Our Honeymoon Pictures...finally!

I am finally organizing all of our pictures to store on the external hard drive my dad got us for Christmas (thank you Daddy!) and thought I would share a few of our honeymoon pictures, nearly a year later haha:)! I am listening to the music we played during our wedding ceremony and reception while I am editing, and am falling in love all over again with the memories of the day, the people who participated in every little or big way, and of course the love of my life (who by the way, sent me roses last Friday in honor of the six year anniversary of our first date:)--very sweet!).

Leaving the port in Miami...

We used a point and shoot and the DSLR, so excuse the varying degrees of picture quality:)!

 

Our little window in our cabin:)

Couldn't resist :)...

We lounged around on the ship the first few days...

On the top deck they had this awesome surfing simulator they called the "Flowrider." We braved the lines one of the first days to try it out. J.R. was a natural and had to flip himself over on purpose just to let someone else have a turn.

I, on the otherhand, had a major wipeout! There were actually brave girls going down in their bikinis, but with all of the spectators, I just knew the second I fell I would flash everyone and opted to keep some shorts on, haha.

Our first port was the (very windy) island of St. Martin.

 We chose a tree zip-line excursion, and were bused through the beautiful countryside to a huge farm.

It was hotter than I care to remember, but we had fun on the obstacle course that turned out to be a very rigorous workout! We were actually yelled at for climbing on this tree to take a picture, so we put the camera away after that (lol), but this was the end of the course.

Around dinner time on this day, I started losing my voice (eventually diagnosed with laryngitis) and was feeling pretty puny by the end of the night:(.
This was me for the next few nights, although I tried to suck it up during the day.
I think the combination of wedding stress and the obstacle course really did a number on my immune system.
It was one of the first times in five years of dating that J.R. had really seen me feeling bad.

Our next port was San Juan, Puerto Rico. We had bought tickets for an excursion through a rain forest, but with my swollen throat, it didn't seem so appealing.
Instead, we decided to take a walk around the city and see the sites on our own.
Not long after we were off the ship, we were flagged down by a local who was giving horse drawn carriage tour rides. We took him up on it in hopes that we might be able to get a feel for where we could explore some of the historical sites on foot afterward. 

The horse and carriage were beautiful, the guide wasn't, lol!

After he had pointed out the Starbucks, McDonalds, public restrooms, and school (not the school of......--just "that's the school"), I tuned him out and tried to look for the fort that we had heard about.
Luckily, we found Fort San Cristobal later on and it was worth the wait with gorgeous views. 

 

View of our ship...

Our third port was Labadee, Haiti, Royal Carribean's private island. I think we were both ready for some beach time by this point!

Those are several zip lines behind us. We tried so hard to get on this excursion, where they zip lined across the beach, but it was of course sold out by the time we talked to one of the ship help desks. How incredible that must have been!

We spent the last few days on board the ship relaxing, and oh the beautiful sunsets we saw!!!

 It was tough to come home after seven days of vacation, but the site of these guys sure helped.

J.R.'s Aunt and Roger brought Norm (right) for a visit while they house sat for us. This is our basement pre-yard sale:).

The Baby Train

It seems like everyone I know is pregnant lately! I hear about a new pregnancy announcement almost daily. So, it wasn't surprising when my sister called, complimented me on the hats I have been making, and asked if I could make her a few hats for all of the babies her friends are scheduled to produce in the coming months. Of course I accepted the task, and have started looking for some different patterns and embellishments for what I have in mind (pics to come).

She also asked for help on designing an invitation for a baby shower she is co-hosting next month. She had taken some maternity pictures of the mom-to-be and wanted to incorporate them into a postcard-like invite. I don't know her, but I hope I look half as cute when I am pregnant someday!

My sister sent me a picture of the beautiful, bird-themed bedding 

awaiting this little girl:

I used that theme (and some light inspiration from ETSY, :))
to come up with some different versions for my sister to choose from. 

For anyone who might look at these with professional design experience, I realize all are quite text heavy.
It was so hard to limit the information!

 Mom-to-be is apparently an avid reader, so my sister said they planned to have everyone bring a book to the shower as well. I found a little bookworm element that doesn't really go with the design,
but thought it was a cute idea anyway:).

 My sister chose this last one to use for the invitations:

 

So they may not rival hallmark quality (haha!), but I did really enjoy making them! 

I'm off to clean the townhouse now. Three more showings have been scheduled!! 

Project!

Three or four days ago I received a request to make another hat! J.R.'s mom (Susan--I know, everyone in both of our families is named Susan in some variation!) has a friend who has a granddaughter on the way, and after seeing my hats on the blog, asked if I could make her one to include in her package she intended on sending for the new baby. 

I admit I was a little excited and may have gotten a little carried away.
I made four (sorry, pictures aren't great)!

I picked up some new brown yarn with different thread tones, and put together some different stitches for the ears on the bear hats to give them a little more dimension.

I also learned two new stitches to make the last hat: puff stitch and backwards single crochet (for the border).

Now I just have to get them shipped to Utah! Thanks for letting me share and I hope everyone has had a good weekend! Thanks for any prayers you've sent up for us. Our townhouse had a showing yesterday and we have another tomorrow!

It's Official!

Well it's official, this one will call another state home in a few short months...

We are moving back to Texas! J.R. received a job offer that was just too good to pass up in the Woodlands, which is about 45 minutes north of Houston. We are excited, but also have mixed emotions about the timing of everything. I finally received another job offer (that I was extremely excited about) a few days before J.R. received his final offer, and it was very hard to give it up. I must say that I am so happy for J.R.'s incredible opportunity, and it will be nice to live closer to my Dallas friends again though:). 

There are definitely going to be things we miss about PA, namely our friends (but more on this in another post).

I'm pretty sure Max will miss him most of all:)...

Every time we walk by this house on our favorite route, this guy (held off by an invisible fence) has trouble containing himself at the sight of Max. I swear they must be brothers from another mother because they are both equally hyper and playful, and each proudly sports the same white spot on their respective chests.

Well enough of that for now. I am starting to get a little teary-eyed and it will be a long journey to getting us all moved and settled together in Texas. Wish us luck on selling our Townhouse!

Boredom induced hobby:)

With the cold weather, lately I have spent more days inside than I care to recall. Summers are so nice here, but the winters....pretty for a while, and then all of the sudden you just want to scream at the weather man if he calls for more snow! Please make no mistake, I will forever hold a child-like fascination with the beauty of a snowfall between the months of November and February, but now I am done:). 

I decided I wanted to learn how to make all of those cute newborn hats that I see on the photography sites and blogs I frequent, so I turned to youtube for some instruction. I was surprised at how easy the art of crochet was made to look. Unfortunately, I now realize I was trying to teach myself with an extremely difficult pattern. Ten piles of yarn and half-finished looping patterns later, I figured it out and have been a crocheting fool ever since!

Now that I have figured out the "teddy bear" beanie hat look, I may move on to bigger and better things. J.R.'s mom sent me one of her projects with some fairly intricate work that I need to unravel and dive into.

I also had the pleasure of babysitting my favorite little PA guy this afternoon and snapped a few pictures of him. He has grown so much over the past few months! He has two teeth and his mom says he has a third on the way. He is now crawling, or shall I say army crawling, TOO cute!

Check out his adorable shirt:

"All of my great ideas get me into trouble"