Sleeeppyyyyy....

GOODNESS! I have been so tired lately. Napping everyday is definitely putting a little dent in my productivity level each day... I haven't been able to eat quite as much good healthy food as I should either, but I'm workin on it.

Oh, ps- did I mention that I'm pregnant?? :)))

Brian and I went to the doc on Tuesday and found out that I am due on May 8th. We got to see the little flicker of the heartbeat and everything...super cool! As I mentioned previously... I'm super tired these days... who knew this baby-making business was soooo exhausting?? Everyone has told me about the exhaustion, but I wasn't capable of comprehending it until I felt it. GEEZ!! I'm ready for the 2nd trimester so I'll have my energy back.

Anyway- Brian and I are supposed to close on our house on Tuesday. HOPEFULLY it happens! We were supposed to be in Austin this weekend for the football game, but with my lack of energy and the fact that we are trying to rush 30 days worth of closing into 17...we decided it would be best to stay home and get some important things done.

Last night we went to the "East Texas State Fair" to walk around and get a nice little taste of East Texas...but mostly just to take advantage of the YUMMY FAIR FOOD! I guess my hormones are throwing my eating habits WAY off because most of my fav things have been sounding SUPER nasty these last few weeks...including last night. Brian still got to enjoy plenty of his fair favorites though, AND we ran into one of Brian's old football buddies and his wife...and I think we are totally gonna be good friends :)

K...it's 7:30...definitely approaching my new bedtime... hope things are going well for everyone.

OH!- Brian and I are still church-searching!!! Please throw a prayer up for us. I'm getting frustrated with this process.

The Windy City

Rachey and I spent this past weekend in Chicago. SUCHHHH a great place! Seriously, I totally would LOVE to live there. It's a major city, ON the lake, WITH little beaches on the lake, LOTS of sand volleyball, you can walk pretty much everywhere, tons of teeeerrific shopping, people milling about all over the place....it rocks :) My momma and I stayed right smack in the middle of the "Magnificent Mile" and had a blast eating at cute little cafes, shopping our little hearts out, biking all around the lake and different parks, and just chatting about everything you can imagine. OH! And I was able to check another major stadium off my list: Wrigley Field!! Cool place...really old school :) Cubs fans are amazingly nice! I was impressed.

THANKS MOMMA for a suuuuper great trip. I had a BLAST hanging out with you :) You're the best. Can't wait to do it again! Oh, and thanks again, SO MUCH, for cleaning my kitchen when we got back :)

I don't feel like uploading pics from my camera right now, so I'll post some pics later on.

Umm...we close on our house in a week! Yayyyyyy!!! SO excited!!

The only bad news I have to share is that I lost in BOTH of my fantasy leagues this week. BUMMER. And both by less than 6 points. So flipping annoying.

K, hope everyone is doing really well. Love you all. I hate keeping in touch SOLELY through our blogs, but hey, it's FAR better than losing touch all together :)

Love <3

September 30th is a big day!!

Big news!! Not ONLY is Sep.30th the day my terrific momma was born...but Brian and I close on OUR NEW HOUSE on that very same day!!! YAYYYYYYYY :) Our awesome friend Dave came in from Austin to help us find the place and has been super great in getting all of the contract stuff negotiated. THANKS DAVE!! You're the bomb :)

Keep us in your prayers... barring anything random and UNfortunate, we will start moving our stuff into our very first house in less than 2 weeks.... Superrrrr exciting!!

9/11, Ike, UT football...and stuff :)

Like Jacci said...I can't believe 9/11 was 7 years ago! It's so crazy how uneffected I felt all day until I tried to force myself to muster up some of the feelings I felt back on that day. I remember in the aftermath of that day feeling so comforted by how America had come together. It was really cool. And I ALSO remember wondering how long it would last, knowing that in the coming years...9/11 would become just like every other trying time in our country's history....just that...History. It's kind of sad that we can so quickly forget the "important things" when life gets easy again..or, well...less tragic.

On a brighter note, I do LOVE the way people in the US can pack up, leave their homes & flee for a safer place...and KNOW that there is someone somewhere waiting with open arms to provide them with whatever they need to make it. Pretty cool place we live in, huh?

