Emily and Kolby

Spring Break = Spring Training

We had a GLORIOUS time in Phoenix for Spring Break last week! Eighty degrees, sunny, just Kolby and me, baseball, Mexican food-- this vacation had it all.

We spent 3 nights in the Phoenix area, mainly watching baseball games and going to practice. Then we drove up to Sedona for 2 nights, but it turned into only 24 hours because me recovering from bronchitis plus altitude equaled misery. I've never had altitude sickness before, but it was rough. It was either the altitude or the city of Sedona is my kryptonite. Either way, we high-tailed it down from there and stayed at a luxurious Best Western near the Phoenix airport. But, it scored us an extra day of baseball so we really can't complain.

Here are a bunch of pictures from our trip.

Saving $$ by taking a 6am flight was a much better idea in theory than actuality. But we made it and were happy to be on a plane headed out for vacation just the two of us!

But, the early flight paid off when we made it to the Rangers' Spring Training complex by 10am, ready to watch batting practice. Kolby was in heaven.

I brought a baseball to have players sign. Not sure what I'm going to do with it, but I got a lot of autographs, including Nelson Cruz, Derek Holland, Mike Napoli, Matt Harrison, Joe Nathan, and David Murphy. I was basically an autograph ninja. My biggest accomplishment by far was that I got my baseball signed by Yu Darvish. That means nothing to most (if not all) of you, but he is the Rangers' new star pitcher and is a really big deal because this is his first experience in MLB; he's from Japan and is VERY famous over there. Basically what I'm saying is that y'all should be super impressed that I got his autograph :). He never signs and just happened to do it one of the days we were there and I ended up in the small group of people that made the cut. Ninja.

Kolby got his World Series ticket signed by Derek Holland (who pitched that game) and Mike Napoli (who hit a 3-run homer that game). He was one happy camper.

Going to the practices was the best part, but we also went to three games.

All in all I give Spring Training an A+. We had an absolute blast. I couldn't have cared less about baseball or the Texas Rangers before marrying Kolby, but it has slowly infiltrated my brain over time and now I really enjoy following it. Plus, baseball is our thing that we do together. There are a lot of things that are made even more fun with the company of friends or family, but going to Rangers games is something that we have the most fun when it's just us. Which is a good thing because we watch more baseball than anyone on the planet has ever cared to watch. Ever.

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Now moving on to the limited non-baseball part of the trip...

We went to a botanical garden, where we saw a LOT of cactus (I refuse to use cacti, sorry):

We climbed a big rock (warning: my pale shin in this first picture might blind you):

We admired the millions of saguro cactus that were absolutely everywhere:

Kolby climbed Camelback Mountain:

We drove up to Sedona, which was absolutely beautiful. The red rock formations in Sedona were amazing. I wish I had the chance to take pictures (the flu-like altitude sickness had other plans for me). But, Kolby went on one hike and snapped a few:

And here was my view from the car while I waited for him. Not bad, eh?

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The rest of the time we just relaxed. We were traveling on the cheap, and spring in Phoenix is peak season for hotels so we went with vrbo.com instead. We found this big amazing house in a small and beautiful gated neighborhood just north of Phoenix, and it had a pool house that we rented for $89/night. It was perfect. We just hung out there in the evenings and enjoyed the sunset and warm weather. We watched Airplane! (again) and Kolby laughed out loud through the whole thing (again). I finished books 2 and 3 of The Hunger Games and loved every second of them (I already have my ticket to the movie next week and have seriously never looked forward to a movie more!). Kolby also read a lot-- probably something more sophisticated than young adult novels. We baked cinnamon rolls for breakfast. I took at least one bubble bath a day in the jacuzzi tub. We slept with the windows open. I packed my blowdryer and straightener and never got either out of my suitcase. It was the perfect vacation!!

So, here's to Spring Break, Phoenix, and spring training. We hope to do it all again sometime!!

Sweet Kyndall

We got to spend some time with our niece, Kyndall, last weekend. She's three months old already!

Love this pic from Kolby's iPhone:

Staring contest, you and me. Go!

Sweetest baby smile

Can't wait to see you again soon! We miss you already :)

Valentine's Day

We had a great Valentine’s Day this year. We had to be adults and go to work, but we made the best of it. I made some cake balls to bring some Valentine’s cheer to my office.

Kolby told our engagement story to his classes. Near the beginning of last school year, to ward off the incessant questions he was getting from his kids about our relationship, he told them that he wouldn’t comment about us but that if they’d wait until Valentine’s Day then he’d tell the story of when he proposed. So of course in true Kolby fashion he put together a killer monologue detailing our engagement from his point of view. I guess word got passed on to this new senior class so they all came in at the beginning of the year saying that they couldn’t wait until Valentine’s Day this year to hear the story. He didn’t disappoint. He even said he got choked up at one point (let’s be honest, that doesn’t take much--he’s my little tenderheart) but the kids didn’t notice. A few girls teared up. This whole thing cracks me up, but I think it’s great that Kolby tells our story and that the kids eat it up.

