Wow, it’s been a while since I posted anything on this here blog! We have been busy the last month or so and I realize I haven’t kept anyone updated on what all we have been up to. I’m not going to lie…when I do have a chance to sit down and update the blog, I just don’t want to! We went on our cruise the first week of February and had a great time!
Our first stop was in Progresso, Mexico and we enjoyed visiting the Mayan Ruins. Jonathan probably enjoyed it more than me, but it was neat to see.
The next day we went to Cozumel and had a chance to ride some segways along beach. we were supposed to go snorkeling but it was way too windy so we were unable to. We were pretty bummed but maybe some other time we will be able to go snorkeling.
After the segway tour we walked around the port a while and had lunch at Three Amigos in Cozumel.
Last weekend we celebrated Jonathan’s 30th birthday at Kobe Steaks, sorry I didn’t get many pics…
Then on Tuesday, which was Jonathan’s actual birthday we went to Red Robin for a delicious burger.
I started going to the Bible study at my old church in Dallas with Jen on Wednesday nights and love it. I have missed having an actual women’s Bible study and simply just needed it. So I called Jen up because I knew she was going to the one at Northwest Bible and luckily a new study was starting this month so I was able to start it. So every Wednesday after work I get to see Jen and then go to a Bible study–it’s great!! We catch up on what’s going on in our lives and helps me get through the week. I’ve missed getting to see her and spend time with her as often as we used to…I guess that’s what happens when you live that far apart and both have busy lives. But, I’m thankful for the times we do get to spend together.
We have started getting ready for spring around our house. Last week we pulled up some bushes and planted two rose bushes in the front and today we added more mulch to the flower beds and I put out the weed killer…and in a few weeks it’ll be time for the fertilizer.
I can’t believe it’s already 2009 – It seams like 2008 just flew by! A lot happened this past year, some not so good and some really good. If you told me at the beginning of 2008 that I would go through 2 surgeries, have 5 CT scans, take a visit to the Baylor ER and change jobs, I would have laughed in your face. But a new year brings new challenges, whether you want them or not! So lets take a look at 2008 shall we!
The year started out great we had been in our new house for a few months and had fun as we started to paint and do landscaping around the yard. We pretty much finished doing things to the house (for now) but will eventually do more to the yard when spring rolls around. Here is just a little of what we have done so far…
In March Jonathan and I took a trip to Memphis, TN just for fun. We had a great time visiting Graceland, the Gibson factory, walking down Beale St. and eating some delicious Memphis BBQ. Here is a video of the highlights from our trip…
On April 28, Jonathan and I celebrated our one year anniversary! We stayed a night in downtown Dallas and then went to the arboretum for the day.
In May I graduated, again!
I finally finished my bachelor’s degree after finishing my associates degree in 2002. I took a couple of years off inbetween my associates and going back to finish my bachelor’s but with hard work and determination, I finished it and it won’t necessarily get me more money or anything, it will give me more opportunities in my career field and in a way get a better paying job! I will be able to teach if I choose to and also I can continue on to get a master’s degree if I want…which I may eventually. I would love to get a masters in exercise physiology but we’ll see where God takes me on that one!
The week after I graduated I had sinus surgery. I had a severe deviated septum that wouldn’t allow me to get rid of a sinus infection I had for almost 6 months. So the fixed it, I got a new nose…well not really, but I can breathe better…
that’s attractive huh?
The following month (June) my best friend, Jen, got married and I was a bridesmaid in her wedding. We had a lot of fun at the wedding and all the events leading up to it…
Two days after Jen and Jed got married I had a little accident…so we’ll call it. To make a long story short and one you can read here, I had a wonderful 14 hour stay in the Baylor ER and ended up with a sprained neck and 4 broken vertebrae in my back….
I have had a long road to recovery and had many visits to the neurosurgeon and a lot of CT’s. I had a final visit to the neurosurgeon last month and he said it was healing, not completely healed yet, but healing for sure. So yeah! I still have pain if I do certain things or move certain ways but for the most part I feel pretty good.
Then September rolled around and time for another surgery…bet you didn’t see that coming-HA. I have had two procedures on my heart in the last 5 years and I started having some problems again so my cardiologist thought it would be best to go back in and check everything, just to make sure everything was good to go. So I have another heart cath and everything checked out ok…we just adjusted my medication and we’re back in business.
