Day 8

Not much out of the ordinary today.

I need to get better about taking our outside time in the morning before it gets too hot.  I think it was in the mid 90's today, so 2pm outside time isn't quite as fun.  But we did get to enjoy otter pops outside on the blanket (easiest picnic ever!) and play a little bit of soccer.  Also, we found a new way to enjoy our sidewalk chalk:

This side of our house is completely shaded, so we drew on the foundation!

Days 5, 6 & 7

Friday we had a great day.  The morning started with some music with Marcel.

Then we headed to Wende Lady's work for a "Safety Day."  There wasn't too much on safety, but we did go on a tour of the plant, which was WAY too long for the kids but they suffered through knowing what was coming after lunch.  They took a picture of all the kids in their personal protective equipment (PPE); here's my version:

On the dryers

Playing with clean and dirty seeds.  Snoh was the only one who wore his hard hat & safety goggles throughout the entire tour.

After the tour we ate lunch and spent some time watching a forklift rodeo before the carnival.  We enjoyed the cake walk, but not as much as Lilli!

Snoh was great at donut on a string!

He also got to sit on a forklift...

...and spray a fire hose

Also, we went through the fire truck, got to put out a fire using a real fire extinguisher.  Snoh can tell you that you use PASS to remember what to do. 

P: Pull the pin

A: Aim

S: Squeeze

S: Sweep

He also got to plant a bean seed, now let's just hope we can keep it alive :)

Saturday, I have no idea what Snoh did.  I got out of bed and had breakfast with Snoh & Marcel and then went back to bed and slept all day long!  It was wonderful and would have only been better if it wouldn't have been because I am sick. 

Sunday, we had a great time at church.  Snoh even had to go to Sunday School twice, because I started teaching Sunday School in the preschool classroom today.  After we had lunch, I left the boys home and did some grocery shopping.  It was so nice to get out of the house all alone :)

Later in the evening we went to our church home group for a BBQ.  We ate delicious food, had fun playing croquet, and just hanging out.  Snoh did great playing with the girls (no other boys were there until the very end).  They jumped on the trampoline, played on the swingset and had a water gun/water balloon fight.

Day 4

Today, not much after Snoh got up, Lilli came to our house.  It has been 9 days of her not being here because they were on vacation in Spain and she was SO excited to see me when I opened the door, but once they were actually in the house and she saw Snoh, Marcel and I meant nothing to her.  It was all about Snoh and it stayed that way all day!

We all washed the car this morning, which was long overdue, even before our trip to Washington. It was so nice to do it before Marcel went to work because it was early enough that it wasn't so hot but it still felt good to get a little wet.

While Marcel got all the bowls, soap and towels ready to wash the car, Lilli and Snoh looked for bugs, Lilli's favorite past-time!

 They both more than enjoyed the bowls full of soapy water. This will be something we do again even if we aren't washing the car!

 

 After washing the car and eating breakfast, Snoh read Lilli a story, which we did a few more times throughout the day. She LOVED this story and carried the book around with her for a lot of the day.

After Lilli's nap, we packed a lunch and headed to the nearby park.  We enjoyed PB&J sandwiches, yogurt and bananas.  Snoh & Lilli seemed to enjoy them, as seen below:

 Lilli has always loved to swing, but it seemed more fun with Snoh right next to her. Also he taught her to straighten her knees. The timing wasn't always right because they weren't swinging at the same pace, but if his knees were straight so were hers!

This afternoon we had a dance party.  They are both great dancers, and I have a video to prove it.  They started with much more energetic moves and by the time the camera came out they had settled down quite a bit.  It's still cute, fun & entertaining!

Lilli never did get around to taking another nap this afternoon.  I put her down at 3pm, which is her normal routine at my house, but she was just talking and talking away and all I could hear was "MaryBeth. Snoh. Where'd he go? Snoh. Where'd he go?  MaryBeth." She was too excited to have Snoh with us to sleep!

Day 3

This morning we went to the theater and watched The Tale of Despereaux.  It was part of Regal Theater's Summer movie program.  They feature a different G or PG rated movie each Tuesday and Wednesday for $1.  It was fun to do something sort of special with Snoh on our last day without Lilli.  He seemed to really enjoy it even if there were a few points where he chose to close his eyes.  After the movie, though, he told me that he only needed to close 1 eye, because he wasn't all the way scared.

After more just time at home and a dinner of left-overs, we headed to Wende Lady's house to swim.  It was finally hot enough to swim :)  We had a good time until a family showed up with about 25 people and filled the pool.  Also, it also started raining, even though it was still sunny and warm out.  Snoh was very sad when we got back home because we didn't get to swim and play at the park, and continually told me that he wasn't tired but it wasn't more than a few minutes after laying in bed that he was fast asleep.

