The husband I have

Two years ago, Anthony and I shared our "I do's." It was a Saturday afternoon, a hot afternoon, getting married in June was probably not the best idea in the world, but we did it. We both promised our love and loyalty to each other and promised to honor God through it all. We vowed to love each other in sickness and in health, richness and poorness, and to always have each others backs. We made these vows in front of our closest and dearest friends; it is a day that I will never forget.

When Anthony and I met in early 2007, we were both broken and lost emotionally, but mostly spiritually. We were both trying so hard to be people that we were not and we were both extremely broken. We each had so many wounds that were not healed when we started dating, but slowly we have healed each other. It hasn't been an easy ride. The first year and a half of our relationship was a battle field and neither one of us would surrender. Anthony had anger issues and I was just plain bitter. In my bitterness I would push Anthony to extreme anger and in his anger he would bring out the bitterness in me. Somehow we managed to make it. Anthony overcame his anger, a complete 180 degree and well, I can still be a little bitter at times, but I have also changed a great deal.

In May 2009 we got engaged and then married in 2010. When I married Anthony, he was a completely different man than when I met him and today Anthony is completely different man than the man he was when I married him. Allowing him into my life and allowing him to love me was the best decision I ever made.

Anthony has changed like the sky changes from night to day....with the same beauty and grace too. He is a man filled with love, compassion, endless amount of grace and mercy, charisma, drive, strength, and joy. He loves doing things for others, always puts other peoples needs before his own, especially mine. He is selfless as ever and he has become this man of God that I completely adore. Yesterday was rough day for him, but the way he reacted to it was incredible. He was not angry and he wasn't even filled with doubt, instead he prayed and laid it all in front of God. I then realized how much he has grown and how much of a man he has become. I am so proud to be his wife.

My life without Anthony would be dark because he has helped me walk closer to the light. He helps me to see the beauty in everything. His ability to lean on God in good and bad times inspire me to be a better woman. His grace as a husband is appreciated because I am by no means perfect. He encourages me with Godly words and prays for me and for our future family. He is my doctor when I am not feeling well, my counselor when I am stressed, my back rubber when I have cramps, my tear wiper when I cry, my stand up comedy guy when I need a laugh, my act silly because I can act 5, my rock when I am weak, my lyric police when I don't know the words, my grammar teacher when I can't speak (haha), he is my number one cheerleader when I need support, he is my everything I could dream of and more.

Anthony, I love you. These two years of marriage have been the best in my life. You are a wonderful husband and I know you will be a wonderful dad. Happy Anniversary.

Our life as of lately is a little crazy! :)

It's been a long time since I blogged about our adoption and what has been going on, but there is not a lot to update you all on.

The past two weeks have been crazy for us, between moving out of apartment 4 days before we could move in to our home, to packing and unpacking, having only one car and not being able to find a summer job, it's been stressful. But we have had so much encouragement and help from our friends here in Orlando. We had 12 people help us move out of our apartment, we had 5 different people offer us a place to stay during our 4 days of being "homeless," we had cooked meals 3 times a day, we had people help us unload and unpack, and we have already had people over for dinner or to hang out. We feel extremely blessed. 

To add to the craziness in our life, we moved in on Wednesday (about 2 weeks ago) and the next day we had our home study. It was wild. There were boxes all over the place and the house looked like a storm had blown through it; Mrs. Deborah didn't mind though. She wanted us to get moving with the adoption and right now we are getting last bit of our home study papers finalized and then we will know if we were approved or not. Anthony and I both feel good about the process. We believe we will get approved. 

Many people have compared adoption to pregnancy and although I can see some similar aspects I don't think they are too similar. With pregnancy you are able to gain weight freely without anyone judging you. If I gained weight just because, it wouldn't be as acceptable as if I were pregnant. I'm a bit jealous of that aspect. When you are pregnant you are able to justify shopping for clothes, I can't. When you are pregnant you are able to crave junk; if I craved junk it's only because I am a fatty :). But those are surface issues. The biggest differences between adoption and pregnancy is that pregnant women know, more or less, when their baby will be home...I still don't know. When you are pregnant you are able to say "well in three months my little girl/boy/ baby will be here" and people don't look at you like you are crazy because their is an obvious bump on your belly that explains it. When you are pregnant, people don't typically ask you why you decided to get pregnant-- typically people are happy for you and don't question you. The biggest thing, at least to me, is when you meet your baby for the very first time you won't have to worry about leaving him or her for two months until the "paper work" is finalized. I am definitely not looking forward to this part of adoption because I know I will be extremely heart broken for the time we will be apart from our children. Pregnancy and adoption are similar in that the waiting time can get a bit overwhelming. In both situations you go through emotional roller coaster and in some way or another it brings your marriage closer. 

