Best 2 Years Ever

Well the fact that I've been trying to write this post since last week shows how busy things have been. I'll start with a brief re-cap of Memorial day weekend and just run straight on through this one. I know you guys have missed me :o)

Memorial day weekend was much like yours, I'm sure: one cookout after another! Saturday kicked it off with a cookout at my mom's house. Josh's parents were also having a big cookout so we decided to divide and conquer. Josh went to his parents' and I went to mine. It was a really fun day. My step-brother Ricky and his wife came up and I hadn't seen them since Christmas time. On Sunday we partied with Jenna at her dad's house to celebrate her graduation from Gettysburg College. This was a truly unreal moment because we've known Jenna since she was in the 8th grade. She's always been the younger one, 2 years behind Ben who is of course the youngest in our family. So having her finish college was big. Now she's preparing for medical school (we thought we missed her while she was in Gettysburg) while working at National Institutes of Health for the next year. Finally on Monday I decided I wanted to lay out and tan a little since it was so warm. Living in a townhouse though, our deck is literally inches from our neighbor's deck. Not usually a problem considering they don't have so much as a chair out on their deck and have not used it once in the almost year that we've lived here. But of course, it was Memorial day weekend and they'd had a big party for which they rented/borrowed a large canopy and a bunch of chairs. So once I got all lotioned up and ready to go outside I looked out there to see the neighbor just chilling on his deck. I had to wait him out but luckily it didn't take long. After about an hour we got a phone call from Jennie asking if we wanted to hang out. So her and Michael came over and we got some Little Caesar's pizza (a bit of a tradition for us) and watched Superbad. It was a perfect relaxing way to end that busy weekend.

- Sheppie at my mom's cookout-

- Lacy & Leo being their cutest at the cookout-

- Evan being the cutest baby ever-

-My awesome dirt cake (being awesome?)-

During the week - Wednesday - Josh and I celebrated being a couple for 2 years! He brought me flowers because he's fantastic like that. Then we worked outside in our garden until very late. We previously had shrubs in front of our house but we took them out last fall. Since then it's just been some stumps and dirt but this spring we decided to make it a flower bed. We got the last of the stumps out (also last weekend, in the mornings before the cookouts) and got some landscaping stones from Lowes. We sat out all evening Wednesday with the level putting the stones in very carefully. At about 8:15 we realized we needed just 5 more stones to complete the job so we made a last minute run back to Lowes. We also decided to stop in Costco for slices of pizza -- our very romantic anniversary dinner -- since we had completely forgotten about dinner. At the end of the night our wall looked great. Thursday afternoon my mom came over and helped me fill in the flower bed and plant some New Guinea Impatiens with some grasses. The impatiens are a very tropical bright pink so they brighten up the front of the house in a big way and make it look so cheerful.

-Where the shrubs used to be-

-"Stanley" who helped keep things level-

-The completed wall & flower bed!-

-The front of our house looking cheerful-

All of this gardening we wanted to have done in time for Saturday (yesterday) when we had invited our families over for a cookout. Usually in my family when it's someone's birthday they pick a restaurant and we all go out for dinner together. So for my birthday this year I thought -- money's kind of tight, maybe it would be fun to just grill at my house and people can bring some sides. Everyone seemed onboard with this idea. We also ended up inviting Josh's parents and siblings which made it a considerably larger event. And of course the forecast was calling for severe thunderstorms with hail and possible tornadoes. It still worked really well. We just brought our deck table & chairs into the house and pulled the grill over close to the door so we could pop in and out easily. We all ate, played Rock Band and had a great time visiting. Then later we all met up with a bunch of friends at Nottingham's to celebrate the rest of the night away. I must say, I haven't had a night like that since college. Almost everyone we invited made it out including my step brother and his wife who we've never been out with, and AMBERLY who never gets to go out. It was such a fantastic time- we just told stories and cracked up the whole night. There are a lot of pictures, we got very silly with our cameras... and just silly in general. You'll have to look at the pics because there's no way I could recap it all here. I'll just say, I think I laughed off every calorie I consumed. How could I complain about that?? :o)

-Annie, Rick, Me, Amberly, Ben, Jenna-

-Me, Ben, Amberly-

-Amberly & Me-

-Nathan, Me & Josh-

-Self shot at the end of the night-

So today is my actual birthday. We're getting ready to make a massive breakfast (belgian waffles!!) whenever Ben and Jenna wake up. Then I'm not sure what I'll feel like doing the rest of the day. Definitely some general relaxing. Josh already surprised me this morning with a pantry packed full of my favorite cereal (Quaker Oatmeal Squares -- if you've never had them, you must). He always takes care of me in special little ways like making sure I have my favorite things. I definitely lucked out in the husband department :o)

I hate to close on this note - but you're about to lose me to grad school yet again. My first summer class starts Tuesday night. It runs for 6 weeks ending on July 10th. The second class is on Thu/Fri/Sat. for the last 2 weeks of June. And somewhere in there (June 28 - July 3) we'll be visiting family in Florida. But such is summer, that's what it's for right? Maybe not the school part, but summer is always busy. Hopefully in my next post or two I will have found out which school I'll be teaching in for next year!

I hope everyone had a fabulous weekend - and HAPPY JUNE!