Our Christmas 2019

Christmas 2019

Oh man, where to start… This will be a “short” Christmas letter because 2019 has been pretty consumed with trying to make babies. Earlier in 2019 Samantha and I started the (very long) process of trying to have babies! We’ve been to loads of doctors appointments, spent tons of money, and been administered a TON of medications. Over the course of the last 9 months, we’ve tried IUI 4 times and we’re hoping that 2020 is our year! So we are basically fertility professionals now. Steph has been totally gluten free for 7 months and we’re basically just sitting ducks learning the value of patience. Lucky for you all, we’ve been keeping track of all the details on our blog: themettleradventures.com <<< Shameless plug.

In other news, Steph has passed all her classes this year. She managed to get an A in Calculus and the math classes keep piling up. She’s officially able to apply to the Aerospace Engineering program instead of the “pending” status. WOOHOO We almost have an actual aerospace engineer major on our hands! But don’t stop sending all the good vibes because rocket science isn’t easy, it’s rocket science..! Samantha remains the glue holding us together. She’s been to every doctor’s appointment and has been riding the Mettler roller coaster through all the fun hormones and negative tests. We’ve been going back to the gym and Sam’s been KILLING IT going 5+ days/week and Steph’s joining her on the weekends.

Back in March, we went to Birmingham, Alabama to see Mumford and Sons in concert, which was amazing. While we were there we visited the haunted Sloss Furnaces and went to Saturn Cafe which was basically a rocket themed coffee shop! We’ve been going to Disney a lot (so long as the weather is below 80 degrees). We started collecting Disney Trading Pins, which, if you haven’t started now DON’T DO IT, lol. We finally got to visit Star Wars Land, which was totally epic. Steph almost passed out from excitement.

This year, we also got to babysit our *bonus kid*, Gavin, who we took to a concert and to the water park, and then we celebrated Steph’s birthday at Kennedy Space Center. I’m pretty sure we might have a future rocket scientist on our hands! Steph even took him to a calculus review session and he got to help with some of the math. For Samantha’s birthday, we went to the wax museum and the aquarium (sharks AND a wax figure of Ryan Reynolds in one day!?), then, like any totally normal married couple, we went to IKEA.

For the first time in the 4 years that we’ve been living in our house, we decided (steph decided) to put Christmas lights on the house! Also, despite having 72 different color variations for Christmas bulb ornaments, we had to get JUST one more package of Christmas bulbs. Now we have officially completed the trifecta of Christmas color schemes. Santa would be so proud. Blue and gold? Got it. Silver and pink? Got it. Green and red? Got that too. We’re set for life now so long as our great dane, Apollo, stops sticking his head into the tree and using it as a head scratcher.

This year has been filled with so many ups and downs, but we are both so excited for what 2020 holds. Wishing everyone so much love this holiday season!

Love, The Mettlers

 

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Just because.

Hopefully I can surprise her with this.

I skipped the fertility blog yesterday and today. We will probably post every few days or so now that we have less to post. It’s been really fun reliving all of those internal ultrasounds, but it’s also been heavy emotionally for both of us, so I decided to take today to celebrate Samantha on her BIRTHDAY. Talk about timing! LOL.

I started this blog to try to keep up with all of our adventures, concerts, & travels. We’ve discovered a lot about each other in the last few years like how the max number of hours we can spend in the car without a substantial break is 16. We are both so different in some ways that we fit together like puzzle pieces. For instance, IKEA furniture: I like to organize all my parts and she just starts building without even unboxing fully which drives my insane.

This weekend we went to the aquarium here in Orlando and did Madame Toussauds Wax Museum. We are both incredible at posing with inanimate objects. We also saw Who Framed Roger Rabbit at the Enzian which was one of our first dates nearly 4 years ago! Sometimes we get dressed up all nice and go on dates. Alright enough about us..

Samantha,

You are without a doubt, the most loving and devoted human. You keep me grounded and centered. You are the Monica to my Chandler and the cheese to my gluten free macaroni. I can’t wait to see you holding our baby one day knowing that you will be the most incredible mother. I will fight for you today, tomorrow, and for all the days to come. Thank you for loving me in all the ways you show me and tell me. I cherish every moment with you and look forward to the many more adventures we are about to go on. Everything I do, I do for you. Soul mates, through and through.

I love you,

Steph

Seattle Recap 2018

Today is January 31st and I’ve been horrible about this whole blogging thing. I finally got our Christmas Letter out just in time for Christmas this year (it’s the small things) so i figured I’d cram the rest into one blog post.

In November we celebrated our 1 year anniversary and flew up to Seattle. We had the time of our lives and wish we could’ve stayed a bit longer. I feel like we only skimmed the surface of what there was to see.

First of all the weather was perfect the whole time. And it only “rained” once but Seattle rain is like Florida fog so we weren’t that worried..