In November I decided, for many reasons, it was time for a change so I resigned from my position at Children’s Medical Center and accepted one at Baylor Univ. Medical Center in Dallas. It was tough leaving some of my friends behind, but it was time to move on! For the most part, I liked the time I spent working at CMC and will cherish the friendships I made while I was there.
But since I have made the move to Baylor, I can honestly say it was the best decision I’ve made in a while and a good move for my career. I love the people I work with and love what I do at Baylor. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for me in the next year or so with my career.
In November, Jonathan and I also went to a marriage retreat at Sky Ranch with our church. We had a blast doing the ropes course, flying down the zip line and getting to know more couples at our church. Tim and Kara were able to go with us and we hope to do it again next year.
To finish off the year, we celebrated the holidays with family and friends and you can read all about that in another post! We have done so many fun things this year, it’s hard to sit down and write them all out, there were many things we did like go to the rangers game, state fair of Texas, Waxahachie’s hot air balloon festival, and I could go on forever, but I won’t…
…so here’s to a great 2009, filled with many more memories and new opportunities!
ARE OVER!! Not that I’m happy about that but life can finally calm down now and get back to normal. What did we do for the holidays you ask…well, here is a look at what all we did the last few weeks/months. Over the last month I have taken several family photos. There were the Treadaways, our pastor and his family…
…And then Jalyn, our friends Josh and Shalyn’s baby…
…then there were the Nash’s. Gracelyn, who is 2, didn’t really want any part of taking photos so it made for a difficult day, along with my camera that was acting up…that’s a whole other story…
We went with a group of our friends from church to see Bethlehem Revisited in Waxahachie…
Our holiday festivities with family started on Dec 21 when we held our annual Turner-Medlin Family Christmas/Jake’s Birthday party. We all went to the Medlin’s and had some yummy chili and all the “kids” (we’re too old to be called kids) did a white elephant gift exchange and then Jake opened up his birthday presents. Jake turned 8 this year and I can’t believe he’s getting so old. I remember the day he was born…anyway, we had fun time together and couldn’t wait to do it all over again on New Years Day, when we celebrate my dad and Bob’s birthday…more on that later in the post.
On the 23rd we had all of Jonathan’s family over to our house for dinner and games. We all had a great time and always look forward to seeing everyone. (to see any of these collages bigger, simply click on it and viola)
Christmas Eve we went to our parents church for a candlelight service and then back to my parents house for dinner. After dinner we headed over to my aunts house to spend some time with her and my cousins and their kids. Had a good time seeing all of them and about 10:00pm my cousin’s son, Bryce, announced that “there was good news and bad news…the good news is that santa is in Texas, the bad news is that santa is in Texas and I’m not in bed!” So with that we all headed home.
Christmas morning Jonathan and I opened gifts at our house, well some of them…I made Jonathan go on a scavenger hunt for his gift. He started out at our house and then headed to the park which sent him to our pastors house where they slipped the present in their mailbox for me. I think he enjoyed it but maybe not as much as his present which was two tickets to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert.
After that we went to my padres house for Christmas with my familia and ate a great lunch and opened gifts. And as always, we let the kids go first which only takes about 10 minutes total because they rip through them all at warp speed. After lunch and presents we decided to play a game of family feud…that was a lot of fun, except my dad kept forgetting the rules! My niece got a doll house and my nephew got a new Wii so they were both preoccupied with those the majority of the afternoon and that was a gift to all of us!!! That’s the only way we were able to play family feud.
Later that afternoon we headed over to Jonathan’s parents and hung out there a while. Tim and Kara got rock band for the wii so we played that for a while and then Jonathan’s dad made a great ham for dinner so we ate and opened some gifts. Over all, we had a wonderful Christmas and are blessed by our family and friends that spent it with us!
Then for about a week our lives were back to semi normalcy…I went back to work but Jonathan had the week off. New Years Eve we spent over at Richard and Amber’s house playing games and eating some yummy mexican food. Then for the countdown to bring in the new year we lit some sparklers–that’s always fun!
And finally, Welcome 2009! We have entered into yet another new year. We slept in new years day because lets face it, we were up late partying the night before!! You know us, we’re such the partiers-HA! Then later that afternoon my family and the Medlins came over to our house and we grilled some fajitas and celebrated our dad’s birthdays! Honestly I can’t remember how old they both are–somewhere in the early 60’s! yikes, sorry guys, I love you, but that’s old!
