Catching Up

It's been awhile once again and I am trying to play catch up on all that we have been doing.
We were in Denver recently for a Broncos game and we had a great time. Nathan's parents joined us, as this was his dads first Broncos game. It was a victory and such an amazing game. Nathan and I had a wonderful time and did some Christmas shopping while we were there. The weather was perfect.

In our game day Bronco gear!

Dad & Son

$12 Bloody Mary, green chili cheese tater tots and a Bronco dog!

So as you can tell it was a good day!

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Most Romantic Day of My Life...

Here are some of the photos that we have been anxiously awaiting from my good friend, David Thompson and Aaron Matney....

We have a few more to post but will work on that later this weekend. What a beautiful day it was...

Wedding Package Photos

We just got in the CD of our photos. Here are some pics from the wedding package photog. Not that many great ones, so that's why we are so excited to see the ones taken by my amazing friend/pro photographer extraordinaire, David Thompson and Aaron Matney. We will post those as soon as we get them. I got a text from David and we shoul get them this weekend.

Broncos

It was yet another sad day for the Broncos, but at least we looked good!



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Belated Birthday Wishes

So in the hustle and bustle that is my life, I totally forgot to blog about Nathans birthday that was yesterday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOVE!!! Me and the girls wish we could have been there to celebrate with you but fortunately we were able to celebrate early on Monday night with some yummy dinner courtesy of my future MIL and homemade German Chocolate Cake baked by yours truly. Yes, I do cook occasionally but baking is more my forte! I hope you enjoy the watch that you have been eyeing for so long, you deserve it! I felt so terrible that he was having to spend his birthday alone there in Espanola, but the amazing officers in District 7 surprised him with a birthday cake and the dispatchers sang to him. That makes my heart happy knowing that he is appreciated and is surrounded by camaraderie.

8/12/11 Update

It seems that life is running at about 150 mph these days. No time to even pick my nose! School starts on Tuesday so we are busy trying to get the girls situated and ready for that. My parents are taking them to El Paso today for a day of shopping and lunch and then I will take them on Sunday for the same thing. Spoiled trolls!! :) It was a busy week and a half for me. I traveled up to northern NM for my job and got to see some amazing areas of our great state. I worked in Farmington on Thursday and actually loved the area, then went to Gallup and worked there on Friday. I had to then work in Las Cruces on Tuesday and then work in Los Lunas on Wednesday! I actually enjoy the traveling. I am so lucky to have a great job, wonderful boss and co-workers. It makes it so much easier.
Lola had her 6 month eye exam with her opthamologist yesterday. Her peepers are well and no serious problems can be detected. She still has that small cataract on her right eye, but it hasn't grown or deterred her vision so that is a plus. She has to see her opthamologist on a routine basis because of the 2 medications that she has taken for 10+ years and all the side effects that they can have on the eyes. The Prednisone and Plaquenil are monsters to this area. So she will be back to see Dr. Yang in February and we will discuss contact lenses at that time. I cannot believe that she is gonna be in contacts soon! She is growing up too fast.
Jo should be getting her car out of the shop today. Yikes, hide your kids, grannies and families and get them off the road! She will have wheels and is not afraid to use them! Hopefully JR will have her car done today and she can be on the road soon. So off to DMV I go today for her registration and all that jazz. Thank you Nathan for all you have done for her by getting the car and all the parts and working on it to get it ready for her. You are amazing and I cant put into words how thankful we are for all you do!
So we are 35 days out from the wedding! So many little things to get done. Today I will go drop off his suit and tie at the dry cleaners so it can be pressed and made fancy and Monday I will order the flowers and this weekend we will find Jo her shoes. Yup, still no stress or anxiety and not quit sure if I will really have any, this is just too easy!! :)

Sunset in Taos, NM

Just how spoiled am I? Well, I got taken to Taos for dessert this weekend and got to experience the Gorge at sunset!!

How beautiful is that? The tranquility was overwhelming.

You can just about see the anxiety in Nathans face in this picture!

