Understanding

Sometimes you just don't...understand that is. For example, right now Collin is at the hospital with a man in his 30's who is most likely living the last few hours of his life and I don't understand why. I don't understand why Daniel has to have cancer at such a young age. I don't understand why he has to leave behind his wife and 2 young boys. I just don't understand sometimes. I haven't met Daniel before but the situation still breaks my heart.

I think we have all gone through hard times during which we have prayed for God to help us understand what He is doing. I know I have. But there are still times when we just can't see the big picture that God can see.

There are some things that I am OK with not understanding. I can handle not understanding exactly how God created everything and how Jesus was both God and man at the same time. While it would be nice to know those things, I can still have faith without understanding them. However, situations like Daniel's and the many, many, other similar situations are so much harder to move past. I feel like it would make it so much easier to deal with loss if we could understand it a little more.

People have asked the "why" question forever and I'm certain will continue to ask it until the Lord comes back. Not understanding is something that plagues us all at one point or another in our lives and is so hard to deal with because there is not an answer.

I pray that God will bring peace in those times of questioning. That He will bring healing in times of loss. And if it's His will that He will bring understanding to His people when necessary.

The New Me!!

I just thought I would share my new look...No more blonde and I got a new haircut!! :D

Before

After

Sorry the pics are so small...I took them on my cell phone ;D

My new toy

So, like I said in my last post, Collin and I got new cell phone numbers and with those new numbers we both got new cell phones. I absolutely love my new phone. It is so much fun. I am pretty technologically savvy and have wanted the iPhone ever since it has come out but it is just so expensive and the plans for it are so expensive too so I haven't been able to get one. But this phone is very similar to it and is a TON cheaper and the plan is much more reasonable as well. It does pretty much everything the iPhone does so I am so excited. We were with T-mobile but found this great phone and great plan with Sprint so decided to change over and love it so far. So, if you are on Sprint or are considering switching providers I would highly recommend Sprint and the Samsung Instinct.

I'm off to play with my awesome new phone now...have a great day!!

Colorado Stuff

This morning Collin and I took a big step in becoming official Colorado residents and this evening we will take another one. This morning we went and got our cars registered and got Colorado license plates. We had been dreading doing this because we had heard it was really expensive but we were pleasantly surprised when it was a lot less than we had expected. It was still much more than it costs in Texas to register your car not as bad as we thought it was going to be. Here is a picture of my new license plate...I blurred out the number so the whole world doesn't know it. At least it is prettier than my Texas plates. :D



And this evening we will be going to the Sprint store and getting new cell phones with Colorado phone numbers. I'm really excited about this because I LOVE the new phone I am getting. At the same time it's kinda sad cuz its one more thing that takes us further from our lives in Texas. But that's ok. Every day I am getting more and more used to being here. If you read my blog and want my new number send me a message or e-mail me and I will give it to you!!

Two Things

First, I just wanted to share what I saw when we came out of church last night...


The view from the back parking lot of our church is amazing. It had been raining pretty much all day and when we came out of church the sunset was awesome.

Second, today is Collin and my 4th anniversary...so yay for that.


We have a system where he plans the odd years and I plan the even years. Therefore, that means its my year to plan. I'm pretty good at keeping secrets (unlike my other half ;D) so I won't say what I have planned because I know Collin reads my blog and I don't want him to know yet. I really can't believe it has already been 4 years. Like all married couples we have had our ups and downs but it has been amazing. It has been so great to have each other as we are going through this transition and move here to Colorado.

I pray that God will continue to bless our marriage and help us to keep Him at the center of our relationship at all times.

I love you Collin and am so thankful for the last 4 years of marriage we have had and look forward to many more. :D

I could get used to this

We had a great time at the game last night and the Rockies played awesome and beat the Dodgers 10-1. Our seats were amazing too. During the 8th inning the VP, Greg, (who gave us the seats) came down from the "executive suite" as he called it and sat and talked with us for a while. It was a really fun night. Here are some pics from our evening...

The view from our awesome seats

The Scoreboard

We were so close to the Dodgers dugout

Gotta love taking pictures of yourself

Matt Holliday...My favorite Rockies player who unfortunately will most likely be traded at the end of the season...boo.

We were sitting so close

Rockies WIN!!!!

Take me out to the ball-game...

And seat me on the 5th row right behind home plate!! Ya, that's right Collin and I have been given tickets to the Rockies game tonight that are 5 rows back right behind home plate. We are so excited!! We love going to baseball games and hope this is just the first of many games we will attend here in Colorado. We do realized though that we won't always get seats this awesome!! We got the tickets from a guy that goes to our church who also happens to be the VP of the Colorado Rockies. We are also secretly hoping that we can work with him to get Clark a job with the Rockies so he and Lara will move out here when she gets finished with school in Memphis...but that's our little secret :D.

