Third Anniversary

Today is our third anniversary. It is crazy to me that it has already been three years since the day we said "I do." Or didn't say "I do," since our minister didn't / forgot to do that part! We did say our vows and I am so thankful that we have been married now for three years.

I am so glad that we can have fun together, then and still, and that has helped tremendously. Although we have encountered fun times and a few not-so-fun times, we can always count on each other.

I am so thankful that God has blessed me with Zane. I can't wait to see where life takes us. Who would have thought in the last three years that we would live in Abilene, move to Lubbock for two years, then move back to Abilene again? I remember our preacher at our wedding telling us to buckle up because what you think is in store won't be close to what actually happens in life! Boy, he has been right so far!

For our anniversary, we plan to go horse back riding!! I am so excited. I had secretly wanted to go, but didn't tell Zane about it. I love for Zane to come up with ideas of his own, and I didn't want to say what I wanted in hopes that he would think of it! Well, the trick worked, and he actually said the other night while laying in bed, "what do you think about horse back riding?" I was elated! We have never done that together, and neither one of us has ridden a horse since middle school or early high school.

We are going at 6, and I hope to have some photos to post after tomorrow night. We are also going to get dinner thanks to a gift card from my friend Natalie!! I am so excited that Zane's day off of work this week fell on our anniversary! What are the chances??

I am so excited to see what this next year may hold for us! Happy Anniversary, Zane, and here's to many many more!

Fredericksburg Trip

This past weekend my family went to Austin to go to our friend Callie's wedding. We grew up with her and her brother since we were all babies, and it was so great getting to see their family.

After we went to the wedding, we drove to Brenham late that night to go to Brenham Church of Christ in the morning. We went to that church when we lived in Brenham. It was a lot of fun getting to see old friends, and meeting a few new people as well. Sunday afternoon, my parents met Zane in Lampasas so that he could drive me to Fredericksburg on his way (not really on the way, but you know) to San Marcos to see his grandpa.

I got to Fredericksburg about 11pm on Sunday night just in time to wake everyone back up as they had just gotten in bed. Sorry guys! The trip was for all of the women in Zane's mom's family, and it was so much fun. Zane's mom's mom, Mimi and her sister in law Charlene came, as well as Zane's mom LaShara, her sisters Carla and Diana, and Diana's daughter Lauryn, and myself! It was a lot of fun.

These are all of the pictures.... they are no where near in order.... Blogger is not my favorite today.




This picture is of my last purchases of the trip. It is an across-the-body zebra purse, and a turquiose necklace and earrings set to match another purchase I made on the trip, a sterling silver and turquiose ring.


This is right before we left Fredericksburg. Zane came to pick me back up and we all ate at the Peach Tree before heading out. It was a really cute place!
Zane, me, Lauryn, Diana, Carla, Charlene, Mimi.


I am pretty sure this picture was taken on Sunday afternoon before I got to Fredericksburg. Lauryn in the orange dress, Diana in green shirt, Carla in red.


Also taken before I arrived.


Lauryn, Carla, and Diana.


This was breakfast on Monday morning. The place was in a basement / cellar type place, and when we sat down, it smelled a little funky. We just thought that it was probably musty from being a cellar, but the smell kept getting stronger and stronger. It smelled a lot like rotten eggs, and many of us had ordered eggs for breakfast! Needless to say, it was a bit un-appetizing! Finally, we asked the waitress about it, and apparently their water line / toilets / sewer had backed up, and they had to pour a chemical down the drains that had a lot of sulfur in it. Yikes! No wonder it smelled! So, we sat at a different table and the smell was much better!
Charlene, Mimi, Lauryn, me, Diana


old table still... Diana and Carla


Me and Lauryn checking out a dress at Wildseed Farms.


Carla admiring some bowls. It was a dishware set that even had the plates with separate areas on it. Carla and I both are "no-touch-itarians" aka we don't like our food to touch eachother on our plates! We really liked the separate zoned plates!


Diana, Mimi, Carla, Lauryn at lunch on Monday


Me and Charlene at lunch on Monday


Me in a REALLY nice furniture store. I LOVED everything I saw, but could afford.... none of it!! Someday when I have millions to decorate a house, I will come back and shop here. Oh, wait, did I say I would have millions?? Yeah... maybe I will just keep window shopping :)


Me, LaShara, and Mimi at breakfast on Tuesday. This place was a bit better than breakfast Monday, plus no rotten egg smell!!


