Happy Birthday, Matt!

Dear Matthew,

Life sure got a lot more fun and wonderful once you were in it. You are my perfect match and I could not ask for a more awesome husband. There is so much to celebrate today, because we are celebrating YOU! You are a loving son, brother, uncle, grandson, nephew and husband. Everyone loves you so much!

You make me laugh until there are tears and I love all of our inside jokes and phrases. I love how sometimes you fall asleep with your chin on my head and then start to snore a little. You have the ability to crack me up with just a look you make. I love how much you love your family. I love seeing how you gush over your niece and nephew. You are so hard working and I know that all of your efforts will be worthwhile. You have an amazing heart, love the Lord, and strive to be a better man everyday.

Thank you for waiting for me, love. You are a treasure, and I am one blessed lady! I am excited for all the adventures that are to come, because I will get to be with you!

Happy Birthday, sweet cheeks.

Love Forever,
Ruhiyyih

Running News

Matt and I, miraculously, got one of the 30,000 coveted Marine Corps Marathon spots for this October! It is one of the items on my life list to run this race. Strange that I never ran it while I was living in the DC area, but it was because it always interfered with a work event. So finally! We are committed to training and running this 26.2 mile race - October 30, 2011. It sold out in 28 hours. Amazing!

Now we can only pray that fuel prices are not insane by October...

Moving on to other news: Matt was moved all over the place this week at work. He got into a different department for awhile, but when we realized in horror that it meant working weekends, he went back to his old position. SO he is still going to be 11-8, M-F, but we will make it work. He applied for a new position there, with normal hours, so please pray for him!

We are excited to have a full weekend together. He has a paper to tackle, but I will be so happy for his proximity. It is a crazy season in our life with the long work hours, school, and making time to run - but we know that even more crazy times are ahead of us. So, we are humoring it.

Monday is Matt's BIRTHDAY so I am going to make a cherry cake on Sunday!

Have a great weekend, all!

An Awesome Weekend

Ahhhh. Our weekend was so wonderful. The drive over was gorgeous, and we got lots of family time and rest.
It went by way too fast! Matt and I had a great time hiking with his brother and our niece on Saturday. The hike is near a Cabela's store - oh my word. That place is amazing! I forgot to take photos of that part, but this hike I did remember :)
We went out to the Nisqually River Wildlife Refuge and took in some trails.
Maddie was a trooper and loved all the birds!
We had sunshine! It was COLD but SUNNY! I will take that...
Matt and I loved playing with our niece on Sunday morning and our precious nephew Daniel in the afternoon!
We think he likes the play broom that we got for him :)

The trip over really "filled our tanks". We are going to have a full week - Matt starts a new training program and schedule today, so right now he is 11-8. It is hard as we adjust our schedule to make time for each other, but we are doing what we can with what we have. Praise God that we are able to borrow Matt's parents Jeep until our Subaru is fixed as our schedules are opposites!

I hope you all had a great weekend and a wonderful week ahead.

Vacation!

It was a rough week! Super busy at work and lots of stress. Valentine's Day bombed thanks to car issues. The highlight (and only photo I took this week) was our heart-shaped pizza we got.

However, I have a FOUR day weekend. I took off today so Matt and I could take a long weekend together to see our family on the other side of the state. So, we leave today and will return on Sunday night. We have not been there since the beginning of November!

Have a great long weekend, everyone!

A Hike and 1000th Post

I'd really hoped to come up with a brilliant idea for my 1000th blog post, like a fancy giveaway or something. I'm sort of in a rut though, not just writer's block but bummed out about Matt's new work schedule. We have to figure out how to balance things when the new one starts at the end of February - him 11-8pm, M-F, and mine (7am to 5pm). Nevertheless we made our one weekend day together special yesterday.
We decided on a whim to go on a popular local hike, Badger Mountain. Matt carried a heavy backpack just to help build his endurance!
Lots of great talks, laughs, and kisses, as usual :)

It was windy and cold on top, so Matt got me out a fleece to wear...also camo...how lovely...
So today is not as romantic as Matt has to work, so I am a bit lonely. We have such packed weekdays that I truly live for the weekends. I don't know what we are going to do when the new schedule starts in two weeks. We only have one working car, too. That is another dilemma. *Sigh*

Tomorrow is Valentine's and we are going to eat a heart shaped pizza and watch a movie! I don't need anything fancy, I already have the best gift ever in my sweet husband. This morning we read my old journal entry from our first Valentines together two years ago. Oh did we laugh and reminisce...

I hope you all have a great rest of your weekend and special Valentine's Days!

999th Post!

I can't believe I've even had 999 things to write about! So for this post I will write about how fun it was to dance with Matt on Saturday night - man that guy can dance! We had a blast at his company party. Great food, awesome songs, dessert, and fun conversations with his co-workers.

I started this blog in September of 2005 as a way to stay connected with my mom through out my travels and life on the east coast. Then she went and joined Facebook and gets to see my photos long before I get them on here. So, this blog turned into a way to stay connected with the online friends that I have met along the way and with some dear friends that I have met on the journey of life.

I hope to compose an awesome post for my 1000th - a reflection and something fun. My thoughts are that this blog will probably turn private once we have kiddos, but in the meantime maybe I've made a few strangers laugh a bit. ;)

Today is also 15 months of marriage! We celebrate on the 7th of every month :)

Happy Monday, all!

This Week....

This week I ate a lot. The new routine with a morning workout at home and then the evening workout at the gym has me so hungry all day that I look like this:
This week I started some new projects at work and it left my head spinning a bit.

This week we babysat for a dear friend and seeing Matt with an 8 month old made me want to start a family tomorrow...and get one of these for my Star Wars fan of a husband:
But seriously we gotta wait awhile. At least until his grad school is over because there are classes that take up every ounce of time and energy...

This week I did our taxes. All the money we paid in student loan interest this year helped us where kids could have. Glad we don't owe!

This week we laughed, a lot, as usual. We are humoring the curveballs of life and celebrating all that is to be, and just excited for what God has in store for us.

Tomorrow night we are attending Matt's work party as they do their big annual party after the busy holiday season. We are getting all dressed up and I am so excited to DANCE!

Have a great weekend, all!