Happy 12th Anniversary!

Happy 12th anniversary from halfway across the world, baby! It feels like just yesterday but also like we’ve been together our whole lives as I can’t imagine my life before you. I love you and miss you desperately!

Obligatory Flashback Wedding Photo

2001-08-18wedding1

And this year—after a respectable 11-year run—we FINALLY ended our accidental-turned-scheduled anniversary tradition of having Chinese for dinner. Damn marine corps not offering anything remotely Chinese in Afghanistan today. Hmph.

However.

We’re possibly starting a new tradition as Tom had steak and shrimp…so I figured instead of me just grabbing Chinese take out, I’d go and get steak and shrimp as well!

However.

I didn’t really want to get it take-out (who wants steak and shrimp to cool off on the 20-minute ride home?) but I honestly didn’t want to go by myself (well, with the kids)…so I sent an open invitation to my moms group…and one mom offered to come out with me (well, plus one of her kids). So…YAY for friends! And new traditions!

That said…WOW. I don’t think I’ll be taking the kids out by myself anytime soon. Or if I do, it will be to a FAST FOOD place or somewhere we can get much faster service.

Those of you with small kids will understand—you do everything QUICKLY. You order quickly (you quite possibly even order the kids meals first), you pay the check quickly, and you’re hopefully out of there before the squirming and whining begins. But unfortunately that was not how tonight played out. I fully blame the waitress, who constantly disappeared for loooong periods at every stage of the meal. Tom and I can usually get in and out in under 40 minutes. Ruth and I were there (at the same place) for just under ONE AND A HALF HOURS. Good god.

Ruth was a godsend, though. At one moment when it was a bit of a circus—everyone was noisy, there was too much crap on the tables and nowhere to put anything, Katie had reached for the knife three times in under a minute and was spilling corn all over the floor, Owen was asking for the third time where his milk was (damn slow waitress!), we were trying to share the onion appetizer…all while trying to place our food order—she volunteered to take the kids (my two and her one) for a brief walk so I could have a breather. And then she noticed Katie needed a diaper change so she did that, too.

/sigh

Of course, Owen didn’t follow along quickly enough and then Ruth was too far away for him to chase after so he stayed with me. Then announced he had to pee…so I had to take him back to the bathroom anyway. But then I left him with Ruth and went back to the table as they took a quick roundabout tour of the restaurant and I got to eat three bites of my salad in peace.

Overall it was a great meal—the steak and shrimp were REALLY good. It may have spoiled my usual order at that restaurant as well (I have ever only ordered one single thing every time we’ve gone there). The only thing that could have made it better? To have been able to calmly and slowly eat the yummy meal in peace and quiet—appreciating the food—instead of just shoving in a random bite here and there between managing two kids. Well, I guess that’s technically more than one thing. 🙂

I am so glad to have made a few new good mom friends who just UNDERSTAND and are willing to lend a hand—or supportive meal—when it’s needed.

And on that note… I mentioned that I’d probably order steak every time I went out because I wouldn’t be eating it at home because I don’t grill. And Ruth pipes up “I GRILL!” So I’ll provide the protein and the grill, she’ll provide the actual grilling, the kids can play in the pool…YAY!

20130820-094601.jpg

Happy 11th Anniversary

Eleven years. Wow. It just kinda sneaks up on you every year (and even moreso this year since we’ve been a little busy with Katie).

We didn’t even try to get a sitter to do anything this year, though I’m sure our friends would have obliged. Instead, we made a family trip to Wilmington to go to Costco…and have our traditional Chinese meal (we did lunch instead of dinner, though).

Katie was a complete gem, sleeping the entire hour ride down, our entire hour in Costco, and about 75% of our lunch…then took a bottle and slept the entire way home. Of course, Owen was just as awesome, sitting in the cart with stuff piled all around him, not even noticing really because he was having fun with daddy’s phone. 🙂

We had a slight brush with fame at Costco…we saw Keith from Top Chef Texas fame (we’ve eaten at his restaurant, Catch, before). That’s as close to famous as I’m likely to get living here. And he said hi to me in passing, likely because I was staring at him. 🙂

Our lunch was really, really good. I picked a place off Yelp pretty much at random…just going by reviews and proximity to Costco…and we couldn’t have been more thrilled. Everything on the menu at Double Happiness was tempting, but I ended up with the Dry Wok Chicken and Tom got the Coconut Shrimp with Candied Walnut (and we got a Double Steamer dim sum basket). And surprisingly good Hot & Sour soup—as close to mine as we’ve ever had. We definitely want to go back there to try more of the menu!