Outside the restuarant where we ate breakfast Tuesday
Lauryn, LaShara, Carla, Diana


Thoughout the trip, Lauryn and I had a contest going. Carla affectionately named it the "MH Award." We were trying to find items that were Most Hideous and then debate which one would be the worst to receive as a present that you would have to display in your home to be polite. This next picture was at one time a contender, but it was DEFINITELY not the winner. You can't really tell from the picture as well, but it is a pink cowboy hat with a built-in tiara, bedazzeld around the brim, with sequin trim.


Me and LaShara at lunch on Monday


Carla, LaShara, and Lauryn at lunch on Monday



Overall it was a great trip! I was so sad to leave on Tuesday, I felt like we needed another day at least! But, there is always next year!

I had a blast going with you ladies, thank you so much for inviting me!


Last but not least, our house in Lubbock has officially been on the market 16 1/2 weeks, and we are so ready for it to sell. If you wouldn't mind saying an extra little prayer for our house to sell, that would be great.

Happy Birthday, Zane!!

This post was scheduled to post Wednesday morning at 7 am while we were out of town, but for some reason blogger decided not to do that.......

Today is Zane's 25th Birthday. I can't even believe it! Time has sure flown since we met! If you would have told me the day that we met that I would end up marrying this man, I would have told you that you were crazy!! But, almost five years later, I am so glad that we met, that he was more stubborn than me when asking me out :) , and most of all that I married him!

It is strange for me to look back on and think about all that has happened in life since we met. My senior year of high school, our car wreck, Zane graduating college, us moving to Lubbock, and now moving back, his patience as I started my photography business in Lubbock, and more. I can't imagine a person that is more my opposite, but also my perfect match. God knew that I needed a man with patience, and let me tell you, Zane is more patient than any person that I know. I can't even begin to tell you how calm he remains in situations that I would get so emotional / angry / frustrated!! He is so smart, especially when it comes to technology. I can't even tell you how many times I have needed help with my website, my computer, anything, and he knows exactly what to do. It absolutely amazes me.

Happy Birthday, Zane, I love you so much!!

One Month in Abilene....

Feels like it has been a week! Life has been so crazy! We have been to Dallas to Lubbock and back several times, I have been super busy editing photos, getting orders together, and generally getting ready for a decently busy wedding season, and Zane has been really liking his job so far!

We are really liking being back in Abilene. I think that moving to Lubbock was good for us individually, and for our marriage, but we are so happy to be back. The only thing that could be better is if our house would sell!! It has been on the market for about 2 months, and we are ready for it to be sold. It gets shown a lot, but no offers yet.

So, for now, we are still in my parent's fourth bedroom. You just can't beat the rent. :)

I feel bad because I don't feel like we really have anything else interesting to write about! Just trying to adjust to life in a different town, under a different roof, with Zane at a different job. Hopefully soon I'll post saying that our house in Lubbock has sold, and that we are in a new place here in Abilene!

A-A-A-Abilene.....

We are here!! We loaded up a small trailer this morning with our bed, some clothes, and a few "valuables" like our china, and thought that we were going to head out. Except that the wind was blowing at 50 mph. So, we waited an hour, and like all good West Texas weather, it changed (literally) and we hit the road! I wasn't about to drive a trailer in that wind!

We got here, unloaded into our new room. The 4th TINY bedroom of my parent's house. :) It is probably 10x10. But guess what? It is great. Mom did such a great job cleaning it out so that we could easily just move in. We tried super hard to pack in the most organized way possible, trying to consider that we were moving from a 1600+ square foot house into a new 100 square foot room. I think we did pretty well!

Now just pray that our house sells soon!!

I have my first Abilene photo shoot tomorrow... wish me luck!

Before and Afters.... our first home...

So, here are the before and afters to our very first home. (and by first, I mean first that we owned!!)

I'll try to detail what we did in each room. In the whole house, we scraped down the popcorn ceiling and replaced it with a normal orange peel texture ceiling. We also replaced all doorknobs and hardware to oil rubbed bronze.

Master Bedroom

Before
After:

Master Bathroom

Before:

After:

We took down the wallpaper, replaced the big mirror with two small, framed mirrors (don't worry, we didn't waste the big one!! It is now mounted vertically on the wall of our closet for a full length mirror), replaced the gold "Hollywood" light fixture, textured where we took down the wallpaper, painted, and installed 2" faux wood blinds. The entire house except the two bathrooms came with the nicer blinds, so we thought that the bathrooms needed to match!! Also put in new towel holders, toilet paper holder, hook for robe, etc. in oil rubbed bronze.


