One Year!

Sunday was John and my first year anniversary. It's hard to believe we've been married a year already! I was thinking back over our first year of marriage and it's hard to believe how much can change in a year! Some for the better, some for the worse, but life is way more fun having John by my side! We're living in a new state, soon to have the second niece or nephew since we've been married, our friends have changed and I don't think either of us are working at jobs we could have anticipated a year ago- but most importantly, we're happy!

Being the planner that I am, I tried to think of something fun and maybe a little off the wall that John would enjoy doing on Sunday. I planned a two hour zipline canopy tour about an hour north of where we live. I told John on Tuesday that I had made plans so not to make any other plans- and then nothing else was said about it. We woke up on Sunday morning and John looked at me and said "I just had the weirdest dream! It's kind of embarrassing, but I dreamed that we were going ziplining today!" I couldn't believe it!! I started laughing (because I couldn't believe it!) but played it off like it was just a silly dream that I didn't know how he came up with. I texted my dad because I had to tell someone and he simply replied "That's when you smile.... And know that the big guy is paying attention... And that he has a sense of humor!" I guess that's the only logical explanation!

I packed a bag of "gear" that John would need so when it was time to go I told him his clothes he was wearing was fine- shorts, a t-shirt and flip-flops- just to try and throw him off a little! I found the tour online so had to map quest how to get there and in order to get there we ended up winding down several narrow roads through little podunk kind of towns. The place we were going was right in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains- so we had some great view!. John kept saying "I wish I had a fast car for this road!"

When we finally got to Carolina Ziplines the owner told us everyone else in our group had cancelled for our time slot so we were the only two going on our tour! I couldn't have made that happen if I had tried!! There were two guides- one to help us on to each cable and the other to be on the receiving end of the next platform. Since it was just the two of us, we ended up doing 22 cables- twice as many as they say you'll be able to do when you come! We had a blast! I took a couple of videos that I can't figure out how to rotate, but at least you'll get the gist of it! In one video John and I went on two cables that ran parallel to each other and when we went on it again we rode tandem (on the same cable) and I jsut snapped pictures as we were flying! :)

The view on the way to the ziplines!

John was fearless!!

I was nervous/excited starting the first cable, but after that it was just exciting! This place also does after dark lantern tours which we think might be fun to try!

John and I flying!! :) At one point it gets kind of low to the ground- we joked if John got stuck he could get a running start to get back up the cable!

This is a video of John coming across one of the long cable lines

A little blurry, but I loved our expressions!

We did it!!

"Card Homies"

John and I are in the process of trying to find more friends around here and the more that I've thought about it, the more I realize I miss our "card homies". Granted, that wasn't a name that John and I came up with, but when we still lived in Michigan, once every other week or so, my sister and a few of her friends would come over to play cards. It was usually a loud group, with some Justin Bieber pandora, and at times I thought it was complete chaos! But now that we aren't able to do that- I really miss it! :) There was a staple four that would usually come over, and then we'd always invite some extras! Eventually Steph and her friends started referring to our group as the "card homies".

Our New Place!

I'm a little late in getting these up, but better late than never, right? We're slowly getting settled and getting things up on the walls. It's a two bedroom/two bathroom and I'll try to walk you through the apartment

This is the entryway, it opens right into the kitchen, and you can kind of see the little desk area that we have in the right hand side of the photo. The second door is the entrance to the master bedroom.

The bed takes up most of the room, but I guess a bedroom is for sleeping anyway! The opened door is the entrance to our bathroom. We picked the smaller of the two bedrooms, but it was the only bedroom with the private bath.

Another angle of the bedroom and the connecting door to the kitchen

The kitchen! I love the island that is right in the middle! I am so thankful for all of the cupboard space! The double doors on the right is the closet where our washer and dryer are- and a little more storage space!

The living room area and the doors out to a little deck area we have. Just past the little lamp on the left is the door to the second/guest bathroom and just past the chair on the left is the door to the guest bedroom

The second/guest bathroom

The guest bedroom- still working on decorating in here! There are double doors on the left and another big closet that we use for storage!

