Project 52, Date #2

So I picked a "going out" date from the jar and it was to create the atmosphere of a blind date. The idea was to act as if we had just recently met and were going on a blind date.


I went and bought a new shirt so I'd be wearing something she hadn't seen yet and tried to pick a place she'd never been to before(more on that later). I left the house at about 5:15 and told Mia I'd be back to pick her up at 6. So at 6 I pull up and park in front of the house and walk up and knock on my own door. I'm greeted by a little girl peeking through the side window curtain and smiling at me(Jocelyn). We hop in the car and so our date begins. We chit-chat on our way to dinner about each other and fabricate a few stories about friends we both know and things we know about each other. Mia pulls off a veiled story that paints her as a bit of an Internet stalker. Mia asks where we're going and I tell her it's a surprise(thinking it will be). We drive through restaurant row on Water St. and pull up to U&I Steak and Seafood. Mia says "oh I've been here". Little did I know she'd eaten there with her dad when she first moved to Corpus, and there goes my thinking I'd picked a good place.

So we got seated and look over our menu's and continue our charade of getting to know each other a little more. Our orders are taken and we chat about our families and the towns we came from. Our food arrives and it is good. I drop the bomb of being home schooled on her and along with all the home school stereotypes I've somehow managed to shed. We talk about what Mia's "type" is. I'm only 2 out of the 5 she lists. I'm thinking I may not get another date. We talk about my "serial dater" days...all lies for any of you who have told her these stories...We finish our meal and head back to the house.


I park in front of the house and tell her I'll walk around and open the door for her to get out. I open the door and she hops out. I pull her to me and tell her "look, you're the hottest woman I've ever seen" and steal a kiss amidst a great deal of laughter. I steal another one and tell her "so hurry up and kick the babysitter out so we can go in an...." Well anyways....

We had a great time and some good laughs throwing in funny things that would be definite red flags in a real blind date. Dinner itself was good too. We had a whole lot of fun pretending to go on a blind date! Hope y'all had fun reading about it!


Mia Says:

This date was a lot of fun. Although there was one thing we didn't plan out very well. Jonathan and the sitter were to arrive at 6 which left we 45 minutes to get ready. Our oops was that Jocelyn hadn't woken up from her nap, so I needed to get her up, go potty with her, give her milk and feed her dinner.... oh and get ready for a date :) So I got to experience being a single mom for a little bit, oh well :) I borrowed a shirt from Regina (so it would be something new on me), curled my hair, spent a little time on me and got blind/first date ready. Bailey our sitter arrived and I had managed to get Jocelyn and myself ready in time.

Jonathan came to the door and I had Jocelyn greet him, and then we went off on our date. It was fun talking to each other as though we didn't know everything and I am sure that I learned a few new things along the way. We got to throw in some information that actually came from our meeting 6 years ago as we talked on the way to dinner. Dinner was fantastic and the conversation was fun! But the laughter at the end made the date perfect. Way to go babe A+

Love is... paying it forward

Okay so last year I knew that there were a few things different that I wanted to do this year. One of them was the project 52, another was to blog more often, and lastly was to bless others with the many blessings that I have been given. I have struggled to be able to find out how I was going to do this and more importantly how to explain to everyone what it is about. I even did this amazing Ruth Bible Study that motivated me, at the exact right time, even more to do this project.

So here I go...

Love is ... bringing out the best in each other.

One of my favorite cartoons of all time is called "Love Is . . ." It's a cartoon that I read as a child and often my mom would cut it out and put in my lunchbox as a reminder of what love is all about. I really like this cartoon because it's always about the simple things and often times the different things that each one of us views as ways love is expressed.

Often times I am blessed by the little things that people do for me, but I often get down on myself and think, "I wish I had more time to do things for others," and I find that I lean on that excuse more times then I care to admit. Where as the truth is, that it doesn't have to be a big thing but it's often the small things that matter just as much.

Love is... making time for each other.

So I am going to try to do 52 weeks of "Love Is..." paying it forward! Every Wednesday I"ll post a story about doing something that was simple and really made an impact on someones day/week/year. It can be your spouse, significant other, friend, family member or just a stranger. But I challenge you to do one thing each week to make a difference in someones life. I'll even have a guest share a story or two once in awhile, so I have asked (or will ask) a few amazing women in my life to share their stories to help motivate others to remember that we are all placed on this earth to love and motivate each other! "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another" - Proverbs 17:17

So I have a little bit of a cheat for my first Wedsnesday because it's kinda been in the works for a while, but I really really wanted to talk about it. My first post is about Project 52. When Jonathan and I talked about starting it, we let all our friends know about it as well because we wanted everyone to feel the kind of love and enjoyment that you feel when your significant other puts together a special time and date for just the two of you! Although we only have a few people doing it with us so far, (8-10 couples) we are just overwhelmed with the postive and motivated response it has already created. In a world where the divorces are outranking the amount of marriages that are staying together, Jonathan and I are commited to make our marriage as strong as possible and also motivate others to do the same.

