Well we are 2 days away from the last day of school for Tori and last week was Penny’s end of year pre-school program at the zoo.  I can’t believe how fast the last year has flown by.  We’ve been through a lot and things feel like the are finally slowing down… for awhile anyway.

Josh started a new job at Cargill a few weeks ago as a Plant Systems Engineer.  He’s writing Plant Systems IT software of the meat industry side of Cargill.  So far, so good.  He’s pretty happy with the group of people he’s working with and seems to be adapting to the corporate world.  A few months ago Josh and the girls were invovled in a collision (no one was badly hurt) and totaled Josh’s car so we set out to find a new family vehicle.  We initially thought we would be buying a larger SUV but after testing out mini-vans we realized it made a lot of sense for our family.  Josh drives the van and jokes about needing a new license plate that says, “SOCCER DAD.”    Josh also finished another semester at Butler.  Things are going well with school and he keeps plugging away.

I’ve been doing a good bit of traveling this year.  In February I traveled to Philadelphia, PA for an SAP class and then spent the weekend in NYC with a friend of mine.  We had a great time checking out the city.  I learned how to get around on the subway too, which makes me feel much better when I go back next time.  I checked out Magnolia Bakery in Times Square and tried some of their delicious cupcakes — they really are the best!  In March I traveled to Las Vegas for a conference for work. Josh and I went early and saw Eric Clapton in concert.  We also managed to see David Copperfield and Zumanity.  After Josh left, it was all business for a week.  Las Vegas for 8 days is a long time and I was really ready to go home.  In April I traveled to Charlotte, NC, again for work.  I like NC but didn’t get much of a chance to check it out this time.  All the traveling definitely left me feeling pretty tired and worn down so hopefully no trips for awhile. 

Tori and Penny have been getting along well.  Tori has learned to read and loves it.  She also worked to save up $30 worth of allowance since January to buy herself a real kids sewing machine.  She’s so proud of herself and we are too.  Penny has been helping a lot around the house and earning prizes as she goes.  She’s still our tv addict but we are working on that one.  This summer we hope to get the girls involved in dance and tumbling so they can stay active and busy.  We have a family trip planned this summer.  We will be traveling to Memphis, TN then onto New Orleans, LA and finally arriving in Destin, FL for a week at the beach.  This will be our first roadtrip in the mini-van and we’re looking forward to it.

For those of you may not know, I lost my father abruptly  on December 20th following corrective hip replacement surgery.  His funeral was on December 23.  The eulogy below was what was written by my sister and I and read at dad’s funeral.

Our Daddy

Our daddy was born in 1950 and was raised with his brother and best friend, our uncle, Tracy Lynn, by our Grandma Pearcy.  Daddy lived in Arkansas, Oceanside California, and El Dorado, KS throughout his young life.  He loved the ocean and always had fond memories of living in Oceanside.  

Growing up, Daddy was a terribly ornery boy and our grandma used to tell us how he often enjoyed playing jokes on her and Tracy. As he got older, that orneriness stuck around with him and we all got a little dose of it every now and again.  Our cousin Andrea learned her lesson with daddy several times and if you asked her, she’d tell you “never ask Uncle Terry to pull a splinter out of your finger, he’ll go get the chainsaw!”   He was always a bit of a daredevil as well — nearly giving our grandma a heart-attack multiple times with his crazy antics.

Daddy had many hobbies, many that he shared with us.  He loved cars – restoring them, fixing them, and watching them race.  Over the years he restored 4 Mustangs, Janet’s Camaro, and most recently he was working on a Chevy Impala.  When we were old enough to drive, daddy made a point of getting us into cars, teaching us to drive and making sure we knew how to take care of a car properly.  Janet was eager to learn how to change the oil and sand a finish… Joy, a little less eager, learned how to dust the interior really really well. We spent many weekends hanging out with him in the garage, one of daddy’s favorite places to be.

Daddy loved music, especially Elvis and the Oldies; he even played the trumpet in high-school.  He also loved sports, especially Chiefs football and boxing.  Also, he was a huge movie buff – dad always liked showing off his movie collection. 

Daddy met Mom through our Aunt Cheryl and they were married 34 years ago this last October. Daddy was a loving husband and was always looking for some way to surprise Mom.  To celebrate their 10-year anniversary, daddy whisked Mom away on a surprise trip to Vegas.  A couple of months ago, daddy called Joy and asked, “When you are at Dillard’s next time, can you look at the china? I really want to get your mom some nice china to thank her for taking such good care of me this year.” 

