Where have YOU been?!

Sorry for being so absent from blogging!  You haven't been missing too much, but let me share a bit so that we're up-to-date.

Towards the end of July we spent an awesome week in Ellenton, Florida visiting my grandmother and spending time with my sister (Amanda), brother-in-law (John), and niece (Anne Marie, or "Nannie" as Presley says).  We also got to see our Uncle Stuart & two cousins, Remi & Kennedy.  It was just beautiful.  Tony & I also had a date night out (alone!!!) for the first time in a long time!  We went to The Sandbar to have dinner on the beach.  We tried to make it there by sunset but JUST missed it.  However, we didn't miss out on a beautiful setting, that is for SURE.  It was gorgeous on the beach.  I got the Grouper Tacos (AMAZING!) and Tony got the Bali Chicken Sandwich and we had a great time!  We thought about getting the crab cakes to start out with since that's what we ordered just before Tony popped the question 3.5 years ago, but I'm glad we didn't because they brought out some delicious bread to our table!  If you are ever in the Anna Maria Island area, stop by this restaurant if you're looking for a place to eat on the beach! 

We also ate at some other favorites in the area:  Cha Cha Coconuts and the Anna Maria Oyster Bar.  At the Oyster Bar they have kids menus that you can get for one penny per inch of your child's height!  ADORABLE.  And so affordable.  I got the coconut-crusted tilapia and goodness gracious, if it's not one of the best seafood dishes I've ever had, then I don't know what is! 

We also made a family trip out to the beach two of the days we were in Florida and that was great.  But the majority of the vacation we spent hanging out at our awesome rental house with the Carrico's (and missing the Myers/Bunch clan) and in the pool!  Vacations are VASTLY different with little ones... it seemed like it was always someones naptime - and never the parents'!  Tony and I are used to packing our vacations full of things to do and see, but nowadays it is much more fun to take it easy and keep the baby happy.  It was one of the best vacations we've ever taken.

Presley and Anne Marie chillin' in the cousin bath tub!  They're 5 months apart.

Amanda's pregnant again!  She found out while we were on vacation!!!  YAY!

Presley was SO tired each night and loved to fall asleep in mommy & daddy's bed

Some of the "Myers" girls

The gang at Cha Cha Coconuts

Tony close to the spot where he proposed to me :)

John, Amanda, and Anne Marie at Holmes Beach

Presley & Tony at Holmes Beach

Oh... did I mention we made stops to Downtown Disney on the first and last day of our trip?  AMAZING.  We ate at two new places (to us) - The Earl of Sandwich & Raglan Road.  Both exceeded all expectations, which is very hard to do for us because our expectations of any/all things Disney are already so high!  At Raglan Road I got this delicious "boxty" sandwich ("sliced Gammon topped with Dubliner cheddar sandwiched between two pan seared boxty potato cakes with a fried egg on top") and Tony ordered one of their specialties which was their shepherds pie!  At the Earl, I got the Earl's club ("turkey, bacon, Swiss, sandwich sauce, lettuce & tomato") and we will definitely be going back to this eatery in the future.  One of the best things about visiting Downtown Disney was seeing Presley's reaction to all of it.  When she was enjoying herself so much the first visit, I really did get tears in my eyes.

It was extremely hot out!

The sign on the arch behind Presley says, "It just gets better"

Other things that have happened in the time since I last wrote?  Tony lost his job, I started working at the zoo (dream come true), I've weaned Presley down to nursing her at morning and bedtime, oh... and today I met one of my favorite bloggers, Jessica from Little Baby Garvin!

Yes... I over-enthusiastically used the phrase, "I follow your blog!" and yes... I just had to turn the moment into a photo op!  But seriously, I've been reading her blog for about two years now (give or take), which was around the time that we were both pregnant with our first children - both girls - and our kids are just a few weeks apart.  I really do feel like I know her.  And everyone, just so you know, Jessica and her husband are just as kind and funny as you would think and Harper is even cuter! :)

And I said I had nothing to really update about!  Sheesh.  Things are going good around our home and we are adjusting to several changes - but so lucky to have each other.  Life would not be what it is without Presley and Tony and I am so thankful that they are two of my lifetime partners who I get to spend my days with.

I've been attempting to write, finish, and publish this particular blog for several weeks now... so hopefully I'm cured of my writing aversion and will be better about keeping up with this thing!

