...and another 4 months....

funny how 4 months seems to be the timeframe between posts now. :) I thought about titling this post "World's Worst Blogger," too. Sorry, everyone!

Gosh many things have happened that I could tell you about since Nov2011, BUT I don't have any pictures from anything except what I got on here to tell you about....my birthday!

I gotta tell ya, I feel spoiled rotten for my 32nd b-day, and lemme tell you why, starting from the beginning:
On Friday, I woke up a care package from my in-laws containing lotsa goodies including bakeware (which I LOVE), a cute jewelry hanger, and an On the Border gift card...yum! yum!



then, i open my card from my hubby and it has cash in for me to go get my hair done and get a pedicure. so i go with my friend Ronnda for a long overdue pedicure in a big, comfy massage chair

i cannot even remember the last time i was able to get a pedicure, AND i usually do my hair myself, so getting it done was SUCH a treat


so, then our wonderful friends who also give me a sweet card and lil treat for my bday take us out for lunch and a movie


this is all followed by marg's at the Stockyards too.....so much fun!
so, then the next day my dad takes us out to dinner with his wife, Belinda and my lil sis and her bf, and I get a gift card for some shopping and this precious sign from my lil sis...LOL

and did i mention that we ate at yummy, yummy Razzoo's???


still not done....see i told you i am spoiled.....
today i get a precious card from my sis-in-law with some more spoil myself contents in it AND a one-of-a-kind piece of artwork from Chris' oldest nephew, Jacob...so precious

AND finally...today I received something very unexpected on my desk at work in the middle of the day


these beautiful things are from my thoughtful big sis, Crystal.

ok, so now do you believe me when I say I am spoiled rotten? Gosh, I am just feeling so loved and blessed and had to give credit to all those that made my 32nd bday something fun and special and to be remembered and enjoyed NOT something to dread! :)

And ANOTHER 4 months later......

With 2 posts in an 8 month span, I'm doubting I even have any followers on this blog anymore, but JUST IN CASE, I wanted to finally say hello from Burleson, TX. Boy does it feel like that last post from Loveland, Colorado four months ago was about 4 years ago. Life here in TX is good. I moved down permanently the 1st of August. Chris stayed a week and then had to go back to CO for 4 final weddings, so we were away from each other for FOUR WHOLE WEEKS, which was just awful! But I stayed with Kellye Beard (now Hill) while I looked for work here, and it was so awesome getting to stay with Kel and her hubby and 2 kids (dogs). :) I really miss all of them now that we're in our own place and have been since the begining of September.

So I'll just tell you right now that I haven't taken a single picture that wasn't of Jasmine or Kellye's dogs since my last post, so this post will not be full of pictures. Sorry! Well, in a very small and brief nutshell we are in Burleson, TX. I didn't get a teaching job but got a job as an aide at an Elementary School in the same school district where dad and his wife work. As an aide, I am making less money than I EVER have in our 4 years of marriage, so AS ALWAYS, we are frugal as ever. BUT I LOVE MY JOB!!!!!!! I work with amazing teachers and administrators, and though they wear me out and I do NOT like them some days, I truly love my kids and this new mission field the Lord has given me. I work as a Tier 2/Tier 3 Paraprofessional which is a fancy way of saying that I pull small groups of students out of class and help them with Reading or Math, for Grades K-5. If anyone reading this has ever worked as an aide, you know that your job is basically whatever anyone tells you to do on top of your actual job decsription so that synopsis definitely doesn't cover the million things that I do each week. BUT I LOVE IT and besides the pay, couldn't have asked for a better place to start and a better group of people to learn from.
Chris has already booked 2 TX weddings, but because of my HORRIBLE pay as an aide (we're VERY hopeful and prayerful that this will turn into a nice pay increase as a teaching job next year), he's currently working at a golf course. He likes the job ok, but it's 45 minutes away and very little pay. So he is also substitute teaching (he'll only have his 2nd day of this tomorrow) and is liking that so far. We are very hopeful that next year he can just focus on the business down here if I am making a teacher's salary.
We've already found a great church and have a friends from there that we hang out with, so that is a huge blessing. And I have already spent as much time with my family this year than I have combined since we've been married. We do miss his family a lot but I am very thankful for this season with my family. We miss out CO friends and church family terribly as well but truly feel so blessed to already have some friends and a church fmaily here!
So I guess the next big thing for us will be Thanksgiving. We were nominated to host this year, now that we have a rental house that is more than 2 times the size of our condo back home. So my mom, Chris' parents and 2 of his aunts and uncles will be here for a week. I'd like to say that I would be posting lotsa of pics after T-Day, but I just can't guarantee anything at this point. :) So I will just leave this blog for now with this very brief update and see if there is anyone that is still reading it! :)
Love to you all! xoxo

4 months later....

