sorry again...

so i have decided that i am just not as good at this blog thing than some of my more committed friends! but i am ok with that. :)

the wisdom teeth surgery went pretty well...i ended up getting 2 dry sockets, which was horrible, but after about a week and a half i was able to go without any packing or medication. now i just can't wait for the holes in the back of my mouth to go away!!!

last weekend we celebrated nikki's 28th birthday at olive garden...josh's sister nikki, in case anyone was confused. and then we just hung out on valentine's day and had a nice relaxing time. well, actually, i worked on school for hours on saturday, but between my work we went to lunch, exchanged gifts, josh cooked steaks for dinner...it was fun!

nikki and josh

this week we have had guys at our house all week working in the yard. they are bringing in dirt, filling and leveling, then tomrorow they will start putting in a sprinkler system. we are excited to get grass and finally have a great looking yard! having land is great, but it will be much better once it's pretty and more useable! so that has been fun watching the progress throughout the week.



this weekend has been the greatest! last night we went to the chris tomlin concert at the berry center, and it was amazing. before tomlin, israel houghton and newbreed performed, and they were so great. they were super fun and had lots of energy. plus there was one chick with a frohawk that was so cool! yesterday was also my mommy's birthday so she and my dad met us for the concert and we ate at texas roadhouse before hand. they made her ride the saddle which was hilarious! she was a great sport!

this is the name of the concert tour...

hilarious!!!

today was hannah's wedding!!! she looked absolutely beautiful and the wedding was fantastic. it was at ashton gardens, which i had never been to, and it was so pretty there! it was a morning wedding, and the weather was great! i am so happy for hannah and jason, and i cannot wait to see how the Lord uses them. jason's daughter hannah was super cute too! rachel made us all cry when she did her maid of honor speech, and i know she is so sad to see hannah move to virginia. but she will be happy there, and i know hannah will keep in touch with her family a lot. no worries rachel! :)

mr. and mrs. jason patrick

awkward pic...but i love it!
cool cake idea...we each got to take one home in a to-go box,
they were the favors!
julie and i...i love this girl!

all the girls...jen ken, niki, hannah, heather, ashley, and ashley!

doesn't she look so happy?!niki and lelandme and nikiheather and markashley and shooter

well, i hope you enjoyed another long make-up post, and keep looking forward to the next one! :)

wisdomless

well, i officially had all 4 wisdom teeth out yesterday. please pray that i will feel better soon. it hurts worse than i expected it to, but i know by tomorrow i should be well rested and able to go back to work on monday...i hope so anyway. just wanted everyone to know that i am recovering well, and josh is taking great care of me. hopefully i'll write again soon.

random

for those of you that haven't seen me in a while...my hair is getting so long!!! i just wanted to share since niki was so kind to take a picture of my hair! :)

camping!

this weekend was amazing! twice a year we go camping with my favorite group of friends...and this weekend was the "winter trip." each winter we go up to elkhart to daniel's tree farm and camp in the freezing weather. we just hang out, ride four wheelers, shoot guns, eat a lot, and walk in the woods a lot. it's great times! this year we had a few new people come, and it was such a blessing to have them. our roomie, kyle, came. niki's boyfriend leland came for the first time. and tim, our long lost friend from high school, came and brought his wife meagan. it was so good to see him again and get to know meagan. they are such a great couple. everyone else that came were regulars. unfortunately ashley nelson and her new bo, shooter, were not able to come because she was sick. :( we missed you ashley!!! anyways, i took over 100 pictures of the trip...i know, it's rediculous...but i narrowed it down to my favs. enjoy!

group pic

my absolute favorite picture of kyle...this could be in a magazine! i love it!

daniel and courtney - the one's that make this happen.
thanks so much for everything!

jenn beating brian...
fyi, her new HUGE engagement ring is absolutely gorgeous!

josh and i

tim and meagan

me and my bestest friend

josh and kyle...no comment

niki and leland

lauren and brent

kyle climbed this huge tree! it was insane, and very unsafe
(from the safety coordinator!)

it looks like josh is leaning on a small tree, but no, this was his walking stick.
i love this nerd!

jenn not beating brian

i love these people and the trip was great. beside the almost horrible ending caused by my dramaticness, it was perfect. thanks for the memories and i can't wait until the summer trip!!!

