Christmas in Nebraska

We did so much in short time we were home. We visited our friends, Kate, Andy, and Mora. She was playing dress up!

We visted Trish, Aron, Caleb and Samuel. I love this picture. Look at Brians face!!

We had Christmas with my mom, brother, and his fiance! Did I tell you he was engaged!?! Did I tell you he's leaving for Iraq next month?

This is a picture of my mom's side of the family. We don't get together very often, so it was nice to have ALMOST everyone home for Christmas. We were only missing one of my cousins.

We also had Christmas with my dad's side, and three Christmas's with Brian's family. But we lost our camera for a few days so I don't have any pictures of that. It was a busy week, but it's always nice to see family. Oh yea, we went shopping the day after Christmas and bought our Christmas tree and some decorations. We had a full car load for our trip back!!!

Christmas Party

We went to a Christmas Party for Brian's work on Friday. It was at an Embassy Suites Hotel up in San Marcos. We had a good time. It was nice to be able to "party" with the Doyle's and the Collinsworth's. The food was awesome and the cake was even better!!!

Merry Christmas

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Happy Thanksgiving!!!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. We had a few friends over to help celebrate the day. I have found that it would make my life so much easier if I had two or maybe even three ovens!!!! But that's just not possible in this home. Maybe we'll find a house in Kansas with a double oven!

So my friend, Amy came over the day before Thanksgiving to help me make these candy turkeys. I remember making them with my grandmother when I was younger and I had to try it out this year. It was a lot of fun!!!


I have to say that I'm thankful for a lot of things in my life. I'm thankful that I'm married to a wonderful husband and I'm thankful for all of our family and friends. I'm also thankful for our two cats and our dog, they can be very entertaining. And I'm also thankful for my job, it's going to be hard to leave it!!

Sadie!!!

We finally broke down and adopted a dog. She's a golden retriever and we are calling her, "Sadie". All she wants to do is love us, but she is still learning how we like things done. She doesn't like to be locked up, so one day she chewed on her gate that we have in the house (it's like a baby gate) and her gums started bleeding all over the carpet. She is also learning that we do NOT go to the bathroom upstairs in the living room!!! She is getting along with our cats. Kei and David are still unsure of who this hairy beast is. Kei is getting more daring and he actually scares Sadie! Sadie starts to whimper a little when Kei doesn't want her to get close... she just wants to play!

Labor Day Weekend

We had a very eventful labor day weekend. My family came down from Nebraska and we stayed busy pretty much every minute they were here. They got in later Friday night, and the next day we went to Sea World. It was so much fun! Cole and Rosalinda were even pulled out of the audience for this little show. We have it on video if you want to see it!! I'm sure Rosalinda would love that!!! All of the shows were great. We even went to this 4-D movie. We had on 3-D glasses and in the theatre you would have air and water blown in your face. You should have heard Becky scream! That was a lot of fun.

The next day we went to the River Walk. It was fairly hot that day, but I think everyone enjoyed it. We ate at a Joe's Crab Shack and I think I surprised everyone when I wanted to talk to a manager when we found out that our waitress added gratuity to our check when she wasn't supposed to. We asked her if it was for parties of 8 or more, or for 6 or more. Jessica had thought she read on the menu that it was for 8 or more, but our waitress said no it was for 6. Well we had 7 people. I asked the hostess at the front and she said it should've been 8. So I wanted to talk to the Manager. I don't like it when people lie to me. Plus, we almost tipped her extra on top of the gratuity because at first we didn't see that she added it. I guess teaching has made me less passive!!




Their last day we my dad, Cole, Rosalinda, Brian and I went mountain biking in the morning. Cole even tackled the steep part. Then went up to the outlet malls in San Marcos. The car they drove down was already pretty packed, but they managed to squeeze more things into it. One of the nights we also played a really fun game called "Catch Phrase". We had a lot of laughs that night. I think all of our cheeks were sore at the end of it!!!

A busy weekend!

