Possibly have graduated from the honeymoon stage...

I think that we have officially graduated from the honeymoon stage. I can't decide whether it is that we have been together longer now or it is a stage that all newlyweds go through. The past couple of weeks Brian and I have been pretty disconnected from each other. Every time we get busy and don't get a chance to spend some quality time together and reconnect this happens but it is for more like a couple of days not what seems like weeks.

It is a sort of scary place to be and it is hard to admit sorta out loud! I have never felt before that every phone conversation with any person triggers some sort of annoyance. But that is what it has been like off and on for a couple of weeks. Some factors that are contributing to it:

• My constant lack of sleep and crazy schedule.
• Brian's difficulty with including me/communicating what is going on at work and in general.
• Brian's new command schedule with keeps him committed 7am-7pm Mon-Fri.
• My friend's temporary separation with her husband (she is also the first good friend that I have had since being with Brian, so also adjusting to hanging out with someone else besides him.)

I think that all of these have made me need him to make an extra effort to show me how he feels (which sounds lame and insecure). We have hit that point where our feelings aren't so new and fresh so we both aren't going the extra mile. I know that it has been awhile since I have gone out of my way to put on a piece of lingerie!

This weekend, even though I was gone for a bachelorette party I think that we really did connect much better. When I got home from Billings on Sunday afternoon, Brian admitted that he had felt that we hadn't really been connecting lately. Just hearing him say that meant the world to me. It shows to me that he is in tune with us and can feel the same things I can, even if he doesn't show it as much as I do. Then we went for a walk and cooked dinner together. It was the perfect Sunday night at home, no distractions just him and I. It helped me to remember why I love him so much. He really is an amazing and loving man! This whole thing has been a good reminder to both of us that a relationship is something that does not always come easily but takes work and it is hard work at times! It is totally worth it though!

Hooligans

This past weekend Brian and I house-sat/baby-sat for my 3 favorite hooligans! We showed up at their house on Sunday morning at 4:30 AM so their parents could catch an early morning flight and stayed until I dropped hooligans 2 & 3 off at Grandma's on Monday morning around 9AM. Lets just say that it was a long and fun 24 hours.

On Sunday morning Brian and I went back to sleep as soon as the parents left. Once the kids woke up I got up and made pancakes for them while Brian continued to sleep...little stinker! I watch the hooligans once a week, and last year actually baby-sat a lot for a couple of different families. I always try to take the kids out to the fire station and let them crawl around in the truck and even go for rides (hey it is one special thing I can offer!) On Sunday morning Brian took the kids for a ride and even let hooligan 1 who is six sit in the front seat. Her eyes were so huge with excitement, it was making us laugh pretty hard.

Later in the day we took the kids to a movie and ice cream. With my crazy schedule I hadn't gotten a chance to sleep more that 4-5 hours at a time in the last couple of days so I was tired and the kids were obviously bouncing off the walls. Brian grilled burgers for dinner and then I bathed the kids and put them to bed.

The next morning I got up and got all the hooligans up, feed, ready, and off to school/grandmas.

We learned a couple of lessons in those 24 hours:
1.) Water bottles without spill proof lids are never a good idea in the car!
2.) If you say we can have ice cream later...you have to have ice cream later.
3.) No matter how much you think you won't, you will be that parent who sends your kid to school with wet tennis shoes because they were left out in the rain and said child refuses to wear anything else.
4.) Having three kids, a dog, rabbit and two tubs of baby chickens is A LOT of work!

Our 24 hour stint with the hooligans was exhausting but we enjoyed every moment and really can't wait until we have started our own family!

Catching Up: April

It has been a couple of weeks since I have posted. I will give a short update on a couple of the last weekends and post some pics along with it!

We went to LA for a college roommates wedding April 3rd-7th. A college roommate of mine came with us. I had a blast reconnecting with her and also watching her and Brian get to know each other better. We went to Santa Monica one afternoon and then had dinner in Larchmont Village, which is just a couple of blocks from my grandparents house where we stayed. Between beers, margaritas and wine we were all pretty lit by the time we got back to the house. The wedding was beautiful, it was great to see Candy and her now husband again! On the way back we dropped Rachel off at the airport so that she could fly to Indianapolis and Brian and I drove to Vegas and stayed the night. We enjoyed Vegas for the night. Brian took me out to a very nice dinner at Wolfgang Puck's restaurant at the Venetian and then we went to see the Phantom of the Opera. We decided that we would probably never actually go to Vegas on vacation, there was just to many people and Brian thought that it was "fake."

