This was suppose to post last night!

This was suppose to be posted last night. However uploading a video to blogger takes several hours evidently so I wont be using that tool anymore...Anyway...

Not much to report today. Cory and I spent a good part of our day cleaning and organizing. We also worked out hardcore and we are both feeling it now. We did some planning for our upcoming travel dates. The rest of our summer plans: Visit STL July 11-31st, visit Houston (PARTAAAAY!) August 7-11th and then I will be flying to STL solo the week before school starts-August 18-23rd. We are also visiting Chicago July 22-24 :) We will see what else we cram in the oh so very short summer. Its just not long enough ! I also started a new book a few days ago called "90 minutes in Heaven" by Don Piper. It is a true story of a man (the author) who was in a fatal car accident and died. He had been confirmed dead for nearly an hour, all the while he was visiting Heaven. A pastor close to the scene of the accident felt led to pray for the dead man. He did and the man came back to life. His description of Heaven is only about 3 chapers. The rest of the book is about his recovery and suffering, pain and spiritual growth he endures from this accident. Its a rather interesting read. =) Quite a different side of the spectrum from my last book I read "23 minutes in Hell."

Anyway, lets see. I do want to post a few random things I have been meaning to post so since there is not much else to report, I will continue on with randomness.

Here is a Thomas Kinkaid puzzle Cory and I finally framed that we completed about a month ago! We have 3 T.K puzzles framed in our house now.

Here is a wedding picture that we ordered from our wonderful photographer Uncle Tim. When the print made it to his house, Aunt Shell and Uncle Tim called us and said "How big is your house? THIS PICTURE IS HUGE! You might need to buy a new house to fit it!"

Its true its just nearly a lifesize picture. Check this out Aunt Shell and Uncle Tim, I posted this picture just for you guys cuz I knew you would get a giggle out of it...our wall eats it! Looks tiny on the wall doesnt it?!

I also posted pictures of our trip to STL in May. Most of the pics are of Brittany's graduation party which was a total blast. SO PROUD OF HER!!!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037793&l=e260f&id=71902931

Lastly, I captured footage of Luna's annoyance when I'm at my computer, that she described herself in her blog. This is only a FRACTION of what she does when I am in the office...you may think its cute...but if only it happened to you EVERY TIME you tried to be productive ;) ok, so its a lil cute......

June is nearly over!

June is nearly over! Wow, time flies.

Evidently Luna is a much better writer than I am. I will be sure to let her blog when she has as exciting days as she did a few days ago ;)

Prayers are answered! You know how I had shared that it was on my heart to volunteer somehow? Renee and I had been talking about where I could start. I did a search for volunteer options in Amarillo since I will be spending alot of time in Canyon/Amarillo during the school year. I found something right up my alley. Hospice care of the Southwest was looking for volunteers to visit hospice patients, do clerical work, do volunteer fairs, community outreach, bereavement support, patient care, hospice education and even simple things like baking cakes and cookies for family to bring a smile to thier hearts. HOW EXCITING! I talked to the director of the Volunteer services as Southwest hospice for nearly 30 minutes on the phone and it was so incredibly awesome to talk to someone that has the same passion for hospice. It is amazing the opportunities you can have volunteering with hospice as you can provide support and smiles to someone that may or may not have anyone at all or give a caregiver a moments rest. The relationships you can build with people that are terminal is amazing. I know because I worked on an oncology floor and yes I cried...alot...but it is so rewarding to care for someone at the end of life. You learn so much from these patients and it really gives you a thankful heart. So! I am meeting with the director, Johnna, on July 7th and doing paperwork and getting hospice training materials to work on during our trip to STL that way when I return and start school, I will be able to start my volunteering. I AM SO EXCITED! I know I had said I was goin to volunteer outside of my nursing and I still may, but I felt completely drawn to doing this. When I saw it, I knew thats what God wanted me to do, I dont know how to explain. I am completely on fire to do this ! I cannot wait =)

In other news, I also have an appointment on July 7 to see an orthodontist : Im really nervous, but I want to see what options I have to get "perfect" teeth ;) So, we will see how that goes! And how much our checkbook will hate us :

Yesterday, Cory and I saw WALL-E. COMPLETELY recommend this movie! It is soooo adorable and I intend to own it when it comes out on dvd!

