my niece

Sorry for not updating sooner...it has just not been real clear as to the condition of my niece. After doing several tests, the doctor believes she has seizures. Her daddy has them too. The doctor wants her to take a certain medicine. My sister looked it up and it seems to have many side effects. She has been very apprehensive about it but I think she is going to give it a try. Please pray that the medicine will help her out but yet not have any side effects.

Have a good week!

Puppy Tales Part 2

We planned on going to E.Texas this weekend for my parents' 39th anniversary. Sippi has not been traveling well in the car so we decided to board her at the vet's office. Plus, it was time for some more shots. I never knew someone could become so attached to a dog!! I was so sad to leave her on Friday! I can't wait until tomorrow to be able to pick her up!! :) Maybe she'll still love me!

Puppy Tales

Well, here we are and we've now had Sippi for 4 weeks. Sippi is now showing us tons of personality and the antics are quite humorous. First, we have the constant fascination with bathrooms. Whenever Sippi has gone to running roughshot through the house, a simple flush of the toilet will usually garner her attention. The puppy usually stops dead in her tracks and goes straight for the toilet and stands on her hind legs as if to see what will disappear. Next, we have the latest stunt she's been pulling: going up the stairs. No thanks to our niece, Lauren, coaxing Sippi up the stairs, we now have a doggy/child gate to prevent the darling(s) from running up the stairs. This afternoon, Sippi went all the way up the stairs and into our bedroom. Bad news...

Yet, it sure is entertaining!

Excuse me while I yawn...

Overnight was quite the experience. About 2AM, we were sound asleep only to be awakened by the burglar alarm. When I say sound asleep, I mean out cold, barely even heard the alarm asleep. Apparently, it was only a malfunction since there were no signs of forced entry, but it was one of those when you hear 105 dB of siren that just serves to leave you on edge for a while. Poor Sippi had never experienced the alarm going off and she was just trembling and crying to no end. Poor puppy got to endure it again when we ran a test on it with the monitoring service center. Now, I sit at home awaiting the service guy to come out and tell me what's wrong with my system. Maybe I can stay awake.

Red Green or Bob Vila

One of the joys (maybe pains) of being a homeowner as opposed to being a renter is now the projects are DIY (do-it yourself) instead of calling someone else to do it. While I naturally abhor the idea of doing something that I could pay someone to do, especially when they do it better than I do, I have been undertaking many projects at the house. Most recently, after hanging curtains and such, the larger projects have been installing shelving in the garage in order to remove the clutter and be able to park the vehicles in the garage. After all, when you have a two car garage, why should you have to park out in the driveway or street? But, I digress...

For those of you who have seen the Red Green Show, some of my projects have left me wondering whether sparing the duct tape was spoiling the job. In other words, should I have done something better or taken a shortcut. Yet, most of them have come out decently, I guess the judges will decide next weekend when we have the open house. As Red would say, "I'm pulling for you, we're all in this together..."

No news is good news???

Well, I'm not quite sure but we haven't heard anything about Lauren's MRI. We're still praying for good results.

She is also having an EEG on Friday. Please pray those results come back ok. My sister has to wake Lauren up at 2 am and keep her awake until the EEG. They want her to be sleep deprived when they give the test. She won't be happy! :)

please pray

I just wanted to update real quick to ask for prayer for my little niece. I just got back from Nacogdoches because she had some tests run today and I wanted to be there for her. She has been having "episodes" at night where she wakes up and doesn't know who/where she is and who anyone else is. She has also been having headaches. So, please pray that everything comes out ok with her MRI. She got very sick with the sedation they gave her. She vomited before and after the MRI. I was holding her after the MRI and she said, "I think I hear Aunt Stacey!" She didn't realize I was holding her!!

Hopefully we'll know something soon.

Happy New Year...almost!

Hello all! It is almost 2008. And then we start all over again....I can't wait to see what God has in store for us this year.....you just never know.....

I'm not sure if I'll make it until midnight tonight but we'll see....

Count your blessings and thank the Lord for all that He has done!

