Out with 2012 and in with 2013

Since it is already 2013 and I have been pretty awful at blogging this past year I thought I would do a little recap of 2012 to send it on its way and bring in 2013

January:

~ the Man came home from being deployed overseas for 5 1/2 months

~ Rented an apartment online without ever looking at it or the neighborhood it was in scary stuff that ended up turning out really well for us!

February:

~ booked a moving truck & packed up all of our stuff to move across the country

~ drove from California to Maryland in 4 days at 34 weeks pregnant

~ the Man became apart of the Navy Reserves instead of reenlisting as active duty Navy

March:

~ Started my job in its new location I kept my same job but transferred from CA to MD, so different people to work with

~ the Man got enrolled in college for the summer

~ We bought a new car

~ the Man found a job

~ the moving truck delivered all of our stuff

April:

~ Celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary well kind of, we had planned on going out to eat and to the movies a couple days later but I decided that our new apartment was a disaster and not ready for a baby to come home to yet so we stayed home that night and then I ended up going into labor

~ Welcomed the most amazing little boy into our lives

~ My mom came out and visited and met Jackson for the first time

May:

~ the Man's parents came out and visited and met Jackson

~ My dad & sister drove out to visit us and deliver a few things from WI

~ the Man started his college classes

June:

~ Celebrated my 27th birthday with a visit from two amazing friends! Still can't believe you pulled off that surprise

~ My maternity leave ended

~ Nicki came out to babysit for a couple weeks until the Man and I were on opposite shifts

July:

~ the Man switched from days to 2nd shift

~ the Man finished up his summer college classes

~ Jackson started to laugh and smile when he thought things were funny not just when he was sleeping

August:

~ Took a vacation to Wisconsin

~ Jackson's first plane ride

~ Jackson was baptized

~ Celebrated the Man's 26th birthday with friends in WI

September:

~ the Man started the fall semester of college

~ the Man switched to working 3rd shift

~ We took Jackson to his first baseball game, the Brewers played the Nationals

October:

~ Jackson and I flew to WI by ourselves

~ Celebrated my Mom & Bill's wedding

~ Jackson turned 6 months

~ Jackson's bottom 2 teeth popped threw

~ Jackson started to eat real food

~ Jackson started to crawl and with that get into EVERYTHING

~ Took Jackson trick-or-treating for the first time

November:

~ Celebrated Thanksgiving with new friends in MD

~ Jackson started pulling up on furniture and moving around it

~ Welcomed our niece Dahlia to the family we cannot wait to meet her!

December:

~ the Man finished the fall semester of college

~ we celebrated our first Christmas as a family of 3

~ the Man's parents came out and visited for Christmas

~ ended up signing a lease at our current apartment for another year
~ Jackson's 3rd tooth popped threw

I know that I probably missed a ton of milestone's and things that have happened this past year.  Overall 2012 was a pretty amazing year filled with tons of ups and a few downs.  I know both Josiah & I are looking forward to see what 2013 has in store for us and our family.

Happy New Year to all of you and your family's. Here's to family, faith, love and new adventures & opportunities in 2013!

Visit from Friend(s)

A couple weeks back, my birthday week and the little man's 2 month birthday, we were lucky enough to have a couple friends visit us.  Well I should start by saying that we only knew about one of these friends coming out...little did I know that they booked their tickets together and decided to keep a HUGE secret from me by not telling me our other friend was also coming along.  I just have to say good job to both of you on keeping it a secret for so long.  I was completely surprised when I went to pick up Megan from the airport and found out Nadine was also there.  It actually didn't really sink in until we were back at the apartment that she was there....the baby was having a rough morning and might have had me a little frazzled!

It was awesome to get to see both of them again and that they were able to meet Jackson.  We did a lot of fun things while they were here.  The first thing they got to do was go to Jackson's 2-month appointment with me and watch him get 3 shots, ok so maybe that wasn't so much fun.  But after that we walked around Georgetown and grabbed a bite to eat.

The next day was my birthday and we did some touristy site-seeing in downtown D.C.  We saw a few different memorials, the White House and tons & tons of girl scouts...it just so happened they were celebrating 100 years of girls scouts that day. 

On Saturday we got to check out the Smithsonian National Zoo.  It was really awesome, especially since its a free zoo!!  It has been decided that if we are still living in this area Jackson will have his 3rd birthday party there...so everyone better start saving up to come celebrate with us!  After the zoo we went back and had a little pool time at the apartment and just relaxed since we had to get up at 3:30 a.m. to get them to the airport.

Enough with the words and onto a few photos!

 World War II Memorial

 Jackson enjoying site-seeing in downtown D.C.

 Almost all of us at the zoo

 Thirsty Nadine getting water from the Tiger at the Zoo

 Zoo

 Megan's obsessed with Smart Cars and got super super happy every time she saw one

 The White House

Nadine & Megan some what near the Washington Monument

I know I didn't do a great job summarizing their trip but free time is limited and I really should be sleeping instead.  I had an amazing time while they were here and I really hope they both come back out to visit again soon :)

All pictures were taken by either Josiah, Megan or Nadine

Happy Birthday To Who??? To Me!!

So I know I am way behind on A LOT of posts, so bare with me as I try and back track and catch up.

Last Friday it was my birthday.  In previous years this is one of the biggest events of the entire year for everyone I know, well at least that's what I like to believe.  I usually celebrate for at least a week if not the whole month of June.  For some reason this year it didn't seem as important to me as it has in the past.  I'm not sure if that's because I'm getting older or if it has to do with Jackson.  Either way my birthday still ended up being amazing without me making a big deal about it.

