Things I (Dave) enjoy about being married to Keren

1) Sleeping next to my wife. I miss it a lot now that I'm traveling weekly.

2) When she shrugs her shoulders and says, "hmm mmm."

3) Knowing that I can get a clear, upfront answer on any issue from my best friend, my wife, even when it hurts.

4) That she is way into politics. I don't even need to watch CNN because she can summarize it for me. Politics are a big passion for me and it gives me great pleasure to discuss it with my wife. I'm also very passionate about sports. We are still working on get her excited about those.

5) She is a fantastic cook. I have liked every dish she has cooked (in fact, I have LOVED every dish, except one...).

6) She has an incredible faith in the Lord and faithful personality.

7) She takes dance lessons with me.

8) She is tight with my family and has a great family herself. Each family is unique, but great in its own way.

There are more, but that's a quick snippet.

Savannah, GA

One of the perks of Dave traveling is that I get to go visit him for free! Last weekend we decided to take full advantage of this and we planned a fun trip to Savannah, GA. There are a few interesting things that I learned about Savannah while I was there. First, I had no idea that Savannah is very historic. It is a civil war town and the buildings are just gorgeous! Along with this though, I found out that the city is the 2nd most haunted city in the U.S. which really creeped me out...especially since we were staying in a very old hotel. Our hotel was used as an old civil war hospital. It was beautiful with all of its original flooring and doors....yet very creepy. Dave and I took a tour of the city and of course it poured rain the entire weekend we were there. Here are some of the pictures of our hotel and on the tour.

This is a picture of the outside of our hotel. There were several wedding receptions taking place in the hotel. Savannah is also known for having beautiful squares everywhere. In fact, one of these squares is featured in the movie, Forest Gump, where Tom Hanks is sitting and waiting for the bus to come.

This is not our hotel, just a restored house that is very very old!

While on the tour we also stopped by a cathedral that was built in Savannah. This cathedral was gorgeous and the stain glass windows were just unbelievable. Here are a few pictures from inside the church.





The next day Dave had planned for us to go to an island right off of Florida and only 20 mins. from Savannah. Of course, the next day it rained even harder!!! The island itself was quite unusual and we really had no interest in hanging out there for very long. Here is a video of our driving experience!!! As you can see...most people were leaving the island while only a few odd folks like ourselves were driving towards the island.

We did not end up having an ocean view lunch...nor did we see an alligators :(

On the way back from the island we decided to not waste the trip so we decided to stop by a civil war fort. Dave loves the civil war and I have always wanted to visit civil war battlefields and forts. So, we stopped by and watched a video on the history of the fort and learned about a battle that took place there. We were able to walk around and see some of the actual battle wounds that the fort still showed. It was quite amazing!!

The Lord's Prayer

This summer I had the honor of singing at my friend Courtney's wedding. It was spectacular! Here is a video of me singing "The Lord's Prayer". Please note the person behind the taping was Dave. Also note the fact that he focuses more on the photographer than me in the middle of my performance! I think he thought he had really funny hair...or maybe he was trying to see if he had a NIKON D300. hmmm. I don't know! Anyway, here is the performance...it was a special moment for me!

A Baby!!!

Yes a baby! I am talking about my friend Brianna Saxer who just delivered her brand new baby boy!!! His name is A.J. and he is just a doll! If you're allowed to call a boy a doll! Dave and I went to meet him for the first time and he just mesmerized us the entire time. He is just the sweetest little bundle of joy! Here are some pictures of our first meeting with A.J. I can't wait to see him grow up!!

We both got a turn holding the baby, but of course as soon as it was Dave's turn the baby spit up all over him. Typical!

Dave's going to be a good father some day.......just not today :)

This is one of my favorite pictures! Look at how precious his little foot is!!

Here he is with his proud mommy!!

And of course with his proud grandma too!!

The Summer in a Nut Shell

Okay, so it's been a month since I blogged but to my defense my internet connection at home has just been TERRIBLE. SO...since it has been a while I will do my most memorable moments of the summer as a married person!!

1. Dave and I decided we would eat the top of our wedding cake for our 1 month anniversary! It was all great except for the fact that when we picked it up from my parent's house we left it in the car...in the HOT HOT Summer heat! So...needless to say the next day we had a nasty melted and very smelly cake. So much for that! At least we got some pictures!!

I'm very excited about this can you tell?

2. Some of our very favorite people got married this summer as well! Here they are:

The Bernthals!

The Udens

Kati Pessin

The Hannahs

3. This summer we had the honor of having Dave's friend Bashir visit form Sudan. So of course we had to take him to the Taste. This is a picture of Dave, my brother and Bashir on our way there. I think Bashir was a little uncomfortable with the amount of people he saw but at least the heat wasn't an issue!


