Go, Go, Go

As much as I love the fact that Nick has so much time off recently, it has been really tough trying to be productive on the 3-4 days a week that he actually does have work. I definitely got a little bit overwhelmed this week with all that I had to do and I had to repeat this verse to myself a few times this week:

"Be still, and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10

Thankfully, it has been a gloriously unproductive weekend long weekend so far! I don't even remember what we did yesterday. And today, our only plans consisted of going to a local vineyard for some wine tasting. We even packed a little picnic for lunch. It was an absolutely gorgeous day (shocking, considering it was just SNOWING!) and it was wonderful to just sit and relax and drink some tasty wine. Good times.

Oh, and we may or may not go camping tomorrow night through Monday. We were going to go yesterday, but it was craaaaazy windy, so we're pretty glad we decided against that. Hopefully it'll work out. We're trying to take advantage of the remaining time off Nick has, and the gorgeous weather lately.

Not too much else to report. Nick & I both memorized Matthew 11:28-30 last week:

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble at heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

I just wrote that from memory, woohoo! This week, we chose to memorize Psalm 23- the verse that starts out "The Lord is my shepherd". So far so good.

Snow Day!!!

Yesterday, I woke up to this LOVELY sight:

SNOW!!!

And it only got better:


And better:


It ended up snowing ALL DAY long and they closed the schools and post! Woohoo! Snow day! Nick and I had way too much fun. If you'd like to see all the pictures and videos we took (70 pictures in all), I put them online: http://picasaweb.google.com/CorkyQuin/SnowDay#

But, here are a few of the highlights:

Nick's Animal (from the Muppets) antenna ball barely survived the snowstorm

The dogs had WAAAYYY too much fun and were completely tuckered out by the end of the day. They were pretty much in heaven. Although Scout really liked to eat the snow & then started shivering head to toe. Obviously we had some fun too. Alas, the snow is totally gone. It was fun while it lasted though!

24!

Yesterday was my birthday & I turned 24 years old! Crazy! You know you're getting old when your mom tells you she can't believe you're that old already, ha ha.

My friend Alice & her husband came over the night before for some chili & Wii. They hadn't played Mario Kart before, which definitely made things interesting and fun. Then, yesterday started out with church in the morning, which was great, as usual. Then, the fog lifted (literally), and it ended up being a gorgeous 70 degrees! I can't even tell you the last time it was 70 degrees here. And did I mention it's supposed to snow tomorrow? I guess that's Texas for you!

Anyway, Nick and I took advantage of the nice weather and ate our lunch in the backyard. Then, I opened presents and we watched Up, which totally made me laugh and cry, as usual. It was such a nice, relaxing day and I wouldn't have wanted my birthday any other way. It was especially nice considering how busy last week was. My love language is quality time though, so just having a whole day to relax and hang out with Nick without chores or distractions was amazing.

All of the birthday phone calls and well-wishes from friends and family made me feel really loved and blessed as well. Although, I'm glad my mom didn't proceed with her idea to call me every hour on the hour for my birthday (since I turned 24), ha ha. My niece and nephews were also extremely generous with their well wishes. I got the cutest voicemail message where they sang to me, as well as 2 adorable videos. One of the videos was of my 8 month old nephew cooing and "talking" to me, and the other was my 4 year old nephew singing "Oh Where Is My Hairbrush?" from Veggie Tales, and saying he hoped I'd find my hairbrush, ha ha. SO CUTE!!! Just thinking about those videos makes me smile. Thanks for sending them to me Hill!

Nick and I also went out to dinner at a restaurant on one of the local lakes. We made it just in time for sunset, although we ended up sitting inside because it was realllly windy! It was an absolutely delicious meal though. I even got a free brownie for my birthday, although the manager decided to tell the entire restaurant it was my 18th birthday for some reason...hmm, just 6 years off. Don't know what that was about, but it was pretty funny.

I'm anticipating this will be a pretty good year. It's already off to a great start!

Rain, Rain, Go Away

So, seeing as Nick has another 4-day weekend coming up next week, we're thinking about going camping. We got our tent for Christmas, and over the last week, we got pots & pans, a camping stove, a lantern, and a GIANT sleeping bag (seriously, it's as big as our queen size bed). Unfortunately, there is possible snow in the forecast this week, as well as rain next weekend where we want to go camping. Hmmmm. Rain, rain, please go away!

Long Week

Wow, I am SO glad it's Friday! This was a really long and busy week, especially considering it was only 4 days! I am exhausted! And I didn't even volunteer in Rachel's class like I usually do on Tuesdays because she had a sub. But, I ended up getting a lot of random stuff done that I really needed to do, so it was a busy day anyway. Thursday, I had work as usual, but we only had like 10 kids and 3 adults. So, not too bad. But, 2 days this week (Wednesday & today) were spent doing volunteer training for Hope Pregnancy Center.

