here’s to 4 years…

of wedded bliss :)

And 10 points to anyone who can guess the name of our little boy based on this picture:

And no guessing if you already know!!  (Ben and Mary!)

Merry Christmas!

Christmas was a little different for us this year – it was my first Christmas spent without any extended family, for one, it was 78 degrees for another.  Even though I have lived in Florida and Hawaii for the past 7 years, I’ve always spent Christmas in either Connecticut or Idaho – cold and (usually) snowy places.  But this year our little Charlie Brown Christmas tree was fully appreciated!  (and not left behind like every other year).    

On Christmas Eve we went orange picking,

 

and floated the Ocklawaha River on our kayak

On Christmas day we went to Little River Spring and grilled some steaks my dad sent us for Christmas, went swimming.  We had breakfast in the morning with some fresh-squeezed OJ (yum!) and burnt eggs, toast, and bacon (don’t ask, I don’t know.  I DO know, however, that our smoke detector DEFINITELY works).

Florida is beautiful!!  As our time here gets shorter (and Dusty’s graduation closer!) we are realizing that more and more, and trying to take full advantage of every moment we have work off together to explore and enjoy the nature around here.

When we got home we made sticky buns, a favorite of Dusty’s family (cinnamon/brown sugar/butterscotch buttery goodness) – but we made 18 buns and ate them all.  By ourselves.  Needless to say, we both were feeling sick on Sunday night.

Overall, a very merry Christmas! 

And…

this was almost 2 weeks ago (34 weeks), so I’m a bit bigger now, but this is a better picture!

this is why I love Ct…

I love my family!  This year Dusty and I headed to Ct for Thanksgiving.  It is a “Wargo” Christmas year (we do every other year with each family), but since I will be just about 36 weeks pregnant on the 25th, decided it would be best not to do a lot of traveling then.  (well, my doctor decided).  Dusty stayed for about 5 days, and I took my Christmas PTO and stayed for about 10.  I love being home! Dusty and I even got the apartment all to ourselves, which means we were actually warm for most of our stay (separate temperature control!). 

              

I’m only sad we didn’t get to see the Alaska and Seattle Wargo’s, but hopefully we’ll be seeing them in the summer!

happy birthday love

11.12.82

(I hope our baby is this cute!)

And in other news, this birthday boy is officially a private pilot!  He took me on the maiden voyage a few days ago –first flight with someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing in the cockpit.  I’ll admit, the only time I really felt nervous was when I saw this:

It is TINY!  But Dusty’s take-off’s and landings were perfect (I thought) and I didn’t feel nervous at all during the flight.  Well, that’s a lie…I took control of the airplane for about 45 seconds while we were flying.  It was.  So.  Scary. 

See the concentration in my face?

But DUSTY’s flying was great!  We went to Cedar Key, walked around for awhile, sat on the beach.  I was hoping to break in some new shoes for DC but just ended up getting blisters and having to take them off  (and not take them to DC :(.  )

 

 

Congratulations Dusty!  You are awesome.  Also, props for not freaking out because this little guy:

hitched a ride back to Gainesville with us.  (And seriously, people, this cabin is SMALL!!)

Today I went to the library.

Lately when I go to the library, I seem to know exactly what I’m looking for and head straight to the Young Adult section.  Today I thought, “I bet this book will be in the (normal) fantasy section…it’s pretty popular..” So I headed instead to the grown-up section (feeling really grown-up).  No such luck, so I meandered back to my familiar nook of the library, thinking that SOMEday - I will graduate to that section, but not today.  Sometimes I even feel weird in the YA section – like an imposter, or maybe I’m just not smart enough to be interested in something in the normal book area.  Ah well,  I barely see people I know in the library anyway…

But today I got to my nook, and could NOT find Harry Potter.  Yes, I’m re-reading all the Harry Potter books, because I only read the first 4 (or 5?), a VERY long time ago (like before college – I know I’m so old) (but not grown-up, haha) and I’ve been wanting to finish them for awhile now.  But when I asked for help to find them, I learned they are in the CHILDREN’s section (duh, Julie!).  I’ve never been to the Children’s section of our library – it’s downstairs and I’ve never had a reason to go there….and it is awesome.  Who knew!!  First of all, the decorating is much better than upstairs.  And they have all these cute little miniature sofas and chairs for kids to read in, and I think I spent at least an hour sitting on the floor reading children’s books – that were so good!! 

And I realized, I will NOT be graduating any time soon - I might actually be reversing in my literature interests in the next few years… and I’m so excited!!

ch-ch-ch-ch-changes…

Meet the newest addition to our family,

A baby BOY arriving sometime at the end of January 2012 :)

He had the hiccups today during the ultrasound, it was so cute I started crying. 

I already can’t get enough of him!

I need a mom…

close to me.  Geographically.  I have been blessed by TWO (not one, but two!) of the greatest moms I EVER could have custom asked for.  Really – I’ve always know that my Mom was the best – the person I look up to, the advice I ask for, she is compassionate and generous, has character and integrity, she’s always serving other people, she loves with her whole heart, and she’s always there for me when I need her to be. For example, on a particularly bad day a few weeks ago, I called my mom.  She bought a plane ticket – that day, and I got to spend last weekend with her.  It was wonderful :)

And a few years ago, I got really lucky and married the man of my dreams, whose mother then became my amazing mom #2 – I really don’t know why my life is turning out so good!  I wrote down a list of words that describe my Mom Williams: crazy, open-hearted and open-minded, generous, adventurous, spontaneous, joyful, energetic, full of love.  She came to visit the weekend before my (original) mom, so I got two weekends of good momma TLC.  There are now 6 home-cooked frozen dinners in my freezer, not including leftovers.  My house is clean, and my shoulder/neck muscles are actually not sore OR tight.  Yes, I’m spoiled.  And I’m ok with that :)

  (really?  this is the last picture of my mom and I that I can find, it was taken almost 2 years ago!  We need to take more pictures!) 

Now I just need to actually live NEAR one of them, so all this goodness doesn’t have to be condensed into two weekends!

family

Last week Dusty and I got to spend some quality time with these munchkins,

and these ones too

(that’s my mom’s, “I thought I lost you in New York” face – it’s always good to be home!)  

PLUS a lot of other awesome people, like my Dad, Gee, Jen, Matt, Jenean and Derek…but…they didn’t squeeze into any pictures of Penelope or Piper so I’m sorry to say I don’t have so many of those guys! 

Matt and Jenean got in this one - we celebrated my birthday,

(there is a candle in that cup…25 of them, actually…)

And I already miss them like crazy.  Again.  Well…time to start planning my next trip!