M&M

Six Weeks Old

2011-07-18T22:42:00.002-04:00

Five Weeks Old

2011-07-11T23:12:00.002-04:00

Good Morning

2011-07-10T00:04:00.003-04:00

He stayed in a good mood long enough for me to grab my camera this time.

If you want to see the individual pics or download them, click here.

Four Weeks Old

2011-07-05T23:33:00.003-04:00

Three Weeks Old

2011-06-27T23:10:00.003-04:00

Two Weeks Old

2011-06-20T22:40:00.001-04:00

One Week Old

2011-06-15T20:21:00.002-04:00

Bradley's Here!

2011-06-15T19:55:00.002-04:00

Our beautiful son, Bradley Michael Andersen was born Friday June 3rd at 3:31 pm in the Morristown Memorial Hospital in Morristown, NJ. I was getting impatient with his arrival (his due date was May 30th) so on Thursday I went to my midwife to get my membranes stripped - something to help speed things a long. And it worked! My water broke that night at 2:30am and we were at the hospital an hour later - my contractions were already pretty intense and 3 minutes apart. And 12 hours later, Bradley was finally here! He weighed 8 Ilbs 14 ounces, and 21.5 inches long. He came out screaming and crying, and he was so long! He did not seem like a newborn to us. He looked like a little gorilla but Mike and I thought he was just the cutest thing we had ever seen.

It's been almost 2 weeks, and it seems like he's been with us forever. He's a very good baby - easy to console and cries when you would expect (hungry, tired, needs a changing)....We think he has my cheeks and lips and Mike's chin and hair - nose and eyes tbd. I already see little lashes coming through - hopefully he's got Mike's! He has a very sweet spirit about him - no doubt he will be a sweet and loving boy. He is incredibly strong - already lifting his head and kicks all the time.

We love him and feel so blessed everything went smoothly and that he's happy and healthy!

We love you Bradley! Mom and Dad :)

Babymoon

2011-02-28T22:51:00.012-05:00

With the looming end to our freedom to travel on a whim, we decided to take advantage of a last minute cruise deal. Our options were limited due to restrictions for pregnant women, and difficulty getting much time off on short notice. But we found a short cruise from Miami to Nassau, Bahamas that worked into our timeframe.

By the way, if you ever decide to fly from Newark NJ to Miami, it's possible you may be sitting behind a couple of guys who look like they could be straight off Jersey Shore who drink too much and have their own private dance party, complete with fist pumping. A very real and disturbing possibility.

We were quite relieved when we got to the boat with time to spare. There was a big ol' accident on the freeway on our way there and the traffic seemed like it would never end.

We got an upgrade to a porthole room

The boat was pretty good. I've never been on a cruise before so i have no basis of comparison, but there was no shortage of activities, entertainment, or food.

We were at sea the first day and when we woke up we were in the Bahamas. We didn't buy any of the shore excursions, opting instead to just go ashore and play it by ear.

At first we just went to a nearby beach. It was nice, but I had brought my snorkel stuff and there wasn't much there to see. So we decided to rent a scooter for the day and head somewhere a bit more exclusive.

My research before the trip indicated that a place called Love Beach on the west end of the island had pretty good off-beach snorkeling, so that's where we headed. It's a totally private beach so it was a little difficult to find it, then once we found it it was a challenge to find a way to access it. Once we did though we had a private beach all to ourselves.

There actually was some decent snorkeling there. unfortunately i had some issues with my camera and didn't get shots of any of the coral or fish i saw. I actually didn't think my camera was working when i took this shot. too bad it's a picture of underwater nothing at all. oh well. there really were some nice coral formations.

After that we had a nice long walk along the beach, still almost entirely to ourselves.

The weather started to get bad, so our little bit of paradise was short lived. But we were ready to get back on the boat by the time we made the long, slow, cramped (but still beautiful) scooter trip back to the wharf.

The rest of the cruise was more eating, some shows, relaxing, being contestants on the Game of Love (which was fun, but they didn't mention before we got on stage that they'd be playing on one of the TV channels on a constant loop for the rest of the trip), more eating (which at dinner also means conversing with strangers at our table, some interesting, others "interesting"), and so on.

