Why I Love My Husband

by Holly

I've been inspired by Aimee's lists (if you've missed them, check them out- good stuff!), so I've decided to do my own.

Top 28 (because that's how old I am) Things I Love About Justin:

1. His unwavering love for me.
2. His laugh, especially when he gets so tickled he cries.
3. His devotion to his family.
4. His desire to center our marriage around God.
5. His effort to better himself through reading, Bible studies, prayer...
6. His love for Trigger.
7. His eye for design and color choices.
8. His fascination with the Discovery Channel.
9. His willingness to take care of me when I'm sick.
10. His acceptance and love for my family.
11. His appreciation for real country.
12. His humble spirit.
13. His bum in the new jeans we bought!
14. His encouragement to have my own friends and hobbies.
15. His responsibility with our finances.
16. His leadership abilities and use of them in...
17. His mentoring young men in Boy Scouts.
18. His determination to further his career in looking long-term.
19. His impulsive purchases for others (flowers for me, his mom...)
20. His beautiful eyes.
21. His knowlege and willingness to learn new things.
22. His political stances.
23. His sense of humor.
24. His love of all things vanilla!
25. His appreciation for the things I do for him.
26. His willingness to do the things I ask of him.
27. His seriousness in being the spiritual leader in our marriage.
28. His tender spirit.

I could go on and on, and these are in no particular order.

I love you Justin!

National "Whatever" Day

By Holly

At least once a week on the radio, I hear that that day is proclaimed National [insert your favorite culture/animal/laundry soap/you get my point] Day and we are to celebrate. I don’t know who comes up with these or why, but if they make me laugh or appreciate something in my life, I try to participate. Well, yesterday as I was driving to work I heard that it was National Pancake Day. Seriously?

I don’t normally buy breakfast in our cafeteria, but yesterday I was running late and actually had some cash on me, so I did. What did I order? Pancakes, of course. I was met however in true Seinfeld fashion with, “No pancake today! Come back tomorrow!” What? Did they not get the memo? What good is National Power-of-Persuasion day if its not publicized? So, I defaulted to my usual: two scrambled eggs (which is essentially two ice cream scoops of eggs) and two pieces of wheat toast, no butter. I could have done that myself, Radio People!

It gets better though. This morning I was again running late and still had a couple of bucks, so I indulged in cafeteria breakfast again. As luck would have it, I got the same lady. She remembered that I ordered a pancake yesterday and asked if I wanted one today. I appreciate the sentiment, however the moment has passed. To celebrate my triumph over said persuasion though, I changed up my order. I’ll have one egg, one sausage patty and one biscuit, thank you!

Now I declare this National Hug Your Fish Day!
Have a good one!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AIMEE!

It's Aimee's birthday today! Just in case you missed it on her blog (if you did, you should catch up on her week!) and on Abbey's blog too. I absolutely love my birthday and appreciate all of the celebrating that you've done this week A! Hope you have a fantastic weekend at home with your family and that you get a chance to hang out with Abbey too!

Holly

A Little Rest in the Schedule

Justin has posted about our crazy fall schedule, which is really just a continuation of our crazy summer schedule, but since the seasons are changing, so will our terminology. But I digress. I've been feeling weighed down, like I'm dragging myself through each day, just making checkmarks on the calendar of never-ending activities. I can honestly say that about 98% of the things on our calendar are things I really enjoy, but too much of a good thing can run you down too. So, I've been praying that God would give me rest in the midst of the insanity.

Here's His answer, which I did not expect at all, but are we ever really able to anticipate His actions? No, I think not. I had been invited to a new Bible study by my friend Abbey at church and was debating between quality time with her and another commitment. But I said yes and then things started happening! Our group was too big, which is always a good problem to have when you're studying God's word, so we split into two groups and the second moved to meeting at my house. This opened the door for a few more people, so I was able to invite my other Abbey (who blogs with us) and another friend, Erin. Our first official meeting was Tuesday night and I was blown away with the content of our study (strengthening your marriage) and how well everyone got along. There's five of us meeting in our group and we laughed, got teary and seemed to just click. I felt like I had been given a renewed spirit and genuinely felt rested, although I was still tired. There is a difference there, just hard to explain!

So, I hope that you all have as much fulfillment in your life as I do, and the support of a spouse that means the world to you as it does to me. Thanks for your encouragement Justin, and for your prayers. (And for wandering the streets of Allen without a wallet so we can have girl time, but that's another story!)

