Date Night 7QT

Linking up with Jen today for some even quicker-than-usual quick takes...

1. Will and I went out to dinner last night to celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary. This was our first real date since baby Will was born and I could not have been more excited. Will's friend from work and his wife agreed to sit for us and everything.

2. Is my level of joy borderline inappropriate?

Jail-break!!!!!

3. We arrived at the couple's house to drop off little Will. I walked up to the door with a bottle of breast milk in one hand and a bottle of pinot noir in the other. 

Me: "Date night! Poppin' bottles!" 

Friend: "Ahh, I see you brought a white and a red option."

Booby milk humor.

4. Getting away from the babies are when adults can reconnect and have meaningful conversation, eh? While driving past the Rams' stadium, Will commented that we were in a bad area and pointed out that a fence looked like it had been knocked down, like the set of The Walking Dead. Thus commenced a competition as to who make the most realistic walker growl. 

Source.

Will won.

Naturally.

5. We drove into downtown St. Louis to a restaurant called Bridge. The owner of this place has a whole chain of restaurants that are notoriously hipster. When we first walked up, yep, there was man in skinny jeans and a long, well-kempt beard dining with another man in skinny jeans donning a feather in his hat. Ironically, however, when we got inside, there was a law student happy hour going on. My lawyer friends will understand that this is the least hipster thing that could ever happen in such an establishment. And, my goodness, it was so hard to contain our inclination to eavesdrop all evening. (3L is gonna be so legit!)

6. Had to take a selfie to commemorate:

No no no. All wrong. More hipster, please. 

Yes.

Gram-worthy. 

7. I tease the crunchy hipsters among us, but I know our beer-brewing, cloth diapering, NFP-loving ways kind of give us away. Happening now: 

Pinkman & Heisenberg.

It's a holiday weekend! Get out there and enjoy it.

Throwback Thursday: Bridal Edition

We are created in order to love, as a reflection of God and his love. And in the marital union man and woman fulfill this vocation through their mutual reciprocity and their full and definitive communion of life. 

--- Pope Francis

On this day four years ago, Will and I tied the old knot. The day was indeed a total blur. A combination of the whirlwind of activities and the fact that my contacts were perpetually foggy because I cried the. entire. day. nonstop. Such a shame I didn't have this blog to over-document the event with a five-part series. (Ahem . . . Pregnancy and birth story, anyone?) I have the pictures and the marriage license to prove it happened, I suppose. I thought it would be fun, in order to pay homage, to link-up with Stephanie over at Captive the Heart to talk about my "special somethings." I'm totally breaking the rules on a couple of these, but what are link-ups for if not for really pushing it with the rule interpretations? 

When it came to the minutiae of wedding planning, I was what you would call a hands-off bride. Our engagement was during my first year of law school, so I was way more concerned with Rule 12(b)(6) and making law review than I was with picking out wedding decor. I was in Florida, the wedding was in Maryland. I did manage to keep screenshots of photos from theknot.com on my computer to send to my wedding planning team (my mom, stepmom, and family friend). Had Pinterest been around, I likely would have flunked out of law school, just putting that out there. And had Etsy been what it is today, I would have gone broke. Anyway, I would send my mom photos from The Knot I liked, then I would get photo texts of options for flower arrangements, venues, cake, etc., asking me which ones I liked best. Will and I did as much as we could remotely, but it was kind of a scramble at the end to get the final touches in place. Things old, new, borrowed, and blue were no exception. 

Something Old. Basically I bought the most horrid, uncomfortable heels for the wedding (more on that in a sec) and so I wore my old, scuffed up Chucks to the reception. Yes, the bottom of my dress dragged everywhere, but I didn't care. 

I could cut a rug in 'em.

My dress kind of got dirty anyway when this happened:

Something New. Well, everything else was new, obviously. But let's talk about the newest of all the things: the shoes. 

I went into the final week of wedding prep without a pair of heels to wear on the big day. They were the last thing I needed to buy, and yes, that also means that my dress had not been altered. I arrived in Maryland and was immediately sent to the mall to find heels so that my aunt could get to work on the alterations. I really thought this would be no problem, but it's wedding season and all bridal shoes everywhere are sold out. (I don't know. This still baffles me.) Basically, I find one pair of decent-looking enough shoes that fit:

Barely. They were a little snug. 

