Josalyn Marie Gross

Josalyn Marie Gross born at 12:46. She weighed 7 lbs 4 oz and was 19 inches long. Everyone is doing well!

Mike's birthday!

Mike's birthday was a week and half ago. He turned 35 but he's pretending he didn't. It unintentionally turned into one of those celebrations that never ended, which in my opinion is a good thing. I always enjoy celebrating my husband. His actual birthday was Feb. 6 but the party didn't end until Valentine's Day.
Bryan and Amanda had a ceremony down at the courthouse the afternoon of Feb. 6 so we planned to wait and celebrate his birthday the following Saturday. Bryan and Amanda and everyone went to dinner at the Cheesecake factory after the wedding though and Bryan said it was fine to tell the waiter that it was Mike's birthday. By the way, they brought Bryan and Amanda's cheesecake out on a platter that said congratulations in chocolate syrup. It reminded me of the way the did our dessert at the Commander's Palace on our anniversary this past year. So they brought Mike an ice cream shot with a candle and sang to him. Their rendition of Happy Birthday was much better than the one at Joe's last year. And of course, the next day was the Superbowl and so we had a annual Superbowl/commercial watching/celebrate Mike's birthday party at the house. So there was more cake, singing, and celebrating.
This past Saturday was all for Mike. He got breakfast in bed. I made the banana stuffed french toast like we had in Jamacia. It's just too yummy. We went to the gym and then spent some time in the hot tub before I sent Mike for a massage. I decided after the past year we had that he need some extra relaxation and scheduled him for a full hour and half. He came home feeling much better and got to watch a good OK State - OU basketball where, based on the cheering and score, OK state solidly trounced OU. That made for a happy husband and happy husband always equals happy home. Then we went out for dinner and I even picked the restaurant. It happens about once a year where I'll voluntarily make the decision without him forcing me. =) Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate with the after dinner plans though. I wanted to take him go Kart racing and it was just too cold. We'll have to go another time when it warms up some. Mike decided we should go ahead and start celebrating Valentine's though and picked a movie for us to go see. But that's a separate post.
Mike was properly spoiled and enjoyed his extended birthday celebration. There is nothing I like better than loving on Mike and showing him how special he is to me. Besides, he's not too happy about turning 35 so at least we could start the year on a high note and hopefully make it a little less traumatic for him. I'm not sure I'll be that nice though when he turns 40!

Busy month

Mike and I had a very busy past month with a lot of out of town trips. First we went to Bartlesville for his Dad's retirement party. Joe worked at Conoco-Philips as a researcher for his entire career. That's pretty amazing considering that most people only stay with a job/company for a few years now before they move on. There was a great party for Joe at the Cross house. He had a lot of friends, family, and co-workers come by. I enjoyed it because Joe got a really nice camera for Christmas and since he was the guest of honor for the party I got to use the camera. Of course by the end, it left me wanting a new camera! Here are Joe and Nona opening gifts.


The following weekend we drove up to Lake Texoma for a 4th of July party/Cross family reunion. Even though we had seen most of the family the previous weekend at the party this was a much more laid-back visit with fewer people. That gave us more time to talk to people and get caught up. Mike got to go fishing with his nephews and neice. Mike's uncle has a lake house and they purchased a lot of good fireworks to set off... the kind of that actually fly up and explode in the sky versus the little black cats or roman candles. It was nice to be able to sit out next to the Lake and watch all the fireworks. A photography blog I follow posted great tips for taking pictures of fireworks. Unfortunately I didn't see the tutorial until after the 4th of July. Oh well. I still got one decent shot.


After that Mike and I went to New Orleans for the weekend. It was an anniversary trip. Even though the weekend we got married was the best weekend for us that summer, it turns out to be a terrible time to take a vacation. Since Mike is in sales then the end of June is the end of the first half and there's always a lot of work he needs to do. So we always do something small the night of our anniversary but then save a trip or whatever we want to do for July. We had a great time in New Orleans. The pictures are up on facebook if you want to see them.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=103949&id=662435043&l=b83550e94c
We stayed at a great B&B. I think we probably found the best one in the city. If you ever plan to go let us know so we can give you the contact information. It's Five Continents Bed and Breakfast. And best of all, it actually turned out to be cheaper than staying in a hotel within walking distance of the French Quarter because we didn't have to pay $20 a day to park the car!

Here are the beautiful roses Mike bought me on our anniversary. And here we are at dinner one night in New Orleans. We got dressed up and went out to a nice restaurant. It was a lot of fun. (And I got to wear a new dress).

Two years and counting

Two years ago today Mike and I got all dressed up to tell each other, and a large number of guests, that we promised to faithfully love each other and spend the rest of our lives together. The last two years have just flown by. I think we've been very blessed. I've always heard that marriages take work and that if you don't work at it then it won't be successful. Or I was told before I got married that I would have to remind myself why I married Mike. I'm sure that we work at our marriage, but it just doesn't feel like it. Being married to Mike has been very easy and each day I love him more. Not a day goes by that I've ever doubted our decision to get married or had to remember why I married Mike. Even though he's only been a part of my life for three and a half years, it's impossible for me to imagine life without him.
Recently I was told though that we should start writing down what we did for our honeymoon and what we do on our anniversaries. My great-aunts told us that even though we think we'll never forget that our memory won't be nearly as good when we're almost 90. So we've taken their suggestion and started writing down memorable dates and our anniversaries. I think it will be a great record to have, especially since it's hard for us to go on anniversary trips right on our anniversary. June 30 is the end of the first half of the sales year and so we usually need to take our vacations in July. Last year we went to Mexico and this year we're going to a great Bed and Breakfast in New Orleans. Some day I'd like to get back to where we went in Jamaica for our honeymoon.
In honor of the day here's one of our engagement photos and some of our wedding photos.

