Happenings

I think this time of year is busy for everyone, add a PCS in and we just can't keep up. We're busy ALL day, every day. Between work, the PCS, the holiday season and trying to cross things off our CA bucket list it's just a crazy time.

+The 12th we took Dominick to meet Santa and to say that we have THE cutest Santa picture might be an understatement...it also might be super biased too. But really?!

+The 13th we went shopping and then our friends had a holiday party. We had a great time with friends.

+The 14th we went to Universal Studios with friends. Dominick fell asleep in the stroller which is why he's not in the picture. He LOVED it and so did we. It was our first time and we wish we would have went before. Super fun.

+Dominick and I flew to Michigan on a red eye on the 19th.We left our house around 7 and went to dinner with Ryan. He dropped us off in Vegas and 20 hours later we FINALLY made it to my parents house where we both took a nap. Ryan will be in Michigan before Christmas and Dominick is going to be OVER the moon excited to see him.

+Ryan is scheduling TMO and some other out processing "stuff" this week and I'm booking hotels for our move, researching preschools for Dominick in our new area and anything to help Ryan.

+We decided to leave Dominick in Michigan instead of bringing him back to California with us. We only have 2 weeks in CA before we start our move and we thought it would be so much easier on the little guy to stay with his Gigi and Papa. We will miss him something fierce, but I know with how busy we are time will just fly by.

Jingle Ball and Disneyland

Like I said in my last post we found out December 2nd we had orders to Ohio. December 5th I had plans to go to the Jingle Ball with a friend (she won tickets, but wasn't able to go. Her husband still wanted to and she gave him a list of ppl who he could take...he picked me! hahaha). We left around 2 and ended up getting to Los Angeles around 3:30ish. We decided to see what the vendors were like at the pre-show, rode a ferris wheel and then went to dinner at Lucky Strike. I'm not sure if that's a California restaurant or a chain, but if there's one near you go!

view from the ferris wheel

While we were bowling and eating someone came to bowl on the lane next to us. When I looked up it was a man and his two kids. He looked super familiar, but it didn't really hit me until I went to bowl that it was Chris Harrison. The bachelor host Chris Harrison. He's much more handsome in real life. Everyone kept telling me to take his picture or ask for one with him...but he's just a normal guy out bowling with his kids and I'm sure he gets that a lot so we didn't. I didn't even say a word to him. We bowled, finished eating and then left. He was one of my only celebrity sitings while in California. We still had some time before the doors opened so we went ice skating at LA Live and listened to some of the pre-show. The Jingle Ball by KIIS FM was so much fun. Our seats weren't the greatest, but we had a great time. It ended around 12:30 and we were leaving Staples at 12:40 AM. I didn't get home until closer to 2:40.

ice skating at LA Live

view from our seats

Since our weekends are limited we had made plans to go to Disneyland the following morning. I was EXHAUSTED and it was BUSY. Dominick was a little grumpy (I think he was tired), but we managed to ride some rides and have a good time too. I'm going to miss all these fun California adventures.

a panormaic view of it's a small word. BEAUTIFUL, right?

Ohio

So I think I'm finally to the point where I've accepted the news I'm about to tell you where this post won't be TOO negative.

Last Tuesday Ryan got orders...to Ohio. Ryan was vectored up for a position at Wright-Patterson back in September/October time frame. We knew the possibility of it actually happening was pretty high, but we also knew there could have been quite a few other applicants who were much more qualified than Ryan. I'm not sure if it's unfortunate or fortunate, but some of our friends knew the two people who did the selecting for the position.

I was told that we would know by mid October.The date came and went and I thought that MAYBE we were in clear and started to breathe a little easier. November came and Ryan said that they still hadn't selected anyone for the position and our friends talked to their friends and Ryan was the number one candidate. CRAP! Thanksgiving came and went and we still hadn't heard anything, but at that point everyone was pretty much treating it like we were getting orders. Rumor had it that the report no later than date was mid February/March.

December 2nd was kind of a crazy day anyways. Things at work were REALLY busy and my friend in a group text said, 'Al, I'm having such a hard day' and my response was, 'do you know something I don't know' and I immediately sent Ryan a text saying, ' did you get orders'? Come to find out...he did and my friend had no idea...she was just having a rough day too. Our report no later than is the end of January. We have less than 50 days before we hit the road east.

To say I'm NOT excited about this move would be the biggest understatement of the year. I never imagined loving California so much, but I can't see my home being anywhere else but here. Ohio and California are VERY different. It's going to be very different. I understand that our families are in the midwest and we will be closer, but our home and the life we've built are in California. It's hard to leave that behind. It's hard to close this chapter of our lives when I feel like we've just started writing it and it's already over. I think with such a short notice I'm having a hard time finding the closure I need and the optimistic outlook. The pressure is building and it's only going to get a lot worse before it gets better. What will be will be. Whatever happens, happens for a reason. God has plans for us and we are meant to go to Ohio so we will go and see what the future has in store for us.

Four Years

Ryan and I got married four years ago today.Happy Anniversary, Ry! You've taught me patience, given me the greatest gift and loved me even when I don't deserve it. I don't know what's in store for our future, but I know the best is yet to come. You make me heart so happy and inspire me to keep going. I love you more than you'll ever know.

one random day when we first started dating we hopped in the car and drove to the beach

Remember when doing this was popular with facebook pictures? No, just me?