Dunno if anyone will even be following this anymore since I must be one of the worst bloggers ever! I seriously have had tons of things to tell all of you out there, but the past several months have just been CRAZY! I do have some pretty exciting news to tell everyone (and no it is NOT that we're expecting, cuz I know that's what you're thinking), but before I do that, I wanted to kinda back track a bit and share some pics from a few different things...
So in chronological order:
in April, we went down to the lake in NM, but we didn't do anything but work. We built a deck on the front of the house and Chris and his dad put in a sliding glass door, so this is the one pic I have from that, which is Jasmine pooped out in our room after a long, fun-filled day. The lake is her fave place ever!

Then in May, I surprised Chris with a night in Blackhawk, where he could gamble for his bday (thank goodness his parents gave him gambling money as their bday gift to him).





Then in June, we went to TX for my lil sis's HS graduation. Didn't take hardly any pics, but thought this one was pretty funny of Jasmine making sure we did not leave without her (which, sadly, we did, but we left her in very wonderful hands as one of our friends house and dog sat for us):

Then later that month, we snake sat in return for the dog-sitting, and we LOVED having "Nake," the bull python here with us. He was the sweetest lil guy.





And finally, just thought I'd share the only pic I took after our fam 4th of July picnic: Jazzy passed out in the car from all the excitement!

Alright, so that sums it up for now, and.....now I can tell you that Chris and I are finally moving back to TX so I can, Lord-willing, become a teacher! There is obviously LOTS more to tell than just that, but since it's gonna be crazy around him due to packing and moving in 2 weeks, I wasn't sure when I'd be able to post again. So there you have it. I do not have a job yet but know the Lord has a great job waiting for me. We'll stay with my amazingly gracious and generous friend, Kel in Grandview, until we know where we wanna rent, based on where I get a job. So, I'll keep ya posted! xoxo

My Birthday

I can't believe it has taken me 1.5 weeks to post about my birthday. My husband deserves so much doting, which I have done to tons of people in person, but not yet here on my blog. So, now is the time. Let me take you thru the day of my 31st bday....
Sadly, I did have to work on my bday, but my gift to myself was taking off the 2 days following my bday, so 8 hours of work on Wednesday, but then I was off for FOUR wonderfully long and relaxing days!
So, Chris picked me up at work at 4pm, and we did have to head to the chiropractor first. But after that, we grabbed dinner at one of my fave sandwich places, The Spicy Pickle, and headed home. When I got home, Chris said that I was only allowed to sit and eat dinner until I opened my gift. So, we ate some YUMMY sandwiches, and then he gave me a really big gift bag to open. He got me a very cute and funny card saying something like being married to me was better than being in a recliner with a beer in hand, with total control of the remote. haha He also got me 2 shirts that were on clearance from Kohl's (he so knows me) and the verse from Joshua 24:15 that says "as for me and my house, we'll serve the Lord," as one of those vinyl lettering things that you put up on a wall.

this is now the 1st thing you see when you walk thru our front door, which is something i have always wanted.

And the last thing in my gift bag, was some sorta of shelf hanger thingy, which led me to believe that Chris was going to re-do my closet as one of my bday gifts. We've been talking about this for quite some time. Chris and I know we'll most likely be in our condo for several more years in order to be able to turn a profit on it, and we also watch alot of HGTV and get ideas about home improvement projects all the time. But having more than one boring hanging rod and one shelf in our closet going across the entire thing, is something I have wanted for quite some time. So, I was excited to see this hanger thingy in my bag, BUT I didn't quite know the full meaning of it, until Chris said, "Now I still have a lil painting to do, but go look at your closet..." And this is what I saw...(now remember that all it was before I went to work at 8am that same morning, was one bar under one shelf across both walls of our closet...

I dunno how much you can tell from this picture, but with the help of one of his buddies, my hubby, in one workday did all of this built-in shelving and put up extra bars! Isn't that sooooooooo sweet???? I have these pics in my phone and have been showing them to every girl I know, and they all say, "I want one. Please show this to my husband!" :) lol So, here is what it looks like with clothes in it. Both my side and his. And I must tell you that I now have almost all of my clothes in this one closet instead of in this one and in the spare bedroom's closet!


And THEN, that night, my hubby had secretly gotten some Blue Bell ice cream, which had just come to Colorado and is my all-time fave ice cream brand ever,and he surprised me with that as we celebrated my bday with his family! Oh SO YUMMY!

