Nature's finest

 Captain Sam driving the boat

 The bathrooms...no water and lots of bugs! 

 Home sweet tent!

My first camping experience and it was 95 degrees outside at a park without running water in the bathrooms....I was not impressed to say the least. However, I like to say I give everything a fair shot once before deciding if I will try it again, and camping in the heat is not a fair shot. So, I will give it another go when temperatures drop below 65 degrees in the Fall :)

We received many camping items for wedding gifts and decided to spend Memorial Day weekend on the Ohio River at Forked Run Metro Park with Sam's dad, grandma, brother, and brother's girlfriend. Sam and I had spent the previous week scouring the Forked Run website for the perfect campsite to reserve for 3 tents and we found it! However, our first indication of how the weekend was going to unfold came when we arrived at the park to find someone else had stolen our site! Yes, they STOLE our campsite. When we checked in upon arriving, the park ranger said they put our little reserved tag on the post of campsite 118 for us, so we drove on into the park and found our site. But, already set up were several tents, clothes lines, camping chairs, and other camping equipment. The people stole our reserved tag off the post and pretended they had reserved it. We told the park ranger and she said they would make the people move, but we didn't want to anger them and have them come back for revenge on us during the night....did I mention the campers had a black skull and crossbones flag on their tent that said "Death Camp. Take No Prisoners"and they wore black leather with chains?? Yea....we decided the leave them alone. So, we found another site and it was fine, but the whole experience put a slight crimp in my impression of camping.

After setting up our tents, we all went to the river and spent a great afternoon on Sam's dad's large boat. It was great for relaxing and cruising along the river. We jumped off the front and swam to cool off. I never thought I would actually swim in the Ohio River (it's not exactly known for it's cleanliness and the fact that catfish the size of cars live on the bottom doesn't make it that enticing either) but with no shade or air conditioning in 95 degree heat, swimming was the only thing that kept me cool.

We boated all afternoon and into the evening, so it was dark when we got back to the campsite. Poor planning on our part because we had to finish setting up tents in the dark and attempt to fix hotdogs on our camping grill with only flashlights. Unfortunately, it was too hot to sit around the campfire and enjoy the best part of camping, so everyone pretty much turned in for the night. Sleeping in a tent outside is...different. Every shadow on the tent creeped me out and with the heat it was impossible to get comfortable. Around 5am it cooled off enough to sleep but then the sun came up and night was over! So, not much sleeping. We fixed pancakes on the grill and left for home around 9am.

Introducing Mr. and Mrs.!!!!

It's Monday morning and I'm sitting next to my HUSBAND on the airplane! Yes, I am officially married and our wedding was beautiful. It's so weird to look over at Sam's hand and see a ring on it. He rarely wears jewelry, and even then it's only a watch, so to see a ring on his finger brings back the butterflies that I had on our first date 2 years ago. Wow.

So, the wedding festivities began on Wednesday May 2nd with the arrival of Ericka from Guatemala. It was a fun day viewing the United States through her eyes, having never been out of Guatemala. She's lived 36 years in a third world country having never walked on carpet, relaxed in a bathtub, and slept in a bed larger than twin size. She was in complete disbelief at our dishwasher, which might possibly be the funniest memory of her trip. She began washing her dishes in the kitchen sink when I looked over  and said she didn't need to do that because we could just put them in the dishwasher. I then proceeded to open the dishwasher, load it, and close it, never stopping to look at her facial expression. Her jaw had dropped and she said, "A machine that washes plates? Really? I knew there was a machine that washed clothing, but this one washes plates?" And she proceeded to stand and stare at the closed door while the lights flashed and the dishwasher started up. Another little Ericka story - we went to Meijer to develop some pictures and again, mom and I walk right into the store but Ericka stops to stare at the automatic opening doors. She had only seen ones that slid open and never ones that opened in/out. She also couldn't believe there were plants and items for sale sitting outside the store. In Guatemala they would be stolen. She was very impressed by American people that we could leave something outside (or put letters in mailboxes for that matter) and they wouldn't be stolen. So, needless to say, it has been wonderful and entertaining having Ericka with us for the wedding.

Mother Maria from Guatemala arrived on Thursday and it was a delight to have her back again to our house. She made herself at home in our "monastery" in the basement and loved the new queen size bed in her room. Friday was the day of our rehearsal and also the day for our ladies lunch at Brookside. My aunt Denise planned such a beautiful luncheon just for the girls in my family to relax and enjoy each others company before the wedding. Then came the rehearsal at 4pm, where I proceeded to bawl my eyes out walking the aisle, standing on the alter, and soaking in every minute of what the next day would hold. Sam's mom and dad planned the rehearsal dinner at Polaris Grill, where we had our choice of 4 delicious dishes - steak, seafood linguine, chicken, or porkchops. However, I never got to eat anything. So, we had just finished our salad course, Sam and I handed out gifts, and then came the brutal thunderstorm that - wait for it - knocked out the power in the restaurant!!! No joke!! Everything was out and there was no way to cook the food. They even had to put a couple candles in the bathroom because it was pitch black in there. I couldn't believe it was happening. After waiting 2 hours or so, most our family and friends had decided to leave, so it was down to just 15 people or so, mainly Sam's family members who were staying at the hotel next door, but the lights came on and the remaining people re-ordered their meals. I was so nervous at that point that I didn't feel like eating, so I didn't order anything, but Sam was able to eat at 9:30pm finally. What an adventure!

