Break is over..back to school...

My world is about to get crazy busy yet again. Spring Break is now over and school starts back in full swing tomorrow. This week I will be in the NICU so it should be an interesting and exciting week!

To re-cap the last part of my Spring Break....

Thursday was St. Patrick's Day and Dave's cover band was playing at a local bar. So Wes and I decided we should be supportive and go out to watch him play. They played outside and the weather was perfect! A little bit windy but what else can you expect in Oklahoma?

Here are a few pictures from the night. We didn't stay long since Wes had to be up for work but it was still great to get out of the house and support Dave.

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Don't know what happened with the camera here but you get the idea. :)

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Family!

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90's Cover Band: "Stereo Deck"

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The drummer was showing off his St. Patty's Day spirit, ha.

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Dave rockin' in out on the bass!

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My good looking brother-in-law. See, I can say that since he and my husband are twins! haha

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Once again, don't know what happened with the camera. But hey, I tried!

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Friday morning I headed to Lawton for the night. Got to spend some time with my Mom Friday which was definitely much needed! It's always such a refresher to go home, relax, and spend time with family. It's even better when your mom is also your best friend and you can talk to her about anything. God has truly blessed me with amazing parents to look up to and count on for anything.

Lexi had a good time getting to play with Beamer while I was there. It was nice not having to entertain her, Beamer did all the work for me!

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Beamer even shared his toys with Lexi.

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So fun to watch them play!

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Beamer is doing a LOT better since his health scare last month. He goes back to the vet for blood work soon just to make sure everything is still "on the mend". But he is back to his normal, energetic self.

Saturday I met with my photographer to go over the wedding album. FOUR hours of editing pictures! I had no idea it was going to take that long but I am very happy with the changes and additions that were made. The album is going look AWESOME ! I can't wait to see the final, finished product.

Saturday night, Wes and I had a movie night and watched Harry Potter. Yes, we are into Harry Potter now.

It's not really that we are totally into Harry Potter itself, we are just into watching movie series. It started with Star Wars last summer before I started school. Then once we were done with those, we felt like we needed to watch something else that had a series, so Lord of the Rings it was. And when that one ended...Harry Potter was about all that was left.

I have really enjoyed all the series we have watched though. Star Wars was probably my favorite believe it or not. We even started putting together Star Wars Lego's last year after watching the movies. And now they are on display in Wes's music room.

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We're dorks..what can I say.

It takes Wes back to his childhood, playing with Lego's. And I am always happy to join in and be a kid again too. :)

Sunday was church as usual. After church we went to the Zoo with Dave and his new girl, Jessie. I surprisingly didn't take any pictures while we were there. Probably because all the animals were hiding and we didn't get to see much.

Isn't that how it always feels though? Maybe that is just the OKC Zoo.

I feel like the Zoo ends up being more of an exercise program that it is looking at animals. You walk..and walk..and walk...to the exhibit you want to see to only find...nothing..not a single lion, bear, bird, or hippo in sight. What kind of zoo is this??

We did see the baby hippo, rhino, gorillas (my personal fave), giraffe and the elephants. That was about it though. Probably going to be making a trip to the Science Museum instead next time. My feet are killing me!

I think that's all I have for my Spring Break news. Now back to the daily grind of class and studying. Ugh.

Only four more months to go...132 days! Yes!! I'm in the home stretch!

Spring Break Days 2 and 3

I may not have gone anywhere this week, but it really has been nice to get to do things I want to do without having school getting in the way.

Tuesday I finally hung our signature picture frames from the wedding. The pictures sat against the wall without the glass in them for the longest time. It's funny how something so simple, that doesn't take much time at all, gets put off for so long. But I am so glad they are finally up on the wall. They turned out great! I am glad we made the choice to do this instead of having your basic guest book. This is so much more memorable and can be looked at every single day.

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Tuesday night we had Wes' brother, Dave, over for dinner. He also brought with him a girl that he has been hanging out with recently.

Now that Wes is a married man, Dave has been anxious to find the one for him. He sees how happy Wes is and wants to experience that for himself. After going through some interesting relationships, he may have found a good one! She is very mature and seems really genuine. Definitely great traits to have.

Wes and I had only met her once briefly, so we decided it would be nice to invite both of them over for dinner. Even though dinner was at our house, Dave wanted to cook his shrimp scampi for us. It was SO good!! And I'm pretty sure he impressed his lady friend with his cooking skills as well.

We had such a good time hanging out together that we are planning a trip to the Zoo this coming Sunday. The weather is supposed to be a lot nicer than last Sunday, so hopefully those plans will go through.

Wednesday morning started out really well by getting an e-mail from our photographer. She has been working on our wedding album and now was ready for us to take a look at what she's done. This album will be such a great way of being able to look back and remember our wedding day. Finals edits won't be complete until I "okay" all of the spreads. Each book normally contains 28 pages but ours is going to have 38! I knew we had taken  a lot of pictures but WOW! The only way to get everything in was to create more pages.

So I spent the entire morning yesterday going through each page and writing down any changes I want to make. I've decided to make a trip to Lawton and meet up with the photographer this Saturday so we can make sure all the changes I want to make are clearly understood. This way she can make the final edits and send it off for publishing!

Here is a "sneak peak" of one page of our album that she sent me a few weeks ago. Once everything is complete, I will post a link to the website to view each  page.

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Pretty handsome groom I have, huh? :) I am blessed!!

By the time I finished looking at pictures it was early afternoon and the weather was gorgeous outside. So I decided to get out and enjoy the weather and start working on the flower bed.

I have been to both Home Depot and Lowe's within the past few days looking at the different types of edging to put around the flower bed but haven't made any final decisions yet. But, even though I didn't plan on doing the edging part of it, I knew I at least needed to get it cleaned out.

