So far behind!

Well...I really need to catch up! And then once I get caught up I need to STAY caught up and not get behind again : ) Otherwise this thing is NEVER going to work out!

So this will be my post that closes out the end of June. Chip's roommate got married in Valparaiso, IN on Saturday, June 28th. Kenzie and I thought about going with him, but I wasn't too excited about trying to pass time in a hotel room with a 14 month old AND a 3.5 hour plane ride with a 14 month old.....oh yeah....and the fact that I was 33 weeks pregnant didn't make either of those things sound any more appealing either! Plus, I knew Chip would be torn to have me there.......I know he really wanted to do all the "guy things" but he is also the type of husband and dad who would have felt obligated to leave things early to come and be with us. SOO....we decided to save our money and that I would just take Kenzie down to my parents house in Tucson for the weekend and that Chip would go and have a good time!

So....Wednesday (the 25th) I spent the day packing and getting things ready to go. Chip worked that day. My dad was also up here in Phoenix working for the day, so we had planned that it would be nice to just have him drive us down to Tucson. At around 6:30, Chip was home and my dad got here and we ate dinner and loaded up the car. I did REALLY well...and there were only a couple tears. I am actually surprised I didn't completely lose it! I am really bad at being away from Chip. This was the longest we have been apart in the 3 years we've been married. Here are a couple pictures that Chip snapped of Kenzie in his hat before we left......





Of course...once Kenzie saw the camera, she wanted it............


So Thursday and Friday we pretty much hung out around the house. Some of the things we enjoyed were:

*Swimming
- We swam several times in the pool in my parents backyard...
- We TRIED to go swim at the pool where Cassie (my little sister) lifeguards, but there ended up being a storm, complete with thunder and lightening, that caused the pool to close right when we got there.



*Playing in the backyard
- Kenzie loved riding this little bike......




* Coloring Daddy a pretty picture
- Kenzie colored the best picture she has done so far...with several colors!




*Going across the street to the elementary school so my dad and Zach (my little sister's boyfriend) could fly their remote control planes


*GOOD FOOD
- My mom is the BEST cook in the whole world : )

*Fun with family
- Kenzie LOVED seeing her cousins! I had a great time seeing everyone as well.

*A little gym class
- Since my brother owns a little gym, Kenzie always gets to go to a class when we visit. She is always little miss independent : )

We had such a great time and want to say a BIG thank you to my mom and dad for taking care of us while Chip was away. It made the time go MUCH faster to have my mind preoccupied and to spend the time doing fun things with family!

Chip had a great time at the wedding too : ) He spent most of Thursday traveling and hung out with the guys that night. Friday was filled with picking up tuxes, eating sub sandwiches at the church for lunch, having the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, and then just enjoying some guy time!

Matt and Jess got married at the chapel at Valparaiso University. Chip said it was an AMAZING and beautiful place! Here are a couple pictures he took....





Here is Chip posing for me.......

I guess there was a small hole in the crotch of his suit which the guys had a good time joking about the whole weekend.....this picture was trying to emphasize the hole...but you couldn't even see it.


Congratulations to Matt and Jess Braham!!!! They are such a cute couple : )



So let's see....Sunday Chip had to be at the airport bright and early (his flight left at 7 and the airport was 45 minutes away from where he stayed). I think he had to get up around 4:15am (which was 1:15am Arizona time!)

Kenzie and I went to church with my parents and after church we loaded in the van (along with Cass and Zach) and drove to Casa Grande. Chip met us there for lunch....we enjoyed some yummy Panda Express! MMM! And then we headed home. It was so fun to be "reunited" as a family and we spent the evening playing and reading books with Kenzie.......

So that pretty much ends June.....the last day of June was spent getting settled back in from our trips. Nothing too exciting : ) So.....on to July!

Another work day...with some fun mixed in : )

So...I didn't get NEARLY as much posted the other night as I wanted to. After restarting my computer 3 times and it STILL freezing up while trying to add pictures, I decided that maybe I was supposed to be doing something else with my time. But I'm back again....and everything is working this time : )

I left off with Tuesday, June 24th. The morning started off with some crazy wonderful little girl bed-head that I HAD to take pictures of! Here she is eating her breakfast:


I also captured one of my favorite faces of hers....the intense scrunched nose she gets right when she ATTACKS her sippy cup when she is really thirsty:


The morning was uneventful.....I am sure we read books and checked email and just hung out as a family. I can't really remember what else we did. We DID decide to use a gift card and go out to lunch at Olive Garden to get soup and salad. We fed Kenzie ahead of time since we weren't sure how filled up she'd get with what we were going to be eating. She had a turkey/cheese roll-up......