So, as if all of that wasn't enough, we had a GREAT day off on Thursday and went to the movies, which I blogged about yesterday, and then on Friday night, my hubby surprised me AGAIN with a surprise party! My girlfriends asked me a lil while ago to go out with them to an unknown location for dinner on Friday night. We were meeting at one of their houses, and Chris was coming with me, because he was going over to help the husband of that house hang a tv mount while we were at dinner. He brought his tools and everything, and then when I walked in the door, SURPRISE! All of our wonderful friends from church were there, and we ate yummy tacos and nachos and had my fave cake, funfetti cake for dessert.

Whew! So, he has DEFINITELY MORE THAN made up for not making a very big deal last year of my 30th, and wow, do I have an amazing hubby or what?
Just had to dote on him! :)

Cousins

A few weeks ago, Jasmine's cousin, Angel came to stay the weekend with us. Angel is 1and pretty hyper, so she wore poor, old Jazzy out, and she slept for almost 4 days straight after Angel left, BUT they had a good time, and I just had to share the most precious picture with y'all...

2.5 more weeks go by....

I HOPE to write a couple of posts this morning, but I'm to the point where it makes no sense anymore to promise things like that. So, I will just do one post at a time and see where we get. I'm going to start at the most recent and go backwards...

This 1st post is going to be about movies. Chris and I have always loved watching movies as a couple. When we were 1st married, we went to the movies almost every weekend, but that was something we cut out since then. So, now we also enjoy using redbox and renting movies for $1. If you dunno about redbox, look it up, because it is one of the coolest things ever; especially if you're a movie buff!

Anyways, so we have had the privilege lately of getting to go to the movies a few times, one as a splurge for my bday (which is going to be another full post), and once last night because we had free fandango tickets. We also have rented some more movies lately because we got a redbox deal for even CHEAPER rentals than $1 each. That being said, I just wanted to tell you about a few of our recent favorites.


Last night, we saw The Lincoln Lawyer. It was a good movie that kept my attention the entire 2 hours. I enjoyed it, but was the TINIEST bit disappointed because I felt it was a lil predictable. But I would still recommend it.


Last week on one of my days off, we went to a matinee of Just Go With It. Now Chris and I both LOVED this one! I'd been dying to see it since it came out anyways, because it looks hilarious and I really like Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler, but sometimes, in my opinion, Adam Sandler movies, though always funny, can be a lil crude. Well, I will say that I felt like this one was low on crudeness and VERY high on cuteness and humor! I HIGHLY recommend this!


In the last couple of weeks, we rented The Next Three Days, with Russell Crowe, and I thought this one looked interesting from its first appearance in theaters, but I wasn't quite sure about it, and I hadn't known anyone who'd seen it and could comment on it. But we LOVED it! It was a great all-around suspense/action movie that I highly recommend.


And finally, had to throw one in that we did not like....How Do You Know. I have been dying to see this one since it hit theaters but have very impatiently waited for it to finally hit redbox. So we rented it this week, right after it came out. I LOVE Reese Witherspoon and have alos liked alot of movies starring Owen Wilson and Paul Rudd. BUT in my opinion, this movie was weird and SLOOOOOOOOOOOW from the beginning, all the way to the very end. Now, it wasn't so bad, that we were tempted to turn it off, but I was just glad that I was at home and could get up now and then and do other things to accommodate my ADD. :) It did have enough humor to keep us going, but if someone had told me this before I watched the movie, I really dunno if I would've wasted even a dollar to rent it.

Alright, people, that's one, and now I am going to go read and drink some coffee. Hopefully, I will be back on later today or tomorrow to write some more! :)

Wow, I am really bad at this!

My sincere apologies to anyone who actually still checks on my blog posts since I have done like 2 so far in 2011!

Things here in Loveland are quite crazy with my new job. Though I have a commute of 5 mins instead of 30 and I work one less hour a day because I get paid for my half hour lunch now, I still feel very busy and stretched and a lil stressed. I will never complain about being busy after my brain-less job of the past 2.5 years BUT my new job is GO GO GO and CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY, and it has been a tough transition.

I dunno if any of you have ever worked at a calling center before, but I haven't EVER, and there's a definite reason for that. So I am definitely hoping to, at some point this year, move out of my current full-time phone support role to a different one, if possible and Lord-willing!

Other than that, next week is my 31st bday, and I am stoked because though I have to work Wed, my actual bday, I took off next Thurs and Fri for a FOUR-DAY-BIRTHDAY WEEKEND!

Also, one quick, random update, I am now seeing a chiropractor 3 times a week (yikes) for the next 3 months to try and stop some of the degeneration I am seeing in my spine and neck. I have never even known anyone that visits a chiropractor, so I am not too thrilled but the x-rays of my spine were definitely convicting for both Chris and I when we got my "report of findings" last week. Sigh! :)

Well, that is about all the time I have to post today. God bless!!!