Nov 10 - my first pedicure

I had never had a manicure or pedicure before.  Ever.  I always did my own nails, even for my wedding I did my own french tip nails, with some help from my mom for my right hand, lol.  Anyway, when my friend Lacey found out, she insisted on treating me and rectifying the issue.  She had gotten a gift certificate for a nail salon for a pedi and mani, and decided to split it with me because she said it's more fun to go with someone.  So, I met with her, and another of her friends from school tagged along, and I officially got my first pedicure.  And I must say, it was definitely indulgent.  The gift certificate was for the ultra-deluxe pedicures, and I had no idea how much they did beyond just painting my toenails.  By the end of the 45-minute session, my feet and legs (up to my knees) had been soaked, washed, lathered, scrubbed, exfoliated, lotioned, oiled, massaged, and even were given a massage with hot stones and wrapped in heated towels, all while I sat in a huge massage chair with my feet in a miniature whirlpool hot tub.  Of course they also cleaned, trimmed, shaped, painted, decorated and shellacked my toenails, complete with (much to Danny's dismay) rhinestone details.  The fumes in the place were pretty strong, and the people at the store didn't speak much english (the lady with me kept smiling at me and asking, "you like?"), and to do it regularly would get expensive really fast, but otherwise it was kind of fun, they looked great for weeks, and it's kinda nice to get pampered once in a while, I guess... makes me which I had done it for the wedding, haha.  I could've used the time to just sit and relax.  Oh well.  Now I can say I've done it at least once.  Thanks Lacey!

... my camera's sad attempt at taking pictures ... well, they were a dark burgandy sort of red but with a hint of gold that showed up in the light.  The design on the big toes were white flowers with gold rhinestone centers.  ... it was a little weird having something glued onto my toenail, but it was pretty funny watching Danny's reaction when I showed him.  He's not really big on dark colors or lots of ornamention.  He just looked at me and asked, "... are those rhinestones?" I laughed and nodded yes, and it took every part of him to just smile and say, "...okay."

  ...on the bright side, now when I paint my toenails blue or purple, he's a lot better with it because it's so much more subdued than the bedazzled flowers, haha.

Oct 31 - Wilde's Halloween Party

A couple in our ward, the Wildes, love to entertain and throw parties.  They are super nice and fun and the parties are always nice to hang out with other couples our age without kids and outside of church or school or work.  We got invited to their Halloween party and had a lot of fun.  Plus it was fun to see what everyone's costumes were.  It was also kinda fun too because the Wilde's live in a pretty nice neighborhood so they had lots of trick-or-treaters the whole night.  Eventually they ran out of candy, but Chow didn't want to turn anyone away, so she started handing out whatever she could--balloons, mini hand sanitizers, packages of graham crackers, hot cocoa, etc. haha.

a must for any good party, tons of really great food

Brittany and Jeff, dressed up as pirates

us, dressed as War and Peace (though everyone kept guessing Forrest Gump and Jenny)

 

Chelsea, as a Parisian, and Jeremy, as a ceiling fan (his t-shirt says, "Go Ceilings!")

everyone playing Rock Band - they even have a keyboard! very cool :)

Some people also played croquet.  (l-r) Chow, Heidi and Danny (who won the game, lol)

Philip came as a ninja

Halloween also happens to be one of our friends, Clayton's birthday, so they had a little cake and celebration for him too.

The whole crowd - (loosely l-r) Russ and Chow; us; Brittany and Jeff; Jessica; Clayton and Hilary; Chelsea and Jeremy; Philip; and Heidi (holding Preston), Brad and Brandon.

Oct 29 - Trunk-or-Treat

Being married and in ROTC is pretty rare; there is only one other guy in Danny's whole year that is.  Luckily, they really hit it off and his family have become some of our closest friends here.  While the guys were gone for the weekend before Halloween for ROTC training, Lacey invited me to join her and her two boys at their church's trunk-or-treat.  Of course I said yes to the chance to dress up and get out of the house while Danny was gone.  And even more fun, this year I had planned on our costumes kinda being a couple theme, so when he couldn't come, Lacey was willing to wear his costume instead.  ... see if you can guess what we went as :)  ... no really got it though. oh well, it was still fun to make and I thought it turned out well.

Here's Lacey with her two boys, Westley, 3 (dressed as an astronaut), and Logan, 2 (dressed as a skeleton)

... they didn't exactly want to pose for pictures... oh well...

