Daddy's Day

My kids are lucky enough to call this handsome dude Daddy. And I'm lucky enough to call him my baby daddy. Except I don't really call him that, but I should because it's funny. I honestly can't imagine doing this thing called parenthood with anyone else.



Adam's day started with Lorelai wishing him a happy Mother's Day (oops!!) but the rest of the day and weekend were just perfect.

I think that we've established many many times here that we love nothing more than to be completely lazy whenever possible. Mission accomplished on Sunday, for sure. Even though no one slept in, Adam got to lay on the couch, watch World Cup games with the boys, and play video games all day, until it was time to go to the Melting Pot for a delicious dinner with his side of the family. That might literally have been his perfect day. He didn't even have to fold a stitch of laundry! :)

But we weren't lazy the whole weekend. On Saturday, we went to Frankie's Fun Park for some arcade games and go-carting. If he's not going to relax at home, a trip to the arcade is probably at the top of Adam's list of places to go. Of course the kids were happy to oblige.



And me too, because I got to drive a go cart and do the Drop Zone ride with Aidan and Logan. Makes me realize how much we really need to plan a trip to Carowinds or Kings Dominion soon!



It was a wonderful Father's Day weekend, full of fun, love and appreciation for him. I really hope my kids know just how lucky they are to have him.

Good news!

I'm happy to say that after a long 2+ months, Adam has a job! He accepted a verbal offer on Tuesday, and signed his offer papers today. He starts at the end of the month. Hammalujia! I'm so, SO happy for him that he found what seems to be a really good fit. A lateral move, so he didn't have to settle for a position below what he was doing before. Which, let me tell you--was a definite challenge. There were far more open positions for property managers than his desired regional manger position, so he put in lots (and lots) of applications to positions for which he was overqualified. As a hiring manager, he knows firsthand that in most cases, his resume was completely passed over because he was overqualified. Not many people want to hire someone who would be better at their job than they are, you know?

So after a fair amount of disappointment and frustration, his patience paid off and the stars have aligned. We can enjoy the holidays with a great weight lifted off our shoulders knowing that bigger and better things are officially right around the corner for him. Whew!

To celebrate, we went out to eat at Moe's and then did some Christmas shopping. And I think Adam and I both slept a little easier that night, knowing that the future is a little more certain.

Birthday froyo and dollar store shopping for the win

Happy 34th birthday to my hubby! The kids have been so excited about his birthday for some reason. Lorelai especially, who has serenaded him with Happy Birthday several times before today. And when I tucked Logan in to bed last night, he said he was so excited about tomorrow because "it's pep rally day, PE and Daddy's birthday!" So cute. :)


She's being sweet, not trying to get away, I swear. :)


This weekend, I took the boys shopping for Adam's birthday. We went during Lorelai's nap to make things more efficient, and after some initial "whaaa, I don't wanna go shopping!" whines, they were really into picking the perfect gifts for Adam. They had some very specific things in mind (one of which we couldn't find, so it'll go on our Christmas list) and got some great ideas as we browsed. They didn't even complain too much when I dragged them into DSW to look for shoes for myself, which ended up being a great move on my part, since we happened upon a great pair of happy socks for Adam.



When Lorelai woke up from her nap, I took her to the dollar store like I did with the boys a few years ago to get "a pink present for Daddy." Before we left, she even asked him if he liked pink. He said yes, he does have some pink dress shirts. She was SOLD.

It was a hilarious trip, and I'm so sad no one else was there to enjoy it with me. Maybe 3 is a bit too young to give free reign over getting Daddy "anything you think HE would like" because I really don't think he'd have much use for a pink coin purse, a princess puzzle, a Minnie mouse figurine, a tiara, or hair clips. I literally laughed out loud multiple times at some of the things she chose. By the time we got to the check-out lane, I (and probably everyone in the store) was sick of hearing myself say "we're shopping for Daddy, not you. What would Daddy like?"

