Well, time for another post. I've been trying to save up my pictures for a good post. I've got some really cute ones of Moses, so hopefully you'll enjoy.

Things have just stayed pretty busy these days for both of Gary and me. I had a TMEA convention in San Antonio on the 13 - 16 of Feb, and Gary came up and stayed with me, although he had loads of homework to do, so he just stayed in the room most of the time. It was really good to have him there. It's always so hard to be apart for those longer periods of time (and I'm talking more than one night - yes, if you must gag, go ahead, but Gary and I are still madly in love and we're falling more and more in love every day - after 2 1/2 years). Long convention. Little sis Briana was there, and it was fun to see her and her awesome friends. I had volunteered to be a guide for the choirs from Haltom High School and Texas Tech University choirs. Then Briana's choir from the University of Houston Moore's School of Music performed on Friday night, and I think it really blew everyone away. I was so taken by their performance, that it moved me to tears several times. Briana had a solo, and it mesmorized the audience the entire time. She's gonna be famous one day.

The next week, on Tuesday, he had to leave to go to California with two of the other ministers from the church. They went to a "Small Groups" Conference at Saddleback Church in San Diego and got back on Saturday afternoon.

I had our Solo & Ensemble contest to accompany on Saturday, Feb 23, and was thoroughly exhausted by the end of the day. However, seeing Gary for the first time in four days was just the refresher I needed. It was a sweet reunion. I missed him terribly.

Gary's at his men's bible study now, and I'm updating this blog. He's scheduled to preach on March 9 at our church, and he states that he is scared to death. I'm trying to get him to practice on different people and groups a few times before he actually goes before the church. Both his parents and my parents will be coming in, and we'll have a couple of other friends/family come to listen to him preach that morning.

I have let my head director know that I will not be returning to school next year. He was very supportive, and that helped. It's scary, but also freeing knowing that we have nothing holding us here any more, other than the fact that we "own" our house and will need to figure something out with that if the Lord has us going elsewhere when Gary graduates and finishes his internship in August. Please pray for us in this, as we are about to encounter a very unsure part of our lives. Please pray that the Lord would guide our decisions, and that He would open wide the doors that He wants us to walk through. Please pray that both of us would be willing to be used to His glory.

We have been so blessed by this new addition to our family. He has been such a breath of fresh air, and has been the "baby" to hold us out until God brings us one of our own. Take a look at the pictures.

Here he is, sitting pretty and posing for his picture on our kitchen tile. Sorry it's a little fuzzy. For some reason, the "Pet mode" was having a time of it focusing on him.

This is one of the funniest things he does. This blanket covers his crate while we're gone and at night while everyone's asleep. During play time, he'll pull the blanket down, making it into a "couch," and play with his toys. The other night, he had pulled a few of his toys over by his couch, and it looked like he was entertaining them, or something. SO FUNNY!! Gary and I laughed for a while when we noticed this.

I can't not include a picture of "Big Sis" in this compilation. It's really kind of funny how really fat she looks now, compared to little Mo'. We're trying to put her on a diet, but I think she's just ends up eating the leftovers from Moses' bowl when he's finished...

Lucy is getting more used to having him around, however every once in a while, she'll just outright smack him for no apparent reason, which sends him on his way with his tail between his legs. We all know who's the boss.

Here's one final picture for this post. Just thought it would bring a smile to your face. He's got this rawhide chew that's just about the size of a cigar, and I caught him with it hanging out of his mouth. HILARIOUS.

We're enamoured by this puppy, and thank God every day for him. He has brought joy to our lives, and given us much laughter.

Thanks for reading.

G'night!

Krissy :)

Moses goes up the mountain

Hey everybody,

I thought this was hilarious! Check out our Chillon, Moses, going up the side of a "cliff."

Will post more soon,
Gary

Puppy, Tupperware, and Quilt - What do These Three Things Have in Common?

Oh my goodness, well, I've broken all "rules" of blogging, I guess. Gary saved us a few weeks ago by posting something letting everyone know that we're still alive. But it's almost been 3 months since a post of "note" has made its way up on our site.

