A game of catch-up

Since my last post, I've been to California and back.

I went out to surprise my sister, and man-oh-man was she shocked. I knew she would cry, but did she ever! I arrived on the Saturday of her dance show, and went to her high school to surprise her with some lunch before her show. Well, the surprise didn't go quite according to plan, but we still did give her a great surprise.

She did great at her show.
I'm so proud of her and at how quickly she's tapped in to her talent as a dancer. She critiques herself all the time, but I absolutely love to watch her dance, even when she thinks she did terribly.
It makes me sad that I can't be there for all of her shows, but I'll always be her number one fan and supporter.

I didn't get to stay very long, but I was able to do a little bit of catching up with my friends and family.
Lizzie picked me up one day and we went to see The Vow. It was good to watch a girly movie with her, then catch up back at her apartment with girl scout cookies.
After that, I got to see Lee's new house. They showed me the before and after pictures, and holy wow have they done a lot of cleaning up! It looked like something left over from an episode of Hoarders before with all the trash, and though there is still some work to be done, he will have a cute little house when it's all said and done.

Back in Oklahoma, it snowed while I was away. Can you believe it? My first real Oklahoma snow, and I missed it!
Oh well...I'll have more.
I also missed my first Valentines' Day as a married woman...but Chris did a good job and picked me up with some roses.
A single red rose to say "I love you" and a yellow rose because the first flower he ever got me was a bouquet of yellow roses.

So off on another track now...
Since January 1st, I've been back on my healthy eating. I've lost somewhere between 5 and 10 pounds so far, and though I've strayed a bit the last couple of days, I'm bound and determined to get down to a healthy weight, and to strengthen up and build some muscle.
With our tax money, Chris and I plan to buy a couple of bicycles. He wants to ride more competitively than I do, but I'll ride as long and as far as he wants to while he trains for the Hotter'N Hell Hundred ride down in Texas this summer.
I won't be taking part in the race, but I'll be there to train with him and cheer him on during the race itself.

That's all for now...talk to you all soon!

Latest Happenings

I realized I haven't posted in a while, and though nothing incredibly exciting has happened, I figure I should keep my blog up to date.
After all, this is my first post of the new year.

Let's see...New Years was pretty uneventful. Chris and I spent it on our couch with orange juice to drink at the stroke of midnight since I was unaware of the eggnog need until New Years Eve night. Yeah right, like you could possibly buy eggnog on New Years eve period! And I couldn't find my favorite flavored Martinelli's anywhere...so orange juice it was, seeing as we already had some in the fridge.

Lets see, what all has the New Year brought so far...

Well, for starters, I haven't worked at Digital Express for a month now.
I didn't get fired or anything like that...just that business is slow this time of year because school was let out for the holidays.
I was under the impression that we would all be getting two weeks off, then get a call the first week of January to let us know what day to come back to work. Well...it has been a month and I am still waiting on that phone call.
Because of that, I got a job at Newcastle Gaming Center as a Players Club Clerk. I intend to stay at Digital Express (if they'll keep me) but go down to part time until I start school in the fall. Once I start school, I'll have to leave Digital Express and go to school in the mornings before going in to Newcastle, since I start there between 4 and 5 in the evening and get off at midnight.
I do like Digital Express, so it's sad that it has come to this, but then, Newcastle has very good benefits (since I don't need to add Chris on as a dependent because of his Indian heritage) and the hours are steady. I know that I'll be getting a paycheck every two weeks.

Other than the amount of smoke, I don't mind Newcastle. So far, I haven't met a co-worker that I don't like and the job itself is pretty simple. I had to wait two weeks to get access to the computers, and I've already pretty much learned the system.
Did I mention that they have awesome benefits?

Anyhow...
This past Monday (Martin Luther King Day) Chris and I took Miss April to the zoo since it was free. Apparently it's free every Monday through February or something like that.
Ironically, we also went to the movies and watched "We Bought A Zoo" the night before.
I took my new camera, and was very pleased with the quality of pictures...though I wasn't so pleased that it kept focusing on the fences every time I took pictures.

As I mentioned...nothing incredible has happened lately, but I figured I owed a little hello to those of you who follow along with me.

Stay tuned for the next installment of happenings! Hopefully it'll be something more note-worthy!

Holiday Picture

Thank you so much to Faith for taking our family Christmas pictures this year, they look so great!

 

 

Merry (late) Christmas!!!

Despite being away from my family for the first Christmas ever, I still had a pretty good one!

The Friday before Christmas, Chelsea picked up Hubby and me and took us down to their dad's house. From there, we went on to Debbie's family's house for some Secret Santa, lots of food and lots of laughs.

My Santa got me a new computer chair to go with the desk my mom got for me, so now I don't have to use my dining room chair anymore to sit at my desk! Woohoo!

On Christmas Eve, at 11:00pm, Chris and I met Jeanette, April, Chelsea and Kalen in Pauls Valley and we attended a midnight church service.

Now, I'm not religious, but I still went, and though Chris and Jeanette loved the service, I don't think I'll be going next year. It was beautiful, but I didn't feel like I fit in because I don't believe in the same things as everyone else.

I'm glad I went and experienced it though.