Saturday was the big day!! I got my hair done with Kacy and Jess in the morning and arrived at St. Paul around 9:45am to begin getting dressed. My bridesmaids were so great helping me, and my mom and Cara looked beautiful. I can't wait to get our professional pictures back to relive every moment. The flowers looked great even after ordering them on such short notice. Kroger was suppose to do my flowers but the florist backed out a week before the wedding. We scrambled to find someone else and actually, Ole Barn Flowers did a superb job - I can't imagine Kroger could have done better. God is good! I carried white and green hydrangeas with white lilies and some green ivy. The bridesmaids had blue and purple hydrangeas. Stunning against their grey dresses. I wasn't nervous at all until the 5 minutes before the ceremony began when I was waiting alone in the vestibule to meet my dad before going down the aisle. It was a beautiful ceremony and everything went off without a hitch. I couldn't stop beaming as the tears streamed down my face approaching Sam at the end of the aisle. He was so handsome and I couldn't believe I was the lucky girl who gets to spend the rest of my life with him. Following the hour mass, we partied at Medallion Golf Club! The bridal party was able to take golf carts out on the course for pictures - that was fun! The meal was chicken breast with basil cream sauce, sirloin steak with a mushroom wine sauce, green beans, and garlic mashed potatoes. We also had salad and rolls and the vegetarian entree was a fried polenta cake with grilled vegetables on top. It also looked delicious. Megan's dad was so kind to make our wedding cake as a gift to us. Everyone raved over it! It was 3 layers with white, pleated icing and sugar crystals, with blue hydrangea flowers in between the cake layers and a flower on top. Gorgeous! The bottom layer was orange cake with raspberry filling, the middle was apricot pudding cake with vanilla bavarian filling, and the top was cinnamon cake with apple filling. He really outdid himself!

Words can't do justice to how I felt on our wedding day. I dreamed of it for so long and then spent months stressing and planning it, but everything went very smoothly and it was all I could have asked for. Big is God for bringing Sam and I together in DC and then blessing us with our new life together in Ohio. And now we are husband and wife headed to California for our honeymoon.

Spring has Sprung!

Tulip tree

Myrtle blooming

Cherry tree

Daffodils

White lilacs

It's the end of March and spring has come...or at least I hope all the beautiful trees and bushes and flowers in our yard means it has come and is here to stay! It's been so exciting thus far watching everything green-up in the yard and bloom. When we first looked at the house, it was already fall and most of the leaves were off the trees, so we didn't know exactly what the landscaping would look like come spring. We have already spent a lot of time weeding gardens and raking leaves left over from the fall, and after our wedding, we intend to expand some gardens and remove a couple ugly bushes in the back. I just love love love gardening! I'm very thankful to my mom for making me help her with our gardens while I was growing up, even when I complained and would rather have been doing something else on the early Saturday mornings. As I've gotten older, I started really looking forward to going to garden centers with mom and picking out our flowers each spring. We would come up with a color palette for the front yard and back yard, and then spend an entire weekend prepping the gardens, planting, and mulching. Some years we would be working in the scorching sun and others we would have sweatshirts on (good ol' Ohio weather!), but I really cherish the times I spent with mom in our gardens. Now with our own house, I feel prepared to tackle weeds, know how to prep the garden soil for maximum flower growth, how to choose hardy flowers that are not going to wilt and die by June, and how to tell just how much water everything needs. I love putting a cute pair of gardening gloves on and kneeling in the grass to get my gloves dirty in the garden :)

Stay tuned for more pictures as our yard shapes up this spring! I may even talk mom into splitting some gardening hours between our houses to swap tips :)

28 years

Yesterday was my 28th birthday! Wohoo! It was a wonderful day that started with a bike ride in the morning, followed by lunch with some good friends, an afternoon in the backyard watching Leo play with our friends' dog, and I finished off the day with a delicious picnic dinner with my family. It was really a nice, enjoyable day and the weather was beautiful!! A little hot in the sun - 85 degrees - but in the shade of our backyard, sitting on the patio furniture listening to birds chirping....ahhhh....life is grand.

Next year on this day, I will be celebrating my 29th birthday with my HUSBAND!! Wow!

Dog friendship

They even shared the same stick!

So happy to have a friend :)

We took Leo to Sam's mom's house this weekend to meet her dog, Jax, and have a large place to run and explore. He is such a good dog that we let him off his leash soon after arriving and he didn't try to run off and we didn't have a problem getting him to come when called. That was a big relief because Laura has 20+ acres of land (I think it's something around there) so there was definitely ample land for him to run and not return. But, we didn't lose him and he LOVED Jax and the day was a success.