So let me tell you what all's been happening...

First things first, we've added a new member to our family. Introducing Moses, our "Chillon" dog. He's 6 weeks and one day old today, and his breed is a mix of a Chihuahua and a Papillon. We're not sure exactly which one he'll grow up to look more like, but right now, he looks like a little chihuahua, without such buggy eyes. Gary and I are so happy to have him, and so far he's been a really easy puppy. We've only had him for 2 and a half days, but the people we got him from did such a good job of raising the litter, that he's practically already potty trained, crate trained, and very well-behaved. He's definitely a snuggler, so that makes it hard when we have to put him in his kennel at night because he whines and cries the whole night (he was used to having his other brothers and sisters with him since he was born). The first night, we only got up twice to take him out, but last night, it was about 4 times. I think he just wanted the attention, and his clock is all off now. He's been trying to sleep all day, but we've been trying to keep him active so he'll sleep through the night (also keeping in mind that because he is a puppy, he does still need plenty of naps during the day). I took him on his first walk tonight. He's still getting used to his collar (he has a nervous itch when it's on) and his leash (doesn't like that one too much).

Anyway, he's been so much fun to have, and I really think he's going to be absolutely perfect for Gary, Lucy and me.

Here are a few pictures.

We really are one big happy family. You'll see Lucy sitting with the boys down below. She's tolerating Moses for now, and we're hoping this won't be a repeat of the relationship she and our former dog, Jake, had. Moses is a lot more timid than Jake ever was, even as a puppy.

Lil' Mo' is Daddy's little buddy. Gary just adores him, and the feeling is mutual. Moses has taken to both of us really well.

So here they are. Gary is doing a really good job of satiating Lucy's jealousy, and she's slowly getting used to the idea of having a little bro Mo'.

Next item on the news reel: I'm selling Tupperware! For those of you who didn't know already, you can go to my website and check it out. Kind of expensive, but this stuff lasts forEVER! That's what I'm most excited about.

Third, I finally finished Gary's quilt that I started on last June. It was intended for our 2nd anniversary on July 23, 2007, but it ended up being his 2 1/2 anniversary gift. It turned out really nice, and I must say I'm pretty proud of it. It took lots of work, but it is absolutely beautiful. Here are some pictures:

The top almost always takes the longest. I made a big mistake right before our anniversary, and we were just getting ready to go on our big road trip, so I had to put it away - and I didn't take it out again until December! That's how much my job really takes over my life!

I found the backing at Hobby Lobby on clearance for $2.00/yard. What a steal! It's the lyrics to the hymn "How Great Thou Art." Gary and I were looking at it after I finished it, and I noticed a misprint in the lyrics, but that's for us to know and no one else to find out! Minor details...It still works.

This was right after I had finished quilting the three layer (top, batting, and backing) together, and still had yet to quilt the border and sew the binding. It is about a Full size quilt. Alltogether, I think it's about 100" x 80" Very good size. Gary really likes it, and I'm just really glad that it's finished! Now, on to better things...maybe not bigger, but perhaps!

Here are some more pictures of our time in San Antonio over Thanksgiving. Molly is an absolute doll. We had such a wonderful time over Thanksgiving and Christmas with our families.

If you think about it, please continue to pray for the Lord's blessing on our future family. Gary and I are still trying to become pregnant, but to no avail...We may at some point in the next couple of months see about going to a fertility specialist, but only if God says it's okay. I'm pretty much against putting any kind of unnecessary chemicals in my body if I can help it. But I don't know which I would prefer: taking some sort of drug to increase fertility (either Gary or myself) or remaining barren. Please pray for God's guidance and more importantly, His peace, encouragement, and comfort during this time of frustration and disappointment. "Only when God sees fit," "God knows the perfect time," "When you stop trying, that's when it will happen," "Are you sure you're ready? Maybe there's a reason..." These are all well-meant comments that we've gotten over the last few months, and althought they're meant to comfort or encourage us, usually it has an opposite effect. I know that God has a bigger plan and it's obviously not for us to have a child right now, but it's very hard to live out this belief when sometimes I feel my clock ticking or I am around other babies.