So then...once we were at Olive Garden we realized the mistake we had made. Next time we will still not try to fill her up on OUR food at a restaurant....but we WILL bring her lunch WITH US instead of feeding her beforehand. We didn't realize the unpleasant task it would be trying to occupy a 14 month old in a high chair who is full and doesn't want ANY snacks. We took turns eating and playing with her, trying to keep her at least MOSTLY under control. One of the things that kept her busy for the longest was looking through our book of gift cards......


We got home from lunch and it was time for Chip to go to work. Kenzie and I went inside and played before her nap (and mine!) Lately, she'll take off ONE shoe and then she must just decide it is taking too long to get the other one off or something, because she'll run around with one shoe on. She's my little "diddle diddle dumpling". You can see her "one shoe off and one shoe on" in some of the next pictures where she is playing.


In this picture, Kenzie is holding one of her MOST FAVORITE toys...an empty vitamin bottle. It is so funny how the things kids love the most are ones you don't even buy for them. She ALWAYS wanted to play with her vitamin drops/medicine/etc. We obviously didn't let her do that. But when her vitamin drops ran out, Chip had the wonderful idea to wash out the bottle and let her have it. It has been one of her favorite things for MONTHS now. It even kept her busy for an entire wedding ceremony. (We should have remembered to bring it to Olive Garden with us!)






So....that night I had to get some more work done. Kenzie was in a very "needy" mood. She probably wasn't really that needy, probably more normal than anything else....but she is usually so independent that it was getting really frustrating trying to make her happy and get things done. So, she got to have some extra fun. We weren't allowed to play with water in our rooms growing up. So this idea is a big AGAINST THE RULES type of thing in my mind. But....I knew if Kenzie got water in her kitchen sink, she'd be MUCH more likely to stay in her room and play without me for awhile.

So........



Well.....she DID stay in her room for awhile, but also still wanted to be out by me in the kitchen. So I set up some towels and she had fun running back and forth, carrying water in bowls, dumping it here and there.....





She was pretty happy with the set-up. (I LOVE her eyes!)


She was pretty hard at work too........



After about an hour, some friends came over who had their parents in town who wanted to see Kenzie and they played in her room with her. I was able to get A LOT done while they were over. And by the time they left, it was bedtime, and I was able to finish up everything I needed to get done. Chip came home and there were still wet towels all over the floor, but luckily, he is very understanding and didn't mind a bit. So that was our Tuesday!

A FULL work day

Monday, June 23rd

Monday was a fairly normal day for us. The only unusual thing about Monday was that I worked MUCH more than I do normally in one day. Usually, I work 5-10 hours a week for the medical office I work for. This particular Monday I worked 7 hours! It is very interesting to juggle working and taking care of Kenzie. Chip didn't work until Monday night, so the first few hours of my work in the morning were very steady, but once he leaves for work it gets pretty interesting. Basically, it takes me about 1.5-2 hours to get 1 hour in of work when Kenzie is awake because I am constantly having to clock out to get her snacks, read her books, get her "unstuck" from places, etc. My timecard looks pretty funny on days I try to work while she's up. Anyway.....that was a long day for me. My back was very tired from sitting so long as well. But I had to get the work done since we were leaving on Wednesday. And I did : ) So I was happy!

Chip also had a crazy work experience that Monday. The power went out in about a square mile area around Joe's....so they had to close the restaurant early. This is only the 2nd or 3rd time in 10 years that they have closed this early (they closed at 5:45) and didn't reopen at all that night. The power outage caused some chaos, but they got everything straightened out in the end. But he came home quite tired as well.

Coffee Sundays.........

Sunday, June 22nd we had our once a month coffee set-up. We have been setting up the coffee once a month at church since I first moved here in January of 2005 and we were dating. We REALLY enjoy doing this, but it has been interesting to see how much more of a challenge it has become with Kenzie joining the set-up team : )

There isn't a lot to say about this particular day...nothing eventful happened. But I DID want to take time to say THANK YOU to Chip : ) He is SOOO good about getting us out the door on these early Sundays! We have to leave around 6:45 and he always COMPLETELY gets Kenzie ready and out the door on these days. He has gotten so good at knowing everything we need in her diaper bag (which includes food for her breakfast!) and gets it all around PLUS he gets everything WE need for church....Bibles/water bottle/etc. He is such an amazing husband and dad! And I am SO thankful for the way he serves ME on coffee Sundays by helping get our family out the door on time!

