Happy birthday Grant, Happy wedding Mandy and Apartment Update

So a lot has happened since my last post.

1. Grant turned 25! For Grant's 25th birthday I got him a fabulous new bike, a golf glove and some very cool plaid shorts. However, it turned out that the bike had a flat tire, so we have not been able to go riding yet. Grant has gotten good use out of his new golf glove though as we are taking lessons together at the TPC Sawgrass -- be jealous! We signed up for group lessons, but were the only people to select this particular class...so it is just me and Grant and our fabulous instructor JP. So far we have learned grip, stance, chipping and 3/4 swings using a 6-iron. It is only a matter of time before we are professionals. Tiger Woods watch out! We learned how to chip last week. JP set up a friendly contest to see who could chip the best. I beat Grant on 6 of 7 balls. It was great! He still owes me dinner. =)

2. Last week was Mandy's wedding. Mandy is one of my best friends from college. She introduced me to Grant. =) It was a great weekend. I was able to be there as Mandy started her life with Scott and see some of our other friends from college. I absolutely love Mandy and her entire family! What a fun weekend!! Her and Scott are now in Hawaii and I am VERY jealous!

Me and Mandy before she said "I Do"

Mandy & Scott on the fabulous limobus!

The bridal party at Sanibel Island -- It was REALLY sunny!!

Me and Grant =)

Me and Mandy on the bus. :)

3. Here are some photos we took of our apartment today. It is really starting to feel like home!

Happy Easter!!

Today Grant and I celebrated Easter and the last day Grant will be 24. =)The Easter bunny brought me tulips and a bunny filled with chocolates. The bunny brought Grant a nice basket filled with his favorite chocolates. We went to church with my family and then to brunch at the Sawgrass Marriott where we got to see the Easter bunny! It was a little too cold for my liking, so we spent the rest of the day at the gym (working off that Easter chocolate) and in front of the TV watching Zach Johnson win the Masters. The weekends definitely go by way too fast!!

Tomorrow is Grant's birthday. I hope he likes his presents!! =)

Back to Back to Back

Much has happened since my last post. I'll start with the most recent. The Gators won their third national championship in the past 12 months. It truly is GREAT to be a FLORIDA GATOR!!! And, it is a truly amazing and quite a historic accomplishment for our athletic department. What a disappointment to Ohio State fans across the country! Grant and I watched the game at our place. We wanted to make the trek to Gainesville, but now that we are both employed neither of us wanted to drive back in the middle of the night!

Last weekend Grant's parents drove all the way up for Fort Myers to visit us and see our new place. We took Grant's mom to the beach in the afternoon. It was really nice to spend some time with them and show them our new place. We also introduced them to Ms. Pac Man. I am not sure if Grant's dad is sleeping or playing Pac Man!! Don't worry -- my high score of 63,440 is still in tact!! We also watched some PGA TOUR action in HD. I am sure Ed's golf watching will never be the same! ;)

My Aunt and Uncle from Chicago came to visit too. I was able to go to Savannah with them for a day. It was beautiful outside until we got off the trolley and it started to pour! Other than that we enjoyed some pecan pralines, authentic sweet tea and a fabulous dinner at the Old Pink House.Grant's birthday is coming up. He will officially be 25! Some of my favorite weeks of the year are the 6 in between my birthday and Grant's. I love being one year younger than him even if it's just for a small amount of time. :)

I win!

A while back Grant posted about a MS. Pac-man game we bought at Target.

Last night I set a new high score -- 62K and change. The bar has been set. Let's see how long it takes Grant to beat my new high score! =)

March Madness

It's official. March Madness has begun! This is by far one of my most favorite times of the year. The weather is PERFECT, college basketball is at it's peak, it's bonus and pay raise time at work, THE PLAYERS Championship is just around the corner...maybe a little further around that corner than it used to be since the tournament moved to May this year. Everything is great and this year I get to spend the entire time with Grant. =)

Last Saturday Grant and I took my little sister Tess to Disney World. It was a lot of fun. We had lunch with the princesses, went on all the rides at Epcot and I found a BEAUTIFUL Mikimoto pearl and diamond ring for sale in "Japan." We didn't get the ring, but I definitely showed it to Grant in case he should ever want to splurge on something special for me ;).

Me, Tess and Sleeping Beauty -- one of my favorites!

Me and Cinderella =)

Me and Grant in Italy! It's pretty sad that we have been to Vegas so many times that this reminded us more of The Venetian than Venice!