At the end of the service there was a candle lighting and it was beautiful.

As we walked in, everyone was given a candle, and at the end, the ushers walked down the aisle with candles and lit the candle of whomever was seated on the edge of each row, then we would light one another's candles with our own. The lights went out, and the whole room was light by the candles.

Christmas morning, Chris and I had our very first Christmas together EVER!

Usually in the past, we had to celebrate either over video calls, pictures and videos. This year, we got to be there with one another, and while I did (and do) miss my family, it was nice to be able to celebrate with Chris for once.

I ended up with a new iPod, a new point-and-shoot camera, some eyeshadows, a ton of candy, a Wii console (thanks to Momma Ma), some pretty drinking glasses (again, thanks to Momma Ma) and a good chunk of money.

Not too bad huh?

After presents, Chris and I trekked on down to Jeanette's house for some delicious food and more family time. There, we played dirty Santa, and I got a pretty picture frame and a candle/candle holder, while Chris snagged a $25 gift card for an AMC movie theater.

At around 5/6, Chris and I took Anna and Gabe to Chris' dad's house for the night.

This morning, we all got up and waited for the rest of the Figs to show.

Once everyone arrived, we had a super yummy breakfast with an omelet roll, Debbie's delicious breakfast casserole, some pigs in a blanket, other pig in a blanket type stuff with bacon, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some.

More presents included a lot of candy, a pretty little ring and a chunk of cash.

Chris and I said our goodbyes, stopped back by Jeanette's to deliver one final present and pick up some leftovers from yesterday, then we were back on our way.

Silly as we are, we decided to stop by the mall to spend some Christmas money.

Guitar Center wasn't too bad, but the prices were more than MusiciansFriend.com, and the Apple store didn't have any cases I liked to protect my spiffy new iPod.

So off to GameStop we went, where we found 3 new Wii games!

Then to BestBuy we traveled, where we found me an incredible new case for my iPod that looks comparable to the famous OtterBox! In blue!!

Finally, we ventured to WalMart for a Wiimote, nunchuck, some new earphones, clearanced candy canes, and some sponges.

When we finally got home to the disastrous mess of a living room, what did we do, but play Mario Party 8!

It's still the holiday season...the cleaning can wait another day or two.

Until then...off to bed I must go, for I have training at the Riverwind casino tomorrow for my job at Newcastle.

Goodnight!

Wedding Wednesday

"We come here to remember..."

Last Sunday, Chris took me to the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial, and it was a very upsetting experience.

 For those of you who are unaware of the events surrounding the bombing, I'll give a little bit of a background.

On April 19th, 1995, 168 lives were lost, including 19 children under the age of 6, and even more lives were changed forever.

At 9:02am, a Ryder rental truck that had been parked in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Downtown Oklahoma City was rigged to explode. The bomb went off, killing many of the employees, visitors, and children in the on-site daycare, all due to two men that were upset with the Government.  

A third of the building was completely destroyed and the rest of the building was left unstable and dangerous for the bombing survivors. Prior to the September 11 attack, this bombing was the most deadly terrorist attack, with the most property damage, on American soil. Today, it remains the most deadly act of domestic terrorism in United States history.

In order to enter the memorial, you must pass through the gates of time. One is stamped with 9:01, which represents the moment before the bomb went off...the moment of Oklahoma City's innocence.  Across from the first gate, is an identical one with 9:03 stamped on it, which stands for the minute just after the attack, when hundreds of lives were changed forever as well as the hope that came from the horror in the time after the bombing.

Between the two gates is the reflecting pool, which occupies the street that the Ryder truck was parked on. It is a shallow pool of gently flowing water to provide a quiet area for peaceful thoughts and to soothe wounds.

Beside the gates and the reflecting pool is the field of empty chairs. Each chair rests atop a glass base represents a life lost in the bombing, with smaller chairs for the 19 children killed and a name etched on each one.

The chairs are arranged in 9 rows for each floor of the building. Each chair is placed on the field according to where they were in the building at the time of the bombing.

By day, the glass beneath the chairs allows the chairs to look like they are floating, and by night, lights glow beneath the chairs as beacons of hope.

For the holidays, each chair was decorated with wreaths and ribbons. The field looked like a graveyard, and though it was a beautiful sight with the 168 chairs light up and decorated, it was also very sad to look at. It seemed like a graveyard on the field, and it was incredibly upsetting to look at all the lights for the lives lost, and to think of how many more lives were forever changed in the worst of ways.

As Chris and I went through the memorial, I realized how easy it would be for someone to do something like this again. If someone decided to destroy another federal building, or even a mall or apartment complex, unless they were acting strange and nervous, how would we know? How could we stop them from repeating this terrible act?

Who is to say that we are truly safe anywhere?

I know that we can't live in fear, but it's a terrifying thought that our lives, and the lives of our loved ones are partially in the hands of those terrorists and murderers. If they were to snap and finally go though with another bombing or other act of violence, our lives and out loved ones lives could essentially be over.

There are school shootings, mall shootings, and acts of violence like this all the time unfortunately, and it's incredibly scary to me.

Again, I know we can't live in fear, but it's a very scary thought to have in the back of my mind.