Blarging

In no particular order .... 

• We are officially, completely, 100% potty trained! We have been accident free for months, he sleeps through the night wearing underwear only and will go to the bathroom with no prompts/reminders/accidents. Woo hoo!
• He's a busy boy these days .. .Hip-hop Dance lessons on Monday afternoons, Little Kings Hockey lessons Monday night and skating lessons Saturday mornings. 
• Our friends finally arrived from Japan. They leave on Sunday and have been staying with us the past three weeks, which Sully has loved!
• I turned 31! I had plans to write this blog about it but basically, 31 rocks. Age is just a number and more than anything, I feel settled and happy. I celebrated with a small group of family & friends at the pub and it was really nice, and slightly intoxicating.
• Sully thought a bird in his National Geographic book looked like his Yaya and had hair like her. I laughed for days.
• I'm planning to learn how to shoot a gun at the shooting range with Shaun (he already knows) you know - for when the zombies come. 
• Sully thought he wanted to be Captain America for Halloween but now he wants to be a Jedi. I'm pretty sure that's just because he gets to use his light saber then. 
• My new favorite drink is something I like to refer to as Adult Capri Suns. You just freeze those suckers, pop a straw in (you know if you're classy like me and forgo a glass) and you're set!
• We went to Pirate Days at the Ventura Harbor and had a lot of fun. Sully's favorite thing he STILL talks about a month later was the Pirate Rat and the giant climb slide. 
• Science 101 ... We saved a caterpillar from the 100+ heat a couple weeks back ... all his friends had been fried unfortunately. The next night he started building a cocoon and we waited nearly two weeks until he finally reemerged. Sully did the honor of letting his butterfly friend go free (We didn't have the heart to tell him it was a moth)
• I ordered The Adventures of Dragon for Sully. I found it at a used online book store - apparently its no longer in publication and was shipped all the way from the UK. I had this book when I was little and remember my dad reading it to me every night. I'm sure my original is somewhere still in my parent's attic .. but now he has his own, and he loves the book as much as I did - I still do!
• My sister's bridal shower was a success and I had a lot of fun throwing it for her with my best friends her best friends Jessica and Danielle. We did a Vegas retro theme. I couldn't have done it without them!
• We found a couple feral kittens at work in our office. Literally hiding between moving boxes. How random is that?! We found them a home, which was great because Shaun was none-too-pleased when I told him I was bringing them home. Bullet dodged. I wasn't going to keep them. Okay, yes, yes I was. 
• Shaun says I'm not allowed to do night time because I suck at it and always end up playing, laughing and talking to him instead. I simply tell him that's just not true. Until I was looking through my phone and realized I have A LOT of pictures of us making silly faces when I'm suppose to be in there putting him to sleep. My bad?
• Sully's favorite song is the Briggs "This is L.A." .... its a hockey song. Big surprise there. We're forced to fist pump. 
• Sully took some of his best school pictures yet. He's doing great in school. He sings songs in Spanish and English, knows numbers 1-100 (and can match up the correct  you numbers you shout out to him) ... he's writing his name, numbers and has started to show interest in writing letters other than his name. And he wants to know what EVERYTHING says. He's still not a huge fan of art but he does love anything that has to do with being outside. He has a little  group of friends he plays with and talks about everyday and our new thing is me honking to him as I leave and we scream at the top of our lungs "I LOVE YOU" and he waves at the play yard gate while I pull away. Pretty much I love his school.
• We had a great time at Sky High with our friends from Japan and our friend's and their kids. I had never been. Its this warehouse filled with trampolines. The walls are also trampolines and they have these foam pits the kids can jump into. It was like heaven for a parent of a kid who jumps on EVERYTHING ( I don't even want to talk about my coach and ottoman.)
• Speaking of moving boxes, my office is officially moving into our brand spanking new building in a couple weeks .. goodbye last summer of working in 90 degree heat. Yes, you heard me right. We have no AC in our current building which has been balls during this heat wave. 
• We made bridesmaid and bride yoga pants for my sister's wedding. Those B's (and no, the word I'm thinking of is not Bridesmaid's) used up all the D letters, so I was forced to spell out MATRON on my ass. Whatever - fine, I was a Matron and I rocked that shit.