This Saturday we are once again traveling to O-Town. This time we are going to the Arnold Palmer Invitational. This will mark Grant's first ever visit to a PGA TOUR event. I am really excited to show him what the TOUR is all about on-site. It should be a great time!

March not only brings basketball, great weather and the Florida swing of the TOUR, but it also brings us one month closer to wedding season! This year I am in THREE weddings! I am blessed that three of my closest friends have each found great men to marry and I am honored to be a part of their weddings. Countdown to wedding number 1 of 2007 (Mandy & Scott) is at 30 days!

Here is Grant at the "cool club." ;)

Feeling better

I am definitely feeling better. I am such a baby when I get sick. Luckily I have Grant to keep me grounded and to help me feel better.

Today is a special day for me and Grant. 4 years and 4 months ago we started dating and 9 months ago we got married. I got up today like any other day. Grant was still sleeping when I left to go to the gym. Usually Grant is gone when I get back from the gym. Today I was running a little behind schedule and got home about 10 minutes later than usual. I was surprised when I saw Grant's car in the parking lot. I walked up the stairs and saw him standing there all dressed up for work. He hugged me and and gave me a kiss and told me that he waited to leave for work just to tell me he loved me and happy anniversary. I am a lucky girl!! Boys -- take notes!

Sickness

It is starting to feel like summer again in Florida and I am sick. I got sick last week and thought I was getting better, but it has not gone away. :( It's just a cold, but I am not a fan of being sick.

Other points of interest::
*Last night my Mom made my favorite dinner and invited Grant and I over. It was fabulous.
*Jordan and Ryan are coming to visit in May. They purchased their flights over the weekend.
*Grant is really enjoying his new job and is going to get his first pay check on Friday!

That is all for now! I am going to go take some more Tylenol Cold! =)

My Valentine's Day

This past Wednesday was Grant and my first Valentine's day as a married couple and our first since he left working at a restaurant. I was very excited to actually be able to have dinner with him on Valentine's Day for the very first time. =)

I woke up at 6:00AM like any other day and went to the gym. Now that Grant is working he is usually gone by the time I get back from the gym. I got back to the apartment around 7:40AM. I saw that Grant left the light on over the dining room table, which is very unusual. I walked over to the table and saw several heart-shaped pancakes, fresh strawberries and blueberries along with a Valentine's Day card. I was so touched! I opened the card and read the sweet words that Grant wrote. Later he told me that he picked that specific card because the colors of the card (pink, black and white) were the same as our wedding colors -- that is attention to detail!

While at work I received really beautiful pink and red roses -- LOVE them!

I left work a little earlier than normal and came home to find my husband busy at work in the kitchen!
He made me shrimp scampi and pasta with chocolate cake for dessert. We enjoyed some wine and a fabulous homemade dinner.
I gave him a fabulous new watch and a card, both of which pale in comparison to everything that Grant did for me. He truly is amazing. I usually have VERY high expectations for my friends/family. Grant definitely consistently blows right by those expectations. I am a very lucky and grateful wife!!

Snowy Indianapolis

Grant and I had a GREAT time in Indianapolis last weekend. We decided to travel up to Indy to visit with friends and celebrate Grant's new job! We were quite excited about the 6 inches of snow they received a couple of days before our arrival.

Right after we got to Richard and Nate's house we decided to layer up and play in the snow! We both made some fabulous snow angels. It was very fun.

Grant's snow angel

My snow angel

Grant's snowy butt!!

That night was "family dinner night" at Richard and Nate's. Several people came over and made dinner. It was fun hanging out with some of Nate and Richard's friends in Indy.

On Friday we went downtown to see some sights. In downtown Indianapolis there are several war memorials and a nice indoor mall -- perfect for the winter time! We walked around as long as we could bear the cold and stopped in museums and shops along the way. It was a fun afternoon.

That night we went to dinner and to a comedy club. Afterwards we hung out in Nate and Richard's hot tub...in single digit weather!! The guys decided it would be fun to run around the block in their bathing suits and make angels in the snow. They looked SO cold!!

BURRR! Crazy guys running outside in their bathing suits!!!

Richard, Nate and Grant -- Like old times!

Me and my Chicago girls =)

Here we are again :)

On Saturday a group went sledding and I waited for Jordan, Ryan and Marin to come over. I was so excited to see them and really touched that they made the trip for one night to see me! We went to Mongolian BBQ that night and spent some time catching up.