School Registration

I cant believe that it is already school registration today, that summer is almost over and that I now offically have a senior in high school! Nothing like coming to that realization to make you feel older than you already do! So having the girls register in Alamogordo was not part of our "plan" but here we are. We had planned on me already be settled in with a job and a house by this time and thats not the case. After a tearful talk that other night, Nathan and I have decided that I will no longer look for jobs and go to interviews in Santa Fe until next year. With the girls starting school already, its just not what we want to do at this time. The only way I will possibly take an interview is with the Labs in Los Alamos or a stellar position with the state. No more searching and applying until about April of next year. I can now just concentrate on the kids, fixing the house, the wedding and getting Jo ready for graduation! It will be hard on all of us and not the way that I wanted to start out our marriage, but we have done it for over 2 years already and this will only make us stronger as a family and will make us cherish the time that we do get together.

Pre-Application for Marriage License

We did it this morning.... we submitted the pre-application for our marriage license in Clark County!!! We are about 56 days away! We cant wait to celebrate this momentous day with the girls and our family and close friends. We have family already making airline and hotel reservations and we are finishing up some last minute details and decisions and its been such a fun process for us both. So far we have kept our sanity and just had a good time working on projects for this day. I just talked to my good friend and photographer, David Thompson, who will be our amazing photographer for the day. His work is totally amazing and I am so thankful for him and I cant wait to see him and catch up. I know he will catch some beautiful images of the first day of the rest of our lives. Thank God for PhotoShop which he will use to make me look tan, tall and skinny!! LOL. I cant wait to see the girls in their beautiful black dresses, all dressed up and even Lola in her surprise "kicks", since she doesnt do dressy shoes. Still have many things to finish and check off "the list" but we are well on our way to our goal.

Road Trip

Me and the kids will be heading to Santa Fe this evening and meeting Nathan and his parents for the NMSP promotion ceremony tomorrow morning. It is also Jordyn's 17th birthday, so text her, call her or post "happy slappy birfday" on her facebook wall. Her gift is en route and wont be delivered until tomorrow evening, so that stinks, I was hoping to have it today so that we could give to her tomorrow when we take her to lunch at Rio Chama Steakhouse. :) Oh well, we will be back tomorrow night so it will be here when we get back home. I hope she likes it.
So it will be pizza, wings and poolside when we get into Santa Fe tonight. We found a pizza joint in Santa Fe that does gluten-free pizza for Lola and she is just beaming about this. The Rooftop Pizza does GF crust so this is a plus. I can almost taste the Dions and chelada. C'mon 5 o'clock!!!

Promotion Ceremony

Nathan got an email from the Chief at headquarters this morning and he received his orders to be present for the awards ceremony in Santa Fe on the 20th of this month for his recent promotion to Sergeant.

I am so proud of him for this accomplishment and he really loves his new position in Espanola. With that being said, a sense of anxiety has crept up on me. He had asked me when he received this promotion that I have the honor of "pinning" him for the ceremony. I gladly accepted as this is a big step in his career and I am there to support him 110% and show him that I am his biggest fan and cheerleader but as my closest family and friends know, I have a fear of getting up in big crowds. I wont even leave a class, seminar, meeting, to go to the restroom even if my eyeballs are swimming! I have this huge fear that I will trip and fall and then everyone will laugh at me! I know its silly but what if that happens while we are walking up to the stage? I will embarrass him in front of all of his co-workers. The fear has started to mount within and I am feeling that I may puke that morning! Maybe some self-hypnotherapy might work, or some liquid courage! Just kidding! Poor guy, I will be a mess that morning, on "his" day! :)

