Christmas Card

Before I got married, my mom gave me a binder with all of the Christmas cards she had done for our family.  It was so fun to read through and hear the highlights of each year since my parents were married.  I loved reading about their first couple years of marriage because, believe it or not, they had a lot of the same experiences and struggles we are going through now.  I got to read about their honeymoon adventures, financial worries, their decision to start their own family, and all about us crazy kids as we grew up.  As I was enjoying the cards I kept telling myself that I had to do the same thing for my kids...

So our first Christmas together, 2010, I justified not doing Christmas cards by the fact that just a couple months prior I had sent out thousands of thank-you cards (so it seemed, but more like a couple hundred) from our wedding, so I couldn't afford the postage and everybody was pretty up-to-date on our lives. 

This year, I had no excuse...I found a great groupon to get them real cheap and I did our first Christmas card.  This is the picture I put on there.  It was not a well-planned out picture on my part, a friend from church took it for us right outside by the church parking lot.  I'm not wearing the most flattering dress, but I assume people know I'm not fat so it didn't bother me.  Well, my sweet great-aunt sent us back a Christmas card telling us we look so happy and in love and how "it looks as though there will be a new edition to the family coming soon" and that they're so excited for us and the future ahead.  She's the sweetest thing, so I'll just assume she'll figure it out someday when our first child does comes around and it's been a lot more than 9 months since we sent her the card. 

This Christmas!

 We always love decorating for Christmas while listening to a fun Pandora Holiday station.  We absolutely love our tree and we even had some gifts to put under it.  We find places here and there to stick the other stuff, including my cute little nativity scene.  Dave always makes sure all the Christmas lights are turned on around the house right as soon as the sun goes down. 

 We had our own Christmas a little early (December 10th) since we'll be out in Hawaii for Christmas day.

  I told Dave his presents went together, so of course he had to open them both up at the same time.  We had a great morning with gifts and donuts :)

One of our favorite ways to spread Christmas cheer is to make Christmas cookies (and eat them).  We actually spent four nights of the week we left baking, decorating and delivering cookies to some special people we know.    I'd like to do it for every holiday, because I love soft sugar cookies with almond frosting!

Guess who got dressed first?

We decided we'd go out shopping for Friday date night to get Dave a swimsuit.  On our way into the store we both looked at eachother and realized we were wearing the exact same thing...light jeans, a gray/charcoal color top and flip flops.  Who copied who?

Answer: I had been wearing that outfit all day!  Dave, on the other hand, was wearing his work clothes until we decided to go out. Usually I'm the one wanting to color coordinate our outfits, but this time it was actually Dave who decided to match perfectly with me as we went out and went to 6 different stores and found no swimsuit.  Why does nobody sell swimsuits in December?!?

My husband is really good at his job!

So today we were sitting in the office working and Dave turned to me and asked, "How do you spell Harry?"  He was writing an email to a client he's had for a few months now who goes by his nickname, Harry.  I told him that people usually spell it "H-a-r-r-y"

He started scrolling down through his thread of emails and quietly muffled, "Woops, ok."  I walked over to his desk and saw that he's been addressing all of his emails to him using the spelling "H-a-i-r-y" instead. Haha!

 

So, not only is my husband adorable, but he's also great at his job because Harry hasn't once complained, corrected him or left for another insurance agent eventhough Dave has been calling him Hairy :)  He must really like Dave as his agent.

Thanksgiving Break

We had a nice, quiet Thanksgiving break with Dave's parents up in Joshua, TX.  Adam couldn't get off work so they couldn't come, and then Katie was pretty sick so they decided last minute to just stay home. 

So there was a lot of food for the 4 of us.  We spent the morning cooking, lots of new recipes.  We had a great meal and were all so full that we went straight to the park to walk some laps. 

Homer was really itching to go do the whole Black Friday thing.  He went through the huge stack of newspaper ads to figure out what he wanted.  Luckily Dave was willing to go so Susan and I got to stay home, watch a movie and get to bed at a decent hour.  They got almost everything they wanted and Dave's happy he had the experience.