Hopefully Moses will be able to provide a little satisfaction. He sure is cute enough!

With that, I will say goodnight. I'm going to go continue reading my One-Year Bible (I'm reading about Moses right now!) and wait for Gary to finish his homework so we can go "night-night."

Hopefully it won't be so long before the next update.

Been a While

Wow! We haven't updated our blog in a while. Things are good. It has been a nice couple of weeks. Krissy was off work, and I was on a break from school and work. We spent a couple of days in San Antonio around Christmas, and met up with the Wilhites and the Lights. We spent a couple of days in Fredericksburg after Christmas. It was a really relaxing time. It was just us and the shops in town and some books. The Bed and Breakfast we stayed at was the Corner Cottage. It was like a suite with a tv room and then the bedroom. We had a great time!

New Year's Eve we had some people from our small group come over as well as Richard and Kaylyn Sharp. We had finger foods and the guys pooled money to get about $70 worth of fireworks. It was a nice display. We are still cleaning up the yard... We also played the boardgame Loaded Questions. It was a good time.

A lot is going on in January. Stephen and Paige Wilhite will be gracing us with their presence tomorrow. Stephen has a conference in the Woodlands, and they will be staying with us for a few days. I also start a new class tomorrow, History of Christianity. It will be a good class. I just started teaching Matthew in the adult Sunday School class at church. It was a good first lesson. I had several people encourage me about it. Krissy was very encouraging as well. I am really looking forward to the rest of the class. I am in the middle of teaching 1 Timothy to our small group. We will be doing two small group leader meetings/trainings toward the end of January. The guys soccer team has decided to continue playing, so I will have that to do as well. I will be studying my tail off in January, so if you remember to pray for me, I would appreciate it.

I would post some pictures, but we have not used our camera for quite some time. Anyway, hopefully we won't forget to post on the blog as January continues. We want everyone to know what we have been up to. I guess that's all for now.

Gary

Fall-Colored Flowers

So it, again, has been a while, but I'm not apologizing...just stating the obvious. :) Last Friday Gary brought me flowers. They were so pretty, that I took pictures of them. You'll have to take a look.


Well...what's been happening...a lot. Stresses of work and church life have kind of overtaken us. But we're hanging in there. We're going home to San Antonio this weekend to visit my family. My aunt Katie and Uncle Gary and their girls are coming in from Seattle for Friday and Saturday, and it's been a while since we last saw them, so it will be lots of fun to spend time with all of them. I'm really excited about seeing little Mollie, too. I haven't seen my niece since July, and it's way past time we made our way there to see everyone.

We've been doing lots of stuff with our small group, in serving in different areas in the community. This past Monday, Gary and I went to what's called the "Bridges Apartment Ministry." Gary was in charge of a whole bunch of rowdy kids for a movie night. I spent some time with a few ladies in a cooking night. We made some healthy recipes and just chatted. It was an interesting evening. I think Gary was a little worn out at the end of the evening, but he was such a good sport.

Last week, at school, we recorded our Holiday CD for this upcoming holiday season. Yea - in October we were already singing about Hanukkah and Christmas...crazy, but that's how it goes. I'm really excited about the fact that Thanksgiving is just two weeks away. That means that I just have another week and a half to go until I get some time off. Yay! Well, I guess I'm taking tomorrow off to go to San Antonio, but Thanksgiving just is all warm and fuzzy. It's all good.

So, recently while I've been working out at our new gym, Fitness 19, they have individual TV screens on different cardio equipment. That's been my time to be connected to what's going on in the world. And I've chosen to "connect" to the Food Channel (hehe!!) and HG-TV. It's given me a lot of motivation to become more domestic...however, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is so weak. I'm just not confident in my cooking abilities...and don't have a whole lot of time right now. But one of these days, I'm going to become superwoman and find the time for all that fun stuff.

Hmm...what else can I say...my mind is blank, so I guess I'll call it quits for now. You can just enjoy looking at the flowers, as I did for a good week or so.

Gotta go pack for our trip to SA...yay!!