adults?

I have a confession to make—I am at work. Writing a blog post. OOOPS.

The reason I do not feel bad for this is because I think this week I had to take a lot of steps toward being more adult-like …and being productive at work 100% of the time is just pushing me over the limit.

This week…

We had Christmas (like a lot of the world)….


ALONE! It was just Ryan and me and our television. We spent a lot of time relaxing in front of the TV. We watched Christmas movies, made Christmas dinner, and checked out some lights around town.
We had to work….


So long are the days of Christmas break and switching semesters. Both of us are now out of school for a very long time and that means we have more responsibility during the time we used to have NONE! Ryan was on call the whole weekend and holiday and had to go in for some time every day. I worked at my second job Christmas Eve and had to go right back to work on the 26^th! There are 5 people in my whole office this week. It is utterly boring.
I look pregnant now.


My tummy started sticking out big time yesterday. I do not think it will go back to it’s old self any time soon! It is here to stay for at least the next…24 weeks!

Do you see how all these things could lead me to feel a little TOO grown up all at once!

On a better note, we had a GREAT holiday. We are so blessed to have family and friends who definitely did not forget us even though we are further than we ever have been away during the holidays. We even had tons of presents to open from our parents and other family. We got to Skype with my family during their holiday dinner—which made us feel much more at home.

I thought it would be a lot harder than it was to be away. We got to start a few of our own traditions around our new town and spent so much time together. Lately, we really crave time together and last weekend was just what we needed to feel a bit better about spending endless hours working and keeping up a house (ugh more adult talk!)

Thankful...

Ryan and I recently had the chance to take a quick-VERY quick- trip home for  Thanksgiving.  It was soooooo nice to see family and friends, but of course too short of a trip.  We also drove...ugh. It took us 16 hours there and 18 hours back because of weather and traffic! This meant a lot of car time and since we were both in need of sleep...the driver was usually pretty bored.  I took this time to think about all these things people are posting on Facebook that they are thankful for.  Although I do not have nearly enough time (I am at work!!!) to post 30 different things I am thankful for, I decided to post the top 10.

I am thankful I finally have a career-like job. One that I can use experiences from in the future.


I am thankful Ryan has a career that will continue to provide for our family. He is a very hardworking person and I know that there are days he does not want to go in for a 12 hours shift, but he truly enjoys what he does and it makes it much easier.


I am thankful for the opportunity to move away from family and friends and everything we have ever known. It has made us a much stronger couple and given us a lot of life-enriching experiences…but….


I am also thankful that I have family and friends in Michigan and various other places around the world who keep in contact with me. Even though I love our life, I would be nowhere without the support from those closest to me.


I am thankful for the few friends we have met in Williamsburg. The extra special ones can relate to Ryan and me so much that it makes it easy to be friends.


I am thankful for a loving husband who I thought I would be sick of seeing everyday by now, but everyday we countdown to the time we get to spend together and could not imagine spending that time with anyone else.


I am thankful for my education—even though paying those bills is going to be a chore. I know that the experiences I gained during those years are unparalleled and will pay off in the end.


I am thankful lots of little things like: books, cheesy movies, exercise, chocolate, comfort food in general, memories, holidays, warm blankets when I am freezing cold, music, alone time, traveling, learning new things and the ability to have confidence in myself (mostly)!


I am thankful for technology. I hate it just as much, but it allows me to keep in touch, do my job more efficiently, and stay educated so I have learned to like it.


I am thankful for my health and the healthy choices I make…and the opportunity to announce (except most of y’all know) that we are expecting an equally healthy baby in late Spring and we could not be happier.

Now onto DECEMBER! and the NEW YEAR?!?!?! What happened to 2012?

New job!

On November 1, I started a new job/career at Tyges International.  Tyges is a local recruiting company that I have been talking to since August. We decided to push my start date back to after our Europe trip, so it seemed like I had the job forever before I got to start.  The last week and a half have been spent learning the ropes and all the ins and outs to the recruiting business.

Tyges recruits for manufacturing companies all over the country which has led too even more learning for me. I know almost nothing about manufacturing so I am becoming more educated on all the processes that happen--there is SO much to learn! I already know some random things from some of my business classes, growing up in Michigan, and living near Michigan Tech for a bit.  I cannot wait to learn more because I know that it can only open more doors in the future.  

Here is the website if you wanna check it out...my name is even in the list of employees already!
http://tyges.com/

European travels!

AHHHH! October was a crazy month! I apologize for being off the radar for most of the month, but we were busy the whole time and I didn’t find extra time to sit in front of the computer for any great length.  Therefore, my life needs a whole lot of updating and I promise to write more often in the coming months.

ONE of the most exciting things about last month was our first family trip overseas!  Ryan and I took a 10 day vacation to England, Finland, and Estonia.  The weather was yucky for most of the trip—considering we left sunny beautiful-hasn’t-even-turned-fall-yet weather in Virginia.  We definitely did not pack enough warm clothes!  We also went at a non-peak vacation season so a lot of what we wanted to do was not even open or available.  Regardless, we had a spectacular time during the whole trip and we could not have asked for better friends to spend it with. 

