Washington D.C

Natural History Museum 

 

      

Celebrating Ryan's Graduation 

                                                   

This past weekend we headed to Washington, D.C to celebrate Ryan's (pictured in middle) graduation from the University of Maryland. While we were there Bear and I got to visit the Natural History Museum. The Museum is huge and took most of the day to walk through. We got to see some fun exhibits including the rare hope diamond, 65 million year old dinosaur bones, and how humans evolved over six million years in response to a changing world.  

 Thanks to Ryan for letting us stay with him. It was a very relaxing and fun weekend. 

Right Now

Bear has been getting minimum sleep because of writing end of the year papers.

Last night at roughly 4:30 a.m. he turned in his final paper of the semester.

This morning I found him, along with Shento passed out on our couch.

How cute!

New York Surprise

  

 

  

 

On Friday afternoon I got a message in my email inbox from my sweet hubby. In the email it read

"You're invited to a secret, surprise, fun day with your husband all day tomorrow! Casual/comfortable/fun in the sun attire required. RSVP's must be done in person, with a kiss." Once I got home I gave Bear a huge kiss (as my RSVP) and started immediately asking questions. He gave me no information.

Saturday, I got woken up bright and early and was told that we had to be out of the house by 8a.m. When we got in the car the Bear told me that we were going into the city (New York City). This is where it starts to get funny. We got into the city and we were in a hurry. Remember it is still early (I am not very good traveler or hurrier when it is early) . Bear got lost and forgot to write the address down for where we were going. I was no help because I had not a clue what we were looking for. Again, I was also tired and walking kind of slow. This was irritating Bear. After searching we finally got to the address, or at least what Bear thought was the address. It turned out to be wrong because nothing was there. Finally.. Bear told me we were looking for a bike shop because we were renting bikes to bike around Central Park. How cute!! After much searching, an encounter with a police man, talking to a fake bike rental place (they just wanted our money)… we found it.

We spent the next 3 hours biking all around Central Park. We were able to go off the main road and onto trails that went around the reservoir and a small creek. It was beautiful. It was a great way to be able to see everything in the park. After the bike ride Bear had a place picked out for lunch. A very delicious hamburger joint. After eating lunch we enjoyed walking around the city. We went to the Museum of Modern Art and saw some of Picasso’s paintings. I felt like I was in a movie. Bear and I held hands and laughed at certain things that we found a little ‘weird’ in the museum. It was such a great day. Bear took so much time to plan everything out and to make it perfect. And it was a perfect day!!

The carnival by our house

 

  

On Thursday Bear and I took a stroll to our local carnival. It is held every year at the community catholic church. We went last year so we figured we had to make it a tradition and go again. We enjoyed walking around and watching everyone having fun on the rides, playing all the games, and of course eating all the delicious carnival food. We enjoyed ourselves a fried elephant ear with extra powdered sugar. Yummy!!! 

Happy

Today I walk around with a big grin on my face. I am happy. This feeling is new and incredibly enjoyable. Moving to New Jersey has been a challenge, one that at times I have struggled to see positively. I am a strong believer in the saying “everything happens for a reason”. At this point I know that one day I will look back and be grateful for all the learning experiences and adventures that we had here in the state of New Jersey. I do know one thing that I am exceptionally thankful for and that the bonding, communicating, and relying on each other qualities that the hubby and I have had to learn with each other. He has been my rock. He has been there through all the good, the bad, and the ugly times. He is so patient and loving. The past month has been a wonderful, yet emotional time for me. I headed to Seattle, Washington a couple weeks ago to visit my best friend, but also to get away from my life here. I was no doubt feeling sorry for myself. Life seemed hard and I was spiraling into a dark hole. I was not satisfied with what seemed like anything. Work was really taking its toll and I still was having a hard time feeling like I was fitting in, in both my work environment and New Jersey in general. The hubby was gracious enough to tell me that I needed to get away and he thought that going and seeing Whitney (the bestest friend) was a great idea.