In the end, she was absolutely convinced he needed bath squirt toys ("there's a frog, Daddy likes frogs, frogs go like this {hops down the aisle}"), an orange squishy ball, and a pink jump rope. She was most insistent about the jump rope, but I convinced her to go with the mostly blue with pink accents (in the hopes that the boys would end up using it) since the happy socks we got him had some pink in them to satisfy her requirement.

I also let her pick out a card, and the one she pulled out was a pretty pink "To my sister on your birthday" gem. But right over the card aisle was a bunch of helium balloons, so she quickly abandoned the card in favor of a balloon. A better choice, for sure.

This morning, we sang happy birthday to Adam, tackled him with hugs/kisses and gave him the new socks to wear. This evening he opened more presents and we went out for froyo after dinner. Tomorrow we celebrate again with a home-cooked (by his mom, I get the night off from making dinner, woohoo!) mexican feast, as is tradition these days.

 

 Happy birthday honey, love you!

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to the best dad I know.



Adam's day was spent sleeping in, lounging on the couch for most of the day, eating burritos for dinner, and going to the pool, with a grand finale of the True Blood Season premier tonight. In other words, perfect. Adam loves nothing if not a low-key day at home with his family, and we aim to please.

And I'd be remiss to not mention some of the awesome gifts the kids picked out, including badass socks with mustaches, some of his favorite treats (combos! root beer! reese's cups!), and a hula hoop picked out especially by Lorelai (um, for Lorelai...but she's a sneaky little thing who insisted that it was for Daddy when I told her we weren't shopping for her, we were shopping for him. Ha!). They were so excited to parade in with his gifts.

He's lucky to have such awesome kids, and we're all lucky that he's such a great dad, full of love.

Flashback Friday: The dating years

In honor of mine and Adam's 11th wedding anniversary tomorrow, I thought I'd dig up some old photos of us during the dating years. We're high school sweethearts, so we've been together a looong time. Almost 17 years total without any breakups! I had trouble finding photos of just the two of us from every year we dated (where in the world are all of my old photos?!)  but here are a few gems.


Funny story about Adam's hair in the prom picture. I was out getting my own hair done and when I got home, there was a message from him on my answering machine that started with something like "please don't freak out, but..." I remember immedaitely thinking he was cancelling on me. Turns out, he was trimming his buzz cut and when he went back to touch up some stray hairs, he didn't realize there was no guard on the clippers, so he had to shave his hair REALLY short. I totally didn't care, just as long as he was still taking me!






That's me and Adam with my mom and my sister after my UNC-CH J-School graduation.

I took extra summer classes to graduate a semester early so I could wedding plan without worrying about school.

...And then we got married on April 20, 2002. The rest is history. ☺

Older and wiser (than me)

Happy birthday to my sweet hubby, who turned 33 today.

Very much like last year, his parents brought over burritos and cake for dinner, and we had a low-key celebration, just like he likes.

Also like last year, his sister, the boys and I added to his t-shirt hoard with an angry birds shirt the boys picked out (he needed one to match theirs!) and an old school nintendo shirt Anna got for him. The boys also insisted we find a PSP game for him so they could all play their handheld systems together (and they really like to watch him play). Gamer, t-shirt collector, mexican food lover and family man. That's Adam in a nutshell :)

I already mentioned we went to see Dralion for his birthday, which was awesome. What would have been more awesome is if I had actually surprised him with the tickets instead of him buying them himself. Wife fail.

Anyway, funny story: Adam got carded buying a beer at the arena before the show. The one who checked his ID mentioned to the lady at the other register that we had a birthday boy here. That other lady said "21st?" (as in, 21 years old?) and Adam responded with "no, 20th" (as in the date, 8/20). She looked over in horror at the lady who was serving him a beer, thinking he was underage, until I clarified that it was his 33rd birthday on the 20th. Her reaction was almost as funny as the fact that she actually thought he looked 21 :)

Happy Father's Day, I drew you a...tie.

