It's about TIME!!

This blog is just to catch up on a few things that have happened in the past few months. It's quite long, so if you're up for the challenge, here it goes...I really wanted to blog at least once a week after we got back from Yellowstone, but school papers took priority. I’m pretty sure our blogs would have been too formally written because we’d be in “school paper writing mode” anyway.

I am graduating in May and I got all A’s this past semester. Mike was finally able to go to his advisor and they told him he has 5 more upper level classes he has to take. This means he’s going to take 4 in the coming semester and one in the summer. You may be wondering why he doesn't just take 5 classes this semester….history majors read A LOT. A LOT. So there is no way he would be able to keep up. He’ll still walk in May.

Mike got a job working as a supervisor at the Rock Wall at TWU. He LOVES his job. I’ve never seen him so excited to go to work every day. He loves the people he works with and what he does. If that job paid more and had benefits, I think he’d want to work there forever. 

This is Craig on the rockwall

At my job, I got to put together a play with the kids. They wrote most of the plays, we just fine tuned them so they were intelligible. That is one of my favorite things about this job. Silly as it sounds (because I want to go into counseling) I love any sort of live performance. Perhaps it’s because of my childhood and dancing for so many years, but I digress. The kids were awesome and the iPhones of the parents were filming. I love to see the pride of the parents and the children after their performance. Those big goofy smiles warm my heart. I’m really going to miss this job. I have to work as a substitute this semester because of one stinking class I HAVE to take to graduate. As much as I love those kids, I would LOVE to graduate more. I’ll be going from school to school to fill in where needed. This means I will not build relationships with the kids. Hopefully I’ll get to visit Newton Rayzor at some point.

The Turkey Trot went great. I ran for most of the 5K and Mike (because of his knee) walked it. It felt good to run. The only bad part was the amount of people. I’m glad so many people ran because of the donations to YMCA but to actually run was difficult. I’m pretty sure I ran at least 4 miles dodging people. We ran around down town Dallas. The roads in down town are very sloped. Unfortunately for the runners the walkers walked in the middle of the road where it’s relativity level so we were forced to run along the sloped part of the road. All in all it was fun but I think our next run will be one that is less crowded.

After running with my brothers

Nancy, Nathan, Mike and I went camping one weekend in the middle of November. Nancy and Nathan went up Friday night but Mike didn’t get off of work until 9:00 so we went up the next afternoon. Apparently, camping Friday night was a total nightmare. Nancy bought this new tent that is at least quadruple the size of ours. They had never put the tent up before and arrived after the sun had gone down. Let’s just say new tent + dark = unhappy campers. When it was time for them to go to bed, someone forgot the sleeping bags and it was pretty cold, so they were freezing all night. They seemed ok when we arrived Sat afternoon, but honestly I’m surprised they stayed. I would have packed my bags and gone home. That’s one thing people can say about Nancy and Nathan, they stick it out even when it’s tough…or in this case, dark and cold. We left Sat and went into town. We ate at this amazing BBQ restaurant. As I’ve gotten older, I don’t like red meat as much, but a good BBQ restaurant sways me from giving it up all together. We then went exploring and found a (supposedly) haunted old hotel. The place was empty but the architecture was amazing. I wish we still had architecture like that on the new buildings. I know it costs more but it’s so amazing. We went back to camp and started up the meal. That night Nancy went to bed (with the sleeping bag we brought them) and the rest of us stayed up. The guys talked and I listened for the most part. I realized how much I missed when all my brothers went to camp. Talking about farting and poop for HOURS. HOURSSSS. For the most part, I looked at the stars. The next day we went to place we came for, Mineral Wells. The rocks were amazing and super fun to climb in, on and around. Mike was scouting it out for his job. They have amazing climbs for beginners all the way to expert. I’ve never climbed on real rocks before and hope to tag along when the rock wall staff go on the trip.  

Christmas was super fun. Mike and I went to my dad’s house in Texarkana a few days before and hung out with him and Valerie. For the most part we just relaxed which was nice. On Christmas Eve we went to my dad’s parents. We had our annual Christmas eve presentation. It’s where we sing and do goofy games. We also watched the nativity which brought the spirit. It is always fun. Mike says he loves it but it was a lot to take in the first year he went. Mike and I are in charge of it next Christmas eve. 

My silly family

We drove back to Denton that night. The next morning we had Christmas here. I got an onezie which I will wear while camping because I’m always cold at night. You’re welcome for the picture.

 Some of my favorite gifts this year were gift cards and money. Why? You may ask. Patti, Nancy and I went to San Marcos this past weekend. We went shopping ALL day Saturday…I mean ALL day, 8:30am-9:00pm. It was relaxing and crazy at the same time. We literally mapped out the stores we wanted to visit and got there right as they were opening. The deal of the day was my boots. Originally they were $200. The tag said they were marked down to $130. I loved them and they were leather so I was going to do it anyway. When I got to the cashier, Nancy had a coupon and it turns out the boots were reduced down to $50!!! You heard it from $200 to $50! I was so excited. I got adult clothes, something I think I’ve been needing seeing as how I’m about to graduate. No more dressing like a college student for me.  We had so much fun together. I’m really glad we did it. If Mike and I are here next Christmas, I hope we can do it again.

For New Year’s we spent it with friends. They made an amazing turkey and everyone brought some side dishes. We played a game that may be my new favorite game called sentences. Basically everyone writes a sentence down and passes the paper to the person next to them. That person draws a picture of the sentence and then fold the paper so the next person can’t see the words of the sentence. They pass the paper to the person next to them and they have to write a sentence based on the picture. It gets pretty funny. When the clock hit midnight we kissed and said goodbye. We’re not late nighters. All in all it was a good time. 

If you made it to the end congrats!

Thanks for reading,

Jess