... Logan ate a really sour piece of candy, not sure if he likes it or not.

They go to church in San Antonio with their cousins and grandparents.  Here is their trunk.  The boys in uniforms and the girl dressed as a gnome are their cousins.

Afterwards, Lacey's extended family treated us to dinner out.

... finally got a picture of just us together (it's pretty difficult with two very wiggly little kids). so, have you figured out what we are yet?  Yes, I am a hippie and Lacey is a soldier.  No, we aren't Jenny and Forrest Gump. ... any guesses?  We went as War and Peace. :)

oh, and before we went, Lacey offered to do my hair, and I thought she did a nice job.  She pulled two small braids on the sides together and banded them with a flower.  Not exactly easy to do by myself.

Oct 18 - Emily's 1st Birthday

We went to Houston for a day for Emily's 1st birthday party.  It was mostly just family visiting at a park and then watching Emily try and decide what to do with her birthday cake.  We spent the afternoon shopping before coming back home.  Here's Emily looking so happy! 

... they didn't have any lighters or matches, so Tommy tried using the cigarette lighter from his car to light the candle ... didn't exactly work, but I don't think Emily really cared too much.

... she had more fun playing with the frosting and rolling the cupcake than eating it. oh well.

... do you know how hard it is to find nice gifts for a one-year-old that don't require batteries?  we found this set of old-fashioned wooden blocks that we thought we're cute, and all the kids can enjoy them too.

playing catch up ... as always :P

Life has been really busy the last few months, so it's definitely been a while since I last updated.  Plus, I'm still trying to get a hold of pictures from the holidays, so I tend to keep procrastinating, just waiting until I get all the pictures so I can do it all in one swoop ... but waiting just means it is longer and longer between posts, and more stuff just keeps happening.  So, I'm just gonna go ahead and update with what I have (though I really hate posting without pictures ... it just feels lame, I guess... I'll try to avoid too many of them).  I believe the most recent thing I've posted was about our first anniversary back in August, so I'll start there.

The fall semester of 2011 started in full swing at the end of August, and just as Danny became super busy, I suddenly didn't have as much to do.  Work was pretty slow after school got under way (most people want all the financial aid stuff taken care of before school starts, go figure, haha), and then my temp job ended mid-October, which left me with suddenly *lots* of time on my hands.  When I wasn't job searching, I used the time to catch up on some hobbies and books and movies, make a lot of baked goods and homemade gifts (wait until I post about Christmas), and get the apartment in order - organizing, cleaning, decorating, etc. (it took over a week to finally clean and organize the office closet alone).  Of course, there's still stuff I'd like to do, and stuff that we're still changing, but it is a lot nicer than before, and that gave me something to do.

Danny, on the other hand, had a full schedule with 15 hours including ROTC with heavy time demands, plus institute classes and church calling.  The other classes besides ROTC he took were Spanish 4, English British Lit (he actually had the class with his brother, Nick! cool surprise), History of England, and World Civilization... all of which had lots and lots of reading and essays (this is why I was an arch major).  Then he also joined something with ROTC called Ranger Challenge.  That is basically this competition with other rotc's in the area competing in various army tactics and physical fitness skills (... I think).  Anyway, it meant extra morning workouts and a weekend away in October for the event.  ... he wasn't even really on the team, per say (he didn't compete ... the try-outs were wicked intense), but he helped cheer them on and got all the extra workouts he wanted, plus it give him extra credit points toward his final army listing score...thing (I really need to learn its name) that he gets this summer after LDAC (summer training he has to pass to get into the army).

Add to this that I think Danny had maybe three Saturdays the entire semester with no commitments.  Danny and I definitely logged a lot of hours on the road across the state.  If it wasn't ROTC (weekends away for Ranger Challenge and for Field Training Exercises), it was church service projects (like when Bastrop, a town about an hour east of here, had really bad wildfires and he went to help clean up), and if it wasn't church, then there was family -- in September, there was a new niece, Wynn's (Elena's youngest) baby blessing [2.5 hrs away]; in October, there was another niece, Emily's (Tommy's youngest) birthday party in Houston [3 hrs away] and then helping fix up his parent's old house they're renting in Georgetown [2 hrs away]; and in November, he competed in a 5K Warrior Dash with his brother, David, in Austin [1 hr away] and we spent a week during Thanksgiving with my family in Allen [4 hrs away]; and in December we spent a week in College Station with the Garcia side for Christmas and another week in Allen with the Crookston side for New Years where we spent time with dozens of relatives.  Plus making sure that when we were home, we made time for parties and hanging out with friends too ... and of course the few chores we could squeeze in, lol.  Needless to say, it made for a busy (and often stressful) semester.

