Hopeless Romantic

We're officially in trouble. Elliana at 3 years of age is in love-with being in love!
I'd like to say I don't know where she gets it from, but the truth is I was always a hopeless romantic growing up. I was always in love with love, and man, was I boy crazy (just ask my sisters)! I guess I have to admit that she's like me in this way.

Although I had these traits growing up, I never thought about what it would be like as a mom to watch my daughter blush and smile when it comes to romance. I'm already scared for what she will be like as a teenager.

Here's a little proof for you:

She loves Disney movies, but her favorite scenes are always the kissing scenes, the dancing scenes, and the wedding scenes. Those are the scenes she wants to watch over and over again.

Or even better, if I'm on the computer she'll ask to go to youtube and watch this video:

When I told her a few months ago that my cousin is getting married, she clapped her hands and jumped for joy. Then, with a big smile on her face, she asked "Are they going to kiss?!"

Every day when Caleb gets home from work Ellie and Ethan run (or crawl) to the door to greet him. After they give Caleb a HUGE hug, Ellie always, without fail, says "Daddy, kiss Mommy." And if that wasn't enough sometimes she tells him to kiss me longer or kiss me more.

The other day in the car I was listening to a CD Caleb made for me many years ago. The CD has a lot of our favorite romance songs on it. I assumed the kids would get wrestless after hearing one song but Ellie seemed to be enjoying it. She was smiling and dancing along to the music in her carseat. Then Michael Buble's "Everything" came on (This song always takes me back to Courtney's wedding because Courtney and Jeremy played this song along with their slideshow).

Anyway, Elliana was listening to and enjoying this song. When it was over she said "Mommy! I want that song again. I want the kiss song again." Now she always refers to that song as the "kiss song" and requests it often. She only likes to listen until the line "And I can't believe that I'm your man and I get to kiss you baby just because I can", then she wants to start the song over again. Ha!

I could go on and on with stories, but you get the idea. Now I just pray that we can teach Ellie to guard her heart and to save her kisses for when she's really in love - and not until she's 30. ;)

Bucket List Surprise

I couldn't decide if I should name this post "Checking off the bucket list" or "The best surprise" so I decided to combine the two. :)

My previous posts stated that I turned 30 a couple of weeks ago and that my amazing, romantic husband had planned a surprise getaway for us. He lead me to believe that we were spending last weekend in Denver, kicking the trip off with a hot air balloon ride. I was more than happy to spend the weekend in Denver. I knew we would have a ton of fun. Little did I know that he had been planning a much bigger surprise all along...

Early last Thursday morning we dropped off the kids at his parents house and made our drive to Denver. Caleb had printed out directions to the "hot air balloon" place and as we got closer I made the comment that we were awfully close to the airport. At that moment Caleb turned to me and said "Christine, we are getting away for the weekend, but everything I've told you about where we're going and what we're doing has been a lie".

I instantly looked puzzled and begged for him to tell me where we were going but he refused. He told me I would know when we got to the gate. He was successful in hiding the airline tickets from me all the way through security and as we approached our gate I was able to read that we were headed to Nashville!!

I have always dreamed of going to Nashville. I have always loved music and when I was young I often dreamed of moving to Nashville and getting "discovered" and having a music career. Even though my dreams changed slightly as I got older, my love for music stayed strong and I still yearned to visit "Music City".



After we found our seats on the plane, Caleb handed me several birthday cards from my family and his. He explained that they all had known about the trip for over a month and they had all contributed to the trip. Some gave money and some bought us tickets to the Country Music Hall Of Fame and Museum, The Bluebird Cafe, and some bought us gift cards to Nashville bars and restaurants. I was in awe of the generosity of our families and I've never felt more loved or spoiled. My excitement grew as I opened each card. By the time it all sank in, I was completely giddy with excitement.

After landing we checked in at the hotel and got ready to head out for the evening. I had slept horribly the night before (2.5 hours of sleep) so I knew I wouldn't be able to last too long.


We drove to downtown Nashville and just walked around for a while taking it all in. You couldn't pass a single bar or restaurant without hearing the live music filling the streets.