Currently {link-up} x9

This weeks prompts are {coveting, imagining, asking, saving for, fearing}

I am currently

Coveting...  Those with bigger houses.  I just feel like we are constantly exploding at the seams here!  Even before we had Presley, this house would have been small for just the two of us.  It's smaller than the apartment we had together.  (Though, I will never regret getting the heck out of there when we did.  It was definitely the right move to leave.)  We make it work.  But I can't help but wonder if and how life would be easier if we had enough space.  Or even just a family table.  Or a dishwasher.  Or a workable kitchen space.  But it's important to realize we have a safe place to raise Presley, a roof over our head, and above all we are in good health.  So much to be grateful for, always.

Imagining...  the beach.  I can't wait for our trip to Florida in July!  Now that most of the planning is behind us, I am just ready to go.  I can't wait to see Presley's reaction to sand and the sea!  I'm also excited to be with Tony in the same place where he proposed.  I'm ready to see my Gramma again and to be around family we only get to see a few times a year.  I can't wait to visit our favorite spots.  It'll be so so so great to have an extended getaway as a little family.

Asking...  God for direction in our life.  We are coming up on some big life decisions for our family (like, where in the HECK are we going to raise this family of ours?) and I am longing for the peace of putting my life in the Lord's gentle hold.  I'm not expecting Him to make the moves for us and I'm not expecting Him to seek out opportunities for us - those are both things we are going to be doing - but I am in need to hand my worries over.  I just wish I knew which way would be best for us... I wish I knew how the decisions we make in these moments would affect us in the long term... but I know it's better for us to not know those things beforehand.  The only way to move forward in this case is to head straight through the thick of it.

Saving for...  Well, I wish we were doing better about saving our money right now.  Because theoretically we would be saving up for our first home.  Not that we know where or when that'll be... but we do know it's on the horizon for us.  We are saving spare change in a jug for a future family trip to Disney World.  At this rate we should be able to afford a trip by 2020....

Fearing...  That we will never actually take the next leap we need to make.  I just want to make a decision.  I don't want to stay in the Quad Cities out of default... but if we make the decision to stay here, that would be different.  I also fear we won't find job opportunities in Tennessee.  We have family in all parts of the state, so that is where we are hoping to move because we want to be back in the south and even more we want to be around family there (and away from the snow/extended winter months).  But considering that my sisters are both at similar points in there lives - they don't have deep roots in the cities in which they live and therefore could move elsewhere for better opportunities.  That makes it hard to choose a place for US to put down roots.  Do we choose to live near the family we miss and risk that not working out after all?  Do we go purely where the best job opportunities are?  It's hard to say.  I guess more than anything - more than fearing we'll make the wrong choice - I fear that we will fail to make any choice at all.


In other news....

This past weekend one of my little cousins, Drew, graduated from high school.  I lived with Drew & the rest of his family for the last year I was in high school & my first year of college.  Those two years bonded me so close to Drew & his brother Ryan (and my aunt and uncle).  They have always been my family and continue to be - but I just can't describe how living with them and seeing them every day changed my relationship with each of them.  I do know that Drew is one of the funniest and sweetest people that I'm so lucky to know.  He's going to do amazing things and I just hope that I can still be a part of his life after he leaves the Quad Cities.  His graduation didn't really make me emotional whatsoever - I guess I always feel so preoccupied in keeping Presley calm and happy during things like graduations so I didn't really get to think about the impact of the day until later on.  Actually, the first time I really THOUGHT about it was when Drew stepped in the middle of Ryan and I for this picture and I felt my head rest on his shoulder.  MY head on HIS shoulder... what?!  I tell Drew & Ryan ALL the time I still see them as being 8 & 10.  And it totally and completely hit me here that he is 18 and growing up into a man!  I just started to tear up and had to really hold back from full on crying!  (It's amazing what becoming a mom does to you... aka, an emotional mess at times!!!)  Drew - I don't anticipate you reading this anytime soon, but if you ever do - I hope you know I love you so much and I am genuinely so incredibly proud of you.

Just for reference - here are some pictures of me & Drew over the years.  The top two pictures are me holding Drew when he was just a little baby!  The bottom left is a picture from the time that I lived with Drew and the bottom right is when I graduated with my associates degree in May 2009 - the same spot that we took the picture from Drew's graduation this past weekend.  Just seeing how much Drew & Ryan have grown in the past four years absolutely blows my mind.

 

Happy birthday to my fantastic, super-dad husband, Tony!  His 28th birthday was a few days ago and it was such a great day... not many of those awesome days come along where everything seems to go right (even when it goes wrong) and it made me fall more in love with him and my daughter.  Thanks for being exactly who you are to us and for always having the best interest of our family at heart.  You amaze me everyday!

