Fishing Adventures

This past Monday Ant went on a 24 hour fishing extravaganza with his fishing buddy, Jason. Since Ant hates to drive, they made a deal that Jason would do the 6 hours of driving to a primo fishing spot (6 hours total= there and back). These guys are hard core about their fishing! They brought a canoe and ended up paddling over 10 miles in the course of the day. Jason caught the biggest fish, a 42 inch redfish: Now that's a fish you don't have to exaggerate about!
Ant's biggest catches were a 33 inch redfish and a 37 inch redfish:
Of course, the trip wasn't without some hilarious mishaps! First, it was pitch dark when Ant and Jason were paddling back to the truck and they accidentally disturbed a herd(?) of sleeping manatees. They got so spooked they almost capsized the canoe and managed to get Anthony and Jason soaked! Anthony said it was like an instant shower over his entire body. The manatees also put enough water in the canoe that they had to get out and bail the water out. After that, while they were paddling back Anthony and Jason decided that manatees are not docile and slow, but evil bloodsuckers with black hearts.

Second, while driving home on the interstate a strap on the canoe broke and the canoe went flying off the truck! So, at 11:30 pm Anthony and Jason were racing across the interstate to retrieve the canoe and then spent some terrifying time on the side of the road trying to tie it back on somehow without getting hit by a car. Anthony told Jason that if he starts screaming to run for the trees because a car would be about to hit them. Pleasant. In spite of everything, they were pretty lucky. The canoe wasn't that damaged and it didn't hit anyone behind them, it just kind of skidded into the median. Needless to say, Anthony was exhausted when he got home!!

A Fillon Christmas

My parents and my brother got to go up to Ohio to visit with my sister and her family for Christmas. I am so jealous that they got to have so much fun with them, while I am on my third night shift in a row :( Luckily, my brother took pictures of christmas morning, so I got to see my niece and nephew open our gifts. Here is my nephew Savino opening the present we got him, a toy steering wheel with lots of buttons and noise makers. According to my mom, the toy went over great! Look at those curls!!! Here is my niece opening some of her gifts. My dad looks like he raked it in in the stocking department :) That looks supremely comfortable. Apparently the dogs think so too. I would like to proudly point out that Savino is still holding our present!

Rudolph got a little lost

Ant came home from fishing today with these pictures! They are cropped, so they might be kind of blurry, but it's not fish you see in the water. It's a deer! Anthony said that at first the deer was much more offshore, neck deep in the water and once it saw them it moved to land. How crazy is that?

A Lagana Christmas

Here are some pictures from the Lagana Christmas we had with Anthony's family on Saturday. We usually just focus more on getting presents for the kids and it is so much fun to see them so excited!

The twins got a play-doh ice cream shop set. It looked so fun, I wanted to play with it!
Anthony's mom
Now, I don't remember if Dallas is giving Grampa a gift in this picture, or getting one but either way he was just excited to be touching presents!
This is Nevada posing with a play castle we got for her. She is so cute! She definitely has the Lagana-pose-for-pictures gene. Even in the middle of playing with a toy if she hears that someone is taking a picture, she instantly looks up with a big camera smile. Almost every year Anthony gets a t-shirt with some kind of attitude phrase. Some of the past years included things like "My mommy thinks I'm special" and "When God made me, he was just showing off". I'm laughing because of how perfect my gift was: a booklight! Someone must know what an excessive reader I am.

Home Sweet Home

We are finally home!!! We had a lot of fun hanging out with family and visiting friends, but we are definitely happy to be back home. The dogs were with my parents, so we weren't worried about them, but our cat was home alone. We think she peed on some stuff while we were away just to teach us a lesson...

