After a 2-year battle with small cell cancer, my brother David's wife, Kaci, passed away this week. She was an example to us all of faith, service, and happiness.

Learn more about Kaci, David, and their family at

www.helpdavidcoxfamily.org

and please help them in this difficult time if you are able. It would mean a lot to us.

-Ted

Cancun

Well we decided to do our last hora of a vacation before ted starts work this summer and then goes straight back for his last year of school!!! Not that I'm excited or anything for him to be done!! So we planned this trip and then my parents being sick of the snow decided they needed to be de-thawed as well. We stayed in a beautiful all inclusive with amazing food a gorgeous beach and a huge double person jacuzzi tub in our room. It was awesome. We went and saw the mayan ruins, did a cool jungle boat tour and on our last day had a couples massage and a romantic dinner on the beach. Ted will tell you he had to bring me home kicking and screaming. I did not want to leave the 80degree weather to go home to the snow. We came home to a foot and half of snow in our driveway and unable to even park our car. Now we are both studying for midterms and back to reality.

Our romantic dinner on the beach

Mayan temple

ted being one with the columns

Us quickly taking a pic on steps because you are not suppose to climb the ruins! Rulebreakers

One of dinners at the japanese steak house

I made Ted try on the cheap Mexican hats

ted had a hard time relaxing

this is view from balcony of pool and beach and if u see the purple light is where we had our dinner on beach

Ugly Christmas Sweater Party

This was the table I set up for the food and prizes

We had to put Roxy's dog bed up somewhere and we came into the spare room and found this! You can see kitty was hard at work


We are matching ugly sweater couple from the 80's. All i needed was a side pony tail

Everyone

Melissa's homemade sweater with santa coming out of her belly

Well here is the promised pictures of our house decorated for Christmas plus we had a ugly Christmas sweater party for the youth in our church and here are pictures of the best one.

Blog Make-Over

So No I haven't died and I know its been a while but we have been busy. First the obvious, thanks to my amazing cousin Emily she made over our blog and I love it. Thanks so much Em its amazing. And of course we had to add a photo of our first born child Roxy!!! the dog. she really is our child, sleeps in between us in bed and even has a stocking hanging for Christmas. So heres the updates. TEd is done another semester of school and has been studying a ton and never home so I'm glad the end is drawing near. He worked really hard and was blessed to get a job this summer at one of the biggest law firms in Canada and a global 100. So we are extremely grateful for that and if he does well could turn into a job after. I finished my semester of master classes and have one more next semester before I start the NP program. Ted was able to go home for thanksgiving to see all his family. I missed everyone but he had a lot of fun with a lot of people!!! the house was a zoo! I went with my family for my parents 40th anniversary on a mediterian cruise in October and would do it again in heart best. Best trip ever! Saw Greece, Italy and Croatia. I told Ted that for his graduation present we would go. So anyone want to come 2012 we are going!

The Christmas season is upon on us and our house is looking festive. (to post pics later) We are spending Christmas with my family because I get christmas off this year!! Can't wait. there will not be as many grandkids there as past because my brother greg is moving to utah this week because he has gotten a promotion at work to be over the west. We are going to miss all his girls. We will miss all the family we can't spend Christmas with, but know that we are thinking of you. Hope you all have a merry Christmas filled with love and laughter. We are so excited to celebrate the birth of our saviour at this beautiful season and are grateful for all the gifts he has given us.

Love to all!

5 years!

As I was looking through my pictures I had completely forgotten about these few. For Teds and mine 5 year anniversary I planned a surprise flight just the two of us around Georgian bay during our family cottage week. He was totally surprised and love every minute of it. The pilot even let Ted fly 3/4 of the flight. Ted has been saying for the past couple months before this, that he wants to get his pilots licence one day and own his own plane. I said no prob right after you make thousands of dollars!!!! haha right! The other pictures are of the annual dinner cruise the adults go on with no kids during cottage week. The sunsets are amazing.

School Is Back in Session!

Our 5K
The Labor for Life Girls!!

The crowd eating at Henrys fish restaurant.
Noah and JAck both love Uncle Justin's Jeep.
Couples Kayak races. Thats mean yelling at Ted to go faster. He already fell out once.
The swim part of the duathalon
the three sisters, my sisters girls!!!!!!!!
Owen


Summer has gone to fast for us. We have done so much it seems like a blur. We had the Templeman annual family cottage week (always crazy but fun). Had the cottage duathalon, I participated in my hospitals Dragon boat team which is a one day race in a big canoe that fits 20 people. There were over 500 teams. Our team shirts read "we labor for life" being as we are all L&D nurses. Ted and I ran a 5K in Detroit in June, visited his family and friends in Utah, took our church youth to palmyra NY to visit all the historic sites and saw my brother Greg and his family. Enjoyed veggies from my first garden (thanks for your help mom). And had Teds parents come up to the cottage to see what I talk about so much.

Next up, Ted has already started his 2nd year of law school and one more to go after that. Wow will I be glad when he is finished!!!!!! And in other news I got into graduate school this fall. I just went and got my books last week. I will be starting soon my Master in Nursing / NP school combined. I will be going to school part-time and working part-time. Its exciting and going to be busy I know but, it will be worth it in the end when I can set my own hours of work and teach at the university level if I want, take summers off! I know I will miss being an L&D nurse and bringing all those cute babies into this world. Its truly a wonderful experience to see all those little miracles take their first breath and be there to witness the joy on the parents faces. I hope to help the new nurses coming in find something they love and can be passionate about like I am about labor and delivery. I love to teach and always have and hope I can be as good as some of the extraordinary professors I had in nursing school.

I hope to be better about posting more but if anyone read my status on facebook Ted and I were on our way to Palmyra with 75 youth trying to cross the boarder when my mom called to say happy anniversary on Aug 20th which was our 5 year. We both turned to each other and laughed. We both forgot and just figured we would celebrate when things calmed down. I can't forget to mention what an amazing man I married. He has done so well in school, renovated almost our entire house, cooked and cleaned while I have worked a lot this summer and last been my emotional support and rock through this hard time. I am more in love today than on the day I married him. Love you babe and happy anniversary.

Kitchen Renovations Are Done

Ted spent the month of May off of school renovating our kitchen. He is extremely proud of his work as am I. He did a great job and I had no idea I had such a handy husband. We know if the lawyer thing doesn't work out he can always do construction!!!! (just kidding) Look at older posts for some before pictures. The renovation included:

New countertops (extended 30” with new matching cabinets)

New sink

New faucet

New dishwasher

New Microwave

New window frame

Cabinets painted, including "antiquing" (Meg did this)

New cabinet hardware

Built custom cabinets and fridge enclosure

New custom backsplash

New light fixtures

New ceramic tile floor

New painted walls (Again Meg did this)

New 5” baseboards

New garbage disposal

New light switches/outlets