Well, as always, it’s been a loooooong time since I last
updated my blog. I would like to say that I’m going to more often, but I think
I probably say that every time as well, so instead I’m just going to state the
obvious: I suck at this lol. Either way, I’ve been back from my birthday trip
to Texas for a while now and lots of life has happened since that time! But
first….about my Texas trip! I had such an awesome time and I was lucky enough
to see most of my family (although only one of my friends). Since I didn’t want
to take too much time off work right before our busiest time of the year, I had
to decide if I wanted to fly in to SA and get to visit with friends, or into Lake
Jackson and be able to see my family. Family won out. I spent every waking
moment of the day visiting with everyone and I got to continue the long
standing tradition of celebrating my 24th birthday along with my
Aunts Sara and Susan, whose birthdays are within a couple days of mine. My mom
and Grandma Margie also took me to the Houston Galleria for a birthday shopping
spree, and to dinner at Lupe Tortilla to top the day off. It was such a good
time, and I especially enjoyed every single last bite of tex mex.
Additionally, mine and Michael’s good friend, Wes, recently
moved to Lake Jackson, so he spent a lot of time hanging out with my family and
I. On my last night home, my cousins and I met up with Wes and his roomie and
went to the movies. I know that wouldn’t be too exciting for most normal
people, but I had only been the movies one time since moving to Iowa and it had
been months since Michael and I had been able to do anything at all, so it was
a pretty fun time! Though the whole trip was great, I have to say my favorite
part was fishing at the beach with my parents and little cousin Kristyn. I have
literally never in my life had a more successful day of fishing! At this point,
I can’t even remember how many fish we caught, but one of the days, we hit the
max yearly limit for Red Fish over a certain length, so we had to start
throwing them back. It was crazy!
Mom and Dad's new dog, Dixie. I met her for the first time that weekend!
Dixie loved chasing the cranes
The ice cream truck came by hehe :)
One of the 30 inchers
nothing completes a good day of fishing like a ninja turtle popsicle!
Though I was sad to leave Texas, I tried to think of my
hubby and puppies waiting for me to arrive in Des Moines. That was the one
thing that could have made my trip even better! It such a balancing act—in
Iowa, I’m always missing my family and friends back home, but I can’t fully be
content in Texas either, unless Michael is by my side. I felt so so guilty for
leaving him here to study a million hours and take care of a new puppy, while I
was having fun with everyone else. Just in case he forgot how much I would miss
him while I was gone, I made him a man bouquet with some of his favorite
things. On the morning my flight for TX left, I pretended I forgot something
and while Michael waited in the car, I ran up and put his bouquet on the table
for him to find when he got back from taking me to the airport. I think it held
him over alright, because by the time I returned, he had eaten every last thing
in the bouquet hehe.
After being back for a couple days, I was trying to get
fully back into the swing of things and prepare for Medicare Advantage Season,
which would start the very next week, when I got into a car wreck. And on a
quick side note, I just want to take a moment to rant about how ridiculously
rude the people in Iowa are! I was in the middle lane of three, and when we
collided, none of the cars around me would even stop to let me pull over to the
side of the road. I was just stuck in the middle of an intersection, as the
cars on both sides went around me, and the truck that hit me took off. UGH! He
did end up stopping down the road, however. As it turns out, he had run a red light
while playing on his phone…frustrating! It was especially irritating because
the police dispatcher told us the cops couldn’t come because there were too
many domestic disturbance disputes being tended to. After a few hours of
waiting we finally just decided to leave. The guy ended up lying to the
insurance company, which caused a bit of stress since Iowa has some weird law that
basically says a person is generally not 100% at fault and both people will be
assigned partial blame, regardless of what happened. Thanks to a witness who
stopped and gave me her contact info, they ended up assigning him 100% of the
blame. Yay! They also ended up not totaling out my car, so after 2 weeks with a
rental, I got my car back! Couldn’t have turned out better!