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas everyone!! I hope everyone is having a good day!!! We are enjoying the newest member of our family, Sippi!! She is an adorable cockapoo!! We are trying to get her adjusted to our house and being with us.

Alto wins again...

Back to back state championships! They won today 22-0. They haven't lost a single game in 2 seasons. (This is the school I have taught at before moving to DFW). Go Jackets! My sister Shelley still teaches there and my niece and nephew go there.

On a different note, Stephen and I are looking forward to being couch potatoes!! We didn't leave the house today until 5:30. We wouldn't have left then, but we desperately needed some stuff so we could continue hanging curtains. By the way, Stephen is getting really good at hanging curtains. He is for hire!!! :)

Will the dust settle?

Ah, it's been a little over three weeks and we are finally getting settled into the house. Not to say we haven't had our share of little adventures, but still sifting and sorting through our stuff. As the poet once said, the best laid plans of mice and men...so, that's where we are now. Admittedly, we had quite a lot of our belongings that went upstairs, but some of it never made it up there during the move. Thus, we've spent the better part of the week cleaning out the garage and the study, trying to figure out what still belonged in those areas and what should have made the journey upstairs prior to now.

If you've seen Stacey's flickr site, you get an idea of what else we've been up to, decorating for Christmas. Two Christmas trees, the outdoor decorations, and of course, the interior as well.

On Monday, we had a slight problem. We woke up and had allowed the house to get too cold. Thus, I turned on the heat for about 20 minutes to warm the house up while we were getting ready for work. When we came home, it was almost 100 degrees in the house. Apparently, the HVAC guys wired the house for a gas heat pump instead of an electric one causing our heat to not shut off properly. Thus, the repair man got to spend a good portion of Monday evening with us.

As for other adventures, both of us have had our share of traffic adventures. We both have had to deal with hour plus commutes this week due to accidents. Not exactly my idea of fun, but I'm thankful I have a reason to make that commute.

Interesting start to my day!!

Well, every now and again, I think the Lord tries to make things really bad to show us that things are not so bad after all....if that makes sense!! :)

Today I left the house a few minutes later than normal. I get several miles down the road and realize I have forgotten my laptop at home. That is my only computer in my classroom that I can use, so I must go back and get it. I already know that the traffic is bad the way I'm going. So, basically, instead of leaving about 6:35 like usual, I end up finally leaving the house at 7:00. Traffic is horrendous. I get to work exactly on time, 7:45. I get to my classroom, the lock is stuck. No one can get in with their key. Meanwhile, here come my kiddos, bright-eyed and bushy tailed!! Can't get in the classroom....someone (not mentioning names but an adult that works at school) said, do you need a key??? Duh!! They had to call the emergency maintenance person!! He finally got my door open at 8:45. Yeah!!

I hope tomorrow is less eventful!! :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wow! It sure doesn't seem like it should already be time for another Thanksgiving! Where has the year gone?

I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! We will be leaving tonight for Alabama. I am truly thankful for many things this year. Above all, I am thankful that I serve a God that loves me and provides for me unconditionally. I am thankful for Stephen. He is the best husband I could ever ask for. He loves me for who I am. God hand-picked him just for me. I am thankful for my family. I couldn't ask for a more loving family. They love me too. That was very evident when they all traveled to Dallas this past weekend just to help us move. I am thankful for Stephen's parents. They are like my second set of parents. Some people are not lucky enough to have 1 set of parents that love them, I have 2! God has truly blessed Stephen and me this year. We have been through some really hard times these past 2 years but we were faithful to Him, and he has blessed us for it. I am thankful for my job, even though it is very tough. It allows me to be with Stephen, which I am truly grateful for! And....I am thankful for my house!! God provides!!! This has been our dream since we married and now our dream came true.

We're in....

I can't post much right now because I am at school but we should be back in business w/ our internet today so we'll post more. There are MANY interesting things that happened this weekend so we'll be sure to fill everyone in! :) I am at school right now resting!! This weekend wore everyone out!! We realized we have too much stuff!!

The house is wonderful and it is still weird! As of today, we are finally out of the apartment. Thank goodness!!

We're Homeowners!!!