Marriage Monday: A Little History

For the last few years in my blog's "about me" section I included the story of how Tony proposed to me.  When I first started blogging it was such a central part of my life - having just become engaged.  But now, as important as the experience is still to us, the farther we move away from that day in 2009, the less central it is in defining our family.  I figured I would write a blog about that special weekend so that the memories would be tucked away and safe inside this blog.

So let me just preface with a little about our dating history and our history as friends.

I can't remember when exactly Tony and I first met since we played soccer at the same church and had a lot of the same friends, but my first memory of Tony takes place in 2000.  Fall soccer was just beginning and when I was walking towards the fields with a friend, I remember seeing him riding his yellow bike.  It wasn't the first time I saw him, but it was the first time I got the courage to say something to him.  I just remember thinking he was heartbreakingly cute and that he was way out of my league with his good looks paired with the fact that he was just over two years older than me.  (Plus, I was dating one of his friends at the time.)  None of this mattered at the time and I waved to him and we exchanged hellos.  I'd say that since then we slowly got to the point where we spoke when we saw each other and eventually we became friends.  At that point, Tony and I did a lot of hanging out within our group of friends which mostly included my little sister (Ashley), his little brother (Sean), my best friend (Christine), his best friend/my boyfriend at the time (Peyton), and Peyton's older brother (Damen).

Here is one of my soccer teams, not sure which year this was, though.
Me (pink) & Christine (purple) are on the back row and Sean (green), Ashley (yellow), and Peyton (blue) are in the front.

Next up came my 13th birthday party that November.  I invited my closest friends at the time - we listened to music and danced in my garage, ate pizza (I think?) and had a scavenger hunt in my neighborhood.  If I didn't already have a crush on Tony, I realized the night of my birthday party how much I was genuinely interested in him and how different he was than any other boy I'd met.

This is just a portion of the original photo from my 13th birthday party.

After that was the ski trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee with Brookside Baptist (the church we played soccer at) over Martin Luther King Jr. weekend in January 2001.  My big sister (Amanda) was going on the ski trip and so was Christine, Peyton, Damen, Tony, and a bunch of other guys and girls that either played soccer or basketball at Brookside.  The majority of people going were Amanda, Damen, and Tony's age and honestly, I felt very threatened of some of the older girls.  They were older, prettier, and funnier than me and more comfortable openly flirting with Tony!  I picked a van and when the older girls went to the other van and asked Tony if he was coming to their van, my heart sank.  I don't know what prompted Tony to decline their offer and come into the van I was in... whether it was me or Peyton or whatever reason... I am so thankful for the choice he made!  (I think when I asked him about this years later he said he thought the girls his age were too pushy!  So the tortoise really does win the race, huh?)  The whole weekend of the ski trip was such a blast - we mostly just goofed off and laughed at everything - but we really did get to know each other over the weekend.  We were either talking in the van on the way home or we were writing notes back and forth... either way, I remember Tony and I told each other then that we really liked each other.  And there was no looking back from that point between us!

So serious.

Why he chose my van... I have no idea! Look at that greasy hair!

The cutest boy I'd ever seen!

For whatever reason, I really didn't think I should have a boyfriend in middle school (or maybe was playing hard to get?) so I didn't accept Tony's request to be his girlfriend until my freshman year of high school.  At this point he was a senior!  We went to prom together and I had no idea what I was doing or getting myself into!  The first song we ever danced to was "Only God Knows Why" by Kid Rock - how unromantic!!!  But it really was so much fun... even if we only danced to a few slow songs because we were both still pretty shy.

Me and Tony with Damen and his date

May 2003

We were pretty off-and-on throughout my time in high school - but he was always such a staple in my life whether we were dating or just friends at the time.

Fast forward to January 2007, after a few years of not really being exclusive while we were long distance, we made the decision to become exclusive again!  I remember saying that if we broke up again then it was going to be for good - I didn't want to be that dysfunctional couple anymore and I was ready to be with him.  We lived together in Tennessee with some friends for a year and then moved into an apartment of our own in Illinois in 2008.  2009 came around and I remember feeling anxious to start the next chapter of our life.  I was always thinking about when or how he would propose and towards the end of the year I started to feel like he was never going to pop the question!

Us in our first place!

