10 Month Anniversary!

I just wanted to add a special "shout out" to my wonderful husband Casey! Today is 10 months since we got married! Time has flown by! I feel like we have been together for four years, like we have, but it does NOT feel like we have been married for ten months! Amazing.

Here is a picture of us from wayyy back when we first started dating :) This was Christmas break 2004.

Trunk or Treat

Sunday night Casey and I went to his sister and brother-in-law's church in Richardson. It was their "trunk or treat." We really wanted to see Caleb (our two year old nephew) dressed up as Elmo, but also wanted to see the rest of the gang dressed up in Sesame Street gear--including Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Grover, and the number 7. Oscar the Grouch was even there via trash can. It was pretty funny. I didn't get any pictures of the rest of the gang because I was too busy playing with little Caleb so I stole one off of Beverly's facebook :)


Here are some of the pictures from the night!

Little Elmo on sucker #5

Elmo and Uncle Casey

Me with Caleb and sucker #6

He looks like he is wearing a mask with his head down like that...Diggin' in!

Super cute picture of Elmo offering monkey boy a piece of candy :)

The whole Sesame Street gang!!

Cookie Monster, Big Bird, Grover, the #7, and Elmo!

Our New House!!!

Yep, I said it. We got a house, and we are super excited about it. We have been looking at houses for a month now--feels like a year. Last night at dinner we counted how many houses we had looked at. The number feels like wayyyy too many. 24 houses. We have looked at 24 houses. OUR house is number 22 out of 24. We were pretty positive that we wanted to put an offer on it when we saw it, but we still had two more houses to look at that night. That is why it is 22 out of 24.

We feel like this house is such a "God thing." We had fallen in love with another house about 2 weeks ago, put in an offer, and they went with someone else. We were pretty upset. It took me a while to get over it. Since then we have liked several other houses enough to put in an offer (just didn't get around to it), but they all sold. We were like, "are we supposed to get a house? Or just rent for another 6 months?" But then this house dropped $28,000 because it is a foreclosure. The bank just wanted to sell it faster. The honest truth is that we had seen the house before, but didn't go in it because we thought the outside was ugly. It was definitely still in our price range before they even dropped the price, but we judged the book by its cover. Kristin, our realtor and my friend from middle/high school really pushed us to see it. We weren't excited about it, but we went ahead and saw it. We were pretty much up for seeing anything. Especially cheap ones.

We loved it. The outside has NO landscaping...which is why we didn't originally go see it. The inside is just what we need for our very first house. We are really excited :) One of the funny things is that it is two streets away from Kristin!! Ha ha.

Friday afternoon Kristin called me and told me that we had gotten the house. I was still at school and there were some students still in my room. They got to see my jump up and down :) I immediately started scheming up a plan to surprise Casey. I decided to make a little "card" out of construction paper from my classroom. I drove from school to the new house and put the card in the mailbox. I then went home and asked Casey if we could just drive by the house. We do that a lot, so it was not out of the ordinary. He didn't even complain-he was totally down for going to look at it again. I told him that I called Kristin to see if she had heard anything, and that since she knew we were going to go by the house she was going to put a copy of the offer in the mailbox since she had forgotten to give it to us the night before. All true so that worked out well. He fell for it all. When we got to the house, Casey got the mail and saw this little card from me :) He was really surprised and happy. I was glad I could surprise him. I never get to surprise him-he always surprises me with stuff. Here are some pictures of the card and our new house! :)

The front of the homemade card I made :)

The back of the card The front of the house! It needs landscaping badly!

The formal living room is the closest and the formal dining room is right behind it with the chandelier that we are going to change out :) LOVE the massive kitchen. The tile back splash is really growing on me, too! :)

The little breakfast nook and a view of the pantry on the right. That is the mud room on the left with the door to the garage. The living room with the hallway on the right. The front door is on the right as well. Also, we are going to get a wood mantel-that fireplace doesn't have one yet!Yea! We are homeowners! :)

Political Talk

(Disclaimer: If you tend to get really steamed about politics when you don't agree...I would suggest you don't read it or if you are going to anyway, please don't leave me any "hate comments." Ha ha!)

Have you ever felt the Holy Spirit tugging at you when you're listening to someone talk? Have you ever just felt like you're being warned against what they were saying?

That's how I felt tonight while I was watching the presidential debate. In the beginning of this election year, I felt myself agreeing with Obama on several different topics. After listening to him for about a year now, I am beginning to see where I was "smooth-talked" or swayed by his eloquent speech. Tonight McCain said something about how we need to look past Obama's eloquent speech and listen to his words. He is SO right. Obama can really make you agree with him if you're not listening closely.

