Anniversary trip

{This post is in relation to stuff that happened a month ago. Still wanted to update} 

A few months ago Lee got a new work schedule. This means that every other week he has 5 days in a row off work. 

During one of his 5 day weekends, we decided to go on a little anniversary trip to Moore/Norman. I know that doesn't seem exciting, but we went to college in Moore. All of our best friends live in Norman so we were excited to go. 

Then May 20, 2013 happened. 2 1/2 miles wide and about 17 miles on the ground happened. An EF-5 tornado happened. 

My heart broke and time stood still. As we sat in the living room and watched this happened, on tv, we panicked. We both have family that live in Moore. Our friends are in the area. 

After much debating, we decided to still go to Moore. When we got there we met up with our friend, Karen, and went into Moore to try and find her husband who was helping serve the city with their church. 

We eventually found him. And as we were leaving we stumbled upon ground zero and the Plaza Tours Elementary school. This is the school where most of the children were lost in the storm. 

 Ground zero - everything was gone

This was Plaza Towers. Someone placed 7 little crosses in memorial to the children lost there.

That night we met up with all of our friends for dinner. We had a great time, but naturally I didn't get a single picture :( 

Canning 101

I have blogged here and there about our first time garden this year. I lost interest (go figure!). Luckily, Lee still really enjoyed it. 

We've had a plethora of tomatoes. Funny thing is, neither one of us like tomatoes. Hadley loves them, but her little self can't keep up. We decided to try our hand at making salsa. Then CANNING! Me oh my. I'm a city girl and hadn't the faintest idea on any of this. Thank goodness for family members that can things every year.

Here we go...

a SMALL portion of our tomatoes

canned salsa

and of course we canned our jalapenos  

Lee said if he knew then what he knows now (you know those famous last words!) he would have grown a bigger variety of veggies. Hadley girl is a vegetable girl. She rarely eats meat. The only meat she will always eat is taco meat. She like chicken nuggets too, but not too often. I've noticed the more I give them to her the less she will eat them. So veggies it is. 

Lee has already expanded the garden and has laid out tarp to kill the current grass. We will see how it goes next go 'round. He is planning to do fall Serendipity sweet corn and fall onions. Both of which I'm excited about. Hadley loves her a good corn on the cob and I use onions for pretty much everything I cook. Win, Win! 

Friday Favorite

My favorite thing right now is having this guy (see pic below!) home all week :) After a year-ish of Paramedic school he took PTO this week before he starts the academy next week! It's the most I've seen him since I don't know when! Yay for PTO! :)

He decided that on his "stay-cation" he, and with the help of many others, would put up the pool. Not much of a break huh? We are filling our pool with well water so he told me the other day, "We've got to get the pool up and filled. It won't be warm enough to get in until mid-August!" haha! Got to love fresh, and FREEZING COLD well water.

my love 

new meaning

I'm a music person. I feel there are so many times in life when I'm feeling a certain way, but I cannot find the words to express myself. Then a song magically plays and that's exactly how I'm feeling. 

I've also found that there are songs that take on a new meaning throughout different stages of life. The song "Thoughts of You" by Barlow Girl is one of those multi-purpose-stage-of-life songs. The song is written as to be sung to God. At a time in my life, that was, and will always be, completely relevant. 

As I got older, went to college, met a boy who changed my life... The song took on a new meaning. This song was played at our wedding.

"...I love you. My heart is yours, only yours..."

After two years of being married we welcomed a little baby girl into the world and into our lives. And again... The song took on a new meaning. I play this song to Hadley every single night as she is falling asleep. 

"Thoughts of you and how you've changed me, fill my mind."

But the foundation and the truth of the song has always been the same:

"God I never could repay You. You gave everything." 

"Thoughts Of You"

Thoughts of You and how You changed me
Fill my mind
Without You where would I be

So even though I've tried to express my thanks
It never comes out how I hoped
I want to say so much more so with these simple words
I'll try

[Chorus:]
I love You
My heart is Yours, only Yours
I long to give You all of me
My everything, my everything

God I never could repay You
You gave everything
Without You where would I be

You still loved me even when I
Pushed You away
You stood there and waited
Till the day I'd return

...and you get tomatoes

"We have nothing in common. Honestly, I don't even know why we ever started talking as friends to begin with? I mean, I cannot think of one thing we could have to talk about!"---This is how the conversation started. But it's the truth, I tell you! Me and my husband really have nothing in common.

...not music.

...not movies.

...not books. 

Well maybe books. Neither one of us like to read ;)

He can "visualize" how a room will be built or look when furniture is arranged.

I cannot.

He likes activities that involve being outside, getting hot/sweaty, and getting dirty.

I do not. 

He likes to stay home to just "hang out."

I prefer to go, go, go.

His way of "re-cooping" is to be alone.

I like to be around people. 

We are polar opposites, people!

