Happy Halloween!

I'm not a mom yet, but I love being an aunt to these two wonderful kids...

  Brooklyn wanted to be a cowgirl this year, but only if her big brother would be a cowboy. He was a good sport about it and I think they looked adorable. I love these two so much and they know they have their Aunt Trishy wrapped around their fingers. It really is hard to be so far away from them and it breaks my heart when I see pictures like this because I want to be able to..

trick or treat

carve pumpkins

and go to the pumpkin patch with them.

People tell me there is nothing like being a mom, but I don't know, being an aunt is pretty awesome. I just love these two.

My brother got hitched

The bride

The groom

The wedding party

My brother got married back in August (yes, I know, this is old. Like I've said before, I'm horrible at keeping up with my blog) which meant another trip to the east coast for Rob and I. Anyway, they had a beautiful day and everything went well. I chose some of the favorite photos to post on here. Enjoy! 

It was fun. The trip went fast because we were busy with the wedding but I am very happy for my brother and his new bride, Heidi. My brother and I have always been very close and I'm glad he finally found someone. They will soon be moving to Pennsylvania and are already expecting a little one. It wasn't quite a "honeymoon" baby, but not far off :) I am very excited for them.

Just ask God

I taught a class of 29 Kindergarten students today. It was a blast! I'm always excited to hear what they have to say because they know it all and are so wise at that age ya know :) One of the girls wanted to have a conversation with me about kids. It went like this..

"Can you show me your kids?"

" I don't have any kids"

"You don't have any kids here or you don't have any kids at all?"

"I don't have any kids at all yet."

"Oh! Well do you want to have kids one day?"

"Yes! I would love to have lots of kids one day."

"Oh ok! Well all you have to do is ask God. Just ask God and he will bring one to you."

Loved it! It made me smile.

Some of you are aware but not all...so I'll share. I got pregnant VERY quickly when Rob and I started trying but I lost it around 8 weeks. It was a tough process to go through but I was thankful to know that I can get pregnant and very fast for that matter so I just kept my head up and said okay we will try again soon.

So remember...just ask God. Little does she know that I already do :)

family reunion!

My great grandparents had 14 children so every year @ the end of July generations of the Hartman family get together for a two day reunion. There is usually close 300 people each day and we have a lot of fun. 

A hay ride kicks off the reunion on Saturday followed by a pig roast. Some sort of band usually always plays as well (mostly for the older generation) and this year there was square dancing. Ha! That was pretty hilarious. 

Sunday's festivities begin @ 1 with a huge lunch followed by a few door prizes. This year Rob and I took home the prize for furthest traveled. Who would have guessed? The rest of the day is filled with games like: water balloon toss, egg toss, watermelon seed spitting, 3-legged race, horse shoe pitching, crawl-dad catching, and a few others. Team Harry has claimed victory over the egg toss for four years now. We are pretty stoked about that!  

Our reunion is pretty country but it's a lot of fun. I love spending time with family on the beautiful nine acres of land that my mom grew up on and where I spent a lot of my childhood days. The Hartman reunion is one trip home I hope Rob and I will always take every year. 

Harry Hartman crew!

I love being an aunt

I love this girl..

..and this boy.

I miss their adorable faces. 

They are growing up so fast and I miss being so far away from them. With Ryan being in school and busy with all his sports, it's hard for him to come to Brandywine when I go home for visits, but it is a MUST that Brooklyn is @ "Grammy's" when I arrive so that she can spend every minute with her Aunt Trishy. I love every second that I get to spend with her and I'm pretty sure she loves spending time with me too. This is how the day went the last time she rode to the airport with us:

It was the day we had to take Rob back to the airport. I woke up that morning and found Brooklyn playing with her toys. She looks up at me and says, "Aunt Shishy (Trishy) you not go on the airplane with Rob. You not go to Calwiforna (California)." I informed her I would not be going on the airplane and in return I got a big hug and smile. 

As we headed to the airport she continuously reminded everyone that I would NOT be going on the airplane. By the way..it's a 3 hour drive to the airport so we heard it quite often :)

When we pulled up to let Rob out, I of course got out of the truck to tell him goodbye. When we both went around to the other side of the truck for Rob to say goodbye to Brooklyn, we found her sobbing. No joke! Through her tears she says, "No Shishy. You not go to Calwiforna. You not get on the airplane with Rob. You not go to Calwiforna. You stay at Grammy's."

I promised her I was not going on the airplane, but she wasn't satisfied until I was back in the truck and she could see for herself that I really wasn't leaving. 

It was the sweetest yet saddest thing all at the same time. It broke my heart to hear those words come from her mouth and watch her cry. I am just glad I really wasn't getting on the plane and still had another week and a half to be with her. It would have been so hard to leave her at that moment. 

I miss her. I miss him. 
Thankfully I will be seeing them again in 5 days! 

1 year!!