Then we both got home and the real celebrating began.

This was a special Valentine’s Day for us. Kolby reminded me last week that it was 10 years ago on Valentine’s Day that I told him that I loved him. We were 16. Here’s a picture from that night:

He of course told he loved me too, but that was expected as you can clearly see that I was rocking the butterfly clips so well that he couldn’t refuse. It’s totally crazy to be in love or think you’re in love at 16, but I’m just telling the story like it was. I don’t remember back that far so I can’t say that it wasn’t just a big crush or puppy love, but then again we’re married now so I guess there’s a chance we were even in love then. Hard to say. But one thing is for sure—I love being reminded of our crazy history together! Sometimes I forget that we’re high school sweethearts. What a unique part of our story.

So we wanted to celebrate big, and our definition of big is a 6:15pm reservation at our favorite Mexican food place. Lol. I kid you not, the couple at the table next to us both used walkers. But we like eating early so that’s what we did. I gave Kolby a card, which I had teared up writing. [ok maybe we’re both pretty sappy people] He told me our engagement story. I can see why the kids loved it.

Then we got an idea.

When I first told Kolby I loved him 10 years ago, I did so in a note. I handed him a note that I had written, and waited (read: sweated) as he read it, hoping that he wouldn’t turn and run or say something like, “aww, and I love spending time with you!” Totally lame that it was a note, but let’s remember, I was only a teenager. It seemed like a great plan at the time, I guess. Anyway, we’ve always wondered if that note was still somewhere at Kolby’s parents’ house. They were out of town, and we drove over to their place and went looking through some boxes with his name on them in an upstairs closet.

After two boxes full of baseball paraphernalia and Cabbage Patch Kids, we found a box labeled “Kolby books and stone critters.” I wish I was kidding. I just laughed out loud thinking about that again. Although to be fair, I also collected stone critters (all horses, obviously). Anyway, we started pulling stuff out and lo and behold, the whole bottom of the box was full of notes I had written Kolby when we were in high school. There were 104 of them. [Side note: do kids even write notes in school anymore? Or has texting taken over?] [Another side note: I had also kept all the notes Kolby wrote to me. I put them in a scrapbook album as a wedding gift.] We started reading through each one. It was seriously hilarious.

Apparently we watched A LOT of movies at our high school. Probably every sixth note started with, “We’re watching What About Bob in psych” or something similar. Also, I was much flirtier than I ever would have given myself credit for, and I was more insecure than I remember being. It was funny how there were some things, though, that haven’t changed--- I mentioned how I was looking forward to having a bagel at lunch (still so true). I said something about a group project and how I like being in control but that I’m trying to work on that (unfortunately, still true). I apologized for giving him a hard time about his hair (it still bothers me sometimes when we’re going out and he doesn’t do his hair). I talked about him being in a really bad mood (this hardly ever happens, but when he gets grumpy he gets GRUMPY). On the positive side, I told him that I think he’s cute, a great guy, my best friend, funny, kind to me, and a man of God (all still true).

About halfway through the pile, we finally found IT. The note where I told him that I loved him. Mission accomplished. It was sweet, funny, embarrassing… everything all at once. But we have it, and that is really neat.

We spent hours poring over the notes, laughing and reminiscing. It was such a fun thing to do together, and I’m so glad we have such great accounts of that phase in our life.

So, cheers to a great Valentine’s Day and the celebration of ten years of love!

[Family picture courtesy of the iPad. Can't you tell how much Maya loves getting picked up?]

Catching Up

Let’s see… what have we been up to lately...

We spent a weekend in Wimberley with Kolby’s parents in early January and we had a blast. Somehow the weather was beautiful and warm, so we took advantage of it and spent a lot of time outdoors. We visited Pedernales Falls State Park, which was beautiful (picture below). The dogs got to come with us and we all had a great time hiking around. Then we went to a local vineyard for a wine tasting and to watch the hill country sunset from the winery’s patio area.

Near the end of January I helped throw a wedding shower for our friends from church, Mike & Amy. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before on the blog but making cakes is my new hobby. I throw a shower every couple of months and it was getting too expensive to order cakes so I decided to just learn how to do it myself. My SIL, Remy, helped me get started, and then a coworker’s wife showed me some good tricks for making the icing smoother. Here is the cake I made for Amy’s shower:

While the girls were busy with shower stuff, the boys spent the weekend at the ranch shooting who knows what.

