Happy Holidays With Miriam's Family!

Nathan and I are home again after spending 4 days with my family. We had a great time eating, playing games, decorating cookies, visiting, celebrating Thanksgiving on Thursday & Christmas on Friday and just spending time together. My family is scattered through the U.S., so our get togethers are few and far between. Our family has grown by 3 this year, my twin nieces and Nathan.

Teenage Girls!

I think I am getting old! On my way home from work today I saw something that just wanted to shake my head at. As I move slowly in heavy traffic on I-270 this afternoon I saw a car full of high school girls. They first got my attention by zooming by the lane next to me acting as if they did not know the lane they were zooming in was going to end about 100 yards ahead.
Though I'm sure teenage girls are fully capable of missing the several signs that warn that the lane will be merging and ending up ahead. As they passed I got a look at their back window that had been written on by window paint. Ahead they stop because there is no where to go, but turn their right signal on and giggle about being the fools that are breaking in line about 10 seconds too late.
I go on driving for a while, then all of the sudden they passed me from the left lane where I could get a good second look of the back window. I think harder about what it says and am amazed they would think this was a cool thing to have written on your back window. It was obvious this had been written a few days ago due to the rain spots and dirt over the writing on the back window. The window says, "I'm too sexy for my shirt....but I'm not too sexy to be a junior!"
What do you all think of this? What would your reaction have been if you saw this on the back of a teenage girls car window?

Premiere Week

Last night began Fall Premiere week on all of the television networks. Normally I would not be very excited about TV, but over the past year or so I have become hooked on a few TV series. I have three shows that I am planning on watching this week.

Monday night....Heroes


Tuesday night....House


Thursday night...The Office

I am most excited for The Office party on Thursday. I'll post with my reviews of prmiere week on my next post. I hope everyone enjoys this week of TV!

just for fun

So, My sister sent me this on the email and usually I don't like forwards, but this one was fun to do.

This is pointlessly fun for those of us avoiding doing anything productive.

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car) Princess Sonata

2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fave ice cream flavor, favorite cookie) Vanilla Oatmeal Raisin

3. YOUR “FLY Guy/Girl” NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name) Msmi

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal) Green Turtle

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born) Elizabeth Peoria

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first) Smimi

7. SUPERHERO NAME: (”The” + 2nd favorite color, favorite drink) The Red Amoreto Stone Sour

8. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers) Edwin John

9. STRIPPER NAME: ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy) Happy Raisinet

10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names ) Rose Neil

11. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME: (Your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter) Page Paris

12. SPY NAME/BOND GIRL: (your favorite season/holiday, flower) Spring Daisy

13. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now + “ie” or “y”) Raspberry Shorty

14. HIPPY NAME: (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree) Coffee Cake Oak

15. YOUR ROCKSTAR TOUR NAME: (”The” + Your fave hobby/craft, fave weather element + “Tour”) The Wii Sunny Tour

Cheers to Sarah! Cheers to Wineries!

Happy Birthday to my friend Sarah! We all had a wonderful time celebrating your birthday spending the afternoon drinking wine at Sugar Creek Winery in Defiance, Missouri. We had a bottle of their Raspberry Patch and a bottle of the Boone Country White. Both were quite tasty!


This is my friend Sarah (old roommate) and her boyfriend Matt (friend from college), yeah I fixed them up!


My friend Brooke is so thoughtful, she prepared all the food while Sarah, Matt, Nathan and I picked out wine. Not to mention she drove us all to the winery and back. Though, I'm not sure what Brooke is doing in this one?!


I am definetly giving Nathan a strange look in this picture. That blue bottle is the Boone Country White, it went very well with our meat, cheese and crackers.


This my friend Brooke and I, check out the view behind us. It was beautiful!


Nathan and I, can you believe we will be married a half a year in less than a week!

I look forward to a few more afternoons this Fall at the wineries.

