Harvey's Graduation

Harvey, our proud graduate

We are proud to say that Harvey has passed his Advanced Training class at Petsmart on 1/15/2011 and is now ready to pursue his dream of the Canine Good Citizenship Award.  Harvey has surpassed the expectations of his parents and we are very proud of his accomplishments.

Merry Christmas!

Tyler and I went to St. Louis this year to celebrate our first Christmas together. We were also able to celebrate Ruben's 3rd birthday on Christmas Eve.  We had a good time with my family and enjoyed the pretty snow we had on Christmas Eve and Day. We also had a delicious Turkey dinner and flautas the following the day.  Here are a few pictures from our time there and from our own home.

Harvey in front of our tree in Texas

Penny cat in front of the fireplace

Julia and Tyler in front of our tree

Tyler and I had a great time and we hope to be back there next year as well!

Happy New Year 2011!!!

I am excited to post for the New Year and am looking forward to all of the adventures it has in store for us.
2010----Just wanted to mention all the good things that happened during that year.
1. Engaged-Tyler and I got engaged on April 16, 2010 after 2.5 yrs of dating. We were so excited to finally be getting closer to get married.
2. Job-finished my first year as a nurse practitioner and I have to say it was one of the hardest. Just like being a new grad RN it is even ten times harder as an NP. But, I survived and am doing well in my position.
3. Married----Tyler and I were married on August 14th, 2010 in the St. Louis Temple in Missouri. We had a small intimate reception and were able to visit with all of our close family and friends. We went on a honeymoon to Florida and spent a week visiting disney world and driving up and down the coast checking out different beaches. By far our favorites were Casperson Beach, famous for fossilized shark teeth and Sanibel Island world famous for shelling. Overall, we had a blast.
4. Future Aunt----after a long time, my sister is finally going to have a baby and am I super excited to see what this baby is going to look like and become one day.
5. Nick-he finally graduated from Purdue as a nuclear engineer and is now job hunting. We are so proud of him.
6. Tyler----accepted at UT Dallas and pursuing an electrical engineering degree and is training Harvey to be a scent hound.

Looking forward to 2011, I have a big milestone that I am approaching......I will be turning 30!!!
Hard to believe am I going to be that age but time flies I suppose when you are busy. We are hoping to be able to celebrate this milestone by going back to where it all started.....SEATTLE!!!!
Anyway, not much else to report at this time. I haven't transferred Christmas Pictures yet so I will hold off on that post. Right now I am sick with bronchitis and have been since the 23rd and am slowly recovering. Had to switch antibiotics as the one I was put on wasn't working.
Happy NEW YEAR!!!!!

Fall Fun!!!

Haven't recorded anything in awhile because I got lazy about it. Since my last post, Halloween came and went and thanksgiving as well. Its only a few days until Christmas and we still haven't had our picture taken with Santa. Harvey and Penny cat are both doing well. Harvey is completing Advanced Training at Petsmart today and if he passes the 3 minute stay he qualifies to take the Canine Good Citizenship test. This will qualify him to start therapy dog training if we want to pursue that path. We are very proud of him! Penny cat is doing well and loves to play at night all over the house and sleep next to Harvey on the couch when we are gone. Whenever one of us is gone they both sit at the top of the stairs in the afternoon to wait for us. They are really good friends and get along so well. She keeps Harvey in line!!

Harvey enjoying the property

Wet from swimming

Harvey looks like a giant muskrat or beaver swimming

Harvey anxiously waiting to see if he won the Halloween costume contest....He didn't :(

Tyler's Birthday!

Tyler just completed his first semester at University of Texas at Dallas after transferring from the community college. He has decided to pursue Electrical engineering and is excited to start classes again on January 10th.
As for me, I was recently in the Dallas Morning News with a picture of myself with a picture for an article about the hospital I work for Parkland's Kidney Transplant Program. It was for the most part a positive article for us. Tyler and I are headed to visit St. Louis for Christmas and to celebrate Ruben's 3rd birthday on the 20th.

