Surgery Update

Cade's surgery went great!!

He is already home and was wanting something to eat as soon as he was out of surgery. He will not even start therapy for two months, so he will have a long 8 weeks in a brace before he can work on regaining his mobility. The doctor was very pleased with the outcome.

Thanks for all of your prayers!

Cade's Surgery

My brother, Cade, is having surgery on his knee today.

He had surgery twice while in high school after messing up his knee playing football. His knee has continued to bother him off/on ever since. That was right up until he really messed it up while we were in CA. (Cade was the best man; apparently, all the groomsmen decided to have a big wrestling match in the hotel room the night before the wedding and Cade's knee just couldn't tolerate it!! He limped through the whole wedding!!)

After we got back home from California, he has seen the doctor a few times, had an MRI, and they have decided to once again go in and try to correct his knee problems. This doctor (a new one) seems to think there is quite a bit more he can do to completely fix the problem. He is going to use an ankle ligament from a cadaver to hold his kneecap in place....kind of interesting to me!! He will have to do therapy for several months, but should regain all his mobility and be better off than before!! The doctor thinks the problem will have to be fixed on this other knee as well and wanted to do both of them today, but Cade wanted to only do one at a time...he said he needed to recover quickly!! He says he might do the other one next summer...we will see about that!! :)

Please keep him and the doctors in your prayers today!!

Wedding Weekend #3

Wedding Weekend #3 was just as enjoyable as the two that preceded it...I love weddings and Leslye (my cousin) and Joey's was no exception!!

I flew to Lubbock on Friday after work and my dad, brother, and brother-in-law gave me a ride to the rehearsal dinner in Snyder. I was definitely ready to get out of that testosterone filled car!! I actually missed the rehearsal but arrived in time to go to the dinner and see all of our family. We had a blast.

Here is a picture of Leslye (the bride), my sister, and me at the rehearsal dinner.

The next morning we had a bridal brunch and all of the family and attendants were invited. The hostess' house was gorgeous....here is a picture of her backyard. The flower girl really wanted to go swimming. For a second, we thought we were going to have to pull her out of the pool, fully clothed!!

Gran and Ali (Leslye's new sister-in-law) were looking beautiful as always!!

The table decorations at the reception were so pretty...so original!!

Charlie (my brother-in-law) had to have the hem on his tux pants fixed. Gran made quick work with the sewing kit and then pressed the hem with my other cousin's straight iron.

Amy was a bridesmaid and I was an 'honorary attendant' (basically that meant I was in charge of the cutting the cake) The wedding colors were pink and green so the bridesmaids wore green dresses with a pink sash and the honorary attendants (there were 5 of us) wore pink.

Daniel got off work on Sat in time to drive up for the wedding (we rode home together on Sunday) and was looking handsome as always!!

Brooke and I were excellent cake cutters...we definitely had a good system going!!

Me and the beautiful bride, Leslye

After the wedding, everyone was a little tired. We have had a lot of family weddings in the last six weeks!! (They have all been on the same side of the family. The groom from the wedding in CA and the bride from this weekend were brother/sister...I know their family was glad this wedding stuff is over!!)

We had another great weekend and I know that Joey and Leslye are going to be very happy. Somehow I ended up without a picture of them together...not sure how that happened!! I was definitely glad to be home yesterday though. It felt really different to be driving to our house instead of our apartment!!

Off again...

Sorry that I have not been able to post pictures of our new house. I promise I will soon!

We are leaving today to head to wedding member three. Should be fun!!

Paper Blinds

For the first 3 nights we spent in our home, we did not have any window coverings, AT ALL. When Dan was at home, I was not too worried about it. I had a "big strong man" to take care of me if somebody was looking through the windows.

Then I spent the night there by myself....

I felt like I was totally exposed! Of course we are the only house finished on our block, but still...

So last night we went and got paper blinds. I was amazed at what a difference they made!

Now I feel much better about him going to work!

We are in!

It was a rain filled day yesterday but we have officially moved in! We are so excited!!

I will post more later but we do not have any internet at the house yet (they are supposed to be at the house today to fix that). As soon as that is all hooked up, I will post pictures and more about the move. (It is hard to post at work)

We spent the night for the first time last night so I guess I can say we are official homeowners!!

Signing Day

Today is the day!

We are closing on our house today at 2:00. I am so excited! As long as everything runs as smoothly as it is supposed to, we will be homeowners by tonight.

We are planning on moving on Sunday (I know it will be Father's Day, but Dan works tomorrow and I am not moving by myself!)

My family should be here tomorrow and Daniel's is helping on Sunday, so should be a fun-filled, exciting weekend!