One the whole i've decided i like cruises. Pretty good value for an all (or mostly all) inclusive vacation. I'm glad we took the chance for a romantic getaway, just the two of us. As excited as we are to be parents, there's no sense in squandering our freedom while we have it, right?

One Year

2010-10-03T21:26:00.002-04:00

So Mike is a really good husband. He successfully surprised me for our one year anniversary with a little weekend trip up to the Poconos. We stopped at an outlet mall on the way and I got myself some kitchen supplies and a necklace. He knows me well, eh?

The Poconos are great, mostly because they are so close! About 2 hours in the car, we arrived at the most beautiful B&B, The Bischwind. This is a picture of our cozy Grandma room. Check out the wood burning stove! The breakfast served the next morning was delicious. We had juice, hot choco, fruit, croissants, eggs, bacon, sausage, grits, and pumpkin cake and probably more.

Here are a few shots of our stroll around the grounds. The English Tudor style is one of my favorites.

The next morning Mike had another surprise for me. Horses, Horses, Horses! We went on an hour long horse back ride through the woods. They even let us gallop and trot. My horse's name was Luna and she was lazy and loved stomping through puddles. We don't remember Mike's horse name but let's just say it had gas...and poo. And of course as you can see above, I was following the gassy poo horse. It was still fun though...:)

So apparently Paper is the one year anniversary gift. Mike and I agreed not to spend money on gifts so I wasn't expecting him to do anything, but of course he did. He made a children's book entitled "What I've learned: The First Year of Marriage." The illustrations are hilarious, but to give you an idea of what Mike has learned, here are a few excerpts:

"Quirky bachelor pad decor really works best in the storage space."

"Sometimes honesty is the second best policy."

"Kitchen items are the gifts that keep giving."

"Happy wife = happy life."

Love you mikey and thanks for the best one year anniversary ever.

Just for fun

2010-07-20T17:38:00.009-04:00

Our wedding photographer, Melissa Kelsey, reached out to us because the people of www.theldsbride.com wanted to feature our wedding on their website. They found our wedding photo's on Melissa's website and requested further details around the cake, flowers and dress. 1) I had no idea our photos were even on our photographer's website to begin with and 2) of course www.theldsbride.com can showcase our wedding! It totally works out because Mike and I are fame...hogs.

Looking at our photos on a legit site reminded me we did have a pretty awesome wedding. It was exactly what we wanted, "simple" and "elegant". :) It made us feel good that Melissa felt the wedding was an "easy, breezy affair". That makes one of us!

Check it out here!

fourth

2010-07-09T18:56:00.010-04:00

Once again Mike and I ventured up to the cabin for the 4th of July. This is the 3rd time together, which means we are past our 2-year dating mark. Yay us?! :) For extra fun, my parents came along. We don't have any pictures of them (or have any that are allowed to be posted here) because we were lame with the camera this trip and didn't take many overall.

Fireworks at Schroon Lake! This time we were a ways away per my Dad's strong request(closer to the car for a fast getaway), but the fireworks still were beautiful..even with a few power lines in our view.

Hiking Stewart Mountain! I remembered this hike being like 2 hours long as a kid, so you can imagine my surprise when we reached the top in 20 minutes. I think Mike will be looking for a more advanced hike next time. Still fun though.

Tara is so cute, yes. She loves the boat when it's not going fast.

New Things

2010-05-27T17:58:00.001-04:00

1. We ended up buying one of bosses' old Honda CR-V. It's not all that fancy, but we're just super excited to have a car.

2. To go with the new vehicle, i got a GPS navigator thingamabob. I love it. last saturday we drove all over northern NJ looking for apartments and never got lost. it even helped us find a movie theater (BTW, robin hood was ok, but fell short of my hopes) and another olive garden when the first one we went to had an hour wait. AND it transmits MP3s (loaded onto an SD card) to FM, so you can listen on the car radio, which was perfect for us because the stereo in the crv is only radio (for now). I love technology.

3. We found our new place. We only really looked at a few places, but one of them we liked a lot, so we went for it. it's the top floor of a house in Montclair, NJ. we'll post more about it when we move in (end of June), but we're pretty excited about it.

Image courtesy of google maps street view

4. As long as i'm talking about new things, we found a cool treasure chest (i don't know what it really is, but to me it's a treasure chest) at a yard sale we happened upon as we were driving around the streets of the new apartment neighborhood. Aren't yard sales great? where one man't trash is another man's treasure chest.

