Josh’s 29th Birthday

This past weekend we celebrated Josh turning the big 2-9. Hard to believe that in one more year he’ll be in his thirties, I shouldn't talk though, I’m not far behind him.

Josh’s mom and dad came to visit and Josh and his dad spent most of the day Saturday working on the fence. It was Mom H’s birthday on Friday so we sent her to the spa for a massage and I was off playing kickball for charity (more on that later). Saturday evening we had an amazing dinner with the family at Restaurant Deneno’s in downtown Alachua. The food is wonderful and it’s got such great atmosphere. We love going for special occasions. Before church on Sunday Josh unwrapped his presents. His parents got him a Craftsman Miter Saw and my gift to him was a custom closet. The only downfall is that he’s got to build it! I had envisioned me putting it together while he worked in the yard on Saturday but when I went to Lowes (side note, Alachua now has a Lowe’s!!) I realized the boxes weighed a TON and there was no way I was putting this thing together. So needless to say Josh has to build it but once it’s up I will be organizing his things and putting it all together. Although it doesn’t sound like a very exciting gift, Josh desperately needed it since he so selflessly gave me the bigger closet and every single drawer in the dresser.

Let’s see what else – I played in a charity kickball tournament which was a lot of fun. We made it all the way to the quarterfinals, not bad for a bunch of public relations professionals. I’m very proud to add that I got a double (or whatever you call it) and made it to 2nd on my own kick! Darby also started his training class. There are six puppies – an Australian Shepherd, a Viszla, a mutt named Angus, a German Shepherd, a Maltese and of course Darby. It’s pretty hysterical to watch all these puppies and their owners. Out of the six Darby is tied for most well behaved, the Australian Shepherd is pretty good and has gorgeous blue eyes. The Viszla’s absolutely nuts, but really sweet! The Maltese refuses to walk on his own and will only sit in his mom’s lap and the German Shepherd is already bigger than Darby and he’s three weeks younger!! Hopefully when I post again Darby will have learned some new (good) behaviors. For now he’s learned how to heal and to walk without pulling, which is critical for a lab on his way to 90lbs! Oh yeah, he’s got the sit and stay part down. We just need to work on the “come.”

Alright, I’m trying to keep the posts shorter so I’ll stop here. We’ve got a fun filled next few weeks with Gator Nationals, Easter and our two-year anniversary!! Speaking of Easter, we’ll be home in West Palm Beach so we’d love to see as many people as we can while we’re home.

We love you all and hope everyone is doing well.

Jenny and Josh (and Darby too!)

P.S. Happy Birthday Aunt Kathy!

Darby checking out the closet materials

Josh and our neighbor Troy working on the fence

Jason and Annabelle taking a break from kickball

Beautiful tulips I picked up at the market, I love spring!

Gorgeous sunset as seen through our neighbor's backyard

Happy Valentine's Day

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Valentine's Day! Josh and I will be spending our day working on the fence and the house and then tonight we'll have our annual Valentine's tradition. When we first started dating Josh was still in school and we didn't have enough money to go out to eat so he cooked a gourmet dinner for me at home. We've done that every year since and tonight the menu includes cashew crusted chicken over coconut milk jasmine rice with steamed broccoli and fresh rosemary bread along with a delicious buttery, California chardonnay. Yum, I can't wait!

We hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and happy Valentine's Day full of love!

Here are some out takes from our family photo session:

Random Updates

I have some good news on the work front. The Gallup Organization (same one that does polling) developed a survey that helps determine what a person’s talents, or strengths, are based on a series of 34 different talents. My company (and many other Fortune 500 companies) use that information to help their employees find work that is meaningful to them and also allows them the opportunity to be successful because it relies on their strengths. Every time a new employees starts at RTI they take the strengths finder. They learn what their top 5 strengths are and then they meet with a Strengths Coach to talk about what they’re good at and how they can use it to their advantage in the workplace to be happier and more productive. My top five are Input, Discipline, Achiever, Competition and Focus. I won’t bore you with the details of each but I will say that knowing what I’m good at and frankly, why I make the decisions I do sometimes, has really helped me to be better at my job and to be able to work better with those around me who might not share my same desire for discipline and structure! Anyway, the reason I’m telling you all this is because I was recently asked to be a Strengths Coach for my company and I’m super excited about it! I’ve seen firsthand how it positively impacts people at work and since we spend 40+ hours a week there we might as well learn to enjoy it! (And a lot of people compare it to Meyers Briggs or other personality tests but this is different, it focuses on your talents and what you’re good at AND gives you useful ways to use that information in the workplace).