Months ago (I think it was like October), my church talked about the center and my friend Alice decided it was somewhere she wanted to volunteer. But then, Alice went home for a few months, and we totally forgot about it. Well, about two weeks ago, during a sermon at church about finding your "ministry", I felt really called to get involved with Hope. So, I mentioned it to Alice & we found out on Sunday that they had training this week! It was obviously a pretty quick process. But, that sermon really convicted me that I haven't done a lot of "ministering" to people, or making disciples and that's obviously something the Bible talks about a lot (Matthew 28:16-20), and something we've been talking about in our Young Married's class at church recently.

I actually only was able to go to 2 out of the 4 days of training, but it was pretty amazing. Obviously, their primary goal is to educate women about their choices when they're faced with an unplanned pregnancy. But, they really just want to minister to these women and make sure they have the opportunity to get fully educated on their options. They obviously don't advocate abortion, but they are very loving in their approach and don't force anything. They're definitely not a politically driven pro-life organization. Obviously, it's a really good opportunity for me to get involved in the community and serve God locally.

As much as I loved the training, I was also a little bit apprehensive because it would be an experience that majorly takes me out of my comfort zone (the training was very focused on being an "opportunity counselor"). I had a lot of doubts about whether I should get really involved since we'll probably be moving this fall (they usually want people to stay on for about a year), and I don't want to overbook myself as it is. I realized today though, after meeting with the center director that I'd be working with that they're extremely flexible and understanding as far as scheduling and being in the position God wants you to be in (meaning you don't necessarily have to be an "opportunity counselor"). So, that made me a lot more comfortable. Also, they only ask for a commitment of 3-4 hours a week, and I realized I only have 3 more weeks of work until this round of bible study is over.

I'm not sure yet if I'll be an "opportunity counselor" (talking one on one with the women, ministering to them, etc), but there is a whole lot more training involved if I do feel called to do that. It's obviously pretty intimidating at this point, but they do a lot to prepare you for that job. And they have lots of other opportunities to serve too, whether it's helping with parenting classes or data entry, or whatever. The list goes on and on. So, I think it'll be a really cool opportunity, and obviously something that will help other people. And, by taking myself out of my comfort zone, it would force me to trust God more.

So, lots of prayer would be much appreciated as I go further with the center. I'm going to start doing some training next week, and I could really use God's guidance on where to go from there. I still have a little bit of apprehension, just because of the extreme nature of this ministry, but if I don't help these women, who will?

Lent

So I realized today was Ash Wednesday, but totally forgot that Lent starts today! Oops! Thankfully, my sister reminded me last night, so I had a little time to think about what I wanted to do for it. Thanks Whit!

I mentioned a few weeks ago that one of my unofficial New Years resolutions was to memorize Scripture. So, Nick and I have made it a goal to memorize a verse/section a week. Literally this week (perfect timing!), I started memorizing Matthew 11:28-30:

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

So, that's the first one. The rest of the verses are up in the air as of yet. I also was thinking this week that I wanted to start reading some Christian books. So, I'm going to read a chapter a day. I started with Death By Love by Mark Driscoll, who is the pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. We have another one of his books- Radical Reformission that I'll probably start next. I don't quite know after that.

So ya, should be a good period of growth in my faith. I'll keep you updated!

Happy Birthday Boys!

Yesterday we "celebrated" the dogs' birthdays! We don't actually know when Scout was born since we adopted him, but we do know that it was in 2005. So, since we got him February 15, 2008, that's the day we celebrate as his birthday. Interestingly enough, Rufus was born on February 15, 2008, so that's their joint birthday!

We actually didn't really do anything special for them yesterday, not like last year at least. Believe me, they have plenty of toys! I did intend to put some chicken broth or something in their dinner, but I completely forgot. They did get a couple pieces of chicken during the day though at least (they usually don't get table scraps).

I can't believe Scout is 5 already! That seems so old, and people are shocked to hear that he's that age. I guess he still has a little puppy in him!

Scout enjoying our new tent

Rufus, meanwhile, is 2, which hopefully means he will stop being so "Rufusey" (a.k.a. crazy), since he's no longer officially a puppy. I'm not holding my breath on that one though.

Rufus pretending to be good (we all know better)

Snuggling in the back seat

Happy Birthday boys!!!

Valentines Day

Hope everyone had an awesome Valentine's Day! We had a pretty eventful morning before church. When we took the dogs on their morning walk, we saw 3 more dogs wandering around the neighborhood! One was even hiding behind Nick's truck in the driveway & ran out right in front of us. So, we went on our walk & then came home to get ready for church.

