it’s a love story, baby just say yes

Four years ago yesterday Michael asked me to marry him…and I said yes.  I’ll save the proposal story for another day, but today I wanted to share with you some of our engagement pictures.

These were taken by friends of ours from college, Zach and Sarah.  If you live in the Cookeville/Knoxville/Nashville, TN area and need a photographer I highly recommend you check them out! (here is their website and Facebook page)  They are so fun to work with and do an excellent job!  These are by far my favorite pictures of us ever (yes, even including our wedding pictures).

it’s more awkward and much harder to hold a kiss for the camera than one might think…

and to hold that crouched position for so long…

coolest picture ever

this scary goose didn’t like us getting close to her babies so she chased us – yikes!

All of our pictures were taken in Cookeville, TN – most of them on Tech’s campus, where we went to school (Tennessee Tech University).

our wedding

Three years ago today (can it really have already been three years?)…

this girl

and this guy

got hitched!

In honor of our anniversary here’s a look into our big day (note: these are mostly pictures of the stuff, not the people, because I know many people are not comfortable having their pictures posted all over the place…so I’m trying to keep that to a minimum).

I really wanted to get married in front of a lake, but there weren’t really any good places within driving distance and we decided we’d rather have more people get to come and not get married at a lake than to have our ideal location but lots of people have to miss because of the distance.  But we were able to find somewhere with a nice creek behind us.  We got married at The Rawlings in Joelton, TN and it was truly the perfect day.  The weather was beautiful, it wasn’t too hot, and the rained held off until everyone had left.  It was casual and fun (at least for me, I sure hope it was for everyone else!).

here comes the bride

Michael had to win a game of paper, rock, scissors in order for Kelly to marry usI sure am glad he won!

The flowers that the flower girls dropped were dried petals from every rose Michael ever gave me.   Many years ago my mom suggested that I always keep the flowers given to me by a boyfriend and then someday if we got married I could use them in the wedding.  So I saved all those roses and it was so special on our wedding day that the rose petals came from years of bouquets.

these sweet little girls did a magnificent job dropping those special petals

Miller decided she didn’t want to walk back out, so K.C. had to carry her

Speaking of Miller…

I can’t believe how little she is in these pictures!  She sure has changed a lot in three years!

Brendan and Riley, along with some of the other kids at church who are near to my heart, sang as the parents and grandparents were seated

After the wedding we posed in the creek

 Instead of a traditional guestbook, I made scrapbook pages using our wedding colors with lined paper for guests to sign.  Then later when I scrapbooked our wedding, I mixed the signed scrapbook pages in among the pictures of the reception.  Now our “guestbook” and pictures are all in once place.

yummy cake

a display of pictures of us through the years

I decided to use one of my favorite flowers rather than wear a veil

I was over the moon with my flowers.  A friend from high school did them and they were gorgeous!

We covered candy with personalized labels for favors.

our ringsI have no idea what was going on here…true wedding goofiness, I suppose

Happy three year anniversary to my best friend!

spoiled

I know I’ve bragged on Michael before, but I just have to dedicate another post to some of the wonderful things he does for me.  This is just a list of things that he’s done for me over the past few months that have been so sweet:

• When I came home after taking my Praxis, there was a vase of flowers waiting for me on the table.
• A week or so later we were at the grocery and they had a bunch of buttercups (one of my favorites) so Michael bought me some of those, too.
• He knows that one of my major love languages is getting gifts, so he’ll randomly bring me little presents: a Cadbury egg, a Diet Coke, my Sharpie pens, etc.
• When he went on a work trip to Murfreesboro a few weeks ago and I had to stay here, he sent me letters in the mail from his hotel.  It was such a surprise to get those letters in the mail that week!  He also left a letter for me in the love journal in my car for me to find the first morning after he left.

And these are just a few examples that I really wanted to write down and remember, he also does all kinds of things on a regular basis like take my What I Wore Wednesday pictures, carry things for me, wash the yucky dishes, eliminate all rodents/bugs, resolve all plumbing issues, deal with the stressful tax/bill/house stuff, repair our cars, fix/update all technology, and chauffeur me around.