One year, mom decided she was going to host BUNCO at their house and needed a new kitchen to do so, so what did daddy do?  He built her a new kitchen with his own two hands and got it done in time for her BUNCO event that year.

Mom and daddy loved to travel. In 2007 they took a cruise to Alaska.  Daddy was always a gambler and quite often a winner.  While on the cruise, Daddy came into some winnings and decided to best way to spend his winnings was to upgrade the diamond in Mom’s wedding ring.  They came back from that cruise smiling from ear to ear.

We were lucky to grow up in such a loving home.  What started out as young love and a little too much lovin’ resulted the birth of us, Joy and Janet. When Joy was born, daddy walked out of the delivery room and asked those waiting for her arrival, “if you want to see the prettiest little girl in the whole wide world, you better follow me.”  Our Aunt Kristi would say, “he was struttin’ his peacock feathers.”  When Janet was born, he sang to her, “Mee-shelle, my belle…” something he called her over the years.

Our daddy accomplished many things in life – but being a daddy was his proudest accomplishment.  He loved the make our grandma smile and nothing meant more to her than his gift of us, her two granddaughters. You see, daddy’s family was THE most important thing in his entire life. And as his family grew, so did his love.

Daddy was a strong man with a strong presence and no one was going to hurt his girls, he made sure of that.

 “Do you promise to love MY daughter and be the kind of husband you want your own daughters to marry one day?”  This is what our daddy asked our husbands, both, the day that they each asked for his permission to marry us in 2009.   

“Make sure you call me when you get home so I know you made it safe,” this is what our daddy required any time we traveled, even if it was a short trip, and even if we were 30 years old.  

“It’s getting close to winter, when did you last have your tires checked?” this is the phone call we each got a couple weeks ago – Janet now has new tires.

Earlier this year, daddy walked us both down the aisle and gave us to our husbands. He loved Jason and Josh very much and couldn’t be happier with our choices, and believe us – it was hard to convince daddy that any man was good enough for his girls.

But proud, he was.   As each of us walked down the aisle next to daddy, he was “struttin’ his peacock feathers” again.

 As part of our new marriages, daddy gained 4 granddaughters that filled him with so much joy.  Daddy’s eyes would light up when he saw Brianna, Caitlyn, Tori “his Sugar,” and Penny walk into the room.  They called him Grandpa from day one and he ate up every minute of it. 

We know that most daughters don’t call their dad, daddy at the age of 30 and 33, but that’s what daddy liked. We were his babies and he often let us knew we would always be his babies, no matter how old we were.  We love you daddy and it’s so hard to say goodbye.  We wish we could have had more time with you.  We’re going to take all that you have taught us and live our lives the way you would have wanted – caring for our families the way our daddy taught us.  We’ll bring smiles to Mom’s face with our own children, we will excite our spouses with our many adventures and surprises, we’ll never give up, and we will love our children the way you showed us – unconditionally.

Love,

Your Babies.

Christmas is officially less than 2 weeks away. 2010 has blown by faster than any other year that I can recall prior… NOT that we didn’t have a lot going on.

We are hosting Christmas this year in our new house. I’m looking forward to it and all the preparations – decorating, baking, etc. I think it will be a great time and we’ve got the game systems ready to go. This year we are getting a KINECT for our X-box which should be good for some laughs as my cousins ( & I) play the dance game. We started our baking this weekend and I tested out my new ice blue kitchenaid on sugar cookies. The dough turned out well for a crisp cookie but I was really hoping for a soft melt in your mouth kind of cookie… so I might be trying it again. Of course, I’ve still got 60 crispy sugar cookies to frost and really, who needs 120 sugar cookies???

Tori has been doing very well in Kindergarten and we found out last week that she’s very advanced in her reading. As we were doing some Christmas shopping this weekend, we stopped by a game display. Tori saw one with Hello Kitty on it and read out loud to us, Hello Kitty Party. The Hello Kitty part might have been a freebie but there is no way she knew Party without sounding it out. The funny thing is, we didn’t prompt her to read it, she did it all on her own. I can already tell that our spelling C-O-D-E isn’t going to last much longer with that one!

Penny has been enjoying her preschool at the zoo so much that she asks if she can go even on days when she doesn’t have class. We love that she’s getting some time to socialize away from her sister and build friendships on her own. She’s also really gotten into the imagination games. I overhear the girls often playing “grandma,” “mom & baby,” or “cheerleader.”

