Goings on

I haven't posted in a while. Obviously. However, unlike most blogs that start with that sentence, I do not feel the slightest twinge of guilt. But I am bored and I'm home from my first day of class of my last semester, so I'd thought I might as well. This will probably be just one of those quick blogs with a list of a few things we've done recently.

• I am in my last semester at school. Hurray. What more can be said? I'm only taking four classes. Macroeconomics (bleehh but it's a requirement), Intro to Ancient Rome (excited), Medieval cultures (I was excited but I went to class today and found out it is being taught by a philosophy professor and cross listed with a 4000 level philosophy class thus this class really should be called Medieval Philosophy. Anyone who has heard my rants knows that I greatly...dislike philosophy and I thought I was done with it all last semester! Alas, it is a required course.) And last but not least, I am taking Survey to Human Nutrition. This is not a requirement...sort of. I needed one more upper division elective and this is the only one that fit into my schedule and sounded interesting. I am actually very excited about this class. It looks fun, easy, interesting, and educational. So those are my impressions after my first day of class.
  
• Last week I had a whole week of nothing to do. And since I had already spent enough time relaxing at my parents house for 3 weeks, I actually got stuff done last week. I finally finished a set of curtains that I started a year-and-a-half ago. There are three windows in our family room. Two windows had matching curtains. One window had an ugly white accordion cloth window shade stapled in place. Now all three windows have matching Roman shades!!!! I also made curtains for our bedroom and Russell's office while I was in the mood. And now my mood is over and my sewing stuff is packed away again.
  
• I have a new calling. I am now the Young Womens secretary at church. This calling came with a little bit of sadness because it meant I was released from cub scouts; with which I was having a blast. I am a little intimidated at times with my new calling. I feel like I can relate and manage rowdy little boys better than relating to emotional teenage girls. But I think it must be Heavenly Father's answers to my prayers when I've expressed lots and lots of worries lots and lots of times about future teenage daughters. I know it's kind of early to be worried about this, especially since I have no children of my own. Yet, this really really scares me when I think back on my own teenage years, choices that I made, and the relationship I had with my mom. I'm not sure if Heavenly Father is trying to scare me more with this new calling or make me more comfortable... it's too early to tell.
  
• I took Athena to the vet last week. She needed her annual vaccinations and check up stuff to make sure she's not infested with diseases and parasites. She passed with flying colors. I even posted her report card on the fridge for the whole world to see. I was especially proud since we only had to make ONE trip this year instead of the FOUR trips we made last year. I gave her a half pill more of the magic yellow sleepy pills this time, and it seemed to finally do the trick. Of course, it did mean that Athena couldn't walk. Thus, I couldn't let her out to go to the bathroom that morning. And so with that, and because she is deathly scared of the vet, she had a hard time controlling her bowls. She pooped twice on the Vet's examination table, once on our driveway, and just the slightest little bit on the floor of the truck. Lucky, even though I had to carry her from place to place, she was kind enough to not poop on me.
  
• Today is mine and Russell's three year anniversary.
  

And thats all I can think of right now.

tagged

Thanks Emily.
Third folder third picture.


This is our engagement picture that we sent out with our announcements. My sister in-law took our pictures for us. She's a great and amazing photographer!!!! Located in the Austin area, check her out. Here is her photog blog. Her website is kristendukephotography.com.
Any of you that know Taylor and Diane Goggins will recognize them on her website.

Pre-Thanksgiving fun

The Tuesday before thanksgiving Russ was out of school really early and I didn't have class. We were planning to do a few things to get ready for our trip to Washington, but our plans were changed when I was asked to take one of my cub scouts out for the day to give his grandma a break. Cameron is a nice kid and a real talker if you get him started on Pokemon ( a subject which I hardly know anything about). Because of certain learning disabilities he can try one's patiences. But in all, he is a real sweet boy.

I had to think of something fun to do. Cameron would be completely happy just coming over and playing his Nintendo DS ( no clue what DS means) the whole time. But I would not be happy with that! It would be completely lame. With no kids of my own, I really didn't have anything at the house to entertain him with besides board games. And he really isn't the board game type. So instead, I got my neighbor Misty and her kids (who had the whole week off for Thanksgiving BTW!!!) and we went to the dog park. I don't know about the rest of them, but I had fun.

The first picture is Marriah trying to get Athena to jump over the jumping thingy. The next is Athena showing of her agility! haha.