Our rental car was a Jeep Grand Cherokee, which was super nice until we realized Seattle has exclusively parallel parking.. we got to our Air bnb which was perched on a cliff. It was perfect and the view out of the panoramic windows every morning was breathtaking!

 

 

We were starving so we stopped by a Mexican restaurant and got burritos bigger than our heads. It was west coast Mexican which tends to lean more toward a “chipotle” vibe which was 100% fine with us! We walked down a few blocks to grab a coffee from a place called Uptown Espresso which as it turns out was one of the best coffee shops in the area. They’re known for their foam which is super creamy and dense instead of milk bubbles. We went there a few times over our trip.

 

I wanted to grab some photos so we looked up the best viewpoints in Seattle to see the whole city and ended up at this park, which was AMAZING.

The next day we did Pike’s Place Market which was such a culture shock to me. I’ve lived in Florida all my life so just being on the West Coast was mind-blowingly different. The lobster tails were as big as my arms.

 

Another thing Seattle has is BUSKERS. We were in one of the shops and RAN outside to see this one man who had the most incredible voice.

The next day we headed an hour outside of Seattle to do a bit of hiking. We headed up to a waterfall that doubled as a power plant. The photos don’t do it justice.

 

We planned this whole trip around Dermot Kennedy’s concerts in Seattle and Portland. They just so happened to land near our anniversary! If you haven’t heard this man sing you need to.

The next day we headed to Portland which is a three-hour drive from Seattle. But totally worth it. But the drive back the same night…. post-concert and exploring, was ROUGH! Scariest drive in fog, EVER!

 

We did a little sightseeing before the concert and got lost in an underground mall.. We ended up sharing a Lyft with 2 other girls who were going to the same concert and had been to the Seattle concert too – we aren’t the only crazy ones!

The day after, we went exploring again. We got “Teriyaki” from a local place, which is apparently a MUST – also it was prob the best Asian food we’ve had ever. We drove by UW and the Bridge Troll and Sam looked up a park for us to watch the sunset. It was freezing but my teriyaki kept me warm mostly.. there’s nothing that can compare to those views.

After that, we went to go see Fantastic Beasts (because we wanted to live like the locals) and found a quaint little movie theater on the top of the mountain in West Seattle where we were staying. (THEY ONLY HAD REDVINES!!! WIN FOR SAMANTHA!!) It was the perfect way to end the night and we felt so at home.

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This past week we’ve been busy celebrating my wife’s thirty-second birthday. I’ve never been so proud of another human in my entire life.

For her birthday, we went mini golfing, then I took her to Universal to see all the Harry Potter things, and this weekend I basically told her to pack a bag and we drove through the night to North Carolina to see her best friend. 💜

Somehow I managed to keep that last one a total surprise!

In one month we will be celebrating our first whole year as a married couple. We’ll be flying to Seattle and spending a week there. (These blog posts might be getting slightly redundant, lol). We are currently in the process of saving up for the “family expansion pack” – which is a little more expensive than the traditional way of things.

Saving money is never fun, especially when you really like to spoil your wife, go to concerts, and travel.

School update: calculus is still hard, chemistry is still hard.. but I’m crying less so that’s something positive. 😂 I ran into an engineering major who was almost done with his classes and he assured me that Calc 1 was one of the hardest courses he took, which was sort of comforting. I just keep telling myself “I’ve totally got this” and my wonderful wife keeps telling me the same thing. I just have to work super hard until December then do it all over again for the next four years.

I’ve totes got this. 🙌🏻

My journey into quantum mechanics.

It’s 3:45am.

No one said this would be easy. On the contrary, I’ve gotten so much unsolicited advice paired with brilliantly astute observations about how difficult aerospace engineering is. It’s, like, ACTUAL rocket science.

TBH, Going from 2 to 4 classes was probably not the smartest move on my part. Chemistry is proving to be extremely time consuming. I missed Labor Day weekend with friends and any weekend plans have pretty much gone out the window since I started school. I am constantly doing homework, which is why I haven’t written a new blog in a bit.

This past week, I had 3 exams. It’s been difficult to balance time between the 4 classes and keep any semblance of a personal life. I am so lucky and have the most incredible and supportive wife who is the real champion in all of this. She’s been my shoulder to cry on (Calculus has been real rough and my emotions are all over the place lately), and my personal cheerleader.

Our first anniversary is coming up in just over a month. We are going to Seattle and Portland which I’m SO excited for since I haven’t been to either place. We are going to a few concerts while we are there, also. This Florida girl has no idea how to dress for windy 40° wet weather, but I feel like I’ll probably learn pretty quickly how to properly layer.