oh yeah...bread!

a few weeks ago, my great grandma taught rebecca and i how to bake bread from scratch...no bread maker, no cheating, and very messy. well, this week i attempted to make my own and it turned out so yummy! i should have taken pictures while i was making it...but i was busy! so here is the end product...


for some reason the pictures won't flip...annoying. oh well, you get the point.

last weekend

last weekend was a fun one. friday night josh took me downtown on a fancy date! he even wore a suit! we went to hard rock for dinner and then went to the hobby center to see a broadway show. it was super fun, and we really needed a night for ourselves.

saturday my parents came over so that my dad could help josh install recessed lighting in our bedroom. the lighting in a bedroom is very very dark and shadowy, so we really needed brighter lighting. they did a great job, even though it took forever! :)

it was hard to get a good picture of the lights

attempt #2
this is the cool light switch my daddy installed. it fades the fan, light, and recessed lights to like 7 different stages...pretty cool!

but my mom and i watched tv with travis and rebecca, and it was a relaxing day. my parents brought their new puppy, ruby, who is so adorable, and it took all i had not to hide her so that she had to stay...josh would have killed me!

ruby with her parents...

sleepy ruby

that night my parents came back over after going to see heather and the kids, and josh cooked the 4 of us steaks on our new grill that we got for Christmas. they were yummy!

sunday evening we went out to lupe tortillas for hannah's birthday. she and jeremiah turned 25!!! we're getting so much older! it was fun, because we don't get to see her often. she is about to move to virginia so we will see her much less after her wedding in february. i am so excited for her and can't wait to see how her new life with jason goes in a far away land! :)

mark and heather

hannah and her best friend jessica
niki and leland

all in all it was a great weekend...now onto another very fun and much anticipated weekend. will post on that later.

oh yeah...pray for micah and sunny. they are currently in korea loving on their new baby boy, jude. they will be bringing him to the states on the 22, so pray that he adjusts well and realizes how much so many people here love him.

good night...

tag, you're it

i've been tagged by shelah! i am supposed to post the 4th picture from the 4th album on my computer. here goes...

this is our niece, kaylei, opening her Christmas present from the coolest aunt and uncle ever! we got her a cute little soccer goal thingy!


ok...i too have very few blogger friends, so have fun ashley, dana, sunny, and bekah!

september - december: in a nutshell

2008 tailgating was a blast...i will have to dedicate a blog to this later! :)


my great grandma turned 94!!! isn't she so cute! i am so proud of her. and she taught me to bake bread last week...even though i know mine will never be as good as hers. :)


we had a house warming party in october...josh's parents got us a chiminaya, or however you spell it. the day was fun, and lots of people came to see the house. it was fun having everyone over!


kimberly and i threw jenn a baby shower at my house in october. she had jaxon in december, and he's so precious!


josh's college buddy chris got married in amarillo. we met our other friends in dallas and all rode together in the pathfinder. it was a tight squeeze, but we had fun hanging out, and the wedding was so pretty!


the kids on halloween...we went to church's festival and they had a great time!


niki on her 24th birthday...this is her new boyfriend leland. love him!


josh and i....thanksgiving!


our sunday school class planned a 5K run that started and ended at the klein campus. there was a great showing and it was lots of fun. we raised a lot of money and canned foods for the spring assistance ministry too. it took a lot of planning, but it was a great day.


a group of us went to the renaissance festival this year...it was so fun, and the weather was perfect!


our christmas tree broke last year, so this is our new one...it's prelit, thank goodness! and we stuck with the cowboy/country theme again this year.


i started teaching 7th grade girls sunday school...i love these girls!

the girls again at the christmas sleepover at my house. we had so much fun!


josh and i at the texans game...it was seriously freezing!!!

ok...i think i'm all caught up. i will do better from now on...i promise!

and the award goes to...