The weekend went by quickly and now it's back to work for me and the beginning of a new job for Grant. :)

I'm going to freeze!

Grant and I are leaving for Indianapolis tomorrow morning, not to celebrate the Colts SB win, but to celebrate Grant's new job. I am super excited to see our friends, but not super excited about the FREEZING weather! I complain when it gets under 60 in Florida. We'll see how I do when it's under 30 in IN.

I am, though, really excited to hopefully see two of my oldest and best friends from Chicago who may drive down for a night. It's tough being so far away, but I am glad the distance has not adversely affected our friendships.

Ms. Pacman Domination

Hey I'm a roll with these post, although, as Duck pointed out I'm a day late. It's hard staying at home with nothing to do.

A while back I had seen an info-mercial for these controllers that plug into your TV that let you play some classic arcade game. I thought it was neat and knew how much Becky loves or maybe should say loved Ms. Pacman, so I had it in my mind to get one for Becky as a gift. It had slipped my mind and forgot all about them until I ran across them at Target near the game section shortly after Christmas...dang few days too late. I showed them to Becky and we purchased the Ms. Pacman one. There are several controllers each with different games on them. The Ms. Pacman came with four other games but we were mainly buying it for one.


At first, neither of us were that great, but now I control the high score. Becky claims that's only because I stayed at home and played it all day but that is simply not true. I was and am a very busy person. The first high score that stuck around for a while was around 35k. Then, I set the new one at 43k. Shortly after that and on the same night, Becky had beaten it (I forget her exact score). Her score held for a while, but a few days later, I topped her with a score of just over 49k. The other night, after Becky went to bed, I played a few games and set a new high score of 54,130. I didn't tell her the whole next day. After dinner, before anything good came on TV she started playing. If she doesn't do well on the first level she restarts or she'll restart if she dies on the first or second level. I do too sometimes, but she is a reset master. She had a decent game going and still hadn't seen the new high score. I was sitting next to her just waiting until she saw it. She got pretty far, and after dying, she looked over to see how close she was to the high score and realized I set a new one! Her face was hilarious as she was surprised and upset somewhat that I didn't tell her, and also because she won't be able to catch me.

She knew I was going to write about my Ms. Pacman domination today, since I didn't yesterday. This gave her one more night to beat my high score and to stop me from posting about my crushing of her in one of her favorite games. She played all night right up until bedtime. On her last game she did really well, but fell short by 2 or 3 thousand points. She was so close, but couldn't pull it out. The frustrating part for her was the last level she played on. During the game floating fruit appears and on this level the fruit was a banana, which is worth 5k points. She had missed getting it and ended up dying in the process of trying to eat it. Had she gotten that one banana this post may not have been written, but it was.

One of the other games is pole position and I enjoy playing it also, and of course I'm rather good at it now.

Soon to be...

It's so easy not to post, plus I don't know how many people actually check this thing anymore since the posts are sporadic. So as Becky mentioned in the previous post I have some news. This morning I received an offer from Kemper Auto and Home to fill an IT Programming position which I verbally accepted and will be signing for when the papers arrive in the mail. So starting February 12th I'll be working for Kemper Auto and Home as an IT Programmer working with Blaze which is similar to java but is ultimately a rules management solution, designed to automate operational business decisions and much more. Although they are providing me some study material to get more acquainted with the language and its concepts, I will also be spending some time relaxing at the sandy beach across the street while Becky's at work.

For the month that I was unemployed the majority of my time was spent job hunting and of course cleaning up after Becky and running around town for her. So hopefully with the two weeks I have to relax I'll have a few more post pop-up. I can tell you this that my next post will be tomorrow and on my domination of her favorite classic arcade game.

Wedding Season is Approaching...and post number 100!

Wedding Season is Approaching

A week and a half ago wedding season officially began for me and Grant. We made the all so familiar trek down to Fort Myers for my good friend Mandy’s bridal shower and bachelorette party. I guess Grant didn’t make the trip for those reasons…


Here is Mandy and 5 of her 6 bridesmaids at the shower. =)


All of the girls who met on Jennings 1 in Y2K plus a baby and a half!!

As a bonus we got to see Grant’s parents for the third weekend out of the past 5. We have now been regulars on I-75 for what seems like years!

