Let me just say, this was the highlight of our visit to Denver. Seriously. I got to see Justin light up in so many ways. Here I was watching my 26 year old husband cross a major bucket list location off. Justin's first love in life was football, so being able to stand on the field where his favorite football team plays... I'm sure that was nothing short of incredible for him. We originally showed up on Memorial day... but the tours and team store were closed for the holiday. We showed up the next morning (bright and early) and we were able to get in for a tour of the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame, the entire Mile High Stadium, and an exclusive look at some of the suites/locker rooms inside the facility. We weren't allowed to use our cell phones, but I brought my big girl camera with us. It was so incredible being able to experience this as a family. We learned so many new things about the team, their history, and the owner. 

Denver will definitely be a location we visit frequently from here on out. There is nothing like feeling at home at a place you'd never been before. In the early years of our marriage, we talked about residing in Denver quite a bit. Looks like this very well might be our forever state someday.

♥- Leilani

Super Bowl 50

These are the moments that I absolutely love being able to blog. Today was a special day in the Howland house... Why you ask? Our Denver Broncos made it to another Super Bowl and they WON! I can't really describe how incredible it felt as a fan to watch that magic happen. It's no secret that before I met my husband I was absolutely not an avid football fan. I would root for the Raiders because that is the team from the town I was born in. Other than that, I occasionally watched a game with my mom (She was the biggest football fan I knew before meeting my husband) and even then that wasn't very often. When I met Justin he had already established a love for the Denver Broncos, heck for football in general. He started playing football at the tender age of 8, and since then his love only grew. The one thing I love about Justin's passion for this game is the reasons behind it.

He sees football as a way of learning discipline, respect, team work, and being apart of something bigger than yourself. I never took a deep look in the seeds planted by a simple sport, but I have to admit, he was right. When we were dating I made the decision to embrace the Denver Broncos and learn everything that I could about them.I remember looking up rosters, franchise history, and trying to recite all that I learned to Justin (trying so hard to impress him). That was six years ago. It's crazy to think I've been an avid football fan for that long, but I wouldn't trade what the sport has brought to my life for anything. 

The past six years have been spent investing our money into memorabilia, jerseys, and all types of decor. We bought tickets to watch our team play in Atlanta (over three hours away from Justin's duty station in Georgia), the year Justin deployed and I can't even begin to describe how amazing of an experience that was. The year Ava was born the Broncos made it to the Super Bowl... only to be knocked out of the race (HARD) by their opponent. I guess the point of me writing this long winded post at 11pm is to document just how much we love this team.

Win or Lose it has always been the Broncos. Tonight, Ava bug, Livy Bean, Justin, and I were able to experience something that not all fans get to experience. We saw a victory. Ava was dancing up and down, clapping, and yelling, "BRONCOS!" all day long. Justin did his happy dances, his loud clap, and his handsome smile throughout the entire game. 


♥- Leilani

Rescission, Vacation, Transmission

I don't even know where to begin. I'll start by saying that Justin and I pulled our offer on the house. I am seriously bummed out. The lender we had kept changing the financial numbers on us. One day it'd be this set of numbers, the next day he'd give us a higher set of numbers. I know the market keeps going up (so did our interest rate), but our lender kept giving us estimates (he failed to tell us this), not actual set in stone numbers. He'd sent over the good faith estimate paperwork, and it's a good thing I went through everything like a fine toothed comb. The numbers he had down set off about a million red flags for Justin and I. We had a big decision to make moving forward. Continue with the buying process with our new icky feelings and red flags, or pull out and wait for a house and lender that feels 100% right. As sad as I am about this (I'v been crying on and off for the past three days), I know that our forever home is still out there. This process taught us a lot about the game of home purchasing, and we are more knowledgable because of it.