ok ok ok...i know i am now the worst blogger ever! i knew that when my semester got tough i would probably blog less often, but this was out of control! sorry readers! i hope you will come back to read more. :)

this semester really did kick my butt. i am not sure my classes were any harder, but i am definitely getting to the point that i just want to graduate and i am easily overwhelmed! plus, i had a professor this semester that i literally wanted to hit every time i saw her. seriously, i had to pray every time i went to class so that i would keep me attitude in check...which sometimes worked. since i had an attitude problem toward her horrible teaching skills and insulting political views, she returned the feelings unfortunately. i somehow managed to get a B in her class, and i now never have to see her again. thank the Lord. i got A's in my other two classes and now i only have to take 3 classes in the spring, and i graduate in may!!! yay! i can't wait.

christmas was fun, and i have had a blast relaxing. i have been off work since christmas eve and i go back on monday...it's been a terrific break. although i feel like we celebrated christmas a million times over, it was all fun. after christmas pageant and a ton on christmas parties, we started the family events. the weekend before christmas i had all of my 7th grade girls sunday school class spend the night (wow...was that exhausting and so fun!), then jessica and melanie and kaylei were in town so we did christmas at the lee's. kaye and galen redid their house and it looks so good. new wood floors, paint, light fixtures, curtains, the whole shebang. looks great! that sunday we went to trinity to my aunt's house to do a smaller family christmas with my fam. christmas eve we celebrated with the garcia's, christmas day we went to needville to my aunt lenor's, and then the weekend after christmas we went to mineola to celebrate with josh's whole family. then on new year's eve we went back to the garcia's which was a blast, and new year's day my entire family came to our house for black eyed peas, cabbage, and much more delicious sides! i made my first ham, which was fun! so needless to say, although everything was a blast, it was exhausting.

some fun things we did...we went to see body worlds 2 at the museum with my parents. it was so neat and very interesting and just a little bit disgusting! if the rooms hadn't been so hot, i think it would have been better. my favorite part was the development of babies. i just had to keep reminding myself that it was all fake, and that no one had to die in order for them to make the exhibit.

we also went to a texan's game with niki's dad and her boyfriend leland. we had fun, and it was the first time i was the only girl in a long time. it was fun! we won the game, so that made it even better.

josh got me great gifts for christmas...even though he went over budget! :) i got tickets to a broadway play, spring awakening, which we will go to next weekend. he also got me an ipod shuffle (i finally can say i've used an ipod!), a watch for running, season 4 of friends, a new book, some wall hangings, and i think that's it. sorry if i forgot something josh! his parents gave us great gifts too...including money to get a grill for our back deck. we got it this past week, and i am so excited to grill out first burgers. kaye got me a ticket to the rockette's to go with her and nikki and the other ladies in her sunday school class and their daughters. it will be so much fun and we're going in 2 days! can't wait! niki got me the first twilight book, which i loved! they are addicting books, and i can't wait to start the second one.

i have been reading a lot lately. i read twilight last week, the choice by nicholas sparks this week, and now i started a series that i've been wanting to read called the mitford series. it's good so far. i'm trying to read as much as possible before school starts back in about 2 weeks.

this semester...my last semester...i will be taking intro to religious studies, the Bible and modern science, and some other random class, i think it's called media and society. should be an easier semester without any english classes, but we'll see. i always say that, and regret it later.

well enough rambling for now...i will go through my recent pictures and try to recap my semester...i'll be brief! :) sorry again for being such a horrible blogger!

now for some good news...

well, this may not sound like good news at first, but it has a happy ending. last monday i took the cavalier in to the shop because it had been acting really funny. i knew something was wrong with the transmission, but little did i know i would need a transmission overhaul. pretty much a new transmission. this could cost anywhere from $1000 to $1900 depending who i had do it and what kind of a guarantee i wanted. josh and i talked it over that evening after leadership night, and we decided it would be better to spend that money on a down payment on a new car, then on fixing the red beast that had over 100,000 miles on it! so...i got a new car. we went tuesday evening and ended up getting the first car we found. we had shopped around a lot in the area online, so we pretty much knew we wanted it before we got there! :) sorry clonts'...we copied ya'll! we got a nissan pathfinder. it's a 2008 black suv, and i love it. it has lots of cool perks that i'm not used to like a dvd player in the back, a sun roof, a screen with a back up camera so i don't hit things, etc! it also has lots of perks that most people would be used to but i have never had, like cruise control, automatic locks and windows, working cd player, etc. love it! here are some pics!