The Rat Pack

Well an apology is in order for not being on top of getting pictures of the house and updates on here. I guess I underestimated the amount of time and energy getting our house put together would take. But I am proud to say we are completely moved in, no more boxes, no more things lying around, and we even have walls painted and pictures hung!! The downfall, now that we finally got everything decorated, it's time to take down all the Christmas stuff (which is about 1/2 our decorations!) And now that Christmas is over & Reagan is out of town hunting, we have all our Christmas presents lying in our office. So, hopefully by the end of the week everything will be back in it's place and I will find time to put pictures up here.

I hope all of you had an amazing Christmas. Our celebrations started out with a Christmas party we had at our house. It was great because most of our family and some friends were able to come. It was nice to be able to have everyone over to see the house and hang out. We had a true white elephant exchange, and it was AWESOME!! I actually wound up with a really cute bag, and Reagan ended up with a Statue of Liberty pocket knife! Priceless!!

Reagan and I got to spend our first Christmas Eve together! We stayed here in Friendswood and celebrated with his family. We went to church and then to his parents house for dinner. It was a lot of fun, we always enjoy hanging out with his family. It was kind of weird not going to Huntsville like I have done for the past 22 years, but I enjoyed spending the holiday with my other family. We then came home that night and did our gifts to each other (stockings!) Reagan did great as usual. I loved everything in my stocking, especially my tie-dye running socks! I think I did a pretty good job too, Reagan seemed to like his stocking.

Christmas morning we woke up early and headed to Friendswood. We had Christmas first at Reagan's parents house, then headed to grandma and grandad Kelly's, back to the Ratcliff's, and finally to my parents house for dinner. It was a busy and long day, but it was great to hang out with our WHOLE family, but things might have to change once we start having a family. I don't know that we can have a 7 am-11pm Christmas with little ones!

Another great part about the holidays is I have been able to see all my friends. It is rare that we are all together at the same time, but I must say I have truly enjoyed this Christmas having ALL my friends here. Best of all, my amazing friend Kaleigh is getting married in exactly ONE week :) I am so excited for her and her fiancee Josh. They are going to be an amazing married couple, and I can't wait to share their special day with them. I am also excited about all the preliminary celebrations. We will be spending all next weekend with all our friends in the wedding preparing for the special day. I am so excited, and I feel so blessed to have such amazing friends. I wish we didn't have to all go back our seperate ways in a little over a week :(

Sorry no pictures yet, hopefully I will get some up before I go back to work next week. Love you all. God Bless!

Well readers, I am officially making my first blog in mine and Reagan's new home!! We closed on Friday, and have been busy ever since. It is so great, and I must say, still sereal that this place is ours. We LOVE it!

We closed mid-afternoon on Friday, and then went shopping for the rest of the day. We needed a washer, dryer, refrigerator, and new couches for our house. Well, we must be really good at spending money because we found them all in one day! We had a family birthday get together Friday night, so we did not start moving in until yesterday. Reagan's dad and our friend Chris helped get all of our big things moved in yesterday and today while our moms helped me get things organized. I must say, we have A LOT of stuff for just being married 8 months. It scares me to think of what this place will look like after 10 years!

Last night was our first night here, and I slept like a baby. I'm pretty sure Reagan did too. It already feels like home. We still have tons of boxes everywhere and stuff scattered, but we are getting a little done each day. Thank God for this week of Thanksgiving break. We also already had our appliances delivered, and our cable guy came out today (hence the blog update). We now have internet and T.V. (just in time for the Amazing Race tonight!)

Our oversized chair and ottoman is coming tomorrow which I am soooo excited about! The Ratcliff's have one and I fall asleep in it every time I sit down. It could be dangerous having one in my own house, but they are soo comfortable we couldn't pass it up. Unfortunately, our couch will not be here for another 2 weeks, but we can both fit on the chair. We will just have to be snugglers for a while until the couch arrives.

Anyways, Reagan and I are off to watch the Amazing Race. On a side note, if you didn't already know, it is our favorite show; therefore, naturally we are applying to be on it. We have the applications, but you have to send in a video too and we haven't done that yet . Hopefully this will be something we actually follow through with; we have talked about doing it ever since we were dating in high school, but back then we were waiting until we were old enough (21). Looks like we are now, so we have no excuse not to apply. Who knows, maybe you will see us racing around the world on T.V. one day! :)

Until next time, hope everything is going well. Once things get a little more settled I will have to take pictures and post them. That will be a good job for me to do, other than working on the house, this Thanksgiving break!

As of this weekend Reagan and I officially said goodbye to apartment living. While I was slightly saddened that we moved out of our first "home" together, I must say I was not too upset about leaving the rental life behind. After spending all weekend packing, moving, and cleaning, it felt really good to lock that door on our first place together and look forward to moving into our first house!

As for our house, our private inspector came by and did a final inspection for us and said that everything looked good, and that he expected that we would indeed close on Thursday. That was music to our ears, we are praying he was right and we will get the keys to our house in just two days!

Until then, we are living at the Ratcliff's house. It has been really good right now, despite the longer drive for me to work. It is nice to be closer to both of our families though, and it is nice to come home from work and not have to worry about cooking! I am enjoying the relaxing after work because in two days it will be back to the grinde of moving.

