I'm alive!

Well. It's been almost 2 years since my last post. Apparently I'm trying to start some kind of record. Since the last post.... We got Lani

my houston bff and her hubs moved we went to Cali

I graduated

and my appendix was removed.

Lets see if I can start this bad boy up again!

New Year's Resolution

I'm trying not to say that I have a New Year's resolution because if I do then I'll probably drop in the middle of February like usual. So, I guess my "goal" for 2011 is to grow in ever aspect of my life...my relationship with Christ, my marriage, my relationship with others, my health..etc.

In order to reach the goals I've started a few different things this year hoping they will all help....that is if I stick with it!

Relationship with Christ - Last fall I started a bible study called Community Bible Study which is similar to BSF. It is an intense dive into the word. During the fall I found out I had hypothyroidism which isn't serious but made me EXHAUSTED! I stopped going to CBS in exchange for more sleep. Once the meds kicked in and my energy level was better, I just got lazy. Well, this spring I'm starting anew and praying I can make it through! Since leaving college I feel like I'm in a spiritual brain freeze. All through high school and college, I was involved in youth groups, praise bands, bible studies, a christian sorority, leading of bible studies, covenant groups, etc...etc...After moving to Houston and less involvement in the church I feel like all of my knowledge and confidence has gone out the window. There are many times during church and bible study that my mind is blank and when I do have something to say it doesn't really have much substance..or doesn't make sense. Not what I'm used to...Part of it could be the lack of adderall but the majority is just my lack of involvement. So I'm diving in (cue steve curtis chapman). My goal is to take full advantage of the opportunities for growth around me! Pray and hold me accountable please!!

Marriage - So as many of you know, Andrew and I have been together for 8 1/2 years. 6 1/2 of it was dating. 2 of it married. So...we are really good at dating. It's taken a while for the whole you're married now not dating thing to sink in. For me that means thinking less of myself and more of him (and Him). We have been BEYOND blessed with an amazing small shepard bible book study group. We have read through Sacred Marriage, Crazy Love, and are now finishing up the Love and Respect video series. Andrew and I also attended a Love and Respect Conference. amazing. Not only are we learning to be a better spouse but we are surrounded by those in the same boat as we are. It seems with the new year I'm actually fully ready to put it in to practice. I'm not saying I was a horrible wife and I wasn't using anything I was learning...but I'm ready to see how I can bless Andrew with my knowledge instead of how I can tell Andrew how he can bless me. So I have a few friends (well pretty much just Danielle) that are really good at doing something everyday for a year and I thought maybe I could do something similar but didn't want to copy the picture a day thing. Then Rachel told me about something she does. She writes love respect notes to Evan in a journal as a practical way to respect him (ephesians 5:33). So...drum roll please...I have decided to right one thing a day in a journal for Andrew. Whether it's something I'm thankful for or something that he did that made me proud or just a random word or affirmation. So far I'm doing pretty well but it's only been 9 days. I really hope I can pull it off. I tend to start things and not finish them (ex. a scarf from over a year ago). I know it's making a difference to Andrew. I've noticed that it's making a different in how i react with him too. I'm purposefully trying to find things throughout the day that I can write down. Instead of my usual selfish thoughts. It's also given me more patience during the not so fun times because I don't want things to get so out of hand that I don't want to write anything! Through the whole love and respect stuff I've had trouble finding practical ways to "respect" him. Hopefully writing things down will help them come more easily.

physical health - ya ya...the typical NYR. Today Andrew and I joined the gym at our church. It's only $30 a month for both of us. Which is pretty darn cheap for houston. Since I pick up Y everyday from school at the church at 3 my goal is to make it to the gym by 1ish and work out until he gets out. I'll let yall know how that one goes.

oh...we also got a kinect for Christmas. and it works.

Relationship with others - so some of yall may or may not know that I've struggle with a confidence/self esteem thing pretty much my whole life. I know you all know that I'm outgoing and a social butterfly but some of yall may not know the thoughts that run through my head after. Crazy stuff like "they think i'm annoying" or "i make no sense" or "the like everyone else more" or "I always do the initiating because...blah blah blah... I know it all sounds pretty immature but it's something I'm working on. Old habits die hard. My plan is to pour out in to others. Andrew and I are a part of a new sunday school class that's about to start up. It looks like I might be in charge of greeting. Great for my social butterflyness...hard for my confidence. I know I will struggle but I'm excited about reaching out to others that might feel the same as I do. I pray the Lord will use it to stretch and grow me....grow me sounds weird. I'm also excited to be involved in something...which goes back to my typical high school/college days. GGGGGooooooooo CORD! (that's the name of the class...)

p.s. Danielle - no this is not me saying I don't want to do the greeting. i really am excited.

