Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am thankful for  so many things but most importantly I am thankful that Jesus died for my sins and that through His death, I can now have a relationship directly with God through the Holy Spirit!

I am thankful for my husband! He is an amazing man and loves me for who I am no matter what!

I am thankful for my beautiful girls! I think that I have the best daughters in the world! I am so proud of who they have become and even though they are teenagers, I still look at them and see them as toddlers!

gorgeous

I am thankful for my new job! I really am enjoying it and look forward to going to work every day. For having a 4 day weekend!

I am thankful for my family and friends.

I am thankful that we had a great Thanksgiving! We went to cheer on Lyndsy and her friend Emily as well as MeL & Dave run the 2nd Annual Turkey Trot 5k. For no line and a friendly waitress at IHOP. For yummy food that we all helped prepare in some way!

 yes, they wore the turkey headbands the entire run! :-)

almost finished and still has a smile on her face

I am thankful that I will NOT be partaking in black Friday rather photographing a wonderful family and taking my nephew's senior photos.

I pray you had a fabulous day!

New Beginnings

In my last post I said that "I won't be back to my old self until I can leave the preschool for good. I am hoping that will be very soon...". Well, I have left the preschool and start my new job on Monday. I am super excited for the New Beginning!

Here's how it all happened (short version). I was having a really bad Monday. I emailed the ladies pastor at church, Sarah, and asked her if she knew of anyone hiring for something admin related. She replied back that she got a call from Pamela (also from church) about an Intake position at her work. To make a long story short, Pamela and I talked and that led to me talking with the VP of Operations (mind you, this is around 8pm at night). A few days later, I received a call to come in for an interview the following Monday. Fast forward to Monday. Interview went really well (but I have had that feeling in plenty of other interviews so, I didn't get my hopes up too much). Next step would be to meet with the owner. Got a call to come in for a second interview that Thursday. :-) Had a really good feeling about this one! Fast forward to Thursday. Met the owner and another lady and was offered the job during the interview! That was a first! I must give a HUGE thank you to Pamela for being my champion during this whirl wind experience! I would have never gotten the job without her!!!

Well, the very next day I gave notice (a week and a half originally, but ended up giving a week and a day after getting sick yet again). My last week was brutal - fever, headache, congestion, and one foot out the door didn't help. The worst part was they asked me not to say anything until they gave me the okay, which ended up being Friday. Oh well. Friday and Monday I trained the new teacher and happily left Monday after my shift. That chapter of my life is closed and I am ready to get myself healthy and start this new chapter!

On another note... the girls had their first goat show last weekend at the State Fair. They both did exceptionally well! Peter and I were not going to go see them show on Saturday since there was a big football game happening on the fair grounds but decided to leave the house at 6am (yep, I said 6am) to beat traffic. We met up with Barbara, Chad, Margaret and all the kids at their hotel, then headed to the fair. A lot of other people had the same idea we did! I was surprised at how many people were there so early in the morning! SIDE NOTE: Both girls are showing new goats this year and both goats are a lot nicer looking than their old ones. The problem is that they haven't worked with their goats (Caramel, is Chloe's goat and Sunny Side Up is Lyndsy's goat) very much. I am super thankful that we went! Chloe was in the first class and there were 8 goats. In past shows, she was chosen last or close to last. The judge kept eliminating goats and Caramel was still 'standing'. When there were 3 goats left the judge would go back and forth between them. He went up to Caramel, felt her back then went to another one and sent that one to the 'loser' line up. It was now between Caramel and another goat. Oh my gosh, I was freaking out! Caramel got 2nd! Holy Cow! I could hardly contain myself! Here is a photo of Chloe and the 1st place girl.

Chloe then had to wait to show again for the Grand Champion/Reserve. All of the 1st & 2nd place goats in a certain group of classes compete for Grand Champion/Reserve (Chloe's competition was the first 5 age classes so, there were 10 kids she was up against). Chloe could only get Reserve since she came in 2nd place but didn't get it. The girl who placed 1st over Chloe got Reserve. This meant that Chloe's goat, Caramel, came in 2nd to the goat who won Reserve (2nd place) over all the remaining 8 goats! Lyndsy was in the 18th class with 9 goats. She did very well too! She placed 6th. Here is Lyndsy and Sunny Side Up.

So proud of my girls and all of their hard work! Barbara got all of the kids (Lyndsy, Chloe, Levi, Karlee, and Reedy) pink show shirts and embroidered "Praying 4 a Cure' on the back - a tradition she started last year. 

