Kyle and Shelly's Wedding Shower

Last weekend we celebrated Kyle and Shelly's upcoming wedding with a fantastic wedding shower. We had a great turn out, good food, lots of presents, and a great time visiting! Mandy, Shelly and Caleb were all even able to make it in town for the festivities, and we were SO glad to have them here!!!!! We wish they would move back to Texas!!!!!

Finally, the new Casa...

I know that many of you have asked me to post pictures of the new place. Quite honestly, I just didn't want to put any up until we were close to being finished with it. So, here we are. Here are pictures of our new house that we LOVE!!!Entry way

Living Room

Dining Room

Kitchen

Master Bath

For those of you who haven't been over to see it yet, please feel free to stop by! We'll have a glass of sweet iced tea ready for you!

Thanks again to Mama and Daddy who helped us out so much with getting this house!

Showers, Showers, Bridal Pictures, and More Showers

Let me just start off by saying that we have been in Texas for about 5 weeks. And, in that 5 weeks I have been to 4 wedding showers! That's a lot! But, I wouldn't have missed them for the world! I am so excited that I get to be here with my sweet sister and Austin and my sweet Shelly and Kyle to help them celebrate this exciting time!

The first shower was a family shower that Moriah and I threw for Channing at Mama and Daddy's house. I don't have any pictures from that one because Moriah took them on her camera. So if you want to see those, click here...http://blakeandmo.blogspot.com/2009/04/shower-for-chan-wan_03.html

The second shower was at the church building where Channing and Austin are members. I don't have any of those either, because I took all the pictures with Channing and Austin's camera. And I haven't seen them :-)

Here are some pictures from her most recent shower that her soon to be sister-in-law, Laurie, hosted for Channing at her house...

This is Jessica, she is Channing's Maid of Honor

Mama and Channing

Channing and me

Patmommie, Chan, Mama, Me, and Mema

Patmommie and me goofing around

(Please excuse the quality of these pictures. I changed the setting on the camera when we were at Christian's power lifting meet, and forgot to change it back. My bad.)

A few weekends ago we went downtown to take Channing's bridal portraits. Obviously, I can not post them on this blog, but they turned out AWESOME! Here are the few that I can post with out getting in a lot of trouble...

This is the only picture where you can't see her dress :-)

Deidre, Glenda, and Dwayne were all there for the day. Glenda took the pictures, Deidre always has the artistic eye, and Dwayne is in charge of hair and sometimes make up. They are quite a great crew to have around!!!

After the bridal portraits were finished, we made a mad dash for some good lunch at La Playa Maya in the Stockyards. Yum!!!

How beautiful is my baby sister?!?!?!

Pictures from Kyle and Shelly's couple's shower from this weekend will follow shortly...

Good food...Good friends...

Two weekends ago we were invited over to Dave's Dad's house for a cook out. Worth is Dave's dad, and he likes us to all come over and eat all his food :-) Instead of cooking out, though, we had Cousin's BBQ, and trust me, it was awesome! (Just like it always is!)

We were celebrating Dave's sister's birthday, so the whole family was there. John, Kyle, Dave, Shelly, and I spent most of the afternoon chilling with Dave's sweet family. We had such a great time and felt so honored that they wanted to include us in the festivities!

All the "men" sitting at the dining room table talking about important issues, I am sure! :-)

All the "women" chillin outside and watching Kyle and Dave throw washers.

Dave and Kyle broke out the washers....

I swear this could keep all of us occupied for at least a whole weekend!

This is actually a pretty good one of all the boys. They are always so reluctant to take pictures.

Sweet Shelly

I love this picture of John and me. We rarely get a good one of both of us at the same time! :-)

Crazy Strong Kids...

We were so excited to go watch Christian in his power lifting meet a few weeks ago. Christian is Craig's son, and John has watched him grow up. The power lifting meet was one of the craziest things that I have ever seen. These high school kids are SO strong! I hadn't ever been to one before, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was so surprised! There were kids that were bench pressing over 250 lbs! One kid squatted 400lbs!!!! It was insane. Keep in mind, these are highschoolers!

We were so proud of Christian! He was doing the "power cling" event. He lifted his personal best, 205lbs! Which was 20 pounds heavier than his previous personal best that he did two weeks ago! He was so awesome! Here are a few pictures...

Christian is the one in the white shirt. I think he looks just like his dad. John says he is bigger than Craig...

He is so strong!!!

This was the guy that was squatting 400lbs! I love how everyone is rallying around him!!!

Fun times!

We have been super busy since we have been back in Texas. One of the great things about living back at home is that we get to have fun outings with fun friends who we have missed so much!

One of the first weekends we were here, we went to Canton with Deidre, Craig, and Hope. First Monday Trade Days at Canton is awesome! For those of you who haven't ever been, I highly recommend it! I don't really even know how to describe it. It's like a huge market/garage sale/trade show...I don't know. It's HUGE, and you can find really really great stuff there!

Deidre (with Tahoe), Craig, and Hope


John and me at Canton

One of the other things that we have really been looking forward to is the great live music. Back in April, we went with Kyle and Shelly and some friend out to Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie. It is a horse racing track, and on Friday nights in the summer time, after the horses run, they have a Lone Star concert series. This night, we saw the Randy Rogers band. We had a great time and it was so good to be with good friends listening to great music!


Kyle and Shelly at Papasitos before the concert



Shelly and me at the concert


The HUGE crowd


John and me

Our last few days in SC

Please bear with me, I am playing catch up with my blog...

Our last few days in South Carolina were filled with boxes, moving trucks, cleaning, and most importantly, spending time with our friends who have become our family that we love!

Here are a few pictures from my last Family Readiness Meeting. I miss my girls like crazy! I haven't had an opportunity to get into the Family Readiness circuit here, but am really looking forward to getting involved. I know that it is going to be impossible to replace my MALS 31 girls, but look forward to meeting new people and making new memories!

We also had one last golf outing before we left. Even though there was a ton of stuff to do, we talked John into letting us take a morning off for one last Sunday golf game. And by we, I mean Jill and me. And by "Talked into" I mean, we begged and bugged him until he gave in. Jill and I can be such children if we don't get our way! :-) But, we paid for it. The boys made us sit in the back seat of the car while they sat in the front seats and John drove all the way back to Johnny and Jill's house, from Dave's house with the windows down and the AC on when it was freezing cold outside. Speaking of being children...

Totally worth it, though. This was one of our most fun golf days yet!

Yes, we have matching towels. We are complete nerds!

One of the things I will miss... Gators on the golf course.

My husband and his awesome game...

I love my Jill, even though we don't have such an awesome game :-)

My even more not so awesome game...

Sweet Dani. She took my place at the course, and she is a rockstar!!!!

Hanging out on the course. I am sure the boys were waiting on us to take this picture! They are so patient!

It was a hard day for all of us knowing that this would be our last round for a while.

Sweet Jill and me

Precious Johnny and me

I miss Edison!

John, Dave, and me

One last shot of the gang...