I’d say I’m spoiled, but really I’m just very blessed with a wonderful, thoughtful husband.

A Surrendered Marriage Challenge

Do you ever know you should pray for something but aren’t really sure exactly what or how?  That’s definitely the case for me many times.  Well yesterday while browsing Works for Me Wednesday posts I came across this challenge that teaches you and guides you through praying for your marriage/spouse.  It’s not a difficult or time consuming challenge, but one that is certainly worthwhile.

The Surrendered Marriage Challenge was put together by a group of four bloggers who want to help others learn to surrender their marriages to God through prayer.

So here are the details:

• The challenge runs from April 16 to June 1 = 5 weeks of praying intentionally for your marriage
• At the beginning of the challenge you are given list of “prompts” that provide you with a daily scripture and topic/idea for you to pray specifically about.
• When you register, you are put into an accountability group of sorts.  Each day you will check in with your group to help remind each other to pray.  You can choose to be in a group through Facebook (it will be private), through email, or on Twitter.
• It’s free
• It’s open to all ages, male and female.

And that’s basically it!  It’s a pretty simple task that I think will make a big impact in your relationships.  I’m really excited about doing The Surrendered Marriage Challenge and I hope you will choose to join in, too.

Go here to read more about the challenge.  They explain it much better than I did so please take a minute to hop over there and see what this is all about.  You can also read some testimonies from people who have participated in this challenge in the past.

Go here to register.  Go here if you have questions about the registration form.

You can also choose to create your own group rather than being randomly assigned.  I haven’t signed up yet, so if any of my Facebook friends want to form a group with me, shoot me a message (lets say by the beginning of next week) and we’ll get a group together.

Will you do this?  Will you pray for your marriage?

Valentine’s Day

Did you have a good Valentine’s Day?  Ours was low-key but nice.  I felt a little bad that I didn’t decorate or give a cool, thoughtful gift like last year’s date of the month club but life has been crazy so we just did a small celebration and we still had a good time.

Sunday night I made Michael a heart shaped chocolate chip cookie cake to take to work (for some reason I can’t get this picture to rotate!)

Tuesday (Valentine’s) morning I got up early and made Dashing Dish’s Triple Chocolate Chunk muffins.  These are seriously so incredible I cannot even describe them.  First of all, they are moist and rich and chocolatey (look how dark they are!  The chocolate chips on top look so light in comparison to the dark chocolate of the muffin).  They’re also easy to make, maybe not as quick as a boxed/bagged muffin mix but still easy.  But even more exciting is that they are pretty healthy – just 130 calories per muffin!  We loved them!

If you like chocolate cake, chocolate muffins, chocolate chips, or just chocolate you have got to try these out!  I can’t stop raving about them!  I followed her recipe with two exceptions: I used vinegar instead of cream of tarter (she gave that as an option and since I didn’t have cream of tarter I just used vinegar) and I ran out of sweetener (I used Splenda) and didn’t have enough so I ended up using about 3/4 cup sweetener and 1/4 cup white sugar, which is why mine were 130 calories and her nutritional stats list them as 116 – just fyi.

Moving on…must stop drooling…

Michael fried some eggs to go with the muffins

For supper we just had leftover baked ziti from the previous night.  I also made a new dessert but we didn’t really care for it so no recipe or rave reviews, sorry.  Just eat a triple chocolate chunk muffin instead.

I got Michael season 7 of The Office on dvd, some candy, and I made a “traveling journal”.  I forgot to take a picture of it but basically it’s just a notebook where we can write letters to each other and then hide it for the other one to find (kind of like the sticky notes).  I got the idea here and she gives some other great marriage tips/ideas so I suggest reading her post.