(Oh hey, a belated post. That's new for me. But at least our internet is working again.)

First of all, I hope my kids understand how lucky they are to have a father who loves them unconditionally, works very hard to provide for them, and is there for them both emotionally and physically. Not all of us were that lucky, so I hope they appreciate that. And him. He deserves it, without question.



Second of all, this is the card Logan made for Adam at school this year. In a word: Awesome.

(He's making a habit of ambiguous pictures like this...)

I know what you're thinking: "Wow, that's a good looking tie." Right?! I mean, that was my first thought when I saw it and can't imagine anyone getting the wrong impression about what he drew there (pardon me while I snicker like a 12-year-old boy...I'm so mature).

Also? Adam is as handsome as a duck. What?! Logan is so hilarious. These fill-in-the-blank questionnaires are just so fun at that age. I actually had the boys do one, too (not knowing Logan had done one at school). Aidan's answers were sweet and interesting, but I just loved waiting to hear what Logan would come up with.



Does Logan have a one-track mind or what? He's klassy, that boy of ours, talking all about farts :)

On the front, they each drew a picture. Aidan made up the character "Fohawk" especially for Adam. Logan drew himself and Adam at graduation. And Lorelai's handprint card from school was sweet, too.



The boys also picked out some new cologne for Adam, and we got him a 3-in-1 Panini Press, Grill and Open Griddle.

The boys each filled out a questionnaire for Grandpa, too, to go along with his gift, since we totally failed and didn't send him a birthday card last month. But then I forgot to scan or take a picture before we gave it to him, so you'll just have to take my word on Logan's awesome answers. Thankfully, none of them had anything to do with farts this time.

I do know that both Adam and Houston both really appreciated Logan's answer for how old they were ;). Logan thinks Adam's 22 and Grandpa is 30 (or somewhere around there, I think). Also, Logan said Grandpa is really strong, he could lift a "almost Grandma." Ha!

As for our Father's Day celebrations this year, we went to Brueggers for bagels on Saturday morning, a special request from Adam since we hadn't been there in a while.



On Sunday, we hung out at home in the morning and relaxed, then headed over to Grandma and Grandpa's (Adam's parents) for a cook out. Fun was had by all, and we ate our faces off as usual. Seriously, the food they fix is always amazing.

They kids played on the slip-n-slide, totally immune to the pain of throwing their bodies down onto the hard ground across a tiny wet plastic sheet.



Of course they thought it was awesome.



After dinner, Adam bribed Lorelai with some homemade ice cream and they had some quality father/daughter time shoveling mouthfuls of yumminess into their mouthparts.





Lorelai thought the ice cream was so good, she wanted to snort the last of it from my bowl.



After we were done stuffing our faces, Grandpa took their puppy, Blaze, out the play. The kids (and Grandpa) ran around like maniacs trying to burn off some of that sugar high and get sufficiently tired out for bed.





Then we packed up Lorelai and left the boys behind for a sleepover and movie on Monday to see Madagascar 3. They had a blast, of course. And I think the fathers had a pretty darn good day, too!

Happy Father's day to my sweet hubby. We're so lucky to have you!

A whole decade of wedded bliss

Adam and I are celebrating our 10th anniversary today. Hard to believe (and proud to say) we've been married a whole decade. Crazytown!

Last night I was joking with him that 10 years must be the diamond anniversary, right? We both laughed that one off because diamonds are definitely not happening for us this year and I'm more than happy with my one diamond engagement ring. Then I joked that the 10 year gift is probably something lame like aluminum, because 9 years was pottery. Who comes up with these anyway? Imagine my surprise this morning when I looked it up and I was right, 10 years is tin/aluminum. Super lame.

We don't really do the traditional gifts anyway, but instead of getting each other something awesome like canned goods (you know, in tin cans?), we're going on a second honeymoon cruise!! We leave next week and will be gone a whole week. I'm SO excited, but I'm also really apprehensive about leaving the kids for that long. I haven't been away from Lorelai for longer than a weekend since she's been born. I don't even think Adam and I have been away from the boys for longer than 3 days ever. In fact, the last time Adam and I have taken a week-long vacation was our honeymoon cruise.