5. And since it's taking me forever to publish this post, we have one more new thing. Michelle found the bed she's always wanted on craigslist for a good deal. So i took new thing #4 out of #1, then used #s 1 and 2 to go pick it up. now there's just the matter of moving to #3 in a month.

SNL

2010-01-18T10:29:00.003-05:00

Good news: Randy won two tickets in the lottery for SNL last weekend.
Bad news: He was in Puerto Rico for it.
Good news: I guess i look enough like him to be able to use his tickets with his old student ID.
More good news: The page we checked in with gave us floor seats (second row!).

Bad news: the show was mediocre at best. still, it was fun to be right there in it all. i'm a fan of the cast, even if not every show is a winner.

There we are (circled in red).

End of 2009 Recap: the Big 30

2010-01-15T20:41:00.000-05:00

Big year for me. Married. Turned 30. I guess i'm all grown up.

If you can't make out everything in the photo, here's what i got: a few sweaters and shirts, a Gerber Multi-tool, a Muse CD, a hat, a scarf, a robe, slippers, a book, trivial pursuit, and a watch.

The watch is a S+arck (designed by Philippe Starck for Fossil). I love it.

Since we hadn't yet really had people over to our new place, and since i guess turning 30 is a big deal, Michelle decided to throw me a little party with a few friends.

Michelle made the cake in the shape of my longboard!

For some reason only the girls got a photo.

Michelle also made domino brownies to go along with the game night theme.

End of 2009 Recap: the Honeymoon

2010-01-14T18:26:00.015-05:00

The first night of the honeymoon we stayed at the Grand America in Salt Lake. That place was amazing. It will probably be a while before I stay somewhere that fancy again (sorry Michelle). The next morning we were up bright and early, getting on a plane to Cancun, Mexico.

I had never been to Mexico before. I think i still haven't really. just going straight from the airport to our hotel, spending the whole time on the barrier island where all the resorts are, then going straight back to the airport, it seemed more similar to the US than it is to what (i imagine) the rest of Mexico is like. In fact, I run into more people who don't speak english in my own neighborhood of Washington Heights than we did in Cancun. And between american cash, credit cards, and charging things to the room, i never even saw a Peso.

We stayed at the Casa Magna Marriot. It wasn't as fancy as the last place, but seriously it was great. Especially with the upgrades we got, which included a nicer room with a balcony and a free (real deal, not "continental") breakfast. I really couldn't've asked for anything more.

Another nice thing is that there's a place right there at the hotel to book your touristy activities. We did the "jungle tour", which was a "waverunner" ride through the "jungle" on the lagoon side, out to the reef where we snorkeled.

I LOVE snorkeling, so that fun pretty fun. except that we had to wear lifejackets, which was lame. it took everything i had to be able to swim down to the bottom, which was probably 8 ft or so, and impossible to stay down for very long. And the place saw hundreds of tourists every day, so the water didn't stay very clear. Still, pretty awesome.

We also went parasailing. That was cool, except that instead of just being in a harness with a parachute, we were sitting in a chair thing. the other way would've been better, but still fun.

Other activities include Swimming in the pool, swimming in the ocean, a couples massage, etc. One of the nicest things was that we were there Sunday night through Friday morning, off peak season. We basically had the place to ourselves. We could only see maybe a half dozen people at any given time. And mid September is still as hot as anyone could ever want. So that's my recommendation if you're considering going there sometime.

End of 2009 Recap: Part 3

2010-01-13T20:06:00.019-05:00

Halloween

Yes, we made orange Jack-o-lanterns. Later they were filled with chocolate puding.

We kept it simple this year and just used stuff we already had. We're Danny and Sandy if you couldn't tell.

We joined some friends at Michelle's old place for a grand ol' time.

Thanksgiving

Since neither of us had been in the city for Thanksgiving (and don't know if we will be again), Michelle and i decided to check out the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. So we packed up some gear (i was never the boy-scoutiest of the boy scouts, but but at least "be prepared" stuck with me), got up bright and early, and stake our claim on 73rd st and almost central park west. I was glad for my preparedness when we found ourselves with an hour and a half until the parade started. I'm pretty sure we were the warmest and most comfortable people out there.

