Before Kids

I wasn't a blogger before Jake and I had kids and I have been feeling the need to reminisce lately. When Hannah was born we had been married for four and a half years. We took quite a few trips and had a lot of fun traveling here and there during those pre baby years. Sometimes it seemed that we had a different trip planned every other month. Looking back I am SO glad that we did that because sometimes now I feel very confined within the walls of my home, and the occasional trips to Sam's Club, Target, and the park just don't always cut it. We still go places with the kids, and do lots of fun things, but the types of activities and frequency of trips has certainly changed. So if you'd like, take a walk with me down memory lane, before the babes were born. When we were free as birds to go wherever the wind was blowing us.

May 2002
Playing pool at a bar in downtown Boise on my 21st birthday. We weren't even married yet.

The first New Year's that Jake and I celebrated together. We were in Arizona visiting with his family and Grandparents.

Another New year's in Arizona. We went to a block party in Scottsdale with a bunch of bands. We went with Jake's sister Tania and her husband Nick, and his brother Dustin and his girlfriend (now his wife) Karen.

I know we look young here but don't worry, we were old enough to be enjoying those cold beverages.

Kayaking in Cozumel on our honeymoon.
 

My cousin Timmy came to visit Jake and I when we lived in Idaho and we went skiing at Bogus Basin.

Camping at Bass Lake

Before kids, our dog Abbey used to come with us when we did something fun. Going camping, or to the beach, or the park. Now, poor girl stays home more often than not, and we bring the kids since we can't leave them home alone in the kennel.

Water skiing and wakeboarding at the lake

Club hopping in Hollywood for Kelly's birthday in a limo. (Can't remember the last time I did that...oh wait, yea... it was probably that time)

Just boarding a 3 day Catalina-Ensenada cruise.

Skiing at Mammoth with friends Val & Eric.

One of the many lunches we sat and leisurely enjoyed (BK)

No shoes. No shirt. No problems. We took the ferry out of Long Beach to Catalina and spent the day having some fun.

New Orleans 2004. We went on a cruise with our friends Amy & Shane. It left out of New Orleans. None of us had ever been there so we flew in the weekend before the cruise and spent some time touring around the city. We didn't get all those beads how you might be thinking we did. :) But we did have ourselves a real good time down in New Orleans. And I met Garth Brooks on the cruise. He was traveling with his sister and I asked him if he was Garth Brooks and he was! We chatted with him a couple different occasions.

No shoes. No shirt. No problems, again. In Jamaica. Also no baby fat. Huh, imagine that.

Paradise Island. It's an island off the coast of Cozumel where they film the Corona commercials. How's that for an advertisement?

On our way to enjoy a lobster dinner on the formal night of the cruise.

Random cruise picture. Back in the days when I had time to wear false eyelashes.

Skiing at Big Bear

We flew to Iowa to help Jake's family clean out his grandparents farm house when they moved to Boise. The first picture is the corn fields on the farm. Second picture is the view of the back of the house (if you click on the pic and look closely you can see me behind the screen door). The third picture is the famous Surf Ballroom, the last place that Buddy Holly, Richie Valenz, and The Big Bopper played. Their plane crashed after they left this show just miles from The Prestons farm. Jake's Grandpa helped remove pieces of rubble from the crash site.

March '06 we did the Catalina-Ensanada cruise with our friends Tawny & Joe. I was about 6 weeks pregnant with Hannah.

Standing above the blowhole in Ensanada.

April '06 we made it up to Mammoth again to do some skiing before I was too pregnant to do it anymore. This was BB (before blogging), and I wasn't as good about taking pictures yet so I had to include a few to show who all went.

May '06 in New York for my birthday. We were on a ferry boat, arriving on Staten Island to take a tour of the Statue of Liberty. I was 3 months pregnant, and gagged at every single smell in New York city. I loved it, but must go back another time, not pregnant. One of my favorite things we did that trip was see Chicago on broadway in the third row.

We've gone on a lot of great trips, and we've had tons of fun. We are still having fun, it's just a different kind of fun. What I miss most of all nowadays is date night. Before we had kids, we didn't even call it date night because there was not one night specifically for dates. We did it all the time. We went out on a weeknight. We'd go out on a Friday night, and again on a Saturday night. When we lived in Boise we probably ate out 4 nights a week because I had not yet mastered the art of cooking. ha ha ha. We enjoyed doing it, but we had no idea what a luxury we would later think that was.

Nowadays our date nights look more like this:

This was our dinner a couple of weeks ago on a Friday night. It was a warm night, so we ordered pizza and salad from BJ's to be delivered and we ate outside by candlelight with a fire in the chiminea. We always make it a good time. And we both realize that right now in the grand scheme of things, this part of our lives is just a tiny blip. It won't last forever. One day we'll be begging our kids to come home for dinner and eat with us. :)