Im still trying to get caught up in pictures so heres the next album. Here is an album of my buddy Emily's visit to Texas. Her and I have been pals since the 6th grade. During her visit, we got in some awesome girlie movies and lots of shopping. It was a blast. Thanks Emily for visiting! Love ya!!!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037696&l=b727c&id=71902931


Also, I think that I have made it so that if you want to leave a comment on the blogs, you do not have to have a google account. It should be set to public so anyone can comment now. Please feel free to comment. We love hearing from everyone!

Luna's Blog

My day started out like any other day. I walked across my mom and dad til they woke up, then I snuggled with Momma for a few minutes. I have to do this every morning. Mom finally got up and sent me outside. When I came back inside, I do what I always do every morning: prance around, howl and eat June's face off til she plays with me. Then we run through the house. Apparently daddy was trying to sleep still so we kept getting told to "settle down." Ya, whatever that means. Then we went into the office cuz Momma had to do some work. You see, when Mom is working, I must do all I can to annoy her. I usually do this by howling at her or nudging her hand that's on the mouse with my nose. If this doesn't work, I continue to howl or lay my head in her lap and give her BIG puppy eyeballs and usually she ends up playing with me for a lil bit. After Mom had worked for awhile, I really got annoying so she would put me outside to play for a bit. Success! And look what I found!



Can you see it?? Momma called it a toad. I was happily smacking, chasing and pouncing on it all around the yard.



At one point, I discovered that toads do not taste that great. I started foaming at the mouth! For those that don't know, toads evidently release a really horrible tasting substance on thier back so that puppies like me don't eat them. It made me throw up!! After I threw up, I started to run back towards that toad to play with it some more and I heard Momma yell at me "Did you not learn your lesson!?" And she made me go inside so daddy could release the toad out of our yard :( I miss him. Maybe he will be back tomarrow!

After we came back in, a very traumatic thing happened. Actually, make that two traumatic things! First off, when I was chasing that toad around, I managed to get really muddy paws. Even though I am quite used to it, its still traumatic...a puppy paw wash. Mom and dad have to hold me up to the sink and wash my paws off. I dont really fight cuz their is no use and I wont win, but I dont exactly enjoy it. The other traumatic event including losing my mom!! You see, my momma has been playing hide and seek with me. I absolutely love it, especially at night when its dark in the house. Today, I found my mom in the office closet, but the doors were closed! I couldn't get to her so I let out my most squeaky howl I could to relay how upset I was that I couldn't get to her. For about 3 minutes she wouldn't come out so I continued to howl at the highest possible pitch plus I threw in some serious whining and out she came! I was so happy to see her!

After hide n seek, Mom and dad decided to go outside and do some work. Dad needed to mow and Mom needed to pull weeds. I knew something was up when they put my harness on. The harness goes on only when I am able to pull something. Before they got to work, look what they did to me. They think I am a working husky??? Sure, I love to pull my momma on a bike and we can really get going fast! But you expect me to mow the lawn? I do not think so. Here I am whoa whoa-ing my disapproval. (the mower was off so no worries, mom and dad made sure I was safe)


After this torture, dad started to mow the lawn and Mom started to deweed the lawn. I helped. As she made a pile of weeds, I kindly disassembled the pile and carried off random weeds to where I pleased. Momma also had a little shovel that she was using to dig the roots out. She would fill the hole after she got the root and when she turned her back to pull more, I attempted to redig the hole to ensure that she got the whole root. This didn't last very long because Momma did not approve. But I tried :D Since I couldn't expand on the dirt she had already dug, I decided to go on bug patrol. I ate every single bug that got in Moms way. That's my mom and no bug is going to take her from me!!!

After Momma finished deweeding, the brushes came out! I cannot tell you how much I hate to be brushed! Every single time I get brushed, Mom tells me "You better get used to. You are a husky." Whatever that means! I don't care if I am a husky or not, I HATE THE BRUSH! I did everything possible to make Mom change her mind, including trying to eat the brush, sitting on my mom at an odd angle to make it difficult, howling, whining...I even tried to gross her out by trying to eat the hair that blew past me. That just ended up being gross and nothing worked :( I got brushed. It was a sad time for me.