I did not realize the HOURS UPON HOURS of standing that a bride does between dress alterations and photos. C'est la vie.

Something Borrowed. I'm sort of cheating here. Delays rendered the parish building we were supposed to get married in under construction up until our wedding day. A couple of months before the wedding, I was presented with two choices: have our ceremony in the dungeon-like basement of my home parish or move everything to a neighboring parish (same priest would say the Mass). I truly considered having the wedding in a basement because I didn't want to be difficult, but I changed my mind at the last minute. So, our church building was a loaner.

Something Blue. I truly had no involvement with this one. I think I showed up to my dad's house to get ready and this garter was sitting in the room with all my bridal gear.

And thank goodness because what would my life be without this picture?:

Base Life: The First Week

Here I am, Nsync Christmas album bumpin', goetta in the crockpot, ready to document our first week here at Scott. A cup of coffee would really set the mood, but we're out of beans and by all the wiggling I feel in my abdomen, something tells me the little naked boy inside my belly could do without. 

We started moving into our house a week ago (last Tuesday) and Will started work on Thursday. I thought that two days with his manly moving muscles would have been fine since we really don't have that much stuff, but of course, we spent those two days running errands around the base rather than really unpacking. We were pretty inefficient seeing as we had no idea what we were supposed to be doing or where we were supposed to be, but we managed to take care of IDs, the travel voucher for the move, health insurance, and a ton of other things I've already forgotten about. Selective amnesia.

Our house also didn't come with a washer and dryer, the first appliance you go to after a move (!!!), so we needed to take care of that right away. (Note that Will installed them himself and did a great job and officially holds his man card high above for all to see.) Also, our dining room table now seats two thankyouverymuch, three if you include the rocking chair that's still in our dining room. (And why wouldn't it count?) So things are really coming along here, furniture-wise.

On Sunday, we took the our drive out west to see my cousin and her family who live in Chesterfield. Her house is about an hour away, but it was really cool to drive through St. Louis and see the arch and baseball stadium for the first time!

Cell phone shot as we sped by. Classy like.

We've been keeping the dogs in our laundry room/mudroom that is off from the garage and leads out to the backyard to keep them out of trouble while we're out of the house. It's been working out great! They have plenty of space in there, it's warm, and there is no carpet for them to devour. Perfection.

Don't let those sweet eyes fool you.

Will is loving work. He's the proverbial new guy, so he's working in a million different subject areas, and seeing as the former nerdy gunner law school gal still lives inside of me and makes her residence known every so often, I am more than slightly jealous. His office is less than ten minutes away (six minutes if there is no line at the gate and you hit every light!), but he leaves around 7 AM every day. If I need the car for running errands, I will either drop him off at work (like today) or he will come home for lunch and I will drop him off after, so I can snooze an extra hour or two. When Will is working, I generally just take care of the dogs (I'm their favorite again now!), cook (a lot!), clean, run errands (e.g., dogs to the base vet, commissary runs, etc.), and continue to unpack. We got cable installed yesterday, so maybe there was an episode of A Baby Story (or, maybe two) and subsequent bawling this morning.

We are slowly settling into the routine we'll have for the next couple months before the baby arrives when everything will be turned upside down with Will being in Alabama on top of, oh, you know, a BABY being in the house, outside of my person and all. But it's nice to have things slow down a bit before Christmas.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it's mine and Will's 7th dating anniversary. No, we really don't celebrate it anymore since we've been married, but that's basically almost a decade. We like rounding up. I love you, Will!

Oldest random photo of the two of us I could find on this computer.

Until I found this one of the two of us in Paris. 

Gotta love Photobooth. Au revoir!

Three Years Ago

Today marks our third anniversary of entering into the holy sacrament of marriage.

 

And although things may have gotten off to a rocky start . . .

No, I will never get over this.



I am so lucky to have married my best friend!

Wink!

 

Love ya, Willy B.