Class of 1997

We had so much fun!! It was definitely a busy, but very entertaining weekend.

Muleshoe was having their Relay for Life on Friday night, so Dad and I ran out to the track at the high school to see my grandmother and a few other people. Mama had breast cancer surgery about 7-8 years ago. We got out there in time to see the lip sync contest in progress. It was a lot of fun to see Muleshoe people pretending like they were superstars.

Saturday morning started with putt-putt or real golf...depending on your preference. I didn't actually play either, but just sat and talked to several of my friends from high school. We then moved to the old Depot for lunch. The town of Muleshoe was originally started because of the train/depot. There is a historical group that refurbished the Depot as a meeting room and have since moved in several other old farm buildings. It makes a very unique meeting space! We had hamburgers cooked by the boy scouts and then sat and talked for a few more hours.



Saturday night was a dinner, which many more people attended. We were actually at the Country Club for over five hours!! I still talk to several people, but it was really nice to catch up with a few others. There were people there that I had not thought of in several years.


Marthella and I were cheerleaders together in high school and I LOVED her!! It was great to see her and her son (3).




Brandi was one of my BEST friends in high school and I miss her sooo much!!



My sister had come into town for my friend Cari's bridal shower so she and I stayed up until 2 in the morning on Sat/Sun just laying in bed talking. I love my sister!! She also gave me some great pictures she had taken on our trip to CA. I may post more of those later.

This is my favorite picture that she took....I LOVE it!!!


Sunday I flew home to be back at work on Monday. What a great weekend!!!

High School Reunion

I cannot believe that I graduated high school ten years ago! That has definitely gone fast and has been filled with lots of memories and changes.

I am leaving tomorrow to go home for the weekend. I am really excited about seeing all of my high school friends. There are 3 girls that I still talk to fairly often and several more who e-mail occassionally. It will also be fun to reconnect with other friends that I have not seen in a while.

Dan is working and not able to get off (we just got back from CA, remember) so I will be going by myself and he will be here alone. Hopefully he will not get into too much trouble!!

I'm sure I will have a lot to say about it when I get back!! We will probably have some great pictures from when were in our teens....

06/06/03

Today is the day that Daniel and I met...four years ago. I love telling this story.

I was going to PA school with a girl named Heather. She was married to Kyle, who was a firefighter for the City of Denton. One night, I was over at their house after a wedding and actually got to spend some time with Kyle for the first time. The next day, Heather called me to tell me that Kyle thought he worked with a guy that would be perfect for me. She wanted to know if it would be okay for them to give him my phone number, and I said yes. The whole reason they wanted to set us up was because we both were 'close to our families and we liked to go to church.'

Dan called me the next day and we talked for 1.5 hours. I did not know this at the time, but he is NOT a phone talker. His family (esp. his brother) was amazed that he was on the phone for that long. Of course, being the communicator that I am :) I didn't think anything of it. We decided to go out later that week.

When I got to class the next morning, I told Heather that we had talked the night before and that we had planned a date for later that week. She told me that he was a good guy and it would be perfectly okay for him to come pick me up at my house. At this point, I asked her what he looked like and here was her description - tall, very thin, longish bleach blonde hair. That was a very vague description so I didnot have a very clear picture in my mind.

The day of our date rolled around (06/06/03). When I got to class that morning, Heather was over in the corner with our other friends, whispering. When I walked up, they all stopped talking, looked at me, and starting giggling....of course I was a little worried about this but just blew it off.

Daniel came to pick me up that night, and when I opened the door, I was very pleasantly surprised. He swears to this day that I was looking up and had to drop my gaze to meet his eyes. For those of you who do not know my husband, he is 5 ft 8 in, has very short brown/blonde hair, and is very muscular....the exact opposite of the man Heather described.

Apparently, she had gone to see her husband at work that morning before coming to class. One of the firefighters walked by and Heather asked if that was Daniel. Kyle kind of looked at her and was like....nooooo. That is what everyone was laughing at before class. Heather had never even met Dan, she was going by Kyle's recommendations, and had imagined him as the wrong guy. Of course, she did not bother to tell me that!!

We had a very nice first date, but looking back now, there are several things that we laugh at. Dan armor-alled the running boards on the jeep and I slipped getting into the car, 5 minutes after we met. We went to a restaurant call Portobellos - Dan HATES mushrooms. The waiter at the restaurant made two comments about how much I was talking - I was nervous, so I talked, he was nervous, so he didn't. :) When we got back to my apartment, I invited him up to watch the end of the Spurs/Mavs game that was on. When we walked in the door, my roommate and her now husband, were sitting in the floor eating pizza and watching the game, but all the lights were off and there were a ton of candles lit. Daniel and I both kind of stopped in our shoes. Julie was quick to turn all the lights on to offer us ice cream. He did end up staying for a few hours, though.

