Kind of totally obsessed...

How awesome are these CAMERA totes?!
I want one soooo bad. The purple bag comes from Jo Totes and the fabulous red bag comes from epiphan!e . Both awesome and practical. But which one? 




My dearest husband,
you know that I am in need of a camera bag. And these can hold all of my "purse-y" things in them as well. Look at that picture! She has an apple and a book in there! Very practical, indeed. I know they are a tad pricey, but I promise I will use it!
Love,
your sweet wife 

pa-pa-pa-pwease?

4 Months

I'm a little behind. These were taken at Victoria Beach in Laguna when she actually was 4 months old. Now, she is almost 5 months. She's a lot harrier in the face. You can't really see them in this picture, but she is growing these weird doggy side burns that hang off of the bottom of her mouth. Really weird. I want to go and get her groomed, but I suppose we'll wait. It's like getting your babies hair cut for the first time. Might as well wait until her first birthday. Anyways, she's fully potty trained now. THANK GOD. She loves to play. She thinks she's a cat because she has her big kitty as an example. So she sits on the top cushions of the couch behind our heads like Tiger does. So funny, but totally cute. They even play together now. Miley tries to be the Alpha, but Tiger is definitely the leader of that pack. Who am I kidding? He's the Alpha of the whole apartment. I'm pretty sure he pays our rent. The other day I walked in on him levitating. He was reading Mobey Dick in French.

Hahahaha totally kidding. It's a running family joke that Tiger runs the place and he's super genius smart. Miley is kind of a tard in comparison. But we love her.

Change...

...is not is the cards. Apparently. Just a day after I posted up the last post, we got news that we are staying in california for Aaron's new job. I can't say that I wasn't a little disappointed because I was really excited tostart new in a totally different place. But the more I think about it, the better/easier it will be to live here for the next 3-4 years.

Well it's good news. Now we can focus on buying a house here. And we know things now rather than waiting around for things to happen or not happen. It is a odd feeling, being sure of things, because it is so unlike the marine corps.

Anyway, here's to the golden coast! May our (hopefully) soon to be expanding family be enjoying your beautiful ocean sunsets for the next 4(ish) years.

Hurry up and wait...

Story of my life, thanks to the marine corps. Our latest waiting game involves us possibly moving to North Carolina for three years. We are waiting to hear back from Marine Headquarters if they need Aaron there for his upcoming and new job as a School of Infantry combat instructor. But we are told that

there is a 90% chance that it will happen. So I'm counting on it. I can honestly say, though, that I am excited. I have lived in the "OC" my whole life, and sometimes it feels like I have a lot of pressure pushing me down. I think it will be nice t

o start all over in NC. I look at it optimistically. It's an adventure! We may even buy a house out there and then sell it when we are ready to come back to socal.

Of course, I would be leaving my family and friends for a while, and that will be hard. Plus, Aaron and I want to start a family, and I know that if/when it happens, I'll want my mom. She'll have to save up her flyer miles!

North Carolina can't be too bad right? I mean really. Look at the scenery. We will be just as far away from the beach as we are now. Stoked for that! With my handy dandy canon 50D, you can expect that I will take a million and one pictures of the place.

The weekend in review

First, Aaron and I FINALLY watched Avatar. And we LOVED it! The special effects were amazing, and the story line was really good. A tiny bit close to the cartoon movie "Ferngully", but still awesome. I'm totally hooked and I can't wait for Avatar 2 to come out in 2014. Ew, I'll be turning 27 that year (no offense to anyone who is older than that. It's just weird to think about stuff like that for me); haha Anyways, if you haven't seen it, you are MAJORLY missing out.

Secondly, we ate out at Buffalo Wild Wings at the kaleidoscope in

Mission Viejo. Aaron loves the place, but I had never been there. I was hugely let down. The wings were good. I will give them that. But our food was lackluster, and our service was evenworse.