One of our engagement pictures (that I stole from my facebook page)

+We were engaged for 13 days
+We got married in the court house so we would have the paper document before he left for basic training
+Our first year of marriage we only spent the second half of it together. He was at BMT and Tech school for the first 6 months.
+I spent the first six in our home and the second six in a brand new home on the other side of the country.
+We've created 1 human and still have our 2 four legged babies too.
+We had our "vow renewal" ceremony June 17, 2011. That was my dream wedding, but we only celebrate this day.

Our Weekend

How come Monday mornings always come so quick? Last week was my short week at work (we get every other Friday off and work longer days) so it was nice to have a long weekend. Friday we were getting a new dishwasher and they picked the most inconvenient time of day to schedule their delivery (11-2...they didn't show up until 2:15). Dominick and I hung around the house for most of the day. We did go to the park and do some things around the house, but for the most part it was an R&R day.

On Saturday we had plans to go to Disneyland. One of the benefits about living in SoCal is that it's pretty close. When we went for his birthday we bought the 3 day park hopper tickets and only used two days. Dominick was awake the entire ride there except the last 20 minutes so he basically missed his entire nap. We got there around 10:30 and left at about 6. It was a FULL day for him, but he had the best time. We are already looking forward to our next visit which will hopefully be around Christmas time. I'm pretty sure we are so spoiled by being able to go and now that we've gone that we couldn't imagine actually spending an entire family vacation to go there...spoiled, right? If you've ever been to Chicago you probably know the goodness of Portillo's. There is one about 15 minutes from Disney and anytime we're in the Anaheim area we try to go so after we left we went there to grab a quick dinner. We were home by 10:30 and called it a night.

He loved the parade

I brought him a cliff bar and you would have thought he had died and gone to Heaven. He thinks they're cookies!

He crashed and burned. He slept through dinner, I changed him, put his pajamas on and he slept the entire way home and through the night.

Sunday is always dedicated for a little bit of relaxing, grocery shopping, picking up the house and going to the park. It's pretty much a given for our Sunday's. It's nice to spend it as a family and rest up for the week ahead. So that is exactly what we did.

Kenny Chesney Album Release

More recently I've mentioned how much I love living in California. A complete 180 from not so many a moons ago. It's true, there's always something to do, places to go and see and really the weather of CA is pretty magnificent as well.

A friend of mine shared a post from iheartradio last Thursday on my wall saying if I wanted free tickets to see Kenny Chesney to send an e-mail. Okay, I mean, let's be honest that's pretty easy and it was from their official page so I took the plunge. I didn't hear anything back by Friday morning (which was my day off), the day of the "concert" so I just figured I didn't get picked. Well, Ryan was home for lunch and we were talking and I got the e-mail saying I had free tickets to respond with my name and show up at the iheartradio theater in Burbank. My friend and I went and to say we had so much fun is an understatement. It was a VERY short, all acoustic concert, but it was a lot of fun and a great FREE night out on the town.

Happy Friday, y'all!

Hollywood

When my parents come we love to go to Koreatown and get Korean BBQ. It's all you can eat, grill in front of you, amazeballs. It's also one of our favorite places to visit in the LA area because it's just that good. We have also planned to hike the Hollywood sign nearly every single time my parents come to visit and this time we set out to do it after Korean bbq. We drove to the trail and what do you know it was CLOSED!!!!!!!!!! Instead we drove around, found a lookout, a cute little park with a playground and took pictures with the sign. It was a great day out, but I hope we have a chance to hike the trail before we leave again with my parents.

 Dominick saw some people sitting on the ledge enjoying the beautiful city lights and thought he'd follow their lead. I die over him and his baby man cuteness.

First Beach Trip

Even though we live in Southern California, we also live in the middle of the desert and don't often make it to the beach. We hadn't been all summer and we've never actually gone to play in the sand and really enjoyed a beach day since Dominick was born. A weekend or two before my parents came we decided we should really go. We went to Point Duma in Malibu. It wasn't as warm as we were hoping, but it wasn't all bad either. After a few hours at the beach we went to Pasadena and had dinner and froyo. It was the perfect little day with my favorite guys.

Dominick's Birthday Part 2

Dominick fell asleep in the car after lunch so when we got home I laid him down for a nap. He ended up sleeping until his friends came over at 5:00. We weren't going to have a party this year for him and just keep it really low key. Low key is what we did. We had our little framily come over and had dinner and hung out. It was a good night and I know Dominick loved it too. I always said I would never do a character themed birthday, but along with keeping it simple we got a bunch of Thomas the Train party supplies and that's what we did.

Dominick's Birthday Part 1

Last year I took Dominick's birthday off to spend the day with him. Last year we didn't really do anything too special because Ryan had to work. Fortunately for us this year we were both able to take the day off so we planned something special. A few months back my friend had her son's 5 birthday at Travel Town in Los Angeles and since Dominick is OBSESSED and had such a fun time we thought we would just go back for a little while before his nap. It worked out perfectly.

That morning he woke up and we had breakfast and were on the road by 8 or 9. We ended up getting to Travel Town around 10:30 shortly after they opened and it was pretty empty since it was a Wednesday morning. We looked at all the trains and went on their little train ride. Dominick LOVED it. Since my parents were in town they also got to join us and we really had such a fun time.

We ended up leaving around 11:30-12:00 and then found a Chik-Fil A because what 2 year old doesn't love CFA? We went to the one on Sunset Blvd before making the trip home.

I'll post about his "party" and presents another day.