On our second date, I had a black eye from playing intramural basketball and had to wear my glasses because I was about have LASIK. Real cute, huh?

On our third date, I had had LASIK, but was having to put drops in my eyes every 2-3 hours and didn't need to be outside in the sun for very long. We decided to go see Finding Nemo and then hang out at my apartment. My eyes were extremely bloodshot and bruised. I didn't now until a few months ago, when Daniel kissed me (for the first time that night) my lips tasted like the medicine from my eye drops...nice, huh?

Daniel then left for two weeks to go to Colorado for his brother's wedding. I know that I left him with a great impression :)

While he was gone, Heather (from class) started a bet within the people in my class - for a dollar, you could write down how many times Dan called me while he was gone. I had to go in each morning and report. Our romance was on everybody's mind!! I didn't tell him about the deal until the day before he came home. The only reason was because Heather was going to win if he didn't call again. Daniel did laugh though... (He called 5 times if you count the extra time he called, because I asked him)

We were definitely meant to be together....He is the love of my life!!

Wedding Weekend #2 - Part 2

Now for the rest of our trip...

The day of the wedding, we drove up to Lake Shasta and Shasta Dam. Shasta Dam is the second largest dam (in mass) in the United States and supplies electricity to all of Washington and Oregon and most of Northern California. It was so large!

Zach (my cousin) and Alison (Ali) were married on Saturday afternoon at Ali's parents' ranch. The set up was so beautiful! The wedding was held out under a tree that Ali had always played under and the reception was held around her parent's pool. Even though it was the middle of the day, the breeze made it quite enjoyable.

My grandmother with Zach's dog, Shasta. Shasta loves Gran.

My brother made a great best man.


The newly married couple.

Me, Ali, Zach, and Dan

And now for a few fun pictures of Dan and I that my sister took. I think she did an excellent job.

Sorry the first one is a little shadowed.

I love this picture! I think it is very fun.


We had another delayed trip home due to more Dallas storms, but we made it home safe and sound. Overall, we had an excellent trip! Can't wait to do it again - maybe then we can really see the Redwoods. :)

Wedding Weekend #2 - Part 1

What a trip!!

We had such a great time and there is so many pictures and stories that I am going to have to break this up into two parts (Blogger will not let me post anymore pictures).

We left a little late on Wednesday due to the "lovely weather" the DFW area had experienced earlier in the day. We were supposed to land at 8:30 local time but we did not get to the hotel until a little after ten. We had gotten our room through Hotwire and had already paid for a regular room, but we decided to ask if we could possibly get an upgrade. Since we were only going to be in Reno for one night, they upgraded us to a jacuzzi suite (for free)... it was huge!! I think the room was larger them my whole apartment!

Apparently no one in my family actually looked at a map to see where the Redwood forest was located. I guess we just assumed that if we were in Northern California, there would be Redwoods. The Redwood forest was really four more hours away (toward the coast), but the drive from Reno to Redding, CA was absolutely beautiful! The large white mountain in the picture is snow covered Mt Lassen, an active volcano.

After we had been on the road for about an hour, we stopped at a McDonald's for a quick bathroom break. We had rented three mini-vans to transport us all to CA, and my brother was driving one of the vans. He had the keys in his hand and locked the door. Well apparently the rental car place had given us the wrong set of keys. The wrong keys started the car, but they would not unlock the door. We sat in the parking lot for over an hour waiting for the locksmith to arrive and unlock the door. The keys continued to start the car, we just could not lock the door :)

Friday morning we went to Shasta Caverns. The tour started with a boat ride across the lake and then a ride up the mountain to the caverns. The lake was gorgeous and we had a lot of fun on the boat.

My sister and her husband

Me and Dan

My sister decided to pretend she was on Titanic. The boat captain was quick to remind her that the Titanic sank.

My parents

Inside the caverns

Dan at the lake overlook outside the caverns... isn't he handsome!

There is a large Sundial Bridge over the Sacramento River in Redding. We had lunch at the cafe nearby before walking across.they had metal signs in the ground that would intersect with the shadow the bridge made to tell you the time. Our watches were all within five minutes of the time shown on the ground.

We had to take a group picture for my parents of "their kids" at the rehearsal dinner. (My sister, Amy, her husband , Charlie, my brother, Cade, and us) The dinner was held at a country club that overlooked the Sacramento River. We had an excellent view of the gorgeous sunset as well.

I took 98 pictures, so I really am weeding them out a little for you. I will post more soon. The wedding was beautiful too!