Busyness

I got this written but never posted a while back. Life's been very busy.

A few weekends ago we celebrated my Mom's birthday. She turned 60 and was gone on her actual birthday so we celebrated a few days late. Dad made yummy fish tacos and as always, he made the cheesecake. Our family's cheesecake recipe is the best I've ever had. Mom wanted a smoker for her birthday. Our family is weird in that we like getting big cooking appliance type things as gifts. We get to ooh and ahh over the new toy and figure out new recipes and what we're going to make. Since mom has every kitchen tool imaginable for indoors I guess she decided to branch out to outdoor cooking appliances. And of course it made the guys happy too. Bryan got the whole thing assembled and Mom's already used it once. She sent smoked chicken home for Mike who pronounced it good. Mike was even willing to share a few scraps with Apollo who then started dancing around the kitchen whenever he saw Mike pull the chicken out of the fridge. So the chicken must be good and our dog is spoiled.

That same weekend we went out with our friends Lyndsay and Alan for dinner. There's a backstory to this dinner. A few weeks ago Mike and I were home and had Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives on. We like to watch the show and always wish the restaurants would be closer to us. Well, the first place up was located in East Dallas and was a burger joint. As we watched them make these burgers and everything that went in them, Mike's eyes got big and I think he started to drool. And we just knew our friend Alan would love a place like that. We got online and found they had veggie burgers and a new location opened up closer to us. So the four of us went on Saturday evening to the Twisted Root Burger Co. Sure enough, as we walked in Alan told us that he had just found his new home. Mike got the Western Burger and Alan got something that was a combo of buffalo and venison. Lyndsay had the cheese burger and I got the veggie burger (what a surprise!). The food was good and the decorations were a riot. We loved all the bumper stickers and various signs around the place. Such as the one requesting that we not steal their condiments, then informing us that stealing in general is bad and then suggesting that the government already steals enough. There were also plenty of "graffiti" style notes up in the bathroom. My favorite was the one pointing to the emergency alarm (the type with flashing lights) that said "if this is flashing then you may want to stop peeing and run". Since it's not every day that we get to go someplace featured on Guy's show, we decided to take pictures.

Home makeover

We've been very busy over the last couple of years giving the house a "makeover" and now we're nearly finished. We still have a few details to take care of but all the major projects are through. Yay! We completely tore out all the groundcover and holly bushes and redid the yard, leveled out the back and laid sod. There are new flower beds with new brick work and the sprinkler system. All the plants are in and look great (and survive thanks to the sprinkler system). We had the outside of the house painted and last weekend Mike finished the front door.
The front door was quite a project and I'm really proud of Mike. He had to take it down, sand off all the old pain (which took most of the morning) and then stain it. It took three coats of stain because the wood was so dry that it just sucked up the first coat. He got all that done Saturday and was able to put the urethane coats on Sunday in time for it to dry and get hung back up. So we were only doorless for two days. And the door looks great! So unless Mike gets the wild idea again about finishing the kitchen cabinetry - I think all our big projects are done. We still have small projects to do. We need to replace the cushion stuff that blocks air leaks in the doorways (I have no idea what it's called). And with the house settling and moving after we had the foundation repairs there are some cracks now around the windows that we need to fill and seal. But given that I don't think you're ever truly "done" working on a house and there always seems to be something the do, I think this is the closest we're going to get with our house to being done. I think we're going to just sit around for a while and be proud of ourselves (and nap).
I haven't gotten pictures of the door yet (or the outside bench that Mike refinished). I'll take some later and post them.

passports and the car

Two accomplishments last weekend. First, we found that passports. We discovered they were missing back in February when Mike needed to copy his for employment records at his new job. I thought they were hidden in the armoir. Mike thought they were hidden in one of two other locations. They weren't in any of the three. We both remembered a conversation about where to put them. I remember not like Mike's idea and him not liking mine. So we could remember all that. However, we couldn't remember where they finally ended up after we got home from Mexico last summer. At random points we would search places in the house looking for them with no luck. This weekend I went to pull a shirt off the closet shelf that I had put there because the strap needed to be sewn back on and I thought I could do it at my grandmother's. When I pulled the shirt a travel bag fell down and the thud seemed pretty heavy for an empty bag. There were our passports! Along with other miscellaneous things from our Mexico trip. Right after we got back from Mexico we were busy with details for a friend's wedding and then out-of-town friends stayed with us that same weekend. We're guessing that even though we had the conversation about where to keep the passports that we ended up just putting the bag on the shelf in a rush to clean up without actually putting them away. Glad to have them again though. It's very difficult to flee the country on short notice without them.

The other exciting thing was that we got the clean title to the Camry. It's all paid off and now it's all ours. We're really excited to not have a car payment anymore. When we bought the car a year and half ago we had really good interest rates on our savings account and got a really low interest rate on the car loan. So it made more sense to have the loan. Then the economy changed and the rates on our CD savings went down. We decided to hurry up and get the loan paid off until Mike got news that IBM was going to lay him off. So the car loan got paid off a little later than planned. But now it's done and we're really excited to be rid of it. Yippe.