After the brushing though I encountered a creature I have never seen before! Daddy called it a giant moth. Momma called it a mutant moth from "down under." (I am not allowed to say that word.) When dad released it, I took the responsibility of keeping everyone safe and I chased it out of the yard.



After the yardwork was done, we came inside and now I am resting. It has been a very exciting day for me! Every day is an adventure....I make sure of it ;)

So far this week...

Sunday- Besides hearing an awesome sermon, Cory and I spent Sunday working in the yard and cleaning house. BUT there was also time for relaxation. As you know, Luna follows momma everywhere and has to do absolutely everything with me...so we sat down with a good book for awhile.



Monday- Yesterday we made a trip to Amarillo to donate platelets. Corys donation was successful. He donated two units of platelets and one unit of plasma that will be used for newborn babies. How awesome ! Im so proud of him for donating every chance he can. This was my second attempt to donate platelets, but unfortunately it did not work :( If you arent familiar with apheresis, they put a needle in your arm very much like donating blood but you are hooked up to a machine that draws the blood out, seperates whatever contents they are needing from your blood and then putting your blood back in. That is alot of pressure on your vein. Evidently my veins are to small so when they turned the machine on, the pressure "sucks" the vein and since mine are to small to with-hold they pressure, they collapse. They tried hard to get it to work by moving the needle a bit, but they were worried about infiltrating so they stopped :( Unfortunately I was unable to donate blood that day because they had already issued me a number and their system would not allow me to "donate twice." I was sad because I had prepared for platelets! They had told me last time to drink ALOT of water the night before and the morning of my donation. I did but evidently my veins hate apheresis. Luckily for some babies somewhere, Cory was able to. After donations, we spent the day at the in-laws house and had a great time of visiting. We stopped in Canyon on our way home to have dinner with Kendra and Brandon. On the way home, we encountered another massive storm so naturally I went into storm chasing mode. Here are some awesome shots of the storm.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037578&l=d607b&id=71902931

Today: Today I worked around the house so nothing exciting to report. I did post pictures of the Chicago gang's trip to Texas. They visited us June 7th-June 14th and we had ALOT of fun with them :) Here are some pics of our awesome time with our pals.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037560&l=88a34&id=71902931


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037571&l=bc37a&id=71902931

Lastly, I want to leave you with an adorable video. I hope it makes you smile =)

Judgement

I have a rather interesting story to tell about Sunday.

I rather enjoyed the sermon at our church on Sunday and it was also slightly ironic, which I will explain shortly. Romans 14:10-12 says "You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down upon your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat. It is written 'As surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before me, every tongue will confess to God' so then, each of us will give an account of himself to God." In other words, every person will be judged. The fact the sermon was based on judgment was ironic because Saturday night I started reading a book by Bill Wiese called "23 minutes in hell." It is a story of a man who claims he was sent to Hell for 23 minutes by God so that he could share the reality that when we are judged, Hell is real so we shouldn’t take our eternity lightly. We should live our lives as Christ followers so that we may find our place in Heaven as God so greatly desires. Unfortunately, this is a difficult task for mankind. In his book Wiese says "you may not believe me. You may think I dreamt this or perhaps I’m making this up, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that you believe what He has to say." Throughout the entire book, he footnotes as he tells his story and references bible verses that reflect Hell. It is quite an interesting book. I just found it very ironic that I would start this book and the next day the sermon reflected what I am currently reading about. I like to call that a "god thing" when "ironic" things like that happen.

Here is the 4 points that our preacher made on the judgment we will all face.

1) You do not want to stand before God having broken a promise made to him. Check this verse out. Ecc 5: 4-5. "It is better not to vow than to make a vow and not fulfill it"

2) You don’t want to stand before God having caused a child to stumble. Check out Matthew 18:1-6.

3) You don’t want to stand before God having sown seeds of discord in the body of Christ. Check out Proverbs 6:16-19.

4) (THIS IS THE BIGGIE TO ME!) You don’t want to stand before God having failed to share Christ with those who need him. see 1 John 1:3 .

