2016 Predictions

Here are my 2016 predictions...  Cody and I have started to make spreadsheets with our vacation time on it so that we can optimize our vacation time.  We have plans all the way out to 2017 and most of our stuff for 2016 is already booked so I can say with pretty certainty that my trip predictions are pretty solid.

• We are going to go to Orlando in the end of February.  I am super excited to see the newly expanded Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  I'm also looking forward to going to Disney for a couple of days.  Cody is super pumped to watch the Braves training camp games.  He is hoping to get an autograph from Chipper Jones.  His ultimate goal is to have a jersey signed and frame it and put it up in our basement.
• I am hoping that I will get a position back onto first shift.  I really like my job as a warehouse supervisor, but not being on the same shift as Cody is difficult.  Hopefully I'll move back into a position in the office.
• I got the 21 day fix for Christmas and I'm hoping that I can really stick with it and lose some weight this year!!  Cody said that he is interested in trying it as well.  So hopefully we will both start doing it.
• We will also be going to Vegas in October with my mom.  This trip we are actually going to go to the Grand Canyon!  I think this very likely could be our LAST trip to Vegas for quite some time...
• We are planning on going on a cruise to the Caribbean over Christmas time next year!  Yay!!  We have the unlimited drinking and dining package again!  We are going on the same ship as our honeymoon.
• I am planning on reading some photography books and sharpening my picture taking skills.  I'm going to go to the library and see if I can't get some good books to read.  Someday I'd like to take a photography class.  I might end up looking for some instructional videos online too.
• 2012/2013 we were planning building our house and in 2014/2015 we were planning our wedding.  I think this year we are going to have a gap in our planning for big events this year.  I don't really see any milestones happening this year...
• Therefore, I do NOT think that we will be having a baby in 2016...  sorry all!  As of now I'm predicting spring/summer 2018.
• Just for laughs... towards the end of 2015 Cody and I are talking about our plans for 2017.  So far we are planning on going on an Alaskan cruise in July and then we are planning on going to Hawaii for 2 weeks over Christmas.  I will actually start building up an extra week of vacation that year so we will have another week available to take off.  I am not sure if I'll just take a couple extra days off throughout the year or if we will go somewhere else...  So far we've talked about me just taking the holidays off that Cody gets or we might go on a cruise (with a port in Aruba) or maybe even go to Vegas one last time...  Looks like we'll see!
• I'm looking forward to 2016!  Hopefully it's as good of a year as 2015.  :)

2015 in Review

Here is what happened in our life in 2015....

On January 17th, Cody got Lasik eye surgery.  This has truly changed his life and made things so much easier on him.  He now has perfect vision and had absolutely no complications with the surgery.  Besides sleeping for the whole day after the surgery he was absolutely fine. We actually went to the IX Bridal Show the next day!!

On March 29th we had a our bridal shower.  Hannah hosted us at her house and everything turned out perfectly! 

One of the highlights of the shower was the toilet paper brides.  My dad ended up winning the competition and was pretty hilarious.

My grandma died on April 16th.  She was 88 years old.  For me one of the most touching parts of grandma's funeral was when the hearse drove down her street and some of the neighbors waved to us going by.  Also I remember being very impressed with how well the priest remembered and talked about my grandma during the service.   I'm also very happy that I went up and gave an eulogy at the service as well.  It was hard to do, but I think everyone deserves something personal said about them during their funeral.

I can not even describe how much of our time was wrapped up into planning and finalizing every little detail of the wedding.  I really don't feel like I was a bridezilla at all or that we were too worried about small details... but picking out where to get the table clothes from and what they would look like was SUPER stressful!!  When I look back at the wedding planning now of what I was most worried about the month leading up to the wedding was figuring this out.

My bachelorette party was on May 16th.  Hannah, Steph, and I went to a bacholorette themed murder mystery and then we went out in Cleveland.  Super kudos for Hannah for finding such a perfect idea for my bachelorette party.

These were my wedding nails.  Today is 7 months since I had these nails on and I'm still proud of how awesome they looked!  I absolutely LOVED my wedding nails!!

Both of our moms got their first pedicures for our wedding.  It's funny how they both never had one before!!

We had a half an hour wedding rehearsal two days before our wedding and somehow we miraculously remembered almost all of the instructions that they gave us!! 

We had our rehearsal dinner at Stancatos.  It was ok, but it was more over priced than what we expected so... I'm only half happy about our choice of going there.



That night we hung out and played drinking games.

The day before our wedding we had a cookout for the people that were out of town.  It gave a lot of Cody's family a chance to get a tour and see our house for the first time.

Our wedding night I stayed at our hotel with my cousin Hannah.  We did facials and massages and did a lot of girly things.  I was so excited and thinking so much the night before the wedding that I didn't really get much sleep at all.  I was even texting a little bit with Cody throughout the night about stuff haha.