We always have fun getting together but don’t do it as often as I would like. The Medlin’s have always been a second family to us, Bob and Vicki were like our “other parents” and Ty and Tami were like siblings growing up. It’s so much fun now that we are all grown up and adults…We’ve all grown up together and shared special occasions together as we each get married, have kids and watch each of us, or them, become parents for the first time…it’s been fun!! A great way to start a new year. I’ve been told that how you spend your New Year’s Day sets the stage for that year…we’re off to a great start!
Because we had so much fun on New Year’s Day, you get two collages.
Tonight Jonathan and I went to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert for his Christmas gift and had a blast. This is my 5 year to go to the concert and I have loved every year. It’s a Christmas tradition that I had and then when Jonathan and I started dating we decided to make it our tradition. We are going on a cruise in February so we decided that we just wouldn’t be able to spring for tickets to TSO this year and the cruise. We were both bummed about not getting to go, Jonathan was pretty bummed so I decided to surprise him with tickets for Christmas. He tried many times to get me to agree to get tickets and it was hard to tell him “No, I just don’t think we can this year” when I had already bought 2 tickets. Anyway, we went to the concert and love it! The camera police are usually out making sure you don’t take any pictures of the concert but I was able to sneak some with my camera phone–gotta love them! So here are some illegal pictures from the TSO concert:
After the concert we met Jen and Jed for dinner at Patrizio’s in Highland Park Village….let me tell you, they have some amazing italian food! I’ve been there before and have always wanted to take Jonathan so I figured why not now! We had a good time with Jen and Jed and then decided to get some Italian Gelato at Paciugo’s to go with our Italian food.
And that concludes our holiday festivities! I hope everyone had a good time with their family and friends over the holidays and here’s to a wonderful new year!
I was cleaning out a big box we had in our guest room closet yesterday and found a bunch of old letters, cards and what not from high school. It was fun reading them and reliving the memories of trips to Mexico, Honduras, Colorado and other places, along with some of my former youth leaders who became good friends. There were two women that I absolutely loved, Alison and Annie. I found some letters they had written me while in high school and it just reminded me how much they helped form who I am. They were mentors for me in my high school years and helped me grow as a Christan woman. I haven’t talked to either of them in years and would love to see them.
It got me thinking how much I miss having people like these two in my life. I don’t have a “mentor” or a woman in my life now that has a role like Alison or Annie did years ago. I think it’s good to have someone in your life that not necessarily leads you but is a mentor of some sort and you can look up to or help you become a better person/Christian. I look at Jonathan and he has that person in Brian, our pastor and friend. Brian has played a major role in jonathan’s life and probably more than either of them will admit!
Oh the memories, I also found an old notebook that Jen and I passed back and forth in high shcool so it was fun reading some of those notes. I’ll have to let her read them too.
Can you believe it, the year is almost over–2 more months! That’s craziness. This year has flown by and honestly I don’t know where it went. It’s also been a while since I posted anything on here…it’s been neglected. Not a whole lot has been going on the last few weeks. Jonathan and I started our new small group on Saturday nights at our house. We’ve had a good time and are getting to know some new people, which is good for me because it’s difficult to meet new people…simply because I’m not as outgoing as say, my husband. ha. Anyway, we went camping a few weeks ago with Tim and Kara, and Izzy and Presley (that made for an interesting trip). Lets just say, a dog who shall remain nameless didn’t sleep more than about an hour the entire night. Anyway, other than that, we had a great time.
We kept Jake and Brooklyn last Friday night for my brother and sister-in-law. They are definitely growing up. Jake read most of the time (just like his dad) and Brooklyn chased Presley around the house and backyard most of the time. We did carve some pumpkins with them and that was fun.
Other than that we haven’t done a whole lot, a lot of relaxing, which I personally love! We have manged to keep ourselves busy with separate projects though. I manage to keep myself busy everyday coming up with a new photo idea for my 365 days project on Flickr. Go check them out and let me know of some good ideas because I’m starting to run out! Jonathan has joined this writing thing for national novel writing month , basically he writes a novel within the month of november–crazy! It’ll be an interesting month, that’s for sure. Well, I’m off to find an interesting photo idea…happy November peeps!
I just realized I hadn’t posted anything on my blog since like the end of September…so here’s a recap of what’s been going on at casa de Blundell.
The hubs and I got to go to the fair last week and had a great time. Piece of advice–don’t waste your time going to the laser show…it’s horrible. We walked around and looked at the award winning gardens, some sculptures that local artists made and then looked at the car exhibit. And, of course, we ate a Fletcher’s corney dog, nachos, rootbeer and some salt water taffy. Mmmmm, tasty!