I did, I spent 5 wonderful days with her and enjoyed the company and the long talks. While on my trip I started realizing a lot of things. I started seeing that I was loosing who I was. The crap (sorry for the language mom) that was floating around was really taking over me. It was as if I forgot how to be me. Maybe it started with my work environment, which took all I had to not feel beat up and torn once I left for the evening. Or maybe it was the fact that I did not have a lot of friends and was often bored. Whatever the case is, it took me leaving to find me again. To find inside that I am still a beautiful woman. A silly and sometimes immature woman. A woman who loves laughing. A smart woman. A woman who has damn good leadership skills and needs to find a career that will respect that. A woman who is independent, yet loves acting scared of thunderstorms to get the attention of her husband. A woman who has emotions and does get hurt. A sensitive woman. A woman who loves music and relates the lyrics to her own life. A woman who you will find singing at the top of her lungs when she is driving on the highway. A woman who deserves to be respected. A woman who got very lucky marrying the man of her dreams. A woman that is proud. I am that woman! I am that woman that after a lot of time and soul searching I finally feel happy with who I have become and where my life is headed.

Often times we compare our lives with others. For instance, I love reading blogs and can spend numerous hours doing so. And as much as I wish this were not true, I will admit that I was really starting to compare my life with peoples of whom I had never met. The silly thing is that just the other day I was reading a blog and the writer had written all about how people never post the extremely personal and hardships that they face in life. On a blog anyone's life can look perfect. That is very true. I know understand that my life is different from anyone’s…. And just because they bought a house, or had a baby, or went on vacation to some exotic island, does not mean that we are not as secure, responsible, or adventurous. It just means that at this point in our lives that is not what we are choosing to do.

Everyone goes through the up’s and down’s of life. That is what builds character. I am thankful for my life and for all the trails that I have conquered. The trials have created and helped build a bond that holds my husband and I together. I know that New Jersey is not where we will be forever, but for the time being… I need to be happy. What else is life about, if it is not about the joy that you feel everyday. So today, I am happy. I feel extremely happy and I am confident in the decisions that we are making about life. And that is one of the best feelings.

BBQ-ing plus

I (Katrina) am a master when it comes to BBQ-ing, just ask the hubby! 

Rutgers Day

 

 

 

Rutgers Day took place last weekend. It is a day filled with activities on each of the campuses. We choose to go to the cook douglas campus (where the anthropology department is located). On this particular campus they have a large plant sale, 4 different music stages, crafters, food, and activity booths set up. We enjoyed walking around looking at all the flowers/plants for sale, the crafters, and best of all the small folk festival. We packed a lunch and sat in the grass for a couple of hours listening to the music. It was an enjoyable day.

Today we miss you

Childhood Books

Lately Bear and I have been reminiscing about our childhood. Last week we went on our daily walk and for roughly the entire 4 miles we talked about books that we remember reading while growing up. Mine, of course were children’s books such as the Bernstein Bears, Amelia Bedelia, and the elves and the shoemaker. Bears however were a little more intellectual. Goosebumps, The Boxcar Children, and Go Dog Go,


This brings me to this weekend. We woke up early, not that early for most of the world, but earlier than usual for us, to hit up some yard sales in our neighborhood. I have officially gotten Bear addicted to yard-saleing. We now share the excitement when we see the big bright colored sign that has an arrow pointing in the direction of the yard-sale. We start driving a little faster and get a secrete grin on our face, like we just found hidden treasures. Anyways, back to my initial story about childhood memories. One of the very last yard sales we stopped at had a lot of kid’s books. Bear and I sat on the ground going through every one of them. When we would find one that reminded us of our childhood (almost every one of them), we would pick it up, skim through it, and share it with each other. We walked away spending a whopping .30 cents on 5 books. But more importantly, when we got home we sat outside with our feet in our blow up pool reading kids stories to one another.