We went to hop in the car to go & the same crazy dog ran right up to us, desperate for attention (poor baby). We got in the car & pulled out of the driveway & it proceeded to run right in front of the car...repeatedly. We couldn't get more than a foot down the street without it sitting in front of our car. We knocked on one of our neighbor's doors, thinking it might belong there, but unfortunately it didn't. So, we decided to throw it in our backyard, just so that we could get to church, and would deal with it when we got home. Well, after church & lunch, we found a little hole under our back gate and actually in the gate itself. And the dog was nowhere to be found.

Honestly, this being the fifth dog we saw wandering around the neighborhood this week (and the second that we brought home), it was kind of a relief not to have to worry about finding a place for it (since I could almost guarantee Animal Control would not be open over President's Day weekend). But, I hope the poor thing is ok! I definitely worry about it being hit by a car since we almost hit it multiple times ourselves.

Thankfully, the rest of the day was pretty uneventful! We went to lunch with some friends, relaxed and watched some Olympics, and ate some yummy steak for dinner. We also exchanged a few little gifts- I gave Nick an awesome Animal (the Muppet) antenna ball, and a CD he wanted & he gave me a subscription to Real Simple (yay!) and some sweet new slip-on Converse. So fun!

Neither of us are really looking forward to Nick's 4-day work week this week, ha ha. It's sad that 4 days seems like a long week! We are definitely getting spoiled by all this time off, although I think we're making the most of it. I wish the weather would get nicer so we could enjoy more of it outside though!

Early Valentine's Day Dinner

So, since everyone in our town has a 4-day weekend, we decided to go to an early Valentine's Day dinner on Thursday night. We heard about this awesome wild game (venison, pheasant, etc.) restaurant in Austin, and had to check it out. It took us awhile to get there because of a combination of a really bad accident and crazy wintery weather, but we had a great time and it was absolutely delicious! I ordered the pheasant and Nick had elk, YUM! We are absolutely planning on going back and realllly want the chef's cookbook. Here's a picture from the night:



Tomorrow we're going to open some presents and have a nice dinner at home. We're also hoping that it will be warm enough to actually use out the fire pit Nick got me for Christmas, since it's been too cold to try it out. Happy Valentines Day everybody!

No Snow

So after endless weather reports and advisories, I thought we would get some snow last night. Dallas got absolutely dumped on by snow (upwards of 9 inches) and the doppler radars showed huge snow storms. Unfortunately, it didn't quite get us, or didn't quite stick in the wee hours last night. I eagerly looked out of the window this morning expecting some white only to see lots and lots of grass. Oh well! At least it'll finally warm up some!!!

3 Dogs?

Today as I was walking the dogs, I saw a dog wandering around the neighborhood. Unfortunately, this isn't really anything new in our neighborhood. She was really sweet though and came right up to me. Thankfully, she had tags and I was able to get ahold of her owner. He was a soldier doing training out in the field though, and had no way of picking her up himself.

So, being the crazy dog lady that I am, I brought her home with me. I couldn't just leave her wandering in the streets and animal control doesn't open until 11am in our town (lovely, huh?). Rufus totally loved her and they played and played. Scout was a little barky and treated her a little too much like his girfriend though. It was definitely an interesting couple of hours with 3 dogs running around! Thankfully, the owner was able to have a friend come pick her up. And now my boys are all tuckered out! Ah, peace and quiet!

If I ever had the desire to have 3 dogs at once, I definitely am over that now! At one point recently, I even thought we could foster a dog from the local animal shelter since they recently had a fire and their heat isn't totally working. Thankfully, Nick talked me out of it, and I'm very glad about that now! I love my boys, but 2 dogs are quite enough for me!

Whirlwind Weekend

We're really getting spoiled by these 4-day weekends Nick keeps having. I know he's having a tough time having to get up early on work days! And not that I get up super early, but I'm not especially excited about hearing my alarm go off in the morning. Sleeping in is just oh so nice! But, it's only a 3 day work week for Nick this week, so we can't complain too much!

We had a really busy weekend, especially considering it was 4 days long! It started with Nick's battalion ball on Friday night. We had a really good time and it was fun getting all gussied up. I have to say, it was much better than the one we went to 2 years ago, when we first got to Texas, if only because we actually knew people this time! Here are some pictures:

A bunch of the lovely wives in the unit

All dressed up

In front of the unit guide-ons (flags)

On Saturday, we drove up to our old Youth Pastor's house (Lars), who even let us bring the dogs! It was a little bit chaotic with 3 dogs (they have one too) and their 3 kids, but it was really great catching up with Lars & his family. That night, we went to a Pat Green concert at the famous Billy Bob's Honkytonk in Fort Worth. We definitely couldn't leave Texas this fall without seeing a concert there and sporting our cowboy boots! The concert didn't start until 10:30pm, so it was a bit of a long night, but it was definitely a once in a lifetime experience!