Dining Room:

Before (sorry this is the only before shot I had!)
After:

New light fixture, crosses on the wall, touched up paint



Living Room

Before:
After:

Touched up paint, drilled a hole behind the TV for cords to go through. You probably can't see it in the before picture, but there were power and cable cords EVERYWHERE around the TV

Kitchen

Before:

After:

We replaced the ceiling fan to a more updated one, and replaced all of the hardware. You can't really see in this picture, but we also added cabinets in the laundry room for a pantry.


Living and Dining Room

Before:

After:

New ceiling fan in living room

Back Guest Bedroom

Before:


After:

New paint, fabric on the bench part of the window seat


Guest Bathroom:

Before:


After:

Took down wallpaper, textured the walls, replaced big mirror with a framed one, oil rubbed bronze hardware on cabinets, and new toilet paper holder, towel bar, etc.


Front Guest Bedroom:

Before:


After:

PRIMED and painted over the in-your-face lime green, took down the lime green and pink heart shaped covers over the electrical sockets and put normal ones on.
Looking at the front door from the living room

Before:


After:

Replaced the entryway fixture, front and back doorknobs, and painted the front door a dark olive-y brown as opposed to 90's green.


Hope you enjoyed the home tour!! We are really going to be sad to leave our first home, but looking back over what we have done to the place, I am really proud!!

Big News!!

So, a few weeks ago, Zane accepted a job with AT&T in Abilene! So, we put our house up on the market, and hopefully it sells, soon!! His new job will start April 6th, with training in Dallas all of his first week. To my photo clients - don't worry!! I will be back in Lubbock for all photo shoots with no travel fees charged to clients that are already booked.

We are really excited for this new chapter in our lives! We are excited to still be close to family, and to be more south than we are now... this makes the weather a little bit better for my foot. I think that Zane is really going to like his job, and hopefully I can move my photography business successfully!!

My sister's new birthday!

So, LAST weekend, we got a call early Sunday morning before we went to church of Jaci asking us if we would like to make a quick trip to Abilene. She was just finishing Winterfest, a Christian youth convention in the metroplex that Southern Hills goes to every year. For a while, she has been talking about getting baptized, but this weekend really convicted her to do it now! I was so happy that we could make the trip! Her old youth minister Paul Wallace baptized her at Southern Hills last Sunday afternoon!!





I am so proud of my little sister!!

I posted about THIS weekend below, so keep scrolling to read that!

Basketball, Grandma Joy, and Schedules!

So, this weekend we came to Abilene to watch my sister's basketball game. They played North Crowley, their only loss of the season thus far. So, they really wanted to win on Friday, and played much better than they had before, but still couldn't pull it out. It was fun to get to see my little sister play for Dear Ole Abilene High though.





Saturday we just had a lazy day of goofing around. Sunday, we went to church then out to eat at the Abilene Country Club for my Grandma Joy's birthday! The picture below isn't of us at the country club, because I forgot to take a picture, but it is of me and her at Texas Roadhouse with the coat / blanket / shawl that we got her for Christmas. Sorry for the low quality picture... it was taken with my iPhone.



Today I went to the dentist to get my first cavity ever filled. I actually didn't even have to get shots to have my mouth numbed. So that part was good. I HATE shots.

Then lunch at Bueno with my mom and Carol, and then I spent this afternoon organizing my calendar for my photography. I have my iPhone, iCal, MobileMe, and a paper calendar. My paper calendar was the most correct, so I entered all of the info into my iCal and synced the rest so that all my calendars will be right! Whew!

On the list for tomorrow - I have a meeting to go to so that I can participate in the bridal fair here in Abilene! Fun fun!

Life in 2009 so far...

Well, since I have a personal blog and a photography blog, when my life is being devoted to photography, there isn't too much to write on the personal blog! I was a part of the bridal fair here in Lubbock on January 11th. All before the event, I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get things ready, and ever since I have been booking appointments and weddings! Not arguing about being busy because of that!

Before the fair, I did get my hair cut... here is the new do:



I like the front a lot, but I think that I wish that the back was a little more stacked. Oh well.... in six months I am sure I will get it cut again. For those that don't know - my hair grows at the speed of snail. Seriously.

Also - Maddie had puppies on December 20, and they are now officially four weeks old! The puppy with the collar has already been reserved, and the lightest colored one is starting to get really friendly with Krystal... :)


Sorry for the sub-par quality of the photos... they were both taken with my iPhone! (Which by the way crashed yesterday, and now they are sending me a new one. I can only talk on it on speakerphone!! Not a good problem to have when I have lots of brides calling me wanting to meet and book weddings! AHH!)