Thanksgiving 2009

This year I am thankful for:

• God and His blessings
• My wonderful husband, I couldn't have married a better man for me :)
• Our new house
• Especially our kitchen and the jetted tub :)
• My job, working with sick/premature babies and supporting their parents.
• My coworkers, who get me through the day at work.
• Living close to both of our sets of parents, and all of our siblings (and sister-in-law :)
• Our two adorable cats, Hobbes and Lucy.
• Two engagements, my brother (engaged in Austria to an Austrian) and a good friend (engaged in Italy to a Virginian).
• My husband's good job with a good company.
• The fact I don't have to work nights or weekends, which is almost unheard of for a new RN grad :)
• The three Thanksgiving meals I got this year... one at work (since I worked the actual day of Thanksgiving), one at my parents house that night, and then leftovers from Alan's aunt's house :)
• And did I mention my amazing husband, Alan? :)

True Love

Alan bought me dinner tonight so I wouldn't have to cook or even warm up food after working four 12 hour shifts in a row.

Me: Teriyaki Chicken Bowl?! You're my most favorite person ever!

Alan: You're welcome.

Me: Do you know what would make you even more my most favorite person?

*I start putting my feet up on the couch*

Me: If you gave me a foot massage.

*Alan starts walking away*

Alan: ...she loves me enough.

I never did get my foot massage :( However I did get yummy, much needed food! :)

Chickens & Vets

Yum, yum... this will be our dinner tonight! (Once Alan gets home). I found this recipe on this blog. Hopefully it's good.. I've never cooked an entire chicken before, lol.

Also, this morning the cats and I took a trip to their favorite place, the vet. The poor vet almost got his hand bitten by our little Hobbes when he tried to give Hobbes a pill to swallow. But everyone involved is fine. :) Here are the cats resting from all the vaccinations (both pictures taken just now):

Meeeetings

My day so far:

8:00 - Rolled out of bed

8:20 - 8:40 - Jogged in the backyard while watching Smallville

8:40 - Got ready to go into work (on my day off)

10:00 - Town Hall Meeting (would have been a better time to roll out of bed ;)

11:30 - Staff Meeting

1:00 - FINALLY back home.. thinking, what happened to my day off??

The Journey Towards Our Engagement

Yes this is a little late, after being married a year and a half (and coming up on our 2 year "anniversary" of being engaged) to post this, but I want to have our dating life as part of this blog. This story was written by me for our wedding website early last year:

Alan had been coming to my church off and on for 4 years. (He was a member of a smaller church in the area with basically the same beliefs). I hadn't seen him for a while, so I messaged on AOL instant messenger on Friday night, February 2, 2007. We ended up talking for 3 hours and I told him he should visit our congregation again sometime. He agreed, but I didn't think he'd come for at least a few weeks.

The next day, he came to our church service. I had always thought he was really cute and sweet, but I'd been dating another person when he visited before. I wasn't going to hang out with the group that night, but I wanted to spend time with him.. so I went with him and our group to On The Border and to my house afterwards. On The Border made us wait 2 hours to get our food, but I didn't mind because I wanted more time to talk to Alan. I was upset that he didn't sit next to me when we finally got our table, but I learned later he thought I was still dating someone else at the time. Afterwards, our group went to my house and we played Pictionary and Cards.

At this point, I already liked Alan a lot. He came to church again the next weekend, and he asked me on our first date on Monday, February 12. He asked me to eat at Chili's and go bowling with him on the following Thursday, February 15. Of course I agreed, and I was really excited about the date. He picked me up at 7 and dropped me off at 10, which impressed my mom. We continued to date over the next few months, and on April 3, 2007 we decided to become boyfriend and girlfriend. :)

We continued dating, and I fell in love with his laid back personality, his jokes, and his sweetness (even if it was coated with sarcasm, which I also liked). We began talking about the possibility of getting married in the future. During the summer we traveled to Galveston and Oklahoma with several of our friends, and saw each other often. We had a great time dating each other, and we both wanted to marry each other. On Thursday night, November 8 at Lake Arlington, Alan asked me to marry him, and of course I said yes :)

April 2007 - Our first dance together.

June 2007. Me and Alan on the beach in Galveston, TX

July 2007 - Turner Falls, OK

Ramblings

I am looking out the window here at the hospital (yes, I'm blogging at work... I'll get to that), at 6:15pm and it's already dark outside. That threw me off guard! Boo to going back to Standard time. And this morning, sunrise was still 30 minutes off as I was driving to work. I do not like missing all of my daylight hours. :( I love the long days of summer :)

I have time to blog here at work because I am only taking care of ONE baby today. He is in isolation because he has (or had) a "superbug" that we don't want the other babies to catch. So, lucky him, he has his very own nurse. He is a cutie, and I've been able to spend a lot of time holding him (unfortunately I don't think he gets held very often)... but one sleepy baby is not enough to keep me busy for 12 hours! (I'm sure I would be busy for that long if I had a baby of my own at home.. but there are other things to do there.. and this baby sleeps all the time, lol). So this has been a looong day, but also a nice break from all the craziness that can happen around here :)

On a side note, my husband has been earning lots of brownie points lately. I also worked yesterday (I don't usually work Sundays), and I got home to all of the laundry done AND hung up (he always does the laundry, but sometimes we hang it up together), and he had ordered a pizza for us (not the healthiest meal, but I didn't want to cook, lol). Then this morning, he got up at 6am (as I was leaving) to take out all the trash, and he deep cleaned our cat's litter box (big job). I married a good one <3