For a while we were the only ones at the park which is sad because I think it would have been more fun for the kids with the 50 other dogs running around like there was the last time I went. But not to fear!! I had thought ahead and brought Crochet! My family used to play this all the time when I was a child and I loved it. Russell set us up a really crazy course.






















Here are a couple other shots from the day. The kids in the Car and Misty and Marriah on the dog tunnel.

I'm Liking It

It's just cute.
The Way I Am by Ingrid Michaelson

Here is the Music Video just so you can listen to the song. Ignore the video... i'm not sure i love it.



Thank You Margot

Russell's time off

Every couple of weeks there comes a day that I absolutely love!! This day is the Saturday after Russell's tests. This day is amazing because Russell has no excuse not to hang out with me. This day is free of time limits. This day is a day when Russell does not have the excuse of "I have to study". This day is one in which normal goings on are not acceptable. And that is why this day, post test Saturday, is my favorite day.

Our post test Saturday activity this time around was a nice pleasant bike ride. We headed down to the missions trail. Besides the Alamo, there are actually 4 other cool missions in San Antonio: Mission Concepcion, Mission San Jose, Mission San Jaun, and Mission Espada. These missions are spaced out a few miles apart near the San Antonio River. The missions trail is paved path which follows along this river. It's not really "beautiful" too look at. Some might argue that it's quite ugly. But the trail does have a few pleasing sections. Plus, it's away from the road. Overall its a nice ride.
The trail starts at Mission Concepcion and ends in 8.3 miles down at Mission Espada. Russell and I were feeling pretty good when we took off on our ride. When we got to Mission Espada, neither one of us was ready to turn around and head back home. So we kept going another 4 miles. We ended up on this nice "country" road. Country in that it was long, straight, surrounded by big fields, horses, kids riding four-wheelers, and very few passing cars. It was nice to feel away from the city.... even if we really weren't.

Once we turned around, we realized why the ride out had been so pleasant and easy. It was actually a very windy day. We eventually made it back after fighting the wind the whole 12 miles, but we were dead. Our legs were fatigued and our patooties a little saddle sore. Luckily, neither one of us experienced sore muscles the next day. Unfortunately, the seats at church were a little harder the usual.

We both slept very well that night.


posing in front of Mission Concepcion after the ride

Weekend in Utah

I'm not the best at making sure I take pictures of things. I missed a lot over the weekend while we were in Utah. But here are some of what I did get!
Tom and Mary's reception was fun. They didn't have a line, which was nice. But it meant I had to be quite the social butterfly to talk to everyone I knew. It's not particularly something I'm good at. But I did it, and I'm glad I did. I have so many cousins and relatives in Utah, one weekend and one evening really isn't enough. But I am grateful I was able to see everyone. The evening started out very formal. Mary's family are not members of our church, so they were not able to attend the temple ceremony. So we Tom and Mary had a big formal ring ceremony with bridal procession and everything!! Sorry, there are no good pictures of my dress below.
























This picture is kinda funny since Tom has an extra head coming out of his chest.


















Russ preparing the car with plastic wrap.









My windshield art work :). Wait a second. How did those get in there!!!


























After the luncheon in the afternoon, Russ and I were waiting around for my parents so we could leave. We found a bench at the Law Building to wait on, but the beautiful leaves all around were much more appealing. So we played in them instead of sitting and waiting. We entertained ourselves for a half hour with the camera and the leaves.

We had a couple pictures like this. With a quick toss on ten and then a quick lean in for the flash. Yes I know, very posed.














This one is cool cuz it looks like we're in the middle of a fireball!





























I often get a little dramatic.







































I went to a Halloween bridal shower Friday night. So I went to DI and got this grrreat! costume. Mostly just the hat was great, but i liked it. Rachel thinks she is still a child and went trick or treating with her friends. These pictures were taken at about 11, I think, after we were both back from our festivities.

Rach looks AWESOME!






































The vampire has bitten the fair cowbride and smiles with delight as the sweet blood trails down her pale face. All because two people fell in love......



















Rach loves everything pumpkin, so I brought here my family's pumpkin cake recipe. We made it for breakfast Saturday morning. It was very satisfying with a glob of freshly whipped whip cream. mmmmm the joys of fall.

Started another blog

I started another blog today. Not for me, but for a friend. She's been saying for forever that she wanted to, so I finally got one going for her today. Check it out! tayloranddiane.blogspot.com