Boxing Day Birthday!

I was so lucky to have the chance to celebrate my best friend in the worlds birthday with him yesterday. Chris turned 38 yesterday! 38! I know you're all thinking, "he doesn't look that old". It's because of his cute baby face. You're still a 'young buck' to me babe.

Chris shares his birthday with Boxing Day here in England. The Boxing Day Holiday extends the traditional English tradition of giving.

We made reservations to dine at a local Italian restaurant, Prezzo, here in Newmarket. Italian is probably Chris’ most favorite food. It's a pretty posh restaurant, so it gave us a good opportunity to put on our fancy duds.

What an incredible five years it's been. Since we’ve been together we’ve been on an adventure. We’ve moved to England and we’re looking forward to being parents via the beautiful gift of surrogacy. But with the strength and grace of God we feel confident that He is walking with us on this journey whatever it might be next.

Things I am most thankful for in Chris this past year:
-his trust in God through difficult times that sometimes one doesn't understand
-his acceptance and passionate love for me
-his devotion to prayer
-his enjoyment and desire to pursue a surrogacy to expand our family
-his amazing strength to carry himself and his family through a family tragedy

-his tremendous work ethic
-his well-thought out and living day-by-day nature
-his standing firm on what he believes
-his help and vision for our future ‘little addition’

-his patience and gentleness
-his contentment
-his individuality, that he is like NO one I have ever known.
-his questioning of what he hears and seeking out what he believes before making a decision.
-his love of the outdoors
-his love of date nights with me~
-his tolerating with my ever busy mind and encouragement in everything I do
-his admission when he is wrong, his humility in wanting to always mature and grow in the Lord

Thanks Chris for seeking to live a life outside of yourself. Thanks for cooking, washing dishes, and shopping for us. Thanks for starting up my car on cold nights so I can leave for work in a warm car. Thanks for ‘spooning’ with me at night warming me enough so I can than get to sleep. Thank you for all your hugs and your positive attitude. Thanks for always considering mine and the cats feelings before your own. Thanks for trusting in me and our future ‘family plan’…

Thank you for your honesty. Thank you for being loyal. Thank you for being devoted to me and our marriage 100%.

Thanks for your military service. Chris has another opportunity at a promotion early this year, so we all hopes he makes it. Countless times people will say, "tell your husband thank you for his service, and your service too" just makes me so proud to be a military family.

Thanks for telling me about my typos and spelling errors on my blog, even if it is several days after I've posted it public. Thanks for reading it just because you like to. Thanks for liking my creativity and spontaneity.

Thanks for thinking my creativeness and strange interests and ideas are cool.

Thanks for calling me every day while you and I are apart. Thanks for working SO hard for all of us. Thanks for not giving up.

I am so grateful to have celebrated your 38th with you. I am thankful to have you as my best friend in the whole world. I love when we are together we feel so young, fully completed and in love.

It's a gift that can't really be measured: to live life in love.

Happy Birthday, Chris

moving soon?

We have been on a waitlist for base housing since we arrived in England. We've had other opportunities to move on base, but we've been holding out for the 'new' homes. Liberty Village at RAF Lakenheath has been building new nice 'American' homes that are recently built within the last three years. We love our little bungalow in the summertime for all of the big windows and our conservatory heats up so nicely. However in the winter it can be real drafty with poor insulation resulting in high oil and electricity bills. Thank goodness we have a fireplace. That is the only nice thing about our little bungalow in the winter. And I'm going to miss our fireplace. I will be forever spoiled when it comes to real wood fireplaces. The heat the our fireplace puts off reminds me of the dry weather and real hot temperatures of Tucson. We have been moving up the waitlist. We started at eighty something and now we're in the single digits. 6! The move on base will save us significant money and time, Chris will only live about 10minutes from work instead of 30minutes. And the commissary where we do our 'American' grocery shopping and where I currently work would be within walking of where we live. We are hoping our number will come up in February and we can make the move. Wish us luck.



nice huh?

tidings of joy

Best wishes for Christmas and with warm thoughts for happiness in the coming year.



Love,
Ali & Chris

...also a very special thanks to my sweet sister-in-law Lindsey for our very special Christmas card photo this year.

Merry Christmas To Me...

isn't she a beauty...?



Chris couldn't keep my 'surprise gift' a surprise any longer, so I got to open it early. I know that's cheating, but I'm not good at waiting for gifts if I have a hint as to what it might be. I needed a new phone and here it is! Merry Christmas to me. I'm probably going to make Chris wait til Christmas for his gifts. Should I? Just kidding.




I love the excellent video quality too. I told Chris to hold Baby Paisy on his lap and pretend he was Santa. Sometimes he obliges and acts like a goofball and sometimes he objects. I got lucky this time.

Ice + Skating = Good Times

Chris and I enjoyed an early afternoon of ice skating on Sunday just for the fun of it. Accept I 'wiped out' two really hard times, and so that wasn't too fun. I used to be pretty good at this sport! The rink was packed with a lot of others who apparently had the same 'great idea' as we did. Skating! We held hands and skated around while listening to Christmas music. All we were missing was good hot chocolate. We hired a gal from Lakenheath to take some pictures of us because we hadn't had our pictures professionally taken in awhile and we were overdue. We are really excited to see how they turn out. Hopefully they turn out great and we'll post them for everyone to see and laugh at. Stay tuned for that.

