Happy Birthday, Jake!!!!!!

Today is the birthday of two people we love: my best friend Sara, and our brother Jake. Sara and I are celebrating with facials and fondue (woo hoo!!) on Saturday, but Jake is on deployment overseas, and we weren't able to spend time with him to celebrate his birthday. That is until we came up with this cheesy, yet genius, idea...

With a little help from Costco's photo center, we WERE able to take Jake out for his birthday! We took him to one of his favorite restaurants: Pancho's!



We all had dinner together, and it looked like Jake was really enjoying the food!




He even got to "Raise The Flag"!



Here he is posing with Andrew:




Ended the meal with some frozen yogurt in a cone...not sure why Jake was eating it with a fork, haha! ;)



On the way back to the apartment, we stopped at QT...



...and picked up some Rooster Booster and Donkey Kick energy drinks! Jake's favorite on road trips!




Andrew and Jake decided to end the night with a little game on Xbox.




Unfortunately, the birthday boy lost because Dewey just loves his Uncle Jake and was trying to get his attention during the game, haha!




We had a lot of fun with Jake on his birthday!!! =)

Jake, we love you so much, and we hope we made you smile today! Hang in there, you'll be home before you know it and we'll get to hang out very soon! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!

Another Catch-Up Post...

So we've been super busy lately...we are getting a house!!! We close on July 20th, we take possession of it on the 23rd around 5:00. We will spend that whole weekend painting the living room, kitchen/dining, and the master bedroom. We will be putting the word out for some help around that time, we will have pizza and adult beverages as compensation. ;)

We have been occupied doing some shopping. Our red couch was that microfiber material, and it just wore down to a funky purple-black color in spots, and we just needed to buy a better couch. So we gave the red couch to my friend Molly, and we ordered a new couch and two great chairs at Rooms to Go, we are getting those the Wednesday after we move in. We also have a new mattress coming (the one we are sleeping on now is about 15 years old...ew!!). All we really have left to buy is a refrigerator and possibly a new dishwasher, and then we're set for the big stuff.

It's crazy to think a month from tomorrow we will be closing on our house...our first house! We are so excited, and I've been DYING to post some pictures for you guys to see! So here they are!











We are so in love with this house, we cannot WAIT to get in and paint and just make it our own! We will be having an awesome house warming party/Pampered Chef party (courtesy of my friend MJ Martin!).

As many of you also know, our little baby Dewey got very sick last week. It ended up being a fever of 105 and some dehydration. The visit to the vet was extremely traumatic for Dewey...and ALSO for me. So Andrew will do the next vet visit, haha. I can't do that again for a very long time. God help me when my future children hurt themselves or are really sick...

Anyways, he is back to his normal self, maybe slightly more appreciative of his mommy (we've had some sweet moments since last week, I swear he knows I got him help). He has been sunning himself on the rug like old times:



SO! Today was Father's Day. And since Andrew and I don't have fathers in town, we went to Chamberlain's Fish Market Grill for an A-MAZ-ING brunch, followed by a quick trip to Lowe's to check out a few things, then finally ended up at my sister's house for some brisket and fixin's with her family. The kids hadn't seen Uncle Andrew in awhile, and Jacob was super happy to see him...they had fun together!






Paigers was glued to my side for most of the night, she insisted on sitting next to me at dinner and was just being super silly with me.





Eli ate corn on the cob like a big boy, it was so cute!




Jacob also showed us how awesome he is doing with putting together little Lego kits. He's getting so big, so fast...



Andrew finally was able to give Travis his birthday present...a Rudy's T-shirt! They looked so cute...



We absolutely love, love, LOVE Sundays with the Woods. It's our favorite time of the week, hands down. We love you guys! Thanks for an awesome dinner!

So not much else going on, we will try to update a few more times before the big move in July. Hope you all had as wonderful a weekend as we did!

We're still here...

So I plugged in my camera to send some pictures to my friend Sara, and I figured why not blog and upload some of those pictures HERE while I was at it?

I know it's been awhile, it's been a CRAZY few months. To those of you that still will read this blog, thank you. I know having to log in seems like a hassle, and I appreciate that you still do it. =)

Where did I leave off...Lent? Wow. So much has happened since then. Andrew got diagnosed with Grave's Disease, as most of you know. It's been a crazy battle with his thyroid, but we're finally on the way to getting him "all better" and back to normal. Tonight he cooked for the first time in awhile, and we are pretty much able to go back to living normally, since he's been radioactive and we've had to follow some stringent rules. All of the prayers and well-wishes have worked, and we are both so grateful to have such wonderful friends and family members. Thank you all!

We went to Georgia!! That was a FUN trip! Getting there wasn't fun, I kid you NOT when I tell you we almost drove into the path of an awful tornado, but the Lord truly was with us that day. We had awful weather and a close call or two, but we made it to Canton, Georgia earlier than Zach and Holly were expecting us (it was fun to surprise them). They had just moved in and were trying to get as much done while still doing the daily stuff. I like to think we provided them with a little stress-relief...after all, we ARE fabulous and entertaining! ;)

Amelia has grown SO MUCH since we saw her in person last, which was our wedding six months ago. She's walking and running and starting to say words and she's just so smart and precious and QUITE the diva (which I admit, I L-O-V-E about her!), we had so much fun with her!!

First of all, here is Zach and Holly's new house:



Isn't it so adorable????? I loved it INSTANTLY. The neighborhood was something right out of a movie: immaculate houses with cute, perky little trees...neighbors that come right up and say hello, and invite you to "just come on in" to their houses and "come to our BBQ tonight". Zach and Holly may have moved down there having no friends or family in the area, but within DAYS they had made a whole street-ful of new friends. There are a few kids for Amelia to play with, too. We just came away feeling SO great about where they were and how they were going to get along. They settled into a perfect, cozy little life right away: we are SO HAPPY for them!!

We got to go to the Georgia Aquarium. For those of you that I DIDN'T tell before I left, it's THE biggest aquarium IN THE WORLD. Not in the United States...IN. THE. WORLD. And I got to go. It was one of the coolest places I've EVER been, it TOTALLY appealed to the inner-wannabe-marine-biologist in me. I certainly don't want to bore you guys with every single picture I took (because there were TONS), but here are some of the ones I like best:



Amelia was SO GOOD at the aquarium!! It was crowded and loud and any kid would've lost their cool. She didn't ever really lose hers. She LOVED the aquarium, she was such a champ!



After the aquarium, we went across the street to one of my all-time FAVORITE restaurants: JOHNNY ROCKETS!!!

We ALL enjoyed our lunch, it tasted great after a couple of hours walking through the aquarium. Even Amelia was diggin' it. =)

She was hammin' it up in the car on the way home, too...



Before we knew it, it was time to go home. We miss them TERRIBLY, we had so much fun seeing them and hanging out. Zach, Holly, and Amelia: thank you for letting us stay with you and for spending our vacation with us! We love you!!!

What is next for the Dudeks? We are officially house-hunting! We got a realtor, we gave the necessary 60-day notice to our apartment complex, and we are going to look at houses with our realtor on Saturday afternoon. It feels so surreal, and we are excited and nervous at the same time! So keep us in your prayers once more, so that this house stuff goes off without a hitch. By the end of the summer, we'll be seeing (hopefully) all of you at our HOUSE-warming party! Sorry it took so long to get back to blogging, I was all blogged-out after Lent, but I promise to get back in it. Love you all!!