Two Years!

Yesterday Shane and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary. It really feels like it was just yesterday that we got married, but it is amazing to look at all the things that have changed and taken place in these past two years.

Christmas in Connecticut

On Christmas Eve we got in the car and made the drive up to Connecticut to be with my family for Christmas. We had a white Christmas! For the first time in years, there was a lot of snow on the ground. What a great way to start off the weekend! We stayed the night at my Aunt Carol's house and spent Christmas morning opening presents with her two boys Connor and Tyler.

After opening presents the entire family headed to my Aunt Sharon's house for Christmas brunch. It was the first time in a very long time that the entire family had been together for the holidays--absolutely wonderful! Later that evening, everyone met back up together at my Aunt Carol's house for Christmas dinner. The kids had a wonderful time hanging out and even had a Christmas pinata. On Friday all the boys (Shane, Uncle Dino, Connor, Tyler, my dad and brother Chris) went bowling for my dad's birthday while all the girls (me, my mom, Aunt Carol and Grandmother) headed out to do a little shopping. That evening everyone came back to Aunt Carol's to celebrate my dad's birthday. On Saturday, Shane and I took Connor and Tyler to see Bedtime Stories. After the movie we headed back to the house and my Aunt Carol suprised me with a family baby shower. We got tons of clothes and blankets for baby Trevor. We are so blessed with such a generous family and are so thankful for all of their thoughtful gifts. Early Sunday morning, Shane and I packed up the car and headed back home. Thankfully, the trip back this time was nowhere near as traumatic as the 15 hour trip home from Thanksgiving.

We hope that you had a wonderful Christmas and are getting ready for a very happy New Year!

Christmas with our Puppies

Because we took our dogs to the "doggie hotel" for Christmas--seriously its like a 5 star resort for them--we celebrated Christmas with our dogs on Sunday night so that they would have time to play with their toys before they went to the kennel on Tuesday. They loved all of their toys and spent all evening playing with them. Once they got back from the kennel today (the 29th) they made another beeline for them and have been playing ever since.

Trevor's nursery....almost there

We finally have Trevor's nursery finished....almost. *someone* didn't have any staples in their staple gun, so we weren't able to finish the letters for Trevor's name and get them hung. That's nothing a trip to Home Depot tomorrow can't fix though. In the meantime, here is the nursery, complete with furniture.

We are in LOVE with how it turned out. Now all we need is Trevor to make the room complete!

weekend update

As planned this weekend, we made a day trip on Saturday to my mom's house in NoVa. While we were there, we spent time with her and my brother. We ran to the storage unit to get her Christmas decorations as well as the rest of the furniture for Trevor's room. After the storage unit, we ran errands to Babies R Us in search of the perfect glider or chair for the nursery (no luck yet...) and then to Best Buy. Once we made our way back to the house, we had dinner and then packed up the Jeep to head back home. It was a good trip home to see my mom...never long enough though.

The next day I had to work in the morning so Shane and I spent most of the morning at church working with the children. One of my catechists came up with the most adorable craft to do with her kids that I HAVE to share.

She was teaching the children about the Nativity scene and this is the craft that she made with them.

Later in the afternoon I had to be back at work for a bit so while I was gone Shane set up Trevor's crib. Lucky for him that made me unavailable to take pictures of him wrestling with it. After getting off work for the second time that day, we drove out to Chesapeake to buy Trevor a mattress........how exciting are we?!

Trevor's Nursery...a little progress

This weekend Shane and I got started working on Trevor's nursery. We have had a theme (turtles) and a basic idea of what we wanted to do for a long time (since before we found out we were having a boy) but we finally got it together and started making some real progress. The room isn't finished yet, we are going to be hanging the wallpaper border this week and then are planning on making a trip to my mom's in NoVa to get the rest of the furniture on Saturday. Hopefully we will be able to share the finished project with everyone next Sunday evening.....or so. Anyone who was around back when we got married knows how "great" we are with making progress on big projects (Heather I still can't thank you enough for tying all those bows on our favors the week of), so to get this far in a weekend was quite an accomplishment.

Here are some pictures to show how far we have gotten between Friday afternoon and today.

Before~~
From in front of the window looking towards the door.

From corner looking towards window/closet. AFTER~~

and because Shane is super excited to spend the evenings this week doing it....here's a sneak peak of what is to come next in the nursery.....