SO, that pretty much sums up our fall in a nutshell.  I think both of us had a huge sigh of relief when the semester was over.  Danny pulled off a 3.2 gpa and I also found out that Texas State would hire me back the next year.  While we did a lot of stuff, I think we both plan to try and take it a little easier this year, perhaps step back a bit, recuperate and relax.  I think we could really use it.

(back track to April again) TOFW

Remember how I said this past April was super busy?  Well, I keep forgetting things, like going to one of my sister-in-law's baby showers in Pflugerville (I can't find any pictures of it though) or when I went to Time Out For Women (tofw) with three of my sisters-in-law [sils] in San Antonio the last weekend of April (I just got a hold of a picture of all of us that day, and the rest of the pictures of the event I just got from their website, so I could blog about it, lol).  Hopefully this will be the last post from April.  I just didn't want to forget about all this stuff I've done.

Preface to this post: this was my first time attending a Time Out For Women event.  I've heard of lots of ladies liking them, and my sils really wanted an excuse to get together without husbands or kids, just a girl's night out kinda thing.  The event, put on by Deseret Books, consists of inspirational speakers and musical numbers on Friday evening and then all day Saturday.  ... not to offend anyone who likes these events, but let's just say, I didn't know what to expect, and then it wasn't what I expected at all.

 On the weekend of tofw, Elena picked me up early from work that Friday and we drove down to San Antonio and met up with Kay and Jennifer at the hotel.  We grabbed a quick bite to eat at the mall next to the expo center, then headed on over to the main event.  This year's theme was "Choose to Become - All things are possible to him that believeth".  I suppose it was supposed to be an encouraging theme about how we can be whatever we want to be and about how we need to change how we act to actually live how we want to be, not just think about the changes we want... but sometimes it kinda felt more like the "secret" and if you wish it enough, you'll get it ... a little lame and a little too-good-to-be-true for me, I guess.

 We got to the main auditorium where I realized this event was HUGE.  It sat a full crowd of nearly 2,000 women and girls (this year the did a combined teenage girls and adult women, splitting up for different talks on Saturday morning)! crazy.  I wasn't expecting there to be so many people.  The stage was set up more like a conference I'd attend in college than a church meeting, and there were big screens so you could still see way in the back.

Friday evening we listened to Dallyn Vail Bayles and Sheri L. Dew.  Bayles is a mormon broadway actor/singer, so his presentation had a lot of really nice singing, though I felt like the message was only so-so.  Dew, president of Deseret Books, gave a fairly nice talk, but I guess I've heard so much great things about her, it felt lackluster, and also filled with promotions for the company and herself... not exactly fun to listen to.

 ... Friday was ... okay.  It was just so strange and unexpected.  I think the biggest thing was just the overall feel to the event.  It just feels wrong to have at the same meeting, prayers and applause, scriptures and advertisements, and hymns and pop rock while grown women jumping and waving their hands for both.  Maybe some ladies really like it, but I had a hard time feeling the spirit there, which I thought was supposed to be the point.

After the Friday session, all the sils and I stayed up half the night just chatting and laughing and snacking.  Elena and Kay had previously been to a tofw, and they tried to reassure Jennifer and me that this was different than the ones they had been to (I'm guessing now that it is a case by case basis on what to expect).  We decided to give the morning a try, but if it was really weird, we'd just ditch and go shopping at the mall instead, lol.  At least we had a lot of fun just hanging out and having a girl's night.

Saturday morning, we first heard from Amanda Dickson, a non-member radio morning show host from SLC.  okay, first it seemed strange to have a non-member presenting, but maybe it was just her.  It was a really weird talk all about how important friends were, but the way she gave it didn't feel like it had a point or any organization, and it made her seem to be either a psycho lady with a creepy laugh and big eyes, or possibly drunk, lol. ... needless to say, not very uplifting.  The next speakers were the mormon boy band, Jericho Road. ... They weren't bad, alternating between inspirational stories and songs, but for one, they were a good band over a decade ago and they just don't sound as good as they used too.  Plus, it was just too weird to see grown women standing up waving their cellphones like lighters at a rock concert during the music parts ... isn't this event supposed to bring the spirit and uplift us?  It felt like they were focusing on entertaining the crowd more than uplifting them.