Sunday the girls showed again (we didn't go this time - which was good because I was super sick) and didn't do as well but still did fantastic! Chloe came in 3rd and Lyndsy came in 9th. Different judge = different likes and dislikes. Barbara said that Lyndsy showed the best she ever had that day! Again, so proud of my girls!

It has been good to have 4 days off to get things done around the house, finish wedding photo stuff, hang out with Peter, and take the girls to school. Oh, I almost forgot... yesterday I took Lyndsy out of school early to get her learner's permit. That was a crazy adventure! I was talking to the lady in the school office and mentioned that I was taking Lyndsy to get her permit and she asked if I had a particular form... Um, No! She was kind enough to give me the form (if we didn't have the form signed by the school then we would have had to come back another day, and that wasn't going to happen since it was the only day I could do it) and off we went to Gainsville (about 35 minutes away). We got to the DMV (there is one much closer but the wait is terrible), and immediately walked up to the counter. The lady informed us that we didn't have all of the proper paperwork. Grr! We figured out what we needed, called Peter to get it for us, and drove back to Denton to meet him. Got the proper paperwork, then headed back to Gainsville. This time there were a few people in front of us. We waited for about 5 minutes, handed over all of the paperwork, got Lyndsy's photo taken, thumb prints scanned, and her eyesight checked. The lady gave her the code she needed to start her test but it didn't work - Of course! Once she got it to work, it didn't take Lyndsy long to complete it. I must say, we were sweating it a little. If she didn't pass, she was going to have to wait a while til she could take it again. Thank goodness, she PASSED! Let the driving begin!

Well, I must get to cleaning. Enough of my goofing off on the computer! :-)

Til next time!
 

fall...

it is officially fall here in North Texas! The weather here is quickly becoming cooler and I am loving it! This is the forecast for the rest of the week... Thursday 88/63, Friday 81/52, Saturday 54/45 and rain, Sunday 61/43. All my Arizona friends... jealous? :-p

i photographed my 1st wedding on Sept 9th for an awesome couple! I was quite nervous when I received the email back on February 26 asking if I would photograph a wedding. To be honest, I thought it was a spam email and had to figure out a creative way to ask. This email was a total God thing! I found out that Charla (the bride-to-be) had a mutual friend from church. I ended up doing Jacob & Charla's engagement photos, Charla's bridals, and finally their wedding! I have really enjoyed getting to know this beautiful couple and can't wait to photograph them in the future! Here are some pics from each session.

i am still sick (so far 3 rounds of strep throat and now bronchitis) and am very ready to be healthy. I took the last 2 days off and feel a little better but won't be back to my old self until I can leave the preschool for good. I am hoping that will be very soon. Will give more details if it happens.

the girls are keeping busy. School is going well. Lyndsy is keeping us busy with volleyball games. We are enjoying football games. The girls are working their goats to get them ready for show season. Next week is the first show at the Dallas State Fair. Chloe is taking high school in strides. One minute she likes it and the next she doesn't. Teenagers! :-)

two weekends ago I went with some fabulous women from church to Women of Faith. It's always wonderful to hear how God is working in peoples lives and how He has brought them through some major trials and tribulations. It is also wonderful to gain some new friendships! Can't wait for next year!

well, that's it for now. Time to make lunches and get ready for bed! Gotta get up a butt crack thirty!

It's Been Awhile

It's been awhile since my last post but as they say... "better late, than never".

A lot has been going on since we moved into our new house. I have been working as a preschool teacher at a daycare just a few minutes away. This job has been very challenging! I forgot how much 'fun' 4 year olds can be (did you catch the sarcasm in my words?). A week ago Friday, we swapped rooms with the 2 year olds and this was very exciting! My old room was extremely small and my new room is quite large! The girls were kind enough to come help me get everything moved over. Peter dropped them off around 4:30 and we finished about 9:15! Phew... that was a long day! But our new room, looks amazing! Through all the moving of rooms and craziness I was diagnosed with strep throat about a month ago; finished my antibiotics and a few days later, the sore throat was back. The doctor called in another prescription and it didn't do anything! I still have a sore throat (not like before, but it still hurts). Yesterday was NOT a good day at all! I felt weak and dizzy! Came home from church and took some nighttime medicine. Felt good to sleep for a few hours during the day! Today I feel better, but I am still not 100%!

Lyndsy has been playing volleyball pretty much all summer and she is really showing improvement! So proud of her. She is also now on Bomb Squad (they help motivate the football players and help them during games). I think Lyndsy is going to have a fabulous, busy junior year! Hard to believe that my baby girl is a junior! Here are some photos I took just last weekend of Lyndsy...