Two of our friends, Megan & Nadine, came out to visit us that week.  So on my actual birthday we did a little site-seeing in downtown D.C. The baby did an amazing job with all the site-seeing, he was super happy all day and even was awake when we stopped at the Lincoln Memorial.  It was the first time I rode the Metro without Josiah, which I thought was pretty awesome since I got us where we wanted to go without any troubles at all.  I did almost have a minor freak out when we got to the Metro station and the elevator was broken so we had to take the escalator.  It wouldn't have been so bad if it would have been a normal sized escalator but this thing was super steep and extremely long.  Little did I know that Megan has experience with strollers and escalators, she pretty much man-handled that thing!  Thanks Friend!!!

Photo courtesy of Megan....The HUGE escalator we took the stroller down and this isn't even from the top!

So all in all it was a pretty awesome day spent with the family and two great friends!!  Let's hope 27 is as good to me as 26 was!

A M A Z I N G

Amazing! The only word to describe my new iPad 2. I knew the iPad 2 would be pretty awesome but I totally under estimated how amazing it actually is, and I have only had it for 3 days. Right now I am trying to even blog from it, we will see how it well it goes.

Here are some apps I download and think are pretty awesome:

Pocket Pond is only entertaining for about 5 minutes but it is still pretty cool. You can make ripples in the water and the fish swim away when you touch the water.

Flipboard takes YOUR Facebook, instagram, blogs you follow and puts them in a magazine format. So you can flip through the pages and see all the info you are looking for....this is one of my favorite apps!!!

Hitpad keeps me up to date on all the latest info. I haven't explored this app too much yet but from what I have seen it seems pretty sweet.

Well there are just 3 of the apps I have downloaded....I did forget to mention that I am using BloggerPlus to write this blog. I have a lot to learn about the iPad 2 yet but so far nothing has disappointed me.

I do have to thank the Man for this awesome birthday present!

It's My Birthday!!!! The start of being closer to 30 than 20!

Today is my birthday! The day I look forward to the most every year. 

2 years old

Before we look at what 26 has to offer, lets see what happened at 25! 

Highlights of being 25:

• Started a new job (that I love)
• Took 2 trips back to Wisconsin
• Had visits from Megan, Josiah's Parents, my Mom & Bill, Nicki, and Chad & Carrie
• Went to see the Badgers play in Vegas, where I saw more friends from WI
• Went to see the Badgers play in the Rose Bowl, also met up with Kyle and his family
• Took another trip to Vegas to see Carrie
• Took a trip to San Francisco with the Man
• Met some awesome friends!
• Celebrated being married for a year (it went by really fast!) 

Overall 25 was a pretty good year for me. It defiantly had its downs but judging from the list above there were ALOT of highlights!

This years birthday cupcake

The start of 26

This years birthday was pretty good.  I brought cupcakes to the people I work with on almost a daily basis....they were AMAZING!!  I received tons of birthday wishes on facebook and in text messages, thanks again to everyone that wished me a Happy Birthday, and I even got a few phone calls :)  I ended the night with a birthday dinner at La Fiesta with two friends, Coleta & Kat.  

Lets hope the rest of 26 goes as well as today, if not better!  

I probably should have just made this two posts but oh well!

technology overkill

Guess what just came in the mail?!?!?!?!

The Man's birthday present!!!

Let me give you a little bit of info first: 

A couple weeks before he left his computer blew up, in case you do not know the man very well that is a BIG deal! His computer blowing up would be very similar to someone's pet dieing, not saying a computer or a pet are even close to the same thing but in his eyes they are probably very close. If you haven't figured out he is a little bit of a geekster and I love it....most of the time! He has been without a computer for over a month now.  So I decided to get him a super early birthday present since he won't be around to celebrate his actual birthday.

Here is the Man's new computer!

This computer will now be the 4th laptop in our house....OMG! thats a lot of freakin computers for 2 people and that is not counting his old one that doesn't work!! 

Ok now that the shock of 4 laptops has worn off I will explain it so it doesn't sound so bad....

• I have 1 Dell laptop that I use every day.  
• I also have a HP laptop that work provided for me, which is super slow and I only use for work things.  
• My old Dell laptop was turned into a server, so I have the ability to print wirelessly, not sure if thats a word or not, to either one of our 2 printers.  
• Yes, we also have 2 printers....1 Canon that we bought and 1 HP that work provided me. 
• So now we have our 4th laptop because the Man just got a new Asus for his birthday....he picked it out so its not a big surprise to him.

Top Left: My Dell computer, Bottom Left: My HP work computer, Right: the Man's new Asus computer

I think this is what happens when you marry a geekster.....technology overload!!!  and to think I also have an iPhone and might be getting an iPad 2 for my birthday.....we might need to rethink that!!

the start of MY birthday month!

June has to be the best month of the year....school is getting over with, the start of summer, & it's my birthday month (my personal favorite reason)  To kick off the month on a good note I went to the Goo Goo Dolls concert with my friend Coleta.  The concert was good, not great but good.  There were a few songs I could have done without but overall I am glad I went. Plus the saxophone solo during Broadway was AMAZING!

Nightmares and Dreams

This may be my new favorite song by the Goo Goo Dolls

this is the only video I could find of the song, I think the performed it way better at the concert I was at

Some pictures I took at the concert

Sorry for the not so great quality, taken on the iPhone from a distance

Pre-concert meal at Eureka!Burger

Corndog Lollipops....so yummy!!