and people wonder why they are spoiled...

Our niece and nephews could get anything and everything over on Aaron and I. They are the light of our world. We absolutely love spending time with them and I think they are many times our excuse to go home. I got a text from my sister in law yesterday that said "Alex just picked out a turquoise bracelet and said we should get this for Janah-she looks very pretty in turquoise". Talk about your heart melting-ahhh. Just Friday, Aaron went home for the evening and went to see the kiddos for a bit. As he was leaving, precious Julia stuck her little lip out, teared up her big brown eyes and said "Aaron dont leave me, I'll miss you". Talk about being wrapped around someone's finger. No wonder we buy and exchange 3 different pillow pets because a certain 3 year old can't make up her mind, go to 5 different stores looking for the perfect Halloween costume, find ways to squish 2 (sometimes 3) car seats in our smallcars, buy happy meals just to get more of the toysthe kids want, and the list goes on and on. They have our hearts!

Carson (1), Julia (3), and Alex (almost 7)

Thankful for so much!

Its a week past Thanksgiving, but I'm still thankful nonetheless. We had a great day with my family and Aaron's dad on Thanksgiving and spent time with the rest of Aaron's family throughout the weekend. As I stopped to look around I of course noticed lots of yummy food, my wonderful family, a loving husband and realized we have so much to be thankful for this year, so for this I am thankful-in no particular order:

1. A loving, and forgiving Savior

2. My wonderful husband

3. An amazing family

4. A job that I fall more in love with every day

5. The opportunity to grow in said job-say hello to the newest member of the Pediatric Critical Care Transport Team!

6. Health-mine, Aaron's, and my familys'

7. Christmas music on Lite 98

8. Mariah Carey's Christmas CD on repeat

9. My niece and nephews-and spoiling their hearts out!

10. Nutella, pretzels, and diet. dr. pepper!

11. A clean apartment

12. Pottery Barn

13. Dancing with the Stars

14. Ann Taylor Loft

Happy Holidays!

Finally Fall

With November upon us we have finally hit some fall like weather. Im not one to complain about warm temperatures, but I certainly am ready to pull out the hoddies and jeans. This fall has been a busy one for us so far. I have been picking up extra hours at work while we transition to computerized charting, and Aaron continues to stay busy at work also. We've also had the chance to have some fun! Aarons birthday was Oct. 15 and on the 17th we went to the Redskins vs. Colts game at Fed Ex field. Neither of us had been to a NFL game before and it was a lot of fun! We arrived at the stadium early and were able to see the players drive in in their BMWs, Mercedes, and Rolls Royces'. Of course I didn't know who any of them were without their names written across their shoulders, but it was still neat :)

We also had a sleep over with our niece and nephew in October. We had lots of fun shopping for halloween costumes, eating pizza, staying up late watching movies, and just being together. They certainly hold a very special place in my heart!

This past weekend I had big plans to begin Christmas shopping and get a pedicure while enjoying Starbucks but the nasty GI bug that is going around the PICU had other plans for me. While I was absolutely miserable for a good 24 hours it was nice to not be able to do anything but lay around and rest-something I desperately needed after working 46 rotating hours of work this past week. I feel much better today and plan on getting that pedicure!

Hope you all are enjoying fall! Cant believe the holidays are upon us already. What are your big plans?

Long time, no talk

Sorry for quite the delay in the blogging. Aaron and I have had a great summer. I have a new appreciation for the pool and the 3 day work week for nurses. Most days of the summer consisted of me laying by the pool reading books, listening to my iPod, and relaxing-it was marvelous!

Aaron and I also had 2 fun vacations-one to Nags Head and one to Tennessee. We went to Nags Head with some great friends and enjoyed laying on the beach with sand between our toes and cold drinks in our hands. The Tennessee trip started with the wedding of one of my roommates from Tech. Shelly was a wonderful roommate and a great listener whenever I needed her. She also made a gorgeous bride! Best wishes to she and Randal for a long, happy, healthy future together. We continued on to visit Aaron's grandmother. Shes a 95 year old ball of fire who has a heart of gold for her grandson with orange blood! It was a lovely visit and I'm so glad we were able to go. On that trip we also celebrated our 1st Anniversary! I cannot believe its already been a year. What a great year its been.

Another major happening this summer was a very sad one. Right before Aaron and I left for Nags Head I had a patient at work who touched my life beyond belief. This patient had lived 27 years past his expectancy-yes not the typical PICU patient. He had an amazing family and a beautiful soul. Unfortunately he lost his battle. I was able to sit with his family while he passed and what an amazing experience it was for me as a new nurse.

