513 love

It wouldn't be a trip home if it weren't jam packed with fun.

I met my most adorable nephew, Liam, for the 1st time.  Another reason we're excited to be moving back to Cincinnati, we'll get to watch this handsome guy grow up!

I was able to, very briefly, celebrate my cousin twice removed's 1st birthday (I think that's the correct title for my cousin's daughter's daughter.  I think.)

My friend Jessica planned our other friend Amanda's baby shower for the weekend I'd be in town.  Seriously, I could not have better friends!

In 2 days, the 4 of us celebrated Carissa's wedding and Amanda's baby.  I'm so grateful for friends like these.

I also managed to squeeze in a meal with my longest friend, Holly.

The rest of the weekend was spent soaking up as much family time as possible.  This trip home solidified that we are making the right decision to move back to Cincinnati.  4 days was simply not enough time with these people.  We don't plan on staying in Cincinnati forever, just the 2 years it will take Jason to finish school, and during that time I intend to spend every spare moment with the people I love and miss so dearly.

Until next time,

Carissa's Bridal Shower

I was back in Cincinnati last weekend getting pumped for our big move throwing my best friend a bridal shower.  After months of planning and prep, I am so thrilled with how things turned out on Saturday.

All of the food was great, the fruit bowls with dip in the bottom and veggie cups with ranch in the bottom were huge hits.

There were 60 invited guests so name tags were a must IMO, if not for them, for me!

I had these fabulous glasses made for the bridal party.  I want to drink everything out of mine!

This girl and I have been through some crazy stuff in our lives and I couldn't be more proud to call her my BFF!

 Um, does she not have the most adorable niece/flower girl?!

Ha, this is a terrible photo but we played a game where the bride and groom had to match answers to questions and for every one she got incorrect, she had to add a piece of bubble gum to her mouth.  She could barely speak by the end.

I had my lovely friend Rebecca come out and set up her photo booth.  It took everyone a while to realize what it was and what was going on but once they got the hang of it, everyone had a blast playing with all the fun props I made.

Of course there were gifts.  I think this is a pretty common sight at bridal showers these days.  It seems that every bride's number 1 wish on their registry is the stand mixer and the reaction when they open it is always so awesome!

Seriously, this woman is going to make the most gorgeous bride!  I cannot wait to see her walking down the aisle, I'm probably going to cry!

I love these women!  I cannot wait to spend more time with them when we move back to Cincinnati.

My BFF and I with our momma's.  I could not ask for a better foundation to my support system.  These women are truly amazing.  Seriously, I could not have pulled this shower off without the help of my mom.  She made all of my great ideas become a reality.

Less than 3 weeks till she becomes a Mrs..  It's going to be another great, whirlwind weekend and I cannot wait!

Sweet Home Cincinnati

I have some big news to share with you all, we're going to be moving...again.  No, it was not a part of the original plan but as we've come to learn, it's not always about what we plan but where God wants us to be.  After moving to SD, we discovered that Jason wouldn't be able to complete nursing school on our original timeline.  There was some misunderstanding on when and how Jason could apply to the program at USD that he wanted to get into and it was going to delay him an entire year.  That wasn't something we were thrilled with so we decided to explore other options.  Unfortunately there weren't any other options in San Diego, at least not any we were willing to consider (He was looking for a 2 year post baccalaureate masters of nursing program.  There were plenty of 2 year bachelors programs but that wasn't what he wanted.).  One of those other options was Xavier University in Cincinnati, where we're both from.  Last week I came home from work to find Jason had bought me blue & white flowers and prepared an entire blue & white dinner, including white fish, blue mashed potatoes, and white corn.  Since it was the night of the UK vs. UConn NCAA champion ship game, I had assumed it was a "UK" meal.  Jason informed me that it was not a UK meal but and XU meal, it was his super sweet way of letting me know he'd been accepted to XU's MIDAS program.

While Jason is thrilled to be a Musketeer (he's always been a big Xavier basketball fan), and I am ecstatic to be living near my family again, the next several months are going to be complete chaos.  Moving without the support of the military is not going to be fun.  Jason has to finish up his prerequisites here and we're going to finish out our lease and then we'll have just a few weeks to get ourselves, and all of our belongings, across the country.  For now we're going to try to soak in as much sunny California as we can.

Wedding Day {Brad+Jamie}

Y'all my baby brother is MARRIED!  Part of me cannot believe it and part of me almost feels like they've been married for years already.  Jamie has been a part of our lives for over 7 years, almost as long as Jason and I have been together.  In fact, she's at more of the same family functions I am than my brother is because of his work schedule so it almost feels like she's family and my brother is marrying into the family.  Anyways, Jamie is awesome, my brother is totally lucky to have snagged her and we're lucky to have her in our family, officially now!

They were married on a golf course in Indiana so of course we had fun riding around in golf carts taking photos.  This was my 1st time driving a golf cart and I may or may not be a very good golf cart driver...

Some of the guys wore Bill Murray t-shirts under their tuxedos.

Brad and Jamie are both die hard baseball fans, so their wedding had a fun baseball theme to it.

Complete with a NACHO BAR!  This would have been the best wedding food ever if we hadn't had a Skyline bar at our wedding (wink, wink). 

So happy and in love!

Their first (and only) dance.  I love that her dress swallowed him up!

 Sisters, officially now! (photobombed by my awesome brother)

 That's better.  I could not have hand picked more awesome women to call my sisters!  I love these girls!