Chloe has also been busy. She babysat a lot this summer (when Lyndsy couldn't) and watched a lot of TV. She has joined her sister at the high school as a freshman! Wow! Two daughters in high school - man, do I feel old! Here is a great photo of Chloe.

 Had to include this one of the girls together. :-)

I know y'all are waiting on photos of the new house, and I will have some soon. I promise.

I think that is it for now. Happy Labor Day!

Home Sweet Home

Well, we have been in our house now for 10 days and it's beginning to feel more and more like home. We have even had MeL & Dave over for dinner!

FRIDAY - Moving day was a scorcher and we are so very thankful to all who helped (MeL & Dave, Levi, Bo, Tyler, Kyler, and Abby)! We could not have done without you! I think I did about 10 loads of laundry and quite a few runs of the dishwasher! I was so worried about our refrigerator being moldy but to my surprise, it was just really smelly! Chloe and Abby cleaned it out and the smell went away! We returned the U-Haul right on time and came home and got cleaned up, then headed off to Wal-mart and Sam's for a very expensive shopping excursion.

SATURDAY we had Direct TV coming so we had to wait for them to show up before we could do our final shopping trip. We were also blessed to have The Madonna Family bring us a very yummy dinner! Providence (our neighborhood) had a 4th of July celebration and I was so HAPPY that I was able to see the fireworks from the balcony! It kinda hit me that this is now where we live and I even got teary eyed!

SUNDAY was church. We started a new series called, "I love the 80's". After church we went to Ikea and The Container Store. Then, more unpacking. Deke, Samantha, and Kennedy stopped by on their way to Denton Water Works (I really wanted to go but was just too exhausted).

MONDAY we took a bunch of stuff to Goodwill (one realizes that after not having some stuff for a year and a half - you really don't need it at all!), made a trip to Ikea to get a futon for the loft (since the couch the girls use broke at some point while in storage) and a couple other items for the girls' rooms, did more laundry, ran the dishwasher some more, and unpacked some more boxes.

TUESDAY while I was at work, Peter cleaned the rest of the dishes and we purged even more stuff! It was so great to get the kitchen put together and the table cleared off!

WEDNESDAY we cleaned a bit and had MeL & Dave over for dinner. We hung out for a bit then they had to leave since they both had to work Thursday.

THURSDAY I worked and Peter did some more unpacking. At this point, the family room, and kitchen are done and the upstairs is a work in progress. The loft is pretty much done with just a few things that need to find another home.

FRIDAY I worked again and Peter worked on his office. After I got home, I changed and we headed out to the Rangers game. Thank goodness our seats were not directly in the sun cuz it was h-o-t! The game was pretty uneventful but the fireworks show afterwards was FANTASTIC!

SATURDAY I spent a good part of the day with some wonderful ladies from church for mani/pedi's and lunch. Love those ladies! Spent the rest of the day chilling with my husband.

SUNDAY (today) I skipped church (I know... I'm a bad girl but I was exhausted and just needed to do nothing). Peter mowed the yard and then we went to Sam's Club and Wal-Mart. We just finished dinner and are now hanging out. Lyndsy leaves for church camp tonight and will be back next Saturday.

There you have it! We are settling in to our Home Sweet Home!

Things are changing...

Well, a lot has happened since my last post (posted today but written a month ago)!

We have really been pushing hard to find a house to rent in the neighborhood that we are currently in but to no avail! We have looked at quite a few houses (even some for sale), really liked 2, and have gone thru 3 realtors. Unfortunately, both that we liked were for sale! We asked the realtor that we were working with at the time, if he would ask if the homeowners would be willing to rent their houses instead of selling them. He said, "Yeah, we do it all the time". Well, he didn't!

Last week Peter had a business trip to CA and had said that next time he has work near San Francisco, I could come. Well, it was near San Fran! I was a little apprehenisive about going. I had a feeling that a house was going to come up for rent and we wouldn't be there to look at it or move fast if we liked what we saw online. More on houses in a moment... Gotta tell you about our trip. :-)

