Long time...

It's been a long time since I've blogged. I've thought about it, but it's been a whirl-wind since starting school. School has been going pretty well, I'm doing slightly above average in my classes and enjoying it. I've gotten to know some of the people in program pretty well, so that's been cool. I wish I had kept up with my blogging, I'm sure there is all sorts of fun stories that I'll forget! But, life is too short to live with regrets I'm realizing. I can't change anything but the present, and even that is only by the grace of God. So, instead of dwelling in the past, I'll start with today:

The snow began this week! It was so beautiful and Joshua got to stay home for a couple of days, which was glorious!!! I even got a snow day last Wednesday. So of course, it had this blizzard thing going on, but I still decided to drive up to Ames with Joshua to drop him off so that we could drive together after school. When we got closer to Ames, the weather got a lot worse, so I chickened out. Thus, I am stationed at burgie's for the day, which I must admit is fun. I need to get a ton done, but I've been pretty distracted today. Hopefully after I'm done finishing my wonderful chicken scarmoza sandwich, I'll be able to concentrate and buckle down. I'm done with school on Friday, yay! Until them, I need to study really hard for my test to pull up my grade. I got the swine flu, so I got really behind on all of my classes and got a 72% on one of my anatomy tests... so yeah, I have to pull up my 84% to an 85%, and hopefully higher to give myself padding, no pressure!

Crazy timing, because we just moved this weekend to our new apartment at 31st and Grand. It's so nice and big. The living room area is a little too big for our furniture, but thankfully I married the furniture arranger extraordinaire! He is so good at arranging geometric shapes, I'm very glad for his slightly nonconvential approach! We needed the extra bedroom for fostering. I'm getting really excited for fostering. I think God has called us to this for now, and that makes it more exciting. I think he's given us an amazing unity and unique approach that is really cool. I'm nervous, but I really feel prepared too. Joshua gave me a budget to get fully outfitted, so that was a blessing for both of us. I love how we've been coming up with really cool ways of compromising. So, I have now gotten a car seat, 10 cloth diapers with inserts, a rocking chair, and sippy cups. I know that I don't have any idea of exactly what I'll need, but I need to feel prepared, so I'm excited. Tonight is the 9th class for fostering, and then next week is the last class, wow! It's amazing that we're almost ready! After we get done with classes, our worker has until February something to get in our paperwork, then we're all set!

Next week is Christmas, crazy, I can't even believe that! I can't wait to see Joshua's family. It will be amazing to have us all in one place for a week. Joshua has been all excited about what he got me, so now I'm all aflutter. I love surprises! I'm excited about what I got him, but I had to stay in the budget (he went over...), so it's not quite as grand... :) But he'll like it!

Well, I'm going to hit the books!

Kendall

Yay for our first ANNIVERSARY!

I had the most wonderful Sunday! Joshua was so thoughtful and sweet! He planned this marvelous date for our anniversary, and it was absolutely perfect. He gave me some clues before we left, but I totally didn't get them. I had no idea what he had planned. We left Sunday around 10:30 and drove to Kansas City, which was a really nice drive. We talked and listened to Poirot stories the whole way down, it made it go fast. We got there around 1:00pm and we pulled up to a Brazillian grill, which I have ALWAYS wanted to go to. It's like the classiest buffet you've ever seen. It was called EM CHAMAS, which is in flames. That was one of the clues he gave me... :) It was unbelievable yummy, so wonderful! We had such a wonderful time. They had this brunch buffet, that had the most amazing chicken strogonoff and omelets. Then you had a little disk that you would flip on your table if you wanted them to bring you meat. We got to try 6 different types of meat, all delicious. It was so thoughtful and so amazing!

Us in front of the Restaurant, yay for 1 year!

By the restaurant there was this little plaza thing that was supposed to be a very mini representation of France, so we decided to play on it...


My monkey climbed the arc de triumphe!

I just pretended to swim...

The master in action...

Us being pretty silly...


After lunch, we went to Chateau Avalon which is where we spent our first night. It was so sweet, he picked the perfect room, the Serengeti. It was so cool, it had a loft where the bed was with rocky looking stairs up to it. It had a nice jacuzzi tub, which was super nice and relaxing! It was so nice, he ordered the romance package, so there were rose petals covering the bed, so beautiful! And later we had sparkling cider and chocolate covered strawberries.

The beautiful Chateau Avalon!

The rose covered bed, the petals smelled so good!