Speaking of cheerleaders we went and saw the WSU Women’s basketball team play Arizona a few weeks ago. Josh and I had a great time and remembered just how much we loved basketball. Tori had a good time and after explaining the game to her, she got very excited and cheered for the Shockers. Penny mostly just enjoyed the pep band and otherwise, could have cared less. The highlight, though? The CHEERLEADERS. Tori is sure she wants to be one and even practices around the house. We’re thinking of putting her in a tumbling class this Spring and seeing how she likes it. With her height, we were hoping for a basketball player… looks like we’ll probably get a cheerleader instead!

Josh and I are already looking towards our next vacation. We are hoping for a few trips this year. I will be traveling to Philadelphia and Las Vegas for work in the next few months and it would be great if Josh could join me for part of it. We’ll just have to see how the timing works out. We are also planning on meeting up with family in Cabo San Lucas this July at an All-Inclusive resort. Our trip to Cancun last May has left us wanting more! Our cruise with Holland America, however, left us wondering if we were cruise people at all? That’s another story for another day.

Josh is currently looking for new employment as there have been a lot of cutbacks with his company and long-term; he needs more opportunities for growth anyway. He has one semester left at Butler and then he will move over to WSU. He’s been going to school full time and plans to continue next semester.

My job is still going well and I will be starting work towards my SAP certification this next year. I hope to achieve it in a year so that I can move on with pursuing a Masters in Management Information Systems. I think both items added to my resume will give me the confidence should I decide to work for myself as a contractor one day. Until that day, I’m just going to keep plugging along and hope for the best.

Hope you all have a happy holiday and we’ll see you after the first of the year!

Joy

And that’s a wrap. The wedding is behind us as well as the honeymoon (big frown) and what was many months of stress and chaos has come to an end. Josh and I were married on a beautiful fall day almost 4 weeks ago. The day went surprisingly smooth considering that we did have a few hitches along the way. The morning started out with the news that one of the groomsmen was stuck in the Atlanta airport and wasn’t going to make it. We quickly called in our backup groomsman, my brother-in-law, Jason, and switched out the tux sizes. After that, the day quickly became a blur. I went to get my hair done, and then my makeup done, and then it was time to get in my dress and go take pictures. Before I knew it, people were starting to arrive at the ceremony. There was a lot of confusion around what people were supposed to do, mostly because I became sick 3 days before the wedding and didn’t have the energy or voice to direct people for the rehearsal. That being said, people scrambled to take on extra jobs to make the ceremony come together. Our original invite list was 250 people and our RSVP count was that we had 170 people coming. We booked chairs and purchased food and drink for that many people and I was so surprised when the turnout was much slimmer. So needless to say, we had a lot of leftovers… I guess I learned my lesson but it was still a bit disappointing. The decorations turned out well and I was pleased with the flowers, food, and DJ. The only thing that was less than expected was the cake. We ordered a cake with realistic looking plums from Artistic Cakes in Wichita. We got plums that were the size of apples and were painted a shiny purple iridescent color. The cake was also several hours late and left us calling the cake people as we were supposed to be taking pictures. I don’t know what I can do other than share our disappointment with others and never recommend them. Once the wedding and reception was over, we had a lot of clean up to do and we were there several hours taking it all down. It all went by so quickly, it felt like we had just put it up. Overall it wasn’t perfect (you have to realize just how high my perfection standards are to get the magnitude of what a perfect day was) but I knew it wouldn’t be perfect and I would be ok with that. As long as we got through the day and I was married to Josh, that’s all that really mattered. We just got our wedding photos and here are a few favorites from the day:

 

 

 

I’ll be posting next about the honeymoon and all the places we visited on our cruise. But the question then is posed, what happens to this blog now that the wedding is over? Josh and I had purposely named the site www.JoyandJosh.com for a reason – long term this will become our family blog where we can update those that are interested on what’s going on in our lives. We hope you’ll continue to read as we capture the comings and goings of our life as new married couple and new family.

Joy

A ton of work went into these things and they are finally(!) going out in the mail tomorrow.

The last couple of weeks have been a bit of a blur around our house! The last 2 weeks have included a birthday party get-together for cousin Kari, my bridal shower at Piccadilly, Penny’s 3^rd birthday party, a quick trip to Wilmington, DE for work, purchasing of mattresses for the girls new bedrooms, massive amounts of packing, Tori’s kindergarten open-house, tons of wedding work. Now I sit in front of the computer wondering once again, what the heck happened to my weekend? We move in less than 2 weeks and Tori starts school on Tuesday – the pressure is on for sure.

 

I do have to recap a few things because with all the craziness that has been going on, we’ve had some pretty wonderful moments as well.