Holly

Rain delay

by Justin

Man I am tired today. A very fun weekend ended on a pretty long note. It is like holding the fermata till you run out of breath and then one more beat. That was for you Trey and Viki! For the rest of you, well let me just tell the story.

Holly and I jumped ship a little early on Friday and hopped on the plane to Amarillo. We were greeted, with much surprise, at the airport by Holly’s parents and our nephews Jared and Tyler. We weren’t expecting them, so we had a lot of fun playing in the back of the car on our way back to Friona.

Once in Friona we headed over to the Homecoming game. There is nothing like high school football in Texas, or so they say, and I would agree. We rooted on the team, talked with friends in the packed stadium and participated in the band cheers. When we left in the third quarter the score was like 42-0, Go Chieftains!

Saturday was a fun packed day of celebrating Friona’s 100 year anniversary. The annual Maize Days parade was extra long; with one man saying he couldn’t remember a parade ever as long as this one. I have many opinions about the Maize Days parade, but it is all about love and loving the small town Texas lifestyle. All my comments are taken bad, but really it is envy and longing to live back in the small town life.

Sunday rolled along with church. We attended our first Sunday school class with Holly’s mom teaching. She is a great teacher and a great lover of the Lord. We followed the main service with a good Baptist pot-luck lunch. Something about those pot-luck lunches that are just hard to beat.

Next came the delay.

We headed to Amarillo in plenty of time to get on our plane. While Holly insisted we had time to stop and eat a quick bite, I was eager to make sure we made our flight. As we entered the gate to check our bags I noticed that our flight and the following two flights were all listed as delayed. This is never a good sign. I quickly handed my phone to Holly and told her to call her parents, we might have time for dinner. Sure enough it was showing the plane to depart at 7:30 instead of 6:55. We went through the process to get our passes (it is different for employees) and we were told that Dallas Love Field had been closed for 2 hours for weather and our plane diverted to Oklahoma City. Never a good sign, either. The new depart time was 9 o’clock.

We went to dinner and went grocery shopping with Holly’s parents. We returned to the terminal to find our 6:55 flight had been delayed to 9:45. We landed at Love Field at 10:45. After running a quick errand on our way home, we pulled into the garage at midnight. Showers and a quick unpacking found us in bed at 1am.

What a way to start the week…

Music City USA

By Justin

So it was time to get out of town. Mom’s birthday was on Friday and she said she wanted to leave town. One of the extended benefits of my employment at Southwest Airlines is that my parents can fly for free as well. Flying free is not as simple as it sounds and there are plenty of risks of being stranded, so it is not for the faint of heart. Thankfully Holly and I have done it enough to be quasi experts, so it was time to explain the ropes to my parents.

I knew that my Mom had a fear of flying, but it had not clicked in my head that my Dad has only been on one round trip flight in his life. I had forgotten that fact, so it was fun to watch him rediscover the flying public in a post 9-11 world all over again. We had decided to hit the open skys to Nashville, Music City USA.

We left Love Field at 5 and connected through Houston, (freakin Wright Amendment). We landed in Nashville about 10 and jumped in our rent car and headed to the Holiday Inn. Good thing I got a discount on our rooms, because they weren’t worth what they were asking.

We got up early the next morning and headed to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. It was good food. We then jumped over to tour the OpryLand Hotel. It is a pretty amazing building. We then tried to find our way to a plantation home. On our very prolonged route we stumbled across a botanical garden that we had wanted to see, so we stopped. It was a very nice place, we were just out of season. We never found that Plantation

Afterwards we stopped at Subway for lunch and went downtown to see the Country Music Hall of Fame. I enjoyed our brief time there, if for nothing else the building is amazing. We ran to the hotel to clean up and headed to dinner before the 9:30 opry. For dinner we ate at a restaurant called Aquarium. It has this huge aquarium in the middle with sharks, stingrays, and a bunch of fish in it. It is a very cool environment, a very not so cool price.

I have to admit here that the Grand Ole Opry is probably my favorite thing to do in Nashville. It is well worth the $34 for two and half hours of entertainment for me. It is just plain old fun in my opinion. No big names were at the opry that night, but I didn’t care.

We got to the hotel around 1am. We woke up the next morning and headed back to downtown to visit the Ryman Auditorium. It is the original home of the Grand Ole Opry. An amazing building as well, we spent as much time as we could there till we had to head to the airport.