My birthday was coming up (November 2009) and he told me he was planning something special for my birthday but that it was a surprise.  After a few days/weeks he gave me a few hints: 1) That we could leave whenever we wanted to on the 13th and  2) Tony had bought something that was nonrefundable.  3) I needed to ask off work from November 13-16.  I had tons of ideas but the first plausable idea that I came up with was that Tony must have bought tickets to the Dallas Cowboys/Green Bay Packers game in Wisconsin for that weekend.  I was 100% certain that's what we were doing because we were both Cowboys fans, but somehow I was a bit disappointed at that.  Didn't that seem like something we would do for HIS birthday?

Little did I know what he was ACTUALLY planning.

The weekend before my birthday (November 6-9) I was part of a church retreat and was gone the entire weekend.  While I was away, Tony was out at the jewelry store picking out an engagement ring!

Tuesday, November 10th was my actual birthday and he promised to tell my the big secret today!  On our way to my birthday dinner at Red Robin, Tony gave me my birthday card and it was a SPANISH birthday card.  (He had been giving his friend's Spanish birthday cards that year and would use Google translator to write the messages in Spanish to be a pain!)  Immediately, I freaked out thinking he had written the inside message in a language that I did not speak!  Thank goodness, that part was in English!  Part of it read:

...I really hope you enjoy your present and I hope you are glad we are flying rather than driving LOL. It will be our first time flying together... I get window seat!! Ok, so we can do rock, paper, scissors for that later.  I can't believe it's been 9 years since our scavenger hunt at the Peppermill house. You were just becoming a teenager! It's been awesome the whole way babe...

Tony then told me we were going to Bradenton, Florida to visit my Grandmother, who I rarely get to see.  (I had just opened a card from my Gramma Myers and had just gotten done telling TOny how sad I was that we hadn't seen each other in a year and a half.  AND I HAD NO IDEA of the surprise!!!)  Now, since we had been together a long while, Tony knew I'd get some ideas in my head for this super special trip.  To throw me off the trail a bit, he told my cousin, Breanne, that he wouldn't be proposing on this trip because he couldn't afford the ring I deserved.  Tony also told Breanne that he loved me and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me, but just wasn't financially ready to purchase a ring and was hoping I wouldn't get my hopes up.  He knew Breanne and I would talk about this and that I would put any idea of an engagement out of my head during out trip.  What a smart guy because that is exactly how it happened.  I was so touched at what he said to Breanne that the thought of him proposing to me in Florida had been wiped out of my expectations.

Tony & I spent 3 awesome days in Florida.  

On our 4th & final day (Monday, November 16) in paradise we went to the beach one last time.  We collected shells, got a bite to eat at the Sandbar alongside the beach, and started walking back to the car when I started to get really sad we were leaving.  

 

Getting to the beach on our last day

Searching for shells

Getting a quick snack at "The Sandbar" before leaving the beach

I had no idea that this would be our last picture as boyfriend and girlfriend

Tony suggested we sit by the water and enjoy the beach another minute before we leave.  (I thought that was SO sweet!)  That's when Tony said he had a poem to read me that he wrote for my birthday (he'd never written me a poem EVER) and began to read...

I love you more than Dallas vs. Green Bay, and a football game for your birthday.
I love you more than Madden and my PS3, and hopefully more than you love Daughtry.
I love you more than all my buddies at Honda and Electro Freeze; plus those yummy things you made with ham, pickles, and cream cheese.
I love you more than buffalo chicken pizza from Bad Boys; and hacky sacks, frisbees, and all those other toys.
I love you more than spaghetti and facebook, & while we're on the subject, that trip to St. Louis in Granny's car we took.
I love you more than Brookside Soccer and our Shelby Farm hike... I'm not sure if you remember, but also this cool yellow bike.
I love you more than the blue sky, the sandy beach, and the sea...
Allison Michelle Myers, will you marry me?

I really could not believe it!  I said OF COURSE, we hugged, I cried... and then I stood up and told Tony he had to get on his knee!!!  The entire trip had been so amazing with him beside me and to have such a grand finale like that was so special.  Sometimes I still have a hard time believing that actually happened!

That is quite a long history there!  If you made it this far after reading the entire thing - you are probably family, a close friend, or just really awesome... either way - I hope this wasn't too boring to you.  These are some of my favorite memories that I hope I will never forget!

So it makes me wonder, what is the story between you and your significant other?  How did you meet or how did he propose? 


I'd love to hear your story and possibly feature it on an upcoming Marriage Monday!  If you're interested in contributing, e-mail me your story.  Otherwise, if you write about it in your own blog, come back here and leave a comment so I can link it up here at the bottom.

Hope you had an great "marriage" Monday!  Hopefully next week I can ACTUALLY get Tony to write something, especially now that March Madness is over...