While I was listening to the debate, I felt myself being stirred. I felt uneasy about the things that Obama said. I really feel like it was the stirring of the Holy Spirit like I talked about before. I have only had that feeling that strongly a few times in my life. It is not just a "bad feeling" that you can sometimes get when you're walking down a dark alley, lol. It is a genuine stirring in your soul, where you know that what is being said is not truth. I felt especially grieved when they began debating abortion. I feel very saddened at the thought of losing millions more unborn babies at the hands of another careless political leader. While this will be my second presidential election to vote in, I feel that it is my first one to lean VERY strongly in one direction. Obama has been said to be perhaps the most liberal member of senate and perhaps the most liberal democrat to run the presidential race.

Lauren Dumb Dumb

So, last night Casey, my mom, his parents-Beverly and Mitch, and I all went to look at houses with our realtor, Kristin Huie (aka Kristin Gibson, my good friend from high school)! Well, we looked at the three different houses from about 5:15 to 7:15. At the last house, I got in the car with our family and Kristin left in her own car. About two seconds from when she pulled away I figured out that I didn't have my purse. I must've left it one of the houses. No big deal, I'll just call Kristin and she'll come right back and we'll get my purse. Well, my phone is in my purse and Casey doesn't have her number. Grrrr. We start to chase her down but can't find her. We all think I must've left it in the second house because we stayed in their for a while talking. We decide to drive back to that house and ring the door bell, hoping the owners are home by now. Nope. No luck. Meanwhile, I'm calling all of my friends that know Kristin, trying to get her number. No one answers. Of course, they don't know who is calling them because I am on Casey's phone. So, I start texting hoping that they will respond. Eventually I get two people to send me Kristin's number. By this time we are already on the way to her house. She answers, and we meet her back at the second house. No purse inside. GRRRR. We go to the first house. No purse. GRRRR. We decide to go to the last house. It's further away. The whole time I am worried that we are not going to find my purse, keys, camera, wallet, and phone. My life is in that purse. My car will not start without my ONLY computer chip inhabited key. This could potentially be a nightmare. I already feel bad that I am dragging my entire family and friend around looking for it all. If I could've gotten into the houses on my own, I would have. Finally we pull up to the last house-the one that we were at when I REALIZED I didn't have my purse. Good grief, all the trouble that we went through. Kristin pulls up and says, "they just called. Your purse is inside." We thanked her, and she left. I knocked on the door, and a very nice couple (about our age) answers the door and gives me my purse. The man made a joke about thinking that we left my purse as a downpayment. Ha ha.

After all that we went to On the Border for dinner. Whew.

Fall Conference Night

I am sitting here at school waiting on my next appointment. Suddenly I get the urge to see if my blog will come up if I try it. I have tried it a million times, but every time the school's safety net kicks in and it says in big, red letters, "ACCESS DENIED!" However, for some crazy, unseen reason it worked! Yay (now if I could only break into Facebook somehow I'd be a happy woman)! I am glad it worked tonight because I have a break from meeting parents, and I really need the break! So far I have met with 8 sets of parents about 8 different students. I am plain tuckered out. I still have 3 more conferences to go! Wow. I did not think that this many parents would care now that their child is in 6th grade. I know it is not even half of the class, but 11 seems like a lot to me. I am glad that they care about their child's progress though! All of the meetings have gone well. I always get nervous talking to parents, but this night has definitely taken the nervousness away. They are just people, and some of them are more nervous about talking to me than I am talking to them! Ha ha.

God is good.

Today was my very first picture day! I got my picture taken for the yearbook. I haven't been in a yearbook for four years, and now I am going to be in one as a teacher. I just cannot believe it. Sometimes I sit in my classroom and just think about how fast my life has gone by. Not really elementary or middle school, but really high school and college. I so enjoyed high school and college! I am enjoying my life right now too, it is just different. I have come to the conclusion that I really do enjoy all the stages of my life so far. I thought I was going to get caught in my post-college depression, but that really only lasted like two days (right around the first A&M football game on TV).

