A Thanksgiving Letter

Dear Jesus, thank you for family and friends, and a day to really say thanks--may we be more like that every day.  I am so grateful.   Dear Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, I love waking up and watching you--one of my favorite traditions.  Dear Dad, thanks for running to the store after my chocolate cake fiasco in the kitchen.  I still have a lot to learn about bringing a dish to a family dinner.  Dear Mom, I know you love having all your chickens under one roof.  Happy Thanksgiving!  Dear AMP, I'm so thankful you got to spend the day with us.  Having you there was such a treat.  You were such a trooper to meet even more family friends.  Dear Aunt, Uncle and Cousins, it's so nice to have you back in Big D.  Celebrating Thanksgiving together for the first time in your new home was wonderful.  Dear Papa, sorry Adam and I beat you in Rummy Tiles.  Beating you only happens once in a Blue Moon!  Dear Thanksgiving Break, you've been much appreciated.   Five days without work will be enjoyed to its fullest.

A Golden Birthday

My birthday was quite a happy day!  I got to continue the celebration with more people that I love, and it was a lot of fun.  I walked out Wednesday morning, and Claire had left a box outside my door.  I went over to her room and opened it with her there.  I got these super-cute pajama pants from JCrew, and they are so comfy!

At lunch, I got to eat with Claire, my cousin Anna, and Katie was in town from Nashville.  It was such a treat to share this day with them.  We ate at Smash Burger, which is my new favorite place.  I would highly recommend it!

{Claire, Me, Katie & Anna}

All day, I got text messages, Facebook wall posts and phone calls wishing me a Happy Birthday.  That really meant the most--I love hearing Happy Birthday!  :-)  

I was just so thrilled to spend the day with some of my favorites and to hear from everyone else.  I totally forgot about presents.  I was really blown away.  My friends and family gave the most thoughtful gifts, and  I have lots of thank you notes to write!  (Totally not complaining one bit about that!)  I got lots of gifts for running--I guess that means I'll keep doing it.  I mean, looking cute for winter running is half the battle, right?!  

My whole family took me to dinner that night, and I started out at my parents' house to open even more presents with just the four of us.  Troy is home for Thanksgiving, and it was so fun having him celebrate with me.  

{Troy was super pumped to give me the penguin pillow and red blanket!}

{Dad & Troy at Dinner--don't they look alike?!}

My aunt & uncle just moved back here (yay!), and my cousins were in town this week for Thanksgiving.  We don't typically celebrate my birthday on the actual day all together, so this was quite a treat!  Papa and Jonita came to dinner, too, and it was so much fun.

I loved having my family together to celebrate, and we got to see everyone again the next day for Thanksgiving.  My fam is so great about separating the birthdays and holidays!  My mom's birthday is right around Christmas, and we always do something separate for her birthday, too.

Adam had to work on Wednesday, and he'd prepared me that he'd probably have to work Thanksgiving Day as well, but he wouldn't know until late the night before.  It was a great ending to my birthday to find out that he didn't have to work on Thanksgiving and could come hang out with my family.  

From start to finish, November 24 was a great day.  Golden, in fact.  

Here's to year 24!

Birthday Week Begins!

Last night I got to celebrate my 24th birthday with some of my favorite people!  It was so much fun.  I'm convinced I have the most beautiful, kindest, talented, giving and fun friends a girl could ask for!  Lyndsy put the plan in motion and made a really yummy Mexican Casserole, and SMoo hosted it at her new place.  Sarah made the cake, and Claire helped SMoo with the details--it was quite a group effort, and I felt SO loved!

Chef Sarah made my cake, and it was absolutely delicious, not to mention incredible looking!

With the cake maker herself!

Lyndsy, SMoo,

Sarah, Me and Claire

and THE cake

 I should also add that Adam came to pick me up for the party with flowers, and I'm convinced he should have an award for making it through dinner with five girls.  He was such a trooper and chimed in with stories from Boston, complete with sound effects, became the resident photographer, and even did the dishes.  What a guy.

I started opening my gifts and reading the cards to myself, but Adam informed me that his family has a tradition of reading the cards aloud, so I went back and read them for everyone, just for grins.

Hungry?  Just come on over for some cake!  We've got plenty...

Thanks for starting my Birthday Week off with a bang--I truly felt so special!

How Sweet It Is...

Have you ever had a moment where you step back and realize your life is really sweet?
Like, really, really good?
Today was one of those days for me.

Today reminded me how much I have to be thankful for.
Today I got to have a really great lunch with my Dad.
Today I got to run in the cold weather with Adam and talk.
Today I got some time to myself to think.