The other day while Kolby was searching for project ideas for school, he stumbled on a job opening with a study guide and curriculum website. They were looking for writers to help launch a section on the Bible as literature. Because of how bizarrely coincidental it seemed, he went ahead and sent in an application. Things came together fast from there. He will get to write modules for their poetry section and the new Bible section. It's a cool part-time thing that will allow him to do something that really caters to his knowledge and interests. Plus, it'll be nice to have something extra to do over the summer!

Oh, I have more exciting news! We booked a Spring Break trip to Phoenix. We are going to the Texas Rangers’ spring training. Add that to the list of things I never thought I’d say :). Kolby has wanted to go to forever and we just decided why not. Lucky for me, the trip won’t all be about baseball. We’ll probably only go to two games and then spend extra time at the ballpark one of those days to watch practice (and other things you do at spring training, I guess?!? this is all new to me). We’ve never been to Arizona so we’ll spend the rest of the trip sightseeing and relaxing. We’re going to take a quick side trip to Sedona for the last two days. I’m really excited about the vacation because it should be pretty warm and there is a lot of neat stuff to do and beautiful things to see. Plus it’ll be just us so that’s always fun.

Speaking of things I never thought I’d say, I registered for a 5K yesterday. [Insert sound of hell freezing over.] Last week we were over having dinner at Brad & Remy’s and we decided to video conference my parents to say hi. Remy mentioned she was training for a 10K and my dad said he was going to do the 5K part of Baylor’s annual race (the Bearathon, obviously). One thing led to another and we decided to make the Bearathon a family affair. I’m not sure how things escalated to that point… I was holding Tucker and must have not had my wits about me. I don’t run. Ever. I don’t even work out. Unless staring at Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred DVD box while eating a late night bowl of cereal counts as working out. But I’ve wanted to be better about exercising this year so I think the 5K will help get that off the ground. That said, it’s been a week since we decided to do it and I’m still in the visualizing part of the training process :). It’s in just over five weeks, so I better get to work. I know most of you could run a measly 3.1 miles cold turkey, but I haven’t run a single step since being forced to do track in middle school (as part of the requirement for being on the basketball team). I am just plain out of shape. This should be interesting!

Switching gears, our church does Life Groups in “seasons” so that there are natural opportunities for people to join and change groups, and we kicked off the winter season a few weeks ago. The group we host/lead is studying the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15), using Tim Keller’s book, The Prodigal God. I am already hooked, and I think it’ll be a great study. One of the first pages of the book defines prodigal as “recklessly extravagant; having spent everything.” It was not just the wayward son who was prodigal, but the father as well—his welcoming his repentant son “was literally reckless, because he refused to “reckon” or count his sin against him or demand payment.” The father in the story obviously represents God, “the God of Great Expenditure, who is nothing if not prodigal toward us, his children. God’s reckless grace is our greatest hope.” How true is that? We’ve really enjoyed this season of Life Group thus far.

That’s about all that is going on around here. Kolby got glasses. He looks handsome. I got my hair chopped off. Picture to come soon. Until then, I’ll leave you with this picture of my favorite nephew (wearing the outfit we got him for Christmas!):

Christmas 2011

We had a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s with our families. I wasn’t great at remembering to take pictures, but here are at least a few that hopefully highlight the festivities.

We spent all Christmas weekend with Kolby’s family. The highlight was definitely our one month old niece, Kyndall. We mainly just laid low, passed the baby around, ate some great food and played Pictionary on the Wii.

The whole family attended the Christmas Eve service at our church and it was really neat to have everyone there.

On Christmas day we had a morning full of opening presents and then we had a big meal with the extended family. It was a wonderful and relaxing Christmas!

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After Christmas, Kolby and I joined my parents and Russell for a trip down to San Antonio to watch Baylor play in the Alamo Bowl (Brad & Remy were in a wedding so they couldn’t come). After being notoriously terrible at football for a very long time, Baylor has been on the rise and wound up having a fantastic season this year. The pinnacle was when our quarterback, Robert Griffin III, won the Heisman. But winning 9 games and then beating Washington in the Alamo Bowl was an exciting accomplishment as well. Baylor scored 67 points in the bowl game, setting an NCAA record. It was crazy.

Mom putting the Baylor flag on the truck before we hit the road (and then flashing what she called a "gangsta" sign for the picture).

Me and Russell at the game. He's a senior at Baylor this year. What good timing!

We then celebrated Christmas with my family over New Year’s weekend. Here are a few really random pictures.

Kolby took this because he thought the sunset looked cool in the background. Tucker was going for a pretty sophisticated look here.

Santa brought a suped up golf cart to the ranch for Christmas, which we all took for a spin.

The kids set off some killer fireworks off the dock on New Year's Eve, while my mom and dad and Tucker watched from the patio. We only had to run and take cover twice. Might be a family record.