is TOLERATION even a word?

. . . the more I keep saying it in my head, the less and less it's sounding like a word. Kevin has to tolerate a lot from me.

He has to tolerate my endless giggling. When we're getting ready to pray at night-we're on bended knee and everything-and I'm giggling with tears running down my face. He just patiently sits there until I'm finished and composed then we pray.

He has to tolerate my licking his neck instead of kissing it. I don't know why or when I started this, but when we hug, I'm at the perfect height to kiss his neck, but instead of kissing it, I lick it. I think secretly he likes this.

He has to tolerate my whining like a puppy whenever I see a puppy. I love dogs. And all he has to do is say the word puppy, and my bottom lip juts out and I start in whining.

He has to tolerate being kicked everyday at dinner. Do not even begin to ask where this tradition got started. I have no idea. But I kick him at the table and he rolls his eyes and says, "Vegetables." Perhaps I started kicking him to get him to eat his vegetables, but I honestly have no recollection of how it ever began.

He has to tolerate my yelling out in excitement ANY time I see a commercial for whatever 'FEST' is going on at Red Lobster. Just last week I saw an advertisement for Lobster Fest and I got really excited. I get just as excited for Shrimp Fest and Crab Fest. Needless to say, he took me to Red Lobster Friday night for dinner. I love that man.



But you know, I have to tolerate a lot too.

Date night!

Thursday afternoon, Kevin said that he needed to know my feelings on Contra Dancing ASAP. I must admit, I needed to look it up online before I could even give him my opinion. I told him that it seemed like something I would like and if he was willing, I was willing. So-Friday night, we went Contra Dancing. For those of you not in the know, Contra Dancing is several partnered folk dance styles where couples dance in two lines facing each other. A bit like square dancing. Kevin suggested we go, and to admit, I was a bit floored. He was going to go dancing. And it was his idea!!! Crazy. We have danced together a total of 3 times our whole dating/engaged/married life together. On average, once a year. So, since the last time we danced together was at our wedding a year and a half ago, I guess it was time again.

It was actually a lot of fun. There was a lesson for an hour before the dancing actually got started where you could go and learn some various dances. The lessons sure helped a lot. We got to wear buttons that said it was our first time and man was I grateful for those because it gave me an excuse as to my awfulness. We were there for about 2 1/2 hours and it went on for an hour longer, but because the dances kept getting harder and harder, we decided to head out. Kevin said that he liked contra dancing because it was more about placing your body in the right spot than getting correct footwork, which he claims he can't do. All in all, it was a fun evening. Before hand he took me out to a really yummy Lebanese place for dinner where I was not adventurous and only got a gyro. Next time I told him I'd get something a little more daring. It was a great date night!!

On a side note, I was shaving my legs on Saturday and cut my leg worse than I probably ever had. And it wasn't even a new razor! I bled straight for 10 minutes using up a lot of toilet paper to absorb the blood before switching over to a cloth. Band-aid has been applied. Healing has started. But still-OUCH!!! I suppose I'll completely recover with time. And with Kevin not poking at it anymore. Silly boy.

I BLOG!!! (no, really, I do)

Well, I figured after a year and a half, it was high time to update the blog. Kevin keeps telling me that I need to do it, so...why not. Good luck. It's a long one. Also, it wouldn't let me upload all the pics that I wanted to, so you'll just have to deal with text for a bit until I can upload the rest of the pictures.

Much has happened in the past year and a half. We survived Snowmageddon here last February. I can't even believe it's been a year. Today it's about 50 degrees. This time last year, we were under 3 feet of snow. We missed the first dumping because we were at home in Colorado for the weekend for my nephews' baptism/blessing. We BARELY got there, and then we BARELY got home. We were supposed to leave Friday afternoon, but luckily got out Friday morning before the snow started. We were scheduled to come home Monday evening and that was the ONE DAY that the airport was open for an entire week. We got lucky. Tuesday the snow had started again, and finally quit about Thursday. Out of that entire week, I think I worked about 6 hours. It was pretty sweet. I didn't get pictures of it though. Bummer :( It's not that I'm not used to feet of snow dumping in a couple of days, it's that DC isn't used to it, so people were freaking out. It was fun.

Kevin and I went to the circus last March. It was the first time for him so it was really exciting. I always went growing up, so I knew just what to expect. We're going again this year in a couple of weeks, but even better this year than last year-we got our tickets for 50 % off. Maybe this year we'll be able to afford the $12 cotton candy. Maybe.

We went to the zoo for the first time as a married couple. The DC zoo is great because it's FREE. We really should go more often, but we don't. We were trying to do something fun every month, so April's activity was the zoo. Kevin hadn't ever been to the zoo here before, so it was high time we went. The day was perfect for it because it was April which meant fair weather, and also pre-tourist season. And that's always a plus.

Kevin started school in May!! So that's exciting stuff. He's getting his Master's of Library Science at Catholic University up in the district. He goes generally two days a week. So, it's not so bad. It's a two year program, so we're hoping that he'll be done around May 2012. Again, we're hoping. We'll just see how it goes.