(and for Scott and Judy...i think there is a little plug for Wiseman's Tires.. :) Sorry Scott, next time we will make sure you can read the entire shirt!)

...behind is an understatement

So, I realized that it has been over a month since my last post. I am way more than behind. The past month has been pretty busy for us, which is good because that means we are getting things done around here! I guess I will try to catch up on everything that I can remember from the past month.

• We have gotten everything that we are going to need (almost) for Trevor's bedroom. We decided to go with a turtles theme so we have spent the month getting all the different items from the set we chose. Hopefully this upcoming weekend we are going to get started on painting the nursery.
• In the last month I also went on my first shopping "spree" for clothes for the little one (thanks michelle :) ) ....I am sure there are more to come though.
• We have continued on our quest to turn our house into a "home" by painting the master bedroom. I don't have pictures yet because I still need to finish accesorizing with the new paint color and bedding set.....soon though.
• We had another doctor's appointment and everything is going amazingly well...it all seems to be going by so fast! I can't believe that I only have 15 weeks left until Trevor's due date and find it even harder to believe that 25 weeks have passed already.

This past week we headed out of town to spend Thanksgiving with my family in Connecticut. Overall it was a good trip...we should be heading back up that way at the end of this month for Christmas/New Years depending on things with Shane's new command. I can't wait. The only downside of the trip was the trip home....I never want to leave and what made this time worse was the fact that it took us almost 15 hours to get home.....15 HOURS!! We left my grandmother's in Stratford CT at 11AM, and Shane and I didn't get back to Portsmouth until about 2:15 this morning. Needless to say, we are now enjoying a quiet evening at home trying to recover.

We hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are getting ready for a happy and memorable holiday season!

Halfway There--20 weeks!

This week marked the "halfway" point of my pregnancy. It is so hard to think that 20 weeks have passed by already. Hopefully the next 20 or so will go by as quickly!

20 weeks

Its a..........

BOY!!!!
Today Shane and I got up early and went over to the Naval Hospital for our big ultrasound. We found out that we are expecting a baby boy. We are both so excited!! The tech took about 50 pictures for my records and printed 5 really good ones for Shane and I to bring home. After the ultrasound, she took everything to the on-call doctor to review and he said that everything looked great and our little guy is right on track. I have an actual OB appointment tomorrow morning (the Navy sends you to radiology for the ultrasound) so I am sure that the doctor there will go over the ultrasound results with me again in person. The most exciting part of finally knowing whether its a boy or a girl is that we can now start calling the baby by name instead of "the baby" or even worse "it." After 20 weeks of going back and forth between several names, we have decided on Trevor Francis, after my grandfather Francis Perusse. Here are some pictures from this morning....

it's a boy!!!!

Profile Shot of Trevor

Our New Car!!

With the baby well on it's way, Shane and I decided that it was more than time for him to get rid of his "toy" aka his obnoxiously lifted Jeep Cherokee that I have to get a running start to jump into. No joke. We went out to Oceana yesterday morning to the Navy Federal car sale and traded the Jeep in for our new 2005 Nissan Altima. It was such an easy way to buy a car too--we got there, picked out which car we wanted from the 500ish cars that were out there, got our paperwork from the dealer and then went to Navy Federal to tell them how much the car cost and were handed our keys. We were on our way in 3 1/2 hours, two of which were spent picking out which car we wanted.---how is that compared to sitting inside a car dealership for the better part of a weekend? Here are some photo's of the new car---

Happy 110 Years!

Happy Founder's Day to all of my Zeta Tau Alpha sisters! 110 amazing years and still going strong!

To read the official Founder's Day Proclamation Click Here!

Shaner's Birthday Weekend

This Sunday, October 12th was Shaner's birthday...he turned the big 2-7 (ok, so not that big, but he seems to think so) Shane had four days off of school so Friday we headed up to Woodbridge to visit my mom and brother. That night we went to his varsity football game to see him play....He is the team's kicker (and not a bad one at that) It was good to see him play, that night his team (Go Vikings!) beat the Potomac team, who WAS the number one team in the county 50-21 and is continuing their undefeated season. It may be a little early, but I am pretty sure that Shane and I will be heading to VT come December to see him play in states again this year!

Here are some photo's of my brother, Chris kicking in the game on Friday.

We spent Saturday with my mom around the house, going to the movies and having Shane's Birthday dinner. Early Sunday morning we drove home so I could get to work and so Shane could teach religious instructions at church and then spent the day relaxing at home.

