Justin's New Truck!

This past Friday, Justin and I drove to Bastrop, TX to Covert Chevrolet. They had received a trade-in truck that was just was Justin was looking for. It's a very clean 2005 Chevy 1LS crew cab 4x4 diesel with about50K miles on it. It's also a dark charcoal grey, which fits in with the rest of our vehicles (the old Chevy is a lighter grey, and my Saturn Vue is "Storm Grey"). Also, it rained all day, just like it did the day I bought my Vue. Justin is thrilled with the new wheels. From Bastrop we drove to College Station to have dinner with Taylor, my older brother Brewer who happened to be in town from Vancouver, his girlfriend Sabrina, and my sister hung out with us for a little bit before she had other social outings to attend. We finally made it home late in the evening before Justin had to turn around and be at work at 6:00 on Saturday morning. We now look like a Chevy dealership at the house with the 2 trucks in the driveway (I park in the garage)!

Driving off the lot:

Happy Camper!

His Aunt Rebecca's borrowed Isuzu Rodeo is here before we went and got the truck back that had broken down the previous weekend. We ended up putting a new distributor in the truck and it runs great now!

Crazy Weekend

So this past weekend Justin went to Nacogdoches to work on Grandma's house. I stayed home with the kids, lol. On Friday night, I went out with a couple of girls to dinner and a movie. We saw "The Invention of Lying" and I have to spread the word, DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME!!! Horrible movie. I really wanted to walk out, and I have never walked out of a movie in my life. And both the other girls said the same thing when it was finally over. I feel jipped out of $9.50 and 2 hours of my life I can't get back. The good news is that on Saturday, Gelea, Moriah Smith, and I went and saw "Whip It", and it was super-cute! We were all cracking up in that one - suitable for just about all ages. I will definitely watch that one again in the future.

On Sunday, just as Justin and his dad are leaving Nacogdoches, our truck broke down. As Justin tells it, one second he's trying to pass someone and the next thing he knows, the truck is dead. After pulling over, he was able to re-start the truck but turned around and headed back to Grandma's. Luckily, he was able to drop it off at a shop and borrow his Aunt Rebecca's Isuzu Rodeo to come home. She leaves the vehicle there to use when she visits. So this week we are waiting on word to find out what is wrong with the truck (Justin suspects the coil, but he's not sure) and we will have to figure out when to return the Rodeo and get our truck back. Fun stuff.

In the meantime, we are looking for a new/used truck for Justin. He's been looking for a few months anyway, but now he is serious in his search. I hope we can find what he wants.

Catch-Up

I haven't posted anything in awhile so this is a catch-up post. Honestly, not much has happened. I went to the Copeland family reunion without Justin because he had to work the weekend of our anniversary. Justin went dove hunting from September 3-6 (he brought home 30 birds which we grilled out on Labor day and shared a few with the neighbors). Other than that, we really haven't gone anywhere or done anything exciting.
I did take the dogs to a dog park (or Bark Park, as it was called) which they really enjoyed. Bella loves hanging with the bigger dogs and playing chase. She discovered she does NOT like water - at least if her feet can't touch the bottom. It was really quite hilarious to see her make this discovery. Somebody threw a ball into a pond and all of the big dogs took after it - Bella in the lead. She leaped as far as she could from the bank into the water after it and promptly went under. She didn't emerge until the other dogs were on their way back to shore with the ball. She had the funniest look on her face that said "WTF JUST HAPPENED?!?!" She hasn't been in the water since then.
On another note, Justin took me on a date to Fogo de Chao (a Brazilian steakhouse) this past Friday night and it was DELICIOUS. It's all you can eat for $50 a person so go only when you are really hungry. (The prices of course are not posted anywhere until you get the bill - but we were prepared that it would be around that amount.) The filet mignon, lamb chops, and garlic beef were our favorites. Then we picked up a Bayou Goo pie from International House of Pie and headed over to Gelea and Larry's to hang a bit and visit with Brandon and his girlfriend, Michelle, who came into town.
So, that's about it for the past few weekends. Just wanted to let everyone know what's been going on!

Skydiving!

We jumped at 14000 feet from a perfectly good airplane. You get up to speeds of 120 mph until you hit 6000 feet when we deployed the chutes. Then you just float back to Earth. The whole thing takes about 65 seconds. It. was. awesome. Justin and I will definitely be doing this again; the feelings are indescribable. The view was awesome and just incredible how all of your senses just come alive. Between everything you see - the clouds, the horizon, the sun, the ground, and what you feel - the temperature at the drop point is 30 degrees and you can feel it get progressively warmer the closer to Earth, and the sounds - from wind rushing your ears until you deploy the chute and then it's absolute silence. Just clear as day to have a conversation between the instructor on my back and me. We did spins and spirals to get the lift in your stomach like a rollercoaster does. We can't wait to be able to afford to do it again! (Although I used my "self improvement" quarterly $200 from work to cover part of the cost today. :) I love my job.)

A perfectly good airplane:

Taking the plunge again; Happy 1 year anniversary!

Justin's tandem partner, Doug.

Rachel waiting to be called.

Bella, the new Boxer

Bella:

Buddy:
Bella getting a bath:

Buddy too!

Bella's new collar:

No, forget the cat.

Ok, ok, I love you too.

Bella's mean face:

Ooh, found a sqeaky toy.

Mine.

Sharing the toy:

Chasing Buddy with the toy, around and around and around the couches:

Oh Lord, what have we gotten ourselves into?

A Cockroach Story

Warning to all women who try on clothes at a store; shake them out first. I was at the Target by my house, which is a nice, big, clean, newer Target and was trying on some shirts. I stuck my hand inside the black shirt I was about to try on and felt something weird on my hand. As I pushed it through the arm hole, my hand came out with a HUGE cockroach on it. No joke. I flung my hand and it flew to the mirror. I was thisclose to running out of the dressing room screaming blue bloody murder without a shirt on. The only thing that kept me from doing so was the fact that I knew there were some guys in the dressing room. I managed to quickly grab my shirt and put it on before quickly exiting the dressing room, shaking. I told the ladies at the desk, where they were like, "oh yeah, I saw that cricket earlier." I replied, "No, not a cricket, a cockroach, and it was INSIDE the shirt I was about to try on." Then they started to hand ME something to kill it with. I was like, umm, no, I don't think so. I backed away and made the employee go do it. I only followed her back to the room so I could grab my purse. I told the girl as I left that the clothes and the little number they gave me were in the room and they could get them because I wasn't going back in there. So beware shoppers what could be lurking in clothes you are trying on. I rarely shop at Target as it is, but I don't think I will be going back anytime soon. It still gives me the heebie-jeebies thinking about it!

First Day

For my first day at Triad, they had a full bouquet of flowers delivered to my desk. They also took me out to a long lunch. I didn't even have to be there until 9 (I was there by 8:35) and left at 3:00. Told me to be back tomorrow at 8:30. Also, I have this Friday off. Normally I would not because they want me to be on opposite Fridays of my boss, but until I am trained, she said I should match with her schedule. I report to the controller, so when she is off on a Friday, I am her back-up. When I do get to my regular schedule I will actually end up having 2 Fridays off in a row. I won't be complaining. I can already tell from the training I did today that I am going to LOVE this job. I can't wait to go back tomorrow!