Our little family

Once again, I apologize for the delay in blog posts. This is turning into what my written journal looks like...3 entries a year! So before our lives change completely (hint, hint on next posting), I have to do a post about the adorable puppies that we had last Summer. We learned a lot, but we had fun doing it!

After 2.5 years of no puppies we were convinced one of them (probably Satchel) was either not equip ed, intimidated by Abby, or was batting for the other team. But low and behold they chose our honeymoon to figure it out and get 'busy'. We came home to a pregnant dog, and a bit of a traumatized neighbor.

Our mama dog, Abby, is a bit of a freak so we had some interesting moments. She only threw two pups (normal for labs is about 6) so I spent many hours in the storage shed with her waiting on the others. She was very annoyed with me and I was very freaked out that something was wrong. The Northland Animal Hospital received lots of phone calls from me that night, but all ended well. Here is a picture of the little boy at two days old:

Because Abby became a bit crazy with the hormones for about two weeks we had to monitor feedings, which was about every three hours. I got a little taste of what its like to have your own infant! So here was one of our feeding sessions:

I'm assuming I won't be able to drink wine (out of my super-cool plastic wine glass) to pass the time while feeding my own baby...

I have a ton of adorable pictures so I won't add them all, just the ones that my good friend, Megan, took. She has a great camera and a great eye for photography. We had a lot of fun with these :)










If you remember from a previous post, I like to sit on my front porch and wait for people to come talk to me. Yep, creepy, annoying neighbor-lady, that's me! Well, these puppies made me so popular in the neighborhood! All the kids would come and play with them after work in the evenings. I absolutely loved it. Beautiful weather, friendly neighbors, green grass, adorable puppies, life is great :)

HEYWORTH 09!

I was going to do an overview of our lives in the past 5 months (sorry!), but I think there are too many subjects that need their own posts. So lets start with the Fourth of July.

A little background: Over the past few years we have become a part of this group of couples that try to get together once or twice a year and have a long weekend of fun, basically we try to pretend that we are in college again. Every year the hangovers get worse and worse! We became a part of this group from Flint and Theresa, the group began with three couples that married their college sweethearts. Now it is a mixture of additional friends from college for these three couples and a few strays like us :) Sometimes the gathering is only 3 couples strong and sometimes its 12 couples! Basically we pick someones house and we all have a big slumber party for days. Usually over the Fourth of July or New Years. Sometimes we pick a vacation spot such as Key West (a group favorite) or a cabin in Kentucky (Fourth of July, 2010) This year we went to the favorite spot, Heyworth, Illinois. Home of Kate and Terry Trost. Over the entire weekend we had over 12 couples! It was a full house:


Our hosts had t-shirts made for everyone that said "Heyworth 09" on the front and "The Key West of the Midwest" on the back. We played a ton of Flip Cup and Quarters. The boys went golfing, and the girls cooked and talked about babies as we had a new baby in the group and one on the way. More about that later...

And then we played volleyball....mud volleyball.....rainy, cold, swamp volleyball. It was insane, and we played for hours, but the rain just kept coming. So in the end we forfeited even though we were in first place and then we challenged the three showers in the Trost house to see how many hot showers and mud down the drain it could handle.

June events

I am still attempting to catch-up on this blog-thing. I think I might be losing the essence of the blogness by updating only twice a month on subjects from three months ago. Oh well, its better than keeping a diary. I learned from the never ending list of thank you's that my hands can only write four sentences at a time before going numb. Yet I can type for hours. But my neighbor, Al, let me know how very unacceptable the wedding gift thank-you text from a friend of his was. Darn, I was totally going to do that...

To pick-up where we left off from the honeymoon post, about 4 hours after the picture of Heath in the airport was taken, we rolled into KC just in time for Lucy's birthday party. So we had a plan. As soon as we walked in the door at home we each had a list of things to do. Such things on the list included: check on the dogs, bring all luggage inside, turn on the air conditioning, bathing, and to wrap Lucy's present. The one thing that was not on the list was to open all of the presents that were delivered during our honeymoon that were piled in our living room. Which Heath promptly ditched all other responsibilities and began looting through the boxes, not keeping track of who they came from of course. He saved the big one for last. A brand new set of luggage. OF COURSE!

Lucy's birthday was a blast! It was fun to see everyone and to watch her force Trent's sisters' feet into the dress up shoes. OUCH! Here is a cute picture of her we took a few weeks after her birthday :)


Since I spent almost two years growing my hair out for the wedding at Heath's request, I figured I might as well donate it after the wedding. I donate blood mainly because I am O negative and it is apparently rare, so I guess having strong, thick, hair that I don't dye is a good reason to donate hair too. After all blood and hair are free! (not a good sentence to say often) And in order to donate it to Locks of Love you have to have ten inches. The wonderful salon that did my hair for the wedding, offers to donate the hair themselves and the hair cut is free! So the week after we got home from Brazil - off it went!

My mane



POOF! Its gone!


The end result

Lua de Mel

Our Honeymoon (Lua de Mel in Portuguese) was quite an experience! We had an awesome time and have plenty of memories. We stayed in a small fishing villiage called Buzios, it is North of Rio about two hours along the coastline. Buzios is on a peninsula and has over 25 beaches, all very different from one another. From sand color, to water color, to water temperature, to type of people, etc. So our plan was to try a different beach everyday during our full ten day adventure.

We stayed in a little hut that overlooked the beach and the ocean. It was small but confortable, it took us a few days of watching the small TV in Portuguese before we realized they had more than CNN on in English - in fact they had CSI Miami! I never thought Horatio would make our day! Since the plane from Rio to France crashed while we were in the State of Rio de Janerio we opted not to watch CNN much.

