Summer 2014

As always, I'm playing catch up with our blog.  I'm only a good 6 months behind...yikes.  While going through our pictures it's fun to reflect upon the fun times we've had.  Sean and I had a great summer, here are some of our highlights.

We started off the summer with an amazing weekend trip to Aaron's grandparent's lake house in Houston.  It's crazy to think the last time we were there was 3 years ago, time flies!

Gerret and Sarah welcomed baby Emily.  

I've never seen Sean hog a baby as much as he loves on little Emily.  

Our close friends Sterling and KC welcomed baby Malcom! 

 He's is just the cutest little thing, check out all his hair!

We had multiple date nights with our amazing friends.  Even though neither of us live by our parents, our friends always make us feel like we are family.  We're so lucky to have such good friends!

 

Sean had a turbinectomy.  He's always had trouble with allergies, sinus problems, wheezing, and airflow.  They removed most of his enlarged turbinates, now he has 85% more airflow!  As always, it made for some pretty funny videos.  The nurse even said, "he's a cheap drunk".  :)

One of my best friends Nikki turned 28!  

We partied it up at the Melting Pot, and ate three times the amount of our daily calories.

 We were able to fly out to Seattle to see our precious niece Sidney get baptized.  It was a quick visit, but I'm so glad we were able to be a part of her special day.  Thanks for having us Nate and T!

Not every part of our summer was pure bliss.  A few hours before our flight left to Seattle, Sean lost his job.  It was very unexpected and sudden.  We had been planning our trip to Seattle for months, and we tried to not let it ruin our weekend with that we had been looking forward to for so long. Luckily, Sean and I have listened to the counsel we've been given to be prepared.  I've never been so grateful for savings and smart money habits, it was truly a blessing.  Neither of us have been through a job loss before, and it was hard on both of us.  Thankfully Sean is smart, hard working, educated, and was able to find something in less than two months.  I'm so grateful for him and all he does for our family.

Aimee and Noah bought a beautiful new boat and we spent a weekend of fun on it!
 

We had some visitors!

 My favorite Rae-hoe came to visit!

Sean's cousin Jake sold security systems in Texas this summer, so we got to see him!

 Jake's Texas presence also led to family get-togethers, which we love!

 Gerret and Sarah blessed sweet Emmy.

My bestie Paige invited us down to Louisiana to be with her sweet Cajun family for the 4th of July!  I've been hearing about Belle River for YEARS and I was so excited to partake of it's goodness.  By far, one of our best 4th of July's.  We had a blast!

We went to Chicago (my home) to visit for my Grandma Gin's 90th birthday party.  Luckily, it was in the summer, we don't do Chicago in the winter...

We had my 10th high school reunion while I was there (so crazy).  These are some of my favorites from my grade that I've been lucky enough to keep in contact with.

 I fufilled one of my dreams of becoming a professional dancer.  I made the Dallas Sidekicks dance team!  It's been such an amazing opportunity, and I've loved every minute of it.

Our amazing friend and cousin, Kylie took some family photos for us.  She did such an amazing job, and I am obsessed with them.  Thanks again Ky, we love you!

Last but not least, we wrapped up the summer by going to HAWAII!  It was the perfect ending to our amazing summer.

We had such a great summer, these are most of our highlights.  I'm going to try and blog more into detail about some of our big trips.  Sean and I are SO blessed, and we had such a fun summer together.  Summer 2014 was one of our best yet!

Becky turns 28!

Back in April, we celebrated my 28th birthday.  Sean is getting pretty good at this whole birthday surprise thing.  My birthday fell on Easter Sunday this year.  I think that's why Easter was always my favorite holiday growing up.  It's fun to share my birthday with such a special holiday.  It turned out to be an amazing day, it was so nice to sleep in and actually relax and not have to go to work!  

Sean told me he had a bunch of surprises lined up for me (I love surprises). For the first surprise he told me to wear comfy clothes...that's all he would tell me.  We ended up both getting massages, I LOVE massages.  Then we came back home, and all Sean would tell me is that I needed to get dressed up.

 He took me to Maggiano's, carb loading at it's finest!  We had a great dinner together, and of course everything was delicious.  

Sean's last surprise was he took me to a musical in downtown Dallas.  I love musicals, operas, ballets, I love them all.  Sean picked Evita, which I have always heard good things about.  I loved every minute of it.

 Not only was this a great gift for me, it was also a big sacrifice for Sean.  He is not a huge fan of musicals, so it was a really big gift. 

 Love this boy.

 And the gifts kept coming.  I got these sweet pictures and letters from my adorable nieces and nephews.  I love being an Auntie!  Thanks for sending the sweet notes guys. 

 To finish off the birthday celebrations, my besties all came together and took me out to dinner at my favorite restaurant.  I seriously have the best friends, and they're pretty hot too.  :)  

 Now that's a pazookie!  We couldn't decide on what flavor we should get, so we got a little of each.  Who needs cake when you can have pazookie?!

