Day 4: Bryce Canyon National Park

Our day at Bryce Canyon was definitely a highlight of the trip. The day started out rainy and foggy, but we just played cards in the car for about an hour and then the day turned out to be perfectly sunny and cool. We drove around to several scenic outlooks and then did a 5 mile hike that took us down into the canyon. It was all a lot of fun and Kolby got to do a lot of climbing, which is one of his favorite things to do.

Day 2 & Day 3: Zion National Park

We made it to Zion National Park fairly early on Day 2 and had planned to do a hike called The Narrows, but the trail was closed due to high water. Our Plan B was a series of smaller hikes, which turned out to be a really great way to ease into things and see a lot of the park. On our second day there we went on a 5-mile hike called Angel's Landing and a 4-mile hike to Echo Canyon. It was a lot of hiking, but everything we saw make the treks worth it.  These days seem like forever ago so I don’t have much to write about it, but here are some pictures.

Day 1: Las Vegas

I wouldn’t say that Vegas is our cup of tea. I guess it was about like I imagined it would be, but it was all still a bit overwhelming. We were just there for one night, and we stayed at the MGM Grand which was really nice. We arrived late in the evening so we took a stroll down “the strip” and did some sightseeing, including a stop to watch the fountain show outside the Bellagio that made an appearance in Ocean’s Eleven.

.

Then we headed back to our hotel for a delicious dinner at Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant and spent some time at the slot machines. I put $1 into a penny slot machine and within seconds I turned it into $4.30. Not a bad return for my first gambling experience. I cashed out and moved on to some other slot machines where I subsequently lost that $4.30 plus another $2 in a matter of minutes. And that’s how Vegas makes its money. Kolby followed a similar pattern, first doubling his money and then losing it all plus some more. I think we ended the night down $6 or so. What can I say, we’re not high rollers :)

We're Back

We’re back! We made it in late last night from our whirlwind tour of the great American southwest. It was such a fun vacation… definitely one of my all-time favorites. There’s a lot to share, especially pictures, but it’ll take me awhile to go through everything because I put my new camera to good use and filled up over 4GB of memory cards. That’s probably 1500+ pictures… yikes. I’m hoping to narrow them down to a top 10 from each destination (Vegas, Zion, Bryce, Coyote Buttes, Antelope Canyon, and Grand Canyon) and do one post for each place. Then I’ll make a flickr album and anyone who wants to see more pictures can browse that.

I don’t really know how to sum up our trip other than to say that we had an awesome time seeing some spectacular places with some really great friends. We did a little gambling, spent some good time on the road, hiked A LOT, saw some amazing sights, took way too many pictures, laughed until our stomachs hurt, played many hands of spades, hiked some more, invented the best game of all time, and made some really great memories. We really couldn’t have asked for a better trip. We’re very tired and very sore, but we’re just as pale as when we left thanks to some SPF 70 with zinc oxide :)

Great News!

Hey friends and fam,

Just wanted to share some great news... Kolby got a job!!!

It is a senior AP English position at a nearby high school. He'll also be teaching a creative writing class. It is his absolute dream job, and we are totally in awe of what a great opportunity this is for him!

The job is at a really unique school-- it follows a project-based learning model where things are done a bit differently, with a much stronger focus on technology and on independent and group learning, as opposed to lecturing. The campus is technology-rich, and all students have a laptop to use in classes. Although it is public, students must apply and only 100 or so students per grade are accepted. Kolby will be teaching their first senior class, so he'll have a LOT of flexibility with what he teaches. It will be a lot of work, but he is excited to be in a position that will require all that he has to offer. He is already hard at work thinking of summer reading.  Heaven help those kids.

We made our own great plan for Kolby to teach at our Alma Mater next year, but when that all fell through we knew God had something different in mind-- though we were devastated and really doubted that anything would work out at all. Why we let those doubts creep in when God has always, always taken care of us in one way or another this entire time is totally beyond me. I feel like an idiot for worrying so much, but I am so incredibly happy for Kolby and we are so grateful for this awesome opportunity. I’m proud of you, hubs!

