96 posts tagged “married to my best friend”

After a particularly difficult week (which felt more like a month or two), I'm getting a break. Tuesday, Steve has business in Tampa and I get to tag along again! I've never been on the Gulf Coast side of Florida. I'm pretty excited. I even get to fly on a plane and I do love flying. I'm so thankful my mom is willing to come and play chaffeur and nanny to the kids while I get a mini-getaway with my best friend. Woohoo!

Ok, so I missed things on Tuesday, but I'm going to make a list of all the little things I love. I'm not even going to bother with the things I loathe. I need to accentuate the positive today. Too much negative lately.

Things I love

1. New red glasses. Who cares if they don't match with every outfit I have. I love them and I am going to wear them anyway.  Seriously, I don't think I'll ever get lasik. I love wearing glasses.
2. $5 rotisserie chickens at the Wholesale Club. I so didn't feel like cooking dinner.
3. Breakfast at McKays.
4. Coffee and breakfast with my sister in law. I am so blessed to have her. (Yes, I ate breakfast twice today.)
5. A husband that will clean out the icky icky drain pump in the washer so it doesn't take 3 hours to wash a load of clothes.
6. Breakfast platters at Chick Fil A (that was on Monday, but it was delicious so I feel the need to mention it)
7. Good Charlotte (Don't laugh at me. I love them and they make me feel better when I'm sad.)
8. Enteman's Ultimate Crumb Cake
9. Did I mention my new red glasses?

Things I loathe

• Waking up late and having to take a cold shower due to poor shower scheduling
• Messy kitchens
• Homework time after school
• Laundry
• Reading Treasure Island outloud for hours (and summarizing) because of inadequate teaching
• People who talk the talk, but don't walk the walk
• Spending 5 1/2 hours of my Saturday in a car dealership

Things I love

• A husband that keeps himself in shape for me
• Breakfast and coffee with friends
• My new shiny black minivan (I got to pick this one out all by myself!)
• Naming my new shiny black minivan (Victoria gave it the best name a minivan has ever had)
• 87% dark chocolate
• Breakfast by the pound at McKay's, a small local grocery store (french toast and scrapple for $.84, mmmmm)
• My special mix CD Steve made, each song handpicked for me
• Handwritten notes
• Egg salad sandwiches
• Clean kitchens
• Seeing my teenagers studying together for an upcoming test
• Driving with the moonroof open and my windows down
• Baseball caps and ponytails when you don't have time to do your hair
• Baby bunnies and baby cockatiels (not mine, but I got to look at them)
• Reading funny cards and laughing with Victoria
• Kids that not only can behave in a restaurant, but in a car dealership for 5 1/2 hours (Seriously, they deserve an award.) 

Thanks for the suggestion Jen!

Things I loathe

• Forgetting to pack comfortable shoes
• Misty cloudy cold days

Things I love

• Going away with Steve on his business trip (it's like an all expenses paid getaway for me, not him)
• Parents that will come and watch the kids so I can go with him
• New comfortable shoes (forgetting my shoes was not part of an evil plan to get new ones)
• Clearance racks at the mall ($245 worth of clothes for the girls for $68, seriously, why do people pay full price?)
• baked sweet potatoes with gobs of melted butter
• finding over $100 in different gifts cards in an old purse
• Free breakfast and wireless internet at the hotel
• Finding a coupon for a free cup of coffee for Starbucks in the morning paper
• My in-laws returning from Florida
• Scramble (even if Steve Betz is getting better and beating me now)
• Peanut Butter Candy Cakes
• And last but not least, The Muppets. Seriously, who doesn't love the Muppets?
  The Muppets

Steve and I are back in North Carolina. He's on business and I wanted to come along. My mom and dad came and stayed with the kids so I could go and get a little alone time with him. It's been quite awhile. Of course, what are we doing right now? I'm sitting at the hotel room desk typing away on my laptop while he's across the room on the couch watching a youtube video on his laptop.

Anyway, we got in really late to the hotel. I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. Steve had to stay up and doing some stuff for work. This morning, when the alarm went off, my eyes were puffy and I felt like I had only had a few hours of sleep. On the other hand, I'm cheap and I didn't want to miss the free breakfast. Somehow it just didn't feel like 8am. I decided to go hunting for my cell phone to compare the time with the hotel room alarm clock.

I wandered around the room, trying to find my purse in the dark. When I finally found it and looked at the time, it was like I was given a gift, 6am. I still had two more hours to sleep!

I nudged Steve to let him know, "It's only 6!"

He rolled over, put his arms around me and got comfortable again, "This is better than daylight savings time!"

And it was.

Happy 4th Anniversary Steve! You are truly the love of my life and my best friend.

So, yeah, here are the pictures I promised the other day. They are all on Steve's computer, so I had to wait til he was home and not using it. Since Steve gave a pretty good run down of our trip, I'm just going to post some of my favorite pictures that he didn't use.

First up, the BK by our hotel had this breakfast special I'd never seen up here in the North.

 

They don't have monster sized cans of Boiled Peanuts up here either.

 

We had to ride on 2 ferries on our trip up the North Carolina coast. The first one was a little long, 2 1/2 hours, but we managed to entertain ourselves.

 

 

We stayed overnight on Ocracoke Island. It is this little bitty island that you can only get to by ferry. We stayed at a quaint old motel, Blackbeard's Lodge. Sadly, this is the only picture I have of the place since Steve took all the other ones for his blog.

I had one of the best dinners of my life at a local cafe. We also discovered the island was home to an abundance of feral cats. They were very friendly, much to the delight of Sophia. (I love saying "feral cat".) There were also feral ducks. They are a little vicious, but were nice if you offered bread. The kids braving the wind for a picture in front of the Ocracoke Lighthouse. We had to take another shorter ferry ride off the island over to Cape Hatteras. After leaving the island, we continued up the East Coast, visiting several other lighthouses. Josiah really liked the stuffed osprey and wanted a picture of it. We continued north and ended up at a mall near Virginia Beach. We promised the kids Build A Bears since our trip home took longer than we expected causing the kids to miss a "Build a Bear" birthday party. Lastly, and the best part of the weekend, we met Jamie and DeWitte. I know, I know, I've already mentioned it. Jamie posted a more entertaining rundown of our meeting. Once again, I just want to say they are so nice. Seriously, it was like meeting a couple of celebrities! I consider them Vox Celebrities anyway. And they are just so cute and even cuter together all in love and stuff. I saw them holding hands in the mall. They are just a really neat couple.

 

So there you have it. Spring break is over and school is back in session. Back to the same old same old. I'm just glad I have times like these to look back on when the days seem long and start running into each other!

Things I loathe:

• Getting tired at 9pm
• Lack of warm blankets in the hotel room
• Leaving my water in the van
• Being thirsty

Things I love:

• Being able to go on Steve's business trip
• Spending time with Steve
• Country Fried Chicken dinner with okra, dumplings, and turnip greens
• Free breakfast
• Free wireless internet
• sleep

I have such a love/hate relationship with that dumb button on my alarm clock. Sure it lets me get a bit more sleep, but it also makes me 9 minutes later than I wanted to be in the first place. Maybe I wouldn't be tempted to stay in bed longer if I didn't have a warm snuggly husband next to me. I think I'll give him a good push out of bed tomorrow morning to see if that helps.

Speaking of alarm clocks, the kids have discovered them. Victoria bought one awhile back, no big deal. Now the younger kids have discovered that their Nintendo DSs have alarm clocks. Kinda cool on school days, having them wake themselves up. Not so cool on the weekends when one child sets it for 6am and decides everyone else needs to get up with them.