Update!

I’m sorry for the inadvertent blog hiatus. As you can imagine, things got really hectic really fast. Here’s the jist of what’s going on.

We are moving to the **** area and we’re going to buy a house! We will move out of our apartment this weekend (we’re putting all of our stuff in storage), stay with some friends in Waco for a few days next week while Kolby finishes school, and then we’ll be staying with my parents until we find a house. We’ve been on the house hunt for a few weeks, but things will be much easier once we are back in the area and can be more available to look at houses in person. We’ve found a neighborhood that we really like, but we’re keeping our options open at this point.

I start work on July 15th and Kolby will head to Santa Fe, NM for the summer residency for his grad program on July 23rd. We’re hoping to find a house and get moved in before those events, but it’s not too big of a deal if that doesn’t happen. In the fall, Kolby’s main job will be to enjoy his graduate program, but he is also looking into a part-time job teaching SAT or GRE prep classes at places like The Princeton Review or Kaplan. If that doesn’t work out, he can always find work as a substitute teacher a few days a week.

Below are a couple of posts about other things that have been going on.

I can't foresee anything happening in our lives that will warrant a blog post until we find a house. After Kolby finishes school and we move in with my parents, we'll be living the life of bums for awhile. Our days will likely include little more than looking at houses, watching/attending Rangers' games, and finding ways to earn our keep at my parents' house. So, I'll let you know when we find the perfect little first house for ourselves!

Getting Ready for Moving Day

Last week we decided to do some spring cleaning in our closet so we'd have less to pack. We ended up bagging up and donating almost 100 articles of clothing. The bulk of what we gave away was stuff we'd "outgrown", as both of us aren't the ultra slim adolescents we once were. Out of everything we got rid of, I'd say only 1% had been purchased in the past 5 years. It was way past time to go through that stuff.

Maya was a trooper and withheld judgment as she watched me try on item after item that didn't even come close to fitting anymore.

At the end of last week, my mom came down for a few days and helped me pack (thanks, Mom!). There are now dozens of packed boxes scattered throughout our apartment.

We brought the aforementioned bags of clothes to Goodwill and hauled 6 huge trash bags of junk out to the dumpster. It was a long couple of days but I'm so glad we got all that done and out of the way! Kolby and I will disassemble all of the furniture this week and pack up the last few boxes before moving day on Saturday!

Graduations Galore

My graduation ceremony was on Friday, May 15th. It was a small ceremony consisting of only Baylor Business graduate students. I graduated with three of my M.S.Eco peers, all of whom are from China. My family came down for the ceremony, which was less than an hour and included dinner afterwards so my brothers didn't have too much to gripe about :)

My friend Laura came too! The icky velvet-looking thing across my neck is my graduate "hood". It's much prettier from the back. The graduation was called a "Graduate Hooding Ceremony" and we each received our respective hoods.

Unfortunately, Kolby's brother graduated from law school at the exact same time as my graduation ceremony. Because Kolby's entire family and extended family was gathering in Houston for Kason's graduation, it made sense for Kolby to be there, especially since he had to miss Kason's college graduation a few years ago.

Here is a picture of part of the gang after Kason's graduation ceremony.

We spent this past Memorial Day weekend in Austin celebrating Kolby's sister's graduation from the University of Texas. I don't have any pictures yet, but it was a great weekend and Kassidy is now getting ready to start graduate school for social work!

A Farewell to #22E

Our first home:

The Centre Apartments

Corner of 5th and Bagby- Waco, TX

Unit 22E

It is bittersweet to be leaving our first home together and expecially to be leaving Waco. Both have treated us so well. Before we make the big move, I want to reminisce about this place so I can always remember it.

This apartment had the huge advantage of being 2 blocks from campus and was as safe as possible in Waco. It was also super cheap since the management agreed to rent it to us at half price to meet our budget. And although we absolutely LOVE our apartment, that is where the advantages end. This apartment complex is OLD. It does have central A/C but it is so inefficient (i.e. costs a lot to run but doesn't cool the place down at all) that we have only used it for a handful of days since last summer. We've just gradually trained our bodies to thrive in the 75-80 degree temperature range during the day and rely on the window unit in our bedroom to keep it cool enough to sleep well at night. The result? $50/month electricity bills. Totally worth it. Except that it is in the 90s today (outside) and it's so hot in here that I'm sweating bullets as I type this.

