iPad catch up!

Hello from Springfield! I've been here since yesterday and am having a good time. Yesterday I met with the Springfield City Clerk about a paperless council packet. Afterwards I may or may not have taken in some retail therapy. :) I stayed with my cousin Amber last night and we met my cousin Charlie and an old friend, Clay for dinner at Parlor 88. They are roommates and Clay and I actually went to the babysitter together.The restaurant had great happy hour specials on drinks and food! We had an absolute blast!!!!!!!!!!!! Just wish my brother and Kody were there in on the fun! We did go ahead and plan a family gathering for Thanksgiving and Christmas time. Can't wait! Afterwards we went back to the guys' apartment and played with Charlie's dog, Frank and Clay's cat, Ray, who has vertigo and the poor thing can barely walk!

We ended the night at Amber's apartment. We watched one of our favorite movies, Clifford (hilarious if you like clean, dumb comedies with Martin Short.) We laughed and laughed. My aunt introduced me to it SEVERAL years ago and I introduced it to Amber when I used to babysit her.

Today has been busy. I got up and went to the doctor. It went fine, it was actually meeting with more of a specialist. I'm not quite sure if I really want to blog about all of this, so no more on that unless we are "blog tight" and you can email me! Ha!

I'm at a retirement conference now. We just had a break and the food was fall themed, cookies, candy apples, and candy corn! Yum! Today is just a half day and tomorrow too. I do have a regular doctor visit tomorrow afternoon. All I can say is please be prayer warriors for Kody and I. Just pray this month does something miraculous for us. I know it's all in God's time but it looks like we may be taking a good long break and save $$ after this month. Oh and joy, it's the most wonderful (and expensive) time of year.

I'm trying to lighten our holiday load and shop early. I've gotten a couple of good deals and am looking for more. What is on your Christmas list this year???!!!

If you made it this far in this boring post pat yourself on the back!

2nd Anniversary!

2 years ago today or 730 days ago today I married my absolute best friend. This has been a huge year of changes for us. First, we learned to deal with infertility, we’ve both lost a lot of weight, Kody got a new job, and we’ve settled in quite well with married life!

A little over 8 years ago we met. I have told the story on here I’m sure, but I will briefly go over it again. It seriously is my favorite story and memory ever. My friend Jessica and I were driving around WP one night and spotted a Nissan Extera with a few boys in it…our first thought was they were college boys. Wrong. They were seniors (we were juniors) and from Jackson. Now when Kody first told me he lived in Jackson I assumed Mississippi. I had never heard of Jackson, Missouri. I never thought of him again knowing that I probably would never see him again…until the next night. This time my friend Courtney (Judd) and I were out cruising with her boyfriend and a guy they thought I might like. WRONG. Seriously, I’m surprised we’re still friends. HA, Kidding, but he was something. We saw Kody and friends again and this time they were with WP guys that I knew. I felt comfortable enough to get in the truck and ride around with them. We talked and I swear I knew that night I would marry him. We talked all about our families, religion, how many kids we thought we would want, pets, etc. We had a lot of family similarities so it was fun to compare things like that. We stopped off at Wal-Mart for one of the girls to pick up a disposal camera (back-in-the-day…) and Kody picked up one of those CHEESY “big” diamond rings that were so fake and like $8. He proposed that night, of course jokingly, but I will never forget that. We exchanged numbers and he called me every night and we would talk once cell phone minutes were free. (Again, back in the day!) We saw each other about a month and a half later and have been together since.

We’ve both taken huge leaps of faith. He moved to Nashville, TN after high school to attend diesel tech school. I finished my senior year and was accepted to Southeast Missouri State (SEMO) and moved away from home to attend school there. Thankfully by the time I moved he was back from tech school and we had a normal relationship…no more long distance after almost 2 full years of that. It was crazy for me to move there (granted, it was a great college) but I knew if we were ever going to be more than a long distant relationship we had to live in the same town. I graduated a semester early but moved home the beginning of my 4th year. Kody knew that I wanted to live back in WP so he made the move too. We were engaged 2 months later and married a year and 2 months later. Our wedding was an experience, an incredible one I might add. A day to remember FOREVER!