Even though I will always be a Texas Ranger fan, I have decided that I can cheer on the Rockies as long as it doesn't affect the Rangers :D. They are playing the Dodgers tonight who they lost terribly to last night so hopefully they do better tonight!! Check back tomorrow for some pictures from the game!!

Can I get some oxygen up here?!?!

I don't know how long it takes to get acclimated to the altitude but I sure do hope it happens fast. I feel so out of shape up here. I get winded just going up and down the stairs at our apartment and now that Toby is here I am doing that several times a day to take him out (which let me tell you is a big pain). I know I need to go work out but I feel like if I do I will look so stupid because I will hardly be able to do anything. Back in Texas I could go several miles on the treadmill and not be too tired but I know here I will be dying after only a short time, how embarrassing. I'm sure if I just start going though I will get used to it faster so I am working on getting myself motivated to go regularly. So, let's just hope my lungs adjust quickly!

We're Here...For Good!

It has been a busy week. We spent this past Wednesday through Saturday in Houston for Clark (Collin's younger brother) and Lara's wedding (which was lovely I might add). I went to the bachelorette party, the bridal luncheon, rehearsal, rehearsal dinner and then the wedding of course. We were all tired after all of the festivities but enjoyed spending time with family and friends. We just heard today that Clark and Lara made it to their hotel in Santorini, Greece, which is good. We are looking forward to hopefully visiting them in Memphis and them visiting us here in Colorado.

Today was a bittersweet day. Collin and I packed up our remaining stuff in his car and headed out at 6 am (Texas time) for Colorado. We didn't have much left in Dallas, mostly only Collin's car and our sweet little dog, Toby. It's an exciting day because we are officially starting our new lives here in Colorado but at the same time it's sad because we are leaving our family, friends and all that is familiar back in Texas. We know God has a plan for us here in Colorado and are looking forward to seeing what He is going to do through us. We made it here in exactly 12 hours which isn't bad at all considering it took us 14 1/2 hours to get here in the moving truck, and that was from Abilene. It is really not a bad drive at all. We are glad to finally get back and be able to set settled. I think Toby is going to do ok here too. He is still checking the place out a bit, but seems to like it so far.

It is finished...

Well almost! Collin and I have been working pretty much non-stop for the last few days to get our apartment settled before we head to Houston for Clark and Lara's Wedding. For the most part we have gotten it all set up now. I still have some curtains to put up and some wall decor to buy and hang but other than that we are finished. Well, we also still have the guest bedroom to get cleaned up. Right now it is doubling as a trash dumpster until we can get a car big enough to take all of the trash down to the actual dumpster. It's a great feeling to sit here on the couch and watch TV without stuff everywhere. Here are some pictures of our new and improved place...you can look down at the previous post to see the before pictures again :D.

Our Bedroom

Guest Bathroom

Dining Area

Kitchen

Living Room

Hallway

The View from Our Apartment...I don't know if you can tell because it is a bit hazy but you can see the mountains in the distance

The view of the golf course from our balcony.

Ok, I'm off to cheer on Josh Hamilton in the Home Run Derby!!  Have a great evening!!

We're Getting There

Things are finally starting to come together. We are getting things unpacked and our apartment is becoming livable. It's hard work but a lot of fun to get things set up.

Yesterday, with the help of several guys from the church we (and by we I mean they) got the truck unloaded in a little less than an hour. It was truly amazing. Then after a bit more frustration (the trailer came unhooked from the truck and broke a cable and then got stuck in the break position while Collin was driving it) we returned the truck and trailer and headed back home to assess the huge mess we had. We started by putting together our bedroom furniture so that we could have some where to sleep. That took a few hours and then we headed out at about 10:15 pm in search of some essentials, like soap and some snacks. We were planning on going to the Super Target just down the street but quickly found out that it closes at 10. We then decided Walmart would do and continued on the same road figuring it couldn't be far. Boy were we wrong. We drove around for 45 minutes before we found one. It was crazy. I mean it seems like usually you see a Walmart on every corner but the one time we really needed one we couldn't find it anywhere. Even though we were super tired we still had fun cruising around town all night. I think we need someone to draw us a map with all the important stuff on it, like Walmart, Target and the good malls.

It will be so nice when we get everything unpacked and get all the boxes out of our house. I think we should be finished in a few days. The only think I wish I had is a friend with some decorating sense to come and give me some tips and new ideas because I tend to just do the same things. But I will be able to manage, I suppose.

We are really enjoying our apartment and love the set up. We are so glad we chose this place and will keep working until we get it all put together.