For our anniversary, we went and explored southern California. We went to Santa Monica, explored Hollywood, went to San Diego, watched Toy Story 3 (and loved it) and went to the Wild Animal Park. It was fun to get away together. Happy 1 year to us!!!

catching up

Traci & I @ the castle

Mom, Traci, & Brooklyn flew out @ the end of April for a 4 day visit. I was so excited to have them out here with me. We toured the Jelly Belly Factory, went to Monterey Bay Aquarium, Pebble Beach, drove up the coast, went to the castle, went into the city, and did a lot of eating out. It was such a blast having them here and having someone to hang out with every day, but I think I cried for like 3 straight days after they left. Ha! 

@ the aquarium

in front of the Lone Cypress

Happy Birthday Rob!

Rob's birthday was Thursday, May 20. Since I was in St. Thomas that day, we started celebrating his birthday the Saturday before. He was able to open a gift every day from Saturday until Wednesday (the day I left.) I wrote a rhyme with every gift I gave him too, but I'll leave that part out of the post because I don't want to torture everyone with my horrible rhyming skills :) 

SATURDAY: tickets to the giants game. 

This was my first Giants game and it was a lot of fun. I almost caught a ball (my fingers touched it) but the dad in front of me got to it first. The weather was perfect and the Giants won. 

Go Giants! 

SUNDAY: Hershey bars, graham crackers, marshmallows.

Rob mentioned that he wanted to go camping, but I didn't really know how to plan that without his help so instead I planned a camp-out in our living room :)

 This was our sleeping area for camping. Yes..we did sleep here the entire night :) 

Rob making our campfire popcorn. It was cooked perfectly. 

MONDAY: gift card to Rutherford. 

Rob's favorite place is Rutherford so I wrapped up a gift card for him and we had dinner there with his family. Afterward, we all came back to our place for cake and ice cream.

@ dinner

TUESDAY: tickets to the movies.

We went to Vallejo and watched this:

It was good. We both really liked it. Russell Crowe was great. It's worth watching.

WEDNESDAY: gifts. 

Nothing very exciting today. Rob just opened a few gifts; a couple shirts, granola bars, and a new pair of Rainbows. 

Happy Birthday Rob!

St. Thomas

My friend decided to have a destination wedding and I was her Matron of Honor, so I was able to spend 4 days on the island of St. Thomas. I had fun spending time with the people I grew up with. I've missed hanging out with them. The plane ride there and back was very long and the weather was extremely hot, but I'll take that super hot sunny weather over this rainy cold weather we've had here in Napa any day. Her wedding was very pretty. It was everything she had dreamed about and I'm glad everything turned out the way she wanted it to. Congratulations Corey & Kayla!

 View of St. Thomas

from the hotel

 

  hanging out before dinner one night

Kayla with her girls

Love this pic!

26

I'm a bit behind on this post, but hey..I'm not so great at this whole blogging thing. Anyway...I turned 26 on April 13th. I started celebrating my birthday in Cabo sort of by accident, but I liked how it turned out. We had a pinata night (see pictures from previous post) and whoever found the biggest marble inside won a birthday party, and that just happened to be me. What fun!! We had a mariachi band come to the house, everyone brought a gift, we had a nice dinner, and celebrated with cake. It was a lot of fun! 

On the 13th, Rob's family took me to dinner and then they came over to our place for presents, cake, and ice cream. I love ice cream cake from Dairy Queen and have had one for my birthday for @ least the past 5 years if not longer. Rob is aware of this so he did try by getting me an ice cream cake from Baskin-Robbins, but it just wasn't quite the same. I still appreciated the effort though. Rob took me out to dinner the next evening to Benihanas. It was delicious! They sang to me, gave me ice cream, and took our picture. It was a fun evening out. 

Turning 26 was fun. It was hard being away from the family. I think this was my first birthday celebration without them. Those are the moments I miss so much. 

The year 25 brought tons of blessings, celebrations, and wonderful memories and I'm very thrilled to see what my 26th year has to offer. 

Highlights

Rob and I went to Cabo, Mexico with a few other couples and had such a good time. I would like to post every picture with explanations, but that would seriously take FOREVER, so I'll just summarize with a few highlights. ENJOY!!

Jeepin' it one day to enjoy some beautiful beaches and experience what some of Mexico living is really like. 

 The crew that went deep sea fishing. 

 We caught this. A Marlin. Awesome!

 And enjoyed seeing other amazing ocean life. 

 We loved relaxing by the fire pit..

 ..at this AMAZING house we stayed at.

 We had a pinata night

 I found the biggest marble..

 

..which led to having a mariachi band come play for us. 
Great times!

 We took a boat to the famous arch..

 ..and hung out on Lovers Beach!

 The beaches were so gorgeous!

 We loved our trips out on the town for some fine dining. 

 And it was great to wake up to these wonderful breakfasts made by the awesome chef @ the house. 

CABO+FRIENDS+GOOD TIMES=
WONDERFUL TRIP!