Catch-up: Part 3

November

November was a busy month with the start of the holidays. Cuyler began his new full time job, which was (and still is) a huge blessing in many ways. We were not planning on going anywhere for Thanksgiving, since Cuyler was working retail and would for sure have to work Black Friday. And we were unsure how much traveling we'd even be able to do for Christmas due to his work schedule as well. So... we were so happy to find out that with his new job he had Thanksgiving weekend off! :) Since nothing too exciting happened for the rest of the month, I'll skip straight to Thanksgiving.

We flew to San Jose on Wednesday evening to visit Cuyler's parents. Thursday morning the four of us drove down to San Luis Obispo where Cuyler's grandparents live. His aunt, uncle, and cousins were there as well and we had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner. We stayed down there until Saturday morning, and enjoyed shopping, good food, and lots of games with the family. It was a fun weekend and I really enjoyed getting to know Cuyler's family a little better.

Thanksgiving Day

Saturday morning we traveled back up to San Jose, and spent the rest of the weekend with Cuyler's parents. It was a happy holiday and I look forward to many more with the Meade and Sumi families :)


December

Again, December was a busy month with the holiday rush and all. At the beginning of the month I finished up another semester of grad school and was thrilled for a six week break.  During my last week of school, we also found out that we would be having a new little addition to our family in August. We were overjoyed to find out I was pregnant. Of course it was not long until the joy turned into morning sickness, which was unfortunate over the holidays, but very fortunate that I wasn't in school. Plus then I didn't gain any holiday pounds since I hardly ate anything, and much of what I did eat, I threw up.

We were excited for our first Christmas together and splurged on a tree and decorations for our house :) Here's a little glimpse of our first Christmas together...

Cuyler putting the star on the tree :)

(I've always needed a chair to star my trees... good thing I married such a tall man)

So I thought I had a picture of our tree with ALL the lights and with presents under, but I can't find one so apparently I never took one. Anyway, we traveled to visit my family for Christmas in southern California. We spent Christmas Eve with my Dad's side of the family, and Christmas day with my Mom's side of the family. It was so nice to get to see everyone. It was a rather strange Christmas however, since neither of my siblings (and their families) were home for the holidays. Plus having a boy there with me (Cuyler) made it a whole new experience. But it was so much fun and we were able to really enjoy time with my parents. We were fortunate that Cuyler was able to get a whole week of work off, so we were able to spend the New Year celebrations with my family as well. We had a rocking dance party at my grandparent's house on New Year's Eve. Oh and I had my very first New Year's midnight kiss of my life, so that was romantic ;) New Year's day was spent at my grandparent's house as well, with lots of aunts, uncles, and cousins. It was a really fun trip and I was grateful we were able to take it. Well that leads us to...

January

January was holiday recovery time with back to work for both of us, and back to school for me a few weeks later. January actually ended up being a rather difficult month for our new little family, with the biggest trial we've faced yet... something I'm not sure we even knew we were capable of handling. In early January we went to the doctor's for our first ultrasound appointment. I was about 9 weeks pregnant at this point, and we were so excited to see our baby for the first time. However, what we didn't expect is that this would be the only time we would see our precious little one. While doing the ultrasound it was discovered that there was no heartbeat and we would be miscarrying the baby. We were grateful this was discovered at the appointment so that I was able to have everything removed surgically in order to avoid the physical effects of miscarriage. However, the emotional pain of losing our baby was not anything that could be healed by doctors or medication. We are so grateful for the love and support from family, friends, and ward members (and of course the love and comfort we felt from our Heavenly Father) that embraced us during the difficult weeks and months ahead. We were blessed with phone calls, text messages, emails, cards, meals, and listening ears, and thank each of you who contributed to that out pour of blessings. I am especially grateful to my amazing husband who was so extremely supportive of me as I grieved, even though I know that he was hurting too. I feel so blessed to have such great love and support.

our sweet baby

February

Well February was basically a continuation of all of the January happenings. I was immersed in the rigors of my last semester of grad school and my internship. Cuyler was working full-time and going to school part time. Needless to say, we were busier than ever.

We had a few special treats in the month of February to spice up our busy lives. One was, of course, Valentine's Day. This was actually our first Valentine's Day together and Cuyler made it super special. First, he surprised me at school with a vase full of roses and then took me to lunch. I was not expecting it at all, so it was a perfect surprise. That evening he took me out to dinner at Macaroni Grill (one of my favorite places), and gave me a sweet card with an "I owe you" to take me shopping for a new dress (and when we finally went shopping he picked out a really cute one by the way). I'm sure I did nice things for him too, but I can't remember. Plus his sweet things totally outweighed mine, so mine aren't even that important. Anyway, it was a wonderful Valentine's day... my best yet actually ;)

Also, in February we had a few special visitors. Cuyler's grandparents took a west coast vacation from their home in New York and were so kind to visit us as part of that trip. They spent a couple days here in Arizona, and although our schedules were pretty packed with work and school, we were able to have a couple of nice dinners with them. It was so wonderful to see them and visit with them. We love you Grandma and Grandpa Meade!

Catch-up: Part 2

I just want to open here by sharing that after writing that last post, I discovered a draft of a post that I started back in Novemeber but never finished! So I just need to clear my name... that I didn't totally ignore the fact that I had a blog for the past 8 months... I just never finished what I started. Maybe that gains me a little credit for something???

Here's what I wrote (the perfect beginning to my October catch-up)...