So here is a picture of the beach from our oceanfront room at the Hilton:

And since the camera was out...
As soon as we got to the hotel, we were hungry so we got back in the car and went to a seafood restaurant I had looked up online. Ant vaguely remembered going there when he used to live in Merritt Island, but I was just excited to eat all of the seafood. The restaurant had a large wall of reef aquariums that they used as dividers between the booths, so Ant was really excited to look at all of them while we ate. I ended up getting a seafood sampler of crab, shrimp, scallops, and rock shrimp and Anthony got a surf and turf with steak and rock shrimp. We couldn't finish it all, but it was sooooo good!
I know that you can't really see me in this picture, but I wanted to show you all of my food!

We spent the next three days with Anthony's family. We went to the zoo with our twin niece and nephew and I know everyone says this about their kids, but I really think that they are the smartest and most articulate 4 1/2 years olds I have ever seen! We had a family christmas with everyone who could come with all of the traditional holiday food and presents. I'll post pictures later when my father-in-law emails me his. Our camera battery died after the first day :( I'll have to make sure to recharge it for christmas with my parents and brothers tomorrow!

Has it really been three years?

Today is Anthony and my three year anniversary!! Can you believe it's been three years already? Time has really just flown by :) Last night I was thinking over the past three years and how our marriage has changed. There are times when I watch chick flicks or read romantic novels that I feel sad that we don't have that new couple shine anymore, but now that I really think about it I wouldn't want to go back. There were definitely growing pains the first year :)

I think that I've also learned to let go of things. Before, I used to get so upset over small things because I thought that there must be some deeper meaning behind (like Anthony didn't respect me) and then I would get upset that I had to endure whatever it was for eternity! Now, I've discovered that Anthony is a guy, and there almost never is a deeper meaning. (Sorry guys, but you know it's true) Stuff I used to get so upset about, now I just shake my head, sometimes laugh, and say "oh well".

Anyways, we are off to Cocoa Beach for our anniversary + christmas with the in-laws. I'll be sure to post pictures later!

Bargain Shopping

I know I haven't posted about any of my great coupon deals lately, so I thought I would share this one. Since we are going out of town tomorrow I didn't go regular grocery shopping and just went around getting the highlights. I paid $7 for all of this!!! I got 6 boxes of cereal and 15 protein bars from CVS for $4.25 and I got the shirt from Kohls for $2.75 after I used a $10 coupon I got last week from Christmas shopping. How fun! Cereal and protein bars are things that we go through like water around this house, so I was really excited to get a deal on both of them in the same week. The shirt I got just because I had the coupon :) I didn't get anything more fun and exciting because I need to build up more professional clothes I can wear at Shands next semester.

In other news, today is day two of my new 30 day workout. I am trying out Jillian Michaels (the trainer from The Biggest Loser) 30 Day Shred DVD. I've heard so much about it and I was talking about it with a friend of mine from work and we both got so excited that we decided to do it together! I know, I'm probably crazy for starting a new program right before the holidays but my family isn't really into big christmas dinners and such so the holidays for me just means time to do what I want (i.e., new workouts :)

Anyways, I'm really excited about it! I even took "before" pictures, measurements, and everything. It's kind of funny, but I ended up being so proud of the before pictures after I saw them. Technically, they're not really "before" pictures since I have been working out and lifting weights for awhile but I can't wait to see what they look like in a month. I'll keep you posted!

We made it

The end of another semester is upon us!!!!

Anthony did really well in his first semester of graduate school, and let me tell you, he was really excited/relieved when he got his grades back :) Thankfully he will still only have to drive down to Tampa once a week next semester so that is a blessing. We're going to have to start working on getting our place ready to sell and I'm really not looking forward to that.

I had a good semester as well. It was busy!!! It really was the most work-intensive semester yet. Multiple 12 page papers+presentations+practicum interviews+tests= no social life. However, I am so excited to be done! This was it, it's all downhill from here. I have my last two classes next semester and then it is on with internships and real life. Scary, but cool at the same time. I love to fantasize about graduation. This time next year I get to add all sorts of initials after my name so I will be Virginia Lagana, MHS, CRC, RMHI. (Translation: Master Health Science, Certified Rehabilitation Counselor, Registered Mental Health Intern) Cool!