Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Year One

In honor of our first wedding anniversary coming up in just a week and a half, I thought I should post a little Year-In-Review.

First, our wedding. We were married at Trinity Fellowship Christian Church in Amarillo in front of 150 or so guests.

We stayed in town for a day before heading off to South Padre Island for a relaxing honeymoon. Not the most exotic location, but we really just wanted to chill out after a really tough semester at school and a crazy summer of work and wedding planning.


In August we dropped Will in Houston for a Co-Op tour at Johnson Space Center. It was hard to leave him there for the semester barely a month after we'd been married, but our eye has always been on the prize: his dream job after graduation.

The semester was fairly uneventful. We made the eleven hour trip as often as possible to see each other. In October Will turned 21 and he drove in for his birthday party where I tried to make a rocket-ship cake.


We took a ski trip to Winter Park after classes let out for the semester. It was a ton of fun, but unfortunately my second day of skiing was miserable and cut short because of my ill-fitting boots that were causing lots of pain. Since we did our rental sin Amarillo instead of Colorado, there was really nothing we could do.


I was so glad to have Will back home so we could actually be a married couple. We spent Christmas Eve and morning with my mom and family and the afternoon with his family.



Spring semester was crazy-busy academic wise. Will was taking 21 hours and I took 18, while we both worked two jobs. In early February we moved our of our apartment and into his parents' house to allow for a friend to sub-let from us while she was going through a divorce. At the end of March we officially moved our and put all of our furniture in storage (or sold it) because our lease was up. We also found out that Will would be doing his second Co-Op tour this summer, and we decided for the first time ever I would come with him to Houston.
Baby Blues
Little Bro
He decorated Dawson's cake to be Lego themed


I helped my friend Brandy campaign (and win!) for Student Body President and ended up making about 20 dozen cupcakes during one week. She is so worth it.


We took a few trips out to Palo Duro Canyon to hike to the Light House.


I was elected President for our local chapter of Circle K International. 


One day in late April I noticed Maggie was wheezing, so I took her to the vet who said she most likely had an allergy and gave her a steroid shot. She seemed to get much better immediately, so I didn't worry about her. The next day I came home from classes around 2:30 pm to find her on the bed barely able to breathe. I called Will and he told me to take her to the vet; his mom immediately called me and said she was going with me. At first I thought it was a little unnecessary, but I am so glad she went with me.  Maggie was so visibly struggling to breathe that as soon as we walked into the vet they took to the back to get her hooked up to oxygen. The vet came out and after a little discussion we decided to run both x-rays and blood tests. When the doctor came to get us, I knew it was bad because he didn't immediately tell me she was ok. He patiently explained through the x-rays and blood tests that she had fluid around her heart and lungs, her heart had moved to one side of her body, her white-blood cell counts were high, and she was diabetic. This cocktail of a diagnosis would have been extremely hard for a young cat. Diabetic cats have to be walked everyday and have their food closely monitored, something extremely difficult in our house because there were 5 other cats living with us. But Maggie wasn't young; she was almost 15 years old. He told us they could keep her over night on oxygen, but it was extremely expensive and there was no guarantee she would make it. I waited for Will to come to the vet, but I already  knew what we would have to do. That evening I said good-bye to my baby of 15 years. It was definitely the hardest thing I've ever had to do, but I knew what little time she had left would be to hard on her little body.

I miss her constant presence. She followed me to the bathroom every morning where I laid a towel out for her on the counter so she could watch me get ready. She slept with me every night, often trying to steal my pillow. For many months I would set out a pillow just for her. She had a 1/3 of the bed, I had a 1/3, and Will had 1/3. When a few of her litters were born, soon after birth she would move her still-wet kittens into bed with me so I could apparently 'help' her. She is the only one who was there with me through everything growing up. All three of my mom's divorces, the hard, awkward years in junior high, the frustrating days in high school. I love you Maggie.

On another note, also found out that my fabulous boss was leaving because her husband got a new out of state job. Bummer- she was the best boss ever.

After classes were over in May Will and I made the drive down to Houston with a car load of our stuff. Soon after, I joined a social work class on their trip to Turkey. It was pretty much the same itinerary as last year, but I was able to find the peace I was seeking.

When I came back I spent a few last days in town before making the drive again with my mother-in-law. Once back in Houston, Will and I had a few friends come down for a weekend, and enjoyed going to a sea-food restaurant, movie, baseball game, and hanging out.



Two weeks ago Will and I spent the weekend near New Braunfels at a lake house owned by the couple we are staying with for the summer. Will was talking to them about when I was wanting to take off for our first wedding anniversary (I nanny their newborn twins), they quickly offered up their fabulous property for the weekend and we took off that night :) We spent the weekend floating the river, going to the outlet mall, going to Schlitterbahn, and relaxing.


Which leads us to now. My days are filled with cuddles, bottles, spit-up and poop. But it has allowed me the opportunity to relax and finally feel like I'm caught up with life. I would so much rather be doing this than anything else this summer.




We also found out just yesterday that there are not two, but SIX different branches interested in hiring Will full time after he graduates next May. We find out for sure in August, but we're keeping our fingers crossed for now.
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