Lots of catching up to do!

So....I have about a week and a half to catch up on....sorry to any readers we may have (Liz) who have been wondering about us and checking in! The brief version of the last ten days is:

Sunday, June 22nd- Church day/coffee duty......
Monday, June 23rd- WORK DAY!!!
Tuesday, June 24th- Another work day!!!
Wednesday, June 25th- Getting ready to leave (Chip) /leaving for Tucson (Dani and Kenzie)
Thursday- Sunday, June 26th-29th- Our trips
Monday, June 30th- The "after trip" adjusting....
Tuesday, July 1st- Back to normal life
Today!

My goal is to catch up on the details of all of this tonight : ) Here it goes.........

Fun Family Friday and SUPER busy Saturday

Haha...how cheesy is THAT title? I couldn't think of anything else! So Friday Chip has the day off. This does NOT happen often : ) That morning we just had a relaxing time around the house. We decided to go over to his Grandma and Grandpa Brown's house in the afternoon to swim. Kenzie loves the water and lately has a new trick of "jumping in" (sitting on the edge and falling in to us). She does great and totally loves going under water! Here are some pictures of our fun time in the pool.









On Friday night after dinner, we invited Chip's parents over to play games. They came over around 8 and brought Dairy Queen with them : ) MMMMM! We played Settlers of Catan, completely expecting Chip to win like usual. BUT....I WON! Yay : ) I was really excited.

Saturday, we had a REALLY busy day. Chip had to be at work at 8am, which meant leaving at 7:30am. This doesn't happen often. But it helped us get our day moving. Kenzie had breakfast and played for awhile. I tried to lay her down for her morning nap early, because we were supposed to be at a baby shower at 11am, which meant she needed to be up by 10:30. I laid her down at 9:15, but of course she wasn't tired enough to go to sleep. So she didn't fall asleep for an hour. Soo....at that point I decided we'd be late to the shower. I let her sleep until 11 and then we got up and rushed out the door. We got to Christen's baby shower around 11:30 and enjoyed some yummy food, fun games, and a great time celebrating the upcoming arrival of Baby Evelyn. She is due 2 weeks before me, so we have fun comparing belly sizes and feeling sorry for each other being so hugely pregnant in the HOT HOT weather.


We left the shower at about 1:40pm and got home a little after 2. Kenzie was ready for a nap, especially since she had only gotten a 45 minute morning nap, which meant getting to our NEXT event late as well. We were supposed to be at a BBQ/pool party for our small group at 3, but I let Kenzie sleep for another 45 minutes and didn't wake her up until 3. We got to the BBQ at about 3:45 and got RIGHT into the pool. It was HOT outside! Chip had to work until 4, but was able to get there around 4:20. Kenzie LOVED swimming with friends and as you can see below, she REALLY enjoyed her hot dog with ketchup!

Mmm....loved the good food!

More "jumping in"


Luke relaxing on his mom's lap after a swim


The Frahm's....Amy, Riley, and Brian. A RARE smile from Riley while IN the water...she likes to sit on the side with her feet in : )


Kenzie playing with Jack.


They were both trying to smile at the camera.... but I had them looking into the sun.


Geoff was really excited to get some food after his crazy ping-pong tourney.

Brett and Audrey hosted the BBQ at their neighborhood pool and everyone was able to come! We had such a great time. Lots of good food, cool water, and catching up was done (we haven't been meeting over the summer). Thanks for everything guys!

Our 3rd Anniversary : )

Yesterday, Chip and I celebrated our 3rd Wedding Anniversary. We are so thankful for the 1096 days we've been a married couple : ) Chip told me he had surprise dinner plans for us. He told me to dress up (as much as I could with my limited wardrobe being 7 months pregnant...) and that we needed to have Kenzie over to his parent's house and be leaving by 6:30 at the latest.

We got to his parent's house at 6 with plenty of time to spare, so we had them take a few pictures.