Our honeymoon cruise was amazing. It was a Princess cruise around the western Caribbean.

We hung out on the beach at Princess Cays in the Bahamas...

 We shopped in Costa Maya...

and hung out with a donkey, because...yeah.

We snorkeled in Cozumel...

...and shopped some more in Cozumel...

(At least I think this was Cozumel. My memory is a bit fuzzy after all this time. Maybe we were there for 2 days?)

And my favorite excursion of all, we swam with the stingrays in Grand Cayman.

We somehow didn't manage to get a picture of Adam with the stingrays. Bummer.

(on the boat out to Stingray City)

(Please pardon the poor quality of these photos. We took our leftover disposable cameras from the wedding reception. No high quality digital photos from back in the day, I had to scan these using our new scanner.)

This time, we're going on a Carnival cruise around the western Caribbean to Cozumel, Belize, Honduras and Grand Cayman. Even though we've already been to Cozumel and Grand Cayman, one of the main reasons we picked this particular cruise is that it was one of the ones (in our price range) that stopped in a place (Belize) that offers a zip-lining canopy tour, which I REALLY wanted to do. We thought about going around the eastern Caribbean this time, but this one has the excursions we're most interested in. We're also planning to do a tour of some ruins in Cozumel, which we didn't get to do the first time.

Have I mentioned how excited I am?! Now I've just got to get over the stress of figuring out what to bring, packing (oh, so much packing!) and being away from my little loves, and we'll have such an awesome time. 

If anyone has ever been on a Carnival cruise or been to any of the places we're going, I'd love to hear any must-dos, or any tips. And if anyone wants to come pack for me, please do!

Happy 10 years to my main man. Love you, honey!

PS: you can see some wedding photos here.

Unless you puke, faint or die, keep going!

quote from Jillian Michaels, image via

Tomorrow is the big day. The day I've been dreading and training for since I started running in June.  I'm trying to psych myself up for the 10k I'll be running at the butt crack of dawn. Honestly, I'm in freakout mode right now. I don't think I'm ready. I've only ever run that distance once EVER in my life. I've never run this course and apparently it's hilly (ugh). I think I'm getting a cold because my throat is starting to hurt. And most worrisome, my right quad hurts from something I did to it while running on Tuesday. Plus, Adam and I are going to a Hurricanes hockey game tonight so I won't be eating a healthy dinner and going to bed as early as I should. See? Totally not ready.

But it's too late to back out now. So I've just got to tell myself that it's just a little over an hour out of my life and then I never have to run again if I don't want to (although I probably will, just maybe not as far).

via

Oh and did I mention Adam's running it with me? As much as I feel like I'm not ready, at least I'm more ready than he is. Is it a macho guy thing that he thinks he can just go run a 10k without any kind of training whatsoever?! Sure, he's played tennis and some soccer since June, but the very first time he ran in preparation for this race was Tuesday. He ran this race back in 2007 and says he didn't train then either and did fine (better than fine—55:32—which is faster than I could ever hope to run). So we'll see how he does! (But I swear he did train...he bought new shoes and definitely went out running more than once before the race.) Major props to him for not backing out at the last second, but he's not allowed to complain that he's not prepared since he's had 4 months to train :)

I, of course, am allowed to complain since I tried my best to prepare. Plus, it's my blog and I'm allowed to have double standards, right?!

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I know for a fact based on previous race stats that I'll be among the last to cross the finish line, but as Fred Lebow, New York City Marathon co-founder says,"In running, it doesn't matter whether you come in first, in the middle of the pack, or last. You can say, 'I have finished.' There is a lot of satisfaction in that."

I'll be upset if I'm dead last, but I will feel accomplished that I even finished at all. Bonus points if I don't totally screw up my quad in the process ;)


Wish us luck!