Happy Birthday Hubby!

We celebrated Shaun's 26th birthday at Grandma's in Illinois. The day was pretty uneventful. We fished in the morning, had cake in the afternoon, and went to Culver's for dinner. It was a nice change of pace for a birthday celebration.

This past weekend we went out to dinner to celebrate his birthday back in Arizona. Shaun's favorite place to go for his birthday is Benihana's. We have gone there for his birthday almost every year. This year we found out that if you sign up for their rewards club online, the month of your birthday you get $30 off. Sweet!

While at dinner, we were reminiscing about Shaun's past birthdays and what we did for each of them. While we were talking about them, we figured out that this was the 5th birthday that we have spent together. I can not believe it has been 5 years! I don't know why this was so shocking to us, we have been married for 3 years, but for some reason it just does not feel like we have been celebrating birthdays together for 5 years!

Happy Birthday Babe!

Fishing in Illinois

While we were visiting Grandma, we went to the neighborhood "Farm and Fleet" shop. We came across the fishing section and decided that it would be fun to buy a rod and bait, get a fishing license, and go fishing!

The first afternoon that we went we had no luck. The fish were just not hungry.

After a few hours of trying to get the fish to bite, we gave up. It was getting really warm and we were getting a sunburn. We decided that we would get up early the next morning and try again. Thankfully, we had a lot more luck in the morning! I think it was because it was Shaun's birthday!

Although they were small catfish, we still had a lot of fun! Shaun is already ready for us to go fishing again.

Visiting Grandma Palmer

Shaun and I just got back from Illinois where we went with all of the Palmers to visit Shaun's Grandma. We spent four days in a small town two hours outside of Chicago. Grandma came out to Phoenix for our wedding three years ago, but we haven't seen her since. It was great for me to get to know her, since the wedding was too busy for me to actually get to sit down and talk to her.

The scenery in Illinois was gorgeous. I loved seeing all of the green landscape and all of the corn fields everywhere!! It was such a great sight, compared to the desert that we are used to.

The nephew and I. He will say cheese when he takes a picture (hence the funny face that he is making :)

Shaun and I with Grandma Palmer.

We would go on walks at night and at sunset the fireflies would come out. Shaun would catch them for our nephew and show them to him. He loved it! He would say "shaun. catch."

I will post more pictures and stories about fishing, Shaun's birthday and sight-seeing in Chicago in the next few days.

Natalie Palmer, R.N.

I AM OFFICIALLY A REGISTERED NURSE!!!!!!!!!!!

There are so many words that describe my feelings right now....relieved, excited, happy, exhausted, thankful.....

I took the test on Wednesday afternoon. After leaving the test, I didn't know how to feel about it. It was long, hard and exhausting. I knew that if I failed I could take it again, but I wanted so badly not to have to take it again.

I wouldn't find out the results until the next morning, so Shaun tried to get my mind off of it by taking me out to dinner at La Grande Orange Pizzeria. yum! It definitely helped to get me distracted for a little bit.

That night was horrible, I hardly slept and when I did my mind was still racing. Finally morning came and I could hardly wait! I just wanted to know if I needed to keep studying or if I could be done........ 11:30 did not come fast enough.......between Shaun and I, we checked the website 500 times that morning.

My Mom and sister were over at the time that I found out. It was great to get to celebrate with them and Shaun!!!

I officially have a license number!!! I never knew that a few letters behind my name would mean so much to me. I have put so much time into school and it has finally payed off. I am so thankful.

3rd Anniversary

A few weeks ago it was our third wedding anniversary. We had a wonderful day together. Shaun had the day off from the Brewers and I had the day off from work. We went to one of our favorite breakfast spots, the breakfast club. This was really special because for the past 3 months Shaun has been working in the mornings for 6 days out of the week. I forgot how much I miss spending time with him in the mornings.

After spending time at the pool, we got ready for date night. We went out to dinner at Tutti Santi, a wonderful Italian restaurant. They have the best homemade Ravioli! Although dinner and dessert was wonderful, the server was not so wonderful at taking pictures. Below is the fuzzy one that he took:

As weird as it may sound, we haven't ever watched our wedding video. Our families did some hand held videotaping and we had a videocamera set up in the back of the church during the ceremony. The one thing I regret from the wedding, is not having a professional videographer. At the time, it was just another expense that we decided to cut.

Watching the video three years later brought back all the old memories of how excited I was that day! I love the man I married more today than the day I said "I do". I know that everyone says this, but on the day that I married him I thought that it was the most that i could love him, but months and years after that day I feel more in love with him. I had no idea that this would happen!

We spent our anniversary reminiscing about our dating years and all of the great times we have had together. God has blessed our marriage so much and we are looking forward to the next year ahead!

Graduation

Ok, so I know it was a few months ago, but I thought I would post some pictures from my Pinning Ceremony.

It was a wonderful night and felt great to celebrate all of my hard work.

above: Shaun "pinning" me with my nursing pin.

below: my graduating class

Above: my Aunts flew into town to celebrate.

Below: I got a ton of wonderful gifts.

Spring Catch Up

Since graduation, I have been enjoying some time off. I guess you can't really call it time off because I have been studying for my boards, applying for nursing jobs and working a lot, but it has been nice not having to go to class.

I'll share some of my favorite pictures from Spring:

Since Shaun is still interning with the Milwaukee Brewers, when the Brewers came into town we got tickets to watch them play the D-backs.

Shaun, Jessica and I went to the Phil Wickham, Leeland, and Matt Maher concert. It was AMAZING.

This is my favorite spring picture of us with our nephew. He is such a little toddler now. Don't you just love his tie?

The next few pictures is from my trip to California to visit with family out there. My brother, Michael, just got his drivers permit and drove for a while. It is so funny to see him driving.

While out in California, we went out to dinner at a vietnamese restaurant. My family has a slight obsession with a dish called Pho (pronounced "Fa"). If you look at it in the picture, it doesn't look very appetizing, but trust me it is really good. The best way to describe it is like a beef noodle soup.

I will post more updates over the next week. Sorry for the long break. Life just seems to move too fast.