A Christmas Affair

For the past few years my mother-in-law has been going to a big Christmas shopping event there in Austin. This year, being so close, I was able to go and also my sister-in-law Katie. Susan brought her sister Patsy so the four of us set off to do some major shopping. We spent the day shopping, eating plenty of samples and laughing. They came up with the joke that my shopping legs weren't really seasoned yet compared to Susan and Patsy's, cause I was tired by noon! We had a blast though and finished off the night by going out to get some...bet you can't guess... Mexican food. (Those Roderick's really love their Mexican Food! )



This was my favorite purchase, it's called Basket Case of Basket Head, one of those two. When I saw it I knew it'd provide Dave and I hours of entertainment :) His nephew loved it too!

My beautiful Young Women

I have the best calling ever!

Six Month Anniversary!

So time is flying and we've been married for six months now. Crazy! The real shocker is that it took David a whole 6 months to finally give me this award.

It was also the day we flew back from California so we celebrated our anniversary by visiting all three states that I had lived in (California -> Utah -> Texas), in one day.

Halloween!

So we didn't have much time to put together a Halloween costume. We looked up couples costumes online, went through our attic and the costume bins, etc. I finally went in and told my dad (the very non-Halloween celebrating type) our dilemma. He simply said, "why don't you just be Texans?" I wish I had thought of that a lot sooner! My dad got a nice cowboy hat from Dave's dad at our reception, I got my dad a Texas tie when I came back from Houston, Thomas had some Wranglers and boots, and I got my dad a nice Texas apron as a souvenir when they last came into town. It turned out great, the ward loved it and anyone we saw that had ever lived in Texas came up and told us they loved our costumes and missed Texas.

We got to take my little neices out Trunk-or-Treating at the ward Halloween Party. We really thought people might offer us candy because we got dressed up and all, but that wasn't the case. Afterwards, we played a game where Tia's friends had to try to throw their candy in Dave's cowboy hat. We won us a lot of candy that way, I came home with an apron full :)

Thomas Family Photos

Dave took his first train ride, from his conference in LA up to Fresno, to spend the weekend with us. I was soooo happy to see him after 5 days! My mom took advantage of us being in town and invited a family friend over to take a family picture in our back yard.

One of the hardest parts of family pictures in my family is finding a color scheme that everyone can agree with. We usually end up borrowing each others clothes and hiding behind eachother to hide any unmatching article of clothing. But here we all are!

University of Farmers

Dropping off Dave at the airport
(Don't let the big smile fool you, it was sad moment having to say goodbye)

So Dave started working as an Insurance Agent here in San Antonio for Farmers Insurance. He's been doing great. All agents start out as Reserve Agents. Once they sell a total of 40 P & C policies and 4 life policies they become Career Agents. This brings a lot of great benefits including subsidies, group insurance, bragging rights, and much more. As an incentive they offered to buy Dave and I a nice bed and breakfast in a nice little town outside of San Antonio and Dave surpassed their expectations and did it in 2 months. (Fredericksburg here we come!) Also, he got shipped out to Los Angeles to the University of Farmers for his first official business trip.

Dave had a great experience there. He spent his days learning successful marketing strategies and how to be a great agent instead of a salesman, and all about opening up his own Farmers Branch and what is involved. He spent his evenings chatting on the phone with me. It really got him pumped about opening up his own business and applying everything that he learned. I'm so proud of him!

While he was there I flew out to Fresno to visit home. It was fun just being a part of the family again. I got to go to Tia's water polo game, Emily's cross country meet and soccer game, I hung out with my brothers and also my sister and her cute little family, and of course my parents and I got to play the ukulele with my Grandpa all week. What a great week!