Our little family after 3 years : )

So, we left and drove to the downtown area. I figured out where we were going before we got there.....mainly because as we were getting off the freeway Chip kept looking UP. He was taking me to the Compass Room at the Hyatt Regency in Downtown Phoenix. It is Arizona's only revolving restaurant. And VERY nice : ) I didn't take the second picture....I found it online....but I took all the other ones you'll see : )




The Compass Room is located on the 24th floor. We got in the elevator and I BARELY had time to pull out my camera and capture the view as we FLEW up to the restaurant. The elevator was SO fast and amazing. We ended up riding it up and down twice after dinner : )


We we seated at our beautiful table:


Here was the view when we were first seated. Luckily, even if the sun is bright, you're always moving to a new place, so you don't have it in your eyes the whole time!

Here was another one, just from another angle.

We were able to see so much from up there. Here are a few big landmarks I thought were fun to see from up high:


Since it is the "compass" room, every so often on the wall they have plaques that tell what angle/degree your facing and some landmark that is a certain distance away. It takes 55 minutes to complete a full 360.

Here is Chip as the sun was setting:

And me : )


We had a SPECTACULAR evening and I would recommend the restaurant to ANYONE! It is quite pricey, but the service, food, and atmosphere were everything you would expect and MORE for the prices we paid!

Our waitress was WONDERFUL! She was so REAL and PERSONABLE! She didn't press us to get more than we wanted, she was very encouraging about our menu selections...not in an annoying way, but in a very sincere way. She was there whenever we needed her, but not so much that we felt like she was ever interrupting. I REALLY liked her : ) It was funny, because she couldn't believe we'd been married for 3 years since we looked so young. Chip said "yeah, people think I'm 21 all the time" Her response was a little laugh and "I was thinking more like 18."

The food was SOOOO good. I am always nervous at places where the food is "gourmet" or "exquisite and unique" etc. But I shouldn't have been worried here : ) There menu is designed to have 3 courses: appetizers, soup & salads, and the entree. We decided to split one of each course and still have room for dessert. We're really glad we did.

The meal started out with their cornbread. It was sweet but also had a slight green chili taste. It was served with normal butter, honey butter, and salt. I have never seen salt for your dinner presented that way!


The appetizer we chose was Baked St. Andre and Herbs (served with) Sourdough baguette, kiwi leather, and spiced cashews

Mmmm....It was great! One funny thing is that when we ordered it, we didn't even realize that St.Andre is a type of cheese. It's a good thing we liked it! The kiwi leather was like a YUMMY fruit roll up and there were SEVERAL fun fruit garnishes to try. We especially liked the kumquats, which neither of us had ever had before. We had to ask the waitress what it was and when we told her we really liked it, she surprised us with a little "present" of two more : ) She also offered to bring out extra sourdough baguette to go with the cheese, which we gladly accepted!


Our next course was our salad. We got the Baby Romaine Salad with garlic vinaigrette, reggiano, chile-lime croutons, and heirloom cherry tomatoes. Its a good thing we LOVE garlic, because it was very garlicy. But it was SO yummy!!!


For our main course, we went all out and ordered the Filet Mignon with sunchoke-potato puree, english peas, and pearl onions. We also ordered a side of grilled asparagus. We found out that "sunchoke" is the root of a sunflower! They puree it and basically mix it with mashed potatoes. We ordered the filet medium well and it was perfect! I LOVED every bite of the meal!!!

I was SO set on taking pictures of EACH food item before we started eating.....but the main course came and I must have been SUPER excited about it, because I dug right in and didn't think to take the picture until halfway through : ) OOPS!

Chip really liked the walk-way connecting these two buildings...so I took a picture : )


And here was a fun sunset picture.


For dessert, we got the Custard Trio. It came with Crem Brulee, Chocolate Mousse, and Tangerine Flan....all of which were very good and quite interesting! They put a fun chocolate anniversary message on the plate for us too : )



The whole night was WONDERFUL! We talked about all the things that have gone on in our life together the past three years and thanked the Lord for the ways we've seen Him work and for all the many blessings He has poured out on us.

So....thank you Chip, for planning such a fun dinner for us.
But even more so....THANK YOU LORD, for three wonderful years and for the extra blessing you have poured upon us at this point in our lives, making a dinner like this possible! We know a dinner like this is FAR beyond a "need" of ours and DEFINITELY a huge "extra" in life. And we are so extremely grateful that God has allowed us to enjoy the beauty and creativity He created in an evening like last night : )