Bryan's First Day of School

I believe shortly after the wedding I blogged about how difficult it was to decide what our next step was because we felt we were being pulled in so many different directions.  That is still true.  It seems like every passing month there's a noticeable increase of the subject of children in our conversations, but we know that although we love our life just the way it is now, we're not ready to bring children into it.  There are things we want to work on in our careers, our relationship, and our lives in general.

The number one object of our attention is our careers.  Right now we both have stable jobs in large corporations that pay us well for the fact that we don't have much(in my case) or any(in Bryan's case) college education.  While this has served us well until now, there are a list of reasons why it might not be enough in the future:

1. Kids are expensive.
2. Corporations are evil.  Although right now we're safe because we're the worker bees, if we ever tried to move up in the corporation to management or some other higher position, they're always the first on the chopping block when it comes to lay offs and 'reorganization'.
3. Most women I know around my age that have kids were not happy as full time working mothers with their children in daycare.  We would like to have the ability to drop one of us down to part-time work at least -you know, just in case.
4. Our house will fit two kids well enough in the beginning, but eventually we'll outgrow this house.
5. I went to Disney World for the first time 3 months ago, and dammit, my kids just aren't going to have to wait that long!

Doesn't he coordinate so well?  He didn't want to take the blue car for fear of looking like an idiot.

So, I am very proud to say that today was Bryan's first day of college!  He's going to a community college to get his associates in network engineering and his hope is to be able to get a job at a school district or college so he'll have the same schedule as our future kids(see how everything comes back to them now... when did that happen?).  I'm so proud of him for going back after so long and wish him the best of luck!

I may be biased...

But I think it's safe to say that I have the best husband in existence.

This morning I woke up horrified after having a dream that he suddenly died.  I called him crying, trying to tell him about my dream between sobs.  After speaking to him, I calmed down enough to crawl back into bed to cuddle with the puppies and lay restlessly.  Sure enough, after he finished the job he was at, he took the 30 minute trip from where he was in Maryland and came home with breakfast in hand.

It made me think about how just earlier this week I was whining about how the best part of our relationship can also be the worst part.  The best part of our relationship is that being together is so effortless.  We love each other so much and get along so well that every day is just like hanging out with the best friend you've ever had.  My complaint was that we often get too comfortable and other important aspects of our marriage fall to the wayside, but one thing I've always promised myself I wouldn't do is take what we do have for granted.  It's always easy to point out the things that aren't the way we'd like them to be and dwell on them, but we rarely sit and think of the things that are oh, so right.  My husband is, by far, the best thing that has ever happened to me and without him I wouldn't have any of the things that I love so much about this life we've built.

I don't know why I felt the need to share this with all of you, but I mean, look at the man.  Sometimes his praise just needs to be sung!

Welcome to the world, Liam Clark

Earlier today, our newest nephew was born!  7lbs 6oz, 20.5", and perfect in every way.  After Bryan got out of work, we drove up to the hospital to meet him and visit with his family.

 Little pumpkin hat!

 I absolutely love Jude's expression in this picture.

 He definitely has the potential to be the most awesome big brother.

"And as they held you
close they whispered
in your open, curving ear,
 'We are so glad you've come!'"

Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won't you be my neighbor?

Remember in January when Bryan got attacked by the dog that belongs to a lady down the street?  And she followed us to our house acting like WE were to blame?  Good news: after that incident, our interactions with her have been great!  We've had no more problems with the dog and she's been cordial each time we've crossed paths.

We thought things were finally looking up for us in our neighborhood... until I came home from eating lunch with Bryan today.  I was taking the trash can back up to the house from the curb when I noticed two large holes in our yard.  It just so happens that the muddy tracks from said tire marks led directly across the street into our neighbors lot.

Here we go again.

Once again, we play that sensitive game.  We could call the police, but there's no way to prove who did it and the marks might be just far enough over to be on the strip of land that doesn't technically belong to us(we use it anyway).  We could march over there and question them for something they may not have done.  Start a war.  Start a fight.

So, here we are, yet again, pretending that it never happened.  The only difference is this time I started a notebook and backdated it for the first two incidents with devil-dog so if anything happens, we have documentation and pictures.  Take THAT neighbors from hell.

Disney and our actual anniversary.

We absolutely LOVED Disney World. We soaked up every minute of it - opening the parks up in the morning and shutting them down at night. There are only a few rides we didn't go on, and a ton of them that we rode 2-4x. Our absolute favorite part of the trip was our first night there. We arrived to a torrential downpour - it literally took 4 days for our clothes to dry out. Did that stop us? Nope! We went to Downtown Disney with Linda and her group and when they ended up going back to the room, we took the shuttle over to the Magic Kingdom. We rode almost every popular ride(except Splash Mountain[because we were wet enough] and Pirates of the Caribbean[because we didn't see it]), and got to see the castle for the first time lit up in all it's glory!

