Catch up....

I have lots of holiday pictures to post, but work is crazy so it doesn't look like it will happen this week.  I'm working today and tomorrow and then heading to Gatlinburg tomorrow night.  We have about 20 people going and staying  in a cabin.  I'm super excited! 

I'll be back on Monday so hopefully I can update all of my pictures then!

I'm kinda glad the holidays are almost over so things can get back to normal.

Happy (early) New Year!!!!!

Christmas Week Kick Off!

Last night we had our annual "High School Friends" Christmas Party.  Every year we vary on what we do-which is usually go to someone's house or go out to dinner.  This year we opted for dinner out because it's just easier.

It's so rare that people stay friends after high school, but I love these girls and we have so much fun everytime we get together. 

Me, Rachel, Lacey, Lacy

Nicole and I

Me and Bre

Courtney, Rachel, Lacey

I'm missing the group pic from last night.  My camera decided to quit working for it so I'm waiting on someone to post it on Facebook.

But here are previous years....

Christmas 2008

Christmas 2007 (AWFUL picture of me! ugh!)

Christmas 2006

Christmas 2005

I'm missing pics from years 2003 and 2004.  Those days were pre-digital camera and facebook so they are harder to come by.

Tonight we are having some people over to watch Christmas Vacation.  I haven't sat down and watched this whole movie in forever, so I'm pretty excited about it!

Merry Week of Christmas!

Happy May Saturday!

I'm a day late, but Happy May Saturday!

Last year.

Have you ever come to a place where you feel like the Lord is constantly showing you things about yourself?  I'm definitely there right now.  Unfortunetly, for now it seems like I'm starting to see a lot of areas that I didn't have as "together" as I would have liked to thought I did.  I guess the only way you learn these things is by being thrown/placed in situations that force you to take a good hard look at yourself. 
I'm hoping in the long run, this is a good place to be.  But for now, figuring out things I really need to work on = not the most fun I've ever had.

Last week, Matt Chandler (the pastor of the church I went to my last year in Dallas) had one of these kind of moments.  On Thanksgiving he had a seizure which ended up being the symptom of a brain tumor.  This is definitely one of those situations you hope you never find yourself in any part of (the person actually going through it, the wife/husband of this person, the friend, the family member, the child, etc). 
One day while I was feeding my blogging addiction, I read his wife's blog.  She didn't say anything hugely profound, but to me there just seemed to be such faith in everything she had written.  Then I clicked on a link to his blog.  He had written several things he was thankful for- one being his wife.  He quoted some of Proverbs 31.  This verse stuck out to me the most:
Proverbs 31:25
"She is clothed with strength and dignity;
she can laugh at the days to come."

I don't know if I will ever be at a place where I "laugh at days to come." That almost seems crazy to me right now.  But I want to be at a place where I don't fear what God might be doing.  And if something happens that isn't part of my plan or I where I'm facing adversity, I don't just fall apart.  You can see from some of my past blog posts, that this is definitely a process in the making.  But I am finally at the place where I am grateful for the experiences I have had- both the good and what I would consider the bad.  But I have such a long way to go. 

After I started typing this post, I saw this.

Week 4

This week kicked off mine and Lacy's 4th week of 5:15am workouts!  I'm actually kinda starting to enjoy it.  The initial waking up process is terrible- I'm not a morning person!  But once we get there, I'm good.  We are working out in our church gym.  My favorite part...... the old people that are there every morning with us! haha!  They are so encouraging and unlike Lacy and I, they are morning people.  They are always smiling and have something witty to say.  Sometimes I don't know how to respond, so I just laugh and keep going.

Other Updates:

Thanksgiving:  I somehow failed to take any pictures.  I'm pretty bummed about it because my family from Houston was in town.  But it was great!

Black Friday:  Lindsey was in town and spent the night Thursday night so we could get up at 3am and be at the mall by 4.  My mom met us at my house and the 3 of us went out to battle the crazies!  Honestly, we got some good deals, but I'm not sure I will be gracing the Galleria with my presence at 4 in the morning next year.  But I think I said that last year too.

I haven't felt well this week and turns out it's because I have broncitis.  I have some meds. so hopefully I'll be good after the weekend.  My mom and I are heading to Memphis tomorrow to see Emma in her Wizard of Oz play.  We are pretty excited to see her!  And tomorrow morning I have my first of many Christmas parties of the season.  It's that time of year again!

1216 Family

I had dinner with these girls tonight..........

This picture isn't from tonight, but I love these girls and miss them a lot!  There's me, Maggie, Sis (my cousin), and Lorie. 

This is what I call my 1216 family.  When Sis and I first went to Alabama our dorm room was 1216.  We never really referenced it as Brittany and Kristen's room, but everyone always referred to it by 1216.  Well then our sophomore year Maggie and Sis moved into another house and Lorie and I moved into an apartment.  Sis and Maggie's house number was 1216.  So it just kinda stuck.