Weekend Update

What a nice and relaxing weekend we had. Even though the girls didnt join us and we missed them terribly, we were able to relax and just unwind. On Friday I headed up to meet Nathan in Santa Fe, but on the way, I stopped in Albuquerque for my first laser tattoo removal treatment. Lets just say that I had a momentary lapse of better judgment many years ago and thought it would be fun to get a tattoo on my ring finger. Well the "art" lasted longer than the nuptials, so that hideous thing needs to come off and what better timing than before September 17th!!! It wasnt nearly as painful as I thought it would be, just a few zaps and literally 5 seconds later, my first treatment was done. I gotta go back in 4 weeks for the next treatment. I am so excited to get that thing removed! So then I hit the road again and was off to Santa Fe. We were able to look at a few condos/townhomes and get a good idea of where we will plan to live when I finally get a job and we move up. I'm thinking it will be easier for the kids and I if we find a place that has gated security, a pool and a gym and we did find a few cute places. So thats a bit of weight off my shoulders. Nathan and I went to eat at a few neat places. On Saturday we were going to head to the Santa Fe Wine Fesitival but we thought it would be better to just head over to Whole Foods and get some fresh fruit and beers and lounge by the poolside. Which we did and it was awesome! Then we got dressed up fancy and we had reservations at El Meson, a Spanish restaurant downtown that serves Paella and tapas and homemade sangria. They had flamenco dancers and singing going on too. The food was pretty good, expensive, but good, it was the service that was horrible!! We wont ever go back there. It seems that nothing compares to Rio Chama! Yummmmmmm. On Sunday morning we woke up and went to our favorite breakfast place, the Guadalupe Cafe. They have the most amazing homemade cinnamon rolls, but they were sold out before we had a chance to enjoy one! Boooooooooo! We saw a few other places and then we headed up to Espanola. Nathan took me to Los Alamos where the fire has struck and it was so sad. The smoke was terrible and after about 30 minutes in the area, our throats got itchy and irritated and be started having a headache, so we headed back down and finished off with sandwiches and a movie. I woke up early Monday morning and headed back to Alamo, as me and my mom threw a surprise 40th birthday party for our dear friend, Lydia. She was so surprised and cried like a baby! :) It was a good time for her and her family and I was happy that she enjoyed. It seemed that she had never had anyone throw her a party!
So that was our weekend and back to the grind on Tuesday. I had my tooth extracted and boy that was horrible. Either Im a big baby or it was really that painful! Probably a bit of both! So now it has to heal and Im tired of eating jello and soft mushy food, I need substance!! Tacos, chips, salsa, you name it.
As far as the wedding plans are going, we are now 73 days away! Formal invitations went out yesterday to close family and friends only. We decided from the beginning that we didnt want a circus and thats why we decided Las Vegas. Something small and intimate and yet fun and maybe a little crazy. We are both so excited and cant believe that it is almost here. I am keeping my fingers crossed for smooth sailing!

Jo's New Wheels

Can I possibly be this old already? My first born just got her first car! What?!!! It just seems like yesterday that she was running around saying "narbles" because she couldnt say marbles right and now here she is with her first car. Where did the time go? How did she grow up on me? Enter sad face here.
Nathan went to Socorro on Tuesday and picked up her pimp mobile. Its a 2002 Mitsubishi Mirage that needs some work but she is super excited and thankful. She is already wanting to deck it out with headlight eyelashes and Hello Kitty junk all throughout! It will be a pink nightmare by the time she is done with it. Nathan will be doing the majority of the work on it to getting it ready for her. He is waiting on some parts and once they come in, he will throw on his grease monkey garb and get down to business. He is so handy and a true man! Me and the girls are blessed to have him in our life. Thank you babes, for all you have done for us and how you so effortlessly take care of everything! We appreciate you more than you will ever know!

Sitting Alone

Sitting alone,
Mind racing,
Thoughts a blur,
Seeing the despair,
Watching the questions,
Hearing the fear...

A look around, need only be brief...

The waiting room in any hospital is filled with all these deep emotions, yet a waiting room in a children's hospital seems to magnify them
all around by an exponential value not yet describable.   The parents, friends, loved ones and relatives wait feverishly for any word providing an indication of how things are going.  If only all could share in the strength and hope written on one of these kids faces and seated deep in their hearts, our days would be much simpler and full of appreciation!  Please keep Lola and our family in your thoughts and prayers.

This was written by my amazing fiancee. His ability to convey his feelings and emotions into words truly amazes me.

Relaxation, What Is That?

No one can seem to explain to me what relaxation is. These days its 200 MPH with no end in sight. I cant seem to not ever have anything to do. Its crazy how fast the year has gone and its now almost half over! Today I glanced at my wedding countdown app on my iPhone and gasped when I saw that we are 99 days away!

Holy schnikes, where did the time go? I will be Mrs. Nathan Barton in 99 days! Oh my goodness, I am so excited! My girls dresses have been bought and they look so amazing in them. Jordyn loves hers and she tried it on and I couldnt believe she is only almost 17 years old! Yikes, I'm in big trouble! And Allorah, well, she is no longer my baby girl, she looks so grown up. Now if I can just convince her that converse sneakers are not my choice of shoe, then we will be fine! :) I just wish that Diesel Bentley could make the nuptials. I just want to see him in a tuxedo! He would be our ring bearer but with our luck, he would eat a fairly large amount of jewelry and we would have to be scouring his turds! So, maybe leaving him at home is a more suitable option! We have decided that we are writing our own vows and we are actually already almost done with that. Can you believe how we are just so organized and on top of things? I know I cant! Here is our wedding website if you wanna take a sneak peek on what we are planning: http://www.mywedding.com/shannonandnathan/
Its cheesy and corny but so are we.