The townHOUSE starts to become a townHOME

Since our return from Kansas, Shane and I have been busy doing work around the house. We figure since we are going to be here for a few years we might as well make the place more home-like. We started this enormous undertaking with our upstairs bathroom. Unfortunately, we do not have any before pictures, but for those who have seen it previously, I am sure you will agree that this is a HUGE HUGE HUGE improvement. For those who hadn't seen it, here is the jist of it--the cabinet was dark brown fake-wood, the above medicine cabinet/mirror was rusting and the walls and trim were all the same dingy-off white-typical rental home color. The room isn't 100% finished as we still have cabinet hardware to install and accessories to put in. We are just so excited about how it turned out that we can't wait to share.

In addition to our painting spree, I have decided to turn over a new leaf (literally HAHA) and stop killing the plants that my mom buys me when she comes to visit. Our house now is complete with a garden in our front flower bed. I picked flowers that the person at the garden worker said "are impossible to kill." We will see how this goes. Here is the house all 'landscaped' and decorated for autumn.

Kansas Trip

Last Sunday morning, Shane and I flew to Kansas for his grandmother's funeral. We hated to be heading back there under those circumstances, but it was nice to see family after not having made the trip since last May. Our flights out to Kansas were very quick and uneventful (my favorite kind) and we ended up in Pittsburg around 1PM central time. That afternoon we spent the time visiting with family over dinner and settling in to our "accomodations" at Chateau de Wiseman (cousin Scott and Judy's house--who we will never be able to thank enough for letting us stay with them) After dinner we headed back out to Brian and Tiff's to play games and hang out.
Monday was spent running around town taking care of business and getting ready things for that evening. Monday evening was the wake, which as Shane says Grandma would have wanted, was spent with friends and family visiting with each other and celebrating all of the memories that people had of her.
Tuesday morning Shane and Brian got up at the crack of dawn to go fishing (literally, the crack of dawn) and I stayed at Judy and Scott's to get some more rest and eventually spent the rest of the morning (once it was a decent hour to leave the house) with Tiff. That afternoon was the funeral, which was very nice and a dinner put on by the ladies at the church that Grandma used to volunteer with. After getting out of our dress clothes, we made our rounds through the town saying goodbye to Shane's parents and Brian and Tiff. On our way back from Brian and Tiff's we got a phone call from Sgt. Wiseman (aka Scott) letting us know that we were out past our curfew so we rushed home to have both him and Judy waiting us on the front porch (we thought we had outgrown those days--we were wrong HAHA) The four of us had some good laughs while Shane and I packed and then it was off to bed to get ready for an early morning of getting back up to Kansas City to catch our plane home. Back to Virginia..... Here are a few pictures of our trip
Brian and Tiff's pet pig, Petunia
Shane and I before leaving Judy's for the wake
Us with Aunt Francis and Uncle Jim
All of the Grandchildren

Shane's Family
Shane and I with Brian and Tiff (Shane and I have decided that Tiff and I look more alike in this photo than Brian and he do)
Back at Scott and Judy's house after a very long day

Weekly Update

So, I know that after my massive update last Friday, I haven't gotten anything up here. I am a slacker, I own that.

Last weekend was a whirlwind of activity. Friday night I was able to head to Norfolk to meet one of my sisters, Jannah and her adorable daughter for dinner and then we headed to support the ODU Zetas as they recruited new women for the year. Saturday my parents came down from DC to meet Shane and I "halfway" in Williamsburg. We walked around the Colonial Williamsburg area all afternoon and had a great time. It was so nice to see my mom. Here is a picture of Shane and I in front of the Governor's Palace. Sunday morning I headed to Norfolk again to attend another round of ODU's recruitment. The girls did amazing--Congrats ladies! Then it was back to work for the rest of the day....Children's Church in the morning and then the parish Gathering at the Table event that night. Very very busy. Shane and I have come to learn that with me working for the church, Sundays and a traditional "weekend" are in no way our own anymore. That is fine though, I love my job more than I ever would have loved being in some cubicle at an accounting firm and the parish we belong to is a great community that we find so rewarding to be a part of.

