Crazy, crazy June!

Summer has always been a busy time in our family. Starting in June we have my birthday, Father's Day, Brady's birthday, our anniversary and then Chris' birthday in July. That's not including other family and friends birthdays. This year we decided to throw a big move in there too just for fun!

We were blessed enough to have lots of family and friends in town to help us celebrate some of these big events. On the 14th we celebrated my 30th with our little family and my mom and grandma. It was nice and low key although Chris did a pretty good job of making it special. Here's a pic of the cake he surprised me with (those who know me, know I LOVE birthday cake!!) and the flowers and one of my presents he got me- a new bathing suit. He picked out the suit totally on his own and it actually fit...Hooray for me not having to go bathing suit shopping this year!

That Saturday we celebrated Brady's 1st birthday during the day at John Chestnut Park. We lucked out with gorgeous weather and a baby who didn't protest too much to having a party during his naptime. It was so nice to see so many friends and family coming out to support our little man's big milestone.

Here's a pic our friend Alissa took of Brady's party...chicken nuggets and balloons were his favorite part!

That night grandma and great-grandma watched Brady and we went out with friends to celebrate my 30th birthday on Clearwater Beach. One of my besties, Lindsay shares a birthday with Brady so we got to celebrate her 30th that night as well.  Palm Pavilion on Clearwater beach at sunset was the perfect place to celebrate! It was great to hang out with friends with drinks and yummy food...and more cake! Chris ordered one regular birthday cake for Lindsay and one "doughnut cake" for me...because if there's anything I like better than birthday cake, it's doughnuts. It sounds odd, but anyone who was there that night can attest to the fact that Chris may have stumbled upon a genius idea. It was Ah-Mazing!!

Jake, Lindsay, me and Chris

Gator girls!

Can you see the doughnut cake in front of me?!

The next day was Father's Day. Chris's first Father's Day as a daddy! (since Brady was stubborn last year and was not born on Father's Day like he was supposed to!) We got to spend some time with my dad and step-mom and then give Chris his gifts. Here's Brady giving his daddy his present!

It was matching Batman shirts! B-Man was so proud!

Later that week we got to celebrate Brady's birthday again on his actual birthday. It was much more low key and we tried to do all of Brady's favorite things. We met Chris for lunch at Chick-fil-a (Brady's fav!) and ate and played in the kiddie area. Then we opened more presents that night and went to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner. Brady took down a whole lot of pizza bread and ice cream- which is exactly what you should do on your birthday!

Chicken nuggets make us soooo happy!!

Um, duh, of course I can feed myself ice cream. I'm ONE!

This was such a bittersweet day. Of course we remembered everything we were going through a year ago and reflected on how different our life is now. I know everyone says this, but having Brady in our lives has made everything better and while being a parent has had it's challenges, it's sooo much fun! He constantly surprises us with what he can do and makes us laugh every day. From the little things, like when one of us steps outside of the house and he goes to the door and makes funny faces on the glass...

...to the big things like how he took 7 whole steps in a row all by himself on our anniversary! Watch out world, B-man is close to toddlerhood!!

Speaking of our anniversary, we celebrated 6 years of marriage this weekend (with Tropical Storm Debby!) We didn't exchange gifts, although we did go order new appliances for the new house! It rained all day, but we made the most of it by eating junk food, watching movies, and drinking champagne. We thought about how different this anniversary was than last year's. Last year we had just gotten home from the hospital with our new baby. We've come a long way, and I can only imagine how different life will be this time next year...In Pennsylvania!!!

PA...our new home!

So, I just want to start out by saying this past week or so has been full of twists and turns. The three of us are healthy and doing well, but we have some friends and family that are going through some struggles recently. So, if you have a job, a home, your health, love and faith (or any combination of those things) consider yourself blessed, and take a moment to be thankful for them!

With that being said, we are feeling so blessed that we may have found our new home. Last weekend Chris and I took our first trip without Brady to go check out houses and different areas in Pennsylvania. B-Man stayed with my mom because we knew it would be a quick and hectic trip and hard to pull off with an 11 month old. We missed him like crazy, but it definitely made house hunting easier to be kid free. We spent most of our time in Lancaster County at the recommendation of several people who were from the area. Let's just say it is a totally different world from what we are used to. I think my exact text to Jill was, "Cornfields, and fireflies, and Amish, oh my!"

Taken from the car window. AMISH! I was freaking out. :)

For real. Buggy crossing.

A backyard of one of the houses we checked out. A wee bit too country for me, but pretty!

So, as you can see, Lancaster County has many "rural" areas, but it also has many small cities and townships throughout it with new construction and the all important malls and Targets. Whew! We ended up looking at some houses in a town called Lititz and absolutely fell in love with the area. It was the first time that we actually felt like we couldn't wait to move! The town had an adorable downtown, a beautiful park with springs that ran through it, a CHOCOLATE FACTORY!, a rec center, community pool, library, Target, mall within 20 minutes, minor league baseball team within 20 minutes, and a great little house that we could see ourselves living in.

Chris playing in the springs that run through the park. There were a lot of little kids wading in it at the end. So cute!

Us in the park, getting super excited about finding this town!!

Chocolate factory! Free tours and SAMPLES!

Home, sweet home! *Fingers Crossed!*

So in total we looked at 17 houses in two days. It was exhausting, but worth it! We put an offer on the house above in Lititz and it was accepted. Now we are just hoping all goes well with the inspection so we can close at the end of the month and move sometime in early/mid July.

In addition to finding a new home and exploring a new area, this quick trip was a fun grown-up get away for Chris and me. We stayed at this cute "Inn" where they had beautiful gardens, an old barn, a spa, putting green, and a great restaurant (with cheap wine!) Here's a few pics from our mini-"vaca".

Embracing the non-Florida grass. PA grass is SO soft!

Walking around the grounds of the inn...I wanted a pic of this barn star. They're everywhere up there!

Wish the lightning bugs showed up in this pic!

I realize I look ridiculous here, but check out the piggy bench! M.F.E.O.!