Kendrick's Wedding

I will always remember Kendrick and the guy who followed a praying mantis around the house all evening trying to get good pictures. Or as Kendro, his Halo screen name. Kendrick was one of David’s roommates in college, and he was fun to hang around with. He got married to Jennifer this summer, in a very pretty ceremony.

I was also excited because this meant that old friends from college would be coming in for the festivities. Wendy (one of my old roommates) and Jeremy (one of David’s old roommates had gotten married and moved to Colorado, and we didn’t get to see them very much, so we were very excited they would be in town.
That’s her with me at the reception on the right. A few other old roommates – Lee and Jeremy – made it as well.
The rehearsal dinner was at a cute house overlooking White Rock Lake, and we all had a good time listening to stories and catching up with one another. The wedding the next day went off without a hitch, and the reception was at the Dallas Museum of Art.
It was wonderful to see them all again, and made me yearn for the college days where everyone always had time to hang out with a friend.

Congratulations Kendrick and Jennifer! We all wish you the best.

Oh...Easter Tree?

The Holiday Decorating Bug hit once again, leaving David to the role of bewildered supporter, as his living room was turned into an egg-painting workshop.

Growing up we had an Easter egg tree, which my mom had hand painted dozens of eggs, and I loved to watch it go up every year. So, I decided to make my own tree, which David probably secretly thought was ridiculous, but told me it looked beautiful anyway. I head nearly exploded while I sat there and blew out their insides, but I had a wonderful time trying to be creative. So here it is in all its glory - my tree!

Lily Update

More Lily Pics! You know you want em. As Lily has gotten bigger, her talents have expanded as well. For one, I think she could run forever. Also I feel I should mention that she has finally mastered the 'shake' trick I was talking about in a previous post. Actually, I got so excited when she finally did it that now whenever she wants anything she will try to 'shake' even if you are walking by and it causes you to stumble/jump over her.

Also, she has become a water dog. Yay! Again, as soon as she figured out what we really wanted, she was all over it. Actually, we were keeping Katie, my dad's dog, for him while he was in Hawaii and she is a lab, and thus loved water. When we praised her for fetching a stick, Lily wasn't having any of that - so she got in too. Whatever works.

Lily Goes to the Doctor

Ah - our first Valentine's Day as a married couple.... What could be more romantic than a visit to the emergency vet?

David was taking Lily out for a run in the park across our street, while I took a shower and was getting ready. I was standing in the living room in my robe with wet hair when the door flew open and in came David carrying Lily - who was missing a sizeable piece of her leg. David apparently picked up our 60 lb dog and carried her all the way back to the apartment. So he had some serious adrenaline pumping, and I was quickly reaching freak out mode. Apparently they were playing out in the field, and Lily went to pick up a Golden Retriver's ball - and he came after her. She dropped the abll and took off, but she was overtaken and bitten. David says the dog came back for round 2 when he was on the ground with her - I sincerely hope he hit it. I called the vet, and of course they were 2 minutes from closing and we would have to go to the emergency vet. So, after I snapped a quick picture (thanks mom for all the legal training) we packed it up and took Lily in. She needed to be anesthetized so they could sew her up, so we headed on over to the Cheddars next door for a romantic meal. As I sat on the bench with wet hair and no makeup, I thought this was definitely not how I had pictured this night going. But things happen – I’m sure one day it is going to be my actual kids who are ruining my plans, by doing things like wrecking my car. So I should probably not complain.

When we picked her up she was not a happy camper and we took her home and tried to make her as comfortable as possible. When you came to the house for the next week, this is what you would hear: a whole lot of clunking as a dog goes into Full Security Mode, and then she would round the corner and you would see – Bell Head. That poor dog could not walk 2 feet without running into some obstacle – she would back up, and then run into it again. It provided some late–night entertainment.

Tis the Season

Christmas morning came, and we opened our gifts at home with Lily before heading over to David's brother John's house. David got me a beautiful diamond necklace (and some other things, which I forgot) But he did nearly give me heart attack when I opened the jewelry box and saw... nothing. I thought he had accidentally lost it, and I wasn't sure what to say - until he stared laughing. Apparently he had taken it out and hung it on the tree. I got him a receiver, which sounds lame, but he was happy. Little did I know that receiver would morph into a whole entertainment sound system! But I enjoy it immensely as well, so it was a great investment. Lily was quite ecstatic with her own gifts, chew toys and a gormuet cookie that mom sent - that lasted all of 15 seconds.

After that, we took off to John and Amber's to be with his family for the rest of the day. Thanks Amber for the great spread! I think the best part was walking by the little stream thing they have going through their neighborhood singing Christmas carols to the unfortunate masses. We got cheered once, and no one threw anything - I had a good time at least.

Deck the Halls

Christmas! I love Christmas – I’m one of those people that really get into it. I used to love coming home from school in December – when we left, it would be regular boring house. When we got home, it would be CHRSITMAS! It was great. The best part were the bowls with the Christmas M&Ms in them. Thus, David was a little confused when I would make us randomly stop at stores to look for those red and green M&Ms – for some reason I never found them, but not for lack of trying. David isn’t really big on Christmas, so he really did a good job of humoring me as I went crazy decorating the house, buying oldies Christmas music (Gotta have my Dean Martin!), looking for M&Ms, and contemplating carving my own shepards when I couldn’t find any to match my re-vamped nativity scene. He quietly endured it all, with the occasional “What did you get a Hobby Lobby for $85?!” thrown in.

Prior to our marriage we had the live vs. fake tree discussion. I told him it was a make or break thing for me – so this year David had his first real Christmas tree. We got in the car and headed up north to a Christmas tree farm to pick it out. After sipping our hot cocoa (cider for David) we jumped on the tractor and they took us out to the field to pick our tree. Naturally, our 5 year-old selves kicked in, and we jumped off the tractor to get to the good trees before all those other families got their first. Luckily, most of them had small children to slow them down. So, dashing through the trees, we eventually picked one out, which David proceeded to cut down and CARRY, because he didn’t want to mess up the branches. How cute. We took it home on my little Corolla (“Tiffany, it’s going to fall off!”) and put it up in our living room. It was so pretty – thanks to mom’s gift of a bunch of cool ornaments, we had the best tree in the building.

Today I'm 24

It’s my birthday, so I get to brag on my husband. As luck would have it, David was out in West Texas measuring oil drums on the day of my birthday, which was a Wednesday this year. He got special permission to fly back Wednesday night, and then fly back the next morning. He said he wasn’t going to miss my first birthday as my husband. Isn’t he sweet? So, naturally, it was the coldest day of winter, and was actually kinda snowing the day he was supposed to fly in. He came anyway, and we drove very slowly to dinner at this great restaurant, whose name escapes me at the moment. After that we went home and decorated the Christmas tree and listened to carols by the fire. We had my real Birthday Day of Fun that Saturday – he took me to the zoo (yay!), dinner, and a movie, which was a real sacrifice for David, since he had so much work and studying to catch up on. Is it weird that I still really like going to the zoo? It was like us and a bunch of 8 year olds, basically. At least I could see over all their heads. But I don’t care – we had fun trying to get this cougar to attack us. But apparently he wanted to guy with the small child behind us instead. Still entertaining.
David got to commune with a gorilla, as you can see above, which is one of the few shots I got before my camera pooped out. I had a great day – he even let me go to a girlie movie. So I was very well taken care of on my b-day – thanks for all the calls, everyone!