October

Cuyler and I have been enjoying life and keeping super busy. Between my internship and school, and his online class and new full-time job, and our fun new callings of course, we're just happy when date night comes each week. So on that note, here highlights of a few exciting things that have happened in our life.

First off, in early October there was a huge storm in the Phoenix area. I was at work and Cuyler was at home when it hit. Just as I was leaving work the wind started blowing really hard and as I got in my car it started hailing. It was the most intense hail storm I've ever experienced. I was just sitting there in my car waiting to go home, while golf size hail balls slammed against my car. I was seriously scared one would just break through my windshield and hit me (fortunately that didn't happen, but I did end up with some major dents in my car). Anyway, just as the storm calmed down and I was about to head home, Cuyler called to tell me about the effects of the storm at our apartment. See for yourself...

It's kind of hard to tell but our apartment is in the upper left corner of the picture, the tree used to stand to the right of our apartment, but from the storm it uprooted and fell in front of our apartment, completely blocking the stairway up to our apartment. When I got home, I had to climb over the trunk of the tree and Cuyler helped me climb up and over the banister of the stairway just so I could get into our apartment.

That's me next to our front door :) What an adventure!

Well, that's all I had written so far back in Novemeber, so I'll continue from there. Another exciting thing that happened in October is we went to the Arizona State Fair. 

I have never been to a state fair in my life, and since it was so close, it only seemed appropriate that we go. We enjoyed watching the Hot Dog Pig Races, and especially enjoyed eating funnel cakes and drinking lemonade (yum!). Our favorite ride was the ferris wheel. They had like 5 different ferris wheels, and I'm pretty sure we rode them all :)

Another perk of going to the fair was they had free concerts in the evening. This particular evening we got to see Colbie Caillat in concert.

She was great live and we both really enjoyed it.

(us at the concert)

Of course with October comes Halloween. We didn't go trick-or-treating, but we did have a halloween party at church, and took full advantage of the opportunity to dress up. After many thrift stores, and much debate as to what we should be, this is what we came up with...

I was a cowgirl. I know it's not very original, but I had all the stuff so it was free ;)

And Cuyler was...

Can you tell? Who do you think?

Of course! As Cuyler put it that night when anyone would ask, "I'm Don Johnson from the hit 80's TV show Miami Vice!" A lot of people totally called it. He looked great. (He still begs me to let him wear the suit to church some sundays, but I haven't given in yet)  ;)

Other than that, I spent October in grad school and doing my internship at LDS Family Services (love it!), and Cuyler worked part time at JCPenny. At the end of October/beginning of Novemeber he got a job offer to work full time for our bishop's metal working fluids company. See Cuyler's November post for more details on that.

Catch-up: Part 1

Alrighty, so I can't promise to be the most dedicated blogger ever, but I am now re-committing myself to keep this thing up (at least monthly). This post is meant to be a catch-up from my last post... I'll probably highlight one or two things from each month and just hope that is sufficient. And I'll start from our beginning, since the last thing I think I covered was that leading up to our wedding...

September
September was quite a blissful month for Cuyler and me. On the 3rd we were married in the Oakland, California temple. I myself had never been to this temple, and only once to San Jose. Thank goodness Cuyler's family is from the bay area, so that we could spend our wedding day in, what I consider to be, one of the most beautiful places on earth. See for yourself...

We had our reception in a gorgeous backyard, on a hill overlooking the San Jose Valley. It was absolutely amazing and everything about the day was even more wonderful than I could have imagined.

The view was gorgeous,

the food was delicious,

the cake was smash-worthy (and very yummy),

and the party was hoppin'...

(Cuyler had a different definition of what makes a hoppin' party) ;)



One of the best parts of the day was having so many close friends and family there to celebrate with us. Thank you so much to everyone who traveled so far and/or made sacrifices to be there on our special day. We are especially grateful to our parents for being there, and for their continued love and support.

(Aren’t we a cute family?)

The VERY BEST part of the day was, of course, being able to marry my very best friend. I love Cuyler so much and he made the day extra special with...

being super excited to be married to me,

lots of kisses,

serenading me with a song (this was a surprise and I LOVED it!),

(I might have been tearing up a little here)

and just being his fun-loving, silly, sweet, wonderful self.

That night we headed off on our brief honeymoon, and enjoyed every minute. We spent the weekend in Half Moon Bay, California.

It was so much fun (if anyone needs a recommendation for a good honeymoon spot, this is it). Unfortunately I had school the next week, so we hurried back Monday evening to our new home in Glendale, Arizona.

From there it was back to real life... school and internship for me, and job hunting for Cuyler. At the end of that month we got to take a little road trip to California (southern California this time) for some more wedding festivities.

I got to be a bridesmaid for my cousin Tyisa. This was so much fun and they are such a cute couple.

Then, the next evening we had a wedding reception for ourselves in Moreno Valley (the city where I grew up). It was fun to see old friends and more family, and make our special occasion last a little longer.

On the way home from that trip we experienced one of our first big adventures of married life... a car accident. Luckily it wasn't too bad, and no one was hurt... just one of those things to remind us that we are grown-ups now ;)

Finally!

So... after many, many, many months of not posting, we're back! In reality, I'd like to play catch up on each month we missed out on, but with my track record I wonder if I'd ever really catch up. So to all of our fans, we hope you haven't given up on us yet. Keep checking back and we should have an update of our life posted real soon. Thanks for the emails, comments, and facebook posts encouraging us to get back up and running here. We love you all!