Yesterday we had our annual cross country pool party. I went to go buy the pizza for that, and headed over to one of the athlete's houses where it was held. Then I went straight from there to Sam's club to meet some friends so we could buy some food for a baby shower we were throwing for the following day. That same night one of Brian's classmates got married so we went to the ceremony and reception. Drew had a sabre arch, so the guys were in their dress blues. They always look so nice in uniform!! We had a lot of fun. Today was the baby shower for Amy. I went over to Allyssa's house early to help her get set up. It was a busy weekend. Brian got a lot done around the house. I start school tomorrow with kids, and I don't feel like I'm fully prepared!!! So if I don't put anything new on here for awhile, you'll know that I'm busy with Cross Country and school!

Our New Deck!!!

Just wanted to share a picture of our new deck. Too bad we won't have too much longer to enjoy it since we found out that there is no possibility that Brian could stay here for his next duty station. But we feel it will help people remember the house when they are out looking for a house to rent!

Family Wedding Back Home

I recently went back home for a cousins wedding. I had a lot of fun. I especially liked getting to see everyone on my mom's side of the family. We don't get a chance to get together very often. It was a very nice wedding and it was a very fast trip home. I also had a day in Lincoln to see my dad, Becky, and some friends. It was nice to see Kate and Mora. Mora is getting so big and she's very smart for her age. It was also great to see Vicki, Alicia, and Erich, my friends from Wesleyan. We like it down here in Texas, but I'm also anxious to move closer to home. Hopefully we'll be moving to Kansas. That'll make it easy to make weekend trips home with NO FLYING!!!!

We Are All Unpacked!

Every box has now been emptied, and we have made our first house a home! Nan and Dean flew down to San Antonio to help us put it all together, and they were a big help. We were able to do some fun things while they were down as well. All work and no play is not fun! Nan and I went up to the outlet malls for a day of shopping. We found a lot of great deals. We went out to eat at many restaurants and even made it downtown to the river walk. During this time, Brian had a closing ceremony. It marks the time of the end of being in classes! Yay!!! Their class had the highest GPA coming into the program, and also the highest GPA leaving the program. They also had the highest overall class score on their physical fitness tests. Brian also received the Leadership Award. This award was voted on by their class and faculty. It was a great day!

This week in San Antonio!

Brian is studying hard for his big comprehensive oral exam that he's taking this Thursday. He studies every morning, day, and night. He even had a study session on Friday night!! But I stayed busy, I went over to another wife's house with a few friends and we had a chocolate fondue party! It was a lot of fun .... and really yummy! I know Brian will do well, and we both can't wait until this part is finally over. He'll start his 9 month internship in the middle of July. I know all of his hard work will finally feel like it's paid off once he actually starts putting it all to practice!!
I've also kept myself busy with teaching summer school. If I haven't already complained to you about it, here it is. It is absolutely HORRIBLE! It's at this middle school that's not too far from our apartment, which that's nice but that's pretty much the only nice thing about it! These 8th graders have no motivation and they are real trouble makers. I thought they'd be motivated since they won't be going on to high school if they can't pass this state mandated math test. They've failed it twice now, and they have one more chance! Let's also say that within the first HOUR of school, on the first day, there were 3 different "taggings" and one pretty big gang related fight! Tagging is when gang members use graffiti to mark their territory. I'll be glad when it's all over!
On top of everything that's been going on, we are in the middle of moving to our first home! We are really excited! I'm especially excited because that means I don't have to drive as far to get to work. Oh how I miss Reagan High School right now!!! We've been moving small things with every trip that we make up to the house. We're hoping we'll only have all of our furniture left once Thursday rolls around. Our apartment is becoming barer by the day! I can't wait until everything is in our new house and organized! Nan and Dean are coming down here to help us get everything organized and for a little vacation! I hope everyone that is reading this is doing well, and I hope you all can come down to San Antonio for a visit! We'll have plenty of room now!

Trying this out!

I figured since we lived so far from home, I would try to keep everyone up to date with how we are doing by creating this blog. No promises on how often I update it, but hopefully you can all feel a little closer to us.