2012

As 2012 comes to an end, I have recently realized that I've only made 1 blog post this year. Haha! I'm going to try to be better next year. Maybe that will be a resolution :)
There are so many things that I could write about in this post but I think I will make just one big list. So here is a list of what all went on in our lives this year in bulleted form.

• In January our church created a "Newly Married" class. This class has been such an awesome thing for us! It is so great to be able to fellowship and make great friends with couples that are pretty much in the exact same phase of life
• David took me on a weekend getaway to Austin in January to see Wicked! It was the 2nd time for me to see it but I could really see it over and over again. I absolutely love Broadway musicals and I cry each time I see one because I love them so much! (I'm weird, I know)
• Henry turned 1 year old in March and we had a birthday party for him! My dad, my brother and my Momo and De came over to our apartment and Henry got presents and we even got him a cake. Once again, I know this sounds so weird but he's my baby! And he is the cutest and sweetest puppy ever!
• In late April I had an MS relapse. My arms and legs went pretty much completely numb and I was having a lot of motor issues. I went in to the doctor, had a 4 hour MRI and she said I had new active lesions in my brain. I was put on oral steroids and slowly the lesion's symptoms started to go away. But the oral steroids made me crazy! I was very impulsive and easily agitated. Not good feelings. But I was back to myself after a few days. David was so awesome during all of this. He has this great way of ignoring the crazy :)
• In late April-early May we went on a cruise with our friends Lauren and Jeremy. I took my last dose of steroids the morning we left for the cruise so the first few days were a little rough because I felt crazy. We went on the Canival Magic and stopped in Jamaica, Grand Cayman and Cozumel. We had so much fun! And we want to go to Alaska next!
• In May my brother Eric graduated from A&M! We are so proud of him! It was exciting to watch him walk across the stage :)
• In May we also bought our 1st house! We absolutely love it and we've had so much fun decorating/buying furniture and just having a home. I feel like at our apartment (and every apartment I've lived in throughout college) I've never felt like it was "home". But this house definitely feels like home. We are having so much fun decorating/buying new furniture. And Henry likes it so much better than the apartment because there's so much room for him to play, and he loves the big backyard. Our house projects for the new year are extending the cabinets/counters in the kitchen, buying office furniture, having built-ins built in the office, and painting! We have the paint color for our bedroom and breakfast nook- it's like a blue-ish green, and David got me this amazing purple paint for the laundry room- I'll take purple paint wherever I can get it :)
• In June David turned 28. He's so old! He got an amazing BBQ grill that sits proudly on our back porch. I took him to the Rainbow Lodge in Houston for a surprise dinner. If you are ever looking for a place to eat in Houston, I definitely recommend it! It's like fine dining meets the outdoors. The decor is like a chic hunting lodge and the menu is all different types of game. David had buffalo tenderloin (awesome!) and I had chicken (I know, weird again but I have the  of a 5 year old and I like my chicken).
• In late June I had another MS relapse. This time the lesion that was active in my brain caused issues with my right eye. I felt constant pressure in my right eye and anytime I looked any direction it hurt. A lot. Especially when I looked to the right.So I had to have 5 days of steroid infusions. I kept working, but I just went into the hospital during lunch for an hour. The infusions were horrible and after finishing the infusions, I began having awful side effects. Over the next week or so, I continued to have medically-induced panic attacks. The doctors said that panic attacks are a side effect of the high dosage of steriods that I was given. My body/brain just basically freaked out. So scary. (Sorry that bullet was REALLY long!)
• My Birthday was in August and I turned 26 :) I love my birthday! David took me to San Antonio and we stayed on the Riverwalk. There was such a big storm that the river actually came up so high that the bottom floor of our hotel flooded. Thankfully we were on the 6th or 7th floor.
• Hunting season began in September and I became a widow. Not really! David actually hasn't hunted as much this season as he has in the past. But I guess the season isn't over yet :)
• The most incredible husband ever bought me tickets to go see Beauty and the Beast the broadway muscial when it came to Houston in September. I was so excited I couldn't stand it! Beauty and the Beast is my favorite movie and I've always wanted to see the musical. So David took me to dinner at Pappadeaux's and then to the show. I cried of course. I loved it so much!
• My Aunt Clairice and Uncle Glenn gave me and David UT tickets and we went to see the UT vs. West Virginia game in September. Then in October, Kristen and I went to see the UT vs. Baylor game. Both were sooooo much fun! I love being in Austin.
• In November David, his mom, his brother Mark and I went to Washington to visit David's grandparents (on his mom's side). We got an awesome deal on flights into Portland- his grandparents live in Washington like 15 minutes from the Portland airport (like $104 roundtrip per person! Crazy!). We had such a great time! David and I stayed at a Hilton hotel in a huge corner room that had windows that wrapped around half of the room. One side of the room had windows that overlooked the most gorgeous park and the other side had window that overlooked the river. SO beautiful! We played lots of Mexican Train with his grandparents and had so much fun talking with them and hearing lots of stories. One day David, Mark and I drove to Seattle and went sightseeing. We went up the spaceneedle, went to pike place market and ate the best chowder ever! I'm so glad that we got to make trip!
• The last day of our Washington trip we got back into Dallas at 6am (red eye = yuck!) and it was our 2nd wedding anniversary (11/12)! We went back to David's parents house and slept a few hours and then we drove back home. On the way home we ate at La Hacienda Ranch, where we had dinner on our first date. So sweet!
• We had Thanksgiving day in Dallas this year with David's family and Thanksgiving Friday at the ranch with my family. Lots of good food and relaxing with family. Much needed!
• Christmas was amazing too! My last day of work was the 21st and I don't go back until Monday (31st). Again, much needed. We had Christmas with my mom the weekend before Christmas, Christmas at Uncle Glenn and Aunt Clairice's the 23rd, relaxed Christmas Eve at Momo and De's and then went to Candlelight service at church, had Christmas morning at our house!- loved it so much!, then at 11am Christmas morning we drove to Dallas to have Christmas with David's family. And it began to snow just as we were driving into Dallas. I think David said we ended up getting 4 inches of snow at his parent's house. So neat! Then we had our traditional Christmas dinner with Jeremy and Lauren (usually it is on the 26th but we couldn't get out because of the ice so it was on the 27th). Then we drove back home yesterday (28th). It's been so busy! But I've been so thankful for the 9-12 hours of sleep I have gotten almost every night of my break :)