We got home to Dallas Love Field around 6. It was time enough to say our goodbyes and go our separate ways to our far off homes. We had a great time with my Mom and Dad, and hope this is the start of many more flights to far off places with the fam.

Are you serious?

Justin will be posting sometime soon about our Nashville trip, but I had to throw out a couple of items for you to ponder in the meantime.

First, we went to the grocery store a few weeks ago and there were no bananas. Seriously, not a single one, overripe, green, on the floor under the display, not a one. I could hear Dr. Seuss in my head as we looked and looked and could not find a banana anywhere. Before we made this discovery though, I was bagging a couple of tomatoes and sent Justin to pick out our bananas. When I caught up to him, he was holding an empty produce bag, pretending to place his invisible bananas in the bag. I laughed hysterically! People were staring, but it was late Sunday evening so our audience wasn't too large. (The time of day and that it was Sunday is probably the reason for this blatant omittance of my favorite fruit, but it was unacceptable nonetheless.)

Secondly, and this may be too much info for some of you, but bear with me for the humor in it. I started my monthly week of hell this morning and had to run to CVS on my break to purchase the necessary products, as I had none in my purse or desk. At the checkout, the cashier handed me my receipt, smiled and said, "Enjoy your purchase!" Are you kidding me?! Did you not just see what you sold me? Enjoy. Now that's a word I've never used to describe this occurrence.

So there you go. Just something to think about. (Trey, I have to give the cashier a couple of points for being pleasant, despite her ridiculous comment.)

Have a good day!
Holly

The Social Calendar

By Justin

Holly maintains an impeccable social calendar for the family. I work to keep the family budget in check, she works to keep us socially balanced. Both tasks are exhausting work. Over the next few weeks and months we have an extensive schedule to keep.

First up is a weekend trip with the Noble FAM. Tomorrow is my Mom’s Birthday. Happy Birthday Mom, even though she doesn’t read this. Hey Dad show Mom please! Sorry I digress. For Mom’s birthday, Holly, Dad, Mom and myself are hitchin’ a ride on the best airline in the world and headed to Nashville. Ahh Nashville… It’s the heart and soul of country music. It’s the home of the Grand Ole Opry and the Country Music Hall of Fame. Does it get better? Well Yes, of course. Texas is always better. Come on people, we’ve been through this.

After Nashville we are headed back to West Texas for Holly’s hometown homecoming and Maize Days. Now Maize Days deserve its own blog, so I will hold off on that. I foresee a he said/she said type of blog here. It is all about perspective.

Next up we head to North Carolina to visit our GREAT friends from the South. I have been promised Carolina Bar-B-Q, and I am looking forward to it. Not long after that trip we are going camping with our Sunday school class. Fun times camping and bonding are for sure here.

So that is just a snap shot of the thousand and one things on the social calendar for the weekends. Throw in bible studies, women’s retreat, and general friend outings during the week and we are running from non-stop. Man it is fun!

Now Booking for 2007!

Expanding Horizons

We would like to welcome another good friend to the Blogger World. Amanda is a life long friend of Holly's, who lives in San Angelo Texas! Holly and Amanda were friends throughout high school and like Abbey have crazy girl tales that should be told!

Welcome Aboard Amanda and good recruiting Holly!

Star Blogger

Drum Roll Please..

The star blogger of the month is Aimee!

For her timeless posts on her son's first day of school and her consistency!

Congratulations Aimee!

Wording

By Justin

Why are things worded the way they are? I have a knack for noticing word choices that are just insanely unnecessary. Like just the other night, we were enjoying a lovely meal with our friends Joel and Abbey in McKinney. I looked over Abbey’s shoulder and noticed the sign said: “If you have special needs notify your Server or the Manager on Duty.” My question is when do you notify the Manager NOT on Duty? At what point are you allowed to ask for the home or cell phone number of the Manager NOT on Duty to complain about a special need? Is there etiquette on this? Will Hints from Heloise know this one?

I also find the names of business and churches funny, especially churches. We have a church close by that is Greater New Birth Baptist. Is there a Lesser New Birth or a Greater Old Birth or is it Lesser Old Birth Baptist? We have also passed a Primitive Baptist Church that didn’t look so primitive. In Levelland (near Lubbock, TX) there is a big sign on the highway that says Primitive Baptist church with an arrow pointing to an open field, now that is primitive and hence the name makes sense.

I could go on, but I won’t. Let’s just say that my other pet peeve is names of cities. My parents live in Cottondale. There isn’t cotton within a hundred miles of there. Come on people work with me here.