Welp there you have it. Please pray for journey towards reaching these goals. That sounds so corny....but really. do it.

i am blessed.

Rachael Lampa anyone?

Well, it's been awhile and much has happened. Libby got married. The Thomas' got married. Then there was Halloween. Then Thanksgiving in Atlanta came around and no Thanksgiving is complete without pneumonia, a cornea transplant, a 21st birthday and kidney stones. Then we went to the valley for Nicholas and Megan's stock the bar shower. We stocked ourselves with pan de polvo, mexican vanilla, grapefruit and honey sticks.

Which brings us here to the weekend of fun. We had a nonstop packed weekend. Luckily it was all spent with many people we love!

Friday night we were at the Thomas' for a tacky sweater/white elephant party! We didn't have tacky sweaters but we did have one antlered headbands. The gift of the night was the shake weight. The Barretts ended up with it. I'm really glad they did. I ended up with a bonsai tree and Andrew ended up with the gift he brought....a kids mini tool set. Ya...I think he just left it at the Thomas' house...

Here are a few amazing pics from the night.



On Saturday, Emily O played in a volleyball tourney in Houston with her club team so we drove on downtown to watch them win 2 games. She's pretty awesome. So is her sister Leanne.



Later that night we met the Barretts, the Derians, and the Thomases for a birthday/going away party celebration at Lupe Tortilla. We are very blessed to have them all as friends! The Derians are moving to Dallas and we are going to miss them VERY much!!!


Sunday morning we crashed our old Sunday School class for their cookie exchange. We came home with way to many cookies. That afternoon we went to the E-2 shower for John and Nikki. It was fun to see our E2 family...there is never a dull moment.

Then we had one last party for the weekend!!! Our bible study Christmas party complete with a fabulous dinner and white elephant gift exchange. Again. We are beyond blessed with a great group of friends. When we first moved to Houston we were lacking in the friend dept. Well not totally...just in Houston. I prayed and prayed for friends and now we have an abundance! It is so cool to have new friends that Andrew and I can call "our" friends instead of either his or mine.

the night started to look good..and this got stolen


Good ole Francis


this got stolen too...along with 3 other gifts..


The Emily was very excited about her beer.

white elephant goodies.

Scrabble Dabble Doodle all the day.

This past weekend I had the great honor of cohosting a wedding shower for Libby! Libby and Gregg are getting married on October 30th and the theme is kites!! guess why?? Gregg's last name is KITE!!! Brilliant.

So, guess what the theme of the shower was? No, not kites! SCRABBLE! I hosted the shower with Ms. Ann and Nanny and they came up with the great scrabble idea. Any shower with Ms. Ann and Nanny goes down as one of the best showers of all time. I can't wait till I have babies so I can have a baby shower hosted by them. The wedding shower they threw for me was bird themed...maybe when I'm preggers they will host an egg shower. get it?

I was in charge of making 100 (well i forgot about the blank ones..so 98) scrabble tiles that were about 3x3 ins. Easy? Not so much.


I printed off all of the tiles using Scramble font. It has the right score on each tile! I then used a small razor blade to cut the tiles out of that foam poster board and then clued each letter onto a tile. Luckily, I never cut myself but I did end up with a blister on my finger for pushing on to the top of the razor blade.

Mrs. Osborne was kind enough to let us use her pool house for the shower! We've had many a shower in this pool house and they all turn out fabulous.

Food!

Amazing Scrabble graham cracker cookies!


The bride with the hostesses and the giant Scrabble board!


The game was a hit! We had 4 groups of 3 and everyone really got into it. I've never played Scrabble and all the excitement made me want to run out and buy my own! Regular size..not giant.

I was the game show host.


Nanny was the score keeper.


Ms. Ann was the tile passer-outer and helper.



And the winners are....


The bride and half of her bridesmaids


it was a lovely shower indeed

The Cat Hunters

**i typed half of this on Friday before we went to a lake so when I say this weekend, I mean labor day weekend**

What a crazy weekend this was!! I don't have enough finger strength to share all of it with you put I will try to sum it up. monogrammed bags. fedex craziness. sketchy car parts. border wars. pit stop in san antonio. flat in falfurrias. el pato. garage sale. packing. first party. botana. caldo. target. more packing. more el pato. and then finally...cat hunting.

