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Friday, December 19, 2008

Pee First* :)

Look! A new post! Admit it, you're excited.

First, let me say Merry Christmas to everyone! I'm hoping to be able to blog a little more over the holiday break from school (officially now through January 4) but just in case, I want to make sure I got my holiday greeting in :)

Next let me say, this is going to be a GIANT update since I haven't blogged for so long. Fortunately for you, I have an amazing husband who said he would be willing to continue playing Rock Band until I was done writing this post, and then we can proceed with our cozy Friday night together. Lucky me :)


I'll start with my dad. He's doing so much better. He has made great strides with his intense routine of physical, occupational and speech therapy at least 5 days a week. Amberly, Ben and I have been vigilant about one of us visiting every single day to make sure he's well taken care of and everything is going well for him. We've got him set up with all kinds of conveniences to make his stay there as comfortable as possible. He has only had minor complaints about one nighttime tech who he says is mean to him and won't help him in the middle of the night. He is also getting really sick of hospital food, but who can blame him for that. We bring him "real" food from the cafeteria whenever we can. His biggest issue is trying to recover from the fall. He's older and he had a lot of leg problems before this happened. He shattered his ankle when we were kids (so probably around 20 years ago) and has limped ever since. He has arthritis in both knees, and he has previously broken a hip (also from falling alone at home). So he's not a sturdy guy as it is. He hurt the non-broken hip on this fall and is still feeling considerable pain from it when he tries to get around. When I was there the other day his walking speed was noticeably quicker. He's using a walker to prevent another fall, so it's not really fast at all, but when he first started standing and walking they were trying to get him to a wheel chair to take him for therapy, and he stood in the floor for a long time just trying to get turned around to sit in the wheel chair. He finally looked up and said, "Tell them I'll be there next week." So to see him moving around at a relatively normal pace is reassuring :) The therapists estimated about another 2 - 2.5 weeks and then he can go home... wherever that will be, because he can't go back to his apartment to live alone at this point. But that's another hurdle.


In other news....

I also got my new car! This was unexpected. We went to the dealership and ordered the car on the Thursday before Thanksgiving. My mental math puts that on the 20th of November. At that time they told us it would be about 5 weeks before it came in - so somewhere around the end of December, possibly into January because of the holidays. Two weeks later, Wednesday the 3rd of December, I got an email at work saying that the dealership had gotten the invoice on my car which meant the car would be delivered within a week! If that wasn't surprising enough, less than an hour later I got another email saying the car was actually there and ready to be picked up! We were unprepared on multiple levels: #1. I wasn't ready to part with my Integra, #2. my mom was on the title so I not only had to find that, but get to Eldersburg so she could sign it, and #3. I had a very nice stereo in the Integra that Ben had given me as a gift and I wasn't about to trade that in with the car, so I had to go to Eldersburg to find the stock stereo somewhere in my mom's basement AND we needed to find a quick (and free) way to switch them out. Well, I don't have to tell you that we were awesome enough to accomplish all of this on Thursday (even though I had originally found the wrong stereo in my mom's basement and had to make another trip to find the right one), and by Friday evening we were on our way to Annapolis Subaru to pick up our brand new car. It was bittersweet because as I mentioned before I thought I had a little more time to say goodbye to my Integra. If you remember when I bought that car, I had busted my butt for it and had had my heart set on it for a long time. I really loved it and it had gone so many places with me: Alabama for Jared's wedding, Cedar Point, New York city... just to name some big ones. Not to mention it had never given me any trouble. But I knew it was time for us to part. It had just barely under 150,000 miles, it was 10 years old, I hated the ice cold/blistering hot leather seats, and there was no way to fit a family in there. So I drove her her last drive to Annapolis, did some paper work, and drove home in my brand new Forester... but not before driving past to wave goodbye to the Integra :) Today is the Forester's 2-week birthday and I have loved her every second. So at this time, I'd like to introduce you to Sue.....

Isn't she so pretty?? I've gotten some criticism about her color [white], but I wanted a pretty car. The other colors were simply not for me. The only other colors I was considering were a charcoal gray (Josh's favorite) and black, but both of those came with a really dark gray interior and I didn't want essentially black with black. I thought it would feel too enclosed. Other than her beautiful exterior, some of Sue's best features include a remote engine starter so I don't have to go out in the cold to start the car up, fog lamps, heated cloth seats, side-mirror defrosters, all-weather floor mats, a cover for my trunk cargo, a cover to protect the rear bumper when you're loading/unloading cargo, and a gigantic moonroof... it's seriously like being at the planetarium.