About this weekend and the whole "Ike" sitch... I'm super thankful that Brian and I aren't really threatened by the most damaging part of the storm, but I'm selfishly BUMMED that the UT game got cancelled and Nug's shower got cancelled too! I was SO looking forward to our first trip in the Atx in months. Oh well...I'm excited for another weekend of laying low at home. And I'm praying for everyone who doesn't have the luxury of a worry-free weekend! Love you guys. To those of you further south: be safe and know that you're in our prayers!

Last thing, my nursing school app is due on Monday! I finally got every last thing done and collected and put together....so application status is now OFFICIAL! yay :) If I get accepted for the spring I would start in January and then have the summer off (UT Tyler doesn't offer summer classes for nursing school or I would be allllll up in that business). Anyway, if I DON'T get accepted for the spring, I would be bumped to the fall...bummer, but oh well. I'm not worried about it because I know that it's all for the best...but I am ANXIOUS to know where I'll be come January!

K... here's to a weekend of couch-lounging, football-watching bliss!

Peace & Love :)

House-Hunting

Our friend from Austin, Dave, is coming in tomorrow to stay with us for a couple of days and to help us in our house-hunting adventure :) YAY! Can't wait.

Hmm...

Sometimes, life feels too easy. Like...I must NOT be doing something because there's not enough struggle happening. Ya know? Am I being a spiritual slacker? I can't figure it out. Maybe God is just blessing me with some peace in my life...or maybe I'm just telling myself that because I'm lazy. I feel like I should be looking for something...but what/where?
...I'm not sure I'll ever know the answer.

Annoying.

Life at the moment...

Started my fall classes today... I'm excited!

A friend from Austin is coming to stay with us this weekend to help us find a house (CJ-we're house-hunting too!) and to watch lotssss and lots of football! I AM SO EXCITED THAT FOOTBALL SEASON IS HERE AGAIN!

Brian and I had our drafts for our fantasy leagues this past Friday and Monday...I got pretty decent teams...we'll see how they pan out :)

We're starting our co-ed vball league in 2 weeks....yayyyyyy!!! HOPEFULLY we'll improve on last year's .020 winning percentage!! We've picked up some ringers, so our vball future is looking bright :)

My momma and I are going on a mommy/daughter vacay to Chicago in September! The weekend conflicts with a BIG event...but it was the only weekend of the fall we could coordinate our schedules...I'm pumped.

One of my clients hurt her shoulder prettttty bad yesterday while we were training, and I feel really bad! It's my first on-the-job injury :(

Kerbey is FINALLY out of her diapers. Much cleaner....but I kind of miss watching her waddle miserably around the house ha.

I can't believe it's almost SEPTEMBER!

Reidy-boo is on his way to Cali...I can't believe the baby-bro is a college kid! Geez.

Scarlett and Carson are two of the cutest little munchkins everrrrrrrrrrrrr. AND I really wish I could have seen his head-first dive into the stingray pond!

I got to see T-baby on our way through TheLub last week and it was GREAT! I miss youuuu.

Okay now...big news....brace yourselves...Brian and I are ACTUALLY getting to go visit the church we've been wanting to visit for about 2.5 months now (literally), but have just never been in town to do so. SAD. Awesome. I'm excited! I am prayyyyying that maybe THIS is the place God has been prepping for us for soooo long now :)

K...that's all the excitment I can muster up. Nothin big to report...just life!

Colorado Vacay: Plans A-D

Colorado was a fabbbbulous vacay! It turned out to be not even CLOSE to what we had planned (due to some major inclement weather), but it was still the bomb. We started out at Estes Park and camped out in the NONSTOP rain for about 24 hours...we then packed up our things and headed out to hike to a few different GORGEOUS lakes on our way out of the park. We decided the weather in Estes Park was NOT accommodating our plans, we we would try somewhere further south. We were hoping to spend one night with the Freedes (who were coincidentally vacationing in the same place at the same time that we were!) in their house, but due to a totally inconvenient lack of phone service on both of our parts, we were unable to communicate well enough to make that connection happen. Sad :(


So...we headed out on a 2-hour drive to Idaho Springs where we planned to make our 14er Summit Attempt the next morning. On our way to this teeny little town, the rain let up just enough to reveal the most amazing rainbow Brian and I have EVER seen! Each and every color was BLAZING with clarity, and you could see the full rainbow from one end to the other. Both ends ran straight into the ground...it was completely gorgeous and a super uplifting sight after SO much yuck-weather.

