Long Time Coming

I know I have been horrible about updating our blog lately! Things around here have been insane! Dan is staying busy (as usual) with school and work. The end of the semester is quickly approaching so he is in crunch time. With school and work I feel like we hardly ever get to really see each other. I am so thankful for all that he does for Nate and I and look forward to the day that he is done with school and we get to see him more often. I am staying busy chasing after Nate and trying to stay on top of my household work and the apartment's work. It sure is hard to do all that I need to do with the apartment complex when I have a toddler (sad...not a baby anymore) who is constantly hanging onto my leg! The apartment manager position certainly is a blessing and yet some days we have to wonder what the heck we got ourselves into. I was called a "female dog" on more than one occasion in the past week (part of the joys of evicting people)!
We were able to get away for a couple of days about a week and a half ago and it was GREAT. We went camping with my best friend Sarah and her husband Eric at Zion National Park. We all managed to cram into a compact car, all 5 of us and ALL our camping gear. Camping gear including two tents, two queen size air mattresses, four tents, all of our clothes, and our food (cooler included)! We looked like a bunch of clowns shoved into a toy car. Nate had the most room of any of us in the car and he was happy the majority of the time in the car or asleep. Nate was not a fan of the dirt the first day and a half that we were there, which we all found funny. When we would sit him down on the ground he would play with the little flowers for a moment and then go to crawl and realize that he was in the dirt and freak out. We had a great time all around and look forward to going camping more this summer.
I cannot believe that our baby boy will be turning one at the end of this month. It truly seems like yesterday that I was in the hospital with a new born! Nate is such a wonderful blessing in our lives and I have no idea how we lived without him before. During the week during and after we went camping Nate cut three teeth. He did amazingly well considering that he had THREE come in back to back, I am sure the poor guy felt like it was never going to end. A couple of days after getting back from our camping trip Nate took his first steps. Sadly Dan was not here to get to see that, but my mom and Autumn got to see him do it on webcam. Nate of course was happy to oblige and show Daddy when he got home! Nate has been walking several steps at a time every day since then. It is truly amazing to me how much Nathaniel has grown. It is also amazing to me to think back to before we had Nate in our lives and think about how much Dan and I have grown as individuals and as a couple.
About a week or two before going camping Dan and I celebrated our two year anniversary by going out on a nice date! We have not had a chance to go on a real date without baby boy in a long time and in all honestly since we did not really "date" before getting married, this was probably our nicest date ever. We dropped Nate off at Grandma Char's before dinner (well, actually she met us at the restaurant and picked Nate up since we were running late) and went to dinner at Tuscany. The restaurant is a beautiful place and was absolutely divine! I had that night's pasta special and Dan had the Manzo di Veneto (Tender Venetian Style Beef with soft Gorgonzola Polenta in Port Wine Reduction). Dan said that his food was unlike anything that he had ever had in his life before. For dessert I had the Vanilla Bean Crème Brulee with fresh berries and thought that I had died and gone to heaven. I have had Crème Brulee a few times before but this was certainly the best I have ever had. Dan was full from dinner so he got his dessert (that night's cheese cake) to go. After dinner we had to go back to Char's because I forgot our tickets to the show in my diaper bag, which I of course handed over to Char at the restaurant. We then went to an improv comedy show. Dan and I are both huge fans of improv so we had a fantastic time. This was the first time that I had ever gone to a live improv show, so I think that made it even better for me. We both look forward to getting to go back one day soon!
Well, bed is calling (it is 3:30 am) so here are a couple of random pictures from over the past month. Hopefully I will get back into the routine of pasting regularly again!