Snow Fun...

Today Daddy drove all the way to work with his big 4x4 'beast', just to arrive at the back gate, to find out that it was a SNOW DAY. Snow Day!! Woohoo for him! So he came home and we enjoyed some 'snow fun'. First I decided to take Baby Paisy out to see the 'white stuff' and she really did like it. I made sure she had her 'cat coat' on though. Then Chris dared me to make a snow angel, and since I can never turn down a dare.. I did it. Boy was it cold, but fun. Brrr...



Before...


during...


...and after

We got the 'white' stuff... baby

That reminds me of a song, Right Stuff by New Kids On The Block. I received a completely unexpected early Christmas gift this year. SNOW!! We enjoyed a complete snow storm for a few hours and now have a beautiful pure white blanket of the 'white stuff'. The 6 inch blanket of snow looks so powdery and whipped almost like a sweet butter-sugar mixture getting ready to be cookie dough.

I took this one just as I was leaving work yesterday morning.


When I got home from our front door.

Santa's Little Helper

Somebody was 'helping' me wrap the gifts yesterday. Paisy thought watching and 'helping' me was the highlight of her cat day. She contributed by walking on every single piece of wrapping paper, chewing on every bow, and playing with every ribbon. I was wrapping in a frenzy last night to make the deadline for Christmas delivery between here and there that I almost shipped her out too by mistake. She even let me put a wrapping paper bow on her and worn it without protesting for hours. She would have already had a bow on her at least. She really must be getting into the Christmas spirit. What a good little helper.

... an original gift

I made little holiday presents for my coworkers and supervisor at work. I'm really happy with the way they turned out. I started with little 8oz Del Monte cans of fruit.



- use a can opener to open the bottom of each can leaving the pull top to be opened by the gift recipient
- throw the bottom of tin away
- thoroughly wash and dry the inside of cans being extra careful on the exposed metal lip of the can
- cut wrapping paper of your choice and affix to can with either glue or tape
- cut a circle from a piece of cardboard tracing the can and cutting to insert as the new bottom of can



- fill the can with with candies or chocolates, or try a Dinty Moore soup can for an even larger gift filled with homemade cookies
- use glue to trace the outer edge of the cardboard slightly to affix to inside of bottom of can (see picture) let dry
- then add gift tag, bow, and candy cane or other decorations of your liking



Because of the sure uniqueness, they will certainly be a real hit.

Surro update #3

C and I are getting really excited about all of the big surro events happening next year. We skype about 2-3 times per week for hours. We talk about motherhood and she gives me wonderful advice. She is an excellent mother and household manager. I just don't know how she juggles everything sometimes. If I have a question about parenting she also answers it non-judgmentally. I shared with her a dream I had the other day involving the 'babies'. She also explained that she too is having slight premonitions when she thinks of the future pregnancy. "Two great minds always think alike", is what my mother always says. This same time in December 2010 holds special importance because if our transfer is successful, in March, we will be first time parents and the little one will have an Auntie, Uncle and two cousins already! Chris and I have started to look at strollers, cribs and I even bought some baby clothes. (I couldn't resist). I'm probably going to get some parenting books too, so Chris and I can get a little more educated. I already have one solid recommendation (thanks C), but if anyone has any other good suggestions. I'm taking recommendations... So this month C and J will have another psych appointment, Chris and I just completed our medical screening yesterday, and then we will have our contract reviewed by our attorney. Our contract is finally finished! In January, C and J meet with the Reproductive Endocrinologist Doctor for their medical screenings and C's special surro testing begins. We are on track for a March transfer. Yay!!

Cheers To Fridays

We ate at TGI Fridays restaurant for our 'last supper' before heading back here for some good familiar sit down grub. We used to dine at Fridays a lot in Tucson for date nights, so the food is good and very familiar to us. We don't have one close by us here in Newmarket, so it was a real treat.



We decided to 'unwind' with some drinks (actually 1 per) before dinner, and I was so intrigued by a unique version of a Cosmopolitan cocktail. I used to love drinking Cosmopolitans in the States 1) because their pinkish in color 2) very sweet and easy to drink 3) one is enough, so I'm a relatively cheap date.



This one caught my eye on the menu because it was served in two parts the container with the Cosmo and the glass with a pink puffball of cotton candy. Cotton candy! I was in heaven. Chris and I watched in amazement as I poured the liquid and the sugar saturated cotton candy just wilted.



It was very fun, and a very unique sales pitch on Fridays part. I just had to include pics of the cotton candy. I'd just never seen a drink served that way before. Chris had a Blue Moom tap beer with a slice of orange. We really splurged that night and ordered an appetizer of cheese sticks, in addition to our main meal. I had a pasta dish with chicken and shrimp and Chris had the ribs and chicken combo. Yummo. It was a meal to remember.