4. A visit to the dunes with the Bernthals! The Lord has just continued to bless our friendship with Dave and Jenny! Every time we get together we leave feeling so encourage and thankful to have them in our lives and to be walking through this exciting time of our lives together! Here is a video of the Daves at the dunes. They truly are two peas in a pod!

5. I turned 24 this summer! I feel so old yet so young at the same time! Dave's parent's held a little get together at their place and Tunde came and took some great pictures. It was great having friends to celebrate with. This is a fun picture of Dave, JP, Brittany and me outside of the Chookaszian home in Glenview.



6. Dave has been traveling to Atlanta every week. It has been challenging for us to stay connected and invest fully into each other but the Lord has been gracious and has given us many special moments to strengthen our relationship. Because of his traveling, I was able to fly down and visit Dave in Atlanta. We had a great time visiting the Martinez family as well as spending some special time alone. We had quite the interesting experience when we went to visit a winery. The tour guy had definitely had a bit too much of his own wine that day! It led to some good laughs. Here are some pictures of the Chateau Elan!

This picture would be sooo much nicer if only I had a Nikon D300!!!! wink wink!!!

7. And last but not least, Dave and I got to spend some time in Aspen for the Chookaszian family reunion! We climbed up a giant mountain...which I fell down on the way back! We had a ton of fun spending time with the family and playing "Scattergories" which JP won like every single time. Here are some fun pics.

Things I've Learned About Dave

Well, I hope I don't embarrass him in this blog, although, I don't think he gets embarrassed easily. Here are a few things I'm learning about Dave!

1. I always knew Dave was a high in self motivation but after the first week of setting his alarm during summer break, I got a little annoyed. I think he's loosened up and is learning to enjoy more of the times that we have together.

2. Dave sometimes laughs really hard in his sleep....it creeps me out!

3. He likes his toilet paper to roll down like a waterfall not the other way around.

4. He is very good at filling up the dishwasher and emptying it!!!! I lucked out on this one!

5. Dave sometimes likes to take over most of the bed...even if he won't admit it! Although, he has improved in this area already!!

6. His mom always said he was kind of clumsy..."Dave WHOOPS Chookaszian" but now I think I know the full extent of it. Whenever he goes to play a sport he comes back with a new injury. When we were dating he went to go play basketball and came back with a chipped tooth and a bloody chin. After his nose surgery he got elbowed in the nose a few times! Recently he hurt his side...the best part is that I would gladly use that as an excuse to either never play the sport again or not work out for a while but Dave I think uses it as motivation because he just wants to do it more. I can't wait to see what the skiing season brings.

This is Dave after busting his lip freshmen year in college on a ski trip!

7. Dave is an unbelievable patient and selfless guy!! He is always letting people go ahead of him, he always gives up the closest parking spot because he believes someone else might really need it, AND he always lets other cars/people cut in front of him in line...(that is something I need to work on!)

8. Dave LOVES learning. I knew this one before but it's just fun to see Dave whip through a book...like I could never do! When ever he learns something new he likes to share it with everyone!

9. Dave asks A LOT of questions!!! I'm learning to be patient with this one. His favorite is to ask the waiter or waitress what dish they recommend and why. That can take a few minutes...not that much fun for me when I'm hungry! haha. If someone is explaining something to him, he asks questions that I thought he knew the answer to, but he says he does it for clarification.

10. The best thing that I have learned about Dave is that I really truly know that he is the right guy for me. I was laying in bed the other day and just thinking about how well he compliments me! I guess the Lord really knows what he's doing! :)

Well, that's it for now...I gotta go work out because Dave challenged me to work out at least 3 times a week for a month. He claims this could help me in many ways....not that I want to prove him wrong but...We'll SEE about that!!!

The Name Change

The name change thing hasn't been too difficult for me. I was able to change my last name pretty quickly. However, the day I decided to go get my new driver's license was a bit emotional. I was very excited and after spending an hour at the DMV and my picture turned out rather nice, I went straight to my parent's house to show them. Then I came home and showed Dave the license ....then that's when it hit. Tears all of a sudden streamed down my face. Dave was a bit confused, he thought I was excited! And I was...but I think at that moment I finally realized that I would no longer legally be a "Sanchez" any more. No more Ms. Sanchez! I think I've finally adjusted to the name change and I'm fully ready to be Mrs. Chooks now but I had no idea that changing my last name would be such an adventure and so emotional. The only problem now is that I have TWO names that no one can either pronounce or spell. ComEd for example wrote KAREN on my bill. I wrote them asking them to change the spelling and then they wrote "Keren Chookasizan"....CHOOKASIZAN!!!!!!!! You would think if I asked you to spell my name correctly that you would pay closer attention the second time...but no. Sigh. I suppose those are the new trials I have as a Chooky!