In a nutshell

Life gets in the way of my blogging, so here's a quick recap of what's been going on...

- Family wedding weekend: Cousin Robbie and sweet Tran were married at the Ft. Worth Botanical Gardens in the gorgeoussss Japanese Garden. One of my favorite weddings ever.

- As a part of the wedding weekend, my Ohio family came in. Which meant 5 days of baby time with Avery Cate and Olivia Grace!

- Made a pretty big decision... details later :)

- And I got talked into going to Chilifest. How did that happen?

So, that's basically the past week or so in a nutshell. My April is going to be a little bit crazy: Easter, Chilifest, weddings and wedding showers, TAKS tests, blah, blah blah. Just counting down the days until June 4th and the official start of my summer vacay!

Crayon therapy

I don't know about you guys, but I am 23 and still love to color. Give me a little kid's coloring book and I will go to town. In fact, last year when I was living with my sweet Erin & Jordyn we decided to sacrifice a night out for a night in with one of my coloring books from an education class. Now those are memories. And I still have those pages. :)

Why in the world am I blogging about coloring? There's a point, I promise...

My little 87 year old granddaddy is currently in a nursing home/rehabilitation facility trying to recoup from pneumonia troubles followed by a little hit on the head. As I am sure many similar facilities do, this place has a monthly list of activities that residents can pick and choose from. As I was nosily looking at his March calendar this afternoon, I spotted a weekly activity I know I would be at every time... Coloring (see, there's the point). Call me crazy, but I think there is some sort of therapy to putting your box of Crayolas to work. Whether you like to color the pictures from coloring books or just doodle, I swear it's gotta' be good for you somehow. It always makes me feel better, anyway. So I told Granddad today, "Hey! You could go color on Wednesdays!"... sadly his response was somewhat lacking in enthusiasm. Maybe it would make the old toot feel better haha. Silly Granddad.

So, this post is for those of you who may have felt that you were now too old to color- I give you permission (I can do that, I'm a teacher) to go grab a coloring book and have at it! I'm telling you, when you are coloring a picture of a little baby elephant, it's hard to hold back a smile- or at least a little grin. Do it, I promise it's therapeutic!

Thanksgiving break recap

• Little Mexico. 3 times.
• Pumpkin plethora: pie, roll, & coffee.
• Fun with old friends- Kristin, Lacey, Jordan, Brett, Geoffrey, & Ariel... and many other Shelton Gin patrons that shall remain nameless. Haha what an experience.
• Thanksgiving lunch with the fam = needing a membership to overeater's anonymous.
• aTm vs. tu Thanksgiving day game! My Aggies put up a good fight, and I got so annoyed with the biased ESPN commentary that I emailed a complaint. Yep, I did. I am sure it was read with sincerity by an intern. Whatever, it made me feel better! Next year Ags, next year. :)
• No Black Friday activities for this girl- I don't have the patience. Fridays after Thanksgiving at our house consist of cleaning out the fall decor and bringing in the Christmas! Is our tree done, you ask? Nope. Oops.
• Thanksgiving leftovers make me a glutton. Embarrassing.
• Saturday after Thanksgiving in Tyler. Let's see what I accomplished: oh yeah, nothing. Got a new shirt for myself, and bought Erin Sex & the City for $2.99 (amazing!!). Still have to take care of everyone's Christmas presents. Gonna' be busy this month.
• Andddd that's about it. Woooo, that is one exciting break if you ask me. I'm a party animal. :)
• 15 days left in Waco. Let the countdown begin... NOW

We are family :)

Negligence

So obviously I have been a negligent blogger. It's been a MONTH since the last time I wrote anything. Oopsie :)

Let's see... what has happened since June 20...

1. Haha have some funny stories about Ohio trip with Mom and Dad- pictures coming later!

- Went with Mom and Dad to Ohio:
- Rode baby 36 passenger plane with duct tape above my head
- Walked down the airplane stairs like you see on movies, haha
- Got to see the sweetest baby girls (Avery and Olivia) for a few days
- Went fishing on the Ohio River... dad caught a pair of pants ha
- Went to the memorial for the Sept 11 Flight 93
- Went to a wood carving museum. Don't ask :)
- Saw The Proposal and love, loved it!
- Weather was perfect all week. Highs in the 70's and 80's = bliss
- Saw cute little nuns in the Houston airport
- Flew back to Tyler on teeny, tiny plane, no duct tape this time.
- Back in Texas the first week of July, wayyyy too hot

2. Finally feeling more settled about Baylor in the fall. I now have a place to live with 3 other girls and have a schedule. I am a very high-stress girl so having all of my fall plans up in the air for a while has been killing me, so now I feel like I can breathe a little easier. I'm taking Introduction to Clinical Audiology, Anatomy and Physiology (Comm Sciences & Disorders directed), Clinical Methods, and Introduction to Phonological Sciences. I have a little hint of what each class is going to entail but I am going into all of this pretty blind. Say a prayer- actually, scratch that... say a BUNCH of prayers! I am excited about this part of my life, since it is going to lead me to what I want to do for the rest of my life... I'm just very anxious!

3. Mom went on this huge redecorating binge and now our front rooms have had a face-lift. We spent a whole day texturing the walls of our entry hall, then a whole day painting it. Lesson learned for the future: I will pay to have that kind of stuff done, I just don't have the patience. I will say, though, it does look good. We also had to paint our entire huge dining room/office area. I'm convinced I inhaled way too many paint fumes!

So that isn't exactly ALL that has happened, but those are the general highlights! Skip ahead to present day...

Well today my sweet friends, Megan and Jacob Taylor, have been married for a month! And I finally got to see their apartment, it's perfect! I think my words were "Aww y'all are grown-ups!" haha, clearly I am not. I'm just so happy for them!

More good news, got a phone call about 30 minutes ago, my amazing best friend, Miss Storm (soon to be Mrs. Wlazlowski) got a J-O-B!!! She is the newest 3rd grade teacher at Whitehouse ISD. I am thrilled for her and know she will be great! Now my two sweet girls, Morgan and Amber, are both third grade teachers... maybe I should ditch the grad school idea and join the club?!

That about sums it all up. Now that I have written a novel maybe it will teach me to be a better blogger. I'll try :)