In June, my little sister Katy came out to see me, and we went up to NYC for the weekend. It was her first time, and we had SO MUCH FUN. She wants to make it a yearly event, and I don't see why we can't do that. We had a blast together. She's so cute. Quentin and Georgia (the two kiddos I nanny for) always tell me that I can't call her my little sister because she's taller than me. But she'll always be my baby sister. Even if she is tall and gorgeous.

In July we went to the beach with some of our friends from the ward here. It was fun to drive down Sat. morning with them, spend all day at the beach and drive home Sunday morning. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of it. Kevin had a lot of fun boogie boarding. That it until Sunday afternoon when he realized he was badly sunburned. If you ask him, it was probably the worst sunburn he's ever had. I felt so bad for him. He said it was so itchy, and nothing really was able to relieve the itching. I bought all kinds of creams to rub on his back, and by 11pm Monday night, was ready to take him to the emergency room. I was literally putting on my shoes and was probably going to drag him out to the car, when he was able to just sit and not move. It was no fun for either of us, but mostly Kevin. Needless to say, the next week, we went out and bought him a rash guard to wear whenever he goes swimming. He says his torso shall never see the sun again.

In August we went down to Williamsburg, VA for our anniversary. It was crazy that we were celebrating our first anniversary because it went by so fast. We had a lot of fun though. Williamsburg/Jamestown was where the United States was first colonized back in the 1600's so it was really cool to go and visit. We walked through Williamsburg like it was 'back in the day' and it was SO HOT. But we had a good time getting to see how they made guns, where the original capital was, getting to see their jail, and so on. We really had a good time. We also went to Busch Gardens Amusement park and spent the day riding roller coasters. Good vacation!!

Since I feel the need to update everybody on the past year, I can't very well leave out our mouse escapades. So, in about October, we heard scratching in our wall and I knew that we had a mouse. A few weeks later, Kevin and I were sitting on the couch, and I saw this dark thing dart out of our kitchen and underneath the table. I screamed and started hitting Kevin. The next day, I went out and bought some poison to stick in the corners so that it would kill the mouse. After talking with my mom a few days later, she convinced me to just go buy some traps that would kill them. I went to the store and looked around for the old school snap traps, but couldn't find any (luckily because I HATE those. And if you know my husband, you know that's no good for him either). I bought some sticky traps and laid those out in the kitchen. A few days later, we heard some rustling around in the kitchen and we went and looked, and found a mouse stuck to the trap. THANK GOODNESS we thought. We finally caught him. We could sleep easy again.

Nope. Not so lucky. To make a long story short, every time we caught a mouse, another one showed up WITHIN THE HOUR OF CATCHING ONE. I'm not even kidding. We would catch a mouse, and another one would show up within an hour. It would always take us a few days to catch one, but as soon as we did, we would always see another one running through. I wanted to die. Seriously. It was horrible. One Saturday, we caught 6. SIX!!!! It was disgusting. We have caught 10 in all. We still have another little one running around somewhere, but he's clearly the smartest one of them all seeing is how he has lasted this long. One day we stuck a sticky trap in our linen closet because several times we had seen him run in and out of there. I usually bated them with peanut butter but when I stuck this one in there, I stuck cheese on it because I happened to have some out at the time. The next day I checked on it, and the cheese was gone, but there was no mouse. So that night, we put peanut butter on it, and stuck it back in the closet. The next morning, Kevin walked into our bedroom, and stepped right on the sticky peanut buttery trap. The mouse had pushed the trap out from underneath the closet door. Upon taking a closer look at the trap, there was mouse hair ALL DOWN ONE SIDE. I can only assume that he had gotten stuck to it, and ripped himself off of it. Like I said, that is one smart mouse. To sum the story up, we are moving next month.

We went to Indiana for Thanksgiving. It was a lot of fun. It was the first time I'd been there. And, I could add three states to the list of places I'd been. We drove, which meant that we passed through West Virginia and Ohio. It was a lot of fun to hang out with Kevin's family. Since we were fairly close, I made Kevin take me up to South Bend because I wanted to see the Notre Dame campus. He took me all around campus. We saw the stadium and “touch down Jesus” he took me to the various places he lived, and worked and had classes. It was fun, and the campus was really pretty despite being late November.

We stayed home for Christmas this year which was great because didn't have to hassle with holiday travelers/traffic and weather. We had a great time sleeping in and just hanging out. For New Years, we decided to head down to the Outer Banks in North Carolina. We had such a good time, we might make it an annual tradition. The weather was so great. It was in the 60's when we were there. We sat out on the beach and read for hours, and we went and saw the Wright brothers' museum and where they took their first flight. It was a lot of fun and so relaxing. Highly recommended!!

We're back to the same old, same old again. We don't do much around here, but we do it really well. We're getting excited for our little trip out West for Catherine and Matt's wedding. We don't what else we're doing this year, but hopefully, and when I say hopefully I mean HOPEFULLY we'll keep you all updated!!!!

