Cafe de Valentine

so we are almost certian that our house hunt is over. i guess it's not really over until you're holding the keys since there are so many things in this economy that can mess things up. so without putting all our eggs in one basket... we should be painting OUR new home the weekend of thanksgiving. the WHOLE house needs paint as each wall in the house is a different, yet bright color. other than that there really isn't a thing we HAVE to do. it's in great shape. we've enjoyed the home buying process but i think we're ready to start packing and preparing to make a house our home. and the best part?? our street name is "Home". fitting i think.

i am completely captivated by photography. i love group photos, couples photos, family photos, abstract photos, scenery photos, rustic photos, wedding photos, maternity photos, etc etc etc. i love to look at photos and the lighting, the background, the color, the subjects, the focus etc. however i can't take fabulous pictures to save my life. i try, desperately to no avail. i have so many close friends that are so good at it that it's frustrating. i have found MANY photography blogs that i love to keep up with. i'll add them to my list of blogs i follow for any others of you who enjoy photography. in the meantime, i try. even while in a moving vehicle.

this last weekend we headed to hanford to celebrate ryan's sister's upcoming wedding. our good family friends the stryd's threw a fun couples shower for oz & kate. it was a great time of catching up with families from hanford that we haven't seen in a year or so. one of the family friends, the smarts, made katie a "mini veil" to wear for the shower. they brought in food from our most favorite restuarant, sal's, and got a yummy cake from costco. we had a great time playing the newly wed game and watching them open all their nice gifts. we had a great time and look forward to the wedding next month!

i recently stumbled upon some OLD photos. one folder was from the summer of 2004. this was four short years ago, and speaking of short... my hair was just that. i LOVED my short hair and i often miss the simplicity of "the do" however my husband is not such a fan. he much prefers my hair long. he would probably love my hair to be longer than it currently is, but i get frustrated during my morning routine and cut off a few inches in hopes of something new. my hair has had a variety of styles over the last four years, however the longer it gets the fewer options i have. i am a gal who loves change therefore i sometimes miss the flexibility. what a difference four years can make!

i've learned one valuable lesson being married for over two years now. i mean, i've learned a lot about marriage and about myself as a wife... but the key lesson learned has been how everything is now experienced TOGETHER. every trial, every stress, every change, every illness, every emotion, every sleepless night... EVERYTHING. i have noticed this little by little, but even more so over the last month. ryan is now in his third week on the new job. one was total overwhelming melt down. he had no clue what to expect, where he would be placed, who his supervisor would be etc. the first two days was more prep work than job related: getting sworn in, signing paperwork, getting his badge, choosing health insurance etc. the third day was figuring out what department he would be working in, his general job description, getting his office (see below post by r) etc. day three and four were some general training seminars for his department with his fellow co-workers where he heard some &

This weekend changed my perspective of what a good movie is. I mean I have been to the movies before, leaving the theater with a good feeling about the movie I had just seen; but that has been the extent of the excitement or enjoyment I have felt for a good or even great movie. This weekend was very different. My wife and I, along with my father-in-law, decided on a whim to go see the movie Fireproof, and what a movie it was! Yes, the acting may have been a little cheesy at first, but once you got past the first 15 minutes you can find yourself caught up in a great story, one that I feel (know) is relevant for everyone at every age. This movie was fantastic. A must see. It is one that I would recommend to everyone I know and even don't know. I know you are probably reading this thinking that I must be crazy, but I am not. I am just plain excited and thankful. Thankful for a movie that Hollywood, movie-goers, and society needed and excited for the message that it emits. We are un

while our whole goal for our weekends lately is to relax and de-stress my husband, i find that doing fun things often helps as well. this weekend we managed to sleep in BOTH saturday and sunday (which is a big deal for r, as he doesn't usually sleep longer than 6 hours) which i'm hoping gave us a good jump start to the week. friday night we had dinner and dessert with jeff and candi (our good friends and upstairs neighbors) and played a game of cards (which the girls won, finally!). saturday night we went to the FSU homecoming game... and we WON! and yesterday proved to be an enjoyable day at the movies. we saw the movie "fireproof" with kirk cameron. the movie is a low budget christian film about marriage and love done biblically. i was interested in seeing it from the time it came out, however i really hadn't made the effort to go, i wasn't in a hurry. i figured being a christian low budget film, that the acting would be terrible (which it started a bit roug