I won't go into to details about the service, but let's just say that it was so bad, we ended up giving her a less then 20% tip. I used to be a server and I know how it works. And I know that it does not take 10 mins to bring out extra plates etc.... I've never been to the location off of Lake Forest, which is the one that

Aaron loves, but after yesterday, I am not sure I want to go.

Lastly, Aaron, me and my brothers went to the movies last night. We really REALLY wanted to see Shrek 4 (or at least I did). I had big expectations because I loved the other 3 so much. They never fail to make me laugh. When I am having a bad day, Shrek the Third always makes me feel better. wow, I really should own them.

Anyways, Shrek 4: the plot took forever to take off. And really, the movie never actually did take off. It wasn't funny at all until all three favorites were together again (Shrek, Donkey, and Puss). That was only a small portion of the movie. Most of the movie was just depressing and not too

many "HAHAHA", more "heh heh heh". And although Puss was adorable as a fat, pampered kitty with a pink bow tied around his neck, I really REALLY wanted him to be PUSS IN BOOTS again. The zoro like, womanizer cat that he really is.

I could go on and on...

General consensus on Shrek 4- FAIL. Wait until it comes out on DVD to see it.

So overall, the weekend has been good (avatar) and bad (you know the rest). Lets see how the swap meet is...

New Directions

Well it has been awhile. Things were a little stressful for a time, so I didn't really have the patience to blog. But now I do, and you can expect me to update it a lot more. Anyways, LONG story short, Aaron is very fully recovered, though, if you are reading this, you probably already know that. We love our apartment, but we are ready to buy. In the spirit of the pending summer months, we got a new BBQ. AND we got the cutest little puppy. Her name is Miley, and she is a little ball of energy. But I can tell you, crate training is the BEST. She likes it and we love it.

It's early sunday morning, and Aaron is still asleep. The cat and dog are busy chasing each other, and I just ate a delicious bowl of cinnamon life cereal. Today, we might go to church, then maybe Boomers or the swap meet up in costa mesa. I'm thinkin' the swap meet...

p.s. did you notice my title? Know what it's from? ......

GLEE! yes, I am a Gleek and proud of it.

Update on Aaron

First off, I cannot express my gratitute enough to everyone for their love and support. I am at a complete loss for words when it comes to the wonderful people in Aaron's life, as well as mine. So thank you to everyone who has been praying for him.

For those of you who do not know the whole story, Aaron was on a patrol and was caught off guard by some taliban. He was only shot once(the reason why I say "only" is because we originally thought it was twice). The bullet grazed the underside of his arm and entered in his body through his left armpit. The bullet went in and out of his left lung and stopped just before hitting his heart. His left lung actually collapsed. He said that they x-ray was trippy to look at because the bullet is quite literally sitting in the middle of this chest right in between his heart and 2 major areteries. When he was hit, he just kept running. He never blacked out. He is EXTREMELY lucky to be alive. To me, it is obvious that God has a much bigger plan for Aaron. He kept him around for something. We wont know until we get there, but I believe Aaron has been called to serve his country, and he will continue to do that. He has been called to be a great son, great husband, and eventually, a great father. He is my hero, as I am sure he is yours.

I spoke to Aaron this morning. He sounded a 1000 times better than he did yesterday. I told him about all the poeple that are praying for him and he was speechless. But he means thank you ;) Anyways, they gave him morphine and an epidural for pain (he said, "now I know what that's like when we have kids 'cause I KNOW you're gonna need one!"). His lung has been expanding all day. Great news! He is having some clean up surgery sunday morning, and then will fly out sunday night to Germany. He will NOT go back to combat, and when he is released from the hospital, he will probably go on special leave so that he can come back home (Indy) for a bit.

Things are looking up and I don't think it will take very long for him to recover fully. For those of you who know Aaron, we all know he's a tough guy. He's a trooper, and I know he can get through this. And we all know he will get through it with a little humor like he does everything. I just hope that he doesn't want to hang the x-ray anywhere in our house! ;)

Thank you for reading, and if anyone has ANY questions at all, please don't hesitate to ask.

~Lauren