I could literally write pages and pages about our wedding (and I have in other blogs).  When I think back to our wedding something that really stands out to me is how much fun I had.  Cody and I were together all day long and we danced to almost every song at our wedding.  I've looked back on some of the videos that were taken and sometimes we were the only ones on the floor.  Just looking at this picture it makes me think of how much I love him and how even if it's just the two of us that we can have so much fun together.  Our wedding day was a perfect day.  Everything about it went right and I couldn't be more happy with how it turned out.

Our choice for a honeymoon was something that we seriously debated over and over again.  In the end, I'm happy with our choice.  We had a lot of fun on our cruise... especially with the unlimited drinking and dining packages.  :)  We went to St. Thomas, The Baths, and Atlantis and all of our stops were unique and we did different things.  In St. Thomas we went on a really good island tour.  To get to the Baths we went on an hour boat ride, snorkeled and climbed through caves.  In Atlantis we got to tour the facility and see what it had to offer. Maybe one day we'll go back to Atlantis for a few days and check it out more.

I worked on second shift the entire year in 2015.  I've been in this position for about a year and half now.  I like being in a position for a longer period of time, and I mostly like the job.  It's definitely a different position than what I've done in the past and it is challenging.  I'd stay in the position long term if I was on first shift and could see Cody more often.  I've realized that there are a lot of things that you miss by working an off-shift.  It was hard planning our wedding and spending our first year as newly weds apart, but... it is a good job and it pays well...  so I can't complain too much about it.  I just hope that 2016 brings a position where I'm home more often at night.

We went to Hancock over Labor Day again for a few days.  I had a lot of fun going to Chuck E Cheese with the kiddos.  My mom always used to take me there so it was fun to go with the kids.

We went back to Vegas in October and stayed at our beloved Bellagio!  Surprisingly the room was a little bit of a down grade for us because we are used to having a room with a full kitchen... but the hotel itself and the pool was absolutely wonderful.  We also went to the best show I've ever been to in Vegas... Terry Fator!!  LOVED him!  He is AMAZING and I hope we go to see him again on our next trip to Vegas.

I was able to find and convert our long lost home movies!  My mom has never asked me for basically anything for Christmas except to have our home movies converted to DVD.  The problem was that after my mom moved out of my dad's house (almost 5 years ago) the movies have been missing.  I've literally searched my dad's whole house and mine, but they were no where to be found.  I told my mom she must have had them at her house somewhere.  Well... a couple days before Christmas I was looking for pictures for my dad's photo album and I decided to go upstairs to find a picture.  As I was upstairs something told me to walk towards the back of the attic.  I looked on top of the dresser (which I've searched numerous times) and right on top was the WHOLE box for home movies!!  I whooped for joy when I found them!  It made my whole day/week/month, and I was sooooo excited when mom was getting ready to open them.  I'm pretty sure that this was the first Christmas present that she's ever been surprised and excited about.  I tried to limit my conversations with her before Christmas so I wouldn't ruin the surprise.  Now I've searched so long for these movies and could never find them...  I don't think that it is a coincidence that the year my grandma died was the year that I found the movies for her.  I also found them with JUST enough time for them to be all converted (they have to play all the way through to convert).  I'm so happy that they were found in time!  She was super excited!

My dad was so inspired from watching the old home movies that he went out and bought a video camera to capture our Christmas this year.

Cody turned 30 years old this year!!  His mom, sister, and dad threw a fun party for him at Ridge Runners in Hancock.  We all hung out all night and the guys had some fun re-living their wrestling years haha.

Obviously 2015 was an incredible year for us.  Our wedding truly trumped and overshadowed everything else in the year for us.  That was what our year was all about.  It's exciting to think about what our next big thing is going to be now that we have our house and now that we're married... but I guess that's what my 2016 predictions blog is going to be about!!  :)

Cody's 30th Birthday Party

We were in Hancock for Cody's 30th birthday and his family threw him a birthday party.

Here is a picture of the cake.

The birthday boy.  

 

Deb and Rick cooked almost all of the food at Ridge Runners in the kitchen.

We had lasagna, ham, sandwiches, beans, all kinds of chips, and other items. 

Eric, Chance, and Amber smiling together.

Cody, Deb and Neil.  The four of us went on a fun gambling trip to Mohegan Sun Casino a couple of days after the party.  Cody and I had never been there.  There were a ton of restaurants, the rooms were nice, and they had quite a few updated games.  We ate at Bar Louie for "dollar" burgers and then we ate at Wolfgang Puck express for lunch in the morning.  Cody and I didn't do so great gambling, but I think Neil ended up doing pretty good.  We were really excited to go though, it was nice to head out and hang out there for the night.

Here a picture of Nan and Cooper!  Nan loves Cooper so much that I had to make sure I got a picture of them together.

Here we are with Eric.  It looks like he is smiling but really he was just getting ready to cry in this picture.  Haha!  Could have fooled ya!