Painting Pottery

Last Saturday Nathan and I went on a date to paint pottery. This is something I had always wanted to do with him when we were dating, but we never got around to it. Nathan had only ever painted pottery in school, so this was his first experience and my third. It took us several hours and I even had to go back the next day to finish mine (I guess I am very attentive to detail or just a slow painter). We painted each painted 3 tiles that we are going to use as coasters.
Here are all of our new coasters, handmade :)


These are the three tiles I painted.


My 2 Favorites

Toilets & Another Round of the Glad Game!

Speaking of residents at work, I have to tell this story because I thought it was funny. The other day I was walking down the hall at work and approach a resident who looks very scared, shocked, and alittle out of sorts. I asked her, "------, are you okay?" She replied very serious and terrified, "No, the worst thing just happened to me." "What happened?", I replied. "I going to the bathroom (pointing to the bathroom down the hallway), and all of the sudden the toilet flushed. It scared me half to death! I thought the toilet was exploding!" I reacted sympatheticly and helped her get back to where she should be. Once I left her I could not help but to laugh. If you have not figured it out yet, we have automatic flushers on the toilets at work. Maybe you had to be there and see this old lady saying this but it was hillarious. Have any of you ever been scared by an automatic flushing toilet? I know I have been startled, but never thought the toliet was exploding.

Reading my bible in the morning, playing games with Nathan, a long talk with a good friend, the smell of clean laundry, lunch with my parents, sunshine coming through the window in the morning, days off from work, sleeping, a clean home, a surprise call from a friend, holding babies, answered prayers, and residents at work that make me smile.

It's Been A While!

Well, I am going to attempt the blog again after taking the summer off so far. What have I been up to? Working- I will have been at Parc Provence for 2 years the end of August, I don't feel like I have been in St. Louis this long. Spending time with old friends- I have spent some time with my old roommates and Kristy P (she just had her first a baby July 28, very exciting). Spening time with new friends- Nathan and I have been attending a small group bible study with several other young christian couples. We have really enjoyed getting to know other couples from church. We have also been spending some time with our neighbors. We have seen family from both sides. In June we went to Georgia for a wedding shower that Nathan's family threw for us. It was good to spend more time with them, especially his grandmama she is so sweet. My parents have been through St. Louis a few times when traveling, it is always a good time especially since we all love to play cards. Nathan and I made a trip to see my sister, Erica, and her family. My twin nieces have grown so much. My niece, Brianne, could be my twin when I was a baby.

This is Brianne @ 6.5 Months


This is me @ 8 Months
We have seen several of the good movies that have come out this summer, I look forward to going to see The Borne Ultimatum soon. So far Transformers has been the best movie of the summer. Nathan and I have made some time to do things in St. Louis like the Marvel exhibit @ the science center: these are of Nathan being Hulk & me touching the hands of ice!

the St. Louis History Museum (sounds boring, but actually really cool esp. the 1904 World's Fair exhibit), dining out, fireworks, and a few other dates.

Nathan & I purchased a Wii this summer, this was something we have wanted for a while (esp. Nathan). It has been a lot of fun for us to spend time together playing games on the Wii. Overall, Nathan kicks my butt. He has many years of video game playing on me, though I am getting better. Last night I learned that I should no longer be nice playing games though, I was nice to Nathan playing Mario Party 8 and then he beat me. I didn't think it was nice of him! I hope everyone who may read this has had a good summer so far and I will write again soon. Peace.

I want to go on vacation!

This weekend Nathan and I went to a wedding near Chicago and it made me want to go on vacation. I was not ready to go home yesterday, not that I don't love home, but I just felt like I wanted to go on a week long vacation somewhere. I'm not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. Ever since I was little I wanted to be a stay at home mom and my motherly instincts are kicking in, they do every few months. I want to stay home and make a wonderful home for my husband and eventually children. I know kids will not be in the picture for a few more years which means me stay home isn't an options until they come along. Even then God willing I will be able to stay home. I even thought to myself yesterday as I thought how I didn't want to work that I will work at saving lots of money so when the time comes we will have more saving and maybe I won't have to work. :) So, I feel I have a lot of praying to do until tomorrow so that I am confident in the job God has for me to do tomorrow and I can glorify Him as I do it.
Back to vacation.....Nathan and I really want to go to Mexico. We were not able to fulfill our honeymoon there because our passports didn't come in. Knowing our friends (we went to their wedding this weekend) are getting to be in Mexico on their honeymoon makes us jealous and then guilty for being jealous. We are planning on going sometime between January and April 2008. I'm already thinking I want to take a vacation this summer for a week, just to get away. I am going to see my sister and her family in two weeks, I am pretty excited abotu that. I almost always love spending time with family.
Things that made me smile this weekend: Nathan looking handsome in his suit, IKEA, an 81 year old man giving my husband cooking tips, dancing, a beautiful wedding, seeing friends, joking around with my inlaws, crazy Arbys employees, taking a road trip, and many more.