My bridal shower was so special. Christina (MOH) did a fantastic job. She did an owl theme (which I love) and had it in a garden room at the Piccadilly. Family and friends came and enjoyed tiny sandwiches, fresh fruit, hummus, chocolate covered strawberries, and tons of pastries. It was all so yummy. The decorations were fantastic as well, lots of color with beads scattered on the table, a colorful flower arrangement that Christina made herself, vintage Vogue clings on the walls, etc. It was all so perfect. The guests even got hand soaps that have owls on them as party favors. I haven’t gotten the photos yet to post but I will when I do.

Penny’s birthday was a hit as well. This year she decided to have a Toy Story 3 party with a hint of Tinkerbell. She wore a new dress from Grandma Kathy and spend the afternoon with her friends playing games and eating cake and ice cream. She got lots of presents including a Tinkerbell scooter, Princess tent, legos, Olivia gear, and a sandwich making kit by Melissa & Doug. Here are some party pics:

 

Last week Josh, the girls, and I went to have our engagement photos done by our wedding photographer. We decided to do a combination of photos with just us, just the girls, and family photos of all of us together. I’m pretty pleased with how they turned out:

 

I’m pretty lucky to have such a good looking family!

Can you tell that I’ve been a bit busy?

The last month has flown by and time seems to be slipping by faster & faster.

My sister & her husband came to visit over the July 4^th holiday weekend. We had a family get together to celebrate their marriage with family & friends that didn’t make it to Cancun and included some of those that did. Earlier that week, Josh and I found a new house to move into. We move in at the end of August. It’s a 3BR, 2 BA house that is near Tori’s school. I like the neighborhood and I really like the house. We would rather be moving into our permanent home, the one we buy, but we think we want to build a house and that’s going to take some time to plot out. We did manage to find a renter for Josh’s house and they move in August 1^st. We have been on a yearlong hunt for a buyer or renter and finally it feels like it’s coming to an end.

We’ve spent a lot of time doing wedding stuff:

1. Booked someone to marry us
2. Ordered flowers
3. Bought & ordered tons of stuff – cake stand, cake server, my shoes, flower girl baskets, table décor, etc.
4. Worked on Invitations
5. Put together a lot of our music list
6. Made boutonnieres
7. Put together flower girl baskets
8. Worked on bubbles
9. Bought plan tickets for our honeymoon

We still have a lot to do but we’ve got a lot of big stuff reserved, which is relief. We only have to reserve our chairs & order the food (which we will do later because we don’t have to plan Popeye’s that far in advance).

I don’t have a lot to show you so I thought I’d leave you with a picture of the Flower Girl dresses, which are one of my favorite parts.

 

Josh and I booked our honeymoon this week. We are taking a 7 night cruise in the Caribbean. Our cruise leaves out of Ft. Lauderdale on Oct 16. We’re planning on flying into Florida a couple of days early to hang out in south Florida before setting sail. The cruise ship is the Holland America Eurodam, which is a new ship and has a very modern look to it. The ship décor is a lot nicer than what I’ve seen on other cruise ships, simple lines, earth tones, and a spa kind of feel. We have a verandah room which is a full 254 square feet! That was a sarcastic (!) by the way… Our ports are San Juan, Puerto Rico – Turk & Caicos, Grand Turk – St. Thomas – Half-Moon Cay, Bahamas. We have yet to decide on our shore excursions but I’m thinking that a Rum Distillery in PR is on the agenda. I’m pretty excited to try out a cruise for the first time and compare it to the All-Inclusive Resort experience. We got $150 free on-board credit with our booking so hopefully that will cover some drinks! Anyway, it feels good to have the honeymoon set although I am ready to go NOW! I have serious vacation fever. I’ve been working so many hours and am ready for a getaway. I’m supposed to be going to Mexico in the next month or two and I’ll be going to Delaware in August so I’ll be doing some traveling, unfortunately it’s the working kind of travel. Here are photos of our cruise ship & room:

 

 

 

 

It’s been a productive week and it’s only Tuesday!

Invitations: We’re almost done with them and they look great. I’m really happy with our decision to do it ourselves.

Guest Book: I’m almost done with this as well. I’m waiting for my Snapfish order to come in so I can finish it up – doing it ourselves has allowed us to have more than just a book of signatures after the wedding (which I think is rather silly) and keep something that we will want to look at over the years.

Wedding Cake: We placed our cake order tonight – the wedding cake & groom’s cake. The wedding cake is 4 tier round butter cream cake that alternates between vanilla and marble. The cake is very simple but has fondant plums that sit on each tier. The groom’s cake is all Josh – a Swamp Thing Comic Book cover cake that is pineapple flavored – could it possibly be any stranger???

Wedding Dress: My wedding dress has been purchased and I’m very happy with it. It’s simple and elegant.