Looking forward the next few days, today I have an appointment at the hospital to make sure that everything is on track with the baby...I have no worries though with the way I have been feeling. Wonderful! We just need to make sure that we have the 100% go ahead to fly this weekend. Why are we flying, you ask? Well, the question should be, "what could possibly get Kim on a plane?" Sadly, Shane's grandmother passed away Thursday morning, so we will be heading out to Kansas on Sunday morning and will be returning home to Norfolk on Wednesday. It is not the best reason to be heading out to Shane's hometown, but we are looking forward to seeing everyone once we get out there.

What comes after homecoming???.......

A HOMECOMING BABY!!!!

Four weeks after Shane got home from the deployment, we found out that I was about four weeks pregnant with our first child. Our little Chief's fan is due on March 12, 2009. On August 13th, we had our first doctor's appointment, saw the heartbeat and got some of baby's first pictures.



To bring the massive update of the past year and a half to an end, Shane and I are both doing well. I am right now, 14 weeks pregnant and things are going just fine. Shane is attending c-school here in Portsmouth and is set to report to his shore duty post in December. I have gotten a job as the Religious Education Leader at our church. I coordinate the children's church, preschool and K-5 religious education programs. I love my job and couldn't be happier.

Homecoming!!!

The countdown was finally over. Seven months to the day, Shane finally came home. My parents and brother came down from DC and Shane's Mom and Dad flew in from Kansas to help welcome Shane home. That morning we all got up obnoxiously early to head to Norfolk to be on the pier. I can honestly say that this morning was the first and only time in my life that I did not mind waiting in rush hour traffic for the Midtown Tunnel. Traffic or no traffic, I knew that within 4 hours I was going to be back together with my husband and that is all that mattered to me. We timed our trip to Norfolk perfectly, because about 15 minutes after we got to the pier and met up with my friend Amy (also waiting for her husband) and my sister Liz (surprise surprise, waiting for her special someone) we saw the ship. I have never been fond of the Truman, but again, today seeing that boat was the best sight in the entire world.
After seeing the ship come around the point we waited for about an hour and a half for it to be pierside.
That began the even longer wait for all the first time fathers to get off the ship and see their children for the first time and for the officers and all them to get off of the ship. After much searching in the crowd and hysterical phone calls trying to find each other, Shane was finally home.

The Long Seven Months

So I will be the first to tell you that deployments are the worst. But for Shane and I, we just tried to make the best of the situation. The first big thing to happen while Shane was gone was that he was promoted to Second Class Petty Officer.




Then Shane got to go and visit the Vatican when the ship made a port call in Naples, Italy.

While Shane was off having a wonderful time seeing the world, I was back here working very hard to graduate....which I did, on May 10, 2008.

Shane was due home 3 weeks after graduation so the cap was wonderful for him to try and find me when he was watching the ceremony on the internet from the ship.

I was so lucky that even though Shane couldn't be there for my big day I had great friends who made the trip to see me. Mandy and Paul (right) came down from Richmond and Ben and Heather (left) came all the way from Hagerstown, Maryland. I still owe them for sitting through that ceremony. Of course, my parents and younger brother came down for the weekend as well.
So once all the graduation festivities are over I settled in for what was the longest three weeks of my life and Shane made one final stop in Marsailles, Frace before heading back across the Atlantic.

Most of 2007....

So to start off our year, we moved from our apartment in Norfolk to our townhouse in Portsmouth. It isn't much, but it is nice to be in an actual neighborhood, especially with Shane getting ready to go out to sea again. At the beginning of August we finally went on our honeymoon to Negril, Jamaica.



We had the time of our lives at the Sandals resort and can't wait to make another trip. Once we got back from our vacation it was back to the real world. I jumped head first into my senior year of college at ODU and Shane began his final preparation for his upcoming deployment To round out the year, Shane deployed for seven months on November 4th, 2007.

The Wedding

Shane and I got married after a year of planning on December 30th, 2006. Christmas is our favorite time of the year and was conveniently the only time that we were 100% guaranteed that Shane would be here for the wedding (the groom is somewhat essential) so everything came together perfectly. Here are some of the pages from our album just to give an overview of the big day.

Finally...

So after much input from friends (...you know who you are...) and much procrastination on my part, I have decided to jump on the blog bandwagon. It is probably for the best with everything Shane and I have going on right now :) and seeing as most of our family is up in CT or out in KS we will be able to keep them updated on everything going on out here. Once I get pictures and stuff together I will try to get some up on here and try to give everyone the ten second version of the past year and a half...probably tomorrow.