Our Room: Serengeti


No first anniversary is complete with out a rhino sticking out of your wall...

We made friends with Mr. Rhino...
The awesome tree in our room!
The jacuzzi had different colored lights in it, for chromatherapy!

After bumming around our hotel for a bit, we went to a cool church that Joshua found. It's like a post-modern Nazarene church, it was a really neat time of worship. I am so thankful that I have a husband that loves to praise God and go to church! After we left, we had a really cool discussion about the church. We thought it was a cool idea, but it didn't seem to be working since there were about 8 people there including us...

We then drove around Kansas City for a bit, which is really kind of a cool town. We then got Sheridan's Custard, which I loved. Joshua didn't like his strawberry pina colada smoothie, but I got ice cream mixed with brownie and carmel then they pitted out a whole in the cup and poured a ton of hot fudge down it, it was called a brownie bling pothole, and it was fantastic... :)



We then went back to our hotel and relaxed the hotel had a ton of movies, so we borrowed "You've Got Mail." It was really cute, Joshua had never seen it before. He picks up on so many subleties that I miss, he's amazing. We then wrote down what the last year has been to each of us, it was a really cool time of reflection!


We then had breakfast this morning at 7:00 and then drove back here. So kind of a long couple of days, but super worth it... :)

So, all in all, it was a pretty wonderful weekend, and I'm so thankful for Joshua who was so thoughtful and planned the whole thing. Thank you God for blessing us with this wonderful year. You gave me the most wonderful husband, thank you for giving me an illustration of your love for me! You are the best daddy, always loving, always watching out for me. You are glorious, and I love you!
Thank you Joshua for a wonderful year and weekend, I loved learning more about you this weekend and year. I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you, you are wonderful!
I love You!

Just wanted to end with a picture showing what a gentleman my husband is...

Deux!

Woah, I'm exceeding my expectations, two days in a row. Who am I? :) Today I'm hitting up the coffee shops again, not quite as productive, but still fun. I tried to take a nap, but no go. I have to go to the immunologist's tommorow in Iowa City, which is probably unneccessary, but what isn't. I have not been able to sleep well the last couple of night, and have been even waking up poor Joshua. :( I feel pretty awake during the day, though, so can't complain. As I was typing that, I just found out that our friends lost their baby girl in childbirth yesterday. I can't even imagine that. I'm praying for peace, but that is so tragic. It just breaks my heart.

I'm ordering flowers, so hopefully they'll turn out well.

Praying for peace...

Le Premier!

I have never really blogged before, so we'll see if I stick with it. I have decided that the next two years are going to be a blur in grad school, so I might need to write somethings down to document and remember. I really have no idea what to put on a blog, so it should be interesting. It doesn't really matter, because it's actually for my record, so I can just print it off and show posterity.

This picture is totally random, but I like it. It's from the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. The lights make you look black and white, it wasn't my camera, how weird is that! You walk into this tunnel, and the guy next to you is sepia! It was really fun!

Today I'm up in Ames, it's pretty cool, because I get so much more done at a coffee shop. I cannot work at home. I'm really glad I've found that out, because it makes me feel like I have one more tool to help me succeed at grad school. I wrote my personal statement, e-mailed the designer about WA eagles, and did other really important things. :) Yay me! I like when I have productive days, hopefully I'll have two years of them soon. I got to go swimming with Joshua at the Iowa State pool, Mandar came too. It was really fun, I've never considered myself good at swimming, but I held my own. If only I had discovered this in high school, I could have felt athletic! Oh well, I probably wouldn't have the dazzling personality I do. :) Tonight Joshua surprised me by wanting to take me out to eat, awww.... We're going to go to Cocoso or something like that. It's supposed to be like Chinese or Thai, according to Mandar. I'm super excited. I've been trying to be really good about calories and the such. SparkPeople is soooo helpful! I now know how much I can eat if I enter all my food. Joshua has been a great example to me, what an amazing man! He's really learning to be patient and loving while I am learning new things.

I got my tablet PC yesterday, that is super fun. I was going to bring it today, but I probably would have played on it the whole time... I'm really excited for DMU to start. It will be nice to have a Master's under my belt for when I decide exactly what I want to be when I grow up.

I'm wanting to have my devotions today, so I'm going to do that now. I'm reading Intimate Allies, which is an AMAZING book. It has a lot of really good things to think about. I'm learning so much about God, it's almost disconcerting. I just have to realize that just because I don't understand God, that doesn't make him not great, it actually proves His greatness.

Until next time!