If you want to join in or participate, just leave a comment below about something that you did or plan to do to show someone how much you love them, how important they are, or just something that makes someone feel special. Thanks everyone, love you all!

Project 52 Date Night #1

So we kinda already have a leg up with the date nights... let me explain
A very good friend gave me a jar of date night ideas, she colored coded the dates for "going out", "staying in", "St. Patricks Day", "Valentine's Day", etc. So this really makes it easy for us when we don't already have an idea picked out for date night. Anyway she had one that was marked "For Date #1" so I chose it and it was said "Make appetizers at home and discuss your new years Resolutions"

So I gave Jonathan a heads up last week, to write down some new years resolutions so that we would be sure to have some things to discuss, (I didn't want to sit down to talk about resolutions only to find that JT didn't have any) So late yesterday afternoon I started setting up our dining room table, usually saved for company, for our date night. I'm putting little touches onto the table throughout the hours, and dinner approaches. JT brings in the dinner and set it on the dining room table. My response "Oh were eating here?" He said "Yah you set it up for dinner right?" LOL oops, so we moved dinner into the kitchen and my date night set up remained in place. Next we needed to put together Jocelyn's new crib and dismantle the old one before she went to bed. So as we dismantled it, we started bringing the pieces downstairs, I asked JT to put the pieces in the bedroom so they were out of the way. We finished everything and even put Jocelyn down for the night and felt pretty accomplished! So we came downstairs and I went through the dining room to put the finishing touches on the table only to find the entire crib in pieces ON the dining room table :) LOL SERIOUSLY?? Okay so I told JT to push back the date time 30 minutes and I took and put away each piece of the crib and re-established my date table :) 30 Minutes later our date night was ready, with several different appetizers, a little dessert, special music and candles added to the table and his favorite bottle of wine as well.

We brought out our lists and I wanted to do something a little more in-depth then just reading the resolutions. With each resolution he stated, I followed up with the question, "OK, what can I do to help you achieve that?" I wanted our resolutions to be something that we did together, and not just struggled at them alone, even if it was a personal journey, if I could be his cheerleader then I wanted to make sure to know what it is that he needs me to do! We went pretty in depth into a lot of the resolutions to see what we REALLY could do to make them a reality. So we have our list of resolutions, I'm going to take his list and type them up and pretty them up with some scrapbook fun and then frame it, so that he can see them all the time and hopefully that will motivate him to be able to hold true to the things that he wants to improve upon.
All in all it was a fantastic date night and a great start to Project 52!

JT Says :
I have to be honest and say that I've never been one for New Years Resolutions. So when Mia told me that was what my homework for date night I knew I was going to have to think hard about what I wrote down because I knew she'd hold me to whatever I listed. I made my list a couple days before and looked at it every so often to see if I came up with anything else or wanted to change any of it.

Date night time arrived, Jocelyn was soundly sleeping upstairs. Mia had some music(our wedding music CD no less :) going on in the background and appetizers on the table. We snacked a bit and then started going through our lists. We both had the ones everybody has....work out more, spend more time with God, etc. But in the course of sharing our lists we delved into some rather personal things that we were working on that we probably wouldn't have talked about as in depth under casual conversation circumstances. I personally have a hard time with sharing my feelings most of the time and we discussed some weighty things that I hadn't imagined we would get into. Once or twice we really put our hearts on the table about some things and I'm really glad we did. The evening became what I did not expect it to but I realize now that it was a really good thing. I think I learned a few things and I'm excited to see how we grow. I think I'm really going to like Project 52.

Project 52 Starts in 2 Weeks

Life as you know, gets kinda busy.
Our own personal life, with a changing schedule and multiple jobs, seems to get busier every day! Luckily we have great family and friends that allow us the time to make sure that Jonathan and I have time for ourselves, so this upcoming year we want to challenge ourselves either further!


We are going to take on Project 52......


What is project 52 you ask, well here you go!! I follow a blog called Simply Modern Mom and she started this project, it's basically one date night a week, no kiddos, either at home or out. Sounds simple right but we all know how other things creep into our schedule, until there isn't any time left to have a date night, so this is what we are going to do to combat that. We are going to try to keep them at home, after Jocelyn goes down for the night and see how creative we can get. The main points will be creative, cheap and spending quality time together. Now the best way to do it, is to set aside the same day every week to do dates, but most of the couples I know are military, cops or firefighters so that's not possible, but what is possible is to look at a months schedule ahead of time and choose your date nights early. Fill in your calender with your spouse before any other commitments. We are going to try to do some out of the house dates at least once a month and we are also going to alternate back and forth on who is in charge of the dates.


Whoever plans the date will blog about the date and whoever is "taken" on the date will give critiques. I hope that you will post and comment about what your date was for that week so that we can all share ideas and come up with interesting and fun way "date" your spouse.


So if you want to join in, just print out the pledge here and fill it out and put it somewhere where it will be a contast reminder to each of you. Fill in the criteria that works for YOU and your family. You may even decide to swap babysitting days with another couple that plans on doing this so that babysitting will be free. We hope that this will be a fun experiment and i know that I have tons of creative friends so I completely plan on stealing ideas :)

November Wrap up!