I'm sure that there are tons of things that I have missed that have happened over the year but these were the ones that came to mind as I have been typing and watching the UT bowl game! Hook em!

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and has a Happy New Year!

Finally a new post :)

Hello Everyone!

I haven't posted in about 8 months so I guess I have a lot of catching up to do! This post may be filled with a few typos or weird wording because I'm typing it all with my left hand while sitting in an infusion center being pumped with steroids :)

So I'm just going to post about what has been happening over the past few months and I'll post pictures later. So in March and April we began seriously house hunting. I have of course been house hunting for over a year, but we finally decided that we couldn't stand the apartment any longer and our baby Henry needed a yard to play in. We looked on HAR.com a lot and drove around The Woodlands and Conroe looking at different neighborhoods and kind of getting a feel of what we liked. We probably toured 10-20 different houses until we finally found "the one"! After much negotiating and losing the house twice (I don't think the builders representative liked the fact that David was representing us as our real estate agent and he received a percentage back from the sale that she probably would normally receive), it was finally ours!

Mid April I started having more MS symptoms. I eventually had numbness and tingling from mid-back to my toes and severe headaches before I could get into the doctor. The MRI showed that I had at least 2 new active lesions (so now 13 lesions total- yuck!). I was put on steroids for 4 days. And on my last day of steroids (April 29th)...