2009 Birthday Celebrations

This past weekend Kevin and I celebrated our birthdays (his the 23rd and mine the 24th) by taking a Riverboat ride up the Potomac from Alexandria to Georgetown. It was a lot of fun. We got to see some of the sights and grab dinner, and head on back down. It was really fun, but cold on the way home because it was dark and windy. (O.K...one of the pictures I MAY have forgotten to un-zoom the camera, but we both have pretty eyes, so I put it up!)


































Tonight we also celebrated Kevin's birthday. There's a seriously funny story behind this picture that nobody's gonna find funny because nobody was there, but it brought me to tears from laughing so hard. So...I've been super busy lately, and haven't had time to go to the store, so I told Kevin he wasn't going to have any candles on his cake. He told me that I could scrounge up candles from around the house and light those. I said I probably had enough (27!) to light because I collect candles, and they really are all over. He said if I lit three that would be good enough because 3 cubed is 27. So I found three, and lit them. I sang to him all by my lonesome, and told him to blow out the candles. He took a big breath in and blew really, really hard. He blew out only the middle one. I busted up laughing because there were only three, and they were really close together. He said he was so focused on blowing out the middle one that he couldn't get the other two. I was still laughing while he started to finish blowing out the other two. He took another big breath, blew, and missed both candles entirely. He took one more, and blew out...only one candle. Only on the fourth breath did he blow out all three, yes count them, 3 candles! I told him it was a dang good thing he did not actually have 27. Good grief!!! Well, that's all for today. I get to open my presents tomorrow. Goody!!

I got my pictures!!!

I finally got my CD of pictures from the photographer, and am so happy that I finally get to start printing some out. It's about time!!! Here's a little preview for all of you.

Like there's not enough on my plate already. Now this?

On top of not having my stupid countdown clock working (10 days 22 hours BTW) I chipped a tooth today biting down on a very yummy cracker. That can't be good right? So here's the thing. I already have a dentist appointment set up on the 15th of August to have a root canal (on that tooth I might add. Maybe it's a sign...). Do I leave it until then, or go in earlier and see if they can file it a bit? It doesn't really bother me, I just don't want to lose it completely. Now I'm nervous. WHAT SHOULD I DO?!?!?! 

Am I dead yet?

So...I've added a countdown to help me remember when I'm getting married. Because, you know, I could forget. I've been to told to update my blog. Here you go Dad. Wedding plans are just about done. Thank goodness! I've been busy with so many things, but for the next 2 days I've got nothing to do (Sssshhh. I don't want Kay finding out I'm not doing anything) because I need Kay's help with what I've got left. Getting married is really hard sometimes. At least if you live in Alexandria, Virginia. Alexandria is probably the worst place to live. They take all your money in really random ways, and make things difficult to do. For instance: our marriage license. We are getting married, technically in Montgomery Country, Maryland, because that's where the temple is. Well, the temple sent us our application for marriage in MoCo (you know, Montgomery County-stay with me now people) to be filled out and notarized by a clerk of the court in Alexandria. We go in one Thursday afternoon on Kevin's lunch break to do this thinking, of course, that there wouldn't be any problem. But as Kevin points out so often, with things involving him, there's usually a problem. So, we go, and the lady says we need to make an appointment with Mr. So and So and here is his contact info. Kevin calls and the man says he only has next Thursday open. Goody. We get to wait a week. Meanwhile, the temple calls me wondering where our marriage license is, because we're getting married in three weeks, and they want to make sure they have it. I explain to her the situation, and and tells me that I should consider driving the application up to the courthouse in MoCo so that they have plenty of time to mail over the license to the temple. She calls back a few days later and says if I'm driving the application to the courthouse, then I can just drive the license to the temple. Fine. Keep in mind I have a 2 year old with me during all of this. So we go back the next Thursday to meet with Mr. So and So. He looks at my license to make sure I actually do live in Alexandria, like I claim, and goes back to sign and notarize it (all of which took 5 minutes. We needed to make an appointment for that?). Friday I drive the application to MoCo courthouse. She looked at the application and told me I could've mailed this in. I said to make sure we had enough time, I decided to drive it up. She then proceeds to tell me that if that was the plan, I could've just walked in at any time and done this because all she's gonna do is take the info off the paper, put it in the computer, throw the paper away, and hand me my license. Seriously?!?! So she didn't check my I.D., ask if the marriage was consensual, make sure Kevin was not my brother, blah, blah blah. Evidently they care less in Maryland than in Virginia. Who knows.

So my dress comes in on Thursday (I should have it already, but that's another story in and of itself) and Kay comes in on Wednesday. Then all shall be right in the wedding world. I haven't been sleeping well at night lately. I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's the prospect of getting married, or what, but-I woke up about 2 weeks ago and noticed that I had, for the first time EVER dark circles and bags under my eyes. Clearly I will have to see to those before 11 days and 22 hours from now. But who's counting...