Michael sent me on a scavenger hunt to find my gifts – I needed a little assistance but I finally found them

“one of these things is fruity” – the gummy vitamins

“one of these things is binded” – the book (The Firm, I’ve been wanting to read is since I started watching the tv version)

“both of these are tidied” – the vitamins and the book had been tidied (put away) in what should be their rightful homes (the vitamins in the cabinet and the book on the bookshelf) (this is the part I struggled with)

“that last has a ratio that you have asked for” – Reeses hearts (I think the ratio of peanut butter to chocolate in a Reeses tree/pumpkin/heart/egg is much better than a normal or mini Reeses cup)

“and is hidden in a gift from before” – there were in my love letter box

Isn’t he just so clever and thoughtful?!?

sticky note surprises

If you’re looking for a quick (not that you’d wait ’til the last minute to do anything…), cheap, thoughtful something to do for the Valentine(s) in your life, here’s an idea.

While Michael was gone last week I wrote on/drew on some sticky notes and hid them around the apartment.  I didn’t tell him about it until he found the first one; then I only told him that there were 10 total.  He looked around and found most of them that night but there were a few that he didn’t find until several days later.  He had fun looking for the notes and (hopefully) it made him feel special and loved.

this was the first one he found – it was on his touchpad in plain sight so that he would notice it quickly

on his shirt

on the ham radio

in a drawer of t-shirts

under the pillow (this one was funny/frustrating – he pulled the covers back to get into bed and didn’t even see the note!  Then he kind of folded the covers over themselves so the note was sandwiched in the middle; I kept waiting and waiting for him to move around and see it but he didn’t so I finally had to just tell him)
in the middle of the stack of mail

inside the Ritz cracker box (I also had to tell him about this one – he got some crackers out and never saw the note, I don’t know if he just didn’t see it or if it fell to the bottom but I noticed he was eating some crackers and hadn’t said he found the note so I had to tell him to look in the box)

on the Cokes in the fridge

inside the Altoid tin

in his hat

Like I said: easy, quick, and cheap, but a fun way to say “I love you”.

after he had been hunting awhile I walked into the office and saw that he was sticking the notes all around the computer screen – I thought that was sweet

Happy Valentine’s Day!

detecting arson and diabetes

**UPDATE**  Click here to watch the video and read the story from the interview.

Weird title, huh?  You probably didn’t think those two things go together…but guess what, those are two amazing things that dogs can be trained to do.  And that is exactly what my dad does/is doing.

Daddy has four dogs.  Two of them are arson dogs, which means they are trained to sniff out accelerants and can be used at fire scenes to determine if an accelerant was used (indicating arson) and pinpoint the exact location of the accelerant.  The other two dogs are currently being trained to detect diabetes, specifically in children.  Currently dogs are being used as companion dogs for children with diabetes – they alert the child if their blood sugar is high or low, alert the parent(s) of the child, being them the correct snack, and can even know to press a button to call 911 if the child is unresponsive (PLEASE watch the video at the end of this post!).  What Daddy is doing is taking that same idea and training his dogs not to be companion dogs, but to be able to do into any setting (mostly schools), interact with children, and then “alert” if a child has high or low blood sugar.  The parent of the child could then be notified that they might want to have their child tested – much like the eye exams that many of us took in elementary school.

On Monday, News Channel 2 (WKRN Nashville) interviewed Daddy and a friend of his, Chuck, about the dogs and what they are doing (the interview is scheduled to air February 6 so if you are in the middle TN area you should try to watch!  hopefully they will also put it on their website and if so I’ll put a link up later).  The interview was in Franklin, KY so I got to go meet up with them and help out.  Here are some pictures (and more information about the dogs)

We first went to the Franklin fire hall where Todd (the reporter from Channel 2) interviewed Daddy and then interviewed Chuck (Chuck works in insurance and uses Daddy and the dogs to help him determine if fires are a result of arson or not)

After the interview, we got out the real stars of the show (the dogs ) and Todd taped them

getting the dogs out (Daddy in the light blue sweater, Chuck in navy, and Todd with the camera and headphones)

the dogs are trained to stay in the truck until they are signaled to get out

in the front from left to right: Mac (British lab – diabetes), Boone (British lab – arson), Zane (British lab – diabetes)

in the back: Cooper (Doberman – arson)

There was a field behind the fire hall where Daddy showed how Boone works.  Boone works “off leash”, which means when they go to a fire scene Daddy lets him off his leash and Boone does his own thing searching until he finds something (this is unusual, most dogs work on leash and the trainer has to walk around with them while they search – that’s how Cooper works).  Daddy put out a sample of some accelerant in the field while Boone was still in the truck.  Then he left Boone loose to find the scent – which he did.