The only things we had in common, when we first met, was we were attending the same college and we are of the same religion / denomination affiliation. That's when I realized that religion is much more powerful than what I had originally thought it to be. Anyway, that religion is not where I was going with this although I could spend another hour talking about God's plan for our lives despite our differences...

All of that explanation to talk about gardening. Ha! 

Since we moved into our house and this part of town, people have been telling Lee that we have the "perfect soil" to plant a garden. We have that soft, sand-like, soil. Around here- that's a good thing. Our house backs up to Lee's aunt and uncle's house. His uncle has a pretty big garden. He does this every year. It's kind of his thing...

Well this year, Lee decided to try his hand at gardening. He and his grandpa got it started. A few weeks later, Lee decided it was time to plant the onions.

The back right corner, of the yard, is the garden.

After about a week he, then, decided he would go ahead and plant the cabbage. I was pretty excited he was planting this because I love cabbage. Lee, on the other hand, hate cabbage. He cannot stand the way it smells when it is cooked. He refers to it as "crappage." :-/

Then about four or five days later, he got antsy and decided to put out the lettuce. This was a Sunday afternoon. Hadley was down for her nap. I figured I would give gardening a "go."

Lettuce to be planted

Lee measuring how far the next lettuce plant needed to be placed.

Marking the "circle" for me to dig out.

Me digging out the spot for the lettuce plant :) Yes, I planted all four by myself!

Lee was pumped that I showed an interest in his hobby. Turns out his hobby was actually pretty fun. If you know me well, at all, you know that I've never done "hard, outside work" a day in my life. Gardening is slightly exhausting! HAHA! But it was fun.

What was most fun was spending time with him doing something he enjoys. We had time to talk about his schooling and work. We talked about new things Hadley has been doing or funny things she has been saying. We got to talk about and envision what we want our new deck to look like (coming this summer!!) with our new pool. Before I knew, we had been out there for three hours. But it was in that three hours that we realized we had nothing in common. That gardening was, now, our only common interest.

I found this little picture the other day and thought it was funny:

It's funny because as new parents, we don't have a lot of "down" time. We don't have a lot of time by ourselves to just talk without the background sounds of "bye-bye, baby, momma, dada, pat pat!" The three hours gardening was almost like therapy. More like "marriage counseling." Not counseling in the bad sense of "our marriage is on the rocks and we go to counseling so we don't divorce!" But counseling in the sense of just spending time together and talking about life. Having time together to just talk is just like counseling...and you get or we will get tomatoes! :)

g-free for me.

With tests showing that my husband's gallbladder was only function at 16% (40% is considered low-functioning), we assumed that the removal of it, back in 2010, would cure his pain. Now, with it being almost two years later, he is still in pain. 

Recently, he began doing some research. He would search his symptoms and ironically gallbladder disease would never show up as a cause. After a couple weeks of research, all signs point to gluten intolerance. 

Do you realize how many things contain some form of gluten? It's unreal! We went through our cabinets and realized that we would need to throw about just about everything...literally, everything! 

No wheat, in any form.

No barley.

No malt.

No rye.

No breaded or floured or "crusted" meat, poultry, seafood, or vegetables.

No soy sauce.

No teriyaki sauce.

...but after years of pain, we have decided to give gluten free a try. 

Last week I did all of our basic grocery shopping at Aldi. Ya know, your fruits, vegetables, meats, your basics. Then I went to Reasor's in Jenks to buy my g-free flour and bread and whatever else I stumbled upon. The Reasor's in Jenks has the largest variety of g-free food because Mr. and Mrs. Reasor live in Jenks, OK. Mrs. Reasor has Celiacs Disease. So to accommodate Mrs. Reasor's g-free lifestyle, they keep the Jenks store fully stoked with things she can eat. Lucky for us, Jenks is the closest Reasor's to our house :) With all that being said, I assumed that changing to g-free ingredients, cooking, and lifestyle, it would be really expensive. Well, come to find out, I spent the exact same amount of money that I would have just buying all my regular groceries at Wal-Mart. It all worked out!! 

We haven't fully "converted" to completely g-free yet. We are trying things here and there. Lee tried the sliced bread that I bought. He said it doesn't have a bad flavor, but the texture is weird (which we knew would be). He said, "Imagine eating a sandwich on a cracker. With every bite you take, it crumbles and falls apart." But like I told him, there were plenty of other brands of bread we can try. 

Last night I made our favorite: Fried Chicken :) Who doesn't love fried chicken? Well, it was my first attempt at doing it g-free and with g-free flour. It worked out and was pretty yummy too!

I planned to do more g-free cooking this week, but I threw my back out like an old person yesterday so I'm out of commission for a few day. Bummer. 

Splish...Splash!

Thanks to the B family, we now have a pool!! 

Last Sunday Lee, his dad, his grandpa, and brother all went and broke down the pool. After a long 4 hours they finally got it down. We are SO excited to receive such a gift! We can't wait until summer and to get this up and going. I also can't wait for Hadley to see it and see what she thinks! She loves the water now. Hopefully, she likes her pool too! :)

Valentine's Day

It's Valentine's Day!