I don't think that November could have held more important stuff for us this year. It was filled with lots of important occasions and most of all, amazing memories!

First of all, Jonathan finally graduated from the Corpus Christi Police Academy in the beginning of November and is now officially a police officer, so all you speeders out there, watch out! He told me that I don't even get a break :)

Next, we had the big 30 for me! I celebrated the evening with a group of close friends at a new place in town called Tipsy Canvas. If you look at the pictures, I would say that we had a pretty great time and I know for sure there was lots of laughter!

Our next big event was the first birthday of Miss Jocelyn! We had about 15 one year olds and their moms over to the house to take lots of pictures (more to come later), watched her pick cautiously at her cake and enjoy time with her friends! I can't believe that she is already ONE! Time is just flying by and she is becoming her own little person and it is so fun to watch!

And then there was Thanksgiving. Jonathan worked until 7am that morning, so most of the day was spent with Jocelyn and I playing outside and letting daddy sleep. But our good friends the Wilders let us join in their amazing feast and even put up with Jocelyn walking around from person to person sharing her toys :) Part 2 was with Regina's in laws who shared with us some great company and fantastic food and also let Jocelyn walk around person to person seeing what was on their plate! We have so much to be thankful for this holiday season, it is quite amazing!

What?? Dad ate the last pie of pie???


Okay he was just joking :)

Happy Holidays everyone!

Happy Veterans Day

Happy Veterans Day and a large Thank You to all those who are currently serving our country, to all those who have served in the past and especially to those that gave the ultimate sacrifice for us.
I also want to take this time to extend a thank you all those who often are never thanked but need to be recognized on this day as well, that is the military families! It's the spouse that solely takes on the day to day adventures of running a home, working and keeping themselves and their spouse in good spirits. It is the spouses that are left behind to become "single parents" while their significant other is fighing for our country. It is the parents of the veteran that give unconditional support and often put aside their life to help you with your own, so that you can serve your country. It is also the friends and neighbors that see someone in need, and set aside the needs of their own family for the evening, to help yours.
This year I got to refresh my memory first hand on being in the military full time again, and I know that I could not have done it without a supportive family and friends. Everytime I felt like I didn't know what I was going to do, someone stepped up to help me out. A special thanks to my husband and mom that made sure that my little girl was always filled with love and happiness even when I could not be with her
So thank you again to all the veterans and their families!

A Weekend Getaway!

This past weekend was a dream!!! I knew that we were headed out of town to spend some time together to celebrate our anniversary! This was Jonathan's year to plan out and decide what we were going to do so he made it all a surprise and boy did he do good! It started off with knowing that my in-laws were coming into town to watch Jocelyn and my mom (amazingly) helping me clean, prep Jocelyn's food, and just get everything ready for visitors so I wouldn't be stressed out! (BIG THANKS!) So Friday evening Grandma, Grandpa and Uncles Tylar and Micah arrived and spoiled Jocelyn immediately, which she just soaked up! We grabbed a quick dinner and a tiny shopping spree and Jonathan told me my one clue ... "everything that I thought I knew about this weekend, wasn't true!" Hmmmm ok!
So Saturday morning rolled around and off we went to head off for "San Antonio" but first we had to stop by Regina's to pick up my gift. I let Jonathan know that I knew my gift was as big as half the size of the trunk, because he put all our luggage on the right side and left the left side open! He laughed at my detective skills! So we get to Regina's and he wouldn't let me go inside to say hi". I'm sitting in the car waiting and their garage door opens. Yay, I get to say good morning to Owen and Regina, but wait.... why do they have luggage..... oh no way.... you guys are coming with us !!! So part 1 of the surprise was two great friends traveling with us to some unknown destination!
In the car, I get my next surprise, an envelope. In it are 4 tickets and some event info. We are headed to the Gruene Music, Wine and Art Festival for the weekend!!! Let me let you in on a little secret... I have been wanting to go to Gruene since I moved to Corpus in 2004, I wanted to enjoy the town and most importantly take a little spin on the dance floor, so this was a perfect weekend that was put together by my husband with a little (maybe alotta) help from Regina! We stayed at a quaint little B&B that was right next to a Piano Bar (another one of my favorites, come on, who doesn't love to do a little group karaoke!)
The weekend was filled with walking, wine tasting, looking at arts and crafts, playing with puppies, talking, enjoying the country shops, eating, taking a spin on the Gruene dance hall floor, laughing, scooping up an older gentleman whose knee gave out while Owen (the paramedic) walked by obliviously (love ya Owen), and an amazing Saturday night dinner on the back patio of The Gristmill restaurant. The weekend was amazing and went by all too fast, but it was a great celebration of the past three years that we have been married and I couldn't have asked for more (cheesy right?) Thanks honey!


The Festival Begins

Our new running shoes

Taking a spin at the Gruene Dance Hall

Taking a break!

Stealing a Kiss

And a snuggle

Our Anniversary Photo with surprise guests!!