Sinusitis

This is not me, but this has been my life for the last five days. I don't know where this all came from, but it is AWFUL. Ian has been on and off sick for awhile with some throat issues but nothing as intense as this. All I can think of is that it is all of the germs that I encounter daily with my first grade class. Just last tuesday alone I got sneezed on by my students in my face, foot and arm. I'm guessing all of their germs teamed up and got the best of me. I missed my student teaching on thursday to stay home and be in bed all day and on Friday I had had enough and decided to go to the doctor. I have a bad sinus infection and fluid in my ears. Just my luck. I had to call into work and stayed home taking my medication. On Saturday, I pathetically called my mother over to come and help fix me. Even though I am married, having a parent take care of you always seems to help. She brought me food and drink and went and got me even MORE medication. I started feeling a little better and thought it would be a grand idea to finally get out of the house and go to the UT game, but I regret that now because I think I may have extended my sickness. It is Monday, and I have been sick since last wednesday. My antibiotic makes me EXTREMELY sick to my stomach. I never know if it worth taking medicine that just seems to make you sicker. Im hoping things will get better quick. It is SO nice having a dog now because she has been by my side the whole time. Its nice to have a cuddle buddy when Ian is at work. I refuse to let this sinusitis get the best of me. I'm counting down the days until I am healthy again!

Reminiscing

Just thinking of the fall coming up makes me so excited. Ian and I met (again) the last week of September of 2006 and had our first date on October 3rd at my sisters birthday party. We went rollerskating, and I was terrified because I didnt know how to skate, and I thought Ian would think I was the dumbest girl ever. All of my sisters friends were there, and I didnt really know anyone, and barely knew Ian. Ian was having stomach issues back then, and was completely sick the first 2 hours we were there. When he started feeling better, we hit the roller rink. I was AWFUL and probably moved about an inch every minute. Ian was so understanding and patient with me, I loved it. I was so nervous the whole date because Ian was the boy I had a crush on from Taylor ward FOREVER, and here I was rollerskating with him years later. When we left the rink, he took me home. 

We talked outside, and Ian did the most outrageous thing ever! He jumped on his old corolla and started acting like a dinosaur (its actually quite impressive and totally hilarious!). I laughed almost to tears as he was jumping on and off his car and making T-rex noises. I thought this was both funny and complet

ely terrifying at the same time. We did the typical first date weird hug and he left. From then on, Ian and I were pretty much inseparable. We talked constantly on the phone or over IM and we saw each other EVERYDAY! It wasnt long before I knew that he was the one for me. 

I am so excited about the fall starting and doing all the things we love to do together like decorating our home for the Halloween, having Thanksgiving, and enjoying our Christmas together! 

Two years have flown by SO quick and I am so lucky to have such an amazing husband!!

ROXY

So, if people dont know yet, me and Ian added a new member to out family. We got a new dog! She is a vizsla boxer mix and is about 48 pounds. It took FOREVER to finally get her. We had been searching for a dog for awhile, but didnt find anything that we really just fell for. We decided to check out craigslist to see if there was anybody giving up a dog. We were on the fence about what kind of dog we wanted, all we knew was that it needed to be child friendly. We narrowed our search down to labs, boxers or vizslas. When we searched for a vizsla on craigslist, we found her! Her owner just got a promotion at work and was giving her up because she was going to need to travel for weeks at a time. At first I wasn't sold quite yet, I REALLY wanted a puppy, but after reading all about her I just fell in love. We contacted the lady about her and she told us we would need to interview with her. We interviewed and found out that she had interviewed 7 people before us and told them all no, but that she really liked us. Next on the list was a home visit to check out our house. We were a little surprised that this stranger wanted to come check out our home but decided to let her come. The day she was supposed to come, she called to tell us she is bringing a friend who helps foster dogs  with her to check us out. They came over and Roma (the dogs old name) came straight toward me and Ian and was licking us like crazy! We fell in love with her right then. They stayed for an hour and she told us it would be a couple of days before she told us if we could have her. Three days later we got an email saying she thought we were right for her dog, it had been a 2 week process thus far. She then informed us that we would have to wait another week before she would let us have her, and then proceeded to call and interview me AGAIN! As if that wasnt pushing the limit already, we were informed that she wanted us to sign an adoption CONTRACT. We received the copy and decided there was no way we were going to sign because the contract said she would be able to call to check up on her and that we had to keep an updated address and phone number with her, and if we didnt, she could come and confiscate our dog! So I emailed her back and told her we would not agree to those aspects of the contract. We were very scared that she was going to tell us that if we didnt sign, we wouldnt get the dog. She emailed us back and was willing to amend the contract to our needs. We were finally going to get her!! I swear after this whole ordeal, it probably would have been easier to adopt a child, but it was well worth it! Ian went and picked her up this past Friday and she layed across the console with her head on his lap the whole way home. I came home from work and we decided to take her on a long walk to get her used to our neighborhood. That night was the LONGEST night ever! She wasnt quite used to our home yet so we she up almost all night whining and smelling our house out, we got about 3 hours of sleep. Saturday was ALOT better and she was snuggling with us and playing with us all day long. Now she sleeps right in the middle of me and Ian at night and takes up half of our king sized bed! Last night we decided to take her on another walk. WHAT A DISASTER! For people who dont know, vizslas are hunting dogs, and our neighborhood has about a billion annoying little rabbits. Half way through our walk a rabbit darted across the road, Roxy took off and nearly ripped my hand off, it took everything inside of me to hold on to her while she was barking and going out of control, Ian and I had to sit her down and grab her to try and calm her down. She calmed down just a bit, and me and Ian decided we should probably just turn around and go home. Roxy was still pretty wound up and was still in hunting mode. Ian took over on holding her and not even a minute later, Roxy spotted another rabbit in the yard. Once again she was freaking out and me and Ian could not calm her down. Im sure the neighbors thought we were hurting her because she was yelping like crazy and jumping everywhere. This bunny decided to stay in the yard and stare at Roxy. I wanted to go and KICK IT! Me and Ian took off running with Roxy just trying to get her home, and praying there were no more bunnies in site. We finally got her home and she was still pretty shooken up by the whole ordeal, and so were we. She wasnt too happy with us because we wouldnt let her get the rabbits but after some bribing with some biscuits she was fine again. We hope that that never happens again!  We LOVE having her as part of our family because she is SO sweet and such a great companion when Ian is at work. We look forward to everyone meeting her! 