This year has been full of laughs, love, friendship, struggles, heartache, successes, celebrations, etc. I can’t imagine anyone different being by my side as we go through it all together. It is an absolute joy to be married to Kody. I laugh all the time, he's an awesome cook too!

At the end of last year’s anniversary post I talked about who knows where we’ll be this time next year. Well, let me just say I would have never thought in a million years we would have gone through this much change (career wise) for Kody. He doesn’t even LOOK like the pictures I’m posting and has a whole new career. I have never been so proud to call him my husband.

The best is yet to come. Can’t wait to see where we’ll be this time next year.

Happy Anniversary KT, I love you!

We talk about how much fun our wedding was ALL THE TIME. People still talk about what a party it was. And it was. Wish we could just throw a big party to celebrate!!!!!!

Warrior Dash Weekend

This past weekend we headed to St. Louis shortly after work for a weekend of Warrior Dash for Kody and Kyle (his brother). We arrived at Kaci and Luke’s house about 7:30 and headed to Talayna’s with them and Kyle & Erica. It was great food, my 2nd time eating at a Talayna’s and their pizza is WONDERFUL! We watched part of the Cardinal’s game while we were there and then headed back to Kaci and Luke’s house.

Saturday morning started early. Kody and Kyle had been signed up for this Warrior Dash, which is a 5k with 11 obstacles, for quite some time. They ran at 9:00, but it was about a 50 minute drive and they needed to be there an hour early so they left before I was out of bed! We headed there around 8 and got to see them right before they took off. You can see the excitement! Kody had never ran a race and was a little nervous, he did SO well though!! The sun was shining SO bright that it’s causing a bad reflection in the some of the pictures.

It was very chilly Saturday morning and the wind was bad. I wasn’t dressed to stay out there all day, but the guys did stay for the day and enjoyed themselves. I had NO clue how large this race would actually be, almost 7,000 people ran in it. That’s crazy!

We were able to watch the last leg of the race. We watched them scale this wall, hurdle over 2 fire pits, and then go through a muddy, cold pit with barbwire above their heads. Here’s a few pictures…

Kyle placed first out of their flight and 13th overall! Kody got 231st overall, which I might add is incredible for have only been training since April and his first race. I married a stud, what can I say?

Here are a few pictures from after the race. I think the adrenaline had for sure set in.

   

And yes, the hats came with the registration! HA!! I now have a warrior hat sitting on my bar, jealous?

Afterwards us girls went back to Kaci’s and then headed to the Galleria for a little bit. My brother came to see me so I spent some time with him while they got pedicures. We went back to Kaci’s and I napped the afternoon away. We went to Stir Crazy (good, fun place) for dinner and then went to bed fairly early! Kody and I left around 8 and got back to town around 11 and ate lunch with our friends and went home. He worked on homework for about 8 hours and I napped, grocery shopped, and watched TV. We’re working on time management so he doesn’t have to blow every Sunday doing homieswork (as we like to call it.) It was a good weekend, but I was happy to be home. The boys never do good when we’re away and we came home and they both have 2 big hot spots. They are itching like crazy and licking too. It’s disgusting. Such is life!

It’s only Wednesday and I’ve posted about our weekend. I think I’m ahead of my usual game.

Catch Up!

I’m always playing catch up! Anyways, Happy Monday. I’m actually glad it’s Monday. Last week was a crazy week and just not a good week for me. At least this is a new beginning. I'm at lunch so this will be brief!

Let’s go all the way back to Friday, October 7th. It was Homecoming in West Plains and the 103rd year for the Zizzers. We are unfortunately a losing team this year so the game wasn’t too exciting. I had planned on going to the parade (because it’s a tradition) and was going to meet Kody on the square if he was available. His bank is up on our square and that’s the route of the parade. My friend Jen asked if I would take her little girl, Paige. Of course! I was excited to have company. Paige had fun collecting candy and seeing her friends Ella and Virginia on the pre-school float. The parade theme was Zizzer Time and the pre-school float is always the cutest. They did a Time magazine and the little girls were the movie stars or Zizzer Stars and the boys and a few girls were paparazzi. My friend Ericka is Virginia’s mom and is in the picture below with the red hair. Fun girl!