Driving 25 MPH on the Interstate

Yesterday was a rough day. Things did not go as smoothly as the day before. We headed out from Amarillo at about 10:30 am Texas time and from the start the truck was acting strange. We were trying to get on the highway to head north on 287 but the truck just would not go. For some reason it was not getting near enough power. We were going over little hills outside of Amarillo and it was just crawling over and we were thinking if it can't make it over these hills then there is NO way it will make it over Raton Pass at the New Mexico/Colorado border. So, I called the Penske truck help line and spoke with a guy that told us how to restart the truck's computer system and said that should fix our problem. It didn't. I called back and talked to another guy who said we needed to add water to something next the the something. This was a daunting task because neither Collin nor I know anything about cars and even less about 26 foot diesel trucks. Honestly we didn't even know how to open the hood of the truck. We finally got the hood open and found the place where the water was supposed to go and poured some in. The truck started working better after that but the engine light on the dash board never went off the entire trip.  

Here is Collin trying to figure out where to put the water.

We were considering stopping in Raton to have the truck looked at by someone who knew what they were doing but decided that it was running ok by then and continued on towards the 2000 ft. pass. We slowly started the climb and by slowly I mean S-L-O-W-L-Y. This is where the title of my blog comes in. We seriously inched over that pass at 25 miles per hour. I thought as some point we are just going to start rolling backwards. Here is a picture to prove it...if you look at the dash board you can see we are going 25 mph and you can see the highway up ahead. It was pretty crazy.  

Thankfully, after a lot of frustration and even more prayers we made it over the pass and it was pretty much smooth sailing from there. We finally arrived in Denver at about 7:15 Colorado time, which means it took us 9 hours and 45 min to make a 6 hour drive. Needless to say it was a LONG day. We were so happy to finally be here because there were times when we honestly didn't know if we were going to make it. I think God must have pushed our truck over that mountain.

We are so excited to be able to move into our apartment today and feel blessed to have several people willing to come over and help us out. It will be a daunting task to get all of our stuff up to the 3rd floor but I know we will get it done. I will post some pictures of our apartment after we get all moved in.

Here are a couple more pictures of our trip yesterday.

Our Whole Lives in a 26 Foot Truck

Well, the truck is loaded and we are about half way to Colorado. Currently we are sitting in our hotel room in Amarillo waiting for our pizza delivery to get here. It has been a busy couple of days and will continue to be busy for the next few days until we get moved into our apartment.

We were very blessed to have some good friends come over and help us get the truck loaded today. We were originally planning on spending all day loading the truck and then just driving the whole way on Wednesday but since we got it finished so quickly we decided to head out today and make the trip in 2 days instead. I'm glad we decided to do that because the truck can't go very fast and the seat is a bit uncomfortable so its nice to break it up a bit. The trip has gone very smoothly so far and hopefully the same will go for the remainder of the trip.

It's really kinda weird to see the truck and know that everything we own is in it. We are so ready to get moved in and settled. It will be a wonderful feeling to have everything back in its place. I'll keep you updated on how the rest of the move goes. Pray for safety as we travel and smoothness for the rest of our move.

Talk about a bad haircut...

Thankfully, it wasn't my hair but my poor little maltese, Toby, now looks like a terrier. I am so thankful to my parents for puppy-sitting Toby this summer while we have been in Dallas. The only bad thing about him staying there is that he loves to play with my sister's 90 lb. golden retriever, Doc, who drools all over him. This causes his hair to get extremely matted and gross. Usually I can take him to the groomer and they can get the mats out but it has been so long since his last grooming that it just wasn't possible. He really looked pitiful. So, I took him to Petsmart yesterday and they told me there was just no way they could get all the mats out and that they would have to shave him. For the most part this was fine because we usually keep Toby's hair short on his body but we never shave his face, we always keep the maltese look. I told them they could do what they needed to do but was hoping they could somehow get the mats out of his ears without having to shave them off. No such luck. When I went to pick him up I no longer saw my sweet little maltese, I saw a little terrier. It's not a huge deal because I know his hair will grow back but it just makes me sad that he doesn't look like the cute little white dog I am used to seeing. Here is a picture of what he is supposed to look like and a picture of him after his unfortunate haircut.



He just looks so much happier with his longer hair...poor baby. Hopefully, it grows back fast!!

I LOVE fireworks!!!

It's the 4th of July and we just got home from watching fireworks at Collin's grandma's house. The cool thing about that is she lives on the 21st floor of her building so it was almost like we were looking down on the fireworks instead of looking up at them like usual. We had a great time hanging out with both of our families minus a few (Heather who is in Colorado and Clark and Lara who are in Midland). I really enjoy this holiday because I absolutely love seeing fireworks. I don't think I will ever grow out of loving them. I just think they are so cool. The only bad thing is that fireworks are extremely hard to photograph so I spend the entire evening watching the show through my camera trying to get one good shot. But oh well here are some of the good pictures I did get from our evening!