Totally feeling the love.  All of the cards, presents, calls, and texts totally made my day.  Every year gets a little better with age.  This whole getting older thing is pretty sweet.  Thanks to Sean, and all my friends and family for making me feel so special on my birthday. Love you all! Xoxo.

6th anniversary skydive!

For our SIXTH wedding anniversary, Sean and I decided to go skydiving!  Sean has been wanting to go forever, and we both thought it would be a fun thing to do for our anniversary.  Because nothing says I love you, like let's jump out of a plane and cheat death together.  Right?

Sean and I each got our own videos and pictures taken.  What's the point of doing it unless it's documented?  And of course need some to make fun of afterwards!  I didn't realize they had to have a separate skydiver just to record you, which obviously makes sense now...Honestly, at this point...what's another $100 for pictures and a video?  You only have one 6th anniversary...hopefully.

I was feeling pretty good at this point, I was just really excited and anxious to jump!

It wasn't until this point, flying up to 13,500 feet, that I started to feel a little nervous.  I quickly realized there wasn't any backing down at this point, and whether I wanted to or not, I was jumping out of an airplane.  Who thought this was a good idea?

I'm glad we got the video and the picture package (I highly recommend it if you're on the fence), because honestly I don't even remember this moment.  All morning we were in class being instructed on how to jump out of the plane.  We practiced the moves a million times, and they drilled into our head that this was one of the most important parts of the jump.  But, when we got to the edge about to jump out, I completely froze and acted like I had never been told what to do.  Apparently I crack under pressure. Luckily, I was jumping tandem and my instructor basically forced my body in the correct position.  Rookie, jeez.

It was a perfect day outside, high 70's, but all I remember thinking at this moment was...IT'S FREEZING!!!

For me, this was the funnest part of the jump, the 60 second free-fall.  

It was awesome.

Check out that view, hey Dallas!  

At this point the photographer was trying to get me to do all these poses and things with my hands.  Clearly, I was a little confused...

I think I was "swimming" at this point...

Yeahhhhhhh!

Boom goes the dynamite.  As soon as my instructor pulled the cord, my legs flew in the air, the chute deployed, and we started our descent to the ground.  Crazy!

 Here I come!

 If you look close, you can see Sean landing in the background...

 I think my very words at this time were, "Thanks for not letting me die."
Or something along those lines...

Hallelujah!  I'm alive!

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10100524805803694&l=4281597844504061005
Here's my skydiving video you can watch!

Sean's turn!!!  I like this picture, it's an awesome shot of him right as he's jumping out of the plane.

Boom baby!

What up superman?

This is a cool shot, the photographer is directly above Sean.  This is what our view looked like as we were going down.

I love this picture.  Look how happy this boy is!  Like a little kid in a candy shop, love this grown up kid of mine.

I don't know if you can tell in this picture, it's more obvious in the video but Sean cheeks are flapping like no one's business.  This was one of my biggest fears of being recorded while jumping (I know, I'm a stupid girl).  I had seen so many pictures and videos of people's cheeks flapping in the wind.  I had gained quite of bit of weight, so I was even a little more self conscious than I normally was.  Luckily, it wasn't me who had the cheek flapping...it was Sean.  Who would have thought?  The thinner of the two of us, and he got caught with the flapping cheeks?  Luckily, he's a boy and doesn't care, and still mocks me for even worrying about it.  Haha, I'm a freak...I know.

It's more obvious in the video, but Sean is signaling his instructor to spin him around.  We both told our instructors we wanted to have all the crazy, fun stuff.  We wanted the flips, the turns, the barrel rolls, everything.  If we were going to this we wanted to go all out.  They definitely didn't disappoint!

Waving goodbye...

Sean may have shouted out some choice words at this point, luckily you can't really hear anything during the free fall of the video.  

There he goes! This point felt a lot like para-sailing.  Once you're up in the air and the chute has been deployed, it's actually very peaceful.  Everything is very calm and quiet, and it's surprisingly relaxing.

Coming in for the landing!

Perfect landing, he landed right on his bum.  Apparently, when people do get hurt, it's usually on the landing.  We were instructed to basically pull your legs up as high and close to the body as possible.  That way the professional could do his thing.  It's when people try and stand up, the instructor trips over them, and then legs snap...yikes.  Both of us had champion landings...luckily.

Oh, the awkward boy hugs...

Hey, we made it!  We're both still alive!

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10100524853548014&set=vb.193306520&type=3
Sean's skydiving video!

I'm so glad we decided to go skydiving for our anniversary.  We had a blast!  I would definitely recommend it. Sean said he would love to make a hobby out of it, but I kind of feel like it's a 'bucket list check' item for me.  The skydiving crowd was pretty comical, it was mostly older people!  I was completely shocked.  There was a few "snowboarder" type younger people, but most of the "regulars" were probably 60+ years old.  Looks like there's even more to look forward to with age.

 Happy 6th anniversary to my forever boyfriend, love you more and more the longer we're married.