This fourth one is another reason I’m blogging about this sermon. This has been on my heart lately as well. A few days ago I was just thinking about this and I told Cory that I had a great desire to serve others, not only in my nursing career but outside of it as well. I would love to volunteer to help homeless or do missions or whatever I can to reach out to others. I feel like God wanted me to read this book and hear this sermon so I could further understand the reality that Heaven and Hell are real and that judgment is inevitable. I hope this blog doesn’t sound depressing with its "you don't"s but we will be judged one day and I know where I wanna go. I am in no way perfect and I know this, but luckily I have Christ who died to make up for my imperfections and yours as well :) I really want to look into the future and take every opportunity I can to share with others Christ's love.

I want to leave you with one of my favorite verses. Titus 3:4-7 “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us thought the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior. So that having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs of having the hope of eternal life.”

God bless everyone =)

Short entry!

Today was a productive day! We took a few hours to fix a part of our fence that had blown over. Everything is secure now, phew! I did a lil deweeding, worked in the flowerbed a bit and reorganized the office (which was an all day project). We ended the day with a nice walk with the dogs.

I also forgot to post these pictures with the anniversary pictures. These were the gifts Cory and I got for each other. The pictures explain themselves in the captions. I hope everyone had a great Saturday =)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037387&l=60c96&id=71902931

Getting caught up!!!

WE ARE BACK!

We arrived back in Plainview on the 8th after a 15 hour roadtrip with our Chicago gang :) (I just want to add that while I am blogging here, my puppy is howling at me to play with her, oh children!) Anyway! I have about 8 albums of photos to upload : I have pics of our Florida trip, our friends visiting, our anniversary! I am goin to work on getting them up over the next few days as much as possible. (whoa whoaaaaa Luna says! and now she is killing her stuffed pig toy and trying to put it in my lap) Lets get to the pictures and updates shall we!? (whoa whoaaa WHOAAAA and now she is chasing her tail- wow she is bored)

So remember that big news we had. well here it is. Here is Cory's new baby. We decided that since I will be going to school 4 days a week which is about 90 miles a day and he will be goin about the same 5 days a week to Texas Tech (ya, we do alot of driving), that we needed something for Cory that will not eat gas quite like his truck. So here is is new baby and he is OH SO VERY proud of it :)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037317&l=fdb69&id=71902931

Here is a few pictures of our actual anniversary. We spent it at home with Chicago gang. We are calling it our 2-D anniversary (paper) because we called it a "flat" day. Flat is one of our "family terms" that my mother has created. It derives from "Flat weasel." I will try to explain lol. When a ferret is bored, they lay really flat on thier tummy. My mom created this "flat weasel" term to mean bored. So since we had already gone to Florida for our anniversary and stayed home, this was our "flat anniversary" ;) which went well with paper! Speaking of paper, Cory and I had decided to not get each other cards since our weekend was very busy and we roadtripped home and didnt have time to get cards. I completely forgot that I had gotten him the best card in the world! So later that day, I gave it to him and then complained (in a playful way) about how I didnt get a card ;) Im sneaky eh! We have also decided that each year on our anniversary we are goin to take a picture of the two of us and frame it and add to the frame each year. For as many years we are married there will be a picture and it will be neat to see how we have changed over the years. Wont it be awesome if someday that frame has 50 pictures??? It was a very fun and relaxing day. I cant believe we have been married one year already!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037324&l=2ea51&id=71902931

Ok, last album for the day! Yesterday, we had a 60,000 ft supercell storm hit us. I am so fascinated by storms and weather. I think clouds are one of Gods many versions of artwork! Here are some pics of my stormchasing experience yesterday.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037328&l=c4d2f&id=71902931

Hope you all enjoy the pics. I will post the pics of the ... (whoa whoa...*nudging my hand off the keyboard* says Luna)... of the Florida trip and our friend visits here within the next few days so I will be caught up!!! Take care everyone and God bless =)

First Troop!

Its official. Cory and I have completed our first mission! Yesterday, Cory and I trooped along side Dad and a few others at the grand reopening of Borders in Brentwood Missouri. It was so much fun. To see how much joy and smiles trooping brings to not only the childrens faces, but also the adults, is so awesome! As soon as we came out of the backroom, there was a massive line of people to get thier pictures taken with us (for free of course!) It was alot of fun ! I couldnt take to many pictures cuz we were pretty busy, providing Borders with extra security ;) But I did manage to pull a few fun pics out of the event! I cant wait to troop more events. It was such a blast! Enjoy the pics =)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2036524&l=fe3bb&id=71902931

Me and my trooperdaddy!