All in all we had a really good day. How can we not when we have such a great little family?! 😀 (The only downside is that I forgot to take a picture of us to celebrate the day!)

Happy 9th anniversary to us!

I actually didn’t even think about our upcoming anniversary until I saw the notice on Facebook. Yeah, embarrassing. 😮 I blame it on thinking about my mom’s birthday (the 15th) instead.

Anyway, through a few back-and-forth emails, we decided where to go out for dinner. On the way there, Tom says “Are you sure you don’t want to get Chinese?” I looked at him and said “OMIGOD! Of course we have to get Chinese! I can’t believe I forgot! Why didn’t you say anything when we were emailing?!” He thought I was just dead set on using a coupon we had.

For those of you who have been following along all these years, you may remember that we ALWAYS have Chinese on our anniversary. The first few years were complete accidents, so then we made it a tradition.

And I forgot. :meh:

So Tom actually saved the day…

/swoon

And that’s why I :heart: him.

So much for recreating our wedding day.

I can’t believe that 1) the Grand Traverse Dinner Train is no more and—more importantly—2) no one thought to tell me about it! I mean, it’s not like it just happened—according to news stories, it’s been out of service since late 2005 and sold/out of Traverse City since 2006!!

I’m bummed. I really wanted to do an anniversary dinner on it sometime. 🙁

Chinese for five years in a row!

So, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before… after our wedding, we crashed at the hotel and then took a four-hour nap. When we woke up at 9pm, we were starving and didn’t want to eat at the Trillium (we would have had to get dressed up), so we went into town and Chinese sounded good, so we ate there.

Fast forward to our one year anniversary and without thinking we said “Let’s order from our favorite chinese place” — and only afterwards did we realize/remember we ate chinese the night of our wedding as well.

Ironically, about the same thing happened the third year — we couldn’t decide where to eat, so we picked our favorite chinese place — and again said “OH MY GOD! We did it again!”

The fourth year was planned, to keep with tradition.

This year, Tom planned to take me somewhere else we would LOVE to go, but I decided we really shouldn’t spend that much (it would have been probably $100—well worth it, but just so much money) so I said “Well, we might as well make it chinese!” and went to a chinese buffet place in town we’ve wanted to go to since we’ve lived here but haven’t made it.

So, after five years in a row, I’m pretty sure we have to do it now until we die. It’s a good thing we like chinese!

Has it been four years already?

It’s our anniversary today…woohoo! Four years. It doesn’t seem that long at all…but on the other hand, it seems like we’ve been together forever (but not in a bad way)! And I vaguely recall saying/thinking the same thing last year and the year before. That’s a good sign in my book!

We didn’t do anything especially special…what with the new house and all. Without going into the whole loooong story, we couldn’t decide on where to go out to eat as usual, so guess what? We ended up getting Chinese—which, if you remember, is what we always end up eating, since that’s what we ate the night of the wedding and what we ended up eating on our 2-year as well. I’d have to dig through my journals, but I’m sure we ate Chinese on year 3, too…so why not just make it a tradition and stay with it?

We’re back online!

Hello all! We’re finally back online… Things here are hectic. Tom has been busy with yard work. It’s hotter than hell out there (I think today had a 110 heat index) and I think he’s insane, but he wanted a yard and now he has one! On a bad day, he showers about three times. I tend to stay inside where it’s nice and cool! The only time I stray outside is when I have to do laundry—and the garage is ALWAYS a sauna so I try to make it quick. We have a few trees to plant (there were on clearance at Lowe’s) in addition to the finding the perfect home for the new lilac bush (thanks again, mom). Tom’s next big project, aside from the little honey-do lists I give him, is to put up major shelves in the garage to hold all the crap that won’t fit in the house. Remember me saying we’d have enough stuff for a three-bedroom house? I was wrong. We have enough stuff for a six-bedroom house! LOL Seriously, if we had a basement, everything would be peachy…but we don’t—and we don’t want to use the guest bedroom as storage again—so things are still somewhat crowded.