We left on a cruise with our friends Jeremy McDonald and Lauren Hanes! We had so much fun! I was definitely a little out of it the first few days (Psychosis is a side effect of those steroid treatments and at one point I wanted to jump over the rail into the gulf- seriously!) But on day 3 or so I began to feel more normal. We went on one of the new ships the Magic for 7 days! Our stops were Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel. This trip was much needed. I really didn't realize how much I needed a break until we actually got on the boat. It was awesome! In Jamaica we just walked around town for like 30 min. and then we actually just went back to the boat. After David being asked if we wanted the by drugs 10x in 10 minutes we were ready to go back. So we went back to the boat and played in the water park (we were like the only people on the ship so that was a lot of fun!). Lauren and Jeremy went to i think they were called the Durango falls this day and they said they had so much fun. The next day we were in Grand Cayman. David and I went on a cool snorkeling trip and Lauren and Jeremy did a turtle trip. On our snorkeling trip we were taken to 2 sites: a shipwreck and a coral reef. We saw a lot of neat fish. After the snorkeling we went back to the ship and changed, went to eat at Margaritaville, and then did some shopping! The next day we were in Cozumel. The 4 of us all stayed together at this port and we did some shopping and ate fajitas at a Mexican restaurant. David ad said that he wanted to get me a piece of jewelry to remember the trip so I decided that I wanted a piece of Tanzanite (of course bc it's purple!). So we shopped around until I found an amazing Tanzanite necklace. David bought it for me and we were entered into a drawing because we made a purchase. And I won the drawing! So we got a $300 dollar credit! Then I got a pretty Tanzanite ring to match my necklace :) The whole trip was so wonderful! We did lots of fun stuff on the boat too: comedy shows, putt putt, playing penny slot machines, watching crazy people, watching david play black jack, playing bingo, ate a lot of good food, and had so much fun with Jeremy and Lauren! Pictures to follow!

We closed on our house May 10th...

May 11th my baby brother Eric graduated from Texas A&M! I was so excited for him and such a proud sister! We drove up to College Station that morning, sat through the 4 hour ceremony (I forgot how incredibly long those are!) and then went to dinner. It was a lot of fun! Pictures to come!

Then we moved into our house May 12th! Pictures to come!

So since then we've been doing a lot of decorating and furniture buying. David has been enjoying doing all of the manly outdoor stuff. We absolutely love our neighborhood! David in particular because we have 2-7 deer in our yard every night. It's just a very comfortable, relaxed neighborhood. Amazing! We are so blessed!

David turned 28 on June 20th (he's old!). He was very spoiled this year! I took him to a surprise restaurant downtown called Rainbow Lodge and it was awesome! It was decorated like a rustic hunting lodge and the food was sooo good! David had buffalo tenderloin and I had my usual...chicken :) I got him his BBQ grill that he has been dreaming about since we moved in. We went to pick it up at Lowes and he could choose to have them to put it together or they would give it to him the box and he could put it together himself. So of course he wanted to put it together himself :) I'm ready for him to make me some chicken!

And now to the present... I'm currently being pumped with steroids because I began to have some MS issues with my right eye about a week and a half ago. I have a lot of pressure behind my eye, pretty bad headaches, and pain with any eye movement. Not too much fun. This has been kind of discouraging since I just had steroids a little over a month ago. I think the side effects are the hardest to deal with: severe fatigue, my body feeling like it's on fire, I feel really angry and not really in control of my emotions, and just generally out of it. At least I haven't tried to jump off a boat or anything like that yet :)

So that kind of catches everyone up with whats all been happening lately. I'll do a post with a bunch of pictures later. Probably tomorrow when I'm sitting here being injected for 2 hours :)

Hope everyone is having a fabulous summer!!!

Our lives lately :)

I realized that it has been quite a few weeks since I have posted :) Oops! When we started this blog I wanted to write once a week or whenever something incredible happened but I usually forget :) I'll try to be better.

This weekend we didn't do anything too interesting. I got sick last Thursday night so I've pretty much just been trying to relax and rest up for the new week.