On to another subject - Quite a few people have asked us if we’ve found a church here in Alachua and the answer is yes! We started attending First Baptist Church of High Springs back in July of last year after visiting several other local churches. It was the perfect fit for us. It’s traditional in certain areas (music, structure of the service, core values) but very contemporary in other areas (diversity of congregation, programming, etc). Josh and I recently joined the young couples life connections class (Sunday School) and are very glad we did. It’s a group of people our age who are married and going through a lot of the same life experiences that we are. We only just started attending but I definitely think it’s something we’ll continue and we’re looking forward to getting to know everyone a little more. We appreciate the fact that it’s not “stuffy” and that the people that attend come across as genuine and “real.”

Of course I can’t post without a quick Darby update. This past weekend was Darby’s first trip to the park! He was allowed off of the leash to play with his new friend Maggie (My boss Nancy’s golden retriever). He did really well! He ran around like a maniac and anywhere that Maggie went, he would go. Thankfully she listens really well and when Nancy would call her back she would come, with him right on her heels. The only time he misbehaved was when Maggie spotted a couple sprawled out on the ground having a fried chicken picnic. Maggie went straight for the chicken and Darby went bounding on top of the couple. Needless to say he scared them and probably got them a little dirty, but who lays down in the middle of a park to make out with dogs running all around !?!?!?!

Enough for now, I’m going to get this posted and up before I forget. Next time I’ll use my camera more so I can share photos and videos!

Love,
Jenny

Our first videos!

This is my first attempt at posting videos on the blog. I hope it works!

For those of you that haven't met our newest family member in person, here he is:

Darby Makes Three!

Well, I'm finally getting around to this post! The past month has been absolutely crazy. We've had so much going on between the holidays, Darby, work and travel. It's been exciting though, definitely no complaints here!

First and foremost, I'll give everyone a quick update on Darby (or Darbs for short). He's absolutely wonderful. He's been such a perfect addition to our family. Now that's not to say he hasn't been A LOT of hard work or a pain in the butt sometimes, but we have learned so much just from caring for him and working with him on training and good manners. He's already so much a part of our family that we can't even remember what it was like without him! Of course I've included some of my favorite photos below. I swear he grows every single day, he's on his way to being that 90lb dog the breeder warned us about :-)

Quick update on our travels - we spent Christmas Eve here in Gainesville with both of our parents and Josh's sister Caitlin. Afterward we headed up to spend the rest of the holiday week in Crestview and had a nice, relaxing time there. After a few days back in Gainesville we got on the road and headed up to Asheville, NC. We stopped for a night in Toccoa, GA and visited with my grandparents and great aunt and then it was on to Asheville. We had the most beautiful little cottage with a wrap-around porch overlooking the mountains. I attached some photos of our trip below in an album. We also got to visit with Rich and Carol (friends of my parents) and then our friends Jamie and Jeff Doehne in Charlotte. It was such a wonderful trip and Darby was a trooper traveling quietly in his crate the entire time (minus one time he got sick from the winding roads!!).

After the Asheville trip I spent 5 days in Ponte Vedra Beach for work. The hardest part was that I had to be there during the college national championship football game!! Of course I watched with my coworkers and Josh was with our friends in Gainesville. As many of you probably already know by now, our Gators WON and are the #1 team in the nation, woooooo. Even more exciting, our quarterback Tim Tebow will be back again next year. We can not wait!! Living in Gainesville during a national championship year is something else. I included a photo below of my boss and I in the fountain at Ponte Vedra Inn and Club (they had giant gators, how appropriate!).

