plants to look at. We also took a boat tour to see the monkeys and that was pretty neat. That evening we had reservations at Ellington's Jazz Club and Restaurant, an upscale establishment with live jazz entertainment. Our waiter reminded us of Marshall from How I Met Your Mother in every way, shape, and form and this kept us pretty entertained. Overall, the food was good, the staff was curteous, and the band was awesome! The band surprised us by announcing our recent nuptials, dedicated a song to us, and the hostess brought over a rose. It was really sweet and definitely really cool.
Day 7 was spent at the beach. It was gorgeous and only took us about 14 U-turns to find (relatively cheap) parking. :)
Day 8 brought us back home, bringing about the wonders of flying First Class (do you know all drinks are free in First Class?!). Let me tell you, we did not allow any of the "advantages" of flying First Class go to waste. I am thankful there was a car service to pick us up for the ride home.
While we REALLY miss the wonderful view and warm weather, it is good to be back home! We started missing Duncan the second day and the long phone calls with him just weren't really doing the trick for us... plus he kept dropping the phone, etc. :) Hope all is well with you and yours! :)
We are back safe and sound from our honeymoon. For those of you who do not know, we went to Fort Myers, Florida, home of the U-turn. And some other stuff, I'm sure. But mostly the U-turn.
Day 1 of our honeymoon brought us untold adventures. Upon arriving, we rented a Mustang Convertible. It was excellent, loud, and gave Jeff the opportunity to get us lost time after time without feeling his manhood threatened. :)
Vroom vroom! That said, our first big purchase on our honeymoon was a GPS, who we lovingly named Tabby. She caught the Florida spirit near the end of our honeymoon by instructing us us to make U-turn after U-turn after U-turn (and even had us circling city blocks several times before admitting our destination was on the right). As our previously Googlemapped directions took us to the property rental office (and not our beloved condo), we felt this was a necessary purchase. Hooray for Day 1! :)
Day 2 brought untold adventure as we went in search of the necessities: groceries, parking passes, and Bank of America. Now, let me tell you, this is when Tabby began to show her sarcastic nature. From our starting point, the nearest Bank of America was around 12 miles away... after an hour of driving, Tabby took us to a location on the beach. Literally. No Bank of America anywhere. We then drove through barrios and ghettos before U-turning ourselves until near dark. You'll be happy to know we later realized a Bank of America a few mere blocks from our beginning destination.
Day 3 was wonderful and wonderous, as we explored the exciting winter homes of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. We were especially excited to peer into the rooms , guest houses, pool house, midnight garden, home office, garage, and laboratory of these fine gentleman (it was honestly really cool). As walking their acre of property took much of the day, we continued the adventure by wandering the area around our condo (which was actually inside a spa/resort facility and was on the beach and BEAUTIFUL!). Pictured are Thomas Edison's home and Jeff and I breaking the museum rules by entering a restricted area to be next to the SAH-WEET car!
Day 4 was Thanksgiving. For our first meal as a married couple, we decided to be really traditional... so we had fish and rice. And then we walked around on the beach, gave thanks for the wonderful weather and beautiful views, and retired to watching movies and cuddling the remainder of the day. Happy Thanksgiving to us!
Day 5 we learned a LOT more about Florida driving as we journeyed to Tampa Bay to visit the Florida Aquarium. It was nice, but I was a tad disappointed because I expected larger and more oceanic fish with us being in FLORIDA and all. However, I really enjoyed looking at fish at a location other than Red Lobster. Behind the Aquarium was the SS American Victory, an old ship dating back to WWI. Jeff and I promptly left the Aquarium and toured this wonderful ship. We even got to go into the cabins and on the top deck. It was really neat. Lastly, we found something that took the rest of the day: IKEA! I was so excited I make Jeff stop. We spent the remainder of the day browsing the aisles and remarking at how smart those Swedes are.
Day 6 we found ourselves journeying south to Naples to the Naples Zoo and Botanical Gardens. After going around the same block twice, Tabby admitted the location of the entrance. As with the aquarium, I found myself searching for many more wildlife than was found at the zoo. It was certainly an enjoyable time, but I was a little disappointed as we missed alligator and snake feeding time. They also had wonderful trees and plants to look at. We also took a boat tour to see the monkeys and that was pretty neat. That evening we had reservations at Ellington's Jazz Club and Restaurant, an upscale establishment with live jazz entertainment. Our waiter reminded us of Marshall from How I Met Your Mother in every way, shape, and form and this kept us pretty entertained. Overall, the food was good, the staff was curteous, and the band was awesome! The band surprised us by announcing our recent nuptials, dedicated a song to us, and the hostess brought over a rose. It was really sweet and definitely really cool.