On Friday I worked late and David played all day. He's so lucky! His company participated in a YMCA dragon boat race and other various competitions. They played human foosball, minute to win it, field polo while bouncing around on balls, dodgeball, etc. Needless to say, he had so much fun. I laughed so hard when he walked in the door with war paint on his face and a camou bandana around his head. Sad to say I didn't get a picture :(

On Saturday David had a shoot early so he went to that while slept in. He shot amazingly as usual and he placed 3rd. He shot 94 out of 100 targets. After that he picked me up and took me to lunch at Olive Garden (yum) and then to Ross to get a few discount games/activities for work. My greatest find was a sesame street book set that had 12 books in it. There was a book about colors, shapes, counting, measurement, etc. Pretty much amazing. The set would probably be 30 dollars or so in regular stores but I got it for 6 dollars at Ross. Awesome!
David then went with a co-worker to buy corn and scout out where they are going to set up their blind on a piece of land they are selling for someone that they got permission to hunt on. David's dream! Heehee!
While he was out doing manly things, I was cleaning. I cleaned the apartment and then decided to reward myself by going shopping for a couple of fall decorations. I went to Hobby Lobby and Pier One. I got a fun rustic pumpkin, burnt orange place mats for the kitchen table (fall and UT decor in one!), a few orange and red candles to replace our normal candles in the living room, and a wrought iron rustic pumpkin to hang outside our door. I had so much fun looking at all of the stuff :)
Today we went to church and then my dad came over to watch football with David while I went grocery shopping for dinner. Pioneer Woman is once again my hero. I made pot roast, creamy mashed potatoes, a fresh green bean dish and then I made an apple streusel with vanilla ice cream for dessert. My momo and de also came over for dinner. And after dinner we played Wahoo. It's a marble game where you have a partner and you and your partner have get all of your marbles to home before the other team does. Momo and I are always on a team and David and De are on a team. The boys beat the girls all 3 games! I was not a happy camper!

Anyway that was our weekend :) Hope everyone has a wonderful week!

Best. Birthday. Ever.

So I love birthdays. I know that many people don't like them because they mean we're getting older, but I LOVE my birthday! And I really think that I always will. This year my birthday was even better than usual. I mean probably even better that the birthday pictured below. I think I was like 6 or something. I remember just loving this birthday and not wanting to eat my birthday cake because it would ruin her dress :)

But this year...WOW! Thats really the only word I have to describe it.

So Thursday the was my true birthday but I like to celebrate for at least a week. But early in the week I began my birthday celebration by craving chocolate cake at like 10 at night. Enter best husband ever into the story. Upon my first whispering this desire he jumps up and leaves. He returns with a big chocolate fudge cake and chocolate cookie cupcakes to last me the week of chocolate cravings that I was bound to have.

Thursday morning David had to leave at 5 in morning to go out of town on business for the day. I didn't wake up until a few hours later and when I did I saw my first birthday surprise. He had hung a big Happy Birthday sign across the living room :)
At work my co-worker Heather and I both had a birthday last week so on Thursday we had a joint birthday party during lunch. During lunch my beautiful purple roses and chocolates were delivered from Mr. Amazing.

When I got off work I was told we were going to dinner but I wasn't told where we were going. My mom called my phone while we were driving and asked me for directions because she had gotten lost on the way to the restaurant so the secret was out :)
We ended up going to Johnny Carinos (my fav) and I was surprised to find that my family, my grandparents, Candi, Kristen, Kyle, Nikki, and Cory were also there!

It was so much fun! We then ate yummy food, super yummy cake...

I opened presents...

And I got an iPad!!!!!! :) :) :)

I have been not so subtly dropping hints the last few months that my life would not be complete without one :) So my parents, in-laws, grandparents and husband got me one :) I was so excited!

I was then told on the way home that we would be leaving at 930 the next morning (I took off work Friday).

We woke up Friday morning and David made me a wonderful breakfast (his special cheesy eggs, sausage, and raspberries). He told me to dress comfortably and then we were on our way! We drove into Houston and arrived at the downtown aquarium. I have always wanted to go there! We walked around and looked at the different exhibits and then rode the FERRISWHEEL! I love ferriswheels :)

And this was the white tiger. He looked like he wanted to eat us!