The next weekend was Easter so we went down to Gardiner on Saturday night and then to church on Sunday morning. It was nice to see everyone from church. It has been kind of hard going to church lately since it has been so long...I definitely feel very guilty (but that is a whole different post!) It was nice to see my parents and Bobbie and Addison. My mom made her delicious Easter brunch, and sent us home with left-overs!

April 17th-19th we went to Spokane, WA so that Brian could take a written test for the Spokane Valley Fire Department. We were hoping that if the permanent job with Rae and Sourdough fire departments falls through then this would be a good second option. Unfortunately it doesn't look like it will work out. We stayed the whole weekend at Angela's mom house (Angela came with us.) I enjoyed being back in Spokane. I really love that city. It is so pretty with all of the huge pine trees and rolling hills. I got to have my first (out of many I suspect) excursions to Cabellas. Good thing I like camping and fishing! We got a little raft, a pair of waiters for me, a fishing pole stand, an axe, and a water container for camping. I couldn't believe that Brian spent the money, it was fun watching him shop since he usually is pretty restrained!

The last full weekend of April we just hung out at home. It was a very busy month and we definitely needed the downtime. I had fun traveling around and getting out of Bozeman a little. It helped to cure the major cabin fever that I was feeling.

Hollywood Here We Come!

Brian and I along with one of my best freinds from college are leaving to drive to Los Angeles tomorrow night for a wedding. I am really excited. It is going to be a crazy weekend. We are leaving Tomorrow at 10pm and getting back Tuesday around the same time. The drive is 17 hours long and we are doing it straight through on the way there. On the way back Brian and I are spending Monday night in Vegas, woo hoo! I have wanted to go and see the Phantom of the Opera in Vegas since I heard that they were permanently going to have it, so we are going to do that.

While we are in LA we will attend a bachelorette party, have Dim Sum with my grandparents, go to a wedding and hopefully do a couple of other awesome things! We are staying with my grandparents, which I am excited about. Their house is one that I have always loved and now Brian gets to see it.

I will try to post pictures and stuff of the road trip even though I have not been that good about blogging!

Chubby

I feel chubby lately!

For our wedding last summer I lost 10-15 lbs. Why didn't I just keep it off? Why did I have to gain it ALL back in like 6 months? Ugh! Lesson learned, it is worth it to keep off the weight and not eat whatever you want than work another 6 months to take the weight back off!! Unfortunately I haven't got the motivation to really even start trying to take the weight back off...

I went to the grocery store yesterday and bought a Sushi roll and a large salad for dinner last night. I didn't even eat the salad which I thought was good (less calories right?) Tonight for dinner I ate the salad...sounds good right? However I couldn't escape from grabbing a whole roll of GIRL SCOUT COOKIES! Rrrrrright....couldn't just take two...had to have the whole roll! I have not and will not eat them all but I will have more than two, that is for sure!!

Busy, Busy, Busy....

It has been almost two weeks since I have posted. I was at the Montana Law Enforcement Academy in Helena, MT all last week for my dispatcher training. The classes were great and I now have my dispatching certificate which means a raise! I really missed Brian while I was gone, I don't think that I realized how much until I got home. He had a HUGE fire event while I was gone and so their were like three days where we barely talked, which was really hard for me. By Friday night we were both totally shot from our crazy weeks, we want to bed at like 9pm.

Last Monday Brian got hired full-time on the fire department that he has been volunteering for. Since we moved back to Bozeman he has been putting in a lot of volunteer hours hoping that at some point they would hire him on full-time. It ended up working and I was so happy for him, he really seems to be liking it. Unfortunately, the job at the moment is temporary and they also couldn't pay him as much as we were hoping for (but he is getting paid more than at his last job). He is in charge of command from 7am-7pm Monday-Friday. Thank goodness he doesn't have to be at the station all that time. He only has to put in 6 hrs a day at the fire station and then he is free to do whatever he wants, but he has to be available in case any calls come in. We have already discovered though that he is putting more like 7-8 hrs in at the station a day and then if ANYTHING isn't working he has to go and figure out what is going on, this means nights and weekends. So he is pretty much on call all the time it feels like. I would feel better about this if he was at least making a basic firefighter salary, but he isn't. Oh well, hopefully he will get hired on permanently and the salary will go up.

We also have 4 men staying at our house. My best friend's cousin (who also knows Brian from college) whom I dated and three of his friends are at our house all week. It actually has been fun, they have been skiing all day (which is nice since I am usually sleeping) and then we have been going out to dinner at night. I do have to say though it has been interesting living with 5 men...they stink!

I will try to post some pictures from Brian's really big fire event. One of the guys on his department got some really good ones!