Sarah & Ryan Family Blog

Monday, January 20, 2014

New Year's Resolution #1: Fun Places to Go in SB

One of my new year's resolutions this year is to visit more fun places in Santa Barbara, I found a list of a ton of places in Santa Barbara county, many of which I have never heard of (www.LotsofFunMaps.com)! My goal is to take Noah to all of these places and really appreciate the fact that we live in Santa Barbara, so I will attempt to check off all the places on this list. So far, it has been so fun, and he's loving parks right now!

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Positive Approach

I'm not sure who wrote these words, but it's a good reminder of how to take a positive approach to life:

Be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.

Talk of health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet.

Make all your friends feel there is something special in them.

Look at the sunny side of everything.

Think only of the best, work only for the best, and expect only the best.

Be as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.

Forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.

Give everyone a smile.

Spend so much time improving yourself that you have no time left to criticize others.

Be too big for worry and too noble for anger.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Welcome Baby Harper - I'm an Auntie!

My sister finally had her baby, the morning of July 20th she had little Harper Rae, weighing in at 7lbs 5 oz. It was great, I went with my mom to see my sister when she was laboring the night before, then got to see baby Harper in the morning when she was freshly born. It was so strange to be back in the hospital after 3 months when I gave birth to my little Noah James.

Our family is so blessed to now have two new little ones, and so close in age! The cousins met for the first time yesterday and it was pretty funny to see how huge Noah was compared to Harper...what a difference 3 months makes! Babies are pretty amazing...they completely change your life in so many ways and watching them develop so quickly into unique little people is pretty awe-inspiring.
I can't wait as the months and years progress to see Noah & Harper grow up, along with their older cousins Lake & Logan. I can just picture them running around having so much fun together!
And I love that my sister & I have been able to share in this experience of creating our own families, I am so blessed!

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Noah Bear

Well it's been a while since my last post but a lot has gone on in the last year with our family...
I finished out my pregnancy with not too much difficulty...though obviously toward the end it got a bit uncomfortable. And I gave birth to our son Noah James on May 2nd, 2012 at 11:22pm (he came 10 days after his due date). It was a fairly swift labor, about 10 hours, and after experiencing quite a bit of labor I opted for the epidural. He came out at a whopping 8 lbs 12 oz and 20.5, and we laughed & cried tears of joy that he finally came out to greet the world.
Shortly after we got home from the hospital, we discovered our beloved dog (and our first "child") Roman was in so much pain with some kind of tumor/calcified obstruction in his ear that we had to make the difficult decision to put him to sleep. We were so sad, he was the happiest dog around, so loving! And let me say there were a lot of tears that first week, both from lack of sleep & thinking about the loss of Roman. So strange the feelings of loss and celebrating new life with little Noah...
We quickly got busy trying to balance sleep & life with the additional needs that come with a newborn. The first month of parenthood is tough! And then we started to see the light...as Noah grew & as we started to understand some of his cries and get to know him. And by 6 weeks he even started smiling at us! Oh it's the best feeling in the world to be acknowledged by this little bundle of joy!
And now our Noah Bear is 10 weeks old and life is so different & Noah is changing & growing so quickly...and the adventure continues, the joys, the trials, all the moments...and I hope to document them as much as I can so I don't forget the moments of Noah's life. We are so blessed, thank the Lord!

Monday, November 7, 2011

Prayer & inspiration

My Lord God

I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself,

and the fact that I think I am following

your will does not mean

that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that my desire to please you

does in fact please you.

And I hope that I have that desire

in all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything

apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this

you will lead me by the right road

though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I trust you always

though I may seem to be lost

and in the shadow of death.

I will not fear,

for you are ever with me,

and you will never leave me

to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Top 5: Life in general

The top 5 things going on with Ryan & Sarah:

1. We are expecting!!! A baby is on the way, coming April 23, 2012. It's still so surreal that there's a little life growing inside of me, almost fully formed yet still only the size of an avocado & no belly quite yet. Going strong in the 2nd trimester now, and by the end of November we'll find out if it's a girl or a boy. Ryan & I are really excited!

our little bugaboo at 13.5 weeks, now I'm about 16 weeks.

2. Disneyland Trip - probably the last trip we'll go on in quite a while. Back in September we stayed at the Disneyland hotel for a night & and saw the sights. It was a little sad that since I was pregnant I couldn't go on a lot of the fun rides, but I still enjoyed seeing the new things. There's a lot construction under way, so by the end 2012 it's going to be fantastic, especially at CA Adventure with a new Cars Land (my nephews will love that!) & the main entrance will be reminiscent of 1923 Los Angeles, the year Walt moved to CA to start his cartoon studio.

The Wonderful world of Color show, really good!

3. i Phone - It was time for my Verizon upgrade so I finally made the transition to my very first 'smart phone' and boy is it smart. It'll probably turn into a time waster for me, but so far it's been great & I've found some very useful apps (more about those later). I think it'll be great for photos & video of the future bugaboo. And 'Siri', the personal computer assistant that talks to you and actually gets the gist of almost any command or question is pretty cool too.

4. New job for Ryan - after much searching over the summer, Ryan found his almost dream job, it's definitely a step in the right direction for him. He works now at UCSB as the publications layout coordinator for the student newspaper, putting his graphic design skills to use. He gets to work with college students as sort of an advisor & also have his first 'desk job.' Being in front of a computer 8 hours a day isn't all it's cracked up to be, but he's enjoying it, there's great staff & it's a less stressful work environment.

5. New photoshoots - Ryan & I have had a chance to do some photo shoots & meet some new clients with our photography business. It's still very much a side business, but we love it. One really fun thing we did was shoot our buddy Logan's 1 year birthday party, we set up a fun photo booth with props & everything. We'll be updating our website soon. www.splusr.com