I know so many people hate Valentine's Day. To be honest, I'm slightly one of those people.

I don't hate Valentine's Day. But it does seem a little strange that there is a single day designated to showing your affection for your significant other.

So I decided to jump of the WWW and look up the legend of St. Valentine:

There are various theories on the origin of Valentine's Day, but the most popular dates back to the time of the Roman Empire during the reign of Claudius II, 270 AD. Claudius didn't want men to marry during wartime because he believed single men made better soldiers. Bishop Valentine went against his wishes and performed secret wedding ceremonies. For this, Valentine was jailed and then executed by order of the Emperor on February 14. While in jail, he wrote a love note to the jailor's daughter signing it, "From your Valentine." Sound familiar?

Other fun facts:

• More than 35 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate will be sold for Valentine's Day.
• Over $1 billion worth of chocolate is purchased for Valentine's Day in the U.S.
• 73% of people who buy flowers for Valentine's Day are men, while only 27 percent are women.
• 15% of U.S. women send themselves flowers on Valentine's Day.
• The red rose was the favorite flower of Venus, the Roman goddess of love.
• Teachers will receive the most Valentine's Day cards, followed by children, mothers, wives, sweethearts and pets
• About 3% of pet owners will give Valentine's Day gifts to their pets.

(All facts and the story of Valentine's Day were found at http://www.sheknows.com/holidays-and-seasons/articles/807655/fun-facts-about-valentine-s-day)

I hope that when people show their significant other's love/affection/appriciation, I hope they are loving them in their personal love language.

The Five Love Languages is an exellent book. I highly recommend it, to everyone! Now having Hadley, I really really want this book:

There's just no point in showing love to someone, especially your child or spouce, if that isn't how they personally feel loved... These books are very useful tools in relationship building.

Well, there is my "tid-bit" about Valentine's Day. Now I will leave you with these two last things:

Happy Valentine's Day to you, my love. We have had such a crazy year. We bought a house, had our beautiful baby Hadley girl, and you're finishing up everything with Paramedic school. I couldn't be more proud of you and I love you more every day!

Last fun fact about Valentine's day: I was supposed to be born on Valentine's Day. It was on Feb. 14, 1988 that my mom went into labor with me. It wasn't until 72 hours later, on Feb 17, 1988, that I was born. Talk about endurance!

Secrets...Secrets...

...Make me nearly have anxiety attacks!!!!!!

I started my "Friday Favorites" posts 2 weeks ago. This was with full intent to post every Friday. Obviously, I missed last Friday. But let me tell you why!

SECRETS!

I was harbouring secrets in my household. I was keeping a secret from my husband.

You see, Lee finally finished his Paramedic clinicals last Tuesday (1/31/2012). His class had to go to a lecture in OKC last Thursday (2/2/2012).

To make a long story short: I got together with his mom and planned a mini-vaca in OKC. Yeah, I know, there isn't anything exciting or "vacation"- like about OKC, but it was fun. We went to college in Moore and most of our friends still live in the Moore/Norman area.

But of course there was a crimp in the plan. The Tuesday before I was supposed to leave Hadley started acting funny. I don't know how else to explain it, but funny. She just wasn't herself. She isn't a fussy baby, but she was being exceptionally fussy. Then Wednesday after her morning nap she woke up crying which she NEVER EVER does. I just had a gut feeling and rushed her to the doctor. Of course, she had a double ear infection. My heart broke. My baby girl was hurting and I had no idea. I know, I know...there was no way for me to know since she can't talk, but I still felt terrible.

Then there was the big question of: could I go through with the over night plan? could I leave my baby girl over night without me while she had her first ear infection? would she get worse while I was gone? would she be upset with me for leaving her while she was sit? So many questions. After a long Wednesday of secretly crying (because I couldn't tell Lee the plan) and debating I decided to go through with my plan and that she would be fine. Hadley never ran a fever or never acted like she even felt terrible. Luckily, all things worked out fine. Hadley was fine. She never got worse and is getting better.

Now jump to Thursday morning:

I get up and rush around to finish packing, shower and get ready before Haddles woke up, then get her over to her grandparents before 7:30 am! Everything went smoothly and I was off...

Lee had no idea I was coming. When he came out of the building where the lecture was being held his first thought was that something had happened back home and I came to get him. Once, I explained to him what was going on I think he was excited? lol. Neither one of us show "excited" emotion well, so I can't blame him.

Our over night stay consisted of: lunch at my favorite yummy Mexican restaurant, movie at Lee's favorite theater, swimming / hot tub at the hotel, dinner with our friends, shopping at Hastings. It was so fun and a much needed break for him.

It was our first time leaving Hadley without at least one of us. I was ok as long as I didn't think about it :( But little Haddles was so excited when we got home. She kept going from my arms to Lee's arms and back and forth and back and forth. She was so excited that she was panting like a dog. Haha!

Time and money well spent, I think!