We had such a fun week.  The whole weekend was one big double date.  We went out for dinner and a movie, went shopping and they taught me how to shoot a gun.  That was interesting, and the hardest part was actually keeping my eyes open when I was about to pull the trigger.  Susan and I were the only girls at the shooting range.  We also exchanged our Christmas gifts and were definitely spoiled.  What a relaxing, fun break!

 

Note to Self...

It is too hot in Texas to store nice Holiday candles in the outdoor storage closet

(I did manage to find the wick in the one on the right, so it still works!)

Gruene (pronounced green) Marathon

   About midway through September Katie told me she found a great half-marathon to run that is actually on a Saturday.  Most races down here are on Sunday so I just miss out.  I went online to sign up and discovered that it was actually a combination

between a marathon/half marathon.  Same starting line, but the half-marathoners turn around a little sooner than the marathoners to head toward the finish line.  So, from that moment I had about 6 weeks to prepare.

   Training went...ok.  I only had about 4 weeks to really push myself to prepare because the last 2 weeks I needed to be sure my body was well rested.  I went running about 2 or 3 times a week.  I did do one big 12 miler, but I ran out of time before I could push myself to the 20 mile prep run.  It was tough to get out there for one excuse or another, but the biggest one is that there are no really "inspiring" places to run where we live. 

  The day before the race my mom came down and took me, Lisa, and Katie and Tom's family out to dinner.  We had a great time, but I think Katie can agree with me that we were just ready to get this race started.  It was great having the support from everyone.

   I learned something on race day...running a marathon is not one of those "shoot for the moon and land among the stars" things.  Meaning you should never try to "wing it" with a 26.2 mile race or assume that because you've run one before means you'll do just as well with much less training.  I'm sure others have probably felt it too, but there is something called "the wall" when running a marathon.  It's the point where your body starts to hurt more than you can ever remember, the mile markers seemingly get further and further spaced out, and you really begin to doubt whether you can finish or not.  Suddenly my mind was filled with negative thoughts not only at how I might not be able to finish this race, but of any other type of small shortcoming that I felt I had done in life.  Not a good feeling. 

   At mile 20 I thought I was done.  I walked for about 2 miles (quickly) and a volunteer on a bike went alongside me for awhile.  I got a little gatorade, some skittles, and then I was back in action!  I felt much better.  Lisa was waiting for me at mile 24 and she made the rest of the race very pleasant.

   All in all, it was a great experience.  Will I run another marathon? yes.  Will I train much better next time? absolutely.  Did I learn a lot of lessons about preparation, procrastination, and scheduling? Definitely.

    

Love

It's slowly becoming fall here in San Antonio. We've been getting these random cold fronts that come through and make it cold for a few days and then it goes back up to 80+ degrees for a few days until the next one). I've already gotten out my winter jacket a few times.  I really don't like the cold!

But there is one thing I enjoyed about it...it made me realize how much my husband loves the quilt that I made.  Out of all the blankets in our house, I came in to see that he chose this one :)

Movie Night

I love to make forts and Dave's mentioned a few times recently that we should make one sometime. Last weekend we were both a little sick with a headcold so we decided to stay in for a movie night.  He ran down the street to get a RedBox and I surprised him with this...  We had a fun movie night with lots of snacks.  I had to drag David out of it when it was finally time to take it down, he loved it!

We are so blessed!!!