Our second favorite day was our anniversary. We spent the day in Epcot because Bryan made us reservations at a restaurant called the Coral Reef. So, we enjoyed all of the rides, had a marvelous dinner, got a delicious free dessert(that we were ALMOST too full to eat), and made it out of the restaurant in JUST ENOUGH time to get a good seat for the fireworks show. Afterwards, we made the trip back to our hotel and invited everyone in to enjoy some cake.

Another question people always ask is our favorite rides, but it's very hard to pick just one. It would probably be the tower of terror because I think we went on that 5 times, but here is how I like to break it down:

Magic Kingdom:
Rides - Splash Mountain(Bryan's absolute fave), Space Mountain
Food - Casey's hot dogs(we at there 4 times - they have amazing hot dogs/corn dog bites, and cheese sauce for the fries... YUM! The tables outside were also a great vantage point for the fireworks show and parades), and Aloha Isle for the Dole Whip ice cream!
Show - The fireworks behind the castle

Epcot:
Rides - Soarin' and Test Track

Hollywood Studios:
Rides - Toy Story Mania, Tower of Terror(My absolute Fave)
Show - They had the absolute best show - Fantasmic!

Animal Kingdom:
Rides - Dinosaur, Mount Everest, and it's tough to be a bug
Food - Flame Tree BBQ

We also went to Universal Studios which was a bit of a disappointment on the day we went. The biggest roller coaster was out of order all day, the park closed early which caused long lines, it was not nearly as organized and flawlessly operated as Disney, and we could only get into one side of the park. We both liked ET the best.

We plan to go back often. NEVER have we wished we had kids more than we did when we were there.

Mohawk No More

Did you notice anything else about the pictures from our anniversary dinner? The blue/green mohawk is no more!



I know what you're thinking, but it really wasn't my idea. I'll be honest and say that it WAS getting on my nerves. Not the color or the mohawk, persay, but when he wasn't wearing it up or wearing a hat(which is 90% of the time) it was just this long, gross, and usually greasy mess of blue/green hair. Let me assure you that it is not something that makes you look at your husband and anticipate getting him into bed later that night...

His own reasons were that he didn't want to scare any kids at Disney World, he didn't want to have to get it trimmed and re-dyed before our trip, and he wanted to look nice for our anniversary/pictures from Disney. Last night when I told him how handsome he looked, he just smiled and said "See, that's why I cut the mohawk!" Will it be back? I'm sure it will. And hopefully it will be orange next time!

Our 1st Anniversary - At Home

Today we celebrated our one year anniversary at home. We got dressed up and ate at a fantastic Italian restaurant called Soffritto’s. When we got home we ate the actual top tier of our wedding cake from our freezer(which was surprisingly still moist and delicious) and reminisced about our wedding day.

Our first year as a married couple wasn’t that much different than the 3 years before besides the fact that people were calling me Mrs. Wilson(it STILL sounds weird) and Bryan wears a piece of jewelry other than his gauged earrings. Don’t get me wrong, it was an absolutely GREAT year, but how was this year EVER supposed to top the year before? What could really top all of the planning, presents, excitement, love, pampering, and traveling that we did the year before? It couldn’t. More than anything, it’s left us wondering what’s next for us while wanting to do everything at once. College, babies, traveling, etc.

I’ve realized that our first anniversary is less of a celebration in our marriage as it is in our relationship as a whole. To think back on how long we’ve been together, the things we’ve been through, and the life we’ve made together is what’s really rewarding. Last week Bry hung some pictures up in our room that I had found from years back. One of them was a picture of us on our first dating anniversary where I decorated the frame with little stickers that said “Wouldn’t it be nice”. It really brought me back to the time when that Beach Boys song was our anthem. The days when so many people didn’t want us to be together and we clung to the idea that one day when we were older we’d be able to be together and no one could stop us. To think that we’ve made it to this point through so MANY pitfalls, speed bumps, and sticky situations and still came out with enough enthusiasm and love for each other to get married and still believe we may have a “happily ever after” is amazing. Sometimes we’ll think back on some of the situations we’ve been in and wonder why we didn’t throw in the towel, but we’re so glad we didn’t.

Bryan's response to this when I showed it to him really said it all: "Awww that makes me so happy :) it's all so true! We need to try and make every year of our lives exciting and do things to make every year memorable!" Well said, Mr. Wilson, well said.

Happy Anniversary, my love, and here's to many more memorable years!