Promises, promises

So I know in my one and only April post, I had promised to post some new pictures I had taken once I finaly got my new digital camera. Here you are! Enjoy!

Jen and Julie with their new Coach purses!

Nathan being "Knighted" at the Mideival Times for his 29th birthday dinner!

The family room and kitchen painted in "fresh clay"

The bedroom painted - sage green on the walls, mustang brown on the plant shelf, and a light moss on the ceiling

The dining room and living room painted in "castle walls" blue/grey

The top piece of our wedding cake! mmmmm...

Adam's awesome MahiMahi with mango/fruit salsa served on rice pilaf...MMMMM...

Lisa and Julie - the pink moped rides again! Whoo hooo!

Adam having fun playing baseball with the Wii

Logan playing Wii bowling

Nic and Rachele at Nic's Confirmation

Julie & Den - Julie's new haircut (with bangs) and Dennis's hot sexy curls!

Julie, Christen, and Lisa - April 6th - HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRISTEN!

A tired Rusty Noodleman!

May 22 - We got a Pool!

YAY! I have been waiting for this day for a long time. Back in March we decided to put in a pool. When we arrived home from vacation, the company called me and said that they would put it in on Tuesday! Here are a few pictures of it.

It is a 27 foot round above ground pool with a heater/filter etc. Today is May 24 and we are still working on filling it. It is almost all the way full now. We will post more pictures once we have a chance to enjoy the pool over memorial day weekend!

May 20 - Where's the green bag?: Heading Home

So today we woke up and got ready to leave. After turning in our rental car, we checked in for our flight, went through security, had lunch, and waited to fly home. Our plane was delayed for mechanical reasons so we had to wait. At 3pm when we were suppose to board we picked up our bags when Dennis looked and me and said "hey, where's the green carry on bag?" At that point the freaking out began.
The green carry on bag contained our video camer along with all the videos we took over the past 10 days as well as our glasses, contact lenses, Dennis's cell phone, and some other miscellaneous things.
We opted not to get on the plane, and to instead freak out and run around the airport retracing our steps looking for the bag. We went back to the restaurant where we had lunch, back to security, back to check in, to the airport lost and found and to the Orlando police. Alas, no green bag. We found another flight home and thanks to my tearful story, we were not charged for it. I continued calling the Orlando airport lost and found about 20 more times and each time was told that no bag was handed in.
By 10pm we landed in Chicago and I realized our checkbook was also in the green bag. I had already made peace with losing the bag and ordered Dennis a new cell phone. realizing the checkbook was gone, I freaked out all over again. By 11pm we got home and there was a message on our answering machine from the Orlando airpport lost and found. Someone handed our bag in at 11am and they called our house at noon! They had our bag the whole time but just were too lazy to look for it when we went in.
Tragedy avoided!
The bag is now on it's way to our house - According to the lost in found, all of our stuff is still in the bag and we should have it this week!
It was a close call, but all is well that ends well!

:)

May 19 - Our 1 year Anniversary!

As of today we have shared 365 days of wedded bliss! hehe. To celebrate our anniversary, we started the day by sleeping in. I mean really, can you think of a better way to celebrate?

Anyway, we went to Universal Studios Florida for the afternoon. We went on some awesome roller coasters, earthquake and twister simulations, and spent the last of our cash on a couple of drinks and had a toast to us. Once we were ready to leave the park we headed to the giant parking structure. We thought we had parked on the 5th floor in the "E.T." section. After about an hour and a half of wandering around we found our car in the "Spider Man" section on the 4th floor. What a day!