So over the 4th of July weekend, we took Cari Sue and Sean to float the river.  Usually, everybody has a beer in their hand, so we decided to be cool too and go get Sonic drinks.  Dave and I were sharing a tube and right after we went through the chute a police officer pulled us out of the river and asked me if it was my cup.  I had heard they were having a no-refusal weekend, so I assumed it was about alcohol and I proudly responded yes, but that there was no alcohol in it because I don't drink alcohol.  Well, jokes on me...it had nothing to do with alcohol.  Apparently, there's a law in New Braunfels; no styrofoam.  We had no idea, not even the slightest.  We tried to explain that to the officer, but he was stern and said no exceptions this weekend.  So the mean officer wrote us up a ticket.  Dave insisted he bought the cup so he should be the one written up, so he went over with the officer.  It was probably better that Dave went, because I had so many insults running through my mind to use on that officer that wouldn't have helped the situation, but would've made me feel better.  He said that he didn't know the price, city violations were anywhere from $1-$500 and that we'd find out in a few days when our ticket was processed. 
    So the next week I was at Girl's Camp and I called Dave and asked him to check on that ticket.  The officer had mentioned that we could go into the courthouse and challenge the ticket, so we had agreed that if it was $30 or more, it would be worth the gas money and time to go challenge.  He got online and all I hear is silence, and then him repeatedly saying, "No, this can't be right, this just can't be right!"  Any guesses on how much?  $419!!! For a $1 Sonic drink!!!
     We went and challenged it.  We appeared on our court date and finally got in to talk with a prosecutor.  She offered to drop it $100, I wanted to laugh, like I'd accept that!  After explaining that this ticket is almost how much we pay in rent each month and how there was no warning given and we would've happily thrown out our $1 cup if there had been signs posted.  So she dropped it down to what she said the lowest was for the holiday weekend + the court fees which added up to $198.  I still wouldn't accept that and we told her we just didn't have the funds to pay that, so she offered us community service hours.  So $419 turned into 16 hours of community service hours.  That I accepted.
     I called around to a few places, it had to be non-profit and non-religious.  Every company insisted they interview Dave and he'd have to complete an orientation before they could promise any hours.  I would try to explain that he wasn't a criminal, we just had a Sonic cup on the river, but I don't think they believed me.  Dave decided he'd just do the orientation and go down to the soup kitchen and spend 4 Saturday mornings there.  After lots of research I called the Boy Scouts and got some wonderful news, they were non-profit and non-religious.  Every Wednesday with our youth group, Dave works with a scout troop.  So I found a way to count the hours he was already doing every week towards his community service.  Our home teacher is the scout master and he signed off the forms for us.  We sent it in last week and when I called today, they told me that the case was closed and we're cleared.  New Braunfels didn't get a dime out of us.  So many prayers and so much time spent worrying about how we were going to be able to pay that, what a blessing!!!

Halloween Crafts

Recently, some friends have shown me Pinterest and I've decided I'm going to attempt to do more crafts.  It's especially nice for the holidays because I never seem to find decorations I like that aren't super expensive.  So now I can make all my own decorations for much cheaper, and they're much cuter.

 Our first craft...my pumpkin and Dave's Frankenstein, colorful and fun.  We put fake candles in them at night and they look great.

Turns out that an empty jar is more expensive than a jar that comes with food in it, so we decided to sacrifice the pickles. (They don't look as appetizing in a salsa jar)  We'll have to get them out with a fork now, but the jar was the perfect shape for my pumpkin so I think it was worth it. 

Domestic Development

My mom worked really hard on our wedding decor.  She and some friends sewed us some very nice table cloths because we just couldn't find any with the bright red, orange and yellow colors that I wanted.  We hate just throwing things away, so my mom came up with the idea of making a quilt with them.  I had never actually done a quilt on my own before, so I was excited about having a nice quilt, but not necessarily the making of it.  But I figured it would be a great skill to develop so I agreed to it.  We found a great pattern with similar colors that we really liked and I got myself my very own sewing machine and got to work.  Luckily I have a great friend at church who is an expert quilter and showed me lots of helpful pointers.

It still took me quite a while, it stresses me out just thinking back and trying to estimate how many hours. It was pretty advanced so I made a lot of mistakes and had to sew a few squares over and over again until I got them right.  With some help from my mom this past weekend we got the front all finished and took it over to a quilter lady to get it all finished up and looking nice.  She did it just in time for me to take it back to Texas with me, and the very last step was just finishing up the edging.  That also took a very long time, but I could finally see light at the end of the tunnel so it wasn't so bad. 

Finishing up the last edging corner and I couldn't be more excited.  I finished the whole second half during a movie night (poor Dave had to watch an action movie with the bright overhead lights on while I finished)  This is the back, which shows the beautiful and intricate flower/leaf pattern, it's beautiful!