We've finally settled back in to our normal routine in Gainesville. This weekend will be the first when we've both been home and have no major plans, phew, I can't wait! We don't have any more trips planned, for a little while at least. Just lots of work on the house - the fence, decorating, the yard, etc. It's a lot of work but we love every second of owning our own home.

We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and a blessed and Happy New Year! 2008 was a year of change and new beginnings for us and we're really looking forward to what 2009 has in store.

Love,
Jenny and Josh

Asheville Trip

Darby's Homecoming

Turkey, Turkey and More Turkey!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving! What a great start to the holidays. Josh and I were excited to host our first Thanksgiving for both of our families this year. Despite the lack of furniture we were able to make do and everything turned out perfect. Josh's parents and my parents were there along with Caitlin and her boyfriend Mike. Our good friends Rich and Judy Parker also joined us and brought along some delicious food! I have to admit though, I got out of a lot of the work this year. In addition to the roasted turkey I only had to make two other dishes - gravy and corn pudding. I will take some credit for the table setting though, I pulled it together with a little help from my Martha Stewart Living magazine (that really makes me feel old!!). I've got plenty of photos below. If you haven't seen Josh in a while you'll notice the large animal on his face, I mean beard :-) He was growing it out for the "winter" but he recently shaved it off. He wants Darby to know what he really looks like when we finally bring him home.

Speaking of Darby, only 2 more weeks until we go pick him up! We can hardly wait. So far we've collected a few things like collar and leash and plenty of stuffed play toys from his new family and friends. He's going to be one lucky dog, being the first grandpup and all. (Our breeder created a web site so we could watch him grow - http://www.robertradcliff.com/darby/index.html)

Quick recap on the month that's passed - Josh has been hard at work (along with both of our dads) on the fence. So far the old fence is down and come January he'll be putting up the new one. It's no easy task, that's for sure. I recently took a trip to St. Simon's Island, Georgia with a few of my girlfriends. We had such an amazing time (photos below) and it was so incredibly relaxing. If you've never been to the Georgia coast this is definitely a place you should visit. The people are friendly, the scenery is beautiful and it just has this wonderful feeling of calmness (of course the southern hospitality is wonderful too). While the girls were off on our trip the guys decided to do a little camping and fishing. Let's just say the weather dipped below freezing and the fish were NOT biting. I'm sure it was great bonding time, but us girls were glad to be warm and cozy by the fire in St. Simon's.

Up next - Let the holiday parties begin! This year we have 9 parties to attend. Well, I do at least. Josh will go to most (even if he's kicking and screaming). We'll spend Christmas Eve in Gainesville with our parents and Caitlin and then Christmas Day we're heading up to Crestview to see the Highlander family - Darby in tow. After a few days back at the office we'll be packing up again. This time it's off to Toccoa, Georgia for a night with Grandma and Grandpa Wills. We're stopping through on our way to Asheville, North Carolina. We've rented this great little pet-friendly cottage in the mountains and we have our tickets to the Biltmore already. It's our Christmas gift to each other this year, the first time we've ever not done gifts. I have to admit, not having to shop for Josh will be a welcome relief. He's always such a tough one to buy for.

Well, I hope you all are enjoying the holiday season! We really do miss our friends and family that we don't see very often, even more so at this time of year.

Love,

Josh and Jenny

Thanksgiving

Kristin, Katie, Emily and Jenny

St. Simon's Island

Darby O'Gill Highlander - 5 weeks old

Happy Halloween!

Well, it's been over two months since we've last posted so I figured it was time. We've officially been back in Florida for more than six months now! Time has really flown by.

I wanted to share a picture of our pumpkin, Josh did such a great job carving it free hand. Unfortunately he had an accident and is now missing a bottom tooth (the pumpkin, not Josh). We had a blast giving out candy to all the little trick or treaters in our neighborhood and then enjoyed ourselves with other adults who still like to dress up at our friends annual Halloween party (thanks Lorraine and Shawn!).