Another One Bites the Dust

We had a whirlwind of a weekend around here. My best friend Laura got married, and her husband is one of Brad’s (my older bro) best friends.  We were all friends at Baylor, back before they started dating. Brad and I were both in the wedding and it was such a joy to see our friends so happy together and knowing we played a part in that.

Laura (center) was the 4th in our little group to get married.  We've all been best friends for over 10 years, and we've made some great memories being part of one another's weddings.  Katie (left) is getting married in November, and we'll officially be a group of 10!  I am so blessed to have these girls in my life.

We had wedding stuff going on Thursday through Saturday night, but I also had a work project going on that made me have to work all day on Thursday and on Friday morning, which was a bummer (grown-up life is a real drag sometimes!). Our college roommates flew in to town, our best friends from high school were here, other friends of ours from Baylor drove in… it was quite the party and we all had a blast.

Bride and groom at rehearsal:

Kolby and I had another wedding to attend on Sunday evening, and then we met up with Brad & Remy and drove down to Waco to help my parents move into their new house on Monday. 150+ boxes and a dozen mondo garbage bags of packing paper later, we had their new place completely unpacked. I wish I had taken some pictures, but I didn’t. Their place looks great and my dad started his new job yesterday. I think their new life will suit them well!

***

On the job front, Kolby now has three school districts interested in him, which is 2 more than last week. He had an interview that went really well yesterday, so we’re really hopeful that something great will come from it. We don't know when he'll hear back on anything. I wouldn’t say patience is either of our strong suits, but we’re working on it!

In other exciting news, we leave for our vacation pretty soon and we’re getting really excited. I’m taking off work for a full week, which will be my longest break (by far) since I started my job almost a year ago. I love my job, but I love vacation more!  We can’t wait!!!

Ode to my Canon 40D

My new used camera has arrived. I'm smitten. Surprisingly, so is Kolby. Who would have thought?!? I guess photography can be our new joint hobby.

Here are some pictures that I (or in some cases, Kolby) took this weekend. They aren't anything special, just some pictures from around the house so we could get in some practice with the camera before our trip. Yes, most of them are of Maya. What did you expect? These are all straight out of the camera. Someday I hope to purchase Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and learn how to edit pictures. That'll be awhile though, it's expensive.

Below is a series of pictures Kolby took around the kitchen and of clutter on our kitchen table (sparkling water, almonds, poetry books, chips... the usual!).
Back to Maya Take a guess at what that pile of fluff is. Yep, it's dog hair. Maya was way past due for her spring appointment with the furminator. And finally, a shout out to Maya's best friend (and aunt, I suppose), Muppet.

May

It’s finally May, which means a lot of fun things around here.

Most importantly, it means that Kolby only teaches SAT classes on Monday nights. He talked to his boss several weeks ago about the overscheduling, and they reached an agreement that he’d only work one day a week starting this month. It is such a relief to get to spend tons of time together again. I missed him!

It also means warm weather is becoming the norm again! The temperature has been so nice lately and we’ve enjoyed eating dinner on our back patio every night. We try to think of meals that require the grill because it makes for a fun evening outside together.

Maya has been experiencing some major spring fever these past few weeks. All she wants to do is be in the backyard chasing rabbits, eyeing the birds, or checking out all that’s going on in our neighborhood this time of year. We recently celebrated her birthday, which was fun as always. We gave her a birthday of April 22, since that is the day we brought her home 3 years ago. The pound thought she was 1 or 2, so she’s probably 4 or 5 now. As usual, we met up with some friends at the dog park to celebrate. I think everyone had a great time!

Although this isn’t specific to May, baseball season is in full swing now. If you’re not aware, Kolby LOVES baseball and is a huge Rangers fan. It’s a passion that’s always been there but has really been ramping up in the past few years. He watches or listens to almost every game. And they play 6 games a week! We went to a game a couple weeks ago with my parents and our seats were 9 rows behind home plate. At that proximity, even I can enjoy watching baseball! We had a great time and the Rangers won.
Speaking of Kolby, we were thrown quite a curveball last week when we found out a job opening that he was very hopeful about suddenly closed out of nowhere. It was his dream job and we’re really disappointed that it didn’t work out, but I guess it never hurts to be reminded that we are not in control. It is back to square one on the job front, but we are trusting that God will provide—even if it is not in the way we imagined.