Our calendars are pretty full for the fall. I will be picking up extra time at work while we transition to computerized charting. We also have trip planned to Knoxville for the UT/Alabama game. Aarons birthday is in a few weeks and I have something up my sleeve that I hope will work out! Hope everyone is doing well! Sorry again for the delay in blogging!

We're Here!

Aaron and I have finally made it to Richmond. With a little help from our families and friends we finished our move this past Saturday evening. Our new apartment is much bigger than the one in Spotsylvania and the closets are amazing! We can both actually hang up all of our clothes! We haven't quite gotten things the way we want them, but with time I'm sure that will come.

After the move we decided to go home for the holiday weekend and spend time with family and friends on the water! Salt water and sand, a boat ride, and an evening spent on my families dock was just what we needed.

We made our way back to our new home on Tuesday and got back into the groove of things yesterday. Our commutes are amazing. Aaron has roughly a 10 minute drive and mine is a little over 20 minutes-much, much better than what we've been doing for the past year. We continue to look forward to all the things Richmond has to offer!

Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend! Looking forward to visitors soon!

Its been a loooong while...

It has been a while since the last blog post, but dont worry you haven't missed much. In the past month and a half, Aaron and I have just been going through the week living for the weekends we get to spend together (although I've worked half of those). Aaron has been working in Richmond since the end of March and loves his commute and the stress free life that proves to be at the Richmond Ferguson branch. He gets home almost 2 hours earlier each day and gets to leave our apartment an hour later. This makes for a much less tired and cranky Aaron :)

Not too much different has been going on in the PICU. I am still amazed at the work our crew does and the resiliency of children. Ex: Just recently we had a 15 mo old who was on the highest form of mechanical ventilation we have, was on numerous medication drips to sustain life, and was made a no code (do nothing if her heart stops). We all cried with the family and were physically and emotionally drained. Yet, we continued to keep on and just a few weeks ago after being on a ventilator for over a month she went home with no tubes or other strings attached. This made me and the rest of our doctors and nurses feel so proud to be part of our amazing team and gave us each motivation to carry us for a long while. Its why we come to work daily!

Other news...we had a little glitch in our contract with our current apartment complex and did not move to Ric in April like we had planned. We are now moving on one of the best weekends of the year (the kick-off to summer). We are very happy to be moving closer to our family and our jobs, but not too excited about all the packing we must start soon. Its amazing the amount of stuff two people can accumulate in such a short amount of time. Regardless, we are still very much enjoying married life and are very excited for what the future holds for us. Forgive me if I do not post again for a bit, we havent had internet in our apt since April and making trips to Panera to get online don't happen often. Have a great week everyone!

Things I'm most looking forward to!

This past week was full of sunshine and happiness. It made me realize how much I love the summertime and great weather. Aaron took the day off on Friday and we enjoyed the day together playing tennis, running errands, and enjoying ice cream out! My vera calendar is jammed packed for the summer and I can't wait! Here are a few of the things we are most looking forward to:

Richmond Flying Squirrels baseball games. Aaron and I have gone to at least 1 game each season the past couple of years, but we are looking forward to going to many more this summer as their stadium is just minutes from where we are going to be living!

Friday Cheers at Brown's Island. Many of the gals from work rant and rave about how much fun concerts are at Brown's Island. Im excited to partake this year in the festivities!

Weddings! We have 3 to go to this summer! Aaron's best man and long time friend Michael is getting married to such a sweet and cute gal in June! My college roommate Shelly is getting married in August to her high-school sweetheart the weekend of our first anniversary! What a neat way to celebrate our marriage! And a gal from work

is getting married, also in August! We are very excited to celebrate with each of them!

The Outer Banks: Heaven on Earth! Aaron and I are looking forward to a relaxing long weekend in July at the Outer Banks with one of Aaron's long time friends and her boyfriend. Bring on the sun, sand, and this year's Brew-Thru T-shirt!

A trip to Tennessee! We are planning to leave from Shelly's wedding to head a little further south to visit Aaron's grandmother. She is such a sweet lady, and I enjoy making trips to visit her.

Last, but not least: time on the Piankatank River and Chesapeake Bay. One of my most favorite things about Mathews is the salt water that backs up to most everywhere you are! I love the bay spray on my face, the sun shining down on me, and the carefree attitude of everyone!

Phew, what a summer we have planned. Can't wait for all of it to begin!

The move is finalized!

Aaron found out this week that his last day at his Ferguson location would be March 26, which meant we needed to get our ducks in a row to move to Richmond :) Hallelujah!