To celebrate our anniversary we had made dinner reservations at "The Vineyard Grill" at the Ritz Carlton in Orlando. It was one of the most beautiful places we had seen in Orlando. The people were exceptionally nice and the food was out of this world. I started with a french onion soup and a tomato and fresh motzarella salad. Dennis started with a ranch lettuce wedge salad and lobster bisque. We split a shrimp cocktail, a bottle of Danzante pinot grigio and we each had a small filet and a half of a lobster tail and claw along with white asparagus. It was an excellent meal, cooked absolutely perfectly! For dessert I enjoyed a chocolate mousse while Dennis had a mango souffle. I am getting hungry just thinking about how great it was! It was the perfect way to celebrate our anniversary, and a great ending to our trip.

May 18 - Universal Studios: Islands of Adventure

We spent most of the day at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure. We really enjoyed the Dr. Seuss world. It was like stepping into a Seuss book. The rides there were very fun and luckily we bought an Express pass and got on all of our rides right away. Feeling a little "vacationed out" we spent the rest of the night back at our hotel.

May 17 - Orlando : Cirque do Soleil La Nouba

We spent most of the day today driving back to Orlando. We had dinner at The House of Blues and then went to see Cirque du Soleil La Nouba in Orlando. The show was incredbile. If you ever have a chance to see a Cirque du Soleil show, we highly recommend it. We would like to see some of their other shows in other locations. We weren't permitted to take any pictures of the show, but we did buy a program. There were trampoline acts, trapeeze, cyclists, gymnasts, highwire acts, balancing acts - all sorts of things. It was so colorful, perfectly choreographed and very entertaining.

May 16 - Key West : Sailing

Today was a great day! We spent the morning lounging in our hotel's pool. We stayed at "The Inn at Key West" which was really nice and had an awesome pool. We booked a trip on the "Danger" cruise for the day. At 3pm we boarded the Danger sailboat and headed out on the ocean. We saw many of the other key islands out there and actually got off of the sailboat to go kayaking around one of the islands. We learned that the Keys are all made from Red Mangrove trees - interesting. After kayaking, the sailboat took our group further out to go snorkeling. We saw a lot of coral, sponges, fish, and lobsters in the water. We watched the sunset from the sailboat, saw many other boats out there, and even saw a couple getting married on a saiboat. We met some great people from Charlotte while on the boat and later that night went out to dinner with them. It was a spectacular day!

May 15 - Key West: Relaxing

Today we spent the day in Key West. It started out a rainy day which wasn't so great. We headed indoors to the museum of history and art and then to the Mel Fischer museum to see the treasure he had discovered from a 1600's shipwreck. The art museum was cool because there were 3 dimensional models of paintings that you could step into and be a part of. The museum was pretty neat too. I was shocked by how heavy a gold bar weighted! Once the sun came out, we stopped by the Southernmost Point in the US (90 miles to Cuba) and then headed to the Beach. It turned out to be a nice day. We had a fantastic dinner at the Westin Resort on the edge of the ocean, sitting outside at sunset listening to the music from the Sunset celebration in Mallory Square. What a perfect way to end the night!

May 14 - Heading to Key West

After a sucky lunch at Planet Hollywood, we decided to get in the car and drive down to Key West. It was a Looooong drive. We left Orlando at about 2pm, hit Miami around 5pm and then Key Largo at about 7pm. The drive from Key Largo to Key West took 3 more hours, putting us at our hotel in Key West at 9pm - It was a long day of driving - in the rain most of the time. We were happy to finally get there. Something of note - there was a "Chicago Title" office in Key Largo!

May 13 - Disney World: MGM Studios

Today we went to MGM studios. It was Mother's Day and the place was nearly empty! We got on each ride with less than a 5 minute wait. The Tower of Terror was great as was the Aerosmith Rock and Roller Coaster. Since we got done so early, we headed back over to the Magic Kingdom to go on everything we had missed the first day - The Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and Pirates of the Caribbean. I was driving the Mustang and I ran over and dragged a cone across the parking lot there. Other than that though, it was a great day! That night we went to the Downtown Disney area and had dinner at Fulton's CrabHouse, which is on a big boat in the water. Our waiter Steve was awesome and it was one of the best meals we had ever had. We highly recommend stopping by Fulton's if you are ever in Central Florida.