Day 7 was spent at the beach. It was gorgeous and only took us about 14 U-turns to find (relatively cheap) parking. :)
Day 8 brought us back home, bringing about the wonders of flying First Class (do you know all drinks are free in First Class?!). Let me tell you, we did not allow any of the "advantages" of flying First Class go to waste. I am thankful there was a car service to pick us up for the ride home.
While we REALLY miss the wonderful view and warm weather, it is good to be back home! We started missing Duncan the second day and the long phone calls with him just weren't really doing the trick for us... plus he kept dropping the phone, etc. :) Hope all is well with you and yours! :)
Sunday, November 22, 2009
11/21/09
We're hitched now!!! Leaving for our honeymoon in the morning. We will be enjoying the (hopefully) warm weather and beaches in Florida. We are hoping to get some fishing, sightseeing, and relaxing alone time... tall order, but we aim to fill it!
Thank you to all who supported us over the past 3 1/2 years, who celebrated with us in body or spirit, and who assisted in every single last crazy whim that accompanied our wedding day. We love you all!!! :)
Sunday, November 8, 2009
2 weeks to go
Well, as I'm sure you can see by my title, there are less than 2 weeks to the wedding. Please excuse me while I take a moment...
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok, now that my moment is over... here's what we've been up to: most of my clients have realized I am going to be gone soon and have piled the work on me (such I have noticed is the same for any vacation I have ever taken from work). I have been doing wedding stuff in between appointments (running errands and picking things up) and working until pretty late in the evenings. Jeff typically has saved me some dinner to warm up and I fall into bed, exhausted, soon after. Also, I havce been sick for the past month and finally took the time to go to the dr... After a stern lecture and much head shaking, she sent me and my severe sinus infection and bronchitis out the door with some fairly strong antibiotics. Today is the first day that I've really felt like being up and around, so I hope that continues.
Jeff is now starting to get sick... I know, I know, we both need a dr on our staff to see about everyday up until the wedding. He's got mostly headaches and scratchy throat stuff going on, so I don't think it's the same thing I had. Hopefully, our first wedded kiss will not contaminate the other!! :)
We are also hard at work getting out those early bird thank you notes... the notes we ordered are pretty stinking cool, if I do say so myself and I have really enjoyed getting to use them. :)
Also, as I'm writing this, Duncan is trying to steal the Halloween candy Jeff has stockpiled so all MUST be well here are home with him. He is quickly growing into a fine young man. As of his last vet check, he's 26 lbs, which is double the weight of last month... he is a healthy, growing boy.
Well, I hope you can make sense of my random, rambling thoughts. Now time to focus a bit more on getting some wedding stuff done. :) Hope all is well with you and yours.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok, now that my moment is over... here's what we've been up to: most of my clients have realized I am going to be gone soon and have piled the work on me (such I have noticed is the same for any vacation I have ever taken from work). I have been doing wedding stuff in between appointments (running errands and picking things up) and working until pretty late in the evenings. Jeff typically has saved me some dinner to warm up and I fall into bed, exhausted, soon after. Also, I havce been sick for the past month and finally took the time to go to the dr... After a stern lecture and much head shaking, she sent me and my severe sinus infection and bronchitis out the door with some fairly strong antibiotics. Today is the first day that I've really felt like being up and around, so I hope that continues.
Jeff is now starting to get sick... I know, I know, we both need a dr on our staff to see about everyday up until the wedding. He's got mostly headaches and scratchy throat stuff going on, so I don't think it's the same thing I had. Hopefully, our first wedded kiss will not contaminate the other!! :)
We are also hard at work getting out those early bird thank you notes... the notes we ordered are pretty stinking cool, if I do say so myself and I have really enjoyed getting to use them. :)
Also, as I'm writing this, Duncan is trying to steal the Halloween candy Jeff has stockpiled so all MUST be well here are home with him. He is quickly growing into a fine young man. As of his last vet check, he's 26 lbs, which is double the weight of last month... he is a healthy, growing boy.