And this was my favorite fish. It looked like it was wearing lipstick :)

After the morning of fun we got back on the rode and David said that we were going back home. We grabbed lunch at Raising Cane's (david knows im addicted to the chicken finger sauce and their tea) and then I was told that we were in a hurry. I was instructed to pack a bag with 2 casual outfits, a dressy outfit and swim suit. Hmmmm...

We got home, packed, and drove a few hours until we made it to...

AUSTIN!!!!!!! My favorite place :)

And then we arrived at...

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! That's a huge squeal of excitement and that's exactly what I did as we pulled into the resort! I have dreamt of staying here forever!
We got settled into our fabulous room and then I was told that we had dinner and then another surprise after :)

He took me to dinner at Abuelos and then to see the new Anne Hathaway movie. Just a warning in case any of you were interested in seeing it, don't. It was horrible and we laughed and made several attempts to leave throughout the entire movie. It was awful! LOL

The next morning we drove to Rudy's and ate yummy breakfast tacos and then drove back and hung out at the resort.

We played mini golf :)

 And we couldn't find a pencil to write on the score card with so David suggested we use the camera and take a picture after every hole to keep our score.

Here's my hole-in-one!

We then walked around some more, took silly pictures, and ate lunch.

 I was then informed that I had another surprise at 2. As I was playing on David's and trying to guess my next surprise, an alarm reminder thing that he had set popped upon his phone. It said... Massage at 2. Hahahahahaha! I then passed the phone back to a very upset husband knowing that his surprise was ruined :) heehee!

After the most glorious massages in the entire universe, we got ready for my special dinner. David took me this wonderful place...

 
SUPER GOOD!!! And super pretty views!

So I guess we were acting lovey dovey like usual and the waitress thought we were out for our anniversary! She sent this over to our table. It was too funny!

We then went back to the resort, went swimming, and I went to sleep while David continued his addiction of playing Angry Birds on my iPad :)

Sunday morning we woke up and began to pack to leave our wondrous resort :(
We got kolaches on our way out and then I took David to the church that I went to while I was at UT. Austin Stone :) I loved it and I am currently planning how I can move back go Austin so I can go back to that church.

We then drove home...and shared a fantastical chocolate peanut butter banana shake along the way :)

Once we got home, I opened my last present...

All of the seasons of Bones! My favorite show! Heehee!

So as I look back on my birthday this year I further realize how incredibly blessed I am. I am blessed to have such amazing family, friends and co-workers that are so wonderful to me. I love all of you and thank you for making my birthday special :)

And a special thank you to my beyond perfect husband. Every day of my life is so much sweeter because I get to share it with him :)

Just in case anyone wants to watch :)

Hello Everyone!

I know it has been quite awhile since I lasted posted  :(
I'll try to be better  :)

Anyways, things are great. Work is crazy, David is wonderful, and Henry is gettting SUPER big! David took him to the vet yesterday and he weighs 9.3 lbs! The vet thinks he will be around 15lbs when he's finished growing. He was only supposed to weigh around 6 lbs, and supposedly his mom weighed 6 lbs and his dad weighed 3.9 lbs. Yeah I dont think so! I think the breeder definitely lied to us. Is there any way that a dog could weigh more than double what his parents weigh? Uh no :)

So to get back to what this post was supposed to be about...

We finally got our wedding video back in June! 7 months was a super long time to wait but it was soooo worth it! I wanted to make sure that all of our parents got to see it first before I posted it for everyone to see. It's like 40 minutes long so I know everyone may not want to watch the entire thing but PLEASE watch the ceremony and the last 5 or so minutes. You won't regret it :)

Here's the link! Let me know what you think! :)

http://www.kendraanddavid.net/   and click on Love Story

We Love Weekends!