We’re in the last stages (I hope) of getting settled. Most of the major things are put away (food, dishes, kitchen stuff) but there’s so much little stuff left. You know, all that stuff that never really had a good “home” to begin with. And all the stuff that just doesn’t happen to fit like it did before (this shelf is 1/2″ too short or that cupboard is 1″ too shallow). And, of course, there’s lots of stuff that will need to be rearranged once the garage shelves are in. Dad, you would be thrilled to know that I finally broke down and let Tom get the table saw he wanted (we even had to drive an hour, one way, to get it). I mean, I had to if I wanted shelves any time soon! He’s in heaven and actually putting it together tonight…wait, was that a saw I heard in the background? 🙂 We also have to figure out the dresser situation in the bedroom (it’s quite small once the king bed and headboard gets in there) and until we do, there are five huge boxes of clothes sitting there, waiting. It’s official: WE HAVE WAY TOO MUCH CRAP. The good thing is we’re having a community garage sale soon. There are about four of us who thought it would be a great idea—and we’re all looking forward to it.

Speaking of neighbors, we love ours. They’re all wonderful. We usually talk to them every other day, if not daily (one couple walks their dog and baby and stop as they pass by the house and another walks her dog and stops by). Last night, there was, let me count, 13 of us out there (8 adults, 3 kids, 2 dogs). I LOVE HAVING NEIGHBORS! We’ve had dinner at Neil and Heidi’s about four times…we’re just waiting to get our house done so we can return the favor!

I’ve been back to work two days and it feels like I never even had a break. Sad, isn’t it? The customers haven’t been bad and my coworkers are nice enough…but my feet and neck/shoulders are so sore by the end of the day I can barely stand it. It’s all I can do to not collapse when I get home. I apparently need to start my Motrin regimen again. Unfortunately, it’s the same store activity-wise as Stafford, which means I stand around a lot and try to look busy. It’s not bad overall (at least I’m used to it and at least I have a job) but the hardest part (aside from taking the pay cut) is not knowing where anything is in the store. Blech. I’ve looked in the want ads but they’re a joke. When a security guard position is being offered at $6.75/hour, there doesn’t seem much hope for me. I am, however, heading to the sign shop Thursday and begging for a job if I have to. 🙂 I’d even take a pay cut to work there!

The only other news is that I think this house is trying to kill me—or at least maim me. No kidding. Remember the painting weekend when I smashed my toe? Well, it still hurts so I’m sure I broke it or fractured it or something. Well, since then, in a span of two days, I injured three more toes. (I really need to start wearing shoes around the house.) First, I stubbed a toe on a cooler while doing laundry (Tom moved it unbeknownst to me). That ripped the nail half off my big toe. Later that day, I smashed another toe into a dresser and there was more blood. Hoo boy. I also smacked my head into the dryer door. Then, to top it all off… getting ready for bed and doing one last thing… Tom opened a door to take a box out onto the porch but it wouldn’t fit so he shoved another box out of the way…and wouldn’t you know it…there was a heavy cooling rack leaning against the box, which fell and smashed yet another toe (more ripped skin, more blood, more Band-Aids). I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry—so I did both. It was so ironic that it was sort of Tom’s fault, because he had been blaming me and telling me it was all my fault and I needed to be more careful. So, I started work the next day with four “broken” toes.

Shopping…and a phone call!

So last night we went to IKEA for “one last time” since there’s not one in NC…and we ended up finding the PERFECT dining room chairs. I’ve always loved the fabric covered look…and I absolutely HATE the ones that “came with” our table—they’re much too small and uncomfortable for my big butt and they’re not padded and they’re slippery. All-around yuck. But they matched the table and they were only $50 each (you get what you pay for). Sooo, anyway, as far as I’m concerned, they’ve served their purpose and it’s time for new ones. Anyhoo, I really only was looking for slipcovers (a la Trading Spaces!) but they didn’t have any good ones (just some 70s-looking stretchy tube-top-looking ones—not!) so we started looking at chairs. And I just LOVE these. They are birch, so they match our table (although they’ll be mostly covered up). And you can take the covers off to wash. They are a bit more expensive but they are SOOOO comfy and look so much more elegant! So, now I have to sell our current chairs. Hopefully someone around here will want to buy them. They’re like new, for pete’s sake, since we never sit at the table. Tom said to say “Used for 32 meals.”

So, while we were shopping, our cell phone rang. First, it scared the bejesus out of us because we didn’t know it was with us (it was in my purse and had been there who knows how long)—and second, who would be calling us on our cell??? It was Don, our realtor. He was just calling to say he was sitting in front of our house and wanted to let us know what was going on. They had put in the flooring, cupboards, and countertops—and the landscaping was done. LANDSCAPING? I knew they were going to throw down some grass seed, but actual landscaping? We must have missed that in the brochure. LOL So now, Tom and I are itching to go back down even more!! Unfortunately, the next few weekends are out—but we’re planning!!