Happy Birthday!

At some point during the last 7 years or so I learned about the term "golden birthday."  Golden birthdays occur when the date of your birth and your age are the same.  For me, that is today: I turned 29 today on April 29th. As far as I know, no special privileges are supposed to come with golden birthdays.  For me, however, my golden birthday will always be the best.  Look what I am spending the day with this year:

I get to come home to this little girl and her mother every day and it makes me really happy.  I am very grateful I have these two in my life. 

THAT Housewife

I mentioned before that we moved in to an apartment until Gavin takes the Texas bar. So far they've been...well...we'll call it an adventure. First is the color:

Who puts mint green, mustard yellow, strange orange, and beige together all in one complex? Friends don't let friends choose paint color while drinking. I don't notice the color anymore really, but I am forced to recognize how weak my arms are when I haul Emery up and down the 3 flights of stairs every day. Yup...that's right...we live on the third floor. There are some perks: nice vaulted ceilings, no upstairs neighbors, and in a few weeks my arms will be ripped and my leg muscles bulging from the daily climbs with Emery on one arm and bags of groceries on the other. It really is a nice complex, nice pool, fitness center, great location. Keep that in mind while I explain the rest. We don't live in the ghetto. :)

The "adventure" continued when we moved in and half the stuff in our apartment didn't work. The ceiling fans and lights in the bedrooms and the oven didn't work. Checked the breaker, nothing seemed to be wrong. So we called about that. They came, fixed it, everything worked except the master ceiling fan (you can't live without them here, it's hot), so I had to ask them to come back again and fix it. Then our sink disposal didn't work. Then it warmed up outside and got humid and I realized the previous tenants dog had peed in multiple places all over the apartment. Now, pause and let me tell you a back story. When I was working as a medical assistant I was drawing a man's blood who worked as some kind of cable technician. He started to complain about this customer who just "couldn't be satisfied" and he had to go back multiple times to fix stupid little things. Then he said something to the effect of, "It's because she's a housewife. Man, housewives are the WORST." He then proceeded to tell us how whiny and demanding all the housewives were that he went to. Now, if you know me well you know that I hate bugging people about stuff and I would much rather just deal with problems then ask someone to fix it because I'm a chicken and don't like to feel like I'm whining about things. This man's story furthered that phobia in me, I never wanted to become "that housewife". So when all these things were wrong I was dreading becoming "that housewife". But I've been trying for years to be better at asking and accepting help (it's been a really long, slow, and painful process for me) and I recognize that it is better to be assertive and good to sometimes demand things. So, I guess I've become "that housewife" because I have called them every time. And they've fixed everything right away. And if being "that housewife" means my carpet doesn't have to smell like dog pee, then I am TOTALLY OK WITH THAT!

All in all, we love this new place, Texas is a great place to be!

Cuddle-time with her dad.

I've said it a million times, but it is SO nice to be back together as a family again. We survived being apart, and I know hundreds of families have to do it all the time, but I sure am grateful we are done with it and that it was only 7 weeks. It's fun to look forward to Gavin getting home from work, having a reason to cook, and eating together as a family. We feel very blessed to be here in Texas; God has been very good to us!

Love this li'l Miss!

Our little Miss Emery, approaching 6 months old:

Real men

Real MEN Moby.

Gavin carried her in this while we shopped at Costco and "ooohs" and "aaahs" and "precious!" and "look at how cozy she is!" followed us down every aisle. She's a cutie...and it helped that he's pretty good looking too!

My pretty Emery girl

My sister Michelle, who Emery gets her middle name from, was holding Emery when she was first born and randomly started singing the chorus of this song to her:

I don't know if any of you have seen Darby O'Gill and the Little People, but it has been at least 15 years since we've watched it, so we started cracking up when she remembered it. But since that day I've fallen in love with the song, learned all the words, and sing it to Emery at least once day, if not three or four times, substituting "pretty Irish girl" with "pretty Emery girl". It's her special song from her "middle-name-sake". Emery, one day I hope you have your Aunt Michelle Alice's courage and bravery.

Catch-up

While Gavin was gone I only had our iPad and no other camera so I've been unable to post any pictures. I've tried a few times to post things from the iPad, but it never works. If anyone knows the secret please fill me in!

A day or two before Gavin left he finally went and got sworn in and became an official attorney for the state of Idaho. It was a great day and I was so happy for him. I'm finally posting a few pictures of the day. This first one is blurry which is so sad because i think it's a good one otherwise.

So now he is legit...in Idaho at least. We are so happy Gavin got the job down here in Texas, but now he has to take the Texas bar! Just when we thought we were done...:) Luckily the firm pays for it and for a prep course. So the plan is that Gavin will work until the prep course begins, around May 20th-ish, stop work, study for the bar, take the bar end of July, pass it because he is awesome like that, then start up work again mid-August or beginning of September. I wanted to just buy a house straight away if we got the job, but because of this we opted to live in an apartment for 6 months until this is all over with. I'll post more about that later, Emery just woke up from her nap!