What a shame!

Shame on me!! I have truly neglected my blog. I am sure I have no followers and this post will go unread, but that is okay.

While sitting in the bed the other night I was looking at facebook and came across my blog address. Wow, I thought to myself, I almost forgot I had a blog. When I opened the page and glanced at the title "Say Cheese"  a rush of memories came flowing back. I am so happy I decided to blog about our adventure in Wisconisn. If it weren't for my blog I would not have remembered those crazy nights listening the snow plow, my daily dash posts, protesting, Obama comes to campus, home improvements, trip diaries and so much more!

In reading my post I realize so much has changed over the past year. My last post left everyone hanging.....Did the baby arrive? A Boy OR a Girl?

Why yes, all 4 lbs and 10 oz. of him arrived on August 4, 2012 at 12:54am. Although early and tiny Nathan James is thriving and doing wonderfully. He is beautiful, sweet, funny and fearless! My little love!

Wow, so where do I start?

Right after Nathan arrived Jimmy got a call to interview for a job in North Carolina. He interviewed, was hired and we moved! This short sentence sums up a majorly stressful few months for a new mom. Not only did we have a new baby, we also had to prepare the house to sale, put the house on the market, quit our jobs, move and unpack in a new temporary place (renting a townhouse). Whew....what a whirlwind!

On December 14, we closed on our house and headed South! It sold in 2 days!

While we were so happy to be back home in North Carolina my heart still hurts a little for what we left behind in Wisconsin! People ask me what I miss most and I will have to say the Mercier family and our friends. In Wisconsin our friends started to become our family since we were so far from home.

Before moving to Wisconsin I thought it was just flat cheese country. That sounds terrible but I had no idea what Wisconsin had in store for us. I had no idea how much fun we would have there. The close friends we would make. Wisconsin is a beautiful state. Full of pride for the Badgers and Packers. A great quality of life. Madison was quite wonderful, full of great placecs to eat, fun bars and so much going on!! As we drove away from our house for the last time I tried not to tear up but this was our first house, where we adopted our first doggie Dash, grew our first plants, and welcomed our little love Nate into our lives. It was sad leaving but happy for a new adventure back in NC.

I am happy to say that we are buying a house at the end of this month. It makes me so happy that we will be "home" again. A new place to raise Nathan and to play in the yard with Dash.

Long time no blog.....

Wow....I am sure I have no loyal readers anymore =(
since I am been such a slacker in the blog area.

Things have been very hectic here for the past several months. Christmas was a blur but very fun.

On New Year's Eve I found out some wonderful news. I am pregnant! Woohoo.
Sweet Baby Kerns is due on Sept. 2.

At the end of January, I had an awesome weekend with the Jens! =)

Now two ultrasounds, 3 doctors visits and one trip to the operating room* later, I am feeling well and my pants aren't fitting quite like they use to.

*operating room, great story, not really - very painful week ended up with me being scheduled for surgery. on day of surgery pain went away so i left the hosptial untouched with no scars. i only had to endure, stripping down and being thoroughly cleansed with this weird smelling antimicrobal rub. oh and did I mention wearing those fun robes with no back on them...yay great fun. so glad i am feeling better.

more to come later......

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today I am thankful for Jimmy, family and friends. I hope everyone has a wonderful turkey day tomorrow.

Daily Dash

Today my post will be about my very favorite doggie, Dash.

We rescued Dash two years ago and although he can get on my nerves from time to time he is the sweetest dog. When you rescue a dog you sometimes know very little about them. Since he is a greyhound we probably knew more about him than the average rescue. For instance we knew that Dash raced in Wisconsin for several years. We knew who owned him and that he was the first in his litter. We only knew that because of the tattoos in his ears - 85A which meant August, 2005, first born.


The other day I was bored and thinking about my retired athlete and was curious about doing an Internet search for him. His real name is Ale Dobber. You can see why we changed it....right?


Well, what do you know....I googled Ale Dobber and neat website came up. It was basically a greyhound data base. You type in the dog's name and up comes their lineage, race results and their picture.


Here is Dash in his younger years when he was racing. He looks fierce!