Although there are a lot of cosmetic things that are less than desirable about this place, like dingy caulk in the bathrooms, cream cabinets with 70s-style wood trim, and ivy wallpaper in the guest bathroom (we painted over the other awful wallpapers but the ivy was the lesser of the evils so we left it), the tiny kitchen is the only thing that really bothers me. It is a whopping 3 feet wide and half of one of the walls is taken up by a closet for the hot-water heater. There are very few cabinets and a miniscule amount of counter space. So the majority of our nice kitchen stuff that we got for our wedding is still in boxes in a closet upstairs. We've made it work, though, and it'll just be that much sweeter to move to a place with a normal-sized kitchen.

....

I may not have shrunk Kolby's favorite shirt in the wash or served any burnt dinners, but my first year of domestic life was not without its casualties. See if you can guess what happened to this stove burner: If you guessed, "It looks like you ran out of counter space and had to set a package of tortillas on the stove for safekeeping and then accidentally turned on the burner under the tortillas rather than the one under the pot of water like you meant to"--- then you were right. Even after several attempts to scrape the melted plastic off, the nutritional information of tortillas can still be read straight off that burner. Oh well.

Kolby had his own mishap, though... lest we forget the time he inadvertantly trapped Maya in the bathroom. See if you can guess what sequece of events happened in these two pictures:

If you guessed, "It looks like he unsuccessfully tried to pry the doorknob off with a flathead screwdriver and then decided to drill a hole through the door with a brand new electric drill that he only let charge for about 30 seconds before deeming it ready for the job"--- then you were right again!
....

Last week I used my camera to take a video that tours our apartment. I did this so that we'd always have it to remember what this place looked like, but I figured I'd upload it here so the friends and family that weren't able to make it down here to visit us could see it. It's as boring as would be expected, so feel free to skip it.

***Sorry for the poor upload quality and even poorer narration!***

Farewell, #22E!

Look Out ****, Here We Come!!!!

****I got a job!!!!****

I got a very important call this afternoon informing me that I was being offered an amazing research position with a great organization in ****

.

We are so excited that I don't even have the words to write much more about it. The only thing we can really think about right now is how incredibly blessed we feel for the Lord's direction and provision for our lives. He took care of us just like He always has and always will, and His plans are always superior to our own.

"Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act. Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him"

Psalm 37:5,7

The Ending of an Era

I had my last day of school last Thursday and I didn't even know it. And by last day of school I mean last day of school ever. I can't even wrap my mind around it. I've been so preoccupied with the job thing that I hadn't glanced at my school calendar in weeks and my last day of class just came and went without warning. I have a final exam on May 11th and my hooding ceremony (graduation) is on May 15th. I'm absolutely terrified of being done with school. I love being a student and I don't know that I'm ready to be an employee. That is, if I can even find a job!

Last week I played in my last intramural game of my college career. Playing intramural sports here at Baylor was one of my most favorite parts of college. I played 5 years of flag football, volleyball, basketball, soccer, softball and wallyball. We had a great team and we played every sport regardless of how good or bad we were at any of them. We even won the All-University tournament a couple times. I'm sad intramurals won't be a part of my life anymore and I'm especially sad that now I have to actually feel guilty about not working out. I've never been one to "hit the gym", "go running", or "get off the couch" but I've always had a weekly basketball or soccer game to make me feel better about not doing any of those crazy things. Now it's just me and my sedentary lifestyle.

Kolby is mourning the loss of Baylor Library privileges as I must return all books this week in order to graduate. If you saw my account, you would find that I've checked out almost a hundred books from the Baylor Library. However, only 6 of those were actually checked out by me during my 5 years here. ALL of the others were checked out by Kolby over the 16 months that we've been married. That boy loves to read.

Speaking of reading, Kolby and I are reading books from the Chronicles of Narnia these days. Right now we're on The Horse and his Boy. We read at night and it's my favorite part of the day. Kolby reads the books out loud and he is awesome at doing the voices for all of the crazy characters in the Narnia books. There are a million reasons why Kolby will make a great dad someday, but his knack for reading stories is one of my favorites.

That's about all I have for today. Can you tell I have a lot of spare time on my hands these days?