We made friends with Lua, she was a great dog, always at our side, would wait outside of store fronts for us while we shopped. We made friends. She was also friends with many people, we caught her cheating on us a few times.


We found our favorite beach 6 days into the trip. It was the day after we celebrated my birthday which landed on May 31st, directly in the middle of our Honeymoon :) We spent the whole day celebrating and then the following day went to Praia da Tartaruga (Turtle Beach) and had a ball!! The sun was bright, the water was warm, the drinks were delish, and the people were a blast. About halfway through the day I started wondering what day it was, as I was trying to convince myself it was June 1st I realized that it didn't add up. So I asked Heath, he had no idea what day it was. So we asked our server (aka, local guy fetching our drinks in between bouts in the water with his friends and flirting with girls) what day it was, he said he thought it was the 28th of May. We knew THAT was wrong so he asked the bartender for us. It was May 31st. My Birthday. The day after we spent the day celebrating.

The last day of our trip we spent one night on Copacabana Beach in Rio. My long lost Austrailian friend Sonya met us out for dinner. Sonya and I were exchange students in Brazil together ten years ago and we haven't seen each other since. It was amazing seeing her, she hasn't changed a bit! And neither have I apparently ;) We had a GREAT time with her at the Brazilian Churrascaria and the beautiful Rio beach the next day.




















Highlights from the trip: experiencing a water taxi, meeting Lua, re-connecting with Sonya, celebrating my birthday twice, drinking caiparinhas every day, falling in love with each other all over again, getting a message on the beach, the private boat tour of the beaches, the Cuban restaurant that had its own humidor and cigar lounge, reading a book under an umbrella on the beach while it rained, and speaking Portuguese again.


Lowlights from the trip: the 'stomach' issues, not being able to flush toilet paper, choosing restaurants based on the cleanliness of the bathrooms, having to decide between the supernastybeachbumbathroom which was locked with a chain and padlock in the back storage shed connected to the beach bar, or the ocean, and finally deciding on the bathroom due to the children in the water, then experiencing the supernastybeachbumbathroom, realizing we will be starting our marriage off in therapy becuase of the supernastybeachbumbathroom. The flight back involving three planes, 20+ hours, and still getting over our 'stomach' issues.

BEIJOS!! Tchau:)

The Day Arrived

Have I mentioned how much I want to thank everyone who helped for making our day wonderful? Well here I go again. It was perfect, we really had a wonderful day and we couldn't have asked for better people to share it with.

Here are some highlights:)


The decor was perfect, thanks to all my creative helpers, I could have never come up with this without you. Notice the use of the wine bottles ;)




















This was a WONDERFUL idea that my WONDERFUL mother-in-law and best friend came up with. A nice way to remember our loved ones. Sheet music from "She'll be Comin 'Round the Mountin" in memory of Heath's Grandma Bev, my grandpa Ray's overalls, my Grandma Edna's quilt, and my grandpa Bob's hand-carved cribbage board. And a family tree complete with pictures of our parents and grandparents. A true gift. Thank you.











Then it was time to get ready, we both got ready at the hotel and took pictures ahead of time. Here is us at the hotel just before we left for the wedding, what a beautiful day!










Our wedding party, what a good looking bunch! And Hooper, Brennen and Lucy did awesome :) (so did their parents!)

I adore this picture, Heath loves his mama and she loves her boys. I'm so glad to be a part of it :)

Doesn't he clean up nice!! I'm such a lucky daughter:) Out of all the professional pictures this was taken by a guest, and its the best one. I just wish I could remember which guest took this one!





This was our little secret, after the ceremony we escaped back behind the barn to catch our breaths, probably the best idea we had during the whole process! After those crazy vows we needed a moment and this was the perfect moment. Our wonderful helpers Miles and Linda set this up for us, food and drinks included!

The hay ride was a nice touch, the kids really seemd to like it. I think we had over 25 kids there and we tried to get some of them in this picture. From left to right: Hooper, Aiden, Lily, Lucy, Cash, Jayden, Ramzy, Bowen, Tyler, Naner, Andrew, Brennen, and Cole. They all make me smile :)

I couldn't help but add this to the end. Lucy's reward for being an awesome flower girl. Thanks Lu!

To Rehearse and Dine

Thank you to everyone who took pictures of our rehearsal dinner, especially Lamar and Megan, I think most of these came from you. Here are some favorites:

Shiloah being a complete goof while Heath hugs their grandmother.




Our ring bearer and flower girl. Typical: Hooper being super sweet and Lucy pulling out Taz. I love these kids!




Roth Cousins :)





Aaron and Jana, super cute shot!


And my favorite photography moment. Somehow two different people caught the same moment from different angles.




Thanks again to everyone for making it all happen :)

Wedding Week

I have been attempting to make a video similar to the one I made for the bachelorette party, it didn't go so well. So instead I will stick to pictures. Since I am a full two months behind I need to stop fiddling with it and get moving! So sorry for the delay!
We had a lot of help that week and I can't thank you enough! You know who you are!!! Here are some fun snapshots:



Theresa's sister Maria came down early to do some mad flower arranging, she did a WONDERFUL job. Theresa and Brennen helped, they were quite a team.



Jana and Jens helped out with the vases and ribbons. Meanwhile Heath displayed his support :) You can't see it, but he had an ice pack on his back so I guess he is off the hook....



You can also see a little bit of the inside of the house if you haven't had a chance to visit. We like windows :)