Mandy’s shower and bachelorette party was a blast! Her family is so much fun to be around and Mandy was just glowing! I cannot wait to see everyone again in April for her wedding.


The fabulous limo we had for her bachelorette party.


Me, Erin and Mandy inside the limo.


Other weddings scheduled for 2007 include my good friend Danielle from UF and one of the girls I grew up with, Marin. It is all quite exciting! I am so excited to be there to see my closest friends get married. I love weddings! Since Grant and I got married 8 months and 3 days ago two of Grant’s groomsmen have gotten married and 3 of my bridesmaids have gotten engaged and are getting married this year. =)

Grant may actually post on here sometime soon as he should have some news to share today. =)

I bleed Orange and Blue

I have had sufficient time to recover now from our win over Ohio State last Monday. What a fabulous game! It was simply amazing to watch the Gators dominate a team that everyone thought was unbeatable. I feel that this truly shows that the SEC is the best conference in college football and the Gators are the best team.

Grant and I made the trip down to Gainesville to watch the game with some of our good friends. If we couldn't go to Arizona the next best thing was to watch it at UF. We left Jacksonville at around 5PM and met our friends at the O'Connell Center to watch the game surrounded by 10,000 Gators. Everyone was given a free "It's Great to Be a Florida Gator" tee-shirt, size large of course!



Before the game the crowd was quite lively. But after that first play, with the blatent hold and OSU touchdown, everyone was silent. That did not last long, however, as the crowd was completely into it again on the next Gator drive.



After the game Grant, me, Erin, Beau, Ashley and Charlie, along with every other Gator in Gainesville, found ourselves on University Avenue. We were all taking photos and screaming! It really is Great to be a Florida Gator!!

Some photos

Sorry it has been a while since I've last posted. Much has happened. Here are some fabulous photos of what Grant and I have been up to.


In front of the Christmas tree at Sea World. Grant bought me Sea World tickets for my birthday this past year because I had never been there before. We hadn't had a chance to use them until now. It was so crowded though! At the end of the night it got bitter cold for this Florida girl. We started to head for the exit and asked a worker where it was. He was upset that we were leaving so soon. He told us that we could trade our tickets in for a season pass at no extra charge! So we did!!


At the Shamu Show at Sea World. I admit that I was a little disappointed that the show consisted mainly of the trainers telling stories on the video board. Next time I hope there is a little more Shamu-Action.


On the way back from Fort Myers (I will post about our visit in the next few days) we stopped in Tampa to see my best friend Jordan, her boyfriend Ryan and their friends Renee and Glenn all from Chicago before they left for a cruise. It was PERFECT timing! I only wish Grant and I had gone on the cruise too!! Next time we are so there!


Here is a photo from New Year's Eve. We went to dinner with my old college roommate Erin, her boyfriend Beau and their friends Charlie and Ashley. Afterwards we went to a bar and then downtown to watch the fireworks. Here we are at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Jacksonville. There was the cutest group sitting by us. They had all been friends for 60 years!!! Most met each other in elementary and middle school. They all met to catch up in Jacksonville from all over the country.

I'll post more later about our trip to Fort Myers over break and our NATIONAL CHAMPION FLORIDA GATORS!!! This was a great week!

It’s been a while...

Sorry for the delay. I took the last couple of weeks off. Grant and I moved 99% of our things into our new place and finally got all of the furniture we had purchased delivered, traveled to Sea World and Fort Myers, celebrated our first Christmas and New Years as a married couple. One of my close friends from elementary school got engaged. It’s all been exciting and fun!

We will start with Christmas. It was wonderful to finally share a Christmas with Grant. My family always does dinner on Christmas Eve. Grant, Tess and I made a bunch of Christmas cookies (thanks to Kari and Aunt Nancy for the cookie cutters and supplies) and brought them to dinner. We each opened one gift and then went home. When I woke up on Christmas morning I walked into our living room and saw my presents all together in the center of the room. Grant said that Santa must have been lost because we never got a tree! I was so excited!! I opened my gifts from Grant right away. He got me some perfume, the hair straightener that I wanted and PINK golf clubs with PINK golf tees and a PINK golf towel!! When I was done looking at all of my cool new presents we went over to my parents’ house where I had my presents for Grant. I got him some cologne and a bunch of new work clothes that he needed.

Here is Max, my family’s dog, in all the wrapping paper.


Stay tuned for pictures from Sea World, Fort Myers and New Years Eve!