May 12 - Disney World : The Animal Kingdom

We spent the next day at the Animal Kingdom. It was insanely crowded and impossible to find anywhere to eat. We ended up paying $40 for a breakfast buffet only to find out that the reason for the high price was that is was a character meet and greet breakfast. So here you can see us with Mickey and Donald - yippee. I do not recommend going to Disney on a weekend. All the locals were there and the place was packed! Thank goodness for the Fast Pass. We got in and out and went on all the rides we had hoped to go on. We had been so impressed with Epcot the night before that we made dinner reservations for the 12th at the Bistro in "France." It was a fantastic dinner!

May 11 - Disney World : Blizzard Beach & EPCOT

On May 11, we spent the morning at the Blizzard Beach water park where we went down a huge water slide. It was something like 300 feet straight down at 55 mph! Talk about an atomic wedgie! Anyway, after that we went to EPCOT. We loved "TEST TRACK" where you are in a car going through an obsticle course type deal reaching up to 60mph. We also loves "SOARIN" where you are suspended in a seat watching an IMAX screen and basically feel like you are flying through the air in all different parts of the world. I was a big fan of "LIVING WITH THE LAND" where you ride a boat through experimental labs that Disney scientists are using to work on bettering our environment. I was amazed by the 9 pound lemon and it was interesting to see watermelons growing on trees and plants growing without soil or water! The Nemo exhibit was cool too with the thousands of fish in the tanks. The flower and garden show was going as well and there were topiaries made to look like disney characters. The countries were great as always - Dennis had German Beer and I had a french pastry. We had sushi in Japan and tried on hats in Moroco. We had dinner in "Mexico" and stayed at EPCOT until midnight thanks to the extra magic hours we had for staying at a Disney Resort.

May 10th - Disney World : Magic Kingdom

On May 10th, Dennis and I woke up super early to get ready for our big vacation. Thanks to my sister, we had a ride to the airport bright and early. Our plane left at 7am and we headed to Orlando. Once there, we picked up our light blue Mustang convertible and headed to the Disney Caribbean Beach Resort where we would stay for the next 4 nights. On our first day there, we went to the Magic Kingdom. It was Dennis's first time there and I hadn't been there since I went with a band trip in 1999, so it was a lot of fun. Here are a few pictures from that day.

Where has Julie been?

Good question - and there really isn't one good answer - I have just been busy, but good busy and enjoying life.

Since March 5 a lot has happened, so enjoy my mini blogs within a blog!

March 8
I got invisalign braces which I like. They are working well so far, shifting my teeth, etc. I highly recommend them to anyone who is thinking about braces but doesn't want a permanent metal structure on their teeth for the process. You can pop these in and out as needed and can't even tell that they are on when you have them on. They were actually about $500 cheaper than the quote I got for regular braces!

March 10
My sister moved into a new place in Lansing. We are all very happy for her, although lugging all of her stuff to the third floor was no picnic. She has a LOT of stuff and now it is finally all in one place!

March 14 - 15
I went to Washington DC, Virginia, and New Jersey to meet with some clients. I really enjoyed DC. Rick (my business partner) and I had an excellent lunch at a place called Utopia on U street in DC. If you are ever there, I highly recommend a lunch or dinner there. It is a very artistic and unique kind of place. Surprisingly the weather was beautiful for mid March as well. We had a couple of great meetings. In terms of Southern New Jersey/Philadelphia, I would recommend not going there. It was just very dirty, unattracitve and glum. I see why it's called the armpit of the US.

March 19-23
I was in our Atlanta office training a new recruiter. It was beautiful there, all the magnolia trees in bloom. However my allergies spun out of control, landing me at the doctor's office on the 24th getting an allergy shot -which helped significantly.

March 24
I went with a new look via hairstyle and got bangs. So far, I like them.