Not only that......

We celebrated our first anniversary! I can't believe it's been a year already. Our actual anniversary was on Monday (the 15th) but I suggested we celebrate on Friday (the 12th) since Monday was a work day and we'd be tired. We decided to go out to a nice dinner at Gordon Biersch - a fabulous brewery in Annapolis. If you like DuClaw it's similar but a few steps up in class. I had the crab cake and the Marzen- a smooth, mildly sweet, auburn colored lager. Both were delectable. Josh had a Marzen barbeque burger and the Golden Export- a smooth lager, lightly hopped with a dry finish. He also liked both. I tried his beer and liked it, but I definitely enjoy the slightly darker lagers. After dinner we came back to the house and just snuggled on the couch in the dark by the Christmas tree. It was very romantic and nice. We don't get to do that often enough. Then came the super fun of gift exchange - we proved [yet again] how perfect we are for each other by getting spot-on perfect gifts for each other. I bought him a Nintendo Wii because I knew he would have it and enjoy it for a long time and it was something we could do together. He arranged for us to have portraits done since our last formal pictures were the wedding. They turned out SO great and we bought a bunch. It's something I'll keep and love for years and years to come. We also celebrated a little on Monday night since it was our actual anniversary. We just made dinner and ate by candle-light. We also had a really tasty wine. It's from Elk Run in Mt. Airy and it's called Annapolis Sunset. I highly recommend it if you like light and fruity wine. Unfortunately all wine causes me a nasty headache the next day so I had to wake up and take some medicine to get through the morning, but it was worth it :)


And my last update in this extremely long post.....

It's Christmas! How is my shopping going, you ask? Well it's not going great, but I have made some progress. I decided to do the majority of my shopping online this year simply because of time. Between work and visiting my dad I just don't have the time to drive far and wide searching for gifts and standing in lines. It sounded like a great idea. The packages started arriving, and then they stopped arriving. On Wednesday according to our shipment tracking, there were supposed to be four things delivered between Josh and I both. Well, we never saw them, and still haven't seen them, and have come to the conclusion that these packages were stolen from our front porch before we came home that day. It was Josh's gift for his mom which we have been looking for honestly for years - every year that we've been together. He finally found it and it got stolen. There was also a gift for his brother Nathan and his wife, in addition to a gift for my mom and one for my sister and her husband. We were furious, but realized there was absolutely nothing that could be done. We're still going to try calling Amazon and/or UPS and USPS to see if they can just double check everything. But it really looks like there was just some jerk who noticed four boxes sitting there at 2:30 in the afternoon when no one else is home and figured there must be something good in there. So we're trying to move on and focus on the positive... like the fact that Christmas break has officially started and we don't have to return to work for two solid weeks! Josh's job is that great that he can take off when I'm off. It's been a really difficult few months for us with my job keeping me so busy. These two weeks are going to be exactly what we need.

Overall I'm completely thrilled for the Christmas season and almost sad that we're so close to it being over. Tomorrow we're going to a wedding and then it's mostly just relaxing with the exception of Christmas day of course which we will spend with our families, and then New Years Eve which we are spending with Mr. Andrew Bokman and his lovely lady, Devon. Ex-cit-ing!

Alright, I know you're sick of reading this if you've made it this far so I'll wrap it up. Thanks for coming back after weeks of bloglessness on my part. I do appreciate it :) I'm off to curl up with my handsome husband and watch Wall-E!


1 comment:

  1. Oh I'm so glad to get the update! I have been wondering about everything. First of all, I love Sue. If Sue lived closer, I would be Sue's godmother. She is beautiful in all of her white glory. I approve.Also, bah humbug to the package stealers!!! That is not cool. That has happened to me too and now I am one of those nerds that always pays for the extra delivery confirmation whatevers because it made me so furious when it got stolen.Lastly, I'm so glad you're Dad is doing better. You guys are awesome for visiting him everyday. I'm sure he appreciates it so much.Lastly, I would like to say a Great job Josh for an awesome idea for an anniversary present (your's was great too Em), but wow, so thoughtful! So you guys win. Happy Anniversary!

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