That's Jimmy Fallon if you couldn't tell

The crowd

If you're one of those people who thought the parade was just a bunch of floats and giant character shaped balloons... you're right. That sums it up pretty accurately. Still, it was a fun little adventure, worth doing once in your life if you live there and have nothing else to do Thanksgiving morning.

Later we had Thanksgiving dinner, which was amazing. Good work Michelle.

Rhett and Leslie Johnson joined us for both activities but somehow i don't have them in any of the photos. Here's proof if you don't believe me.

End of 2009 Recap: Connecticut

2010-01-13T14:34:00.000-05:00

Our first trip as a married couple (besides the honeymoon, of course) came pretty quickly. We went to Connecticut with some friends for some fall festivities.

End of 2009 Recap: the Wedding

2010-01-12T03:20:00.000-05:00

This has been a time of some pretty big life changes, so i'm sure you'll forgive us for maybe not keeping in contact or keeping you as up to date on our lives as we ought to have done. Well, we've been married 4 months now, and i think we've settled in to things well enough to not have much excuse for that anymore. So in hopes that a combined effort will yield somewhat better results than our individual blogging, Michelle and I have joined forces.

So to start this thing off, i'm going to catch up on all the things in 2009 i failed to post about. I'm sure we've mentioned most this stuff, but now there are pictures to go along.

September 12th

As you are no doubt already aware, this was the date Michelle and I got hitched.

The night before was a "rehearsal" dinner. i guess in a way it was a rehearsal for the reception, or at least that's what it ended up becoming. My mom did a great job with it all, but it ended up being a lot more work than i imagined. Thanks everyone who participated and helped it all happen smoothly. i know it wasn't easy. There was a fantastic meal, Randy and Julia gave speeches that made people cry (in a good way, i think), Rachael and Joel sang "A whole new world" while michelle and i danced (everyone was supposed to, but somehow it ended up just being us. kinda awkward.), then more music and more dancing (with a few more people joining in), dessert, and visiting. All in all it was a very fun evening.

Later that night some brothers, some friends, and some brothers of friends and i got together for a bit of a bachelor party (if that term can be used to describe a bunch of guys playing rock band and sitting in a hot tub).

I got a longboard as a bachelor's gift (is that a real thing? sounds better than calling it a wedding gift considering it was just for me and michelle didn't even necessarily like me having it).

By the way, i absolutely LOVE it. It's a great way to get around the city. I actually use it for part of my commute when it isn't wet or snowy out. Anyway, i was out later than i probably should've been that night, but it's not like i would've slept much anyway.

Remember Christmas mornings when you were little, when even with not being able to sleep the night before the second you wake up and realize what day it is, you're wide awake? That's how my September 12th started.

We had an 12:20 sealing time at the Salt Lake Temple. We had to be there by 10:30 or so, but I had no problem getting there in time. In fact the whole day up to (and including) the ceremony was quite peaceful and easy. And just like that, we were married.

I'll be honest. there's a part of me that enjoys being the center of attention and getting photos taken. So between that and hanging out with friends and family, most of whom I rarely see, the rest of the day was a lot of fun. Seriously. Exhausting, but fun. If you saw me at the reception, i probably didn't look like someone having the best day of his life. it was just because i was exhausted and my smiling muscles were all worn out from the photos. Even with all that considered, i imagine i looked like someone having at least one of his top five best days. Nope. Number One.

We posed for pictures for hours outside before the reception started (it was really nice having that just right next door). Michelle thought a fall wedding would be nice. I guess we forgot that the 12th is still summer, but the 90+ degree afternoon did it's best to constantly remind us.

The reception was held in the Palmyra room of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, which had windows facing the temple. The next couple hours were a blur of meeting new people, greeting old people (as in i already knew them. ...also a lot of them were old), pictures, eating, etc. We had our first dance to "All I Ask of You", performed by Rachael and Joel with Laural on the piano, which was followed by more dancing.

We had the traditional bouquet and garter tosses. After Michelle's toss went to the youngest girl in the group, i thought i make mine count.

So i made a mental note of where Randy was standing, turned around, and used some backwards rubberband shooting skills to send it his way. So Randy if you get married in the next little while, i totally get credit.

After that we changed, said our goodbyes, and the rest is none of your business.