March 25
In response to the last thing I posted regarding a digital camera, I am happy to report that I took Tony's advice and went for a Cannon PowerShot A630 8.0 megapixel. I really like it. I have taken about 100 pictures so far, but they are all still on my camera. I guess I need to read the instruction manual and get them transferred to my computer so I can post some of them. The camera was much more affordable than I anticipated. I love how it has the LCD that swings out to the side, and even flips over. It is very useful so you can see what you are doing if you are taking one of those shots of yourselves where you are holding the camera out way in front of you. Dennis and I are famous for that.

March 26 - April 2
Our house was in complete disarray! We had almost the entire house painted. The foyer is a beautiful green color called Texas Sage. The living room and dining room are a blue grey color called Castle Walls. The kitchen and family room are a rust color called Fresh Cclay. My office is the color of butterscotch pudding. The upstairs hallway is a slightly lighter green than the foyer and called Paris Rain. The Master Bedroom is a green mossy color called Weathersford Moss on the walls, with a very light green ceiling and a dark brown called Mustang on the plant shelf. (All Benjamin Moore colors) I couldn't decide on the powder room so it's still white. We also left the 3 spare bedrooms white as we will finish those up accordingly whenever we have kids. Overall our painters did a wonderful job and it's really starting to look like a home.

April 6 - Good Friday
Was my best friend Christen's birthday. Dennis and I were both off work so it made for a fabulous 3 day weekend. Christen came out for lunch. My dad stopped by to check out the new paint and even my grandma came over. We all had a blast playing the Nintendo Wii bowling and golf! Friday night, for the first time in about a year, Den and I went to a bar! We went out for Christen's birthday and had a really fun time. Many of her friends were there as well as my sister.

April 7
Our friend Nic got confirmed in the Catholic church. We attended the Easter Vigil mass and had the opportunity to be there for his confirmation.

April 8 - Easter!
What a busy day! We spent the morning at my dad's - had a wonderful Easter dinner that Diana had prepared for all of us. Emily was even in from Arkansas for Easter and her birthday. We spent the evening with Dennis's family with another wonderful Easter Dinner. We ate a LOT that day! Later my brother in law and his wife, Greg & Linda, came over to play the Wii. I know I teased Dennis a lot about getting the Wii but it's really provided a lot of fun and entertainment. I am becoming a big fan of it.

April 13 - Friday the 13th!
We had a fabulous evening with out good friends Adam and Logan. If you have never been to Vic's on Main in Crete for dinner, we all highly recommend it. The spinach manicotti is out of this world. I love the eight finger cavatelli. And the Godiva chocolate raspberry cake is so good it should be illegal.

April 14
My mother-in-law was home alone this weekend as my father-in-law, sister-in-law, and 2 nephews went on a weekend trip. So, we picked her up and we all went to the Michigan City outlet mall and scouted out some deals. Sue and I had a blast in the Coach store, as always. Dennis found some huge Vera Wang red wine glasses for a steal. And of course we couldn't leave without raiding the DKNY store for some new clothes for our trip to Florida.

April 16
I flew back to DC to meet with a candidate from Maryland and then to meet with a potential client in VA. It was a good day, great meetings, etc. I flew back home the same night. Getting up at 4am to get there on time and not getting home until midnight, it was a really long day. It was well worth it though. Now it's back to work!

In other news, Dennis and I are planning our trip to Florida for our anniversary. We are going for 10 days. So far, I have the plane tickets and have rented a Mustang Convertible. Now I need to book our hotels and order tickets etc. If anyone has any "must see" ideas for FL please let us know! We plan to spend the first 5 days in Disney World, the next 3 in Key West and the last 2 back in Orlando at Universal/Sea World, etc. If anyone knows of any fantastic places to stay or things to do, we are all ears! Can you believe that we have been married for 11 months already! Time sure flies when your having fun. :)

Now that you are all caught up on my life (I know you have all been dying with anticipation) be sure to come back in the next week or so to see some pictures. I promise I will post them soon!