Day 2

Today started with a few errands.  We went to Walmart and got some healthy food, because our fridge was quite bare after being on vacation.  Snoh picked out all the vegetables and I had to pick all the fruit.  We even left a bag full of vegetables at the register, but the cashier was so nice to bring it to us at our car (that is another reason to go grocery shopping at 8am!).  We headed to Albertson's for some cereal, because of all deals, cereal deals are too hard for MaryBeth to pass up!  We went to the bank for obvious reasons, and then headed to the post office.  That was the errand Snoh was most excited for.  We had to get some stamps so Snoh could mail a special letter.  He was very excited to give the postman his letter.
We played some more Trouble, and this time I was so lucky to get 1 of my pegs halfway around the board when Snoh won.  I did beat him a few times at tic tac toe, so I feel good about myself again :) 

Not much else exciting happened: we watered the plants again, did some weeding, ate dinner with brother and played Super Mario Brothers on the old fashioned nintendo!

The Drive & Day 1

Snoh did great on the drive, even if he asked a few times why the drive was so long and why we weren't taking any shortcuts. When Marcel reclined his seat to take a nap, Snoh said, "I wish I could do that."

He enjoyed playing the video game until the battery died. Oh, and he kept saying "my neck hurts" but didn't believe us when we said a break from the game would help. And the dvd player made the entire trip without a battery, but he never asked for a movie.

 I don't know what this was about, I'm guessing the sun was causing glare on the game.

Day 1 at Brother's house was pretty good.  We spent most of the day inside so MaryBeth could get the house put back together after vacation.  We played Trouble & Connect 4 and Snoh won every single game. I had to take a picture of the game that he won and I had yet to get a single piece out of home. Not a single 6 for me the entire game! 

 

We watered the garden (1 strawberry plant & 1 melon plant that didn't fit in my mom's garden) and picked some weeds.  Snoh is a great weed-picker and decided it was just like a video game: we were winning and the weeds were losing.

 

 

He ate a whole plate of dinner tonight, only picking the green peppers out of the second and third servings, and even though he had brought the ketchup out of the fridge, he didn't even put it on the spaghetti!  Before dinner was finished, he asked to do the dishes.  Dishes is the least favorite chore around our house, so we were more than happy to let him help.  Plus how could you deny a chance to get this picture:

Class of 2011

Marcel finally graduated from:

but the wonderful ceremony took place at the Jordan Ballroom on the Boise State University's campus. 

Marcel looked pretty pleased while walking into the ceremony.  Oh, and I have to add that I was very pleased Marcel walked behind the tallest guy in the ceremony.  It helped me get this great picture.

This is the lady (Dr. Moore) who helped to get Marcel and the rest of his class to this special day.  She is the director of the Boise campus and was the cohort leader this year.  T5 got very lucky!

The speaker was really good.  He made a few great points:
"You could spend your whole life making a living, but not making a life"

"E- Example
T-
H- Hope
I- Integrity
C- Christ-like character"
(I am bound and determined to find someone who remembers what the T stood for)

I don't know about Marcel or his classmates, but I was very sad when he told me that Dr. Moore wouldn't be giving out their diplomas, but it worked out wonderfully because she got to "hood" them:

 I also missed the photo op that they posed for the professional photographer, but we'll definitely be ordering it!

After the ceremony, it was time for photos!  

I told Marcel if nothing else happened, we were getting a picture of us with him in his cap, gown and hood, and a picture of us in our dress clothes.  It was a success, only the second one of us didn't make it to the blog!

Marcel's other 2 women through the program!

Sue (left) taught Marcel how to teach music and supervised him through his student teaching, and again Dr. Moore

 Marcel, his mom and little brother

Emily and Snoh

 Afterwards, we enjoyed delicious cake at the cake reception :)

I let Marcel open his gift from me before we headed to the party.  He was SO excited to finally own the complete series of The West Wing.  He had been bidding on it on ebay, but little did he know, I was saving all my amazon giftcards I earned through swagbucks to buy it for him.

 A few hours after graduation, we had a party for Marcel and I did horrible at taking pictures there, but I did get a picture of the cupcakes we made!  Emily & Mellissa helped to roll and tie all the diplomas, which was wonderful because me and my mom had plenty of stuff to cook/prepare.

After being at the party for awhile, Marcel changed and looked like this:

Marcel opened gifts at the party and got some really great stuff!

Lilli was so excited to see us (especially Marcel) on a day we don't normally see her.  She kept trying to give his card to Snoh, but finally got it to the right person.  She even colored it for him!

All weekend, Snoh asked when we would be going swimming, so after the party wrapped up they all decided the time was right!  It was cloudy and everyone who swam were freezing after getting in the water.

All in all, it was a fantastic weekend, full of celebrating Marcel's hard work and accomplishments. 

Now let our focus turn to job searching!