On Saturday my sweet cousin turned a year old-Happy Birthday Kayley girl! We headed south to celebrate her big day and decided to do some apartment hunting also. We found one just minutes from Aaron's new office and only a few miles from St. Mary's. Its a bit smaller than the one we have now if thats possible, but will work until we're able to find an area that we like and a home that will fit our needs.

We were also able to meet my maid-of-honor and long time friend and her bf at California Pizza Kitchen for dinner that evening. We had a fun time catching up and eating yummy food.

It was a great weekend for us. We got quite a bit accomplished! Hope you all had a good weekend as well. Stay tuned for the big move in a little over a month!

Isn't this sweet little guy precious? Aaron and I saw one on our walk this afternoon and I decided it is something I need :) We've talked extensively about getting a lab or boxer, but want to wait until we have a big yard. I think this would be the perfect solution until then, don't you? Now, if I could only get Aaron on the bandwagon we'd be set! I wonder what would happen if I just brought one home one day?

Still here...

In the past 2 weeks since I've blogged not a lot, but a lot, has gone on in our busy lives. Aaron and I have been on a hunt for a 4 wheel drive vehicle so that I can get to work when it snows. We traveled the weekend after Valentines to Va Beach to carry on the search. The truck we thought was "the truck" turned out to be a piece of junk-people: take care of your vehicles if you ever want to sell them! On our way to Mathews we saw one at a local dealership that did turn out to be the one so our weekend wasn't completely a waste. Turns out its the exact same truck my dad had when I was growing up just a few years newer-like father (in-law) like son (in-law). Now that we have found and purchased one we will probably never have another snow storm, but that wouldn't be a bad thing either. Check out the new Z-71:


This weekend we travel again to Mathews/Yorktown to celebrate Aaron's dad's birthday and on Sunday Aaron has his first soccer game! Looking forward to a good weekend with family! Enjoy the rest of your week!

Happy Valentines Day blog friends and family :) We hope you are having a fabulous day with your loves. Our Valentines has been nice, but not typical. My poor 3 year old cousin that I lived with throughout nursing school is in St. Mary's with RSV. Aaron and I went to visit him today. The little guy looks pitiful with his oxygen, IV, and monitors, and broke my heart when he started saying "help me". I see kids like this every day but, I don't think I ever realized just how hard it is for families to be in the hospital with their sick children until today. I got a totally new appreciation for those families today by getting a sneak peak of a day in their life and I was only there for a couple of hours.

Many of you know that I am totally in love with my job in the Pediatric ICU. When I chose to go to nursing school I had absolutely no idea this career would give me this much gratification and fulfillment. I love the bond that I form with kids and their families. I love being able to help them feel better and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE being able to send them home back to their normal lives and get a big hug as they walk out the door. Not all of my days are fun or satisfying, in fact, many days I want to and do cry when I leave because the kids we see are sick puppies and it breaks my heart to know that somedays we just float through the day and make no progress towards getting them better. I've had a hard time being ok with that but am slowly realizing that thats all you can do sometimes. Regardless, the job gets done and eventually the kiddies get well. Kids are resilient to almost anything-Im convinced of that whole heartedly-another reason to love my job.

Ok, ok enough with the sappiness of my job I'm sure Aaron would love to blog about how much he loves crunching numbers and taking people to court one day so stay tuned for that :) I hope everyone has a great week-Im going to wait for my call to come into work! Crossing our fingers for no more snow this week like they are predicting. Happy Valentine's Day again!

Another Snow-y Weekend!

Fortunately, the weatherman was wrong in his prediction of Spotsylvania getting up to 30 inches of snow this past weekend. Unfortunately, we still got 14 inches and were trapped inside for yet another snowed-in weekend. We were fully prepared and this weekend didn't make me lose my mind quite as bad as the previous weekend! Friday afternoon Aaron and I ventured out for one last time before the snow fell. We, well I, found a new DVD (27 Dresses-only $4.99!) at Best Buy and new North Face gear for both of us at Dicks-we were READY! That night we enjoyed homemade chicken pot pie and baked friendship bread together. Saturday we cleaned, we read, we played our wii, and we took a couple walks in the snow. The day went by fairly quickly. Yesterday, determined to get out, Aaron and his "fan club" (thats an entirely different post) dug out our cars, which surprisingly only took 2 HOURS! We didn't have anywhere we needed or really wanted to go, but decided to venture out anyways. We ended up going to dinner at Logan's Roadhouse and using a buy 1 get 1 free coupon-we looove restaurant coupons! After dinner we came home to enjoy the Super Bowl on our new 50" plasma TV. Aaron and I are getting very good at entertaining ourselves in our 800 sq. ft. apartment. Im reminded weekend after weekend that its very important to take time out of our busy lives to stop and look around and thank God for the blessings we have and the beauty of the earth he has made, regardless of how much I'm beginning to despise snow! We hope everyone has a great week. Aaron tried to start his this morning and had to turn around-roads in NoVa just aren't up to par quite yet. Stay safe and stay warm!