Our summer vacation is now less than a month away and we’re getting really excited about it! I planned on asking for an SLR camera for my birthday/Christmas from my parents this year, and I somehow talked them into letting me get it early so I could use it on our trip. I wanted a Canon 40D, which is a really nice but also really expensive camera, so we turned to eBay and I found one that is a few years old but was in really good shape. It’s now in the mail to me and I can’t wait for it to get here! I guess I’ll have to practice by taking pictures of Maya… I’m sure she’ll be thrilled :)

Back to Baylor

Big news on the family front--- my parents are headed back to Baylor!

This is a really exciting move for my parents. They’ll get to head back to their alma mater and embark on a fun new phase in life. They have been talking for a long time about how they’d love to get back to Baylor at some point, but this was the first time that the timing worked out on Baylor’s end AND my parent’s end.

It’s a perfect position for my dad and it’s so great that it’s at Baylor (my parents dated at Baylor, got engaged at Baylor, got married at the chapel on Baylor’s campus, and my dad was a professor at Baylor for the first couple of years they were married). Oh--- this will be meaningless to anyone who didn’t go to Baylor, but to those who did--- his office will be in Pat Neff Hall! I think that’s the coolest part about the job. Pat Neff is the trademark building at Baylor; it’s in the center of campus and has the bell tower that lights up green when Baylor wins a sports game.

Russell still has two more years at Baylor, but I think he’s probably less worried about running in to mom & dad on campus and more excited about the free meals they’ll provide!

 We had the family over to celebrate the other day and I made this glorious concoction. I wish I could blame the tacky writing on the uneven surface of the Rice Krispie treats. I don’t think I’ll be getting any calls to decorate cakes anytime soon (can you even tell those are bear paws?).

Congratulations, Dad! I’m proud of you!

Catching Up

Life has been crazy around here lately! So much for the simple life we had become so accustomed to… hopefully it will return soon!

A lot has happened lately, though rest assured it won’t be exciting to anyone. To our family and friends who read our blog to keep up with us and to know what’s going on in our lives—I hope it serves that purpose even though we rarely have anything interesting to report. I’m sorry that it’s not more fun to read about!

I’ll start with the here and now and then work backwards. This post is going to be long--- consider yourself warned!

Kolby has been working like a maniac these days. Lately he often works 50-60 hours a week between substitute teaching during the day and teaching SAT classes on nights and weekends, and then fits in at least 20 hours of grad school work wherever he can. We only see each other as we get ready for work and as we get ready for bed, and on Friday evenings when the SAT place is closed. We are definitely not OK with this change from relaxing and spending time together all the time like we are used to, but it’s only temporary so we’re making it work.

Why is he working so much? It is hiring season for the local high schools, so he is not turning down any sub opportunities because he wants to have a presence at these schools and follow through with some connections so he can hopefully get hired for a full-time teaching position next year. He’s got a great shot at things working out. Then it appears that he is now the only verbal teacher at the SAT place, so they pack his schedule with workshops, classes, and 1-on-1 tutoring sessions. They are working to hire someone new, but until that happens he just doesn’t feel comfortable saying “no” when he knows the students need him. So he is quite the busy bee, but hopefully things will slow down for him soon.

As for me, things are busy as well. I’m not allowed to write/talk about too many details of work in a public forum like this blog (information security reasons, apparently), but for the record-- I am still loving my job. I’ve been given a lot of responsibilities, more than I expected to have after only 9 months. It’s a very good thing, and I really like the diversity of work. Some of the things I work on are very difficult, but I just take it a day at a time and I’ve been able to handle things so far. Economic research is a good fit for me and I enjoy the people I work with. I am constantly aware of what a great opportunity this job is, and I definitely don’t take it for granted even when I occasionally feel overwhelmed with how hard it is!

In other news, Kolby and I have a couple of exciting things on the horizon.