Otherwise, we are just working and having fun with our pets. I hope to post more in the next few weeks about our Holidays!!

1 month

Tyler and I have been married for a little over a month now and are adjusting well. We are both busy with school, work, and our jobs. Harvey is still in his advanced training course which is held every saturday. The past few weeks we have been taking him out to the dog park for exercise at night.
 I am going out of town to go to Rita's Baby shower in Granite city this coming weekend.  The following weekend is Leigh's wedding so I will be gone for that as well. Two weekends after that I am headed to Nashville for a transplant nurse practitioner's symposium that I have been waiting all year to go to and am excited to attend. Lots of travel which I am not really looking forward to since I like to just be at home.  We really haven't done much since the wedding besides have Tyler's birthday. And we really didn't do anything for that except by a cheesecake for his cake and I baked a yellow cake with chocolate frosting for his real birthday.

My back has been hurting a lot since about last thursday. I can't explain why it is hurting and maybe think its due to a combination of poor sitting posture at work to stress, and possibly just being overweight. I am headed to the doctor's after work to see what she can do for me about this pain.  Otherwise, I am doing well. That's about it for now.
I do realize that the above picture has nothing to do with the post but I like this picture.

I'm married!!!

I finally have the chance to write a post about the recent events.  Tyler and I were married on August 14th at 2:30pm in the St. Louis Temple. It was such a beautiful ceremony and we were lucky to have the people we love be there with us to witness our sealing. Only a couple funny things to mention about the events prior, Tyler forgot to shave in all the excitement so we had to procure his dads electric razor 10 minutes before the sealing. I was so hot in my dress I thought I was going to pass out and had to have a drink of water before proceeding cause I was getting all nervous and anxious about passing out cause I was so hot. Other than those two things, it all went well.  We were greeted outside by everyone and we then had dozens of pictures taken.

 After all the pictures were taken about 4:45pm we managed to head to reception site which was at the 9th street abbey in Soulard. We had a great time visiting with all our family and friends and had a delicious meal of either chicken saltimbocca or chili rubbed porkchops.  We had cesear salad and for dessert delicious lemon wedding cake and raspberry cake along with chocolate cake. The grooms cake was all chocolate with two strawberries as a groom and bride.  To accompany the wedding cake, we also had Ted Drewe's Frozen custard station with a ton of toppings to choose from.  We had a wonderful guitarist who played throughout the event and we had our first dance to "Making Memories of Us" by Keith Urban.  After all the goodbyes at around 9pm, we took more pictures and finally left for the Hilton Homewood Suites where we were greeted with Sparkling peach drink, brownie bites, petit four carrot cake, keylime pie, apple streudel bites. My sister Katherine did a wonderful job! The next morning we headed over to my mom and dads and spent the afternoon with them before having my mom and brother drop us off at the airport to head off to our honeymoon in Florida.

We are happy to be home now and enjoying being together and setting up our house though that really means finding a place for Tyler's stuff!  We went to our church for the first time today and we were warmly greeted and everyone seems to be really nice. Overall, this whole wedding experience was very good and though I would never want to do it again I am glad that it is finally over.

Wedding Week

So, my wedding is now in three days and everything seems to going well. I have come to the conclusion that something won't go well and to just go with it and not get worked up about it.  Tyler and I went and got our marriage license on Monday and paid the photographer our last payment.  Otherwise we are just hanging out here in IL with my family enjoying their company. Tyler and I went to Cahokia mounds yesterday. It is a national historic site that is about 10 miles from my house. It is an area with large mounds of dirt build by people over a 1000 years ago. We were able to go to the museum and watch the movie, walk around the exhibits and at the end we walked up Monks Mound which is 100ft tall and has over 100 steps to climb. We had a great time and I loved showing him the place since it was a very frequented field trip spot when I was growing up. Though walking through the museum there were only 3 new exhibits.
Anyway, not much else to report. Just hanging out until the big day.