Oh a few weeks ago, our big 80lb fluff decided to shatter a vase in our bathroom and then stab herself with it slicing her tendon in the process.. $400 later, she got stitched up and got to wear a giant cone which was basically just an obnoxious device meant for knocking over anything in its path, including humans. She got her stitches out yesterday and the vet said she’s looking good!

Sam’s bday is coming up soon and we always try to surprise each other with cool plans. I can’t say what the plans are obviously, but I’ll post afterward with pics. I’m so excited to have some social interactions after feeling like a caveman staring at equations and the periodic table.

This year has been so incredible. Idk how other people feel about the first year of marriage but ours has been nothing short of perfection.

In short, I’ll probably be taking 3 classes next semester for sanity’s sake. My classwork has taken the forefront and while Sam is beyond supportive, I do enjoy spending quality time with my wife.

Babe, if you’re reading this, you inspire me to be a better person every day and you push me to succeed and I love you for that and I’m so grateful for you.

Until next time.

Steph

First week of school

My first week of school has begun!

I’m officially enrolled in Calculus I, Intro to Computer Programming, and Space Weather at UCF and Chemistry I at Valencia as a transient student. I had to do that in order to receive financial aid and also be able to take classes off campus (campus is 30 min from home, 50 min from work). The majority of my classes are online, which is great since I work full time as well. Next up on my Aerospace Engineering program would be to finish the math and physics tracks (calc 2, 3 and Physics, 1, 2, differential equations, probability and statistics) and then I get into the more fun classes like thermodynamics and statics and dynamics.

There was only a 4 week break between Summer and Fall semesters, but I turned into a big heaping ball of anxiety before classes started. I think I’m good now. I’m super grateful that my job allows me to work on some homework during my free time, too.

Side note: If anyone has any questions regarding financial aid and returning to school, let me know! I’m pretty much a professional now. 

The wife and I have been trying out DuoLingo,

which is an app that teaches you another language at a slow and steady pace (10+ minutes per day). We’ve been learning Danish since her family is originally from Denmark! I can say “Kvinden og Manden har en tallerkin” which means “The woman and the man have a plate” (we think it’s funny, but it’s one of the prompts, lol). You get rewarded for daily streaks and so far we are both 13 days strong! My favorite work so far is “skildepadde” which is “turtle” – but the hardest for both of us is brød, which somehow has an L sound also a G sound.. Haven’t quite mastered that “ø”, but we have her mom on speed dial which helps!

I’m finding it so enriching to be learning so many different things. While it can sometimes be a bit overwhelming – last week in Calc, we learned that a number over zero doesn’t equal zero – but the learning process on the whole has been so incredibly fulfilling. I think at this point in my life I’ve learned to cherish the hard work that goes into learning something new so hopefully that passes along to my kids.

Speaking of our future children:

Sam did a bunch of research on fertility and set me up with a handful of pills and herby things that are said to help prepare your body for babies. Other than having some strange dreams about actually being pregnant, I have been feeling pretty much the same. That being said, I’ve always been super predicable with all the monthly tracking, until I started taking all the pills, but it turns out that’s super normal and it didn’t change too much, but I’m still tracking ovulation and all that since it’s more of a science experiment for us and also costs about $2000 each time we try (no pressure).

We have a bunch of concerts, travel plans, and adventures coming up toward the end of this year, which will be fun! We are also starting Whole30 again for September, which totally clashes with Epcot’s Food and Wine Festival.. I’ll try to post a few recipes and of course keep everyone updated on our travels and adventures. 

 

 

Get to know us! 20 questions AMA.

I decided to do something a little different for a blog post before I return to school next week. Here’s a little “get to know us” 20(ish) questions. Let me know if you like these and I’ll try to do another one in the next few months!

If you could change only one thing in your life, what would that be and why?

SAM: Honestly, there isn’t a thing I would change about my life. I have been so fortunate and I have everything I could ever need, want or think to ask for. If you asked me what I would have done differently, my answer would be that I would have traveled through other countries and experienced more of what the world has to offer.. But I’m not dead yet, so now I get to do those things with my wife and hopefully future children.

STEPH: I would have taken way more advantage of learning new things and reading more. I think because everything is so much more accessible with the internet and knowledge is everywhere, it’s so much easier. My life is pretty great though, now and I’m legit learning rocket science, so I guess I would have just started it sooner.

In a regular day, what do you find yourself thinking about the most?

SAM: Currently, Babies. A year ago, our wedding. A year from now, Either still babies or Our move to Washington State.

STEPH: Food. Our future house somewhere in the mountains. Our future. How I need to drink more water.

Who is your favorite artist that you’ve seen perform live?

SAM: That is suuuuuch a toss up.. Either Dermot Kennedy for his raw talent and the emotion that he evokes from everyone in the room, or City and Colour for the incredible performance and undeniable talent that Dallas Green has.