We arrived late that night to our shelter of choice, the Idaho Springs Motel. Umm...STRAIGHT out of a cheesy scary murder movie where everyone dies. Seriously...OLD. SCHOOL. Kind of gross (although nothing indoors seemed gross in comparison with our previous 36 hours). Our next door neighbors were SCREAMING profanities at each other all night long. Still...the BEST 8 hours of sleep I'd had in what seemed like an incredibly long time!

So...all fresh and rested, we headed out on Sunday morning to Echo Lake, the start of our journey to the top of Mt.Evans. The lake was beauuuutiful, the first few hours of the hike were breathtaking, the head of the sun was SUPER welcomed....and then...the nast-weather closed in on us once again. We should have known it was too good to be true. We had our big packs on because we had planned to spend the night at the treeline before getting up early Monday morning to take only our daypacks on the summit trip. Well...once we reached somewhere between 12 & 13000 feet, we found ourselves trapped in an almost-white-out. We debated whether to continue, but decided that DYING on the mountain really didn't sound that excited. We found shelter from the snow-storm under a giant boulder for a while, until it lightened up and then, disappointed, began retracing our steps back down the mountain. For the next 4 hours, we trekked our way through the rain (except for about 30 glorious minutes of sunshine) back down to Echo Lake, where our car was parked. HO. LY. CRAP. At 8:00, when we FINALLY reached the parking lot...we were both COMPLETELY exhausted, thirsty, and a strange combo of in pain & numb. Finally accepting that our plans were a no-go, we headed out of the wilderness once and for all and off to spend the rest of our vacation in civilization.In Colorado Springs, we stayed in a real hotel, ate at real restaurants, engaged in the classic tourist activities such as: mountain horseback riding, giant waterfall watching, souvenir shopping, & Old-Historic-Town strolling. It was delicious :) We even accidentally stumbled across the ORIGINAL Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory...kind cool :)

The drive home was beauuuutiful & we were sad to leave the mountains....but being back home has NEVER felt so good! We are finally staying home this weekend and I couldn't be more excited to have a weekend that does NOT involve a 4-hr drive to&from somewhere :)

Baptism

On Sunday, B and I visited Emily's church to see her get baptized!!!! Yayyyy :)))

I also got to meet Kori, who I have heard so much about. Yay for friends :)

The entire service was devoted to baptism. Apparently their preacher had delivered a super awesome message on baptism the previous week and the response was HUGE! There were at LEAST 50 people baptized that morning...and it's not even a very big congregation! We alternated between worship, and watching one person after another proclaim their faith in Jesus!! HOW could it possibly be any better that? Baptisms are always super exciting/emotional/joyful...but this Sunday was particularly riveting for me. I think I am just SO missing having a church family. I am missing being a part of a body of believers who come together to pour their hearts out to God every Sunday morning. I don't know... I was just sitting there thinking about each one of the people being baptized and how they each had to make the decision to dedicate their lives to Christ. Every single one of them was CHOOSING to make a change in his/her life...to just hand it over to God...it was CRAZY and it was AWESOME and it was EXCITING! This was just one small little church in Tyler, Texas, and 50 MORE PEOPLE joined God's kingdom in an hour! Imagine how many people are turning to God every day in all the rest of Tyler...in East Texas...in Texas....in the US in general.

I felt moved and encouraged and just REALLY excited about God after experiencing that. It was a blessing. It was awesome.

Congrats to my girl, Em...I'm EXCITED about how excited YOU are about what God's doing in your life and in your heart. And PS- those blonde locks are lookin goooood, girl :)

History in the Making

Holy. Freaking. Crap.

The US men just freaking smashed the world record for the 4x100 free relay. And the anchor swimmer pulled off a freaking amazing swim. Seriously. Even if you don't watch the Olympics or don't like swimming or whatever...WATCH IT. Ridic.


So...2 down, 6 to go for Michael Phelps. I have to admit, I said I didn't think he'd do it. Maybe 8 medals...but not 8 golds. Um...I TOTALLY wouldn't put it past him.

Craazzzyyyyyyyyy!!

And here's your olympic image (or 2) of the day :P