This photo is quite funny...we were posing and just as the picture was taken bubbles flew by, but if you want to pretend that the bubble in front of Nathan's face is coming out of his nose...it is a very funny picture
Well, I have many things I want to get done on my day off today so I must go.

My smiles for today...

Today was kind of a blah day for me at work. It is Monday and I am already looking forward to Friday when I don't have to work. This really concerns me that I am not enjoying my job right now. I even looked online tonight for what recreation therapy jobs are listed in St. Louis right now. Some days I don't like my job because of the staff, but today it was the residents that I let get to me. It can be so frusterating when you put time into something for them and then they just complain about it. And its just those few that love to be vocal about it and stand out, while everyone else is enjoying themselves. It's so easy to let those few negative voices drown out enjoyment.
Does God get sick of us when we are complaining about life? I mean He has this wonderful creation and most of the time we don't even enjoy it. Tomorrow is a new day and I hope I am better at praising God tomorrow than I was today. Thinking of tomorrow makes me smile.
Nathan and I went to Castlewood State Park for the first time this evening. We had a good time hiking trails on bluffs that looked over the Meramec River. God's creation is wonderful it makes me smile. We didn't take the camera this time, but now that we know what there is to see we will have to take pictures next time we go. I doubt we will get to see a racoon climbing up a tree next time. This hour hike was great for a stressful day especially with the one I love.
Nathan started his new job today, it went well and he seems very happy about working again.
Well, I'm off to bed to get some sleep, I love sleep.

Cat in the bag?

Today I didn't have to work until 11:30, so I went to the mall to find a new dress for a wedding coming up. I don't know if it is just me, but I have the worst luck finding a article of clothing when I actually need it. I have known many other women that have this problem....when we shop for fun, we find many things to buy. But, when we need something...it is hard to find even that one item. I did find many dresses that had great patterns, but the fashion world has decided that showing half of your breasts is a good thing. Let's just say I left the mall with sweet tea from chick-fil-a and no dress.

On my way home from a long day at work I saw a woman with a pouch much like the picture above. Instead of having a dog in the pouch there was a cat peeking out. I have never heard of anyone carrying their cat on a walk! Would a cat even like a walk? I would never think to take my cat for a walk, but maybe she was one of those stereotypical "cat ladies'. Who knows....
My residents make me laugh....this evening I was leading a travel discussion on Minnesota. None of my residents had recalled visiting or hearing anything about this 'foreign' state. I told them about the land of 10,000 lakes, the twin cities, history, paul bunyan, author of Peanuts comic strip, little house on the prarie, and more. In the middle of the discussion one of my residents looks at me and says, "Honey, I don't think you should tell us about such queer places!" Everyone else just started laughing. I thought it was pretty funny because it was so random and so out of place, gotta love them though.