Tomorrow I have lunch with a dear, sweet friend.
Saturday I will celebrate being alive 24 years with some of my nearest and dearest.
Wednesday I will continue that with my family--I like to drag out the celebration as long as possible...
Thursday my family will all get together under one roof and celebrate being especially Thankful.

And while most of us haven't had actual locusts eat away at us, I'm certain we can all think of times when things weren't going so great, and we were wondering what in the heck was going on.  I love that God restores things.  In His way, and in His time.

I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten— 

   the great locust and the young locust, 

   the other locusts and the locust swarm— 

my great army that I sent among you. 

 You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, 

   and you will praise the name of the LORD your God, 

   who has worked wonders for you; 

never again will my people be shamed. 

 Then you will know that I am in Israel, 

   that I am the LORD your God, 

   and that there is no other; 

never again will my people be shamed.

Joel 2:25-27

Now that's really something to be thankful for.

My Favorite Spot

I'm not sure why, but my favorite spot in Boston is this little curve in the sidewalk, right near Troy's place, and if you lean over the edge, you can see the water.  The colors of the leaves were just beautiful to me, and I've always loved this pic with Anna.  The first time I saw it was when my cousins and I went up to visit Troy over Fall Break my senior year of college.  It's just so very FALL to me.

{2008 with Anna}

{2010 with Troy}

{2010 with AMP}

Boston in the Fall

{In front of  a Fire Station on Boylston Street, right by Troy's school}

Hold on to your hats...this post is full of photos.  Bostonian photos, to be exact!  

Adam and I went to visit Troy in Boston this weekend and had a blast seeing all the sites and hanging out.  We each had a list of things we wanted to see in the city, and I think we accomplished almost all of them.  I kind of already knew this about Adam, but he's a great planner, and between the two of us, we mapped out everything we wanted to see, and he navigated us around the city.  (Because if you know me at all, I'm not the one you want doing that...)

{Hungry & Happy}

Our first stop Thursday night after dropping our bags off at Troy's tiny little a-p-t was Spike's Hotdogs.  They have THE BEST hotdogs.  So much so, that I crave them occasionally.  (And I'm not usually a hot dog kinda girl!)  

Troy was a great host (Boston hasn't stolen that Southern Hospitality from him!), and he showed us all sorts of things.  It was cool to be in his world and see what his everyday life looks like.  This is the practice room where his band practices about three times a week.  They also share this room with at least two other bands, and they coordinate their schedules using a Google Calendar.  (Troy let me ask him all sorts of questions, bless his heart.  I didn't even realize I was doing it until later that first night in Boston.  But he totally let me keep asking, and he was super patient with me!)  

Most of the time, Troy would meet us for brunch (sounds so adult, right?) or dinner.  He went on the Freedom Trail Tour with us Friday afternoon, and helped us charge our "Charlie" cards, the ones you use to ride the subway, and then Adam and I conquered the city.

Even though it was mid-November, the leaves were still on the trees, and it was b-e-a-utiful weather while we were there.  Loved it!  

We took a 90-minute Freedom Trail Tour, which is marked by a red line throughout the city.  It takes you through all the historical sites, and someone dressed in authentic clothing from the 1700s gives you all the interesting details.  

{Here we are on the "T," about to ride the Subway.}

I think this picture is so funny, because you really kind of have to look for Adam.  We went to the original Cheers bar Friday afternoon.  

Did you know that it gets dark at 4:30 on the East Coast??  True story.

There's a lot of fireman memorabilia around the city, so that was really fun to see.  This was a fire box,  where you pull the alarm on the street when there's a fire.  I think they're still in working order, which was pretty cool.

That photo was taken on our way to the Ghost and Gravestones tour.  We saw a lot of the same things we'd seen earlier on the Freedom Trail tour (like graveyards with famous people buried in them), but we rode a trolley around, and they told us ghost stories.  It was hard to know what was fact and what was fiction, but it was a lot of fun.  

We were in one of the graveyards listening to them tell a story, and we were in our own little world, making scared faces.  Two girls saw us and thought we were "precious."  It was kind of hilarious.

This was our guide...kind of creepy.  She totally had a thing for Adam, which was quite entertaining.  

Adam looks super hard-core with these graffiti walls we found on our way out to the Fire Museum on Saturday.

Neil was a volunteer who worked the museum, and we ended up with our own private tour, full of interesting stories and tangents.  