He also used Mac to show how Mac and Zane are being trained to alert on someone if they have high or low blood sugar.  They are trained to tap a person’s knee if they alert on their scent.  The person might not know what that meant but the trainer would know.

Then we went to a house that had recently burned to show a little more about how the arson dogs (Cooper and Boone) work

Cooper sniffing for accelerants

Dogs, like children, have different things that motivate them.  Boone likes to work for his yellow ball so when he finds something his reward is to get to play with his ball.  Cooper likes cheese so her reward for finding something is a piece of cheese.

going after his ball

Todd had these cool harness things that he put on Boone and Cooper – they film from the dog’s perspective so you get to see what they see when they are searching.

Cooper with the harness on

Todd filming a teaser/preview to use before the story

So February 6 (I think that’s right) you should tune in to Channel 2 (WKRN) if you get it and watch the interview.  I’m really excited about it!

One more thing, you HAVE to watch this video.  It’s about a little girl named Faith and her diabetes companion dog, Wuby.  It really drives home the amazing way that these dogs can save the lives of children.

Feel free to leave comments and ask questions – if I don’t know the answer I’ll get Daddy to answer.

thoughts via Josh Turner

I love music.  I love how when I hear certain songs I’m filled with memories and feelings about different times or events in my life.  I love how music can express our thoughts better than we can.  How it makes me feel nostalgic about my childhood or gets me pumped for a workout.  The way the lyrics tell stories.

Earlier this week while cleaning the apartment (finally all Christmas decorations have been put away, an overdue cleaning was had, and my few meager winter decorations have been put out) I put my iPhone/iPod on shuffle.  I like doing that because I get to hear songs that I’ve forgotten about or maybe didn’t even know about that Michael bought before we were married.  Sometimes I get weird stuff like Michael’s old band music or Riley’s Mr. Manner’s cd.  But other times I get things like this little gem:

Josh Turner’s She’ll Go on You.  Josh Turner is fantastic – one of my favorite artists.  But either I’ve never heard this song or I had completely forgotten about it or I’d never listened closely to the lyrics; but in any case I just really liked this song.  If you don’t know it, click watch the YouTube video (or actually just listen to it – the video is boring and just has the lyrics written on the screen but I couldn’t find anything better).

Basically the song is telling a dad to cherish the times with his little daughter because she will grow up and move on eventually.  It’s telling a husband to cherish the time with his wife because someday she’ll be gone.  And it’s telling a person to cherish their mom because she won’t be around forever.

It’s just a really sweet song with a really good message.

But it doesn’t just apply to men and their daughter, wives, or mothers.  It applies to all of us – brothers, sisters, moms, dads, grandparents, friends, spouses, teachers.  I think it’s good for us to take a step back and remember that our loved ones won’t be here forever and for us make the most of our time together.  Anyone who has ever lost someone close to them can surely attest to that.

So take a moment today to thank God for the people in your life.  And let those people know how much you love them.

Christmas 2011

Grab some hot chocolate and settle in for a recap of our Christmas weekend; complete with only a fraction of the 500 pictures I took with my new camera.

Unfortunately we were both a little sickly this Christmas.  I started getting sick right before we went to Knoxville to celebrate Christmas last Saturday and spent most of the week in bed with a runny nose, killer headache, some nausea, and fatigue.  I finally started feeling better Thursday night.  Then Friday Michael started feeling crummy with an extremely sore throat and runny nose that lasted through Christmas weekend.  However, we were still able to enjoy lots of time with our family and friends.

We kicked off the Christmas festivities on Christmas Eve morning when we did our little Christmas.  We slept late (well sort of, 8ish which is late for us) and then had strawberry muffins for breakfast (and then I had several Reeses trees…).  After breakfast we opened our presents and stockings from each other.