The picture to the left is the newest addition to our family, our sweet little puppy. He's just a few hours old in this photo. He still has a lot of growing to do and will need his mom for now but he'll be coming home to us on December 20th. The perfect Christmas present! We already have a name for him - Darby O'Gill Highlander, or Darby for short! In case you're wondering where the name came from, it's from one of the greatest movies ever, Darby O'Gill and the Little People.

In addition to our new puppy, we've been keeping pretty busy. The Gators have had a great season so far with the biggest game yet TODAY! We're not making the trek to Jacksonville for Florida/Georgia this year, but we'll definitely be glued to the tv and saying a few prayers for Tim Tebow and the Gators. The game is at 3:30, you won't want to miss it! We've certainly enjoyed being back in Gainesville for football season, there's nothing better than living in the heart of Gator Country (unless of course you're a Seminole or Canes fan).

So what's up next for the Highlanders? Well, for starters, we'll be building a new fence around our yard in preparation for our new puppy. We're also finishing up some projects around the house which seems to be a never-ending task. This year we'll be hosting Thanksgiving for our families. We're both so excited to celebrate the holiday in Alachua, and hopefully it's the first of many in our new home. I've got some exciting things planned through the fall with the Tridelta Alumni Chapter that I recently became active with and Josh will be spending every chance he gets fishing (which sadly isn't as often as he'd like). Lastly, I have a fun girls trip planned for St. Simons island in November. Katie, Kristin, Emily and I are heading off for the weekend to relax and enjoy some much needed time by ourselves. I think that about sums it up! I'm sure you'll be waiting patiently for my next blog with photos of all this fun stuff ;-)

Until then, we hope this finds everyone doing well!

All the best,
Jenny and Josh

Pumpkin carving - The Highlanders, Emily, and The Weitekamps.

Getting ready for the Trick or Treaters...
We had TONS of kids, thankfully we had just enough candy.


Cat Woman and a Lumberjack -
The best we could do with things we had around the house.
(I bought the ears though!)

Some of the ladies at the adults Halloween party.
(Lindsay, Katie, Me, Nancy - aka Prom Queen, Kat Von D, Cat Woman, Rachel Zoe)

I could have sworn it snowed! 32 degrees in October, unbelievable. The yard frosted over and we had a layer of ice on the roof and across our fence. It was pretty until all the grass died!

Summer Fun!

The summer is nearing an end, well the official summer anyway. As most of you know, Florida maintains the summer heat well into the fall. Not that we expect it anytime soon but we're looking forward to some cooler weather. This fall/winter will be our first cold weather in quite a while!

We've officially been back for 5 months now, can you believe it?!?! The time has flown by. We're both enjoying work and LOVE living in Alachua. The small town atmosphere suits us both very well. For those that haven't been to this area before, you'll have to plan a trip. Ginnie and Poe Springs are both close by, the town of High Springs is great for antiquing and Alachua has some surprisingly wonderful places to eat and shop! There's my plug for now. I think you should all come visit!

We wrapped our summer up with a fun concert in Jacksonville. We went with some friends (Katie and Brad Weitekamp and Adam and Laura Harms) to see Kenny Chesney. It was an awesome show!!! He played for more than three hours. We danced and sung along for three hours too.

After the concert was the UF vs Miami game and my 28th birthday. The Gators pulled out a big win just for me. We had such a blast and Josh was like a little kid on Christmas now that he's back in Gainesville for football season.

Lastly, we recently went back to Crestview for Josh's 10 year high school reunion. Boy do we ever feel old! It was really fun and Josh got to catch up with some old friends and I got to meet some new ones. We stayed down in Destin (thanks Carol!!) and enjoyed a nice weekend back home.

Beyond football (which I could talk for days about) we're just enjoying work and our friends. We have quite a few visitors planned this fall so we're looking forward to that. The latest update on our puppy is that we should have him/her in late December, just in time for Christmas. The breeder we're talking to is just waiting on the litter to be born.

I hope this finds all of our friends and family doing well! I love to receive updates from everyone so when the mood strikes you, send us an email.