We flew to England, stayed 2 days, flew to Estonia/Finland, stayed 3 days, flew back to England for a few days.

The reason we chose England was because my best friend Kellie, her husband Joe, and daughter Ava live just south of London.  She has not had many visitors in her 2.5 years of living there AND it is not often that we will have friends conveniently living in other countries (although right now we have quite a few!) so we decided to take advantage of this opportunity and visit.  Kellie showed us around London—where we saw Queen Elizabeth riding in one of her cars down the street by Big Ben—and also took us to Windsor Castle (where the Queen lives) and Hampton Court Palace (where King Henry the VIII lived).  We also got to see one of Joe’s hockey games—which I think was cool for him because no one they know from the States ever gets to see him play in person anymore.  Best of all, we got some amazing, much-needed quality time between best friends and Ryan and I got to spend lots of time with Kellie and Ava.

Another reason for the trip was to visit our other friends Kristi and Dave in Finland.  Dave is one of Ryan’s offensive line teammates from college and he is studying this year in Sweden/Finland.  He had the week off from school so we planned the trip around this week.  Kristi is about to have a baby (within the next 6 weeks or so) and they have been away from family, friends, and everything they know for the whole pregnancy.  It was nice to get to spend some time with friends who made us feel like we were back in the UP and nothing had changed over the last year.  Again, we were hit with some cold, overcast weather and a lot of places shut down for the winter.  We still managed to have a relaxing and adventurous time.  We spent most of the time in the Old Town part of Tallinn, Estonia.  This was a great place to just take in historic buildings and neat sights. Then, we took a ferry over to Helsinki, Finland and did a bit of sightseeing there.  We took a boat ride to the islands of Suomenlinna, which had a lot of history.  Most of the museums were closed so we made our own tour and explored the nooks and crannies of the island.

Even though it seemed like everything we wanted to do was closed, we were surrounded by friends the whole trip and that is what made it worthwhile.  We have been a little friend-sick over the last few months and this trip was just what we needed to make us feel better!

10 anniversaries!

Life has been BORING! We are getting quite used to our little life in VA and the glamour of just moving here has worn off almost completely.  We are trying to save money as my student loans are due soon.

Monday, I finished my last cake decorating class. I learned more about the basics, but I cannot wait to get some more practice and become a pro!

Yesterday was our 10 YEAR DATING ANNIVERSARY! It is soooo hard to believe that we have been together so long, but we are still so happy and could not ask for more.  After Ryan got off work, we celebrated by driving to Richmond (45 min away) and ate dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant! It was very yummy and an interesting experience.  There are no utensils involved and at times we laughed about how silly it felt and looked to be eating meat, rice, and beans with our fingers! We just love doing things we have never done before!

Speaking of things we have never done...in 2 weeks, we are going to Europe! Ryan has never been out of the country and we are both so excited for him to experience some different cultures.  He is very open to cultural differences, but since he has never left the country, he also is a little ignorant  to how different some aspects will be.  Last night at the restaurant, the bathrooms were ridiculously tiny and it reminded me to let him in on the fact that he will find a lot of places in Europe that he is too big to fit into/taller than!  I will write more about our trip soon!

career girl.

Well, it finally happened...I got a REAL job! and I am SO excited!

I got hired at a local international recruiting company as an Executive Recruiter. I was supposed to start on Oct 1, but we are going to Europe at the end of Oct so they moved my start date to Nov 1.  Until then, I am going to work as much as possible at the restaurant I have been working at.

I also started a cake decorating class today! So I can check TWO things of my "To Do Before 25" list!


I will update more later...for now, I am obsessively watching Parks & Recreation on Netflix :)

en français...

Something amazing happened....I got to speak French at work!

I have 6 years of French education...I took it for 3 years in HS and also minored in it at Ferris, but I have never gotten to use it.  I have actually been kinda depressed about this useless knowledge that I paid for, but I finally got to put it to semi-good use!

This tour group from France came to the restaurant where I work a few weeks ago and I did not even know that they were French until they were already ordered and waiting for food. Funny story there--a majority of the tourists in the group have some sort of disability so one person orders for them all.  When they visited a few weeks ago, they all ordered "Coca" so the server made 13 hot chocolates...nope, they wanted COCA COLA! Anyway...this is where my French knowledge would have came into play.

This time, I knew in advance that the group was coming.  It was pouring rain out and they were so happy to be at the restaurant they were not even trying to speak English.  A lady rushes in and says..
              "une serviette afjkhfkahgakjgha s'il vous plait".  
I was confused as to why she was asking
                             ...so I said, "pourqoi?" (why)...
and she said, "ahkjhgoiahgalkjgahg une serviette"...

So, I told the server to get her some napkins.  The customer was OVERJOYED that I "knew" what she said and the server went running to the owner to proclaim this new-found knowledge that Jaci know how to speak French!

I managed to say a few more simple saying..."Ah, oui d'accord" (Ah, yes, ok) and "Oui, je parle francais un peu"....little do they know that I really speak A LITTLE French!  Oh well, made those classes seem worth it.

Au revoir!