Michael woke up before me so he turned on the lights and set out our presents

getting the very last bag from the Christmas countdown

yep, t-shirt, capris, and fuzzy socks – these are the weird styling outfits I don’t show you on WIWW…at least my socks were Christmasy

That gift I was opening turned out to be…

a new camera!  Michael, my parents, and his parents went in together to buy it for me.

It came with a camera bag that is similar to the cool camera bag that Amanda has

After we opened our presents we got packed up and headed toward Springfield

Michael drove (as usual – what a champ)

and I played with my new toy…

When we got to Springfield Michael went to his dad’s shop to finish up a Christmas present and I went to hang out with Anne and Liz

we took a little walk and enjoyed the mild weather, scenery, and each other’s company

Christmas Eve night we always celebrate Christmas at Michael’s Grandmama’s (his dad’s mom) with his aunt, uncle, and cousins so we headed over there for dinner and presents.

Funny story: After we left Grandmama’s we stopped back by the shop to pick up the present Michael had been working on.  As we were leaving a police car pulled in and blocked us in.  Apparently we looked suspicious but after the officer found out who Michael was and checked his ID he let us go.  Of course the officer that stopped us was the same one who gave me a speeding ticket a few months ago.  I mean, does my old Camry just shout “troublemaker”??  I know, it’s actually really good that they are keeping an eye on things around town but I just get this feeling this guy is out to get me…

Christmas morning we got up early so we could do our presents before church – here are the boys waiting in the kitchen while Mom and Daddy finish breakfast

opening stockings – one of the things in my stocking (which I’m holding in this picture) is a pair of gloves with special tips on the thumb and pointer finger so I can wear gloves and still use my iPhone.  Sweet.

Like I’ve mentioned before, my family likes puzzles.  Brendan gave us a code that we had to solve that would lead us to our presents.  Riley solved it while I was distracted eating biscuits and gravy so I’m not exactly sure what the clue was…

Then Riley gave me a cool puzzle that used cookie cutters to tell a story that told me I was getting…

vouchers for tickets to see the Hunger Games movie in March!

(Brendan looks very interested, doesn’t he?)

Brendan’s present was the coolest one this year.  A while ago he came up with an idea for a new board game (don’t know the specifics, sorry).  He created a practice board on a piece of poster board and the guys played it at Thanksgiving.  At some point he created a design on the computer of what he wanted it to look like (I think, again I’m not sure of the specifics) but anyway, somehow Daddy got a hold of the design and sent it to a friend of his who made it into a real game board.  Daddy then bought some little army men that matched the roles of the figures in the game.  Michael painted the the pieces and Riley made a box with foam in it to store them.  Brendan was really surprised.  Sorry for the really stinky explanation of the game – the short of it was that we (mostly Daddy) turned Brendan’s game idea into the real thing.  Very neat.

Looks so professional

After breakfast and presents we headed to church

I love this picture

Christmas 2011 – Brendan (22), Michael (26), Caitlin (24), Riley (19)

After a yummy lunch of vegetable soup, Riley taught Michael and me how to play Buzzwords so we played for a while with him and Mom

Then Michael read on his Kindle

while Mom, Riley, and I played Rummikub

After that we took a nice, restful nap

Christmas night we went to Michael’s uncle’s house to celebrate with his dad’s extended family

we visited, ate, and played with another one of the funny dancing monkeys from Walgreens – I love these things!

Uncle Kenneth showed off his UT Snuggie and Aunt Squaty’s new scarf

Monday morning (the day after Christmas) we did Christmas with Michael’s parents and brother (and I acted goofy for the camera while we waited for breakfast to finish cooking)

We ate a yummy breakfast and then did presents

The rest of the day was spent laying around, watching tv, reading, blogging, etc.

Finally Monday evening we packed up and headed back to Bowling Green.  Other than being a little sickly we had a fantastic Christmas!

blessings

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. – Proverbs 3:5-6

[source]

Presents have been opened, family has been visited, and tummies are full.  This Christmas has been fantastic and I’ll be sharing details and tons of pictures (from my new camera – yippee!!) soon.  Right now I’m sitting in front of the fire reflecting on this past year and marveling over how blessed we are.

