Emily and Kolby

Instagram

Kolby recently discovered Instagarm. It's an iPhone app that let's you quickly edit and share pictures you take, and it now serves as one of the ways he keeps in touch with his grad school buddies.

Here is a batch of Instagram pictures he's taken over the past couple months.

Rangers playoff game

Driving back from the ranch

Tucker at the Baylor vs. TCU game

Yes, In-N-Out burger made it to Texas

At In-N-Out for my birthday... Tucker is not so sure about it :)
P.S. Rabbit teeth, much?

Maya at the ranch

Smokin' BBQ

At a wedding (finger in front of the lens... classic)

Kolby's grad school friends

In Santa Fe at a minor league baseball game

Around Santa Fe

Kolby saying hi while he was in Santa Fe while I was still home

Please excuse the fact that this will have no cohesiveness whatsoever. I'm just trying to keep my commitment to post at least once once a month, even when my computer acquired a virus and was down for the count for the past few weeks.

Kolby started the new school year in August. Here's my all-star teacher on his first day of school:

My family got together a awhile back to celebrate birthdays, and I took some new pictures of Tucker. He is serisouly the cutest thing.
[These were taken about a month ago, FYI.]

Here's a picture of Kolby and Tucker from a different occasion. If I had to name one person who is almost as baby crazed as me, it would be Kolby. Can't blame him though, there is really nothing sweeter than holding a sleeping baby.

In late August one of my college roommates came in town from Memphis to spend the weekend with the three other roomies that live around here. Despite the oppressive temperatures, we all had a great time together!

Our church had a "soft opening" of our new building earlier this summer, but we've been working since then to furnish the place, build a stage, assemble a kitchen, decorate, etc. and we celebrated our grand opening on August 28. It was a great service and an awesome reminder of God's faithfulness.

For Labor Day weekend we had our annual family reunion with my dad's side of the family at the ranch. It was similar to all the family gatherings down there so I'll spare the recap. But here are a couple cute pictures of my cousin's kids, and a full scoop of the weekend can be found at my cousin Debby's blog here.

Kolby making ice cream with the little ones:

Miss Laura:

I may have mentioned before that our neighbors have chickens. Well now they have 5 chicks as well and they are absolutely adorable. A few weekends ago they asked me to come over and snap some pictures. What started as this:

Evolved to this (albeit at a seven year-olds prompting):

When I woke up that morning if you had told me that my day would include photographing chickens in wingback chairs reading the newspaper, I definitely wouldn't have believed you. :)

Because this post is already so random, I'll leave you with a couple recent quotes, for your reading pleasure:

Kolby: He's the one who looks a little like a hobbit.

Emily: Oh, I know who you're talking about. He's not thin, though.

Kolby: Hobbits aren't thin. I think you're thinking of elves. I would have said he looks like a dwarf, but he doesn't have a beard.

Kolby: What is that kid's name again?
Russell: Holden.
Kolby: Oh, like Holden Caulfield.
Russell: Yeah (insert fake laugh).
*Kolby was referring to the protagonist in The Catcher in the Rye*
**Russell thought he said "holdin' coffee."**

Congrats, Kolby!

Kolby graduated a couple weeks ago with his Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. His final residency was in Santa Fe, and Kevin & Roycee and I met up with him for 5 days to be there for the last part of it and for his graduation ceremony. It was so great to meet his friends and professors and get a glimpse of what he's been up to these past two years.

Here are some pictures from the trip.

We stayed in a beautiful house on the same street as all of the art galleries.

Apparently they don't make people as short as they used to.

Part of Kolby's graduation requirements was a reading from his poetry manuscript. He did great!

Kolby graduated alongside 11 other writers, whose occupations ranged from Wall Street Journal reporter to surgeon to engineer, etc.

Here are some other pictures from after the graduation ceremony:

Kolby had two mentor teachers. They are really sweet and really talented.

Kolby's parents and I had some down time while Kolby was in class, which we spent enjoying the beautiful town and great weather:

***

Because not everyone was able to travel to Santa Fe to witness and celebrate Kolby's graduation in person, I put together a killer party for our whole family after we got home. We got together at my parents' ranch for a big BBQ, and somehow we lucked out and the party fell on Texas' one-day reprieve from +100 degree temperatures. I can honestly say that it seemed like everyone had a REALLY great time, and hopefully Kolby felt how proud we all are of him. Success!

I decorated with pictures that Kolby had taken in Seattle or Santa Fe and ones I took during his graduation weekend. I also printed out some of my favorite poems he's written.

I set out a couple of books that Kolby has had poems published in, and I also put together a booklet of his poetry that I pulled from his graduate manuscript. The booklets turned out really great and everyone got to take one home with them.

Guess who went on his first road trip to be at the party? Remy unfortunately had a church event that day, so Brad brought Tucker all by himself. Impressive!

My dad and Kolby's dad tag-teamed the BBQ. They made the.best.food.ever. Oh my gosh I wish I was eating it again right now. It was SO good. They made brisket, chicken, and sausage, and it was in the smoker for so many hours that the meat just fell apart it was so tender. I could go on and on, but I'm seriously drooling just thinking about it so I'll leave it at that.

Kolby wasn't super excited about this part, but we talked him into reading some of his poems for us since everyone missed his graduate reading in Santa Fe. He was a good sport though, and it was much appreciated by all!