During the morning break, Elena, Jennifer and I (Kay got sick and had to go home early) were definitely reconsidering staying for the rest of it after these presentations, but we did want to hear a couple of the other speakers, so we stuck out the morning.  Luckily, I enjoyed the next two talks quite a bit so that made up for the morning.  We heard from John Hilton III, an author and institute teacher.  He used a lot of scripture references (which I enjoyed) and talked about the theme "nothing shall be impossible unto you", and how, following the examples of the scriptures, we can overcome challenges and accomplish our goals by turning our weaknesses into strengths through God.  Very nice.

The next speaker was Emily Watts, an editor for Deseret Books.  She talked about habits for happiness, and making small and actually doable changes to help ourselves through life to becoming happier.  Some of her suggestions included loving yourself as a friend (not being so hard on yourself), developing thick skin, and pushing yourself to do seemingly hard things to help strengthen confidence.

Then we had a lunch break.  None of us cared to hear the next to speakers (one of which was just an encore of Jericho Road), but Elena did want to hear the last speaker, Kris Belcher.  So, we just took an extra long lunch break at the mall and did a little window shopping before coming back to catch her talk.  and it was really good we did, because it was probably the best.  Belcher talked about the hard times in life (she's had a lot of medical problems, including becoming blind as a teen) and how to have patience, a good attitude (she had a great sense of humor), and faith to keep going forward and to not fear because even when times get time, God is there for us and while he may not take away our problems, he will give us the strength to get through them.  A very nice end to an okay event.

the lovely ladies (l-r) Kay, Elena, me and Jennifer

So, all in all, I guess the event wasn't all bad... but I probably wouldn't have much interest in ever going to another one.  It felt too much like an evangelical service you see on sunday morning tv, and not enough of the spirit as I would've hoped.  And it's so hit or miss with the speakers.  Though it was a great excuse to get together with my sils, get to know them better, and have a much needed girl's night.

... okay, one more rant.  Every year, apparently, they give out free totes.  Elena was super excited and raving about them the whole time... and then we are handed these.  Okay, I'm sorry, but who actually thinks these are cute?!?  the whole event's color scheme was a dark purple with a puke-y light green paisley.  I can't stand paisley.  what is it with ugly greens and paisley? so hideous.

Our First Anniversary

Hard to believe it's already been a year since the wedding!  But we made it! yay!  For our anniversary, neither of us had that big of expectations, and with it falling on a Sunday too, planning got a little tricky.  Danny wanted to take me out to dinner, but work was getting really busy and he was getting ready for school to start and I was sick most of the time, and on top of all that we were asked a week before to give talks in church on August 14th (*ugh* ... of all the Sundays they could've picked, it had to be that one) so I spent the whole day before prepping my talk.

So, we kept it pretty simple.  I made a nice dinner with chicken cordon bleu, since we both really like it and it feels fancy, and we exchanged cards and he got me flowers (now that I think about it, it was really similar to our Valentine's Day, haha... guess I know what I like ... though we have since bought actual candle holders so we don't have to use plastic cups, lol).  Oh, and of course, we ate cake! :)  Danny was a bit skeptical of eating year old cake, but it's tradition and it was such a good cake.  And he'll admit, it was still pretty good ... though the frosting roses were still sickeningly sweet... and after a day or two in the fridge after we cut the cake, it got kinda stale, but at least we had some for our anniversary.  ... maybe next year we'll actually go out and do something ... or maybe not, lol.

our cards and my lovely red roses :)

unwrapping the cake ... getting wrapped up, frozen and moving a couple times kinda left it squished compared to the first day, but the cake part was still good

... dramatic first bite

yum! (... I think I even wore red in the photos for Valentines Day too... though it's a different red shirt, haha)

Congratulations Danny on making it a year with me.  We've had our ups and downs, our laughs and tears, our blessings and trials, our struggles and triumphs.  And I wouldn't have traded any of it because through it all we've grown so much.  I'm more in love with you every day, for the way you make me laugh with your silly jokes or smile when you tell me I'm beautiful, for your caring heart and listening ear and warm hugs, for your devotion to your family and the gospel, for your willingness to serve and to do so much for me and for us and for anyone who needs anything, and for just putting up with me.  I can't wait for all the years to come and being able to spend them with you, my best friend.  Happy Anniversary!