After the parade I took Paige back to school and headed back home. I enjoyed sitting out on the deck watching the boys run around. It was a beautiful day!

When Kody got home we got ready, put our RED on, and headed to dinner. We went to the game and sat with the Orrs and Atkins and then went over to the Judds shortly after halftime. We had a fun night!

Saturday (the 8th) Kody went hunting and Mom and I went to lunch and shopped around. We went to Casey & Derek’s wedding reception Saturday night. She is the one we threw the shower for the previous week. It was a fun night!! I left the camera at home, but rest assured the food was great, drinks, and the music, plus all the people made it a FUN night. It was outside and kind of like a party setting. They had a big bonfire and we love stuff like that. Plus her grandma makes the best lemonade ever. YUM! Courtney and I laughed most of the night at Kody and Brian…we’re married to a couple of real keepers! lol!!

Sunday was our 3rd Sunday in our new class and we had 19 people!!! Thank you Lord! We have promises from other couples where potentially that number could be 26 people! It’s the best setting and I almost need that to start my week. We had lunch with friends afterwards and there were 14 adults and 6 kiddos! It’s always crazy at lunch, we love it. I get my baby fix with one or both of the Skeeter twins. :)

Last week was just a nutty, nutty week. Work was crazy preparing for the city council meeting and life was a little stressful. We’re now looking into the next step of trying to get pregnant. It’s never easy and this past week was the worst so far. I will say this though, I was reading blogs Saturday afternoon before naptime and read this post from Kelly’s Korner. I felt that the good Lord knew I would read this blog, but knew even more that I needed to read it right then at that exact time. The last sentence of her post says this, “Keep hope. Your pumpkin patch days are coming. And they will be worth the wait.” I don’t like to go into detail on this blog about all of that, but it touched me and so I can only hope if any of you reading this are going through this hell stricken nightmare you can stop and look forward with those words. Prayers to you all and we appreciate your prayers!

I will catch you up on our weekend tonight. Kody and his brother ran the Warrior Dash near St. Louis. They did fabulous! Have a great week!

It's like Christmas!

My Erin Condren life planner arrived today! First of all, it came in the cutest box! Inside were some special tags and the planner! There's even a picture of us on the back. Too cute! Love it!!

Show Us Your Life—Pets

I’m excited about today’s SUYL at Kelly’s Korner! I talk a lot about our “boys” as I often refer to them as on the blog. Jax was our “first” baby and is quite the Momma’s boy! He is a very happy dog and I just love the little (big) guy so much! How pretty is he? When it was just the 3 of us, we lived in Cape Girardeau. We would take walks to Capaha Park, around the SEMO campus, downtown near the river, just all over! Jax spent several nights in obedience school and did different types of training for dogs. He loved it and that’s why we did it….I mean what else were we going to do?

Jax was just over a year old when Bo came into the picture. I wasn’t very open to having Bo (Ok, I was furious when KT brought him home) but I ended up loving the little (big) guy. He was a VERY cute puppy! We got Jax when he was 4 months old so he was already 40 lbs. Bo was like a little bear cub. Bo is a crazy dog. He keeps us on our toes. Jax is very much a first born and Bo is the wild child. Cracks me up!!

Because we don’t have kids yet, our boys are our kids. We LOVE our dogs and they do bring so much joy to our lives. We laugh every day at whatever funny thing they do. And they’re always doing something funny! They love our house in the country because they roam all over our property. They both love to chase squirrels, the neighbor’s chickens (yes…they have chickens), birds, bark at the cows, etc.

One of the only problems we have is they shed like mad. Ugh, it’s a vicious cycle!!!

What kind of pet do you have?