My date with Tom Cruise

I've had several people ask me about the fact that I took Tom Cruise to homecoming in college... I said I had proof and I do! Here ya go!

Please excuse the poor quality as this is a scan out of one of my scrapbooks. So there it is. I took Tom Cruise to homecoming and my roommate, Misty, took James Dean. Yes, we took them to the entire shin-dig at the fancy schmancy hotel. Yes, we even had them at our dinner table with us. Yes, we got some goofy looks. Yes, it was totally a blast! (and Yes those are shiny metallic tennis shoes I am wearing!) Ah the good old days!

Life

Life has been just crazy lately. I've basically been sick since Christmas. I got a really nasty cold from my darling sister for Christmas and was sick until after the new year. Finally I started feeling mostly better, except for a nagging cough that I couldn't kick. Then... I got sick AGAIN. I'm still a little congested and, of course, still coughing, but I think I'm past the worst!

Despite that, we've been going non-stop since Christmas it seems. Josh's mom is still in the hospital, but is showing a LOT of improvement. We went up there last night and she was talking and could move her arms a little. Thank you all SO MUCH for the prayers! Tomorrow will mark exactly 3 weeks since this whole crazy thing started. We're hopeful that she'll make a complete recovery and be home SOON!

On top of all that stress, my cousins' grandfather (no relation to me) passed away. They came in from North Carolina and Kiev, Ukraine for the funeral. To help out, my mom, Josh, and I watched their kids while they tended to the family matters. Talk about a wild time! We were so grateful to get to spend time with my cousins and their kids though and were so glad to be able to help out as they grieved.

Last weekend, we headed down to Houston for the night to see Ashlee and Tyler get married! Ashlee is one of my sister's friends from college, however, see... my parents basically run a dorm from their home. Ok, not really, but ever since I moved out, they've had one or two extras living there. First it was my Bobby Duke, who is a friend of my brother, and then Ashlee moved in too. This is on top of my brother and sister who also live there! Bobby has since moved out and now that Ashlee is married, she's out. Daniel is getting married in April so that will just leave my sister.... who is thinking about going away to grad school. My parents won't know what to do with themselves in an empty house!! I think they're going to find someone else to live there though, which is cool. It's a great ministry, in my opinion, and it saves poor college kids a lot of money! (yeah, they're too nice to charge any rent.. at least at this point!) So the point of that huge long paragraph I guess was to explain how we know Ashlee! Anyway, it was a beautiful wedding and we are so happy for them!!

Let's see what else is going on.... Umm... Not much I guess. We've been doing some house hunting/land hunting in all our "spare" time. HA. Spare time.. I wish! But seriously, we have started to kind of look around and see what's out there. We love where we live, we really do! But everyone we know lives on the other side of FW. Basically it's come down to do we stay in the area we love, but be far away from everyone we hang out with/everywhere we go or do we move to an area we can hopefully come to love and be close to everyone we love? Hmm... toughie! We're not planning on moving just yet, but it's fun to start looking around! I have always loved looking!

I guess that's about it. I just felt like I needed to explain my lack of posts lately :)

Praise You In The Storm

Dubya

George W Bush
Prayerful, Strong, Diligent Man
Eight years serving us

Protected our land
Daily sought wisdom from God
Caught Saddam Hussein

A real stand-up guy
Let's not forget "Nucular"
Thank you Mr. Prez!


Thank you for leading and protecting my wonderful country, Mr. President! I am so sad to see you go.

Stupid dogs

I think I've written about this before, but we've had issues with one of our neighbors basically since we moved in. More specifically, issues with his dogs. He has two, a lab and a pitt mix. The lab isn't really an issue, but we've been scared of the pitt forever. He's mean and seems very aggressive, even though the neighbor says otherwise.

Anyway, on several occasions, these dogs have gotten into our back yard. The first time was a couple years ago. They dug huge holes under the fence. We remedied this by lining the fence with railroad ties, 2 deep. You can see in the picture below the top one. There is another tie buried beneath it. That was our first fix, and it worked for a little while.

