5 blissful years!

JR,

Today we celebrate our 5 year anniversary and this year has no doubt brought the most change and a bit of chaos in our life together. I would have never guessed back when we took that picture above that we would go through our first year being on staff at a church, start doing marriage counseling for other couples, welcome our 2nd child, buy a minivan AND move in just 10 days, along with the gazillion other things life brings us everyday. Yes it was a crazy ride and we learned a lot.. but we made it through! Looking back on everything I see that much has changed since we began the journey with just the two of us. Our house is always busy, we are always running around everywhere and have very little time to ourselves. I was so grateful to get to whisk you away last weekend for a one night getaway to the mountains as an early celebration. It was wonderful to get to just relax with you and concentrate on each other... and as I told you when we did our hike, just the simple thing of holding your hand! You are great about "reminding me" about when we first fell in love and although our roles have changed and the stage of life we are in right now pulls us in so many directions we are still able to create a spark even in the everyday moments of life. In the beginning our love was instant and now it continues to bring on much new meaning every year we grow together.


Thank you for your leadership, your sacrifice and for loving me unconditionally. Here is to another year in our journey together... cant wait to see what it will bring!


Only yours,

Your Bride

Our 5th year in pictures

LONG overdue!

Wow its been OVER a month now since I have posted and I hope you know that is just not like me! I am alive though ha... and can explain. We have had a crazy past few weeks AND my computer is on its last leg and has not been working for me either. We have moved since I last posted too. I am doing my best to catch up on here as well as the boys' blogs so please stay tuned! SOON.. I hope :)

** Several updates have now been made but you have to scroll down because I backdated in order to keep everything in order. Sorry OCD ha!

An early anniversary getaway

We had the chance to have an overnight getaway for an early anniversary present while visiting Tennessee. We always try to take advantage of the grandparents wanting to watch the boys and it couldnt have been better timing! With all the stress of the move and such, we needed some time to just R.E.L.A.X!!! I knew I wanted to get the hubby to the mountains because he had been longing to be there ALL year! We began our trip with another visit to Cades Cove. We used to visit this place often in our high school dating days and it is so refreshing to see all the green and be in the middle of the mountains.

JR also really enjoys hiking and so I planned for us to do Abram Falls. It is an "easy" hike which I picked on purpose because I also wanted to be able to enjoy it and not hate myself aftewards! It was so peaceful to walk the 6 miles and it took about 3 hours. I loved getting to be alone with JR and simply hold his hand! When the boys are with us we are holding onto them and dont ever get to enjoy that little thing that really is missed.... and the turnaround point of the hike had a beautoful waterfall!

We packed our lunch and enjoyed the beautiful view on "our hill." We always stop at the same spot on the circle and enjoy this hill, so special to revisit!

We checked into our hotel and got ready for a very nice dinner at the Peddler. It was amazing food and a very relaxing environment. We chatted about what all this year had brought us... WOW a lot :)

The next morning we had breakfast at JR's VERY favorite.. THE Cracker Barrel and then shopped around at the outlets.

We are grateful for our times away from the boys but are always eager to get back to them!! It was a fabulous trip :)

Season opener: Go Duke!

We took Griffin on his own little adventure without baby brother to watch Duke play their season opener. We are so grateful to have been given tickets by our good friends Wes and Ashley and took advantage to make our boy feel extra special.

He was so happy to be at the game and kept his eye constantly on the "Blue Debil."

We also invited our good friends from church, the Jones family to join us.

It is great to live life together with our church family!

Jacob and Anna's wedding

Our church has been blessed to have several couples get married in the past year. We attended another beautiful wedding of Mr. Jacob and Mrs. Anna Coyne.

It is always fun to get dressed up and spend time with our friends!

All the dudes

It was also a delight to get to hang out with my hubby... with NO kids! Ah its refreshing to have adult conversation, not worry about sleeping and feeding times and just enjoy ourselves as a couple!

Ashley is such an awesome babysitter... the boys LOVE her!

Go Bulls!

Our first outing as a family as Durham residents was to watch a Durham Bulls baseball game! It was fun to have the boys at the ballpark. Griffin is very into the game and Carter just looks around at all the new things to see.

Lots of our church family joined us because....

our choir sang the National Anthem!

Sweet Griffin just knew he was going to catch a ball

I thought he looked like such a big boy in his matching hat with Daddy!

Showering Ike with some Phi Mu love!

Last weekend I had a fabulous weekend with my Phi Mu girls! It had been 3 years since ALL of us had been together and at least 2 since I had seen a few so it was definitely overdue. The beautiful lady in green is expecting her first baby next month and it was a great excuse to get us all together!

Jenn was our fabulous hostess for the weekend! Her and her boyfriend Rogers have a great place in downtown Nashville known as "the flat" and it was the perfect spot for us all!

We had a shower for baby Ike on Saturday afternoon and it was such a fun time. I loved getting to celebrate with Katie as I am OH so excited she is joining the mom club :)

I had so much fun making Ike his diaper cake!

I also gave my first try at cupcake toppers to match the decor and i was pleased with the way they came out!

I am so thankful Jenn was in charge of the menu.... gracious day it was DELICIOUS!

Since I love playing games and enjoying a good laugh too we played the "guess whats in the dirty diaper game" where they had to figure out which candy bar was inside. The faces as they checked them out were CLASSIC! Mom to be is not so sure she is ready for the dirty part.

JWade says EWW!

Adrienne sniffing things out

Crystal is not so sure about it....

and asked for help from Momma Jessie

New moms Meg and Amy

We also played Mommy 101 where we learned some things about the fun world of Mommyhood.

What are these called? Scratch Mittens!

What is the football hold?

Jenn's answer was simply hilarious. Right, but different kind friend :)

Now for the fun gifts. The parents to be had asked Aunt Lindsey to make a Bible verse canvas to match Ike's room... and the polka dot queen couldnt resist some good manly coordinating ones!

Ike also received some love from the Vols and Sir Fidel himself (our mascot for Phi Mu, the lion)

Aunt Jenn decked him out in some "business time" attire. So adorable!

One of the most creative gifts I've ever seen came from Melissa.... being that both parents were Greek, Ike received a burp cloth that said

1 Phi Mu

+ 1 Lambda Chi Alpha

= IKE

All in Greek letters of course....

Adorable personalized things from Aunt Natalie!

I love this group of girls SO much and it was a wonderful blessing to get to see all of them again and catch up. I wanted to point out that in just this group of friends we have Jessie (whose son Thatcher just had the liver transplant), Amy (whose son Max had the pacemaker put in before he was a week old) as well as Meg who just adopted her baby girl Lilly! All who have been on my prayer list for some time and have been so blessed! The other amazing thing is that we can all get together and pick up right where we left off 5 years ago, though each of us have our own lives now we still have the common bond :)

Ike definitely got some Phi Mu love this weekend....

and will always have Aunties that love him so much!

Max Thomas Muesch

Praising the Lord! Max arrived last Tuesday, July 5th via c-section and he is doing even better than they expected! He will be having a pacemaker put in today, at just 6 days old, so I ask that you join me in praying for this precious little one and his Mommy and Daddy, Amy and Tyler. If all goes well they expect him to go home Wednesday, isnt that incredible?!?

You can read their updates here if you wish.