Susan + Michael Archives - 2 Cats and Chloe

If I woke up tomorrow with my head sewn to the carpet, I wouldn’t be anymore surprised than I am right now.

— Clark W. Griswold.

If you know me or if you read my December Confessions post last week, you know that my biggest upset of 2015 is probably the fact that we will not be “home for the holidays.” We started packing up our home in January - and 12 months later, while we are closer to having our new home, we still aren’t there. I sincerely thought the stars would align, the hammers would hammer, the walls would go up and some how, by the grace of God, we would be home by Christmas.

Unfortunately, we aren’t. And I have been really struggling with a dark cloud of depression because of it. My husband spends every moment he isn’t at work, working on something at our house. So when he spent this entire last weekend out there, it wasn’t a surprise. But when he called and asked me to drive 35 minutes, in the cold, to bring him a random tool that he had forgotten… I was a little not-thrilled.

When I arrived, he told me he wanted me to see what he had been working on in the room over the garage. I didn’t think anything of it because he had been putting insulation walls up in there all weekend. So I pregnantly wobbled up the unfinished stairwell and saw this:

He had the room set up with two little chairs, a blanket, a themos of hot chocolate, a heater, a christmas tree and our television (from the storage unit) with my favorite movie Christmas Vacation playing!

Seriously. Be still my heart.

Christmas Vacation 4

Being 25 weeks pregnant, once we sat down to start watching, of course I got hungry. And without skipping a beat, in fear of ruining this party, I recommended we order pizza! “Can you order pizza to a house under construction?” was his immediate question… I decided, why not?! So we did! And we ate it straight out of the boxes. And it was delicious, in all of it’s non-paleo, gluten free glory!

After almost an entire movie of reciting the lines out loud together, laughing at Cousin Eddie and having the dogs hassle around the entire time… Olivia finally settled down in the last 3 minutes of the flick.

And of course we had to snap a selfie to remember this moment… Our first Christmas memory in our new home! All bundled up in our cold, dark, drafty house. No makeup. No napkins for greasy hands. No dog food. But tons of happiness and love.

Way to score some husband points Michael! It takes A LOT to surprise a planner like me. It was such a great reminder that despite a year of transition, ups and downs, extreme hormones and lots of tears, I really am one lucky girl. Merry Christmas everyone!

NEWSFLASH! My fiance is home from his deployment in Japan! Which is why I haven’t been here writing. After several months of only seeing someone via Skype, you really want to spend as much time with that person before he has to go back to work.

Which, yes, after 3 weeks, he has gone back to work. Which means I can go back to working, and cleaning, and blogging, and wedding work, and basically just going back to overall productiveness.

I apologize for my absence, but I am sure many of you can understand!

So how about a quick photo recap of the past month!

First, Michael came home! Can you tell how excited he was to see me?!

He was very concerned about my BPA- intake so he bought me a new Nalgene bottle that just happens to be beautifully colored. (By the way, should I be concerned about my BPA intake?!)

I finally finished up the forever-week BOLD class I took at my mom’s Keller Williams office. Yes, I did roll in money. Yes, I did graduate. Oh, and the piece of paper you see below was a great exercise we did on the last day… everyone went around the room writing something they loved about each other on their backs. At the end we got to read what people thought of us. I was shocked to see that numerous people perceived me to be “classy.”

(They must not read this blog…)

We went to the beach with the G-Fam! It was just for an afternoon but I enjoyed a little fun in the sun while Michael tried to teach his nephew how to build sandcastles… when that didn’t work out, Michael just decided to bury Anthony! No big deal.

Then we hid little children in jets, rockets and airplanes. Because when it says “do not touch” we read “hide children here.”

Speaking of beach time… The perks of being a wedding planner in this area? You plan all over the place and occasionally have a great excuse to head to the Outer Banks of North Carolina! I took my sweet friend (and secondary coordinator) Sarah May with me! She got to have her first BREW THRU experience! Yes, it’s exactly as it sounds… you drive through and they load you up with booze, snacks, and awesome t-shirts.

Did I mention we were topless? Well… Jeep Topless. Gotta keep it classy right?

Some wedding to-do’s were finally checked off the to-do list! Like tux shopping! What do you think of this look?

Oh and we had a lunch date in Colonial Williamsburg! Michael took me to lunch at The Trellis! A well known, delicious place right in the heart of the colonial area. We were lucky enough to sit right at the window too!

I finally made great use of my garden tools that Jessica sent me for my birthday! I never did blog about my first blog present did I?! Oh and I grew tomatoes! (For some crazy reason, tomatoes are the only thing that worked in my garden this year!)

Of course I drank some wine once or twice in the past month also. I even had a bridal shower at a winery! More to come on that very soon!

We got our new KING SIZE BED!! Thank you Jesus! And thank you to my future mom and dad in law! (And thanks to my mom for the ikea headboard!) I can sleep again at night! No more ninja kicks or kung fu chops from the future hubs-to-be at night.

And now I can finally start decorating the master bedroom! Yay!

Did I mention we checked a bunch of wedding to-do’s off our list? This was at the Chamberlin, where we will celebrate on November 9th! Can’t wait!

In other news, things around the house are coming along. I am still unpacking, sorting and cleaning.

There is a bit of sadness right now… one of the “two cats” has had to leave for a little while. It turns out that Spitty is just not adapting very well to living here. She has had many stress related “accidents” of all types (you name it, she’s done it… even on my pink couch…) So for the time being she is living with my parents an hour away. She seems to be adjusting, but I’m hopeful that she can come home soon. Poor little Rockie just goes around the house crying all the time… Considering they are such independent animals, I was SHOCKED to see how much he misses his sister.

Time to get some work and organizing done! I’m cooking my first pork roast tonight too! Wish me luck!