Well the week of mourning is coming to an end and the excitement for another redemptive shot is right around the corner. It's time to get your game faces on. Go ahead and pull your bulldog red back out of the trash, because the season is far from over. A WAC title is still within reach,but it is important that show some love for the DOGS! So grab your gear, get it ready for Saturday, and get ready to cheer the dogs on. Game time is 7PM and I hope to see you all there! Ry

jill got married the first weekend of september and it was the party of the year! we had a great time laughing and dancing and celebrating her day! this photo takes me back to the good ole' days. jill and i met in pre-school and she and i met brittany in junior high and we've been the three musketeers ever since! the crazy thing... b just had a baby three months before this photo and looks this good! don't you just wanna kick her?

just for a good laugh. this was actually taken with ryan's cell phone as we were driving down the street one day. i'd like to note the bbq on the very top of the pile. needless to say, we didn't drive too close. how does one load and unload this mess?

i don't get it. not one bit. i see the commericals (like they even offer the WHOLE story), i watch (kinda) the debates, i watch the news, i engage in conversation etc. yet at the end of the day, i couldn't really tell you where each guy stands on EVERY issue. to be honest, i hear more backlashing at each other, than facts about where they stand. then don't get me started on local politics... how are we supposed to keep them all straight. you drive around town and see the billboards and signs on every corner and in most yards so i can tell you all the names... but i don't have a clue what they're running for, or better yet, where they stand on the issues at hand. i fear i'm not the only one with this issue. talking with people about the issues seems to only complicate things. most of the time, they've gotten their info from a not so reliable source, or they know where they stand, so they only tell you half the story. which leaves me, yet again, confused. i

well, fall has offically arrived as football season is well underway. while we as a couple follow NFL a bit... college football is truely the focus these days. we are the proud owner of season tickets to the Fresno State Football games and we even made the drive down to LA two weekends ago for the FSU vs. UCLA game (which we won). nothing is more thrilling than the team running from the "tunnel" to the awaiting fans cheering them on. the band playing the fight song. the cheerleaders flipping and twirling their way down the field ahead of the team. of course, our favorite part is watching the real pet bulldog puppy play with a toy football on the side lines of each game (for those of you who don't know, ry and i have always wanted an old english bulldog). this last saturday we played Hawaii in a heart breaking game which we lost in overtime by three points. as you can see the hawaii team has some BIG boys with lots of hair! they played well and while we should have beat th

Welp, there she is, my new personal workstation. It is kind of a different feeling having an office of your own for the first time in your life. It's almost in a sense surreal. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would ever have an office of my own (I mean who in their right mind would allow me to have one, much less provide me one on my first day of work). It was in a sense a wake up call to adulthood, not to take anything away from walking down the aisle to the woman of my dreams, but this was different. This was a jaw dropping event for me, walking up to an office with my name greeting me as I walked in. Good thing I wore my big boy pants to work that day, becuase I was going to need them (but why I would need them is a topic for another blog). All in all though my first day at the new job went pretty smoothly, no massive paper cuts, no run-in's with the staple gun, and no one died (what a relief). What I did take away from my first day at my new job is that there

house shopping is quite a task. there's so many things that us gals look for in a house. colors, layout, decor potential, etc. i LOVE decorating, so this was especially difficult for me. when i walk into a house i think what walls would look good painted certian colors, i think which walls would need small framed artwork, which walls would need more of a collage of artwork or a shelving unit etc. then there's the kitchen... every gal must have a decent kitchen! i also find that a kitchen that opens into the living room is a MUST for me. i want to know that when i have company over that they can all be in the living room socializing and i can be putting the finishing touches on a meal and still be social. so many things to consider. nonetheless we're searching long and hard. we'll see what becomes of any of it.

so i know many people that have taken to the blogging world and each of them says the same thing when they first start, "once you create a blog everything throughout the day becomes a potential blog topic". especially for those who feel the need to blog often, you want to be sure what you post that day is worth reading. i can't tell you how many times in the last 48 hours i've said to myself "that could be a blog topic!". now really, do you all want to know how distracted i was in church last night, or how monica turned another year older yesterday (see her blog for detials on that) or how my husband and i spend our first weekend off work together and got on each others nerves within moments of waking up each day... why sure you do! if i didn't blog about these little things, i would have nothing left to blog about. so that's what you get! r and i did have a great relaxing weekend but we did realize how different our ideas of weekends are. i will pos

welcome to Cafe de Valentine. we hope that this blog provides you some fun, inspirational, entertaining, and educational reading material... maybe even over your daily "cup 'o joe". we strive each day to enjoy each other and those around us and we look forward to sharing our little moments with you. there are also days where we bug each other and probably those around us and we'd love to share those moments to. we're not perfect, we don't have the perfect marriage, the perfect house, the perfect faith, nor the perfect attitudes toward any of the above. we realize that most of you may not either. so we've learned to laugh along the way! we hope you will too!