We love you both so much and can't even describe the blessing that you are in our lives! You bring us great joy, love, and support and have shown us Christ in so many ways. Thank you for all that you continually do for us, for your prayers, and for helping us through every step that life brings.
Well, it's been really hot here lately and Rocky has been shedding like crazy! So we knew that it was time to take him in for his summer buzz. The funny thing about shaving him is that although he appears all black, his hair is actually half gray/half black, so when shaved he is pretty much gray. This time he is more gray than ever and that makes me sad that my baby puppy is getting older! He is still in his prime though and loves to jump and play with dad!
AFTER:
And for old sentimental sake....my baby puppy in 2005 :)
Our Easter weekend was definitely not a typical one...but sadly will be typical from now on, as we are both in the medical field. I worked Thurs-Sun night, so it proved to be a long weekend as I worked about 52 hours in 4 days. Needless to say, I slept almost all day on Monday to recover! Colby had Good Friday off of class and so he was even on call with his tissue recovery company and worked a case that day. There is one advantage to being in a big church and that is that there were 6 Easter services to choose from. So I did get up a little early on Saturday evening and we went to church at the 5pm service which was just perfect as I have to be at work at 6:30pm. I loved being able to still sing and rejoice at the amazing miracle of Christ's resurrection. And I even went into work in a better mood! Another fun part was that we got to put out Easter baskets for all the kids so that when they woke up Sun. morning, they would even have one in the hospital! Pretty neat! Sorry for the bad pictures, they were taken on my phone.
The cute baskets!
Chelsea and Mandy
Today marks one year of blogging!!! I must admit I'm not the best with keeping up with everything, but it has been a lot of fun recording various events of our life! Thanks for reading and following all of the craziness! :)
Our Spring Break was certainly an interesting one. This is kinda a long post, but definitely documentation worthy! First of all, I'm a grown up in the work world, so I still had to work 2 shifts and had requested PTO since it was Colby's real Spring Break and mine from school as well. Oh, those college days when it was a real week off! :) We had been planning for several months to go camping. We LOVE to camp! And no offense to all you car campers out there, I love me some smore's and gathering around the campfire with good friends when you're expecting it. But we love to backpack and primitive camp where we can hike in and essentially are far away from any people at all. It is such an amazing feeling being out in God's beautiful creation and having all the 'essentials' you could possibly need on your back. I love spending time with Colby in his element, wearing the same clothes for several days, filtering drinking water out of a stream, seeing the beautiful sky at night, and being able to simply notice everything around you because you aren't distracted by all the junk we fill our schedules with. Rocky also loves to go with us out on the trail and he even has his backpack, as you can see by the permanent picture on the right of him from a previous trip.
So, we were all packed up and ready to go the next morning after I got home from the hospital, when I got the phone call from my mom on the way into work that my grandpa had passed away. This is on my dad's side of the family in Kansas. They weren't sure when the funeral would be, but were thinking Friday. We were originally planning to go to the Ouachita National Forrest in Arkansas for our trip, and so we figured the least we could do was camp a few days in Oklahoma on our way up to Kansas. We found the Chickasaw National area and had read about primitive camp sights as well as a hiking trail, so we figured perfect! Well, when time we got there it was early afternoon and it turns out that it was more of a state park. Still trying to be optimistic, we stopped at the park ranger's station to get information and she suggested that we go to one of the walk-in camping sites that would make us feel a little more in the woods. Negative, not only was it 30 feet from the car, but we also shared it with at least 200 other people in their air conditioned RV's with their screaming kids, barking dogs, and none other than a campsite host that drove a golf cart around checking that everyone was following the rules. So we tried to make the most of it and went on our own little hike and were "roughing" it compared to everyone else, but still not what we had expected.
Our Camp Host...aka and older retired couple that drives around regulating campsites on their downtime, they actually made us move our tent so that it was precisely on the gravel (ouch) and not killing the vegetation. Umm..so much for being 'one' with nature!
Yikes, ok, well maybe the next night would be better. We set off the next morning toward Tulsa and we had to stop into town to do a little shopping since they had decided to do a Wake as well and we hadn't brought more than one nice outfit for the weekend. We had located camp Wa-Sha-She in northern OK that also had similar "ammenities" listed as well as a lake and we thought it would be promising. So by the time we finished shopping and eating it was getting late and we needed to find the place so we could set up camp and still have some time to explore. We type it in on the GPS and are nearly there. We make the last left turn where the map indicates and we are in a Trailer Park. Yep, you read that correctly. It was a trailer park that happened to be named after the real camping area, but the real site was located another hour away and it was already dark and there's no telling whether we could actually get to the natural area since some close after dark. So, now we are left with very few options. About the same time, Colby's phone rings and it was one of his friends from Baylor. Miranda called since Colby had left a message earlier in the day to giver her a shout out that we were going to be close to her home town. He was really surprised to get the call since she is an archaeologist and is often out of country for digs. Well, not only was she in the country, but she was also at home at her parents house in Owasso, OK!! We were only about 30 minutes from there and they graciously let us stay in their "inn" for the night. Whoohoo, showers and a bed! It was great to see Miranda and her family and she even took us to the gun range the following morning and we got to practice our marksmenship...goodness those guns can kick, I've never experienced that before!
Colby and Mo!
The remainder of the weekend was time spent with my grandma, aunts/uncles, and many many cousins (most that Colby hadn't met before) and it was good to be able to spend time together and celebrate my Grandpa's life, as he was an amazing man of God and was always great at making me laugh. Some of my favorite memories with him are swinging on the porch swing, riding his horse Colt, and him taking us out to see the buffalo in the pastures outside of town. We definitely don't make it up there to see everyone very often and so all in all the week ended up being a great time to spend with family and I don't think we will every forget this crazy camping adventure!Right after I turned in my research paper a couple weeks ago, I got to go celebrate with a delicious dinner at Gloria's (my favorite Mexican food restaurant here) with a few of the girls. Stephanie, Claire, and Whitney have become great friends. All of our husbands are in school together as well as play on the soccer team together, so it's been so fun getting to know these girls. Steph and I ironically went to High School together, so I've loved getting to catch up and spend time with her here in Ft. Worth. There's nothing like yummy food, margaritas, and girls night out while our husbands were studying for a test...boo.
Steph and Whit