However, I must say dogs are weird creatures when it comes to socializing. I was a nervous wreck the entire day because Leo and Jax spent 85% of the time wrestling, 12% of the time running full speed through thorn bushes and briars in the woods, and 3% of the time laying on the carpet sleeping, only to recuperate and start wrestling all over again. They were biting each other's necks and ears and flipping each other upside down....it was like WWF wrestling but REAL! Sam kept reassuring me they were playing because their tails were always wagging and there was nothing to worry about, but there were many times where I thought Leo was going to come home with one less ear. And his ears are his best feature! Sam said when dogs are fighting or being aggressive, their tails will drop low and they will bark or have a deep growl and it would be evident they did not like each other, but as long as their tails were still wagging high in the air, they were just having fun. Wish he had told me this before the wrestling started and I tried to leap in the middle of them! Ha!

But, it was a wonderful day for everyone and I am glad to know Leo has a friend :) Now if only we could get his car-sickness resolved before our next hour-long car trip!

Leo update

Leo, Leo, Leo....where to begin. Okay, so Leo has been home almost 2 weeks now and he is definitely finished with the "honeymoon stage" of being a model dog and has now moved on to the "I have trapped you with my cuteness and now I will show you who is really in charge of this house" stage. Don't get me wrong, he is still a sweet dog most of the time, but when he isn't, he really isn't! For example, he is quite calm inside and will lay at your feet watching tv or following you around the house. He doesn't bark and whine or beg for food from the table (he will lay under the table but not sit and be obnoxious). He doesn't jump on furniture or chew and tear at things. He's had a couple accidents inside but nothing major...actually, he has had less accidents than my kids at school! Ha! Just today, one of my students missed the toilet and peed on his pants and underwear, and he didn't have an extra change of clothes, causing me to run all over the school searching in lost and found bins for pants that would fit him and then convincing the student he would have to wear the pants without underwear because we didn't have spare undies at school, and he was NOT a happy camper with that! *sigh*

Anyways, back to Leo, so he is a generally very good dog inside. BUT, and this is a big but, when he is outside in the backyard, he is a raving lunatic that runs at top speeds from one side of the yard to the other, weaving around trees and flower beds, searching Sam and I out to jump on and bite and scratch. We realize he is not doing it to be mean and that he is just overly eager to play, but as I'm applying Neosporin ointment to my entire arm and putting an ice pack on it to keep the bruising down, it's a little more difficult to rationalize his "playfulness." I will say, however, after that incident, while I was sitting on the couch with an ice pack, Leo sat right next to me trying to lick my arm and putting his head in my lap as if to say he was very sorry. We are trying to exercise him a lot everyday with walks and off leash in the backyard and giving him lots of chew toys to see if that helps with the biting, but I'm starting to wonder if we could find a vet to de-tooth Leo like they de-claw cats :) Joking! Well, only partially joking :)

But, Leo is still more fun than not and his pro side of the list still outweighs his con side, so after 2 weeks, we are still dog-owners :)

Meet Leo!

Sam and I rescued a 10 month old mixed labrador from an animal shelter over the weekend. Never in my wildest imagination did I ever think I would be a dog owner, but here we are! It's funny because even just 4 months ago when we were looking at the house we bought, our relator said "What a great fenced-in backyard for a dog" and I immediately said "Oh no, we will never get a dog. I hate dogs!" Well, it wasn't too much later that Sam's mom got a new puppy (Jax) and we were visiting her and I had so much fun walking and playing with Jax! My experience with dogs up til that point had been one biting me as a child and another breaking through a fence and charging at me barking and growling while I collected money on my paper route as a teenager. Plus, I thought dogs were smelly and hairy and drooled and seemed to always poop wherever I liked to walk.

However, as I played with Jax, I realized that I might like to have a dog IF and only IF the dog was small enough for me to control and not be frightened he was going to eat me. So, we started taking our time looking on shelter websites and we deliberated about what it would mean to have a dog and not be able to spur of the moment leave for a long period of time but ultimately, we decided the pros out weighed the cons. Sam's requirements for a dog: smart enough to learn tricks, well behaved, and large enough he wouldn't be a snack for other dogs. My requirements: doesn't yappity yap and drive me nuts, active outside but wouldn't ruin our new house inside, and small enough he wouldn't eat me. Leo meets every requirement! Amazing!

We found him at the animal shelter and he was the only dog not jumping up to the window and barking; we walked by and he was calmly laying on a blanket in his room and when we opened the door, he walked right over and sat down. To this day, he still has never barked, so maybe his vocal chords are damaged?? Or he just hasn't found a good enough reason to bark! He is 10 months old and 54 pounds, so a good size dog and will likely get a little bigger. The shelter has him listed as mixed breed, but he definitely has a lot of black labrador in him because he is smart and very well behaved. Sam is using "clicker training" to teach Leo how to behave and he catches on quick! He already makes eye contact when you call his name and he sits on command. Only had one small pee accident in the house the first day he was home and since then has consistently gone outside. He even poops in the spot we took him to originally in the yard where we want him to go! What a champ! Sam said he sleeps through the night in his crate in the office and never whines or barks when Sam puts him in.

So, we are dog owners now and so far so good!