Some of Our Favorite Things

• First of all, it is the end of October, so that means the semester is nearing it's end! We couldn't be happier about this! That means only 2 semesters left for me until graduation!

• Lately I have been substituting for my part of the income. One day was in high school, which was TERRIBLE, and once in 1st grade. The first grade was bilingual and even though that sounds scary, it was amazing! I loved those kids! I came home speaking Spanglish, it was awesome. 1st grade is my dream so today was really fun! I got more hugs than I can even count.
  
• Marvin has recently discovered an amazing blog through a friend of ours! There are so many delicious things on here that we thought we would share it! The cheese tortellini soup is our recommendation so far...
  
• Texas is the best dog anyone could ever ask for! He enjoys napping with us, or going to the dog park. He is so sweet! We just love him!

Home Sweet Home

If we ever got to be here that would be nice! HA! We are staying so busy! School and work are leaving us NO time for anything else. We got a calling at church to teach the CTR 5 class! It is so much fun! We have a great group of kids here! They are all very well behaved. School for me is amazing. It's so busy but very rewarding. I'm so close to graduation and I'm starting to get VERY excited! Marvin is applying to University of Houston for next semester. Hopefully that will work out well because I will be doing my student teaching the next semester and it would be great to be in Cy-Fair ISD for that. They like to hire their own! Work is crazy, Marvin is working about 45 hours a week. He is a champ! Managing to work more than full time and be in school full time. I am so proud of him!
Well, there isn't much to update. We are so busy we can't breathe, but we are happy! :)

Reading

I am very disappointed in myself. I used to be a reader; at least a novel every month but more with the much missed influence of Maggie. I am sorry to say that I haven't finished one single book in over a year! I have started 3 books during this time, but they are just sitting on my bookshelf half-read. I am setting a goal to start reading again! I miss getting away into some other life for any amount of time. I am seriously setting a goal, here in front of all my readers (if there are any readers of my silly little blog) to start reading again!
I need to finish Marley & Me, the rest of the Harry Potter series, and I would love to read The Lovely Bones... I actually have a list of several books that I would like to read. It will be hard with school starting back up, but there will always be an excuse not to do things right? So I'm going to work really hard for this one!

MOVING!!!

We are officially moving! We found a great little (emphasis on "little") apartment in Spring. It's REALLY nice, just small. I figure that's great because it will force us to be organized and keep the amount of junk collecting to a minimum. The apartment has a work out center, which is awesome, and a very nice pool, a leash-less dog park (AMAZING!!!), and it's gated so I get to feel super cool every time I come home and click the gate open!
We decided on Spring because it's about 30 minutes for Marvin to get to work, it's about 10 minutes for him to get to school, 15 minutes for me. I am substitute teaching in Conroe and there are 2 Conroe schools between Pre-K and 6th grade (which is where my certification will be) within 2 minutes from our apartment! So hopefully I can get a few jobs there!
Our apartment faces the pool so it's a sweet view! We are so excited it's ridiculous.

Being Married...

Being married is awesome. We both agree. The wedding was beautiful! Thanks to Janelle, Katti, and Corey who really took charge and made things happen! I know that lots of other people stepped up and did a LOT for that day, so if I didn't mention you, please know that I am thankful!

The honeymoon was wonderful! Beautiful clear waters! We saw a sea turtle, a barracuda, and a sting ray on our snorkel trip. We went para-sailing and jet skiing! It was so much fun!

We sort of have jobs now, I say sort of because mine is up in the air at the moment... LONG story. We have applied for our apartment in Conroe, so as soon as possible we will be living there! Marvin decided to go to Montgomery Community College instead of Blinn because it's only 10 minutes away from where we will live, not an hour and 20 min. It will be nice. Only 2 of his classes are on campus, the other 2 are online.

As far as church goes, we are primary teachers until the end of the summer! CTR 5! They are adorable and we are so excited for this calling!

As The Wedding Day Approaches...

Thanks to poking and prodding by my dear friend Katti, I am updating our blog... :)

The wedding day is in 2 days now. I think it's starting to sink in that I'm getting MARRIED!!! Not in a bad way, of course. But it keeps hitting me in waves...
I had originally planned on not doing any wedding stuff after Tuesday, but that idea has been swiftly thrown out the window. There is so much to do! I am not overwhelmed though, I am surprisingly calm. Calm and busy. Marvin is excited too and very helpful. Overall, I would say that this is going fairly smoothly!
My cousin Corey cam in on Friday to help out and she has done an amazing job. We had our bachelor and bachelorette parties Friday also. Marvin and his friends went to play paintball and had a blast. They are all covered in little welts now, but apparently it was worth it. I had dinner with my girls at Buca di Bepo. It was fantastic and I was showered with lingerie... ;)
Some of Marvin's family just came in last night, and mine is coming in today. Tomorrow Karryn will be here and then we get married! It is all coming so fast! We are very excited!

The Honeymooners

We have had our hotel booked in Miami, FL (ocean view room!! YAY!) for about a week, but last night I got our plane tickets! They went down $100 each!!! Gold star for me being such a persistent cheapo!!! So now we are all set for our honeymoon! I have the concierge at our hotel working diligently to book us deep sea fishing, para-sailng, and snorkeling trips. So it looks like we will be busy! Here is our itinerary:
Saturday June 13- arrive at our hotel around 11pm
Sunday June 14- relax and enjoy
Monday June 15- deep sea fishing
Tuesday June 16- snorkeling
Wednesday June 17- para-sailing (this is my birthday!!)
Thursday June 18- beach day/return home in the late evening
We are very excited!

Here is a little overview of the past year for us. Starting when we met...

This was our first time out, not a date... but the beginning of us, which was just over a year ago now!
This was actually considered our "first date." We went out for sushi and then to the Houston Symphony. We went to the Houston Zoo a few days later with my family!

This is at the Aquarium! We looked at all the fish, rode the Ferris wheel, and took a shark tour. It was SO FUN!

For my birthday we made a lemon cake. It is the best lemon cake in the world! SO GOOD!
Moto... what can I say? I know nothing about bikes or terminology. I watched.

This is Marv's birthday cake I made him. I was definitely trying to show off because that is a German Chocolate cake FROM SCRATCH! I had never done that before in my life! But it turned out to be a favorite...
We spent about a month apart in July and August because I had to go off with the Army and he went on a vacation with his dad to Utah.

When we were back together, we went horseback riding! The one time I ever wore my boots...

In August we went to Sea Word in San Antonio. That was amazing!

And this was a Young Single Adult Conference we went to that was the most fun we have probably ever had. I would say that this is the point where we just knew for sure we were so amazing together!

We visited the BlueBell Ice Cream Factory! YUM!



We took Evan (our nephew!!!) to an event at Cy-Fair College. He got to play and get a tattoo and go to a petting zoo! We are the best aunt and uncle ever!

For Halloween we dressed up as a devil and an angel. Yep... that's pretty much how it is. LOL!

And on December 10, 2008 we got ENGAGED!!! He asked me at the same sushi restaurant we went to for our first official date!
This is at Marvin's work Christmas party! It was at the Westin in the Galleria.

For Marv's Christmas gift I gave him SuperCross tickets! So in January we went to that. It was awesome and we had great seats!

This is our little Easter egg-dying adventure. We only dyed like 8 eggs. It was so fun though!

This is our little herb garden! Other than herbs, we planted jalapenos, pablano's, habanero's, & cayenne peppers, and lettuce and tomatoes.

So this is probably the longest post ever. Definitely the longest one we will ever do... but now everyone is caught up on us and the things that we do! Now we will be getting married in the Houston Temple on June 12! That's 17 more days!