Also, today while we are in the neighborhood for the inspection Reagan and I met to young married couples who live in our neighborhood. One couple already lives there and the other is expected to close next Monday. They seemed like really nice people, and they invited us to join their Bible Study they have each week. It is very encouraging to meet neighbors before we even move in, and both couples seem to be very nice and fun to be around. We also met our next door neighbors earlier on in the building process and they seem great too. We are so excited to get closed and make this house and neighborhood our new home!

Though my Monday was CRAZY and I was extremely exhausted from all my traveling, I had a great weekend with friends and family. I headed out for Dallas at about 1p.m. on Friday, and after a 20 minute nap in the Starbucks parking lot right outside of Houston, and a Peppermint Mocha Frappacino, I was awake enough to make the rest of the trip. After about 6 hours on the road (hitting Houston and Dallas traffic...JOY), I made it to my friend Stephanie's house. We went out to eat with some of our other friends from UTD and had a great time catching up and just spending time with each other. The next day I headed to Canton for my cousin's twins' 1st birthday party. It was so much fun, I feel like I haven't seen the girls in a while and they are growing so fast. Hayden is walking, and Hannah is so close too!! They were so much fun to be around. It was great hanging out with my family and just relaxing.

Birthday Girls!

I headed back to Houston Sunday afternoon after Christmas decoration shopping in Canton, and a near scare of running out of gas. The story is this...I was making into Canton just in time for the birthday party on Saturday evening. I told myself that if my gas light came on before I reached my aunt's house I would stop; otherwise, I would fill up on my way out of Canton the next day. Well, I made it to my aunt's house and my light came on the next morning as we headed out. Well, while we were shopping in Canton, the electricity for the entire city went out. When I stopped at the Valero in town their pumps weren't working because they didn't have power. Well, Canton is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, so it would hav been at least 30 miles to the next town, and my poor Ford can't make it that far on empty! Luckily, after two stops, the trusty Walmart gas station still had power! YAY!! I don't know how long we would have been waiting for power to come back on so I could fill up...another lesson for me in procrastination. Cousins

Anyways, after 12 hours of travel this weekend, I am back home, back into the routine, and packing up our apartment to move out this weekend! :)

Well, Reagan and I just heard some GREAT news...we will be closing on our house on November 19th!!! It seems so crazy because just a couple of weeks ago we were complaining because our house had been sitting there for so long with nothing happening. God is good!! Everything is moving so fast now!! The next two weeks will be some crazy busy weeks: Reagan's test week, I get a new student on Monday, pack and move (staying with the in-laws for a few days) by next weekend, and close on the 19th! Good thing Thanksgiving break immediately follows!! But we are so excited to be getting in sooner than we expected, and I can't wait to get things settled and start decorating for Christmas!! What a great way to spend our first Christmas together! Hope everything is going well for you. I promise I will get pictures posted of the house sometime. I keep forgetting my camera when I go by there. I've been bad about keeping up with it, but I promise you will all get to see it (hopefully in person).

Well, I had no trouble finding inspiration for my blog today. After a pretty long day at work, plus a two hour meeting after school, I anticipated being in no mood for anything but dinner and my bed when I got home. Boy, was I wrong. I don't know how many of you were out at sunset tonight, but the sky looked pretty beautiful for a Houston sunset! A great view on my drive home combined with the amazing fall weather put me in great spirits after a long day. It was great to roll the windows down, feel the 60 degree wind, and blare the radio to Addison Road's "What do I know of Holy?" (If you've never heard it, look it up...AMAZING!!) Anyways, felt like I should share the little piece of Heaven God gave me tonight. Hope you are experiencing some God moments tonight wherever you are.

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; those who seek find; and to those who knock, the door will be opened" Matthew 7:7-8

Well, a couple months later and I am just now writing my second entry! Oops! Well, a lot has happened since the last entry. To name a few...Reagan started optometry school at UofH and got all A's on his first round of tests...yes he is a STUD!! He is now studying for his second round of tests that start next week. I started my job as an elementary life skills teacher in Pearland. There is something new that happens in my room every day (which is one reason I want to get better at this blog...you guys would LOVE my stories from my classroom...the most recent one being me stepping on one of my student's poop) **You will have to know my humor to understand that this was extremely halarious to me** Finally, the best thing since the last blog is the building of our house, which will hopefully be finished by the end of the month. Every day we go past our house more and more is done and we are getting so excited to be homeowners! We started packing up our apartment this past weekend because we have to be moved out by Nov. 16th. That leaves us homeless for about two weeks or so, but luckily we have great family and will be moving in with the Ratcliff's until our house is finished. It will be an experience, but we are kind of looking forward to living rent free and not having to cook! :) Plus, we don't get to see our families as often as I think we thought we would, so it will be nice to be so close to them for a while and not have to make the 30 minute drive from Pearland to visit. Well, I am hoping I will get better at this...if I spent half the time on blogger as I do on facebook I would probably have the best blog EVER!! But, we will see. Stay tuned for photos of our new home!! :)

Okay, so most of you probably didn't even know I used to have a blog, which goes to prove how bad I was at it. Well, as life continues to charge full steam ahead and friends head in all sorts of directions, I decided to give blogging another shot. Hopefully, this will help everyone stay current in our every changing lives, and if not at least it will be a place for me to journal our happenings, and maybe find a little bit of my creative side :)