waking up to another day of this amazing thing called life...

each day i wake up, i'm extremely thankful for all of the gifts god has given me! i think back on my life, and there has definitely been some rough times; i realize that i wouldn't be the person i am today without those rough times though.

i have an amazing husband...i love falling asleep next to him every night and waking up to him every morning...i love the fact that he makes me laugh every single day...i love traveling with him and seeing new sights that neither one of us has seen...i am madly in love with him and everything that he is...thank you, jon, for just being you...i love you, baby!

i have a wonderful family...parents (in laws included), siblings (in laws included) and their husbands/wives, adorable nieces and nephew (only 1 nephew as of right now!), and my extended family (aunts - including aunt 'laine (the one that left this life too early!), uncles, and cousins)! they are all the best family that anyone could ask for! to those that i've grown apart from over time...hopefully one day the fences will be mended! to those that live far away...i'm trying hard to stay in touch with each of you (through facebook, email, etc.) and please know that i think of you often and hope to see each of you at least once this year and each year going forward!

i have the best friends in the world...my college roommates (wow, what great memories we shared during our four years at cofc (the good and the bad!) and continue to share during our girls' weekends!)...i love you girls like crazy and think of you every day! the friends i met after college...i look forward to hanging out with you guys every chance we get! thanks for the great memories we've made so far, and here's to many, many more memories in the future!

much love to my awesome husband, amazing family, and great friends...thank you for all that you bring to my life! :)

one of those days...

so yesterday ended up being "one of those days!" to begin the day, i woke up at 8 (way too early for a weekend!) and couldn't go back to sleep! once jon got up, he and i started making breakfast and i made a big mess with the apple juice...i was shaking it before i poured it and the lid was not on it properly! after cleaning up the mess on the floor and the counter, i ended up leaving the kitchen and jon finished our awesome breakfast of sausage, pancakes, and eggs!

around 12 i decided it was time to get off the couch and head to jon's office to do some work. the toilet ended up getting clogged up while i was there (alone!), and once i tracked down the plunger i couldn't make it work!

after i finished working, jon and i headed to costco and the grocery store. when we got home and got everything unloaded, i managed to knock over the plant next to the sink....luckily i caught it before it hit the ground, but not before potting soil fell all over the floor! jon helped me clean up that mess too (what an awesome husband...of course he was making fun of me the whole time)!

after dinner i was baking chocolate chip cookies (maybe this was a sign i didn't need to be baking cookies!), and i managed to drop the spatula (that i had just used to put the cookies on a plate) on the floor...so chocolate chip remnants hit the floor! in the midst of this i put the hot cookie sheet on the counter and then grabbed it with my bare hand to move it....how dumb is that?!

what a day...at least my husband can make me laugh about it all! i must say it was nice to crawl in bed last night and leave yesterday behind!

the joys of spinning

before christmas i decided to try a spinning/cycling class at my gym. i started off with the 30 minute easy rider class (taught by jessica) but soon realized i was probably going to need to add a little more than just 30 minutes of it to my weekly gym schedule! so last week i decided to try the hour long class that takes place right after the 30 minute easy class. it actually went really well, and i wasn't sore the next day...shockingly! i felt so good after my hour and a half of spinning that i decided to try another hour long class the next day...with a different instructor (susan). that class was more intense than the hour and a half from the day before...susan doesn't give any breaks and makes you work your ass off (hopefully literally...i haven't seen much of a difference yet, but it's only been two weeks)! not that jessica doesn't make us work, it just seems that she breaks up the class a little differently!

this week i decided to do it all over again...an hour and a half on tuesday and then an hour on wednesday. tuesday was rough...i thought i would only make it 30 minutes, then i decided i could do an hour, but in the end i made it through the whole hour and a half! i did all of the sprints, jumps, and hills...and felt like i'd had another awesome workout at the end! i did susan's class last night and seriously thought i was going to die by the end of it...meanwhile susan (who is probably 50 years old mind you!) looks like she just took a short stroll down the street! on tuesday, i was feeling really good about my fitness level, but after yesterday i'm thinking i have a hell of a lot of cycling to do in the next few months (along with other classes and workouts at the gym) to get ready for the summer!

i had heard lots of stories about cycling and how much it hurts your butt...however i must have a lot of padding in mine because i really haven't been all that sore. i was ready for the kind of soreness where you can't sit down, and once you do sit down it's hell trying to get up, but luckily i haven't experienced that...at least not yet! here's to many more cycling classes...

24...the new season

jon and i are settling in for night one of the two night season premiere of 24...our favorite show! we've been waiting for weeks, and it's only an hour away! it's the important (fun) things in life that make the world go round!

now it's time to enjoy the rest of this sunday evening with my husband...and watch 24!

end of 2009 and beginning of 2010...crazy happenings

so the end of 2009 and the beginning of 2010 has brought some crazy happenings and exciting news! where to begin...

...while in new york, jon and I received the news that we were going to be aunt heidi and uncle jon again thanks to jon's brother, kirk and his wife, laura...surprise! the oldest (kate) will be 2 in february, the youngest (reese) will be 1 in july, and the new baby is due in august! they are amazing parents and i'm sure they will make life with 3 kids under 3 seem easy!

...jon's brother, kris and his fiancee, anne have started making wedding plans and hope to be married in october of this year! i'm so excited for them...anne is so cute and so much fun and kris is so happy...what a great couple!