Work can definitely be super stressful and it seems like sometime during the week we don't have much time to really connect. I work until 7:30pm some days and I zero energy once I walk in the door (MS is no fun!). And David has been having to work more and more after hours once he gets home. But we love the weekends because we try to make sure they are filled with relaxing and quality time for just us.

Friday afternoon I decided that I was in the mood to cook. For those of you who know me really well, you know that this does not come around very often. I don't mind cooking simple things but big, huge homemade meals actually intimidate me a little bit. David must really love me because he actually does 60% of the cooking, and we usually cook together the other 40% :)
I was looking for fun recipes and I ran across "The Pioneer Woman"- she is now my hero and I am obsessed! I then created a grocery listed based on 6 meals that I wanted to make and they were all her recipes. I then waited for my wonderful husband to get home from work so we could go grocery shopping (we love to go grocery shopping together)...

Saturday morning and 2.5 hrs of cooking later, this was my creation!

David LOVED it! This recipe is french toast with homemade strawberry and raspberry butter. Then I made jalapeno cheese sausage and had strawberries and raspberries to go with it. It was SUPER yummy! I totally recommend any Pioneer Woman recipe!

After yummy breakfast, we went to Best Buy to buy the new Chris Young CD. He sings our song and he is our favorite so we had to buy his new CD ASAP! Then we went shopping and David bought me a pretty dress. Best husband ever :)
Saturday evening we met up with my dad and brother to go to Huntsville Superstar. It's a competition that takes place in Huntsville, Texas every year and it's like a very small American Idol comprised of people all over Texas. The winner gets $1,000 and a recording contract. This night we went was the finale and we got to vote for the winner. David is an amazing singer and really has an ear for music so I was constantly leaning over asking him, "Are they good?" LOL He had so much fun being a critic and after all of the voting the guy who David picked to be the best out of everyone actually won! It is now my goal to get David to be a contestant next year! I think I'll be able to talk him into it ;)

I then decided that Sunday we were going to have a Mexican Fiesta! I cooked for 5 hours to create this fiesta and after I finished my legs and arms were tingling/numb so I was glad that it turned out to be good (according to David, my grandparents, my dad and my brother). I made homemade beef enchiladas (with deer meat and a Pioneer Woman recipe of course!), chipotle rice, a black bean bake, 2 salsas, guacamole and homemade chocolate caramel brownies with Blue Bell vanilla ice cream. After all of the fiesta-ing I was really ready for some siesta-ing around like 9pm!
I didn't get a picture of the fiesta but I did get a picture of Henry and how much he wanted his mommy to stop cooking all weekend and play with him...

After simple weekends like this last one I am reminded how incredibly blessed I am...

And so it begins! :)

As we have begun to get settled into married life, we decided that we would like to find a way to document life's adventures as well as share our "happenings" with our family and friends.
And so "Life on Fountains Lane" is born...

In this first entry we would like to briefly catch everyone up to speed on the main events that have occurred with our first 8 months as husband and wife :)

November 12,2010
We got married! What an amazingly wonderful day!

Then we got ready for our 1st married Christmas!

In May we went on our belated Honeymoon to North Carolina. We drove the whole way and it was so much fun! (except for the drive back- we said that next time we were definitely flying!)
We stopped in Atlanta on the way there and hung out with David's sister, Sarah. Kendra had so much fun looking up different locations along the route that had been on food network shows for us to eat at :)

Our cabin was nestled in a mountain, far away from everything! Very romantic!



We went ziplining!...

Whitewater rafting!...

Rode a train through the Great Smoky Mountains!...

Ate at some marvelous restaurants!...

David went on a guided fly fishing trip! (while Kendra took pictures)...

And Kendra went shopping! (while David held all of the bags)...

We were very sad to leave our wonderful honeymoon but...

We were thrilled to get home to receive our 1st bundle of joy...HENRY!

He's a Maltipoo and the most precious thing ever! My Momo told me that Henry means "Ruler of the House", and that could not be more correct!

So those are a few of the highlights from the past few months! We can't wait to see what God has in store next for our "Life on Fountains Lane"!