A couple weeks ago, they got through to our yard AGAIN. This time, through a hole in the fence. We called the cops and they helped us stack a bunch of firewood in front of the hole until we could reach the nerd next door to fix it. (He's IMPOSSIBLE to catch)

A week after that, the dogs knocked through the wood and were back. We called the cops and they came out AGAIN (in number... it's pretty boring around here I guess and they don't have much else to do at midnight! it was funny and the cops here are SUPER nice) Anyhow, animal control came out too and tried to corral the dogs. He finally gave up because it was about 20 degrees out that night and was freezing. We nailed up some plywood to keep them out.

That worked until last night.. they've now broken a second hole!! We called the police station again and they said that they'd see if they could get animal control to come out. In the meantime, we finally managed to catch the dork next door and tell him to do something about it right away. Thankfully, Josh said the guy was very apologetic and said he was going to install an electric fence the next day (today). Josh offered to go halfsies on the fence repair and he said no, he'd take care of it. Great! Except that it's now a day later and the fence is still in shambles and the dogs are still running free. The hole is even bigger than it was yesterday. So annoying.

I hate being "that" neighbor who is always complaining, but we're so frustrated! And I feel bad for the dogs anyway! They have ZERO human interaction and are outside 24/7 with no shelter. It's sad. They're not taken care of. Heck, according to Josh, the guys house REEKED of feces when the dude opened the door so he obviously doesn't take care of himself either! I hope that doesn't affect us whenever we decide to move someday!

Anyway, here's a couple pictures to go with my really long story. I think I took a nutshell story and make it a novel. Ah well.

The fence last night. You can see the knocked over wood from the first break-in, the plywood from the 2nd, and the new hole.



The hole tonight. Ugh. So ugly!

Busy day!!!

Today was a BUSY day. Great, but busy! We started the day off with church. We're doing a new study over the Festivals of God. Today we talked about the Feast of Unleavened bread/Passover. Very interesting stuff. Years ago, FBC Arlington (where my family went/goes) hosted a Passover Seder. Basically they went through the Passover meal, explaining what everything was and why they ate it. It was super cool. I'd really like to go to one of these again this year now that I'm older and would understand it more. If anyone hears about one in the area, let me know!!

Anyway, after Sunday school, we headed up to the hospital to visit Josh's mom. She looks really good today! Then, it was off to the Sundaes on Sunday baby shower for Susan and Chandler. It was so much fun! Here's a few pics from the shin-dig.

The goods. Ice cream, whipped cream, chocolate syrup, caramel, candies, cherries, nuts, brownies, cookies.. mmmmm.. doesn't get much better!


The diaper station. Everyone was asked to write silly or sweet notes on the diaper butts so the new moms will have something to entertain them during those 3:00 AM changings blow-outs.



How many women can you fit in one kitchen??


The women of the hour - Susan and Chandler (and Maddie and Benjamin!)


The hostesses with the mostesses and the honorees (Deren, me, Susan, Chandler, Crissy, and Kari)

Kari vamping for the camera :)


Brenda and I

This is most everyone. I think the only ones missing are Julia, Hillary, and Angelica. Pictured here are (top L-R) Brenda, me, Deren, Ashley and Kari. (Middle) Katie, Marissa, Shalene, and Crissy. (bottom) Casey, Susan, Chandler, and Dixie

Susan, Angelica, and Chandler. Angelica is due next week!

That's just a rundown on the partaaay. I think a great time was had by all. If not, they're lying. It was rockin'.