I hope one day I can experience pregnancy so I can truly see if any of these things hold any kind of validity, but as of now, I can only guess these are valid. 

Baked Spaghetti Squash w/ Meatballs

Spaghetti Squash

1 medium size spaghetti squash

fresh mozzarella

marinara sauce

parmesean cheese

meatballs

Set the oven to 385 degrees. Start by cutting the spaghetti squash length wise. Spaghetti squash is hard to cut ( you serously need some muscle) so be sure to use a sharp knife. Once you cut it, drizzle the inside with olive oil. Place it rind up, on the top rack and bake for 30 to 40 minutes.

While the squash is cooking make your marinara sauce.  I added the recipe for the meatballs, but the meatballs I used were left over from the night before.  

Take the spaghetti squash out of the oven.  Scrape off the seeds and pulp. Take a fork and separate the strands by running the fork from stem to stem. Leave the squash in the rind….use like a bowl. Pour marinara, to your liking  and cover with the fresh mozzarella. Place back in the oven for another 5 to 10 minutes depending on how you like the cheese. I like it cooked with a little brown on the top. Take it out and add the meatballs. Enjoy J

Ingredients for marinara sauce: (you can use bottled marinara too if you want)

1 (16 ounce) can of organic tomato sauce

½ cup of thinly chopped onions

1 teaspn of minced garlic

1 teaspoon of dried basil (you can add more to your taste)

½ teaspn of rosemary

½ teaspoon of oregano

1 teaspn of sugar

2 tablespns of Olive Oil

salt and pepper to taste

In a medium sauce pan heat the olive oil in medium heat. Saute the onion and garlic until they are slightly brown. Add the tomato sauce to the pan and stir. Reduce the heat and add the basil, rosemary and oregano. Continue stirring. When the sauce starts to bubble up add the sugar and continue stirring, mixing everything together. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Ingredients for meatballs:

1 lb of ground beef ( you can add italian sausage too if you decide to add it then do ½ lb f beef and ½ italian sausage.)

1 egg, beaten

1/3 cup italian season bread crumbs

2 tablespns of olive oil

Grease a 9x13 baking dish  with olive oil. Set aside. In a bowl mix the ground beef, beaten egg and bread crumbs together. Make sure you mix in the bread crumbs well. Using a melon scooper, ice cream scopper or your hands, shape the balls into golf size balls. Place the balls in the baking dish, bake for 15 minutes, then turn them over and continue baking them for 5 or until they are a little crispy on the outside.

Boiled Peanuts

Last week during my stay with the Drake's, Kimberly made boiled peanuts. They turned out delicious and it inspired me to make my own. I didn't follow a recipe just made it all based on what would be good and they turned out so yummy.

1lb of raw peanuts

1 cup of sea salt (you can only do half if you don't want them salty)

1/4 cup of ground red peppers (more if you want a kick)

water

Place peanuts in the crock pot and cover with water.  Pour the salt and red pepper in the crock boat and cook on low for 6 hours (more or less depending on your crock pot.)

We are who we are.....

I was going through old blog post of mine, because I can and because I wanted to feel like I was in Europe again. But through reading, I found this:

"I am really excited about the remainder of our trip, but I feel like it's going so fast and I want to make sure we are both enjoying it to the fullest. This trip is something we have been planning for so long; ever since we started dating. We always said we wanted to go to Europe on our 1 year anniversary and it's crazy that we have actually been able to do it. I still have my moments of, "should we have saved the money we are spending on this trip to buy a house?" But honestly, I just don't know if a house will ever make up for the feeling and memories that this trip is filling us with. I know that may sound immature or not smart, but I'm okay with that. I know it's hard for our family and friends to understand why we do things the way we do or why we spend our money the way we do, but its our money and our life. Yes, we eventually want to buy a house and have children, but right now that's not our plan (I have realized that Anthony and I just aren't the type to have a plan & I'm starting to get used to that). Our only plan is to love each other unconditionally and to make the most of what we have been given. We want our lives to be filled with wonderful memories we have shared through out the years and not the big house we have, but aren't able to do anything else. We refuse to let material things get in the way of enjoying our lives. Honestly, I could just rent a house for the rest of my life and be completely okay with that. Both Anthony and I feel that from this trip our marriage is growing and getting stronger. There is absolutely no one in this world I would rather share this with than with him!

Sorry, I went on a rant there...I just want everyone to understand why we do what we do. & we want people in our lives to be happy for us and not bash us for the things we enjoy doing. People live life differently and I'm okay with being different and not living that typical "have 2.5 children and live in a white picket-fenced house." Eventually we will get there and I'm pretty sure even when we do get there it won't be what everyone wanted us to do. So therefore I say, do what makes you happy because regardless of what you do...not everyone will be happy for the decisions you make." 

