The Holidays

I absolutely LOVE the holidays. I love getting to see my family, I love all of the festivities that come along with it, the parties, the delicious food and desserts, and most of all I love getting to celebrate the birth of our King! For the longest time, I also loved that it meant no school for a good while. And since I have a job in which I still live in semesters, it still kinda feels that way :). For the past 5 years it has been completely normal to go to my parents house in Houston for an extended period of time (usually almost a month) over Christmas break. This year, I didn't realize that being married would make hanging out at my parents house for that long might be a little much. Not that we don't love my parents, but just not being in our own space, our own home, and living out of a suitcase can wear on you over a period of time. So needless to say, when we found out our schedule for coming to Houston (Brett's parents didn't come back to the states), we were a little fearful of what our 11 day stay at my parents might look like. I am blessed beyond belief to say that it has been absolutely wonderful! Brett and I have had so much fun while we have been here AND we completely unpacked our suitcases so that we wouldn't feel cluttered :). I am really sad to be leaving tomorrow because I have had SO much fun with my family. I love that the Lord blessed  our time in Houston. It shows that he cares about the little things in my life.

December has been a little crazy and also ends up being a travel period for us. Our travels look like this:
Dec. 17th-29th in Houston for my family Christmas
Dec. 29th - Jan. 5th in Fort Worth for The Winter Conference for work
Jan. 5th - Jan. 9th - back in Houston for Brett's cousins wedding
Jan 9th we make the trek back to Lubbock.
In total, we will have been away from our home for 3 whole weeks! Like I said before, this is the first time that this feels weird to me since we are married and Lubbock feels more like a home than ever. So I'm sure by Jan. 9th, I will be more than ready to be HOME!

But as for right now, I am still in Houston. I just finished packing for The Winter Conference and I felt the urge to blog. I know it's been a while but wanted to update you on things that have been going on in December. Once I started writing though, I realized that this is already kind of long, so I'll share with you about some of my month through pictures instead :)

Brett and I at our Staff Christmas Party in Lubbock before we left for Houston!

When we got to Houston, we spent LOTS of time with our niece Braelyn. She saw Santa and didn't even cry.

One night, we hung out with Brett's sister Julia and went to look at all the pretty Christmas lights in River Oaks.

We also took Brae to the park and she LOVED the swings! We got to spend a ton of time with with my sister and bro-in-law (Jen and Brad). We love hanging out with them and wish we lived closer!

This is my family on Christmas Eve. We went to church, ate a yummy dinner, then ended the night with a Nintendo 64 Mario Kart tournament. I always win :) Christmas was great! It was both Jen and I's "years" to spend Christmas with my parents. It was the first Christmas for Brett and I to be married and the first Christmas for Braelyn! We are blessed with a wonderful generous family! We were also able to spend time with Brett's sisters and have a gift exchange with them. Jessica (Brett's sister) and Griffen (her husband) cooked Brats for us and it was delicious! I don't have pictures to document that part, so I am writing an extended caption instead.

There are so many more things to write about, but maybe that is just a good incentive to keep me blogging more often!

Tomorrow we head to Fort Worth for a week for work. I am excited about our time there and look forward to sharing about it with you all! I'll leave you with something I was reminded about from my mother-in-law this morning. 1 Thess. 5:18 talks about giving thanks because it is the will of God. It was a good reminder to give thanks in all circumstances, even when something unexpected  happens or something doesn't go our way. It is the will of God for us to give thanks. It helps reconnect our soul with the one who created us. The more we push away from the Lord, the more bitter we may become at our circumstances that are unfortunate.There may be disappointments you are dealing with, but give thanks in all circumstances. It is worth it!

Until next time,

Kim

P.S. True Grit is an awesome movie and I think you should see it. This is coming from a girl who is not the least bit interested in westerns.

I never promised I'd be good at blogging...

I'M SORRY IT HAS TAKEN ME THIS LONG TO BLOG. Phew...now that that's off my chest I feel a lot better. I knew all of you were secretly judging me for being so bad at updating :).

So I cannot believe it's already December. I was literally JUST saying that about November! I'll give you a quick update on what's been happening in my life:

• Brett shaved his beard. Yes this deserves a bullet point on it's own because it took about a century for him to do it. He looks GREAT!
• We went to our regional staff conference the weekend before Thanksgiving. It was a GREAT time of connecting with staff in our region (Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas). We got to be with lots of old friends and meet a ton of new ones!
• I witnessed a lady walking two horses on a leash. A horse on a leash? REALLY?! AND this is not the first time I've seen this before!
• We spent Thanksgiving in Houston with my family, and saw Brett's siblings also!
• It was 80 degrees and humid. Ew.
• Saw Harry Potter and loved every minute of it. I can't believe I am saying this but I would actually not recommend it to someone who has not kept up with the series. It will confuse you big time.
• We spent a ton of time with my super cute 10 month old niece. She has had some milestones in her life including puckering her lips to kiss you and waving goodbye!
• My sister gave us their old Christmas tree because they got a new one, so we have a cute little tree put up in our apartment!
• It was finally cold enough yesterday to wear my cute new white pea coat!
• One of my best friends from Summer Project (if you don't know what this is you should...www.gosummerproject.com) came in town and I was able to have lunch with her today! SUCH a great time of getting to reconnect. We had not seen each other in two years!

I've had a great past few weeks. Brett and I are always listening to Pandora Holiday Jazz station (I pulled out my Nutcracker that counts down the days to Christmas about a month early) and we celebrated 4 months of marriage today. Or maybe yesterday. I don't know what day because there is not 31 days in November. 

Unfortunately I am now sick as a dog. I believe it is sinus stuff and I apologize if you are one of the people (Kelli) who I may have given this to. I just took NyQuil a few minutes ago and currently all the words on my computer screen are very hard to read, so I think I'll be going to sleep now.

Pray for Brett as he is talking at our CRU weekly meeting tomorrow night for the first time!

Peace and Love,

Kim