And finally, the front, which I think is absolutely beautiful!  We added in the purple fabric to add some contrast, but the rest were all the table cloths from our reception. I loved the colors because they remind me of the sunset.   The pattern was called Tequila Sunrise, but Dave likes to say that the colors represent the sun setting on our single lives.

I'm so happy to finally be done with this project and to have a beautiful blanket to snuggle up in, especially now that we're starting to see signs of Fall.  Now, on to my next project...

Dream Job

One of my favorite movies has always been Miss Congeniality.  I've always wanted to be a spy, I love finding out secrets, including exactly what I'm getting for Christmas and my birthday and who has who for any Secret Santa gifts.  The day I saw Miss Congeniality I discovered my dream job, I would love to be just like Sandra Bullock in that movie.

When we moved here to San Antonio I applied to all sorts of Linguist jobs, including the FBI, just for fun.  I heard that it takes years to get hired, but I just did it to say that I tried.  Well, surprisingly enough, over a year later, I got a call from the FBI asking me to come in and test for a Linguist position. Who would've thought!

  The test was 5 hours, I thought I was going to die and almost thought about leaving half way through because it was tough! Luckily I brought plenty of snacks. All of the listening clips were of mumbled Spanish slang with loud sirens and street noises in the background.  In that moment I really wished I were one of the three native Spanish speakers testing in the room with me. 

Security was pretty intense there, no cameras or cell phones, but I managed to snap this picture on my way out of the parking lot.  It'll take another few months before I even get my test results back from DC headquareters and then years after that to get hired.  So for now, I'm proud to say that say that at least I got an interview at the FBI.  I feel so accomplished.

Surprise Fresno Visit

I love to surprise my family and I've been wanting to go home for a while to see everybody.  It's tough being so far away from all my siblings and missing out on watching them grow up and being apart of all their activities.  I've surprised my dad before (hiding in the back of his truck when he came out from work) and my little sister Emily on her birthday, see video below...

It was hard to leave Dave, but I was really aching to see everybody, including my nieces and nephews.  My brother Tom was my accomplice.  We came in and surprised Emily first...

 Just kidding.  Emily actually wanted to re-enact the whole thing because the first video came in a little fuzzy.  In the real video Emily didn't even notice it was me in the same room with her for a few seconds.  And we missed my dad's reaction.  Of course, within seconds each asked me, "Is Dave here too?" 

Emily agreed to help me surprise Mom and Tia coming home from Back to School night. So I went and jumped in Tia's bed and told Emily to tell them that she had done something really special to their room. (I knew that would alarm my mama and she'd come right in ready to see the damage)  Here's the video...

It was such a great visit.  Since it was a midweek surprise, nothing special was planned, but I loved just being a part of the everyday activities.  Some of the highlights were running errands with my mom, having lunch with my dad, shopping with Carrie, exercising with Tom, walking Emily to the bus stop and Tia's waterpolo game.

My favorite was spending time with my older sister and her adorable little family. 

 We had a fun sleepover and I loved walking Kaylin to school, playing at the park, snack time, telling stories, going to the library and the animal game. 

 I love meeting my dad for lunch.  Good thing he has a big office!  Then, the trip wouldn't be complete without a girls night.

I feel so refreshed!  Everyone missed Dave, but I tried to keep him in the loop by sending him picture messages all week of everything I was doing.  I was sad to leave, but excited to get back to Dave and real life. And, I had such a wonderful surprise waiting for me when I got home....

My favorite.....RIBS!

New Office Monday



Move in day

 What's the coolest thing about "New Office Monday"? The new office of course!

For the past 1 year and 3 months I've been working, rent free, in the Farmers District 45 Office. You're probably wondering why I would move out a rent free office. Well, I'll tell you!

Being in the District Office has many benefits such as being around a great support system, free, and it's a very short drive if I need to talk to the District Manager...like, 30 feet. The benefits of moving out is not having the responsibility of answering the phones for any customer issues that are District related and no more Reserve Agents with their innumerable questions. It's not that I don't like to help others, but sometimes I would have my own issues to take care of and as an agent I don't make any money on solving a problem that another agent's problem. I can't complain though because it was a small price to pay for being rent free for the past while.