Home Sweet Home

We made it home safe and sound and we are beat! My poor Nathan did the entire drive since we all suffer from road trip narcolepsy. :) At least I can say I have the worlds most handsome chauffeur!

We are home for 12 days then we take off to Chicago on the 16th for Allorahs surgery to remove calcinosis on her right hip. Then after that maybe she can finally enjoy her summer. Thank you mom and dad for traveling with us and being there for us during this trip. The kids had a great time minus all the hospital business but it was a nice time with you. Thank you to all our family and friends for all the prayers. Love you all!


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Relax

It was a nice weekend of relaxing for me. After the emotional rollercoaster the last 2 weeks, I needed to just relax this weekend and regroup. So off to Espanola I went. We were invited to 2 parties on Saturday, a graduation party at Black Mesa golf course for a friend and colleague of Nathans and then to a dinner party at Rancho de Chimayo for the promotion of one of his bosses. Both parties were nice and we had an amazing time.


Nathan and I at Black Mesa Gold Course

 For the first time in my life, I bowled on Saturday. Yup, thats right, you heard me, I BOWLED! And not by choice! It wasnt bad, but I totally had to face my fear head on and put on shoes that did not belong to me!! I wasnt happy about it, but the 2 cheladas I drank helped with the anxiety I was having!


Nice, huh?

 It was a beautiful weekend. We even went to Abiqui lake on Saturday and then I met a good friend for breakfast in Santa Fe on Sunday morning on the way home. It was what I needed to be able to refresh, regroup and focus on next week.

Wedding Madness

It's crazy how planning a small wedding can be. I can't imagine if this was a huge shin dig. Thank goodness it's not, I would probably have to slit my wrists!
We have so much already done and I am so proud of myself in how well I'm not stressing yet. My wedding dress arrived last week and it's beautiful, all 12 lbs of it!! I can't post a pic of it since Nathan doesn't want to see it until "the day!" He is quite adamant about it. But we did find his suit on Sunday and I might add it looks dapper!! The red tie just sets it off and he looks so handsome. Here is what it will be.

I might add that he picked this out and is so on point with what looks good. I told him that he could pick out his attire and that I knew he wouldn't need my help.


I searched for my perfect shoes and I found them.

They are sooooooo sexy! I absolutely love them and they are quite comfortable too. I did good!


We already have our ceremony reserved and the restaurant for the dinner booked, wedding cake picked out, flowers picked out, dresses for Lola and Jojo agreed upon, his wedding ring is being bought in 2 weeks, OOT bag ideas in the making and Save the Dates and invitations picked out. Whew!! I'm so organized!

Engagement photos are this coming Tuesday on the 1st and I can't wait to see what Ashlee comes up with and my first dress fitting is the following day on the 2nd. I'm so nervous about it for some reason. I still have about 10 lbs that I wanna lose, so hopefully I can accomplish that.

Our wedding planning has been so exciting and I couldnt be happier! Nathan has been so involved and so hands on and if it wasn't for him, I'm sure I would stress out!! I love you babes, thank you for all you have done to help in our momentous day!

YTL

Our wedding date, what it means

So many people have asked me why we chose September 17th, 2011 as our wedding date. So I went to Nathans blog and commandeered his post from awhile back...

"We chose the date September 17, 2011 and I couldn’t be more excited! First off 17 is my favorite number, I am marrying the most amazing woman and I will then officially be the luckiest man in the world.

Now I am kind of a weird numbers guy but found this little tidbit hidden in our date, follow along…
If we reduce the date to numbers 09-17-11 and we add 9+1+7 for the month and day we get 17. Then adding 1+7 we get 8! Turned on it side it gives the sign for eternity.
Now we take 2011 and add 2+0+1+1 and we get 4 and divide that by 2 (that variable is her and I and we will always be as referenced above, eternal) and we are 2!
Eternally the two the of us, 8 and 2!
So you see, it is meant to be, her and me on 9-17-11…"

So, how many people can say that their significant other can blow them away by just a few simple words? I know I can and he does it so effortlessly! So there you go, thats whats so special about 9/17/11.