We left bright (it was definitely not bright when we left) and early on Thursday morning for the airport. We arrived in Oakland around 9:00am and picked up our rental car. Peter had work in two different areas so, I dropped him off at the first place. At some point he had checked realtor.com and saw a house for rent that was previously listed as for sale... AND we had already looked it... AND it was perfect for us! As soon as I dropped him off I found a Starbucks with WiFi and checked it out since it wasn't showing up on my phone search. My search only showed it for sale. I left a voicemail with our current realtor (and sent him an email) asking him to fax us an application and then proceeded to call the broker to make sure that it was in fact for rent and there weren't any contracts on it. The broker didn't have any info on it - which was a good thing - so, I waited to hear back from our realtor, Wayne. It was time to pick up Peter so, I packed up and went to get him. By this time, Peter said that he received the fax from Wayne. I dropped Peter off at his next stop and drove 45 minutes to our hotel to get started on filling out the applications. After forgetting to print 2 applications (we had to submit one for each of us), going up and down the elevator to the hotel computer several times, talking to Lyndsy on the phone to try and find my license plate #, and finally getting it all faxed... it was 2 hours later and time to head back to get Peter. We went to dinner and then back to our hotel to crash! It was a long day!

Friday morning, we drove a few hours north towards Sacramento where Peter had his first stop of the day. I wasn't in the mood to drive anymore so, I wandered around. There was a weathered man sitting on a bench and at first glance, he looked like a statue. He sat there in the same position as I walked past him - not changing his demeanor at all. I really wanted to take a photo of him from the side to really show his posture but I was too chicken so, I got this one instead.

I was tired of wandering around so, I sat in the car and bugged our realtor. I wanted to know how long it usually takes to get a response back and he said it should be 1-2 business days. Ugh! It was Friday and that meant we would have to wait until Monday or Tuesday! A little bit later he sent me an email asking me about the move in date (on the application I put a move in date of June 9th to give them an idea that we ARE ready NOW!) - he said it wouldn't be available until July 1st and wanted to know if that was ok. Of course it is silly! :-) Anyway, Peter finished working here so we headed to his next location. I honestly don't remember what I did this time while he worked. Once he was done we had a long drive back to Oakland. I was playing around with my camera in the car and got some cool shots.

Once in Oakland, we checked into our hotel and relaxed for a bit. Then it was off to take Bart to San Francisco. Bart was very interesting. Peter said it was more like the subway than the lightrail. I have never been on either so, I wouldn't know. Anyway, once in San Francisco, we began our walk to Pier 39. First stop... to take some photos of course.

Seagulls were everywhere! Probably cuz they were being fed.

Sailboat

One of a few men fishing on the pier... He was having good luck

The Pier

These seagulls were sitting nicely waiting to be fed. Wherever the guy went, they moved their heads, watching him. It was pretty funny!

We kept walking and once closer to Pier 39, we could see Alcatraz. Since the TV show has been on, Chloe has been a little fascinated with it. She wasn't too happy that we were going to be so close without her. We were going to take the ferry over there and do a tour but it was just too expensive. Oh well!

Not a very pretty site - in my opinion anyway

Well, we made it to Pier 39 and walked around some more deciding where we were going to eat. We decided to eat at Bubba Gump Shrimp. Once we were seated and our waitress had just walked up to our table to get our drink order, my phone chimed in indicating I had an email. It was from Wayne, our realtor, and it said, "Congratulations!! You're approved! The lease should be ready for you to sign soon." I think I let out a little scream of excitement! I tried to contain myself so I could order but it was pretty hard! Once our waitress left, I handed Peter my phone so he could read the email and then the tears of pure joy came (from me, not Peter)! We ordered our food - Peter ordered Lt Dan's Drunken  Shrimp and I ordered the All American BBQ Burger (yep, we went to a seafood restaurant and I order a burger!). Mine was delicious and Peter said his was good too. Our waitress came back a little later with a little cup of ice cream and told everyone in the restaurant that her friends just got their house and wanted to say congratulations. It was kind of weird but cool too! I think I was in a daze during dinner and couldn't stop smiling.

Peter had heard there were sealions somewhere near where we were eating. Our waitress said that they were right below us. So, after dinner we went to see the sealions. They were all pretty much chillin' in the sun. A couple of them were laying pretty funny. See for yourself.

 This sealion laid this way the whole time. :-)

 Pose for all the cameras

 This guy looked like he had been through a fight or something

 Peaceful

Love

I was told by a friend, Erin C., that we needed to go to Boudin's to have some sourdogh bread and chowder (I didn't see her msg before we ate, otherwise we may have eaten there) so, we headed over there.

This place had some pretty crazy bread designs (if you can call them designs). There was a large alligator, a small alligator, teddy bears, turtles, crabs, and more. We went with the boring - small sourdough round and 4 cookies (2 snickerdoodles, chocolate chip, and peanut butter) to take home and enjoy with the girls.

