Ponce Inlet

We just got home from an oh-so-relaxing family vacation. Daytona Beach was awesome, Michael said he'd love to go back. We slept late, sat out on the beach all day, swam in the pools, golfed, grilled out and ate seafood, played games, watched Michael Jackson movies - all the good stuff a vacation should be!

My first day outside:
The boys played lots of golf
Brianna and her friend Haley:

The wind was so frustrating, how were we ever suppose to get a cute pic without him holding my hair back?

Pretty lighthouse, my family didn't make me climb it this time. Praise the Lord!

The Pull-out Couch

Family vacations are awesome and we are blessed to be here in this awesome place. But Michael and I have been separated during the night. The boys have won the second bedroom and Megan and Heather get the pull-out couch in the living area. Not conducive to sleeping in.

This morning was my first taste of this type of sleeping arrangement since nearly 4 or 5 years ago. After tossing and turning getting used to the thin mattress, I begin to notice the sun is up. It's morning. My mom comes out and does her routine stuff then gets on the computer to start typing. Typing noise is so annoying when you're asleep. So I flip over bumping Heather in the butt and try to drift back into my dreams. I notice a third presence in the room. I look over my shoulder to see Brianna - wide eyed and smiling - standing right next to me and nearly shouting, "I wanted to play ghost to see if you guys were really asleep!" If you can't beat it, go along with it. I scooted over making room for her and motioned for her to climb in next to me. She did but not without talking, "I can't believe you didn't see the things I threw at you." She picked up some stuffed animals near my head. No, I hadn't seen them. I wrap my arms around her hoping the swaddling will quiet her. "Oh! I have some of the those!" She imitates the wrinkle rolls on my forehead. Thanks Brianna. "So do you know how to play Slam???" I stupidly shake my head no. She explains ALL the rules. "So, what do you want to do now?!" she chirps. I hate this situation. Alright morning wins, I'll get up. And here I begin my third full day at the beach.

Ah, family vacations.

Bringing in summer

Happy First Day of Summer! Yesterday. We've been busy and on the road most of this past week. We drove to Northern Virginia twice and to Fredricksburg and then into DC for a baseball game. On the road up to northern Virginia Friday morning, we saw this man taking a long nap on his way to work. I thought it was hilarious:

We took Michael's dad out to a Nationals game to celebrate Father's Day. The new Nat's stadium was really cool and we got to change our seats out for much better ones. Baseball games are nice. I like the sport, but it is so gosh darn slow. Needless to say we three young women got caught up on the details of each others' lives.

The following picture is a group shot. David just got back from India -hence the sleepy, hairy face, Michael, John and their dad are all enjoying a round of nachos, and none of the women are looking at the camera:

In other news, Michael and I are headed to Florida!!! We are driving down to Ponce Inlet, which is in Daytona Beach, for a nice week long vacation with my family. We are so excited to get to spend time relaxing on a beach, visiting Disney World (Michael's first time!), and hanging out with my sweet siblings. We are really bummed that we couldn't make it out to Pensacola to visit the Butterfield's this time around, but they are so understanding. We love you guys and will surely try to come see you soon! No doubt, there will be pictures of our fun time away...check back in a week or so.

Oh also, Tom and Tina are huge now! We are so proud of them. We also added Huckleberry and Finn, one of which is a cherry tomato plant, so I will also get more pictures of them up for you to see.

What you'd find in my stomach

Vocelli's Pizza has become our favorite delivery pizza here in Cville. Their pizza is so stinkin' good it totally beats papa john's, dominos, and pizza hut. Michael isn't a plain cheese kind of guy but he loves to order a large extra cheese pizza whenever he can. They have some great combo pizza's too - and some of them use Pecorino cheese from Italy! Yum. Vocelli's is a chain so check it out and see if there is one in your area!
We have also been visiting the can of tuna fish lately. Tuna melts and Greek tuna pasta salad. Love me some Omega-3s! It's proving to be a light summer fare.



Sweet tooth? No problem, Breyer's all natural pure fruit bars are the perfect treat! They are oh so good and refreshing....they even claim antioxidants.

Los dos daubertos

...try out a new template.

Jamaica Joe

Check out the dishes that grace the new Collins household (Sorry, but I had to do this Jenny:)

Jamaica Joe. Enough said.

Don't lose interest

Seeing that the last however many posts were about wedding related topics, I want to make a disclaimer that this blog is not all about weddings. That is what my new website is for. (An announcement on that will be made very shortly) Los Dos Daubertos have been very busy and far away from the internet this past week. Lucinda does provide me with 24hour internet access but unfortunately the blogosphere is too much to handle.