A little late....but YAY FOR IAN!

Ian did very well in summer school this yr! It was his first semester in summer school and he took a full load, and was working 4o hrs a week and helping us move into a house! I was very proud of him, he did even better than he thought he would! To celebrate, I made strawberry cupcakes for him and we went out to dinner. CONGRATS IAN!

Abuelitas 80th Birthday

We had the opportunity to go to my Abuelitas 80th Birthday party. We just got the pictures back and I was SO excited. I don't get to see my mom's side of the family a whole lot because they live far away so it was nice to get together with everyone and also have pictures of my family. I realize now how important it is to get to know my Abuelita even more because she it my last living grandparent. She is one of the most amazing women, and has gone through so much. She is 80 yrs old and acts like she is 60. Not only is she a joy to be around, but she always finds a way to make me laugh.  Me and Ian went down with my mom to Fort Worth where we were all meeting for dinner. We went to this Mexican Restaurant that I swear had no air conditioning. It was burning hot and we were all sweating to death. We waited for the rest of the family to show up and waited for my Abuelita to arrive as well. It was nice to just sit and enjoy the company of the Garcia side of the family. I wish we were closer to them and spent more time with them. I feel like I dont know them very well and they dont know me very well. I am very happy that they all absolutely adore Ian though. 

                                                          

 When everyone finally arrived we started taking pictures with Abuelita

. She was all smiles and just looked to cute in her little pink dress. I

  dont think we will ever get JD in a cowboy hat again, but at least I have one picture to remember it by. While we were all taking pictures the Mariachis arrived and started playing. I love listening to the Mariachi music and just enjoying the atmosphere. CJ got the courage (after much convincing) to go and ask our abuela to dance and it was a site to see! CJ doesnt have a whole lot of rhythm sometimes but he looked so handsome dancing around the room with her and she was just all smiles. We finally ordered because we were starving from our trip down and after a LONG time waiting for our food to come it was AWFUL! It was almost comical how bad the food was. Ian wasnt feeling too good like always so he ordered the carne guisada which was literally a little bit of meat and flour tortillas..... I ordered

 the chile relleno and could barely down it. All I could think of was waiting for the cake to be cut to get some REAL food inside of us! Ian got a 

little claustrophobic and had to go outside for a bit to get some fresh air. I had the chance to sit down with my Tio Cesar and catch up. He is my closest uncle and always makes me laugh. I remember when me and my sister were younger, he used to ask us how many boyfriends we had and it would make us so embarrassed. He also always invited me to come and see him and I just never had time. Thats one thing Ian and I really want to do still. 