The Big Ten

I've thought a long time about how I would put 10 years of marriage into words. And here is what I've been able to boil it down to ...

Every time I bend over to pick something up when he's around, he makes a fart noise with his mouth. I always tell him to stop, that it's not funny anymore. Each time he says the same thing, he'll stop the day I stop laughing when he does it. And I laugh. every. time. This has gone on for years. And its the thing I love the most about us - okay so maybe not the fart noises specifically - but that after being together for 12 years, we still refuse to take ourselves too seriously. Okay so that and the fact we leave most of our martial disputes up to a game of paper/scissor/rock. We've got this 2 out of 3 thing down baby! We've done some amazing things, traveled to some amazing places and had an amazing little boy. We may have traded pink futons, pickup trucks and ramen noodles for mortgage payments, family friendly vehicles (But NEVER a minivan apparently after the look you gave me when I said the new Nissan Quest's didn't "Look so bad") and sushi dinner dates ... but at the end of the day we're still the same us. Still laughing at the same stupid jokes and staying up way past our bedtimes, most nights. Okay so some nights. Alright so like once a month if Sully goes to sleep early enough.

You're a wonderful husband and an even better father. Believe me when I say you are everything the 22-year-old Shaun use to tell the 19-year-old Stephanie he dreamed and hoped he would be, except a jedi. I'm sorry but technology just hasn't advanced far enough yet love. Ten years ago I knew the future would be good, I just had no idea it could be this good. I'm proud that we never gave up on each other, that we've accomplished the things we said we were going to do and are living out the dreams we said we always would. And although I'm not a crier, thank you for always making me laugh until I cry - and loving the fact I'd rather spit fire than shed tears. That "Ten more minutes" actually means twenty, and never once losing your shit over it. For never being afraid to kick my ass in monopoly, trivial pursuit and most everything else and for putting our son to sleep every. single. night. so I can have a few minutes of peace. And that at 31 years old, I still hesitate before I bend down if your'e nearby. I can't wait to see what the next ten years has in mind for us. Thank you for an amazing first leg of this journey ...  and for learning to do your own laundry, even if you don't sort. I love you anyways, if not more. 

Memory Jars

This idea isn't mine. I most definitely stole it from someone else but loved the idea. 

I'm a memory box hoarder. 

I keep most things from every trip I've taken and shove them away into the numerous shoe/memory boxes that sit in my closet. I saw this idea for memory jars and loved it. I found a bunch of mason jars I had around the house, twine and muslin cloth left over from some other craft, and put all the kibbles from past memories into each of them and labeled it with some old worn brown paper. I don't have a picture of them all finished and together yet, but I love how they came out. It was free and took a couple hours, most of which was spent rummaging through all my boxes and putting things together. They've been really fun to display and almost everyone has noticed them and commented. So much better than being in my closet! 

Memory Jars

• Sully's Birth Day - His hospital bracelet, last ultrasound, confetti from his pirate theme baby shower and the invite, and the baby cap he came home in from the hospital.
• Our 2004 trip to the UK - Underground passes, pictures of the changing of the guard, Buckingham Place, London Bridge and others, plane ticket stubs, Edinburgh castle tickets, sand from the shore of Loch Ness
• Our 2008 trip to Ireland - Left over coins, sheep key chain from Dublin during a shopping trip, ticket stubs from our Guinness House tour, left over Irish stamps, bus pass from our trip to Howth, a Galway city tour flier, Cliff of Moher pass and some other randoms
• Our 2006 trip to Japan - Left over yen, notes from the students we met, photo booth pictures with our friends, paper Geisha girl from a little shop we stumbled into in a back alley walking around Koriyama
• Our 2010 Mexican Riviera Cruise - Our cabin key, plastic sword from our fruity drunky drinks on the top deck, pass from the boat tour we took in Cabo
• Sully's 1st Beach Trip - Sand, seashells and the clam shell we found at Sully's first beach trip 
• Our 2002 trip to New Orleans - Plane ticket (we flew through a hurricane and I was convinced we were going to die), a casino chip from Harrah's, coasters from the bar, the Ghost Tour free drink stub we went on (You drank and went to haunted houses!), the swamp tour guide we never got to go on (stupid West Nile) and pictures from our walks around town on Bourbon Street and the French Market