...while in boston, i received a text message from my college roommate, emily, with a picture of a beautiful engagement ring! the one roommate that we knew would eventually find a guy who would knock her off her feet has met her prince charming! i'm super excited for them!

...more baby news...another friend of mine (i used to work with her mom at mbw) found out she is pregnant and is due in august, and the operations manager at our company just told everyone today that she is pregnant and due in july!

...one of jon's college classmates had an adorable baby (Emily Reese - love that name!) on january 5th...congrats josh and stacie!

...my brother just found out his dad has a cancerous tumor on his kidney. he's having surgery on wednesday in the hopes of removing the entire tumor, so please keep him in your prayers!

lots of stuff going on in 2010...and what a way to close out 2009 with some very exciting news! here's to another great year!

a weekend of relaxation

jon and i have had a wonderful weekend of relaxation! we celebrated one of our friend's 30th birthday last night, but other than that we have stayed on the couch and watched movies all weekend! i finally got my suitcase unpacked, did some much needed organizing in our office/back bedroom, and started organizing our tax information...then joined jon on the couch with a blanket for the rest of the day! it's been nice to catch up after being on vacation, spending the night in the airport last weekend, and then going back to a busy work week last week! it looks like this week will be even busier for both of us, but at least we will be well rested and ready to face it...i think!

nyc & boston...awesome vacation part 3

part 3 of our trip was not much fun...it involved delayed and missed flights and sleeping in the airport! our flight from boston to washington, dc was continuously delayed until about 10:30 saturday night...over 3 hours after we were supposed to take off. we missed our connecting flight to charleston, and were booked on separate flights (me at 7:55 and jon at 12:25) the next morning to charleston. once we got to dc, they were able to confirm jon on the flight with me...thank goodness because we'd both had enough of airports at that point! we got a couple of hours of sleep in the airport that night and couldn't wait to get home and go to bed!

when we finally arrived home around 10:30 am, we headed to bed and didn't wake up until 7 when we woke up and made dinner. we stayed up for a few hours and then went back to sleep until it was time to wake up for work this morning. not quite the ending to our vacation that we expected, but at least we made it home yesterday morning and didn't get stuck in boston because of the weather!

nyc and boston were amazing! what an awesome vacation...christmas and new year's were the perfect time to experience these cities! i love traveling!

nyc & boston...awesome vacation part 2

on wednesday we said goodbye to tee and katherine in nyc and loaded onto a packed bus for boston! it was a long and pretty miserable trip...more than 5 hours with no stops and not very much space. but we finally made it to boston and met up with brittany, jay, and pat at our hotel...and this is where part 2 -boston began...

thursday morning pat, jon, and i walked to breakfast at a diner down the street, and while we were eating it began snowing like crazy! snow is definitely not something i see often, so i must say i was pretty excited about it...at least for the first few hours of it! here is the view from our hotel room...the snow had covered the ground within a couple of hours!we walked through boston commons (a huge park) and then headed back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding....which we missed...and the reception on new year's eve! yes, we missed the wedding (ceremony only though!) thanks to the snow and traffic trying to get out of the city! the reception was lots of fun and we had a great time ringing in the new year and celebrating mike and toni's special day!

friday brought lots of fun and an interesting experience...we went to a real chinese restaurant in the chinatown section of boston! pat, jon, and i were the only americans (and english speaking people) in the restaurant, but i must say, the food was awesome! we also took the subway to the prudential center and went up to the observatory...what a spectacular view of the city! jon took tons of pictures and it was really neat to see everything in boston from a distance since we didn't have time to see many places in person! here is just one of the awesome photos of the city...

we ended the day with dinner at an authentic italian restaurant in the littly italy section of boston and grabbed some canolis to take back to the hotel for dessert! jon and i slept in saturday morning and then visited the bar that they used for the tv show cheers. we also watched sherlock holmes before heading back to the hotel and catching a taxi to the airport!

once we got to the airport, another adventure began....that's part 3 of our awesome vacation!

nyc & boston...awesome vacation part 1

vacation has been wonderful! we started in new york city last sunday (with katherine and tee), headed to boston (and met up with pat, jay, and brittany) on wednesday, rang in the new year at the davidson wedding, and are attempting to get home to charleston tonight or in the morning!

new york city was awesome! we went to see chicago (starring ashley simpson-wentz!) the first night we were there...

we saw many sites in new york...rockefeller center (with the christmas tree!), the empire state building (from top of the rock), times square, the statue of liberty (from battery park...in the frigid temperatures!), 5th avenue (fao schwarz & tiffany's) and we took a movie sites/tv show tour around the city!

katherine and i even got up one morning and went to see the today show...but only for a little while because it was only 23 degrees!

jon and i headed out of new york on a bus to boston on wednesday...and wow, was it an interesting bus trip! the bus was packed and it was a long 5 hour (supposed to be 4) trip! we were very happy to finally arrive in boston!

more on the rest of the trip tomorrow....getting tired and hoping our plane arrives from washington, dc soon, so we can at least get part of the way home tonight! we were supposed to fly out of boston at 7:15, but so far we are still here thanks to the weather in washington and boston! i think tonight will be spent in the washington-dulles airport! a first for me...spending the night in an airport! it will be worth it though since we have to be there for our flight to charleston 5 hours after we arrive!