2 Years of Wedded Bliss

Yesterday, Marcel and I spent the day celebrating 2 wonderful years of marriage!  The day started perfectly was we both slept until 9am. The rest of the day was spent redeeming coupon after coupon ;)  We didn't exchange gifts this year because we had already boughten ourselves a new bedset, which was needed very badly.  Plus it fit in with the 2nd year = cotton anniversary.  We've followed that tradition both years now and I hope we continue it in the future.

We started at Jared's to get our rings cleaned.  What better thing could you do on an anniversary than to add a little sparkle to your ring :)

We then headed to TGI Friday's to redeem a free appetizer coupon.  Next on the agenda was clothes shopping for MaryBeth with some money she earned for completing online surveys.  2 pairs of jeans and 1 pair of shorts for $7.00 (the 2 jeans came to a grand total of $1.21!).  That's the best type of shopping: when you get new stuff cheaper than you could buy at Goodwill.  We went right down the road to Macaroni Grill for our free dessert.  We had a coupon emailed to us since it was our anniversary, how sweet of them!

Then we were off to Wahooz! for a round of mini golf that we got BOGO.  It wasn't until the 10th hole that I told Marcel I was out to win, which turned out to be a big mistake.  I had been beating him until that point, and then he ended up winning.

 

We headed home to watch 1 of our redbox rentals, The Other Woman, which was a very sad movie.  After that we headed to our local TGI Friday's and ordered a basket of fries and redeemed our last coupon of the day for another free dessert.  We both highly recommend their new Oreo dessert, but only if you have a coupon because it is a huge rip-off if you have to pay the regular price of $5.59.  It wasn't until this stop in our day that Marcel asked if I had taken a before picture of all the coupons we were going to redeem.  I LOVE that he is more than happy to have our day revolve around what coupons we have.  It was also here that we decided we're going to strive to spend $10 per year of marriage on our anniversary activities each year.  We'll see how that goes, but we were under our $20 budget for this year!

 

 

We finished the next with another redbox, Unstoppable, which was really good and kept me on the edge of my seat.  But as I've posted before I could watch Denzel Washington all day long, as long as I'm cuddled up to my own good looking black man :)

We spent time in bed before drifting off to sleep talking about this upcoming year.  The things we hope to accomplish, both individually and together, things we are looking forward to and, in order to keep strengthening our marriage, the areas we think we can be improving on. 

All in all, it was a very low-key day, but turned out perfectly for us.  After the busyness of Marcel finishing up student teaching, school, etc, it was nice to have one complete day with no distractions or interruptions.  We're so lucky to have each other!

5 Years

Today marks a big day in our house.  It has been 5 years since Marcel and I started dating!  We've spent the last few days reminiscing our early days, which always makes for good conversation and a few good laughs.  This time, I remembered how skeptical people, including us, were of us, about how we were too different to make it work.  A long-distance summer "fling" started without much prior friendship that we both planned on ending when school started but neither of us ever got around to it.  And look where we are now!  It has been a great ride so far and we know that it will just continue to get better and better.

Our dating anniversary is just 8 days before our new, wedding anniversary, which aided me in gathering some of these photos.  This also means I'll have another anniversary post in a few days, but I couldn't let the "5 year" mark go without acknowledging it.

2006
(from September--MaryBeth's 21st birhtday--but it is the earliest one I could find on facebook)

2007
Tumwater Falls, WA

2008
Cannon Beach, OR

2009
8 days after being together 3 years!!

2010
Celebrating our 1st wedding anniversary

2011
Happy 5 years to us!!


Marcel,
You are my first and only love and I am so lucky to have you.  You make me happier than I could have ever imagined I would be.  I love you for always keeping me second in your life, behind nothing but God, even though you get pulled in so many directions by so many different things.  I am so grateful to have you support me in everything I do.  I love watching you with kids, especially Lilli, because I know that our kids will be the luckiest ones in the world to have you as their dad.  I hope you wake up and go to bed each day knowing just how much I love you, and that even if you know, I tell you anyway!  Thank you for these wonderful 5 years, and here's to many more filled with more happiness, joy and love than we could ever hope for!

He is Finished

MARCEL IS FINISHED WITH SCHOOL!!!!

He hasn't graduated yet, but his schoolwork is finished and it is a day we've been looking forward to since we moved here, but especially since January (at least that is my opinion)!

He finally has time to find and apply for as many jobs as he can find.  Education isn't the most flourishing field now, but I've been pleasantly surprised to see so many open jobs.  Many would require relocating, but we're trusting God to bring us the perfect job and know whole-heartedly that wherever we live it will be in God's plan for us.  He truly knows what is best for us, even more than we do.  It can be very trying and tiring to live that out and feeling like we're "on pause", but we're praying to continue in our faith in ALL areas of our life!

Marcel and his final project, as presented at the research symposium

Bummed it is so blurry, but either way he/we made it through all 16 months!