STEPH: City and Colour in Birmingham, Alabama at Iron City Music hall. But also The Band Camino. I’ve seen both twice and they’re both absolutely incredible.

What things in your life bring you the greatest pleasure?

SAM: Coming home to my beautiful wife and our Zoo of a house. We are so blessed to have such a stable home and a great love that can conquer anything.

STEPH: I love coming home and being able to hang with my wife and the dogs and watching a movie or catching up on our TV shows after a long day of work. Weekends with her are the best.

What do you feel is your greatest accomplishment in your life?

SAM: I’m still working on that.

STEPH: So far, going back to school. I’m at the very beginning of that journey, but I think starting anything is the hardest part.

In what settings are you the happiest / eager / most comfortable?

SAM: Any Concert or getaway with my Wife.

STEPH: In my house or hanging out in the backyard (when it’s less than 80 degrees).

What things do you look forward to each day?

SAM: Crawling into bed with the love of my life every night. Just the fact that I am blessed enough to have her to snuggle up to is enough for me.

STEPH: Coming home to hugs and kissed from my wife and our dogs.

What would be my ideal romantic date?

SAM: Whisk me away to anywhere.

STEPH: I love adventure. Any sort of trip to anywhere would be amazing. We are road trip professionals.

What do you appreciate most in your partner?

SAM: The way she views the world through her rose-colored glasses. I fought it for the LONGEST time. But there is something to be admired about her sheer blind faith in the world and the goodness it contains. Her heart is something so pure and I am incredibly lucky to hold such a huge piece of it.

STEPH: Her realness. Whether she’s telling you something hard to hear or is pulling my head out of the clouds and back to reality. Her confidence is something I admire as well. The way she demands with her presence is out of this world. I can’t wait to see her in mom mode.

In what situations do you feel most afraid or insecure?

SAM: Dinosaurs and scary movies. That’s about it. I can take on anything the world throws my way otherwise.

STEPH: I’m not good at being in situations I can’t control, mostly with money or adulting. In an emergency, I’m the person you want by your side, lol. For whatever reason, I’m super calm cool and collected.

What would you like to do outdoors that you have not done before?

SAM: I can’t wait to hike up an actual mountain!!!

STEPH: Being able to explore the wilderness. You can only go so far in Florida on flat land and highways before hitting the beach.

What country would you like to visit that you haven’t visited yet?

SAM: See bucketlist…. I’ll send a picture. Lol

STEPH: Pretty much all of Scandinavia. Denmark, Iceland, and all of Europe. I’ve only ever been in the US.

What family member did you most admire when you were a child?

SAM: My Grandpa was my ENTIRE world.

STEPH: My aunt Barbara. She’s my mom’s little sister and was always the cool aunt who I ran to when I needed absolutely anything.

What are your favorite things to spend money on?

SAM: Ohhhhh crap…. I mean, I don’t likeeeeee the amount of money they cost… but the things I buy the most often are makeup and clothes!

STEPH: I HATE spending money. I can talk myself out of buying anything.. Movies and books are my downfalls.

Who are you most envious of?

SAM: Honestly, no one. There have been moments where I wished that I had what someone else had.. but at the end of it, everything in my life made me who I am today. I wouldn’t change that for anything… … I TAKE THAT BACK!!! I’m envious of morning people!!! I wishhhhhhh I was the type of person who could get up with the Sun.. but I wasn’t blessed with that gene.

STEPH: I’m envious of people who are debt free and are somehow so good with their money that they can travel all the time. I wish I could be a travel blogger. They’re living the life.

If you had endless amounts of money, what’s the first thing you’d do?

SAM: Buy a farm on an Island in Washington…

STEPH: Build a house and pay off my debt.

If you had to live in the world of any book or movie, what would it be?

SAM: ….this is an impossible question…. Every book series that I love is full of sooo much drama and insane crazy, that I can’t say that I would love to live in it…. But the paper magician is the coooolest concept. So if I HAD to choose one, that’d be it.

STEPH: I’d say Star Wars, but they’re legit in pretty much constant battle and there’s a pretty good chance your planet could get blown up, so I’m going to go with Harry Potter.

What’s the last book you read?

SAM: The immortal circus series!!!!!! Sooooooo good!!!

STEPH: I’m in the middle of 3 right now. The last one I finished was Fallen – I take that back. I still haven’t finished that. It was the Paper Magician.

If you could do anything that wasn’t your current job, what would it be?

SAM: Either be a History professor or own and run a successful record label.

STEPH: I’d work for Spacex or Nasa.

What is your least favorite food?

SAM: Greek!!!!

STEPH: Olives. Or any of the weird cheeses like feta and blue cheese. And pickles.

 

Here’s Sam’s Bucket List. Is she forgetting anywhere? Have recommendations? We’d love to hear from you!