Another recent happening was the presidential election
between Obama and Romney! It was my first time voting and it was a really cool
feeling to be doing it in a swing state. Although it obviously didn’t turn out
the way I would have liked, I feel like Obama’s re-election and all the changes
that are now taking place as a result, will be a huge wake up call to all the
people who have the unfounded belief that the government can afford to take
care of everyone, without anyone actually paying for it. I don’t mean to rant,
but I feel this country is on the verge of a necessary hardship- a hardship that
will lead to real change. Positive change. Perhaps people will realize America,
as great as it is, isn’t immune to destitution or any other consequence of trillions
of dollars of debt.
Also worth noting is that Hostess announced its bankruptcy on
Friday. It’s strange to think that our kids will never know the joys of biting
into a fluffy Twinkie with delicious cream filling L Oh well, I suppose good
things come and go! After hearing the news, Michael decided it would be a good
idea to buy up all the hostess stuff we could find and try to sell it on ebay.
Apparently it was a good idea… who knew a box of Twinkies would be worth $30
lol. We now have more hostess products than I’ve ever seen, outside of a grocery
shelf. I’ll have to let you know if it ends up making him enough money to make
it worth the 3 hours of time plus gas it took him to drive around the city
collecting the little cakes haha. Either way, Michael was pleased with himself.
Our sweet Darcy girl is MUCH bigger than the last time I
wrote. She’s just reached 20 lbs! I really can’t believe how quickly she grew.
At this point, she’s big enough to reach food anywhere on the dining room
table, and about halfway back on the kitchen countertops. She’s been easy to train to do tricks because
she’s so smart, but when it comes to accessing food (human or dog), she’ll take
any punishment we can dish out, so that’s been a little more slow going. She’s
still not all the way potty trained, though she’s coming along alright. Her and
Gizmo still love each other just as much, and spend most of their time playing
tug-of-war or wrestling.
Hahaha I love this picture! Even though she's double his size, he still always beats her at tug-of-war
She has him pinned lol :)
She is NOT allowed on the couch, but she pretends she doesn't know it.
My giant babygirl
We’ve also recently celebrated Michael’s 25th
birthday! I really just can’t believe he’s already in his mid-twenties…I still
think of him as a reckless 16 year old with his newly acquired driver’s license
burning a hole in his dash. We didn’t have too much time to celebrate, but I
did take him to Zombie Burger to get one of the greatest burgers of all time,
and then we went home for some Reeses Peanut Butter Explosion Cake that I had
made. It was seriously delicious. I intended on letting him open his present
too, but it came a bit late, so he had to wait on that. Nevertheless, when he
did open it, he loved it just as much!
That's right...star wars wrapping paper lol
Pink Floyd leather guitar strap
I made it a Spurs theme since our lives lately have revolved around The Spurs and Aggies
Other than that all that, life is pretty much the norm.
Although winter is approaching, the weather hasn’t been too miserable here yet.
Everyone keeps saying how unusual this “warm” weather is, but it’s really only
been like this since we moved here, so I guess we can’t really say we’ve ever
experienced a typical Iowa winter. I am
so abundantly thankful for that. I hate the cold, with a passion. Though I’m
not looking forward to snow and I haven’t enjoyed thawing out my car in the
morning, I’ve loved watching the leaves change and fall. Autumn is gorgeous
here! Now I’m just looking forward to a relaxing Thanksgiving with Michael and
the pups, and of course getting ready for Christmas- my favorite time of year!
Happy Thanksgiving, y’all!
Oh one last thing...how could I have forgotten! A&M is doing insanely well in the SEC and is now ranked #8, after our big win over Alabama! Our entire Saturdays revolve around watching them, which has been a lot of fun for Michael and I. I really can't express how gratifying it has been to rub our success in my co-workers faces, mostly because they gave me so much crap at the beginning of the season lol. Okay that's all, THANKS AND GIG 'EM! :)
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