Frat party weekend?!?

I've been working night shift this week and as of yesterday hadn't seen Aaron since Sunday afternoon. While this schedule is hard, we've gotten used it and its only for a little over one more month. Yay! We decided when Aaron got home last night to go to a local pizzeria and wal-mart for groceries in case we get the 30-yes 30-inches of snow that has been predicted for our area. We thought we would be ahead of the game and well prepared-well, we thought wrong.

Let me just say this first:Wal-Mart is not by any means my favorite place to shop; however, they always have exactly what we need without going store to store and their prices help our budget greatly. Hence, Aaron and I grocery shopping at Wal-Mart. Well that theory was changed last night. Apparently the residents of Spotsy know more about this alleged snow storm than Aaron and I. The shelves were bare-completely empty. No bananas, no eggs, no salad, no milk, no meats, barely any frozen foods-we were not doing well with our preparation. Determined not to be defeated by wal-mart Aaron and I strolled each aisle to find something we could eat this weekend. What did we find you ask: potato skins, beer, chips and dip, nutty buddy bars, go-gurt, and canned veggies. Weekend full of junk food at the Stewart home! Whoo hoo! Funny thing is (well maybe not so funny)-our cart usually has some of this stuff in it anyways when Aaron goes grocery shopping, but I at least counteract it with veggies, fresh fruit, and lean meats. Last night we just looked like a bunch of college frat guys! Can't say we didnt try though :)

Im hoping we don't get the amount of snow the weathermen are predicting. I don't think I can take one more weekend of being trapped in my apartment, but if we do, we are totally prepared. Good thing we have a wii fit is all I'm saying!

Lets Play Catch Up!

Today marks month 5 of our marriage, and what a great 5 months it has been! Upon returning from our honeymoon cruise my parents along with Aaron's dad and brother moved us to Spotsylvania where we make our home at Ravenscourt Drive. We have a cute, one bedroom apartment with everything we need, and the best part: it takes at most a little over an hour to clean from top to bottom! We quickly settled down and made this place our own.

I started full time as an RN at St. Mary's Hospital in the Pediatric ICU in October. The fulfillment I get from going to work every day is beyond anything I could have ever imagined. Im so thankful to have found something I love to do and get paid to do it at such a young age. Aaron still works for Ferguson Enterprises as a Credit Manager in Chantilly, VA. Spotsy (what the locals call the town) is kind of in the middle, which is why we chose to live here. Our job life is good, although the commute gets tiring, especially for Aaron.

In October, Aaron and I welcomed another nephew to our family. Carson Riley Riddett was born on October 11 at 8:30 am while Aaron and I were in Knoxville, TN at a UT football game. We drove as fast as we could to Williamsburg to welcome this new bundle of joy.

In November, we enjoyed Thanksgiving with both of our families, and December was a fun month filled with lots Christmas festivities and family. December also brought a humungous snow storm-22 inches to be exact. It was the most snow I have ever seen and if I never see it again I will be too soon. Although, being snowed in with my hubby for 3 days wasn't too bad.

2010 started off well. Aaron was in Atlanta, GA with some of his guy friends for the UT vs. VT football game. Do we need to mention who won the game? ABSOLUTELY! GOOO HOKIES! And Janah was in Williamsburg babysitting 10 precious children. We both enjoyed the start to the new year even if we weren't together. The rest of January has been going by smoothly with some fabulous news for Aaron and I. We found out last week that Aaron is being transferred to the Richmond Ferguson and we are moving in March. This is news we have been waiting to get for a looong time. The plan is for us to live in an apartment in Richmond until we can find an area we like and a house to buy. We are so thrilled to have shorter commutes, more time together in the evenings, and to be closer to family. 2010 is going to be another big year for us as a couple and we couldn't be more excited about whats to come!

Keep following us as we move again, Aaron transfers offices, and we begin house hunting!

All the cool kids are doing it!

Daily I follow a handful of blogs. I have thought with each reading I should make our own for our family and friends who we don't talk to daily or even weekly for that matter. So, here goes nothing. We hope you enjoy reading about our life as newlyweds!