I have been doing some reorganizing of the mess that is our second bedroom. I came across our college transcripts and thought I'd share with you some of the most unique college courses I took at UVA:

1. Survival Biology of the New Millennium

2. The Protestant Reformation - that was really cool

3. "Golden Age Drama" Span 455 - completely in Spanish

4. The Inquisition - completely in Spanish

5. The Structure of Spanish

6. The History of Spanish

7. I have also taken a massive amount of pysc courses dealing with children

Child Development, Child Psychology, Education Psychology, Infant Development, Multicultural Education, and Human Development

That is a small sampling of my degree accomplishments. Do I really know all about those things? Sure! I learned a ton. Except for Survival Bio - Michael was in that course too so it was harder for me to focus. I did touch a human brain in that class.

I also took tons of music courses - as that was my major for more than half of college - and a bunch of dance classes! How fun right? Intermediate Jazz Dance, Jazz 1 , Voice lessons - man those classes were fun!

But I still don't have a job. I'm convinced it's this economy affecting the job market. Boo.

On a lighter note, my sister re-created her own version of the GEICO googly eyes money man. She made me turn on "I always feel like somebody's watching me" and placed the money stack next to me. She's so funny!

Greg's got Skilz

This clip of our reception spans the dance floor catching a few of our friends in the moment. Especially around 1:04 Greg busts a move - not even on the dance floor - he's in his own corner. It's fantastic. Don't let Greg lie to you and tell you he can't dance. Bek, Katie, Phil, Yoony, you guys can surely spot yourselves in this too! Enjoy!

     

 

Blog from my Mom

My mom sent out this email to a bunch of her girl friends and daughters the other day. She was retelling an interaction that  she had between some man and herself. These types of things always happen to my mom:

"I have an acquaintance at my local Shoppers Food Warehouse named Chris.  Chris is a developmentally delayed young man who I've come to know by first name, and I always try to give him a cheerful Frannie greeting when I see him. (For my birthday group girls, Frannie is my mom, a.k.a. Frances).   Well today as I headed across the parking lot, I saw that he had a trail of toilet paper coming out of his pants.  Dilemma time...do I tell him about it and risk embarrassing him, or let him go on for hours at work with a piece of toilet paper dangling?  Surely no other person would be as brave as me and tell him.  So when I was close enough I gave a warm "Hello Chris!" and he proceeded to give me a big sweaty bear hug (first time for that).  I decided to go for it and said, "Hey Chris, you have some toilet paper hanging in the back..."  It took him no longer than a split second to catch my drift (not much delayed development in this category) and he was naturally embarrassed, grabbing at it.  I hurriedly added, "that's OK, it happens to all of us."  He then responded, "Not to me!"  I continued on into the store to avoid further embarrassing him,  wondering if I had done a good deed, or not.  I guess I'll never really know!"

So funny. Thankfully none of her children were with her.  Heather and I can remember dreading embarrassing moments like those. They are bound to happen!

Wedding Memories

As part of our anniversary celebration, we re-watched the videos of our wedding day. It was so fun to be reminded of everything that went on that day. I was reminded of how incredible our wedding actually was. It was beautiful, formal, elegant, well-thought out, fast paced, and most of all a huge party where nearly everyone we loved was present. One of the caterer staff, who are big-time caterers in the DC area, even said to my father that this wedding was probably the best, most well done wedding he'd ever seen after six years of working in the industry! I liked that compliment. Everything was just lovely. There isn't much I would change if i were to do it over. I may be a little biased as to the best wedding ever, but after being in the wedding industry my thoughts are only confirmed.

But like most weddings, there were tiny glitches - in the ceremony. As we watched the video last night we saw again how funny they were. Watch this little clip and look for 1) Us having trouble lighting the unity candle, 2) The train of my dress catching a candelabra and almost tipping it and 3) My new husband in effort to help straighten out my dress simply "tosses" it on the stage.

June 2, 2007

Happy 2 Year Anniversary!!!

Michael and I have LOVED our first two years of marriage! They have most certainly flown by, we still feel like we are in our first year. He has made a wonderful husband, I can't imagine having gotten married at any other time but when we did. It has been so fun to learn and grow together. Romance hasn't died and we intend to keep it that way! It helps to celebrate your marriage often and revisit that Glorious day when you were joined together as one. Keep pictures all around your house, watch videos of the day, write cards to each other, talk about your favorite memories from your wedding.  Anniversaries are made for celebrating the special time in history when something significant occurred. 

Marriage is amazing. I love you Michael!!!

Weekend in VA Beach

Michael and I had a great little get-away to Virginia Beach this past weekend. We got to stay with and visit our friends, the Andrews, and attend a wedding on Saturday.  I must say it was a much needed break from reality after a not-so-encouraging week. Catching up with our friends was wonderful and we were so grateful for their time! 

My camera mostly stayed down in the depths of my purse but here are some of the only photos from our weekend:

Patrick and Teresa - Pat was one of Michael's housemates for 3 years in college

Low quality pic, but she was so pretty I just wanted to capture it.

Low quality faces, but I really like my dress.

Does anybody recognize this squishible? He is so sweet!

So there you have it. Our weekend in a really small nut shell.