Happy Birthday to Me - 27 years old!

Happy Birthday to Me!!! I can't even believe that I'm 27. The age "Twenty-seven" seems so mature to me ... not really "old" ... more mature, is that true? haha probably not since I continue to be one of the biggest procrastinators around! So, I'm not in my "early twenties" anymore and it also makes me jump into the next classification on surveys ... I'm no longer in the "18-26" range ... oh no no, I'm in the "27-35"!!

Here's hoping for a great year ahead and many, many more to come!!

Four Years

Yesterday Chris and I celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary! All I can say is WOW - I can't believe how fast the time has gone by!! I am so proud of everything we have accomplished in our four years of marriage and I can't wait to see what the future holds for us...

To celebrate our anniversary we went to dinner at a local steakhouse in Lakeland and spent the weekend in St. Augustine at their historic Case Monica resort. We had a wonderful time and plan to visit again in the future!!

Happy 4 years, Honey - thanks for the best years of my life! I can't wait to celebrate many, many more!! Love you!

From Bull to Spartan

Chris has been accepted to the University of Tampa's Master of Accountancy program starting this Fall!

Woohooo! He sent in his application June 1st (deadline) and received admission status online by June 3rd and received the official letter of acceptance, a bunch of paperwork, a UT sticker for the car, and a welcome letter from the Dean about a week later. (I'm just a slacker at updating).

I'm so very proud of him! Luckily his program is fairly short considering he has already completed all of the pre-requisite classes only leaving the 30 core credits! Since he will be working full-time and going to Grad School full-time (6 credits), it will take around 2 years to complete. Either way, he is well on his way to completing the requirements for the Florida CPA exam! Yay!!

Happy Mother's Day to Me!

Who has the best "kids"?? I do, I do! Thanks to their Daddy - Peyton, Persephone, and Phoebe have given me a day at the Spa for a "Tranquility Experience" for Mother's Day.


How cute is this certificate?! ------ (click on the picture to enlarge it)

Chris confessed that he helped them ... but only because they don't have thumbs. haha


Here is a picture of the beautiful flowers that Chris and the girls gave me for Mother's Day ... a dozen BEAUTIFUL yellow, pink tipped roses...




Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms out there ... even if your kids aren't humans. lol

Whirlwind weekend

What an awesome weekend... We spent the night in Tampa on Friday with Chris' mom, sister, aunt and uncle. What a fun night! We went to Outback for dinner then came back to the hotel to play a few card games. Such a great time!

Thennnnnnnnnnnn on Saturday morning Chris graduated with his Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from the University of South Florida!! Graduation was at 9 AM followed by lunch at the Columbia Restaurant with Chris' family and my parents and grandparents who joined us for his big day! I can not even begin to explain how proud of him that I am ... he has worked so hard over the past 4 years by working full-time, taking 12 credits every semester and of course by being the most amazing husband that a girl could ever wish for ... I'm so very lucky!

On Sunday morning I woke up early to work on a paper. Then we decided to check out the local animal shelter for a kitten. Lakeland SPCA didn't have any kitties (well they did but they were already adopted) sooooo, we decided to make a drive over to the Tampa Humane Society. This is where we found our newest Rohde baby! We adopted an adorable kitten who is only 9 weeks old (DOB: 2/28/09). She is very cute and super lovable! We decided to name her Phoebe (read: Fee-bee). Peyton and Persephone are very excited to meet and play with their new baby sister, Phoebe! Lets just hope that the girls get along!

Below are a few pictures of Phoebe coming home ... notice her baby blanket that was given to us by the shelter. How ADORABLE is she?! More pictures coming soon ...

Sleepy Phoebe laying on her baby blanket on the way home



Phoebe in her box on the car ride home


So not only 1 time but TWO times did Phoebe climb up behind the CLOSED dresser all the way up to the TOP drawer where she was then trapped ... no worries, we have blocked all entry. haha



Aww, this picture melts my heart - so sweet!


Our little escape artist...




Baby Phoebe and I ... love her!


We will hold off on the integration process for a couple of weeks (just to be sure she didn't bring anything home from the shelter. We don't want to infect Persephone). She is 100% healthy and is up to date with shots but it is general procedure for Humane Society to suggest that when mixing shelter cats with home cats. This also gives time for Phoebe to get a little bit bigger ... she is TINY ... probably only weighs around 2 pounds, if that.

For those of you who are wondering or who might ask ... No, we do not plan to name our future kids with "P" names ... or even the same letter for both/all of them. This is just something we are doing for our pets, our Princesses.

We ended the weekend by going to Cirque du Soleil: Saltimbanco at the Lakeland Center. It was an AMAZING show ... I can't wait to see another Cirque du Soleil show in the future.

I plan to post a few pictures from Graduation and more kitty pictures by the end of the week ... check back for updates.

With love,
Connie

An afternoon at the Lake

We decided to take a walk around Lake Hollingsworth since it was such a beautiful day! We picked a great day to walk the lake as they were having a speed boat competition. It was fun to watch as we walked. However 3 miles in flip flops was not a good idea! Thanks to Chris he switched shoes with me half way through and saved my poor little toes!

After the walk, we went to dinner downtown and checked out some of the shops around town. It has taken me a while to appreciate the little city we live in and it is days like this that remind me of why I love living here. I know, I know Lakeland isn't that small but it is smaller than any other city I have ever lived in before.

I will try to post pictures from our walk and the boat races sometime soon.

My pink surprise

Today I got a surprise delivery of a PINK external hard drive!!

In case you don't know what this is, it is a tiny portable hard drive for my new [pink] laptop. It saves documents such as music files, pictures, and important school papers. It's so cute and small. This little thing will come in handy since I save a lot of important school documents and pictures. Here is a picture of what it looks like...