He left us to our own demise upstairs for a minute, so this is what we got ourselves into.  Thanks to the beauty of the self-timer, you can see that Adam is wearing more of a rain coat, and the one I have on is a bit thicker, but neither one compare to the bunkers Adam wears these days.  I've tried them on, and I thought I'd fall over, they were so heavy!

Neil let us climb on one of the old fire trucks.  There was one in there from the 1700s!  Pretty old stuff.

(And moving on to Saturday night...I'm telling you...we really packed it all in!)

We met up with Troy and his girlfriend, Sarah, to visit the aquarium.  They have a huge penguin exhibit, which was really cool.

I thought this was hilarious:  Troy and Sarah both trying to find our restaurant for dinner on their iPhones, and both having a bit of trouble.  

Troy heard the Parentals were treating us to dinner, so he ordered lobster.  (Hence the bib.  Although I'm certain he would've worn it anyways!)

The other bib-less side of the table.

{The four of us after dinner}

Sunday morning Adam and I went to see the USS Constitution, the oldest warship still in commission.  Adam knows how much I love my Baylor Bears, and insisted that I stop by this bear.  He was pretty cute.  (I guess I mean Adam and the bear.  Ha.)

We learned that each cannon weighed as much as an Escalade does.  Crazy!

It was so fun to share this weekend with Adam and with Troy, and seeing what his city life is like.  I really loved being up there with them.  We had lots of good food, lots of laughing, and obviously lots of history to see!  

A Letter

source

Dear AMP, my first stop back in Dallas was to see you.  Thanks for a fun-filled day again.  A ten-mile bike ride around the lake wasn't on my list of things I knew I could do.  It was lots of fun, and as always, you were quite entertaining.  And I loved finishing at sunset.  Dear Claire, Lynds, and Tins: I'm really excited about our girls' night out tonight.  I've missed you guys.  Dear Lady A Christmas Music,  listening to you definitely helped me clean my desk faster.  Dear Roomdog, thanks for being so excited about our new Christmas Stockings, and for jumping up and down as much as I did when you walked in the door.  Dear Brown Boots, I'm glad to have you back.  Here's to another season of keeping me warm in style.  Adam, have I mentioned lately that I'm proud of your mad running skillz?  Way to run Sunday's half marathon so super fast.

Tour of Texas: Complete

I-35 has been my best friend this past month.  Seriously...Waco, Austin, and then San Antonio.  All in two and a half weeks.  (Thankfully I did get to fly to San Antonio!)

At work, I've turned into event-coordinator extraordinnaire.  Ok, maybe that's a stretch, but I have learned a TON about putting together events recently.

In many cities, we have a Signature Chefs Auction, and since San Antonio was short-staffed this year, I got to help out quite a bit, and I really enjoyed it.  The best part was definitely seeing it all come together Sunday night.

This was the ballroom at the Westin's Hotel La Contessa.  We had twelve chefs come in from fabulous area restaurants and put together a sample dish to try.  There were so many wonderful things to eat!  Each chef had a banner with their name and photo hanging above their station.  

There was also a silent auction going on during the first part of the evening when everyone was milling around eating.  I worked with another girl all weekend on putting those 50 baskets together.  It was so much work.  And (in my opinion) way more work than what we made that night on that part of the auction.  But hey, now I know!  

The theme for the evening was "Farm to Market," and it really worked well.  There were baskets of veggies, lanterns on the tables, and this black board to showcase the six auction items on the Big Board.  People would hang a piece of paper with their bid number and dollar amount below the words.  I got to write on the board that was painted with chalkboard paint.  I had to laugh, because it reminded me of playing school, and here I was getting to write on a chalkboard again!  

Perhaps the best part of this weekend was getting to stay at the Hotel La Conterrra.  Oh my goodness.  Amazing!  Ignore my reflection in the mirror...I had this vanity to sit at and fix my hair makeup every morning and sleep in a fluffy bed with lots of pillows.  There was also a Starbucks in the lobby, and I went every morning.  (Now I've got to break that habit...it was easier to justify when work was paying for my meals!)  The last morning, they said, "Welcome back!"  I thought I might be in for a rude awakening this morning, haha.

I left Thursday morning and came back Monday afternoon.  It was a long time to be gone, but I really did enjoy working on this event.  It's nice to know what all goes into planning this event, since we do so many of them around the state.  Dallas had theirs a couple of weeks ago, but it's totally a different feeling when you're on the inside and you know what's going on.  We had a lot of vested interest in this event because it took such a team effort to pull it off.  

Since I worked all weekend, it was really hard for me to remember what day it was.  I know weekends are wonderful, but I really appreciate them now since I didn't get one!  