This time last year we were living in Lexington.  I was teaching (well, not this exact time since it was winter break, but you get the idea…) and I was getting ready to start my very first semester of graduate school.  I basically resigned myself to one full year of no free time since I would be teaching and trying to finish as many grad school hours as possible but I just kept telling myself “one year and I’ll be almost finished!”.  Other than me starting grad school we didn’t really anticipate many life changes.  Boy were we in for a surprise.

I’ll spare you a full recap of 2011 (I have that post planned for closer to New Year’s Eve…) but for the newer readers who may not know the whole story, here’s a quick recap.  January – August were pretty uneventful: I finished up the school year teaching, took 2 grad school classes in the spring, one during May, and 4 during the summer.  Michael worked, we did lots of things with our church, and travelled a little.  Although I had lots of graduate school work, it ended up not being nearly as time consuming or stressful as I thought and so I was able to actually have a life outside of teaching school and going to school.  In August I started back another school year.  September brought about the big changes: Michael got a new job so I left the school I was teaching at, we put our house on the market, and we moved to Bowling Green.

First of all, the fact that we were able to move to Bowling Green was such a wonderful blessing.  Although we loved our friends and church in Lexington, we (especially me) really wanted to move closer to home.  Bowling Green was the perfect place at just an hour away from our families.  These past few months we have seen our families so much more than usual because it no longer has to be a huge, weekend-long ordeal to go home and visit. It’s also much smaller than Lexington, which we prefer.

When we found out about the move I started looking for teaching jobs in or near Bowling Green.  There wasn’t anything available that close to the beginning of the year so then I started looking for other jobs: tutoring, nannying, banking, etc.  Nothing was panning out…but as usual God knew much better than me what was best.

As I got further into this semester of graduate school I realized that the 3 classes I was taking (9 hours – considered full time for a graduate student) were turning out to be much harder and time consuming than I anticipated.  Had I found a job right away, I would have been under extreme stress trying to start a new job (especially if it had been one where I came in to a classroom a month or two after the start of the school year) as well as keep up with all my graduate school work.  Once we realized how time consuming these classes were we decided that I would take this semester just to concentrate on those classes.

“The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” – Proverbs 16:9

The lack of job and the fact that my classes are all online allowed me to travel with Michael on all his work trips (and there were many!).  We went to Chattanooga, to Nashville, back to Chattanooga, to Knoxville, and to Mayfield.  Some of these trips I spent most of the time in the hotel working on school stuff, but at least we were able to be together – something that wouldn’t have been possible if I had been working.  Since  my dad’s side of the family lives in Knoxville and my mom’s side of the family lives in Mayfield we were able to spend time visiting with extended family that ordinarily we only see a very few times per year.

These past few months have truly been some of my favorite times since we got married and the memories we’ve made are so precious.  The way it worked out so that I was in a position to travel with Michael was better than anything I could have planned myself.

Another big blessing came in the form of a job offered to me by one of my professors.  Background: I have one graduate school class left, which I will be taking in the spring.  After we moved and after we decided that I should not try to work until I finished this difficult semester we anticipated that I would try to find a job that started after the start of the year.  However, we soon realized that might be problematic because my final grad school class consists of a practicum where I have to complete quite a few (120?) field experience hours.  Most jobs probably wouldn’t look kindly on me having to take a bunch of time off right off the bat.  So we decided that I would just try to substitute teach for the spring semester so I could be flexible with what days I worked.

Then one of my professors emailed me (another amazing twist: my graduate school classes are through Western Kentucky University…which happens to be in Bowling Green…I had no idea when I chose that program that we would be living there!) and asked me if I would be interested in a graduate assistantship during the spring semester.  The GA position is part time so I will be able to work some and still have days off to complete those field experience hours.  The pay isn’t great but it will at least cover my tuition costs.  So as long as all works out with my paperwork I will be working at WKU part time during the spring semester as I finish up my masters program.

God is amazing.  We are so blessed.

“‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord.” - Isaiah 55:8