On Monday before we left McAllen we stopped by my parent's house to say goodbye. As soon as we get out of the car, Morgan yells "Stop! Don't come up here!"....excuse me? What is going on?

Then I see the pet taxi with 3 tiny kittens huddled together. My parents started feeding a cat outside their house a year or so ago to help keep little critters away from their house. Well, it has grown into a heard. It was just three cats but then two mama cats had a total of 6 kittens. After two of them died my mom decided they needed to find real homes....and what would be the quickest and easiest way to do so? Oh! catch them and take them to the animal shelter. Little did they know that these tiny kittens were fast...and vicious.

When we arrived to the Ho House (that's what we call my parent's house...and now that i think of it, very fitting with all the kitten mama's running around) Morgan and Mason were on the last kitten. This is what I saw:


This poor kitten did not want to surrender!



The kitten.


SUCCESS!


Yes, they are each wearing gloves. I was a little confused but Mason (on the right) got bite by the first kitten he caught. These two were quite a pair. One has special needs and the other has a degenerative eye disease and is about to have a cornea transplant. Not your typical cat hunting team...but like usual...they won't let anything get in their way.


Poor kittens didn't want to go...but they will go to good homes.


Daisy wanted her picture taken too!

The Good Wife.

Although you may think I'm talking about the tv show since the Emmy's were on last night I'm not. I'm talking about myself...and you will soon know why.

Let me first start off by saying that my husband is obsessed with sports. Football, baseball, soccer, basketball, golf, etc. etc. Some people underestimate his dedication and then when they realize how big it is. The stand in awe.

Well..it's football season so what does that mean?! FANTASY FOOTBALL! (the all caps and exclamation point are not to show my own passion for the game..but his).

Last night was the draft and what does every good Fantasy Football participator need during the draft?! A SECRETARY!!! That's right. Me.

I was in charge of writing documenting the players that each person picked for their draft. I did this last year too and if the Fantasy Football people are reading this can you please but the position of the player next to the players name instead of what team they play for? The team doesn't really matter because they're making their own team. It made things extra stressful for me to have to keep asking what position Jay Cutler or Knowshown Moreno plays. Thanks.

Amy was right. I should have studied!

About an hour before the draft Andrew had our "work station" set up.



I will be sitting in front of the two little tables to the right.
Here's a close up of my "work station"


Here is Andrew reviewing "the list"


This is to show how intense a live draft can be!


Excuse the not so great pictures. I didn't have time to take good ones. Andrew wasn't too thrilled. Once I explained that only 3 people read this he was ok with it.

btw...I tried to explain that the highlighter was pink but Andrew said it was just another shade of red. O well.

We hate love Meredith Club!

So yesterday at work "Y" got pretty upset. Like reallllly upset. It was more than he usually gets upset for the type of thing I was getting on to him about.

He refused to go to his room and just kept on getting more and more upset. So I finally said "Y...what happened today? Did something bad happen at school?" He said "yes...let me think about it...Well my best friend Harry doesn't want to be my friend. He doesn't want to play with me anymore." How can you not feel bad!!!

To make him feel better I told him, "Don't worry, it could be worse...it could be your whole class."

Y's eye's lit up. "Your whole class hated you?!"

"No...just the girls..when I was in 4th grade"

"haha o no!"

"yes...they had a We hate Meredith Club"

At this point Y lost it. He thought it was the funniest/saddest thing ever.

He then asked me if they had a flag and a club song.

So after our little therapy session I told Y he still had to go to timeout for his earlier behavior. While he was up in his room I heard all of this loud noise. Almost like he was running around his room knocking things over. Once his time out was over he came down the stairs singing about me carrying this...



(photo courtesy of Danielle Barret. Please excuse the blurriness. I guess Danielle is only good at taking pictures that go into her photo project. that or it was the wine)

This poster has to be the BEST thing I've ever seen. I told Andrew about it and he said that it's going on the wall's in our bedroom. He also said that if he were a girl and got the poster he would have cried. I didn't cry but let me tell you my smile covered my whole face.

I'm really not good at this.

I should be better. I mean I only work 3-4 hours a day.

8 years!

WARNING!!! LONG POST AHEAD!!

8 years ago yesterday Andrew asked me to be his girlfriend in the middle of watching John Q....very romantic. I obviously said yes.