After the baby shower, we had a 24 watch party because JACK IS BACK!!! If you're not a 24 fan, well, then there is just something wrong with you :) Anyway, this is everyone but Paul because he had to hurry home to his pregnant wife who skipped out on the party! (I'm kidding, Susan! I love you still!! But you were missed)

Josh, Me, Daniel, Emily, Bobby, and Carrie

365 Dimensions of Davis

As some of you know, I have a burning love for photography. I also have a burning desire to keep myself busy. Therefore, I have decided to attempt to partake in the 365 Project. Basically, you just take a photo every day to document your life! I missed Jan 2-4 already, but because I was sick, there wasn't anything to photograph besides Kleenex and daytime TV and since I KNOW no one wants to see a photo of that, I'll start fresh today.

I've created a separate blog for this and will update that (hopefully) daily. Click here to view it. I'll also put a link over on the left hand side of this page.

For more information on the 365 Project, go here.

Anyone else want to join up??

Interview!!

Brenda sent me some interview questions, and since I'm a huge nerd and love stuff like this, and because I am sick and have nothing better to do, here it is!

1. Other than your current position, what is your ideal job? Ideally, I'd like to be a stay-at-home mom with a part time side business of photography/owner of a scrapbook store. I wanna do it ALL.

2. If you could have any one super human power what would it be and why? Does a lightning-fast metabolism count??? :) If not, I'll go with healing. Myself and others!

3. If you had to choose between the following what would it be and why: famous and constantly in the tabloids with zero privacy, a trust fund baby who never had to work a day in her life but was obnoxious and rude to the whole working class, the smelly kid in class who had zero friends and went to the prom with her cousin, a person who was in a really bad car wreck and got amnesia for 4 years. This was a tough one! I really value my privacy but I don't think I could handle being known as a jerk to everyone... so I think I'm going to have to go with #1. Hopefully I would be able to use all that attention to do good!

4. Who is one friend from your childhood that you have lost touch with and miss the most. Thankfully, I'm still in touch with most of my good friends from childhood! but from my college years... it's Jennifer. We're still kinda in touch, but some things happened between us and I don't think it will ever be anywhere near like it used to be. I haven't seen her in a couple years now. I miss her and the awesome friendship we used to have SO much it hurts!

5. Name one famous person who you would want to go on a dream date with and what would the dream date be,,,,yes you have to answer even though you already have the dream husband. Jack Bauer. We'd go capture (and torture) terrorists and blow stuff up. Duh.

Want to be part of it? Follow these instructions:
1. Leave me a comment saying "Interview me".
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

2008 In Review

Here are some highlights of 2008! As most of you know, I'm a little snap-happy, so these are just a mere sampling of all the wonderful things we did this year! We've enjoyed spending time with family, meeting new friends, deepening relationships with old friends, traveling, and spending time together and are looking forward to doing more of the same in 2009!




Super Bowl Sunday at our place and Chris and Kari's announcement.. or not? ;) :

SNOW!!!! (praying for this again in early 2009 sometime!)

I have no idea how this picture got in this line-up...

Our 3rd anniversary in March down in Granbury:

The Zoo Run Run in April. Go Elegante Paraplus!!!



Spending time with my wonderful cousin Angela, her husband Michael and their three darling children, Nathan, Abigail, and Josiah while they were here for a couple months (MISS them!! Pray for them in Kiev right now!)

Brent and Briyana tied the knot in Austin!!!

Emily's art show. She's phenomenal

My great-uncle getting married to Ernestine. Saw lots of family!

Daniel (and Emily) graduating!!

Hobbes and Doily joining the family (my parents' kitties!)

The Union camping trip and the infamous tent



All the fun Girls' Bunco nights!

Long Beach Island, NJ in August

Freaking Josh out with this picture:

Putt-Putt night with Daniel, Emily and Carrie

Who said beans aren't finger foods?! At the Union 42 Tournament:

Spending time with friends that I love!

IRELAND!!!!!!

Trunk or Treat at church

Watching the Endeavour fly piggy-back out my window

Daniel proposed to Emily!!! (FINALLY)



The First Fro-El

This really is just a small handful of wonderful things we experienced this year. I hope everyone has a fabulous New Year!!!!