I am really enjoying being married to Casey, and all the adventures we have together! Right now our adventures include looking for a house! We are really excited to see what God has for us this next year. We have been very blessed with so many things so far. We talk every now and then about how our entire relationship seems to have been orchestrated by God-right down to the very minute. When I think about how we met, got to know each other, and dated it seems a little surreal, but then when I think about how student teaching got opened up to new places (not just College Station) and how Casey got the cLife job the very weekend we got engaged it seems amazing! God has been good to us. He has continued to bless us since our wedding with a great CG (community group-aka cLife Bible study group), and my new job at a brand new school--with a great principal as a bonus! Now we feel blessed to be looking for a house in Rockwall to buy! We never thought that we would be able to buy a house in Rockwall. We thought surely our condo would be the last we saw of lovely Lake Ray Hubbard! It doesn't appear to be that way though, and we couldn't be more excited about it! I can't wait to see what God has in store!

Be praying for us as we look at houses. We want to make sure we are in tune with what God wants for us, not what we want for ourselves (always a little hard for me:).

Love y'all!

I love my church...

because today they brought lunch to the entire staff at school!! It was greatness. They brought us Tino's. Casey got to come too and sit with me at lunch! All of the teachers loved it, and I loved that it was my church. They don't call us COMMUNITY life church for nothing! ;)

This is our current series: The Classics

Seriously?

I know, I know. 2nd post tonight. I have a good reason. I went to Taco Bell a little while ago and had a very annoying experience.

If you know me, you know I like my condiments. Especially mild sauce from Taco Bell.

Well, I went through the drive-thru and everything was going fine until the lady asks me if I would like sauce. Of course I would like sauce! I tell her very politely that I would like "a lot of mild sauce."

Guess how many she gives me.

TWO.

I think, "is she kidding? I got two things....am I supposed to use one package of sauce on each item?" I am sure that there are some of you out there that think one on each item is plenty, but not me. Anyway, I wasn't upset at that. I just waited until she turned around again, and I said, "Ma'am could I have several more mild sauce packets?" She turns around, rolls her eyes, and gives me ONE MORE. At this point I am getting a little frustrated with her. I mean, seriously, what does "a lot" and "several" mean to you?

Disclaimer:
At this point I would like to say that I HAVE worked in fast food. I HAVE worked a very busy drive-thru line. I HAVE had rude customers. I am NOT a rude customer. I do NOT freak out about pickles on my sandwich or fries that are too salty. However, I DO have a problem with employees on a power trip.

I mean, really, are the condiments coming out of your paycheck? NO. Do you have a personal reason for not wanting to give them to me? NO. Admit it, you hate your job and want me to hate it, too. Well, I am sorry that you have to work at Taco Bell for that one year in high school (I did it for three), but really, it isn't my fault, so give me my mild sauce please.

Anyway, back to the story.

I said, "Ma'am, I would REALLY like a LOT of mild sauce. I like to have a lot on my food."

She says, "I'm sorry, I am not supposed to give you more than two."

I say, "You are telling me you are not allowed to give the customer the amount of condiments they want?"

She doesn't say anything. She just kind of stares at me. She doesn't reach for more mild sauce or anything.

I know a lot of you would give up, but I think you are underestimating my love for mild sauce. I pretty much don't like any fast food without that place's condiments. I don't each Chick-fil-a fries without the Polynesian Sauce or the Arby's Melt without the Arby's Sauce. I am the same way with Taco Bell. It REALLY disappoints me when I realize I did not get enough mild sauce when I get home.

So....(don't hate me for this), I asked to talk to her manager.

She leaves without speaking to me.

Fine. I don't care. I am going to get my mild sauce!!!

The manager comes to the window, and I just tell her that I don't want to complain, but I want my mild sauce. I only have three packets and I need like 7 more (at least). She tells me that is fine and gives them to me--no problem.

Is it really Taco Bell's policy to argue with the customer about sauce until they have to ask for the manager just to get a decent amount? Geez.

Job Security?

The other day I was talking with Casey about the economy being bad. I keep saying that I think we are going to drop into another Great Depression and it is going to go into history with people reading about us in years to come. Everyday I come home from school and turn on the news to see if the stock market has crashed.

I always think of the line at the end of Titanic where Rose says that her fiance had gotten off of the boat, "but after the crash of '29 he put a pistol in his mouth." (Sorry if that was to gorry for you). I keep wondering if people are going to kill themselves if our economy gets to bad that our money isn't worth anything.

However, even though I am talking through all of this, I was bragging to Casey that I would be able to "carry us" if bad stuff happened because I am a teacher, and teachers have great job security......A couple days later the Dallas Independent School District laid off hundreds of employees, including teachers. Well, I guess I was wrong. Apparently no one really has job security. Ha!