Last night at Olive Garden I asked Andrew what he thought our lives would be like if I would have said no. He said I probably would have majored in music somewhere. It kind of surprised me when he said this because I thought I still would have gone to A&M since Rachel went there. The more I thought about it the more I realized he was right. You see, both of my parents are band directors so music has always been around. There are many days that I regret not putting more effort into because singing's my favorite. But it wouldn't trade it for being married to Andrew.....sappy....i know...

So how did Andrew and I meet? well let me tell you.

It first started when our Moms met. The worked at the same school and went to the same church. The quickly became friends and while they were both pregnant with us they prayed for us. They even prayed for our future spouses. Little did they know...

Here's Andrew and me at his 2nd birthday party.
Here's another picture of the two of us. Can't you tell I like him!



So when I was 2 or 3 my family moved to Monroe, LA where my parents had both of my brothers. We came back to McAllen the summer I turned 5. Once we got back my family decided to go to another church and than Andrew and my mom taught at a different school than Andrew's mom so our families started to lose touch.

Andrew and I did go to the same school for 1st and 2nd grade where I vividly remember calling him "Andrew Pandrew" across the cafeteria as he walked by. brilliant. For third grade Andrew switched schools and then I don't remember much else. We went over to their house 2 or 3 times but that was about it.

Fast forward to age 15.

We have both always known of each other thanks to Mel. Melissa was my best friend for many years. We went to the same church but she went to school with Andrew. Every know and then she would bring Andrew and some other friends to youth events but I usually had a boyfriend and Andrew was obsessed with some other girl.

Then one day my sophmore year of high school we receive a Christmas card from the Halls. O man...it was pretty much "like" at first sight. Andrew had grown up!

At some point around this time... Melissa decides that I need a boyfriend. She starts setting up little movie watchings with two different boys. Jerrod (one of the groomsmen in our wedding) and Andrew. Both fail.



Later that semester I find out that Andrew is dating Lindsey Curry who goes to my school. darn it. Lindsey and I were both in choir and had a concert coming up. While I'm on stage singing or maybe right before it starts I Andrew walk in. Butterflies! but no...he's there to see another girl.

On Andrew's birthday, May 25th, Melissa decides to invite me to the party. Not really sure why since I didn't really know him. Well this party also happens to be at Andrew's crush's house. This is either right before or right after Andrew broke up with Lindsey for the crush. So I'm at this party and decide I'm done swimming...I'm going to eat something. Andrew flirts..I flirt...hotdog buns end up on Andrew's sunglasses...(i have a picture somewhere...) but that's about it.

I think sometime after this AIM conversations are started...

A few weeks later Lindsay Ranson and I go to a Roadrunner's baseball game. After the game we call Mel and invites us over to her cousins house to watch a movie. Guess who was there?! Andrew! We decide to watch Orange County. Unfortunately Andrew and I don't sit next to each other but that doesn't stop us from talking to each other during the movie. Everyone else in the room doesn't think it's so great. Andrew and I decide we are thirsty so we go to the kitchen and Andrew serves me a drink...except he was so taken aback by my presence he gets out a plate instead of a cup! I quickly correct him.

Well after that night we talk on AIM just about everyday. Then sometime in July my family makes a trip to padre and Andrew, Mel, and Nathan meet us down there the last night. The four of us go to dinner and then walk back to the hotel...and it was a pretty long walk. What was my mom thinking! ya sure meredith you can walk back in the dark while your a couple of weeks short of 16. o well. we were safe.

So during this walk back Melissa and Nathan keep running ahead of us and then when we got back to the hotel the locked us out on the balcony and then they left us alone in side while they were on the balcony. Just a tad bit obvious don't you think? Well once they left Mel and I discussed the evening's events.
Me: "Guess what?!"
Mel: "yall are going out?"
Me: "no"
Mel: "yall kissed"
Me: "no!"
Mel: "Well then what??"
Me " WE HELD HANDS!"
Mel: "....that's it?"

a few weeks later it was my 16th birthday! I invited my church friends, Rachel, Melissa, and of course Andrew.

Andrew was the last one to leave and Mel spent the night. I walked Andrew to his car and when we got there I sat in the drivers seat so he couldn't leave. Then Andrew leans over and gives me a little kiss when he says goodbye!! I practically run back to the house I'm so excited. When I open the door my mom and Mel are getting up off of the floor and dying of laughter! They had been spying on us!! and I caught them red handed!

So exactly 10 days later on July 26, 2002 Andrew asks me to be his girlfriend! I thought he would never ask!

So after homecomings, proms, presentations, trips to new orleans, trips to college station, graduation, A&M, football games, crush parties, formals, and engagement, Andrew's graduaiton, we finally got married.