Enjoy the photos! I couldn't get just the album covers to show up so if you want to see the photos I think you have to click on the name of the album.

Love,

Jenny and Josh

Four Years and Counting

Wow, it's pretty hard to believe it's been four years since Josh and I first met! For those that don't remember (or maybe never knew), Josh and I met on July 17th, 2004. It was a rainy evening and we were encouraged to go to Durtty Nelly's by some of our mutual friends. We both showed up despite our apprehensions, and the rest is history! Well it wasn't quite that easy, but you get the point. On one hand, it seems like just yesterday and on the other, we think about all that the last four years has brought us and it seems like a lifetime ago. We feel so blessed though and are looking forward to the next four, and forty. (The picture isn't from four years ago, only about three, but it's the oldest I could find that I had digital)

Things are going very well for us now that we're settling back into a normal routine. It was a tough few transitional months after moving back but it has paid off and we're so glad to be back with our friends and family. In fact, we had an amazing 4th of July holiday weekend with our friends. I have some photos below of our trip to Ginnie Springs. Our visitors were Kyle and Harmony Abney as well as friends of Katie and Brad's, Laura and Adam Harms. It was such a blast!!

Up next for the summer is more work around the house as we get settled in as well as the start to Gator Football season. Oh, and there's Josh's 10 year High School reunion coming up as well. Fun fun fun!! We're looking forward to all the visitors during fall for football games, if we haven't already invited you, please know you're certainly welcome.

Lastly, in just a little over a week Josh's sister Caitlin will be moving to Gainesville. She accepted a job as a physical therapist assistant at Shands. We're so excited for her to have gotten such a great job immediately after graduation, and even more excited to have her close. She'll be staying with us for a bit while she settles in and then getting a place of her own. One down, the rest of our family and friends to go (we're secretly lobbying to move everyone we know to Gainesville).

We hope you are all having a great summer!

4th of July

We've Moved!

It's time for another post! There have been more big changes in the last few weeks and even more on the horizon. Jenny started work finally at RTI Biologics, the company she was with before she left Gainesville (who am I kidding, Josh doesn't help write these posts so I can stop referring to myself in the third person). I'm so excited to be back and in a new and challenging role. This time around I'm in the Marketing Communications department working with my friends and colleagues, Emily and Nancy (you've seen Emily in many of our photos). My new title is Marketing Communications & Education Manager. It's great to be back with a company I love working for and I'm excited about my future there.

Josh is now through with month one at his new job and is still getting settled in. He's got a learning curve since he's actually doing the design end of engineering this time around, but it's challenging and keeps him on his toes. If he continues along the same path he will be eligible to take his P.E. test to become a professional engineer in about two more years.

I have some BABY news to share. I mentioned in a previous post that our friends Kristin and Jason Jimenez were having a baby. Well, she's here now! Annabelle Lynn Jimenez was born on May 13 and was a healthy 8 lbs 9 oz. We're all so excited for Kristin and Jason and glad to have a new little one to add to our amazing group of friends here in Gainesville.

Although not nearly as exciting as a new baby, our big news concerns our house. We closed on May 29th and moved in the same night (with the help of our good friends). It was a bit crazy, the closing was delayed because the bank put the wrong address on the entire loan packet but we finished in about 3 1/2 hours and got the keys!

Some other fun news.... Because we had to sell our cars in St. Thomas before we moved back, we were in a bit of a predicament as far as car pooling and sharing a vehicle. In a previous post I told you about Josh's new truck, well now I have a new one of my own. Just one day after buying our house we were able to go and pick it up. It's Hyundai Santa Fe and I just love it!! Well, I guess we'll see how much I l really love it when the mortgage and car payments start rolling in :-)

I've included some photos from the move and of the new house. After we get settled a little more I will post some more photos.

On a side note, despite the fact that we have ZERO furniture, we would absolutely love to have all of our friends and family here to visit. We can't really call it our home until it's filled with friends and family so please know you are all welcome any time!

I hope you are all doing well and we wish you a great start to June and the rest of your summer.

Love,
Jenny and Josh

Our new home