We ended up having dinner at a nice italian restaurant named Demo's. Someone had given us an insiders tip and we asked for the sauce sampler which wasn't on the menu. The waiter quickly came back with some bread and 9 different kinds of sauces for us to dip our bread into. It was delicious!


After dinner we went into one of the bars and watched one of the many bands play for a while. Due to my sleep deprived state we didn't last too long and headed back to the hotel for a good night's sleep.


The next day (Friday) was our biggest day. We went to the Country Music Hall Of Fame and Museum. First thing on the list was a tour of Studio B, where many famous artists have recorded many famous songs.

Once inside the studio, they showed us the piano that was Elvis Presley's favorite. They still keep it in tune and people still use it for recording today. We all got a chance to sit at the piano for pictures.

After the Studio B tour, we headed back to the museum. Outside the museum was a huge open courtyard. You could walk up and down and see who got a star on the Music City Walk Of Fame. Caleb and I had a little fun reading the names and posing next to a few of our favorites.


Then we headed back inside the museum and hall of fame. We spent the entire afternoon looking over the entire museum and enjoying a nice lunch.

And of course we couldn't leave without trying on a few cowboy hats. ;)

That night we headed to the Bluebird Cafe and that was my favorite experience! We got to see four songwriters (Danny Flowers, Gordon Kennedy, Janis Oliver and James House) that have all written famous songs. They took turns performing and I was surprised to learn so much about them in such a short time. Janis Oliver was Vince Gill's first wife. I was also surprised by how quickly I recognized their songs and how close we sat to them. They were close enough to touch. It was SO much fun to watch them perform. Thank you Jenn for that amazing gift!




The next morning (Saturday) we headed to the Ryman Auditorium. The Ryman was originally built as a church building and became the first location where they hosted the Grand Ole Opry for many years. In the 1980's they moved the Grand Ole Opry location to a new building, but many people still perform at the Ryman today. I couldn't get over how old, yet beautiful that building was.




Of course I had to get my picture taken on the Grand Ole Opry stage. :)


My only regret is not taking advantage of the opportunity to record a song at the Ryman. I looked over their very short list (I expected there would be a lot more than 10 to choose from) and declined. I wish I had at least tried to record 1 of the 2 songs I recognized.

After leaving the Ryman we spent some more time walking downtown and then headed to the Opryland Hotel.

The moment we walked in I was in awe of this place. As Caleb said, it was one of the most beautiful and grand man-made structures we've ever seen. It's so large and breathtaking. With the all glass ceiling, the live plants, flowers, and trees, and the river large enough to take a boat on (yes, they offered boat tours), you could easily forget you were inside a building.



We walked for hours and hours and still didn't cover the whole facility. We didn't want to leave but we were getting weak from walking and we were hungry so sadly, we left. We went to a restaurant close to the hotel called the Grand Ole Opry Grill where they have live performers all the time.

After dinner we went to Franklin, a small town about 20 minutes away from Nashville and walked around and had some frozen yogurt. Most of the shops were closed in Franklin so after eating our froyo we went back to downtown Nashville.

We went back into one of the bars on Broadway and enjoyed some drinks and listened to another live band. After an hour or so we headed back to the hotel.

The next day we slept in, packed up and flew home to our babies. I told Caleb it was a good thing we had family back home because I wouldn't have wanted to leave. It was a wonderful trip, and one that I'll always remember.

Thank you to my incredibly loving husband for planning and surprising me with this trip and to our families for making this the best birthday EVER!! Thanks to you, my 30's are off to a wonderful start!

Lucky In Love

First of all, I have to thank my talented sister Jenn for another beautiful blog design! I'm really liking this new winter design, it must be tough to be so talented. :)

Right after the first of the year, I said there were a lot of things that I needed to catch up on and write about on here.

Then, this past Sunday night we met with our couples group. We've been splitting up the men and the women and the men are reading For Men Only and the women have been reading For Women Only. These have been great books that have brought about a lot of great discussions about our husbands/wives and the opposite sex.



This past week we discussed the topic of romance. This is one topic that I've always felt very lucky in. As in, Caleb is incredibly romantic and he continues to surprise me and plan things to sweep me off of my feet. Please understand, I'm not tooting my own horn here because I know that the romantic things that Caleb does for me are not a reflection of who I am, but who he is and the lengths he goes to to show how much he loves me.