The apartment complex pool- there's usually a game of pool volleyball happening on the weekends

The view of the city from the pool deck!

My Talented Little Brother

Three years ago, Meijer started a contest for Michigan high school kids that my brother has been part of the last two years. He jumped the gun last year since he was only in 8th grade, but it turned out to be a pretty good decision! In order to participate, the student needs to create a 30 second public service announcement for one of the three categories: Building Character, Promoting Healthy Lifestyles or Celebrating Diversity. There are several rules that go along with the contest such as no using brand labels or copyrights, etc.

Last year, Dylan submitted this video discouraging texting while driving and came in second place! Pretty good for someone who wasn't even of age for the contest yet!


Stash It, Don't Crash It from Dylan Malburg on Vimeo.


The way that the contest works is all videos must be submitted by January and then after the judging happens, they announce the semi-finalists (top three videos) in no particular order. Then in June there is a Film Festival event where they announce what place each of them came in. The third place video gets $500, second place gets $1,000 and first place gets $2,000! So, as an 8th grader my brother got $1,000- not half bad for spending time doing something that you would have done anyway! Because placing in a state-wide contest as an 8th grader, he was also honored by the Board of Education with an award recognizing his accomplishment. Going along with accepting the award, he also had to give a speech in front of the Board in addition to everyone else who came to the meeting. I was beyond impressed with how good of a public speaker he was. I know I've mentioned it before that since he's eight years younger than me that I'll probably always look at him as my little brother (even though he's well over six feet tall now!) but watching him up there speak was just a sharp reality that he's definitely not the little boy I've always thought of him to be!

This year, he submitted two videos, the first one was celebrating diversity, which we all really liked and it placed in the top ten for it's category but there wasn't a prize for anything except the top three. It's still definitely worth watching though! :)


Diversity - More Than Appeeling from Dylan Malburg on Vimeo.


It didn't come as a surprise to any of us though that one of the videos he had submitted had made it to the semi-finals! This past weekend was the Film Festival event and he won the entire thing! Here's the video that took first place


Let Them Know from Dylan Malburg on Vimeo.


I am continuously impressed with everything that he does- some of the time because it's well above my comprehension level. Dylan has a website where he has many more incredible videos that he does as school projects (instead of writing reports), for people who hire him, or just for fun if you want to indulge anymore! :)

Kenny Chesney Concert

John got another day off this past week and it just so happened that the same day he had off, Kenny Chesney was playing in Charlotte with Uncle Kracker and Billy Currington! I really enjoy Kenny Chesney, but I'm halfway convinced that John likes him so much because they both have slight obsessions with nice beaches, boats and now NASCAR. The concert was at an amphitheatre that was only a few miles from the Charlotte Motor Speedway and as we pulled off the highway John said "I'm excited for the concert but really wish we were going to NASCAR again." On the way to Charlotte, our radio station we were listening to lost signal so I popped in my Carrie Underwood/Taylor Swift cd and John found a new song called "I Ain't in Checotah Anymore" that he liked and put on repeat- I think we listened to it at least 15 times on the way down! I'm not one to complain about putting Carrie Underwood on repeat, I just didn't expect it from him! He continuously surprises me every day!!

The amphitheatre- all of the yard seats were sold out (since we bought tickets two days in advance) 

Uncle Kracker kicked off the concert

My friend Evie (who is a friend from Michigan that happened to move the Charlotte a few months before we moved) and her husband Brady were also at the concert!

Billy Currington played after Uncle Kracker and since he wasn't on for long he only played songs that we knew! We've lucked out lately with the "mini-concerts" we've seen- between here and NASCAR, all of the artists only payed songs we like!

A fun date night!!

The theatre and the yard held way more people than I thought it would- John did some research and it holds just as many, if not more than the Van Andel Arena!

There were lots of bells and whistles involved in the concert! John and I were talking about the screen from the NASCAR race and how it is so big that it wouldn't even fit on this stage!

Uncle Kracker came out for a duet with Kenny Chesney- "When the Sun Goes Down"

We saw a truck in the parking lot that even Jeff would be proud of!!!! :)

I can't wait to see what John cooks up for his next day off!!