Family picture!  Cody was disappointed at our wedding that a picture with the 5 of them did not happen so I made sure that we got one at his birthday party.  It's not that often that we get all 5 of them together for an opportunity for a picture.

Here is Cody's favorite birthday present.  Robin got him a wrestling belt.

Unfortunately it was a kids sized belt so Cody couldn't actually wear it.  But he had fun posing and playing with it.

Here are some action shots of the guys.

More wrestling moves.

I think this was my favorite picture of the night!!

Friend pictures!

More friend pictures!!  

The Charles women!

Got all the fam in the picture.

Nan and Aunt TT

Neil and Davey eating dinner.

My little buddy Cooper!  I love poodles!!  After everyone left Rick and Cody played pool with each other for about 3 or 4 hours, and this little guy sat in the chair and cuddled with me the whole time.  

Brian playing with his granddaughters.

At the end of singing happy birthday all the kids helped Cody blow out the candles on his cake.

They all liked it so much that we had to light a couple more candles so that they could blow them out again.

Bryleigh's turn to blow them out.  Kelsie and Bryleigh were buddies all night long.  They were running around and playing with each other throughout the whole party.

Overall I think that Cody's birthday was a success.  A lot of people came over to hang out and celebrate his birthday.  We had good food, good friends, plenty of alcohol, and it was a good night.  Happy 30th birthday to my Bebesee!

2014 in Review

Continuing on with my blogs that I should have written over a year ago...  Here are the highlights of 2014...

Right after getting engaged we came home and decided to get two kitties!!  We went to the animal shelter down the street and we got our boys!  I can't believe how much love and happiness these two little guys have brought us!

Cody and I got engaged just in time for bridal show season.  And we went to a TON of them!  In 2014 we were really looking hard for a photographer and a wedding venue.  I feel like we were meeting and interviewing photographers almost every weekend for months!!  We also toured and reviewed numerous wedding venues.  Planning a wedding is honestly a hobby...  Just like in 2012 our hobby was looking at model homes/houses.  2014 was all about wedding stuff.

In June 2014, I "graduated" from the LDP program at Swagelok and moved into a supervisor position on 2nd shift in the component warehouse.  This was definitely a challenge both professionally and personally.  I had never supervised anyone before and I was a little unprepared for the sleuth of problems that I was going to face in the position.  It was also challenging missing a lot of events and not getting to see Cody regularly.  That summer we meet up twice a week for lunch dates.  I would bring him lunch at Huntington Beach and then he'd come to Swagelok later on in the week.  It helped so that we could see each other more.

I went wedding dress shopping with my cousin, mom, and some of my friends.  I ended up finding my wedding dress at David's Bridal.  I had liked some other designs but I loved the corset on this dress and I really liked how I looked in it!

We were super excited to get a deck added onto our house!  We truly missed having this the previous year and it was a good addition the house.  Memorial Day weekend we had a little cookout for our friends and family to come over.

Krista, Deb, and the kids came to our house over Easter.  It was so much fun watching the kids trying to find their Easter eggs and their baskets.  Holidays with kids are so much fun!  

We celebrated our 3rd dating anniversary this year at the Melting Pot.

Katelynn and Shawn got married on 7/19/14.  It was a really nice ceremony and we got some great pictures with the family.  Katelynn is such a great addition to our family.  She's such a sweetheart!!

We went back to Hancock over the 4th of July for Kelsie's 8th birthday.

We had our engagement photo session with our wedding photographer.

Our nephew, Eric Jeffery Charles, was born on 7/20/14.  We got to meet him over Labor Day weekend.

Another addition to our family was my cousin Aaron's son Maxwell.  Maxwell was born on October 10th 2014.

My little cousin, Raquel, also had a baby girl named Brylee on 12/8/14.

We had our best trip to Vegas yet!  We went to Vegas in October when the weather at home was in the 30s to 40s, but the weather there was in the 80s and 90s.  It was FANTASTIC!  We loved it so much that I don't think we'll go to Vegas during any other season.  We got to go on a kayaking trip that started at the base of the Hoover Dam...

Then we went to the Valley of Fire which was absolutely stunning.  The next day we went to Red Rock Canyon and an abandoned ghost town.  We also had a ton of fun swimming and drinking by the pool at our resort.  It was really hard to top the view and the proposal from our last trip to Vegas... but I have to admit we had a lot of fun during this trip.

Grandma's last Christmas was in 2014.  :(

We went on our first couple's trip with Hannah and Kyle.  We went to Fort Lauderdale over New Year's Eve.  We all went on a segway for the first time, tried alligator bites, went to Miami (and had a comprehensive tour of the city), we had excellent pizza from a shop right by our hotel, we played back alley to all parts of the night, we went on a New Year's Eve yacht party booze cruise, and overall had a fun time! 

2014 was a good year for us.  Probably the most significant thing that happened was expanding our family and getting our boys.  We also made good progress on planning our wedding.  We spent a lot of time with our family and we got to go on two pretty awesome trips.  Another great year for us.  :)