I simply had to share the amazing job that Caleb did with giving me one of the best birthday surprises ever! It was seriously one of the best and most romantic nights of my life.

It started with the Thursday before Christmas. My birthday is right after Christmas and we were going to be out of state then so Caleb knew in order to plan this it would have to be done before Christmas. Anyway, the Thursday before Christmas around lunch time Caleb handed me a box and said "Happy Birthday!" He went on to tell me that I needed to go and shower (we had taken Elliana swimming that morning) and I couldn't open the box until after I was finished showering. He also said to kiss Elliana goodbye- she was sleeping in her crib. I gave him a funny look and then did what he told me to.

After showering, I opened the first box. Caleb and Elliana were already gone. There was a bite-sized Baby Ruth in the box (my favorite) and a note that explained that I was going to be going on a little scavenger hunt that would lead to more surprises. The note told me to go to the basement, pick out one of our suitcases (the note said I would know which one), bring it back upstairs and leave it on the bed. My next note would be in the suitcase.

Sure enough, I went to the basement and found a suitcase with another Baby Ruth sitting on top. I took the suitcase upstairs and read my second note. This note had the key to our safety deposit box with it and it told me to go to our safety deposit box at the bank where I would find me next clue.

So, off to the bank I went and I got into the safety deposit box. In the box was my third note and a $10 bill. The note said that my next clue would be at the Starbucks across the street and I couldn't spend the $10 until I read the next note.

With a huge grin on my face I drove across the street and walked up to the Starbucks counter to ask for my next note. Inside the note told me to buy a non-perishable dessert for us to share (we love mint-milano cookies) and a magazine. It then said to drive back home and pack one dressy outfit, one casual outfit, a swimsuit, something to sleep in, all of my toiletries, and something sexy. ;-)



I was so excited at this point! I did as the note said and Caleb was waiting for me when I got home. He didn't say much except that he was so excited, that he had been planning this for a long time, and that Elliana was safe and happy with his parents for the night. We packed up quickly and drove off.

We headed to Denver and ended up at the Hyatt near the 16th Street Mall. Caleb was a little stressed about the time and I couldn't understand why. When we arrived at the hotel, Caleb turned to me and said, "We're running a little late so you need to go straight to the spa. I scheduled a pre-natal massage for you". Let me just say that the massage was heavenly! It was just what this very prego woman needed.




After my massage we had just a few minutes to hang out in the room and check out the hotel and then Caleb said it was time to get dressed, in our dressy clothes. Because of the location of the hotel, we were able to walk everywhere we needed to be that night. We walked to Maggiano's (a very nice Italian restaurant) and had dinner there. We've had a gift card to Maggiano's for a looooong time and kept saying that we needed to use it up. The dinner was amazingly delicious. On a side note, if you ever eat there, the portions are HUGE and two people can easily share a meal.



Keep in mind that with each surprise, I didn't know what was coming next. Caleb was again a little stressed with the time and I couldn't figure out why. We walked as quickly as our legs would carry us to the Ellie Caulkins Opera House and Caleb surprised me with two tickets to The Nutcracker! Believe it or not, I had never been to The Nutcracker before. The performance was amazing, I absolutely loved it!



After The Nutcracker, we got some Starbucks and walked back to the hotel. The next morning we slept in, had a quick breakfast, and picked Elliana up from his parent's house.

So, this was by far one of the best surprises/ birthday gifts Caleb has ever given me. It was one of those nights that you don't want to end (aside from the fact that I couldn't be away from my daughter too long).

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from the night. I really wish I did. So I just added some of the best pictures of the two of us from throughout the year.



I just had to brag on my husband because he seriously is so thoughtful and so romantic and I feel so lucky to be his wife. No, our lives aren't perfect and neither is our relationship. We have disagreements and fights from time to time just like any other couple, but he is my best friend and I feel so loved by him and every day I'm so thankful that God brought us together.



Now, how to surprise him? I've been thinking long and hard about this one. Let me know if any of you have surprised your husband with an amazing surprise.