Category Archives: Everyday Life

This morning Chase and I went to the school to find out when/how to pay tuition, how much rent is (we are renting our apartment from the school), how to apply for a student visa, etc… After this we decided to go exploring around our neighborhood, get lunch and pick up a few groceries. Since we don’t have a car yet (in the process of looking) we have to do this all on foot- which is fine because it is only in the 70s outside now, but soon (I am sure sooner than we expect/hope) walking will not be as enjoyable due to the rising temperatures outside.

During our outing we found a grocery store call Al Frige Marketing (or something like that). I decided to go in to check out what could be bought there- it looked like a typical grocery store, relatively clean with friendly staff. As I was walking down an isle I saw a little bitty mouse run by! I started to freak out, but then quickly reminded myself that I am not in the states anymore and this is probably a normal thing- ha! I still felt safe/comfortable buying products from them I just have some new little friends to shop with!

Chase carrying home our lunch from "Chicken House" & the groceries!

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year! Can’t believe 2011 is already here!

Hope you all had a blessed Christmas with family and friends. We had a great one!

We are busy trying to get all the last minute details in line before we set sail– not sure if we are doing everything we need to… but I am sure it will all come together.

I promise to post pictures from our holidays soon…

Love to all!

Chase and I have officially moved out of our first house together (Chase also lived here for 3 years before we got married with his college buddies) this week… tear…

I have decided to dedicate this post to ten wonderful memories that we have had at the ol’ 3710 house… (sorry some of the pics aren’t that great, but they have wonderful memories in them)

1. Chase proposed to me in our backyard!! He had all our family and friends  come over and line up in the backyard with tea light candles making a path for me to walk down to where he was standing under an arch. I sat on our stump and read me a prayer he had written a few years prior for his future wife! It was perfect! We had a party with our friends and family afterward. Oh and he made me a scrapbook!

2.  Bonfires in the fire pit after many TECH football Victories!

3. We hosted our small group from our church for over a year and a half in our living room. Such a blessing to be able to use our house to build great community.

4. Home improvements around the house… to name a few: a double T painted on the back porch and painted the kitchen & bedrooms done by Chase & Trent Mays, a major facelift of the entire house (new carpet, popcorn ceilings removed, entertainment center town down…Chase & “the dads” did this) before a girl -me- moved in, the laundry room completely re-done (Chase surprised me with this one when I was out of town one weekend), etc…

5. Planting flowers in our front yard with my mom two years in a row.

6. A visit from Chase’s brother, sister-in-law and four kids over the summer… we had people sleeping in every room.

7. Great parties– baby showers, game nights, wedding showers, pumpkin carving with neighbors, super bowl party, garage sale– and BBQs with great friends and family.

8. Front porch sitting… watching the rain & lightening, looking at gorgeous sunsets & rainbows, great talks, coffee & reading time…

9. Making pallets of blankets in front of our ghetto tv (this thing turns off randomly sometimes, weighs about 100 lbs, and eats VHS tapes) to watch FRIENDS episodes and movies. This has been one our favorite way to end our date nights. (even though I usually end up falling asleep!)

10. College Life. Enough said.

We are going to miss this house, but we are thankful for the time we had there and will cherish the memories we have there… thanks for all the wonderful memories and times friends & family! We love you.

It feels like we have had a ton going on lately that it is hard to keep this up to date- so I am going to steal an idea my friend had by giving a ten item (give or take) highlight of what we have been up to. We’ll see how it goes!

1. We have spent the last three weeks in Lubbock! I think this is the longest we have been somewhere since September. I was nice to not live out of a suit case.

2. My mom, and two sisters came to visit for a girls weekend at the beginning of December. We decided to brave the mall and go Christmas shopping & went to Carol of Lights (one of my fav Lubbock traditions). It was a great weekend.

mom was being "artistic" with this one!

3. Chase’s computer died a few weeks ago – after 7 years of good use… so now we are sharing one- some days it works, some days it doesn’t 🙂 Hopefully we will get a new one before we leave.

4. I baked a super yummy pecan pie and apple pie at Thanksgiving- both Pioneer Woman recipes. I think I will be repeating them for Christmas…

5. We went to Ruidoso, New Mexico with 10 people from our small group this past weekend. It was a much needed weekend of rest, hang out time with great friends and NO computers!

6. I got to see snow when we were in the mountains & Chase snowboarded- two things we won’t be seeing any of when we move to the desert.

7. It has been extremely warm in Lubbock for December– like 80 degrees warm. I have NOT been loving this at all. However, tomorrow is supposed to be in the 40s. We’ll see…

8. Jord and I threw our 2nd Christmas Craft party at our house on Tuesday night. It was super fun. We had about 30 girls crafting ornaments, tea wreaths, peppermint mark & cup cozies!

isn't Jord cute prego? 🙂

9. We have started packing!! (well we have actually been packing since the end of September, but really packing like folding clothes and putting them in suit cases packing…)

10. We board the plane ONE month from today.. C.R.A.Z.Y. Hope we can get everything done in time. Really looking forward to our three Christmas’s- starting in Lamea (tomorrow), then Dallas, and then Albuquerque.