On Sunday, we went to church with Lars & his family and then headed back home. We were originally going to go to a Super Bowl party, but we were pretty exhausted by the time we got back home. Neither of us were terribly interested in the game anyway, so it was nice to be able to just hang out at home.

We also managed to get a lot of organizing done around the house, which was much needed! We can actually use our office again, woohoo! And a day of relaxing was nice too. Now, it's back to normal again...at least for the 3 days Nick has to work this week.

Out of Practice

I feel so out of blog practice since I was sick this week. I didn't originally think much happened this week, but now I'm realizing it was pretty eventful!

One thing I'm really excited about is that Nick & I helped in the nursery at church on Sunday. We had fun playing with the 2 & 3 year olds and one boy totally bonded with Nick. It was really cute. We're now on the normal rotation with the 2 year olds, so that will be an exciting/fun experience once a month.

We also had a potluck with our young married's group at church. It was nice getting to know people past Sunday mornings and being able to have some good fellowship. They're hoping to do more events each month and we're thinking about starting to attend a small group/bible study with most of them.

Nick got his stuff back from Iraq a few weeks ago and just started unpacking this week. All of his stuff pretty much took over the house for a few days, but he's been really good about getting it put away. And he's kind of reorganizing in the process, which is always nice! As a result though, I had to get a whole bunch of storage stuff for our house, which I was all too happy to do! I love Target and Bed Bath & Beyond and we're starting to get so organized!

We also had a fun day this week when Nick went to work at 6am...and came back at 6am the next day. Since he's a supply officer, he is one of the ones in charge of getting all the stuff back from Iraq. And, unfortunately, one of the companies was missing stuff. So, Nick had a lot of work to do. It was obviously a bit frustrating, but I was more frustrated for Nick just because it was a long day with a lot of work.

But now we're on another 4 day weekend, woohoo! Thank goodness for those. It should be a pretty busy one, with a Pat Green concert and the battalion ball tonight. I'll try to take lots of pictures!

One of Those Days

Today was one of those days. I had work today, and as soon as all the kids were picked up, I looked over at the other worker, and said "Well, we survived".

We were supposed to have a third worker today, a teen helper that we've used before. But, she has been really unreliable lately. And by that, I mean she doesn't show up or let us know when she can't come. I've tried getting ahold of her the night before to remind her, and communicate to her how much we need her help, but to no avail. I'm really hoping we can find someone else to take her place. We had 13 kids today & with all the clingers, it was waaay too many for only 2 of us to handle. All of the moms are really sympathetic and keep offering to help, but I would really hate to take that time away from them.

Oh, and although I had a voice this morning, it's completely gone now. It held out alright while I was reading the kids books and stuff, but I pretty much make a squeaky noise now when I try to talk. I feel totally fine (fine enough to work out today, yay! I was feeling like such a lump), so I'm thinking it's allergy related. I had very similar symptoms last year around this time, and of course, I was in between refills on my allergy meds.

I'm not really grumbly about all this. I'm more just kind of amused/rolling my eyes at all the little things. At least I can laugh at all the chaos, which also included spilling marinade all over the floor as I was putting a brisket in the fridge, and dropping the package of eggs I just bought (thankfully only 2 broke). All is good, just ridiculous. But alas, that is my life.

Still Sick

Yup, I'm still sick. We're almost to a week now. I don't quite understand because I'm really not doing much. I guess I'll just have to do nothing today. I'm still in my PJs at noon, so that's a good start.

We have a busy weekend coming up (battalion ball, concert, Super Bowl party), so I'm really going to try to get better by then. Oh, and I have work tomorrow, which is going to be a little difficult if my voice is still gone. It is getting a little bit better, but this is starting to get pretty annoying! I'm really not feeling all that horrible, but the coughing, lack of voice and constant runny nose are a problem. And it would just be nice to be well again already!

Ick, I'm sick

I can barely remember the last time I was sick. I think it was sometime last spring when I was still working at an elementary school. Since I work with kids, I try to wash my hands and use hand sanitizer as much as possible. Those little kid germs are intense!

Well, unfortunately, I have succumbed to being sick and am now on day 5 of a bad cold. Surprisingly enough though, I got it from Nick, not the kids! He was sick last week and gave it to me. Thanks sweetie!

It's not the worst cold I've ever had, but I'm just totally sick of being sick, especially since it's been so long. My voice is froggy and almost completely gone, so I sound like I'm worse off than I am. I've been trying to take it easy today, hoping I can get over it already.

It sucks not being able to work out l. I was going strong for like 2 weeks and starting to get in really good shape. So it's kind of frustrating that I've had to put that on hold until I feel better.

Crossing my fingers that I'll be able to start getting back to normal tomorrow. I'm definitely trying everything I can to get healthy again!


- Posted from Court's iPhone