Glad Game Round #1

Nathan and I had a great weekend. His birthday was on Friday so we went to Carbondale to celebrate with his family. It was a good visit and our nephew is getting so big. Nathan got some nice gifts and some that I will be able to enjoy as well. Saturday night we saw Spiderman 3. Very good movie, but got kind of long in the middle. It didn't help that that the seat were not the "Cuddle Seats" like at the movie theaters we go to at home. You should all know and love the cuddle seats at the movie theater, they are the ones where the arm rests can be moved up so you can actually cuddle with the person next to you. But, then some people probably don't care about cuddling. Nathan and I appreciate them. My favorite is when the theater is very empty and i can put several arms up and stretch my legs out on the seats :) Overall it was a great weekend hanging out with the fam.
I am enjoying the married life, but life is very different, I don't quite have the balance of everything down yet. I've been struggling a little with needing more alone time, that is something I have needed my entire life. So, now having a husband and wanting to be together all the time is alittle hard. Nathan and I have started to come up with a plan on how to give eachother space for self. I have had alittle more trouble with needing space so far, I think this is natural though I feel guilty needing more alone time than Nathan. I wonder what it would be like if a husband and wife had a balance of needs, like if Nathan and I needed the same amount of alone time? I guess we wouldn't get the chances to work on our communication as much if we were in agreement all of the time. Even with the differences marriage is great! Please pray for Nathan and I as we work on balance with one another.
Well, I wrap things up with a round of the Glad Game. This is something I learned from Nathan and love, so here is round #1 on my blog of the glad game.
Being tickled, flirting with my husband, my nephew Eli laughing, noticing how green everything is outside, the sunshine, hugs, phone calls from family or friends, getting mail, the feeling of new socks on my feet, when the scale says you weigh less than you feel, baking, making others smile, cuddle seats at the movie theater, saving money, spending money, not having to say good bye to Nathan at night anymore, a clean home, giving, and the way my body feels after I have exercised.

I Love Tulips!!!!

Nathan and I went to the Missouri Botanical Gardens on Friday. I love going in mid-late April because the Tulips are all in bloom. I love tulips, they make me smile. I had never seen a 'fringed' tulip before, here is a picture of it and a few of my other favorites that we saw.







After a few hours at the botanical gardens we went down to the landing and had lunch. On our way to find a place we wanted to park we saw this bus stuck under a bridge! Pretty cool to see, not so cool if you were on the bus or the driver.

So, I would have to say my day off on Friday was a good day. I didn't get much done around the apartment, but had a great time with my husband. God makes amazing things in this world, Nathan and tulips are two of those things.

Speaking of Nathan being wonderful, Sunday I had an awful day at work and when I came home he had cleaned the kitchen(did dishes), done laundry, and changed the sheets on the bed. Seems so silly that everyday chores make you know someone loves you, but it does!

The Wedding Is Over!

I was looking over a few ads as I do almost every week and as I viewed the title "wedding sale" on the Hobby Lobby ad I smiled as the thought of the stress gone from wedding planning. The wedding planning is over though I seem to trade one stress for another. God works in mysterious ways and is always reminding me that I need to give things over to Him. God provides with me with one blessing after another. Nathan and I would be returning from Mexico today, but unfortunately our passports did not come in yet, pretty stressful. We spent this past weekend in Branson, Misosuri, and had a wonderful time, what a blessing. We stayed at a B&B, went to the Hollywood Wax Museum & Ripley's Believe It or Not, and saw the Chinese Acrobats. Here are a few pictures to sum up our weekend.


Nathan and I outside the Bradford Bed & Breakfast


Part of the Wizard of OZ scene at the Hollywood Wax Museum


This is the first "safe" diving mask, designed in the 1500s, made in the 1800s, Believe It or Not!


Nathan next to a replica of the "tallest man ever", he was 8' 11", Believe It or Not!


Believe It or Not! Nathan and I are standing in front of the "world's largest ball of string"


The landing in Branson was a lot of fun to walk around, we shot a pic while we were people/fountain watching.

Life is full of things to smile about! :)

Oh, anyone who wants to look at our wedding photos online go to: www.toddstudiosphotography.com, click on "client area" in upper right corner, click on "events", enter the code: 72385W95715

Nathan and I will be getting a cd with all of our pictures on it so we can make non-professional copies (e.g. walgreens, walmart etc.), so let me know if there are any pictures you want. If you want professional developed pictures email Todd Studios.

Anyone have suggestions of how to narrow down what pictures to buy let me know. Any pictures you thought you wanted when you got married, but now think I should have got a different picture?