We sang to my abuelita and cut the cake. There was a little more dancing and Mariachis before we had to leave because both Ian and my mom couldnt take it anymore. It was dreadfully hot and my mom nearly passed out. We said our goodbyes and started on our long drive back home to Austin. We had alot of fun and look forward to my Abuelita moving to Austin soon so that we can spend more time with her. She will only be about 5 minutes away and it is so exciting to know I can go and see her whenever I want to now! Happy Birthday Abuelita! 

Texas Heatwave 2008

This summer in July Jess and I attended the Custom Sounds Texas Heatwave car show out at the Expo center. We finally got to go this year after missing the last three years. Let me tell ya, Heatwave definitely lives up to its name as Jess and I both got FRIED outside all day. Jess took an instant liking to all the large trucks there and I was impressed that she could practically walk underneath most of them. 

We got to see the tail-end of the burnout contest where the last contestant had a hard time getting the LSD on his Z28 Camaro to spin but on the third try he finally got his tires lit up. Afterwards we checked out his car to find that he had completely shredded one of his tires completely off the rim! 

Later on I convinced Jess to sit inside an audio-demonstration truck from Treo Audio. We were both a little bit hesitant to get inside because as we were waiting to get inside, we could actually see the doors bulging out from the insane amount of bass. We got inside and it was so loud it made our eardrums 

tickle and one of the TV screens inside blew out! Once we received our hearing again, we headed outside to the monster truck show. While we were waiting for that to start, we saw some idiot in his Hummer H3 (the wimpiest of all Hummers) who was probably drunk and/or stupid actually try to drive over all the crushed cars that are set out for the monster trucks. Of course he got high-centered and couldn't get off. He delayed the monster truck show and they had the sheriff come out and give him a 

ticket while a truck tried to pull him off with a tow strap. He was stuck so badly that eventually they had to have one of the big monster trucks come out and pull him and he had screwed up the bottom of his Hummer so bad! By this time, the whole crowd was mad at him and yelling like crazy. It was a sight to see.

Last but not least we headed back inside again to see the hydraulics contest. We saw quite a few cars get above 72 inches but nothing was as amazing as seeing one of the cars almost flip over on the announcer's booth. Everyone was literally diving out of the way of the flying truck! Later on, they brought out a truck on air-bags that could actually flip it onto its side!

1 year Anniversary Weekend

For our one year anniversary we decided to finally go to the Oasis. It is SO beautiful out there! This is one of our favorite shots because it really shows how pretty the sunset was. We had to wait about an hour for a seat and it was dreadfully hot outside, but it was totally worth it. We dropped the hint to the host that it was our anniversary and told the manager too, so they got us one of the best seats in the entire restaurant. In case some people dont know alot about the Oasis, it seats over 2000 people in the restaurant and the table go down a hill so almost every table has a view. We were lucky enough to be inside the building, right on the rail. So it wasn't TOO dreadfully hot, it was just perfect. Ian and I had some of the most incredible shrimp and finished off our meal with a HUGE chocolate mousse cake that was to die for.
From there we went to go see Get Smart at the movie theater before we went back to our hotel. That particular weekend we had to get a hotel because our house wasn't quite ready to move in yet. It was nice to have a little hotel for the weekend though.
The next morning we woke up extra early and decided to drive to Enchanted Rock to go hiking. Ian had just won a GPS system at work so we were pumped to use it on our drive. Little did we know, that GPS needs adjustments such as "shortest distance, or avoid highways".

So Ian and I are driving and were asked to turn onto a farm road, we crossed over cattle guards and this is what we saw...We were laughing hysterically because this was not where we were supposed to me. We ended up hitting another cattle guard that said NO TRESPASSING or you will be fined. So we decided to turn around and see if the GPS would take us somewhere else. Well we ended up being directed to another road just like this one. So me and Ian ended up having to navigate all by ourselves. This 1 1/2 hour trip ended up taking us over twice as long to get there. But the trip was so much fun and we enjoyed spending the time together. When we finally got to enchanted rock, it had to be over 100 degrees outside and the Rock looked HUGE. We started out hike only to make it up a small distance before already needing a break. The view was incredible but we were just melting in the heat. Everytime we thought we were reaching the top, we would see even more of the mountain to climb. It didn't take us too long to reach the top and the view was well worth it.
Ian climbed this other huge rock that I couldn't get up. He had a hard time getting down, but I love this shot. He looked like he conquered the whole mountain.
I decided to conquer a smaller rock, on the left hand side. I was just happy to get on that one because on the way down my bad knee started shaking really bad and Ian did everything but put me on his back to make sure we made it down safely. This was one of the best weekends we had spent together because it was just the two of spending some quality time with each other. Since out lives are so busy with school and work, we cherish these types of activities. I cant believe it has already been a year that we have been married. It flew by so fast and look forward to the many more anniversaries we will have together.