Fall

I was going to write something else orginally, but then changed my mind. I will say this family has been in my prayers for some time now, as I follow Kelly's Korner blog. My heart goes out to him and his beautiful daughter and whole family. I know what it feels like to lose someone so close to you from a fight with cancer, among other complications. Obviously, I know there are differences, but this family will continue to be in my prayers along with all the rest of my family and friends going through hard times and fighting illnesses right now.




I'm fixing to head down to the Houston area for wedding #4 of "Wedding September!" I've been representing husband and I at two other weddings after our own the first weekend. I love weddings, I love that it means showing the world that a pair of people have chosen to commit themselves to each other for a lifetime under God's leadership and care. Every single wedding I've been to has been so beautiful. Here's just one instance: one of my "lil sis'" in Gamma Phi got married this past weekend and after another sorority sister read one of the readings the pastor commented. They chose to have the 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a "Love is Patient, Kind, and never-ending." He then advised everyone to think on what that means for a couple and to insert "I" where the word "love" goes, therefore it would read I am patient, I am kind, I am not envious, boastful or arrogant or rude. I do not insist on my own way, I am not irritable or resentful. . . Think on that and figure out how close you come in your relationships, and if you do all those things you are following the way Christ wants everyone to love. I loved my friend's pastor's message/ homily!

One last note on the fact that Sep 22 was the official first day of Fall! I love fall for all these reasons:
1) I like Starbucks, but I'm quite seriously addicted to their Pumpkin Spice Latte

2) I love the changing of the leaves

3) I LOVE Halloween, and Thanksgiving, and Christmas (but thats for another post)

4) I love that I can get out my assortment of sweaters and jackets

5) I love that this Thanksgiving will be my first one as a married woman and we are going to spend it with a close friend in NY instead of flying back to TX. However, I must note that I will dearly miss my Aunt Helon's house for this festivity as it means at least 4, sometimes 5 of the 6 siblings of my Mom's are usually in attendance.

6) Oh yea, and I can't forget this one, I love some Texas Aggie Football!

7) As a history buff, I should mention this one as well: My sorority's Founders Celebration Day is in the fall as well.

Have a Happy Fall weekend!!

Great new giveaway at Mrs. Newlyweds!

Go check out this blog. Run/ surf right now. . . I've been a follower of hers for a while now, and she never fails to crack me up with her wit and sarcastic humor. On top of that, she hosts fabulous giveaways, such as this one:

The giveaway ends this Friday, September 25 at midnight!

Monday Randomness

It's already the third week of September! I feel like I have a mountain of tasks to do this next week! This past weekend, I was able to attend the third wedding in three weeks- one of my Gamma Phi " lil sis' " got married! It a was a beautiful and stunning wedding at the Four Seasons in Irving! If she doesn't mind, I'll see if I can post some of the pics. The band at the reception was out of this world good, so I'll see if I can get their names too for anybody reading this from the Dallas area.

Last weekend I was able to attend the wedding of a mutual friend of ours from college. I have decided that going to weddings after yours is downright awesome, because you can just kick back and have fun! Before our wedding, I found myself having a lot of fun, but also seeing different ideas and thoughts on possible inclusions to my own wedding. Now that weekend has passed, I just to hang out with good friends, good wine ( or champagne as was the case this weekend!) and have a great time seeing our friends get married!

This Friday I get to travel to another of our friend's weddings in the Houston area, and I'm so excited! I get to see several of our friends that were at our wedding two weeks ago, and actually get to hang out/ chat with them.

On that note- I have seven thank you notes left to write, except I have a problem, which maybe one of the readers can help me out with. You see, we got four gifts that had no card or name attached, so I don't know who to write the thank you's to!

On another note, I leave for our apartment in Baltimore next Monday! That's only a week away! Today, my goal is to go change my name at the SS office and do something about my bank situation (the bank I've been using since I was 17 doesn't have any locations east of the Mississippi). I'm waiting to change my drivers license once I get to MD. Here's a cool fact- the MD DMV has a form you can print off and take to your eye doctor and they can sign off they have vision tested you in the last year, and you don't have to take the eye test at the station! I know I'm a little crazy with how excited I am of that fact.

I've been staying with my in-laws the past couple weeks (have I mentioned how amazing they are and their hospitality is out of this world!) Anyway, I managed to complete an entire class thats part of my masters program last week! This week's goal is to complete Classroom Management. As it's a three-four day trip to MD, I'll lost those days of working on schoolwork, so I'm trying to get as much done now as possible.

Look for a later post today, as I think thats enough randomness for this morning!

Remembering

Photo Source

It's 9:06 am on Sept. 11. I apologize in advance for the slightly morbid post which is to follow, but I've been noting an interesting trend in recent years. Do you remember where you were this day eight years ago?

I was sitting in my high school physics class (2nd class period of the day) as a junior goofing off with two of my friends as we were getting settled in to class. Our chemistry teacher from the previous year walked in and whispered something to our physics teacher. (All the science classes were in one wing, the english in another, etc.) Mr. B turned on the television without saying a word and we just sat there and watched. I remember most of us watched thinking it was some kind of physics test gone horribly wrong- until my friend M.J. looked at his watch and realized it was real time. That's when everyone hit the fan and needless to say no one was thinking of physics for the rest of that hour. You see I grew up in a town that has an active Air Force base outside city limits, which also happens to have some NATO officers stationed there as well. A good friend of mine in high school (I lost touch with her when we graduated and she moved back to the Netherlands) was the daughter of a Dutch pilot. Not only did they ground all air traffic that day, they shut down incoming traffic to the military bases as well. My friend had to go down to the front office and drive back to base with the other military kids around 11 am.



By the middle of third period, parents were calling the school and saying the images on tv were too graphic for their kids to watch, so our principal asked all teachers to shut their televisions off. I had choir for two class periods and our director let us keep watching through our lunch period. Anybody have thoughts on that? Images from that day too graphic for high schoolers who are most likely watching R-rated movies already? The whole situation made me mad.



I still see images and they make me mad all over again. Then I went to and graduated from a college that produces the second most amount of military officers (behind the service academies) and I have a lot of friends in the military. In fact all of the groomsmen in our wedding last weekend were either already officers, or will be shortly with their graduation. All I can ask is for people to stand behind our troops and support them.



One of our wedding registries gave a donation for every gift bought online to the National Military Family Association. Last week I was reading my hometown newspaper, and there was a huge front page article on this camp for kiddos that is funded by the Nat'l Military Family Assoc. They raise money to send children, to a camp, who have either currently deployed parents or who have parents who have come and gone from deployments.



Here are some interesting links to check out that I have found over the past few years.

Baking Gals

Beyond the 11th

National Military Family Association

I'll post (hopefully) later today some recap pictures from our Labor Day weekend wedding.

Yay for being married and having a birthday!

Sorry for being absent for a little while on the blog! I got married on Saturday, had a birthday yesterday and I won a gift certificate from Kate's giveaway!! I usually don't win anything, so I'm super excited, and to have won it on my birthday? Total awesomeness! Check out one of the bags:

I'll post a little later on the parts of the wedding! Have a great day!