On a happier note, our vacation was pretty excellent. I normally don't post photos of our Howland family getaways (honestly, I was pretty embarrassed of my *then* poor camera quality), but with the camera update, I thought I'd share a couple. We had a complete blast without technology guys! All three of us played miniature golf, we stuck our toes in the Pacific Ocean, and we had our first dinner at an authentic Irish pub. We ended up switching hotels (long story), but our second room was breathtaking. We had a balcony with a full ocean view, and the hotel had a lighthouse on top of it. Ava stayed up later than normal on Saturday night, but watching her get excited over the sunset was totally worth it. She also conquered her skepticism of the ocean during our trip! Ava bug flew her first kite, she played with seaweed, and she had fun running around the arcade. I failed to mention that she was a complete gem while riding in the car for over two hours (both ways). I am so thankful that she still sleeps so well in her carseat.

All in all our weekend was very relaxing... until Sunday afternoon. Aside from the Broncos losing their game in overtime, my Mazda decided that it was going to alert me with an "AT' symbol on my dashboard. Apparently this is a symbol referring to the transmission. Ironically, this horrible potential disaster couldn't have occurred at a better time for us (financially). We had planned on getting a family SUV soon.. but this soon wasn't what we had in mind. This is just worst case scenario thinking of course. Hopefully when I take the car in tomorrow, we hear some semi decent news. This is the first car Justin and I had as a married couple and I'm really not ready to let it go. I'm pretty stressed out about the car situation, but other than that, things are pretty good over here.

We've also decided to randomly plan trips throughout the year like we did this past weekend. It was so fun to be random and spontaneous. We connected in such a different way during this trip, and I'm grateful for all the "under the hood work" and fine tuning our marriage receives. I was crushing on the mister hard core this weekend. On that note, here are some of the photos from our trip:

Happy Monday all! 

♥- Leilani

Superbowl Sadness

Well, our Broncos were beat by a landslide, and I couldn't be more upset about the outcome of the game. I spent a good portion of the Superbowl feeling sorry for my husband and our mile high boys. These past three years with Justin has caused my love for football to increase immensely. The loss hurt, and because (a lot of ) Seattle fans are so nasty about winning, I deleted my Facebook. I think it's going to be hard to walk around the Seattle area for a few weeks. Part of me wishes that Justin and I weren't taking this so seriously, after all, football is still just a game. On a high note, Syracuse is having a great season, and we have been rooting on our Orange men!

On a much higher note, tonight was the first time I have ever put Ava bug in her crib. I had originally planned to start off with putting her in the crib during nap time, but our day just did not allow for that to occur. This evening after we showered, I sat in the glider, and nursed my baby until she fell asleep. I waited for a few more minutes (just to make sure she was KO) and then I laid her in there. She didn't wake, and I was relieved by that. I managed to go downstairs and chit chat with Justin for a bit (the baby monitor was attached to my ear) and figure out what the rest of our week was going to look like. She must have been in there a little under an hour when she woke up crying. We knew waiting this long was going to be difficult for the babe, and for us, but I never thought my heart would hurt so badly from doing something as normal as placing my daughter in a crib. Tonight was a definite bust, and Ava is currently in slumber land beside me. I plan on trying everyday this week, starting with naps before bedtime. It's more important for me to have Bug feel safe and comfortable, than for her to actually be out of our bed.

Today I finally found frames large enough to complete my first picture collage. I'm pretty pleased with the way it came out, considering I have rearranged this wall almost a dozen times. Justin signed in for permissive TDY today, and it felt weird. It's going to be very weird when he finally goes back to work. We haven't had a normal schedule since we left Georgia almost two months ago. I know it'll be different, but good to get back on track with our home life. My grandmother is coming to visit us the week of Valentine's day, and I'm pretty excited for that. She has never met Ava, and I'm seriously considering doing "generation photos" with my grandma, mom, sister, myself, and baby love. I really want to have that type of photo in a collage in my home.

 

Well that's all for now. I have to get dinner going, and I've got a ton of homework to do! I'm so glad this is the last week of this writing class. As much as I love to write, it's not as fun when it's not recreational. I hope everyone enjoyed their day. Happy Monday all! 

   ♥- Leilani