 My siblings and I, we're kind of awesome!

 I love this man!

 Then their wedding was crashed...by Mr. Red Legs!  They had no idea he was coming, 2 of Jamie's cousins (the co-maids-of-honor) set it up and to say it was a huge hit would be an understatement.

 He pretty much consumed the rest of the evening.

 There was a bit of a dance off between Mr. Red Legs and one of my brother's best friends.

 He even got the bride on the dance floor.

 Jason even did the wiggle dance with him.

Then I cried because my throat hurt so bad and I was so tired I just couldn't stay awake any longer.  Then we realized our car wasn't there so we couldn't leave so my awesome mother agreed to leave a little early to take us to our car.  AND THEN we got to our car and my husband (that guy up there doing the wiggle dance with the Cincinnati Reds mascot) realized that our keys were in my brother's car back at the reception venue so I choked him thought about choking him but didn't have the energy to do it.

This illness was one of the worst of my life and it could not have hit at a worse time.  Luckily it has mostly passed now and my voice is almost back to normal.  Hopefully that was my one and only bout with bronchitis!

Speechless at my brother's wedding

For the first time ever in my life I was left speechless last week.  Literally.  Unable to speak a word.  IT. WAS. TORTURE.

So I woke up last Tuesday (the day our HHG were delivered) to a sore throat that I just knew was going to turn into something more.  I had no idea exactly how much more it was about to become.  I struggled through the delivery of all our stuff

before I passed out for a 4 hour nap while my AMAZING husband began the agonizing process of unpacking.

I woke up long enough to cook dinner and go right back to sleep.  The next morning, I left to fly back to Cincinnati for my brother's wedding.  Traveling while sick might be one of the worst things EVER but there was no way I was going to miss this flight.

OJ, water, and pretzels helped me survive the flights.

I immediately went back to sleep the moment I arrived at my girlfriend's house, not the reunion either of us had hoped for but a necessity for sure.

The next morning was go time!  Wedding prep was underway with or without me, so I joined in as best I could.  A relaxing mani/pedi with my mom, sister, and sister-to-be definitely lifted my spirits, if only temporarily.

 Then my husband's flight arrived and he sure did his part to make sure I had a smile on my face even though I felt like I was dying.  We found this bunny suit and he insisted on wearing the head around.

 Then we rehearsed...

and had fun doing it.  (that water bottle in my hand did not leave my side for an entire week except for the 20 minutes during the actually ceremony)

 After business was taken care of we went back to their house for dinner and they gave gifts to the wedding party.  All the groomsmen got jerseys, I was wicked jealous! (except my husband chose the dirty wings!  BOO that!)

We didn't make it long after dinner, that's when I really, really started to feel bad and I knew I had a long day ahead of me on Friday so we punked out early.  I'm going to skip the wedding, that will get it's own post tomorrow but that's the day I lost my voice.  Not being able to talk the day I saw most of my family for the first time in over a year was torture.  Good thing my sister is awesome at reading my lips/mind and understanding my gestures/sign language.

First thing Saturday morning I was at urgent care being diagnosed with sinus bronchitis, I let my sinus infection (I was almost certain that's what was wrong with me) go untreated so long it turned into bronchitis.  Not cool folks, not cool.  Don't let a sinus infection go untreated!  I definitely learned my lesson.  With an antibiotic Rx in my pocket I decided not to cancel my scheduled dinner plans with my best girl friends and I'm so glad I didn't.  It might have been difficult communicating with no voice but it was just nice to be in the company of women who love and support me.

I tried my damnedest to enjoy my weekend with friends and family despite feeling like crap.  I wish I could have been a bit more myself (ie. talkative) but it was nice to just be in the company of these people.  For a brief minute I felt a little sad that we didn't choose to move back to Cincinnati.  I miss the people so much it hurts!

Come back tomorrow for a recap of the wedding.  There were some amazing surprises you're going to want to see!

Anniversary photos...a few months early!

Way back in the day when I was planning our wedding, I was researching photographers and discovered Bobbi+Mike.  Unfortunately their pricing did not fit into our budget and I was unable to book them for our wedding {if I could do my wedding over again, the only thing I would change is our photographer.  I would have postponed the wedding until we could afford B+M}.  On their blog, was a wedding that caught my eye more than any other I'd seen {and you know as a bride to be doing research you see thousands of other weddings}.  That was the wedding of Melanie+Adam.  I remember noting that they were also photographers but I had already booked a cheap crappy photographer for our wedding so I filed it away in the back of my head.  Over the last 5 years, I've been following Melanie & Adam over at Loft3 and fell more and more in love with their style {and Melanie's personality}.  So when I decided that I wanted some updated photos of Jason and I for our 5 year anniversary {in January}, I knew that Melanie was the only one I wanted.  I emailed her about 8 months ago and booked a session for while we were in Cincinnati for a wedding in September.  Due to our schedule we only had one day to get these done and praise the Lord, the weather cooperated and we got way more than I ever could have dreamed of.  

I have no idea how I'm going to choose which images to print and in what size!  

{advice welcome}

If you are in Cincinnati and need a photographer for any reason I highly recommend Loft3.  They way exceeded any expectations I had.

I also have to say that Jason very much did not want to do this.  He was a giant crab the whole time and then when we saw the images he said, "I'm making a stupid face in every picture"...well, what did you expect?!?!  I'll be sure to remind him of this next time we have photos taken!