We have all known each other for ever, but became really close while we were at Alabama.  Sis and I lived together our freshman year (Just a random story:  the first day we moved into the dorm, our whole entire family came down.... grandparents, parents, siblings-probably close to 15 people- to help us move in.  We definitely had more people there than anyone else moving in that day.  I remember walking across the street to our sorority house after telling them goodbye for the "last" time and Sis quietly told me to keep walking and don't turn around.  Obviously, I'm going to and I look and there they are all lined up and every single one of them are crying.  For us, it was the first day of this big adventure, but it was like they watched us turn into women as we walked across the street.  You would have thought they would never see us again.  When in reality, they were all there the next weekend for the football game.)

Anyways, I have a lot of great memories with these girls.  Every Tuesday night we had "family night" where we would all get together and cook.  Then we would watch our favorite t.v. shows.  When the show The O.C. came out, we all skipped class for 2 days trying to catch up on the first season.  Not something I'm super proud of now, but at the time it was a lot of fun!  Family night grew to be a huge group of people and Maggie's sister and her friends (who are still at Alabama) still have there own version of family night.

These are some of the members of the original 1216 family.

The first picture is from what we call "1216 Comes to Dallas."  Which is basically when Sis, Maggie, and Lorie drove out to Dallas when I lived there (I guess that's pretty self explanatory!).

I have so many great memories with these people.  I would name a few more, but it's 1:15am and I'm pretty tired!  So that will have to wait!

We went to eat and then decided to go and see The Blind Side.  We drove across town to the 10:00pm showing and it was sold out when we got there.  That was a major bust.  I did however, let them talk me into buying a really cute pair of boots that I have no outfit to wear with them.  So now I have to find an outfit to match the shoes!  And after reading over those last two sentences, I realize how extremely shallow that sounds.

Now I'm off to bed.  My roomate is gone and I have officially freaked myself out like 100x!  I don't know why, because she couldn't really do anything if she was here.  Oh well, hopefully I will get some sleep!

**UPDATE:  After I posted this, I read this on another friend's blog.  Such a great reminder.

So I need to brag on myself for a moment.... my friend Lacy and I got up and were at the gym at 5:30am this morning.  I read in a magazine something about how you aren't supposed to tell people you are working out or trying to eat right because then you are less likely to do it.  The odds are already pretty against us so maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it, but I'm really not sure it will happen again so I need to boast while I still can!  (Side note:  By 9:30 I was ready for lunch and a nap......it's not looking good!)

I feel like Lacy has an advantage though because she has a 2 month old baby.  Why is that an advantage?  Because the hardest part is the actual getting out of the bed process and when you are already up at 4:45 feeding your baby, the hardest part of the battle is already won. 

Now, I do realize that I will have the advantage when I get to go home from work and take care of no one but myself while she is having to take care of a husband and 2 kids.  So maybe we are even.

I've wanted to post an update on what the Lord is teaching me right now, but everytime I try I just get overwhelmed and don't even know where to start. 

So to just sum it up very shortly..... I'm learning A LOT about faith and how to trust the Lord.  I heard someone say on Sunday that "the opposite of faith is not doubt, but disobedience." 

I'm also learning how to not worry or be anxious- which I think falls under the trusting the Lord stuff.  I'm definitely a work in progress in this area and I have a long way to go.  Taking every thought captive is a lot of work!  I'm such an analyzer.  I analyze every situation and over think waaaay to much!  Then the over analyzing turns into fear and then it can just go down hill from there.  So it's definitely a daily thing to just surrender it all over to the Lord.

I haven't posted pics of a lot of recent happenings so here are a few....

Several weeks ago we kicked off fall by havnig a camp out.  The bonfire didn't make it in the picture, but the moon walk did!  And yes, we definitely had a moon walk ran by a generator in the middle of the woods!

Stacey, Charli, and I in the moonwalk.

We also hosted a Pumpkin Carving contest at our house.  We had about 40 people over to carve pumpkins and eat soup.  I really just put this picture on here because I never did a post about where I live now.

This is the group of people that were left at the end of the night and all of the pumpkins.

Everyone carving their pumpkins in the driveway.

This is Autumn and I in are Bunk-o-ween costumes.  There were only 3 of us that dressed up.  And we basically just wrapped sheets around ourselves and said we were Greek goddesses or something like that.

This is my Halloween costume.  It took me forever to decide, but I finally decided on a gypsy.  It was actually really easy.  I had a fake nose ring that everyone kept asking me if it was real---I don't think I'm hard core enough for a nose ring.  I know you can't see the whole costume, but it was basically a skirt with boats.

I apologize if there are any misspelled words... I can't find the spell check since I updated my posting stuff.