I wrote this last May, I would have never thought a year later I would be buying a house and ready to start a family. All I can say is that we do like to do things "our" way, but that is the way it should be. Every one is different. I am definitely glad that our story right now includes buying a house and adopting 1 or 2 chocolate babies. I am glad God has placed this all in our hearts. It's obvious to me, after reading that blog, that this is definitely God's plan for us. I am so glad that our story is completely not normal. I think it makes us Anthony and Kay. And I am so glad Anthony and I do what makes us happy because truth is....we are.

Hoarding?! :)

I am sure you have all seen, or have heard, about the show Hoarders? For those of you who have not seen or heard about it, the name speaks for itself. It is a show about people who hoard things (gee, wonder what gave that away) and they have a hard time parting with things. Most of them have deep psychological issues which is the leading cause of their hoarding. Although, I know I am not, by any means a hoarder like the people on the show, I do have the tendency to hang on to little gadgets and other random junk. 

Last night, in a desperate attempt to stay up until 1230 a.m so we could get tons of free boxes at Walmart (I know, sounds a little hoarderish) we decided to clean out our personal drawers. Let me tell you, it is really interesting the things we hoard. For example, I found that I have an intensive coin collection (crazy when you didn't even know you collected coins), I collect key chains apparently, I have more buttons then I have clothes with buttons and I have an intensive collection of bobby pins which I can never seem to find when I actually want to pin my hair. I also seem to collect cards, not the card you play with, but card people give to say thank you or happy birthday or whatever. I literally had over 100 cards. I had cards from my communion (16 years ago), my graduation (10 years ago), my 21st birthday (1 years ago...okay I wish), going away from Miami to the AF, going away from AF to Miami, our wedding day and shower, my birthday's, my graduation....I mean you name it and I have a card for it. It was great to have some of them, but some of them I really didn't understand my reason for keeping them. The funny thing is although I didn't understand my purpose of keeping some of them, I was still having a hard time getting rid of them, but finally I did. I only held on to the extremely especial ones. Anthony found a birthday card that his grandmother, who passed away Jan 2011, had sent him for his 25th birthday-- the last card she ever gave him. It was touching.

Once we finished going through our personal drawer, we went through our time capsule (so much for packing huh?). Yeah, Anthony and I have a time capsule and honestly, it's pretty awesome because every time we go through it we kind of like fall in love with each other all over again. I really believe all couples should have a time capsule because it is cheap therapy. By the end of the whole process you want to open a bottle of wine, bat your eyes at each other and well you know.... :). 

Well in the midst of "cleaning" out of time capsule, Anthony found our vows to one another. It was so sweet to hear those vows; to believe that at the end of this month we will be celebrating 2 years of marriage, is insane, time sure flies. After hearing Anthony read his vows, I was so enamored, I said, "babe, read my vows." As soon as I said it, I immediately thought "oh crap." You see, in my vows, I vowed to scratch Anthony's back so many times a week. What I was thinking when I wrote that, I don't know, but obviously I was not thinking considering I don't care to scratch backs. Every time Anthony wants his back scratched, he says "Kay, I'm pretty sure it was in your vows that you would scratch my back." So the fact that I willingly asked him to read my vows was just plain dumb :). He started reading it and got to that part were I vowed to scratch his back and turns out I vowed to scratch his back, not once, not twice, but three times a WEEK. I must have been delusional. I guess I have some making up to do...or maybe I can just use whiteout. No, I know I have to stick to what I promised, or at least consider it when he asks. 

Moving and packing sucks...there is no other word to explain it. The best part about moving this time is that it'll be our last for a really long time. That in itself makes it all worth it. 

Our Home

Searching, praying, praying, searching, searching and praying some more followed by lots of praying. This has been our life for the past 2 months. Searching for a place to live is extremely tiring and overwhelming. The type of process that drains you, frustrates you and makes you really CRANKY. For 2 months, Anthony and I, have been drained, frustrated, and extremely cranky, but we are finally at the end and we are relishing at the thought of moving into OUR home...our long term home.

I have been holding my breath for the past month when we made an offer on this incredible house. It's like when you eat too much and your belt is too tight and you loosen it up a little and FINALLY you are able to take a deep breath. Yeah, today, I was finally able to loosen up the belt and breathe and boy does it feel great. 

The house is beautiful and perfect for Anthony and I (and our soon to be family). It has 3 bed rooms and 2 baths, it has a 2 car garage, a perfect kitchen with brand new appliances and a cute backyard. It really has everything we need. We cannot wait until we move in and have people over. Just knowing that we will be able to serve others in our home excited us....just can't wait!

Thank you to all our dear friends who prayed with us through this process and thank you all the amazing people who worked so hard to make this happen, especially Chief and Mrs. Kim. We love you guys!