From now until December 1, 2037, we're on the hook for a mortgage payment, or as my mom reminded me, we've joined the club. I'm glad it's over, and it's been a very nerve racking day. People were generally helpful, we just wanted and waited to see if there were any surprises - which there were none.

If you know what all we've been through the last 2.5 years, you'd say there's no doubt about it, we have been blessed and God deserves the glory for that house. I stood in the garage today praying a prayer of thanks for this opportunity, and afterward, remembered that 2.5 years ago I sat at a red light looking at what I considered a dream home in Muscle Shoals, AL almost heartbroken and apologizing profusely to Stacey that we couldn't have this back home. Strange how the Lord works, I looked online at those houses and realized that we have a much better situation than what we would have had there.

The fun begins with MOVING...we had our apartment flood just as we were loading the truck, just another mess with that apartment. Fortunately, there were a lot of people from Stacey's family came from East Texas to help us move the majority of the stuff on Saturday and that was a blessing. Then, on Sunday afternoon, we had to make our first warranty call as the washing machine had a back-up of our sewage into the yard and I had to stay at home all day yesterday while waiting on that to be fixed. It was great for getting stuff unpacked, but hated to lose a day of vacation at work. Thanks to a major glitch with moving our AT&T service, we did not get our phone and DSL hooked up on Friday as we first thought, so that has impeded our communicating. So, now it's the 20th, we've briefly returned to cyber-civilization before embarking on a trip to Alabama for Thanksgiving.

Tomorrow's the day...

Tomorrow is the day we have been looking forward to since July 22nd, which is when we put a contract on our new house. I am very excited about being in the house but Stephen and I are both a little uneasy (ok, down right nervous!) about the closing so please keep us in your prayers at 2:00. :)

I can't wait to walk in and know that I am in OUR house!!! We have always lived in an apartment and it will be awesome to not hear dogs above me, water trickling down from their washer/dishwasher/toilet!! Plus, I'll have my OWN parking spot....every time!!! No one else will park in my spot!! :) Living in an apartment, you're never guaranteed a spot!! Plus, I want to have neighbors....nice ones!! People in our apartment are just down right snooty!! You speak, they just look at you like you're dumb!!

I am avoiding packing by being on the computer, so I better go and get busy!! I am off from work until Monday. Yeah!!

Packing....

It should be against the law to own so much stuff!! It's no fun having to pack it...There's just not enough time to pack it all!! :)

By the way, Stephen has been a happy boy since Saturday!! His beloved dawgs defeated Alabama. I have never been so tired of hearing, "Who Let the Dogs Out"!!

Woo-hoo!!

With just a few exceptions, our home is complete!!! We close on the 15th and then begin moving in. I can't wait to get moved in and settled in!!

Light at the end of the tunnel....

Here is our house. Next Thursday (the 15th) we will be homeowners...for the first time in our married life...well, for the first time in our lives to be exact!! It's a pretty good feeling. The Lord has blessed us so very much!

As of last Saturday, there were just a few things to be done. Gutters, specialty paint, backsplash, and appliances.....I'm sure most of that is done by now. We have the official walk-through this Thursday. That will give them a week to perfect anything that needs some TLC.

We have begun the dreaded packing. For all who know the vast amount of "stuff" we have, you will understand why it is dreaded!! My sister picks on Stephen when she tells him that we have a Mississippi State gift shop. It's pretty true!! Thankfully, we are going from a 1000 sq. ft apartment to a 3100 sq. ft house!!

Have a good week and think about us next weekend when you are relaxing and enjoying your weekend and we are ......packing......

House Update 10/28

With Homecoming at Stephen F. Austin this weekend, we had two opportunities to visit the house - once Friday, and again today. The house is beginning to come together a little more each week. We're finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel (See the picture from the game room).

We actually started seeing trim work and finishing touches starting to show up on both the interior and exterior of the house. Countertops, baseboards, sinks/faucets, ceiling fans, light fixtures and outlets were installed. Sod was sitting in the front and the landscapers were finishing up the sprinkler system when we were there on Friday. The exterior of the house was painted on Saturday. Our backyard fence has been started as well.