I didn't want Lexi to have to stay inside all day while I was outside so I found a way to stake her leash to a pole in the front yard so she could sit outside with me while I worked. Here is a picture of my little helper.

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She did such a good job just hanging out. Never once did she whine or bark at all. And since she was being so good, I decided to give her a little more slack on her leash so she could be closer to me while I was digging. And she decided the digging looked pretty fun and wanted to try it out for herself. I just might have found a good way to get my plants in the ground this year!

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It was SO nice to be outside in such great weather. And I got my task accomplished. Now I just have to get my mom up to OKC so we can go flower shopping and get something planted!

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I had to get all the old mulch out first. So gross and so messy.

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Before

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After!

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Doesn't look like I did much, but it looks a lot better! And ready to be planted in soon!

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Look at this poor, tired face. She was wore out!

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That evening we went out to Wes' parents house. Wes had a vocal session at the studio so I decided to go and visit with his mom and let her see Lexi. And also so Lexi could play with Barkley, his mom's Sheltie.

They played SO hard that within about an hour they both had collapsed and fallen asleep. Lexi had a full, busy, tiring day yesterday. But she most definitely needs it to get all that puppy energy out so I welcome the chance to wear her out. :)

It was so good to see Wes out in the studio again recording. I love watching him in his "element" and doing what he loves to do. He has such joy when he gets to be in the studio. That joy doesn't come as easy with the post office work. And in just two and a half hours, he was able to make $100. Not too bad. Pretty good money for such a short period of time.

Ahh..one day our life will be just the way we want it to be. Wes recording music full time and me working in an area of nursing I love. It's so hard to not want those things NOW. We don't want to wait. But we just have to be patient and take one day at time. We know we are in God's will, doing what we are supposed to be doing, right now. And the only way to see our hopes and dreams come alive, is to continue to walk in His will and trust Him in all that we do.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

And lean not on your own understanding;

In all your way acknowledge Him,

And he will make your paths straight."

Proverbs 3:5-6

Too many times we try to make sense of where our life is at the present moment. When all it comes down to is as long as we have peace about whatever it is we are doing, then we ARE in the will of God and He will provide a path if we acknowledge that He is the creator of our future, past and present. As long as we continue to seek His face and obey His word, He has promised us a wonderful future full of peace and hope.

My challenge to you:

"Fix your eyes not what is seen, but what is unseen.

For what we see is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
2 Corinthians 4:18

We face this challenge whether life is peaceful and prosperous or whether life is filled with multiple trials and hardships.  The tendency is to fix our eyes on what is seen.  Whether life is going well or is very hard we need to always remember “this too will pass.” 

 

More to Come!

My posts for Tuesday and today are coming! Just have to find the time to sit down, write, and load up pictures.

Headed out to the in-laws tonight with Wes. He has a session in the studio (yay!) so I'm going along for moral support and to let Lexi visit her cousin Barkley. :)

Hope to post when we get home!

Spring Break Day 1

Today is my first official day of Spring Break. And so far I have managed to do not a single bit of studying. So much for that idea! :)

But I will try to keep my promise about posting this week.

The weather in Oklahoma continues to baffle me. Today it is just down right COLD! As I sat on the couch drinking my cup of morning coffee, I looked out the window thinking it didn't look to be TOO cold. Although absolutely NO sun, I somehow thought it would be warm(er).

So I decide to look at WeatherBug and see what the temperature actually was before I made the decision to go out of the house. 38 degrees!! Really?! It was just 80 two days ago!

One would think after being in Oklahoma this long that I would be used to this drastic weather changing business by now but apparently not. I continue to be slightly perturbed at how unfair mother nature can be sometimes.

I have plans this week to work on our front flowerbed. Don't expect to get anything planted just yet but it most definitely needs some TLC so the plants actually stand a chance at survival.

The plan is to take out the old edging and put in something new. Then clean out all the old mulch from last year, get out all the grass, and turn over the soil a little bit. Now saying that sounds easier than it might end up being.

I had hoped to get to Lowe's or Home Depot today and maybe get started. But the weather didn't chose to cooperate so I will wait to do that tomorrow.

Instead I made a trip to the grocery store for dinner stuff for the week. I figured the least I can do while I am home all week relaxing, is to cook dinner for Wes. I  decided to go with our top five favorite recipes. Here's what they ended up being:

1) Chili
2) Crock Pot Pork Chops
3) Meatloaf
4) Spaghetti with Homemade Marinara Sauce
5) Pesto Pasta w/ Shrimp and Tomatoes

We have been really bad lately about going out to eat. I may not have mentioned this yet but we did look at how much money we saved by not eating out and cooking at home, for one month. The results aren't what we expected. Turns out, we spent just as much at the grocery store as we had been eating out.

(Maybe this is why I stopped cooking...)

Crazy to believe. But, the way I make sense of it is, food costs money and we have to eat. So there isn't going to be too many ways around spending money on food. It just HAS to happen. I know I could really be thrifty with my choices at the grocery store but I'm always in such a hurry. Now it's a miracle if I make it to the grocery store once a week.

Work in progress I guess.

This week will be a different story though; dinner at home ALL week for us!

I wanted to share this YouTube video with all of you. I always listen to the Bethany Dillon Pandora station on my phone while I get ready in the morning. And this song started playing.

No matter where you are in life right now, I feel like this song can touch your heart in whatever way you need it to. The words have a way of anchoring your heart back to what really matters and remind yourself that you are never alone in life.

What do you feel your heart saying where you hear this song?

For me, the title of the song says it all: Sufficient.

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