It was time to walk back and catch Bart to take us back to Oakland. Of course, I had to capture a few more photos...

This is really a toilet on the street corner. It smelled sooooooo bad!

This was one of the first views I had of San Francisco. Photo taken using zoom lens

Perspective - same view as above using regular lens

We made it back to our hotel and crashed. It's was an emotional evening and we had an early flight home in the morning.

Once back in TX, we made arrangements with Wayne to look at the house again to refresh our memory for Monday. This time we took both of the girls with us (Lyndsy went with us the first time) and told them to pick out their rooms. :-)

We move into our new (to us) home on Friday, June 29th! Only 22 more days! I am super duper excited to revisit all our stuff we have in storage.

Sorry for the long post but I had a lot to say. ;-p

toodle loo

Shine On

I have really been struggling with finding a job and my photography. The struggle really started a few months ago during our Project 1:8 message series at church. I felt God pulling me towards missions but to what extent I had (and have) no idea! I just know that it had something to do with photography. Well since then, I have been asking God to provide me with a job that is provided by Him and where I can glorify His name. I have had 3 interviews at some great places and 2 out of the 3 (so far) were no’s. I was starting to get depressed and feel like something is wrong with me! The third place (I have interviewed with corporate, 1 doctor, and then 3 staff members at another office) hasn’t made a decision yet. By the time I hear something back from them; it will have been a month. Ugh!  In the meantime, I am still offering up finding a job to God and doing my best to accept the waiting. Also, during this time, God has kept me busy with photography and I realized that if I had any of those jobs, I wouldn’t have been able to say ‘yes’ to some of the opportunities that have been put in my path. I stated a while back to Peter that if I could have 1 or 2 larger jobs (weddings, golf tournaments, school pictures, etc…) that bring in a certain amount of money than I would be great (insert 2 thumbs up here)! You see I have 2 big events on my calendar but they are not until June and September. Well… God came thru! A friend of mine has a son that attends a small Christian school and they needed school photos taken. I jumped at the opportunity (not knowing what the heck I was going to do) and once I saw the income potential, I was even more excited. Don’t get me wrong, I DON’T do photography for the money… I do it purely to capture special moments and joy in people’s lives. The money is a bonus! Anyway, after getting just about all of the order forms back… the total is just $25 shy of what my ‘great’ would be! Now is God amazing or what? *** UPDATE - since I first started to write this post (a month ago) I am still without a 'regular' job. I am still looking and our goal is to find a job this month (June) ***

This past Thursday (May 3rd) some of the ladies (Wendy, Peggy, Brenda, Rhonda, Stephanie, Melissa, Sarah, Samantha, Beth, Mauri, Amy, Christa, Astasia, and Hilary) from church went to the Flavour conference at Fellowship Church in Grapevine, TX. I didn't have a lot of expectations going in but was very excited to hang out with some great ladies! The conference was Thursday evening, Friday morning, and ended Friday night. Here is a much condensed snap shot of what happened throughout the conference.

Thursday evening, we arrive at Fellowship Church and wait to get into the auditorium to sit down. Once the doors open, we stake out our seats and wait for the show to begin. The lights go out and 'This Little Light of Mine' begins to resonate from the speakers. BTW... the conference was called, 'Shine the Light'. Once worship started, I felt like I was at a concert! It was great! There were 2 speakers, Lisa Young and Janay Wilborn. Both women were fabulous. More worship and then to our hotel to hang out and play some games. We played 'Never Have I Ever' and Catch Phrase, laughed, danced (well, Beth showed us her new moves), and laughed some more! I didn't get much sleep and woke up with a stomach ache but I was so looking forward to what the day had to offer.


Friday morning, we headed back to the church for the morning session. All I have to say is God spoke profoundly to me through worship and the ladies who spoke! I go back to my big struggle that I mentioned in the beginning of this post... During a break we had, I asked Sarah if she would help me decipher what I have been feeling. Sarah is such an amazing, godly woman and she helped me realize that God has had His hand in all of this! She prayed and then we heard more ladies speak.

Friday afternoon we had several hours of free time. A bunch of us went to Chipotle for lunch and then headed to downtown Grapevine to wander around. We went from shop to shop browsing around and tiring ourselves out! The conference started again and we worshipped some more and listened to some of the ladies again.

All in all, the conference was AMAZING! I am so glad that I went and was able to make new friends and strengthen some old! Thank you Wendy for being my co-pilot there and back! You are such a sweet friend!

FAST FORWARD to today, June 7th... see my newest post a little later today!