Well, I hope you can make sense of my random, rambling thoughts. Now time to focus a bit more on getting some wedding stuff done. :) Hope all is well with you and yours.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Birthday weekend
Happy Birthday to me! Getting older was never so much fun! My friends and family all drove into town from Spearville, Topeka, Ottawa, and yes, even Olathe. :) In addition to all of the birthday festivities, Jeff and I had our bachelor and bachelorette parties.
Now, I happen to think that Jeff and I operate a little differently than the rest of the free world. For instance, while many take the "bachelor/ette" parties as an opportunity to "have one last night out on the town," Jeff and I marveled at how each of us informed our attendants (independently of each other and without previous conversation with each other regarding this viewpoint) that our parties were more of a "celebration of the exciting ways our lives were about to get better." Like I said, we operate a bit differently.
Here is a picture of my attendees standing in front of our sober ride in full bachelorette get-up:
Also, as of yesterday we were at the 3 week mark for the wedding... AAAAAAAHHHH!!!!! You know that feeling when you are going somewhere, and the faster you try to go, the slower you end up going? Like spinning your wheels in mud... yes, that's how I feel wedding planning is going. I'm working on the checklists, but it just never seems to end. I know it will be fine int he end. I just keep telling myself that all we need is Jeff and I, 2 witnesses, and a priest, and at this point no matter what all of that is covered. We've even got the marriage license to make it all nice and legal. So repeating this should bring about less stress on the whole ordeal, right...??? Um, I'll repeat it A LOT more times this week and let you know next weekend... :)
Also, we spent our Friday evening having a "Housewarming Halloween" party for a few friends. It was, if I do say so myself, a FANTASTIC time. Jeff and I dressed up like Superman and Superwoman (originally planned for Jeff to go as Tinkerbell and me as Peter Pan, but we couldn't find a Tink costume big enough for him), and Duncan went as Spiderdog. We were truly an awesome crime fighting family this weekend. Saturday was Jeff's Uncle John's birthday, and we had a wonderful steak dinner at our place. Sunday brought all kinds of wedding errands, and I honestly feel a lot more calm about our upcoming nuptials. Now all we need is for things to keep happening as quickly as luck has had it today, and we are all set!!
Hope all is well with you and yours! :)
Now, I happen to think that Jeff and I operate a little differently than the rest of the free world. For instance, while many take the "bachelor/ette" parties as an opportunity to "have one last night out on the town," Jeff and I marveled at how each of us informed our attendants (independently of each other and without previous conversation with each other regarding this viewpoint) that our parties were more of a "celebration of the exciting ways our lives were about to get better." Like I said, we operate a bit differently.
Here is a picture of my attendees standing in front of our sober ride in full bachelorette get-up:
Also, as of yesterday we were at the 3 week mark for the wedding... AAAAAAAHHHH!!!!! You know that feeling when you are going somewhere, and the faster you try to go, the slower you end up going? Like spinning your wheels in mud... yes, that's how I feel wedding planning is going. I'm working on the checklists, but it just never seems to end. I know it will be fine int he end. I just keep telling myself that all we need is Jeff and I, 2 witnesses, and a priest, and at this point no matter what all of that is covered. We've even got the marriage license to make it all nice and legal. So repeating this should bring about less stress on the whole ordeal, right...??? Um, I'll repeat it A LOT more times this week and let you know next weekend... :)
Also, we spent our Friday evening having a "Housewarming Halloween" party for a few friends. It was, if I do say so myself, a FANTASTIC time. Jeff and I dressed up like Superman and Superwoman (originally planned for Jeff to go as Tinkerbell and me as Peter Pan, but we couldn't find a Tink costume big enough for him), and Duncan went as Spiderdog. We were truly an awesome crime fighting family this weekend. Saturday was Jeff's Uncle John's birthday, and we had a wonderful steak dinner at our place. Sunday brought all kinds of wedding errands, and I honestly feel a lot more calm about our upcoming nuptials. Now all we need is for things to keep happening as quickly as luck has had it today, and we are all set!!
Hope all is well with you and yours! :)
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Dad
Hey all, just a quick update on Dad. Found out late last week that he would be needing to have a heart cath early this morning... they suspected some blockage in the veins surrounding and/or valves in the actual heart. They had planned on doing the heart cath followed by placing a stent(s) where appropriate.
Dad pulled through this morning fine and did not even need a single stent! Thank you for all the prayers and thoughts! :)
Dad pulled through this morning fine and did not even need a single stent! Thank you for all the prayers and thoughts! :)
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