I spent this afternoon regrouping at home.  I finally got my office organized, and you can see the top of my desk...two bags of recycling later.  It's a miracle.  Now I won't have to sit on the floor to do a project, haha.  I'm going to work on keeping in clean.  Usually it doesn't last too long, but maybe I can make that a goal for my 24th year.  :-) 

Haiti Makes me Think

When I heard about the earthquake in Haiti last January, I couldn't even pronounce the country's name properly.  Embarrassing?  A bit.  Now, almost every day, it is in my face, in some way, shape or form.

Sometimes I have really wild dreams.  A few months ago, I dreamed that I was with a Baylor friend, teaching school where she and her husband are in Port-au-Prince.  One scene was me at the school with the kids, and the next thing I know, Adam is there and we're looking for a place to run.  I looked at him and said, "Adam, we can't run in the slums!"  But we did anyways, and we ran past tent cities and crumbling buildings.  So there I was, running.  In Haiti.  Whoa.  Talk about mind-blowing.

There's another family teaching at this same school, the Hendricks.  They have four boys and just uprooted their life and moved in August.  The mom, Heather, never fails to make me think.  Today she wrote about the "thankful tree" that she just hung up in their house.  She tore off the leaves from last year with things that her family had written on them.  And today, she posted this:

"As I was hanging our Thankful Tree on our wall in Haiti, I had to first remove last year's leaves. It was sweet to read what each of us had written.  We were thankful for things like frogs, cheese, forgiveness, chicken-n-dumplings, friends, mornings we get to sleep in.  As I was ripping off the used leaves, I whispered to the Lord..."I'm sorry.  I had no idea last year that we should be thankful for unlimited access to clean, running water.  24 hour electricity.  For a country filled with healthy churches pastored by men who love God and humbly preach the truth of God's Word.  For a government that builds libraries and roads and provides an education for its people.  That women and children are protected,not perfectly, but it's at least on our government's radar.  I'm sorry for not even thinking about how blessed we are to have three meals a day and a roof over our heads.  God forgive me.  I didn't know."


So during this month where we are especially reminded to be thankful, I'm reminded to be grateful for so many things I take for granted--especially things like water and electricity.  Today, I'm incredibly thankful for Haiti and those serving there.  Thank you for reminding me to get out of my bubble, to face reality and really become more aware of what's happening around me.  

Stop, Drop and Roll

As a surprise to the three boys I babysit, I took them to get their "own, real-life, private tour of the Fire Station with Adam."  They were so excited when we pulled in.  Adam was riding the Rescue, so the Ambulance was gone when we got there.  I explained that this was part of it...you never know when they might get a call.  So we went to Sonic for some ice cream, and then waited just a few more minutes back at the station.

I should've thought about the sugar rush ice cream has...oops.

 They were hanging out the windows, looking out the back of my truck and so ready for their tour!

 Adam came with me once to babysit, so they'd met him before.  But Knox decided that he would introduce himself and his two older brothers to anyone who would listen.  It was precious.  

Jake checks out all the dials on the Engine, and Adam was incredibly patient in answering their thousands of questions.  Graham would usually ask one, and Jake would say, "Oh, I already know what that is!"  They practically ran circles around the Engine and Ambulance the whole time we were there.  

In the back of the engine.  Their mom called me later today to let me know that the big boys have lice.  Awesome.  I was paranoid the rest of the day...yikes.

They thought the exhaust tube was the coolest part.  It slid back and forth from the ceiling, and they loved trying to attach it to the truck.  

Checking out the ambulance.

Adam explains how he helps people while they're in the ambulance.

Playing with the water hose at the station.  

They use it to clean the trucks, so it's not your typical garden hose!

Knox looks like he's about to lift off the ground!

Knox loved this.  So cute.

Adam asked them what to do in case there was a fire, what number they should call, and where they should go.  They knew all the answers...little smarties!

After about 25 minutes, the alarm went off and the loud speaker let them know where to go.  The boys ate that up, too, and Jake came home and told his Dad that we had to leave because there was an "injured person on Forest Lane.  I know where Forest Lane is, Dad!" 

I got them all buckled back up eventually and was totally worn out.  Getting three kids in their car seats  made me sweat, not to mention trying to think while they're talking/yelling.  I have a renewed respect for moms.  Whew.

I knew the trip was a winner when they came home and pretended to put out fires in the backyard.  Babysitter success!   

It was Halloween, so they were getting ready for a party when I left.  Have you noticed they haven't been still in any of these photos?  'Tis a boys' life!

To infinity, and beyond!