I also learned that Dash was born on August 3, 2005. He was one of 7 pups. His dad's name was Craigie Whistler and his mom was Rooftop Hiedi Ho. He raced in 74 races, placed 1st in 9 and 2nd in 11. He raced for 3 years. There was not a picture of Dash's mom but I do know she was a larger dog that was fawn and white. Dash's dad was large as well. He is pictured below.

Now I totally see where Dash gets his markings. (Pictures are from Greyhound - Data . com)

It is pretty neat seeing a little bit of Dash's history. Sounds like he was a busy dog. Currently, Dash is enjoying his retirement - lounging in the living room, getting lots of love and attention, going on long walks, playing with his rabbit toy and ball and eating lots of good food. So glad we rescued him!! =)

Rain rain go away.....

Wow, it has rained for the past few days. It is nice to have a little rain but I am ready for sunshine again.

Things here with us are going well. We started our bathroom project and it is looking good. I should have pictures soon of the completed room.

I will say that Anna and Jimmy will never put up a medicine cabinet together again. I am too short and not strong enough to hold the thing up and Jimmy does not have 4 arms and patience. Lessons - I learned how to level the cabinet and work a drill. Jimmy learned that I am too short for the project. After much stress, sweat and severals words the cabinet is up and will not ever be replaced again.

Another lesson - I painted my first ceiling. I need to wear glasses next time.

On another note I had my modeling debut last night. I walked the runway did my little turn and flashed a smile. Probably the closest this 5'1 girl will ever come to Top Model. The Junior League had a fundraiser at Hilldale Mall and myself along with several other lovely ladies modeled Pendelton's outfits and outerwear. It was fun going in for the fitting and picking clothing. I had four of outfits, jewely and shoes. Casual with jeans, cute dress, business and a winter look with a coat. Although a little strange having a crowd of people staring at you while you prance around, it was fun. I really liked Pendelton's clothing especially their coats.....just wish they weren't so expensive. I tallied up one outfit and I had on arond $1000 in clothing, shoes and jewels. Wow!
Someone took pictures and if they make them available I will try to post them on the blog.

see ya later alligator....

Falling for Fall

Wow, it seems that overnight the trees started to change colors. There are little hints of red and yellow here and there and the weather is really nice. A nice chill to the air at night and then around 65-70 during the day.

Things with us are doing well. Dash is good although he is accident prone. While at the kennel he ripped out his whole toe nail and then other night he fell off the bed and hurt his foot. I don't think he realizes how big he is! Swollen and limping for several days he is back to normal now.

We are about to start another bathroom project. The guest bathroom upstairs, so stayed tuned for pictures.

A taste of San Francisco

With all the talk of Hawaii I almost forgot about our little weekend getaway that we had planned several months ago.

Not two weeks after we returned from Hawaii we set out on another journey. Jimmy was invited to be a guest speaker at a few events in the Bay area so I decided to come along. I have never even been to Cali so I was quite excited.

With Hawaii being such a large trip that took planning I never even thought about San Fran.
I love to plan trips. Do the research, find fun things to do. Maybe I have missed my calling...?

Well anyway, I did absolutely no research, no planning, no trip advisor searches, no nothing for San Fran. other than packing my bags and boarding the plane. I even had no idea where we were staying. I found out when I arrived at midnight Friday night and had to call Jimmy and ask what hotel so I could take a cab. Gosh....so not me. It was fun. Everything was a surprise...oh yeah Alcatraz is here....this is where the houses are from Full House, the Golden Gate Bridge....

I arrived when his events were winding down so we could spend the weekend together. Our trip was pretty short so on Saturday we saw the highlights of the city. We rented bikes and rode across the Golden Gate Bridge. We saw quite a bit of the city this way. We did not however venture up into the city where the hills are so steep I can't imagine having a manual car. We rode along the shore and into Sausalito and then took the ferry back to San Fran. It was a really neat way to see the sights. We saw the ever so curvy Lombard Street and trolley cars.

On Sunday we went to Napa Valley and did a few wine tastings. We went to Domaine Chandon (sparkling wine), Whitehall Lane, August Briggs and Beringer. We ate dinner at Bouchon's. Very, very good food!!

Late in the afternoon we drove around the bay area and went through Berkley and Oakland. I can't imagine how expensive it must be to live here.

As you can see the trip was quite short but lots of fun. I can't wait to go back....this might be our next vacation spot.