The Office.  Fully furnished!



The new office is great!  It's a luxorious 85 square feet, has a door that I can open and pretend that it's a window, and a nice extra chair just in case I get tired of sitting in my normal chair.  You might be thinking, "Dave, aren't there prison cells out there that are bigger than that?"  You're probably right, but do prisoners get a hot office secretary (Lisa) to work with you for at least half of the workday?  I didn't think so!

A cookie bouquet from my
District Manager

The long of the short of it is I'm very grateful to find this place to sink my roots for now. It's right up near the San Antonio Temple in a great part of town, the building I work in is brand new, I've found great ways to save money yet stay fully functional, and after a long search and seeing many things fall through this place came up at the right time, right area, and the right price.

I Love Texas Thunderstorms!

I love the Texas rain!  I like it because it's usually more of a torrential downpour, and it's not freezing cold so you can still enjoy it outside. 

I first learned this on my mission to Houston.  We'd be out riding our bikes and it would be nice and sunny.  Then, in a matter of minutes, these huge dark clouds would come billowing in and we'd be stuck in a downpour with no where to go.  I always thought I could outride it and make it home, but trying to ride a bike in sheets of heavy rain and powerful winds never gets you very far.  

Some might think it would be annoying getting all your clothes and belongings soaked so many times, but I absolutely loved it!

The one advantage that I have now is this bad boy... Channel 5.3.  It's the radar station and it tracks all the storms.  I can see the storms coming from a hundred miles away and know exactly where they'll hit and at what time.  It is soo cool!!!  Since we're in a horrible drought, I haven't gotten to spend too much time with it, but this is all from our most recent storm.

 I still love to see when the big dark clouds come rolling in.  Although it can be pretty scary looking at times, I think it's so beautiful.  Check out the clouds in this video and you'll catch a little glimpse of what I mean!

An then the rain hits, 5.3 is always right on time. We love to sit out on our balcony during the storms and just watch the lightning light up the sky.  I love the mist we catch, the humid air that makes me hair go crazy, and the fresh smell of the rain.

I can't wait for the next one!

Texas or BYU, Texas or BYU?

Back when we were dating, while attending BYU, Dave heard the announcement that BYU would play University of Texas on September 10, 2011.  He was pretty excited and shared with me that he'd really like to go to that game.  After we were married and decided we'd be moving to San Antonio, that same idea came back and he started inviting all of our friends to come down to Texas and stay with us before the game (still over a year away at this time)

We were sitting in Dave's office on Thursday and I noticed he was reading some articles on the game.  All of a sudden it all came back- how excited he was for this game over a year and a half ago.  I told him that if he could find some reasonably priced tickets, we could go.  He jumped right on that and found there were still actually quite a few tickets left and they weren't as expensive as we had thought.  So, we bought them and headed up to Austin for the game on Saturday night.

After a little debate, we decided we'd stay true to our alma mater and put on some BYU gear.  I'll admit it, I've never been a huge fan of BYU sports, they've just never been that good, so I've never gotten that into it. So I debated going neutral and just cheering for whoever was winning, mostly to save us from being attacked by hardcore Texas fans.  We did have some blue face paint, so that convinced me.

We definitely stood out in the sea of orange!  At one cross-walk, everyone was stopped and we were seriously standing there surrouded by a hundred others, all in orange.  I did see these two really big, tough-looking dudes up front in blue shirts so we went and stood by them :)  I felt much better walking to the stadium alongside two huge guys also dressed in blue, one of which son's plays on the BYU team.

We were on the second to last row at the very top, home (shady) side. All the Texas fans loved making the longhorn hand gesture.  Here's what I have to say about it!!!

In case you didn't hear, BYU lost.  They had a great first half, but then fall apart.  But of course, we had fun anyways and Dave's already looking forward to the next time BYU comes to Texas.