We have been asked by the pastor at our church to lead a Life Group, which is a Bible study that we’ll host at our house every-other Tuesday evening. We already have some of our friends at church on board, and we’re looking forward to meeting many new friends as we go along. There are four groups starting up and it’s a new church, so these are the first Life Groups and we’re excited to be involved. We’ve decided that our group will look at short excerpts from some of C.S. Lewis’s writings to lead into discussions about different matters of faith that people wrestle with. We’ll switch to something different after a couple of months. It starts next week, so we’ve got to get the house ready! The inside is fine, but our spring cleaning/landscaping project from March left quite a mess under our carport that we haven’t had time to clean up. This is weekend project #1.
Our other exciting news is that we’ve booked a summer vacation! We’ll be heading to the great American Southwest to hit up some National Parks with our friends Tyler and Erin. It’s Kolby’s dream vacation and happens to fall on his 25th birthday so he’ll be one happy camper. We’ll fly into Vegas, spend the night there gambling away our life savings (or more likely limiting ourselves to $10 each), and then move on to Utah and Arizona. We are going to spend a couple days at Zion National Park, then Bryce Canyon National Park followed by Vermillion Cliffs (Coyote Buttes), Antelope Canyon and the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Plus a few other stops along the way, like Horseshoe Bend and Lake Powell. We’ve never been to any of these places so we’re pretty excited. It’ll be a lot of hiking, so I’ll need to get into shape at some point!

I’m excited about seeing the sights and taking some cool pictures, but I’m also really excited that we’ll get to spend a week traveling with some great friends of ours. It’s just a good time in our lives to take a trip like this. June can’t come soon enough!

Speaking of 25th birthdays, I realized last week that I’m 24 and not 23 like I had been thinking. I was given some paperwork at the doctor’s office and it had my age listed as 24 on the top. I thought, “that’s weird” and proceeded to do the math only to discover that I am, in fact, 24 years old. So now all of the sudden I’m hit with the fact that I turn 25 this summer. Who knew?

This past weekend we traveled to Wimberley to spend some time with Kolby’s family to celebrate some birthdays and hang out at AlmostA Ranch. That’s the new official name of Kolby's parents' place down there. Roycee’s dad came up with the name and I think it is so clever! It’s a play on the fact that it is almost a ranch, since it has a ranch feel but doesn’t technically function as one. Clever, clever.

We had a wonderful time playing golf (boys), hitting up the San Marcos outlet mall (girls), grilling fajitas, pitching washers and sitting around a campfire. Kolby and I both got sunburned, but that’s nothing new for us this time of year when the sun has been so foreign for so long! Kolby’s sister is getting married in September so it was fun to catch up on all the latest details. Here are some pictures of the weekend, and the ranch. The cabin:

The casita:

For Easter weekend we met up with Russell and my parents down at their ranch. We hung out, played games, grilled steaks and worked on some projects around the new pond. We’re picking up 3,000 tiny fish to stock the pond in a few weeks, so we had to create some “cover” for them since the pond was just dug and doesn’t have anywhere for the fish to hide and grow. [Largemouth bass and catfish, for those family members who are reading this and wondering what my dad decided to go with.] We picked up some old tires that were being thrown out and assembled 5 fish playgrounds made of 5-6 big tires each. It was a lot of work but we love getting away for the weekend and are happy to do anything new and different for awhile. It keeps life interesting.

As we were getting ready to head home that Sunday, a super sweet 1-year-old Chesapeake Bay Retriever showed up and long story short--- we discovered she had been abandoned by the side of the road the previous day so we decided to bring her with us and find her a good home. Then a roller coaster of emotions ensued as we fell in love with her but knew it wasn’t a smart decision to add another dog to our family right now. We ended up finding a great home for her and Kolby dropped her off this past Friday. I cried. The good news is she is at a house that is 10 miles away from my parents’ ranch and the owner said he’d let us pick her up for a play date when we’re down there periodically. Maya was happy to hear that because those two were smitten with each other.

Lesson learned from that experience: Unless you’re able to keep the super sweet abandoned dog that found her way to you, maybe don’t allow her to sleep in your bedroom, sit in your lap for hours, become best friends with your dog or completely steal your heart. Hindsight is always 20/20, right?

I can’t think of much else that’s going on, so I guess that about sums everything up! Until next time...