As I am sitting here listening to Christmas music and watching my family finish up these fun Christmas ornaments by kojodesigns… I am reminded that I have much to be thankful for…. to name a few…

• A gracious Savior who renews my spirit, loves me unconditionally, & saved me from despair
• Great family who enjoys eating, talking, cooking & crafting 🙂
• A wonderful husband who loves me more each day
• Sweet friends who inspire me to love Jesus more
• The ability, desire, funds and support to move overseas in January
• A place to rest our heads on our travels & great food along the way
• Snow that fell this morning (wasn’t sure if I was going to get to see snow this winter or not…)

Hope you all had a blessed thanksgiving and quality time with friends & family. I am thankful for you!

Happy Turkey Day!

(I made this in Brooke’s Pre-K class last week- it was fun to be a kid again! ha)

Chase and I got to go to the annual Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque again this year with my family and our friends, the Remkes. (check out their website… Jord took some great pics of the balloons!) There is something magical to see all the different colored and shaped balloons hovering over the city and in front of the mountains.

I took Kead & Sayla swimming in our hot tub Friday afternoon! It was so fun! They loved the jets and swimming in just their panties!

Kead found a worm and LOVED it!

Sayla kept saying, “Down sissy, down!” – she was not a huge fan of the worm.

Thanks for the great weekend family!! We love you! Glad we got to spend the weekend with you.

Glad we got to do another balloon fiesta with you guys! Next year we will have to find one overseas somewhere… and pretend like it is fall!

"old school" FRIENDS

I have to admit to you all that Chase and I have become obsessed, well addicted, to watching the FREINDS dvds. We just love them! We started at season one and are now at season nine. We put them in and just laugh for hours. I think part of it is for rest and relaxation and part of it is because we are really just escaping from everything that we HAVE to do, NEED to do, SHOULD do and WILL be doing…. does anyone else do this or feel the same way?

We know that there are more productive things we can do with our evenings- pray that we can find the balance and discern when to watch and when not to.

This past weekend we had a yard sale at our house! It was a huge success and lots of fun! The Remkes and the Reeves joined us. I can’t tell you how great it feels to get rid of this stuff! We made over $300 and NONE of the items that didn’t sell came back into our house… Chase took what we didn’t sell to goodwill.

We also sold our guest bed and frames and made another 100 bucks! Which is a great help with all the traveling we will be doing in the upcoming months.

Hope you enjoy these pictures… it is my first time to create a collage of pics- it was super easy and fun!

Last weekend my cousin Christie threw Chase and I a Pampered Chef Fundraiser party in Albuquerque! It was a huge success with lots of great orders from friends in Albuquerque and online orders from friends in Texas. Thank you so much to everyone for supporting us and helping us out. We love you all.  :0)

Delicious food displayed in Pampered Chef items

Christie- the "Pampered Chef"

Amy testing out the pineapple slicer

yummy chocolate & caramel cake

Thanks Christie!

Christie is super gracious and is throwing us another Pampered Chef fundraiser party on September 19th, so if you are interested in ordering anything please let me know!

Chase and I stayed in the new Overton Hotel in Lubbock for our anniversary…

We would it give the hotel a pretty good review: the room was nice, the staff was friendly, the view was great (well as great as a Lubbock view can be!)… however there was NO bathtub! For those of you that don’t know, Chase and I only have a standing shower at our house and I LOVE bubble baths, so whenever we stay somewhere else I always want to take a bath… when Chase saw the room he realized there was no bathtub… he went and asked the front desk if we could move, but there were no other available rooms… he tried & felt really bad about and I ended up surviving without it- ha. They also do not have pay per-view movies… which seemed strange to me.

The restaurant however was a different story- we gave it a fair review with the potential to be great… for starters there was no advertisement of the hotel restaurant in the hotel room- we had to call the front desk to know where it was- the atmosphere of the restaurant was great & could be a really popular place- we just think they need better advertising. The food was ok, but we did go at like 9:00pm, so we will give it another try. Sorry for my long review on the hotel and restaurant- not sure if it is because this is what I got my degree in or if Chase and I just love critiquing (in a good way) places we visit… anyway there is our two-sences about it.

All in all we had a GREAT time… it is always relaxing to just get away from the house full of laundry, dirty dishes and just be together with no distractions. Thanks babe for a lovely evening- I love you!

Chase bought me a super cute dress & apron and I bought him a hydration pack! Our tradition (2 years now) is to have red velvet cake on our anniversary- I wanted to make it from scratch, but ran out of time so we picked up some not-so-tasty slices from Market Street! I intend to make one from scratch soon…