Free Pizza

We love free food!  We had a Friday night work appointment and decided to just stop somewhere for dinner.  Pizza Hut's having this deal where you can get any pizza, any size with any toppings for $10. We got there soo hungry.  We ordered a super supreme and I had mentioned no onions, but just to make sure she heard me Dave went up and reminded her.  When they finally brought us our pizza, she put it down and started apologizing, they had put onions on it. I was just about to tell her it was ok, I would just pick them off.  But, beofre I got to that she said that she already had them making us another pizza for free, so just to eat this one in the meantime.  How cool is that!  So we got two large super supreme pizzas for $10.  We'll be having pizza for lunch for the next few days at least. 

Grandpa's Moment of Fame

Man reported missing found safe

September 08, 2011 1:51 PM

THE RECORDER

"An 85-year-old man with dementia reported missing before 10 a.m. this morning was found safely at the Porterville Community Center more than three hours later.

Edward Mathias walked away from his house on Grand Avenue at about 9 a.m. and after he did not return family members called the Porterville Police Department.

Because of his age and condition, police immediately began a search. At one time, more than 20 members of the police department were involved and the city utilized a helicopter in its search.

Mathias reportedly walked away from his home wearing a Hawaiian shirt and carrying a ukulele in a case. Mathias is Hawaiian.

A little after 1 p.m., police got a call that a person matching the man’s description was given a ride to the Community Center on Putnam Avenue."

All he wanted to do was get to the Senior Citizen Center so he could entertain the people there. He gave us all quite a scare, I'm so glad he's ok!

Are you ready to race around the world?

We don't have cable, we just have the bunny ears for our TV ($0/month).  We've always gotten CBS, NBC and FOX and since the living room rearrangement we've picked up ABC :) We actually get about 20 more channels, but they're all either worship or Spanish.  Since movies are cheap, we'll usually have a movie night every weekend, but we recently got rid of our netflix, due to the increase of price.  So Dave just so happened to find a website that has almost every show in the world, almost every season.  We recently got into the show The Amazing Race and when we looked at this website we saw that there are 18 seasons of it.  We couldn't have been happier.  We have about 200 episodes to catch up on.  We're addicted to this show!

Labor Day Breakfast...Yum!

Dave loves cereal, but I love a good hearty breakfast.  Dave's parents were here and we love treating our guests to a special breakfast.  It makes my mouth water everytime I look at this picture!

Retama Park

There's this huge horse track just outside of San Antonio that we've driven past probably ten times.  We never really thought about going, but the other day a friend told us about 50 cent Saturdays. 

Dave's parents were in town for the weekend, so we decided to try it out.  It was just $5 to park with free admission.  They had 50 cent snow cones and hot dogs, plus pony rides, face painting, balloon animals, etc for the kids. 

We got to stand right up next to the track and see it all up close.  The jockey's were short and skinny little guys and after each race you could see all the dirt that was kicked up on their faces.
 

We had so much fun!  They had a short race about every half hour (I wish they were more frequent).  We loved all choosing a horse and then cheering it on as it came around the corner.  It was so exciting!  I kept thinking about my little sisters and how much they'd love it, so I can't wait to take my family there someday. 

Austin Bats

We went up to Austin this past weekend to spend the day with Tom and Katie (Dave's brother and his family).   We first went to Barton Springs which is a little spring-fed pool.  The water was freezing cold, but refreshing because Saturday was the official hottest day of the year, a blazing 110 degrees. 

We went back to the apartment, ate lunch and took a nice nap before heading out to Congress Ave for the Bat Festival.  Every year, white tailed bats from Mexico fly up to Austin and over a million sleep every day under this busy bridge.  Then at sundown they all come out at once and go hunt for food.  August/September are the best months to see them because it's right after they all have their babies, so there are lots of them.  They blocked off the bridge for a huge festival with vendors and food.  We stopped early at the bridge to get a front row view of the bats.   Right as the sun was going down we started hearing a lot of squeaking and pretty soon thousands of bats started coming at and flying around like crazy!  It was so cool to see so many, filling the sky as they flew off. 

We took our new car there and it was so comfy and nice, plus we used about half the gas that we usually do in our trucks.  Another fun weekend :)