Jonathan has started a challenge with his friend Thomas over in Scotland to see who can lose 30 pounds first….hmmmm, who will win? So Friday after dinner we decided to go for a bike ride at the hike and bike trail in Waxahachie. I just found this panoramic mode on my little point and shoot camera and decided to try it out while on the trail.
Yesterday (Sunday) Jonathan and Josh gave the message yesterday at church…he did a great job and as always, I love hearing him speak! After church we went to the Chisolm Grill in downtown Waxahachie with his parents and then came back to our house to eat some apple pie and look at pictures from their trip to New England.
Side note–it was very bright, hence the squinting
Then last night we watched the Cowboys play (and I use that term loosely) and lose.
Now it’s Monday morning and time to start another week!
I went with my brother, Brad, yesterday to the park with Jake and Brooklyn to get some pictures. He and my sister-in-law just wanted some updated shots of the kids to hang up so we attempted it. I have to be honest, they aren’t the easiest kids to photograph…they are just so busy and always moving and going everywhere except where you want them to. Out of about 200 shots we got some good ones though. Hopefully they will find some they can blow up and hang on the walls. These are my favorites I think:
If you want to see the rest of the pics of the kids or follow along in my project 365 (where I take a self portrait of some sort every day for a year) you can click on my flickr badge to the right (the green box with pictures in it).
It’s 2:00am as I type this, why am I still up??? I am asking the same thing. This happened last night too, I just can’t fall asleep, I’ve tried–I just lay there. I was wondering what could be keeping me up, my mind isn’t going everywhere and I’m not thinking of a bazillion things, I haven’t had any caffeine, we just recently doubled my cardiac meds, but I have been on that for a little while so my body should be used to the adjustment, so that’s not it. I don’t know! Then I remembered that I just switched to the generic instead of brand medication…and then read tonight that can cause “trouble sleeping” until your body gets used to it–NO JOKE!! I hope I get used to it pretty soon! So I’m thinking of things I could do when I should be sleeping and I only came up with two- organize all the loose papers in the office or work on my photo for the day for the project 365 on Flickr, since it is a new day already. Hmmm, well I’m off to do something, other than sleep apparently.
Normally I leave all the political mumbo jumbo up to the hubs but is anyone else sick of hearing about Sarah Palin’s pregnant 17 year old daughter. Ya it’s a big deal but at the same time the media is focusing so much on that issue that we aren’t able to get to know the possible next VP of the United States. I want to know what she stands for, what her plans are and so forth, but with the whole pregnancy issue we aren’t able to do that. So here’s what I know, she’s a woman and she’s the governor of Alaska–and a few more things. I am truly excited that we have the possibility to elect the first female VP–and it’s not Hillary!! I will say that she is a strong woman and shows women of America that when struggles come up you can push through them, and run for vice president at the same time. In the last four months Palin has given birth to a special needs child (down syndrome I believe), hit the campaign trail with 5 kids at home no less and told the world she has a pregnant 17 year old daughter. Because of all she does, juggling work and family, that will speak to a lot of women. The question is, will she speak for women, will she stand up for women and their rights? The answer, probably not. She has opposed contraception, abortion rights and protecting women in the workplace. Now I’m not going to get into the issue of abortion and women, that’s not what my blog is about, but I do agree with her stance and like that she is antiabortion. Maybe in the next week or so we will finally find out who Sarah Palin is, watch the RNC tonight and hear her speak.
On another note, you have to admit, Sarah Palin looks awfully similar to Meghan Mullaly of Will and Grace and Tina Fey…can you see it! When her hair is up it’s Meghan Mullaly, when it’s down it’s Tina Fey. Then the funny part, for all you SNL fans out there, McCain’s wife kinda looks like Amy Poehler, so put them together and we’ll have a comedic white house! Oh how I wish Tina Fey was still on Saturday Night Live, I can see the skits now)
Sarah Palin
Meghan Mullaly
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler
Cindy McCain’s –ok so she doesn’t really look like Amy Poehler but it she could resemble her don’t you think…specially with tina fey as his running mate!
I’m not talking about the dog allergies where humans are allergic to dogs, but where dogs are allergic to something. My little Presley seems to be allergic to the grass in our backyard. About 10 minutes after she goes outside for a while her four paws and ears get really red and irritated. She’ll chew and lick them for hours if we let her and she scratches her face and ears and you can just tell it bothers her. Poor thing, the only thing I know to do is give her children’s strength Benadryl. That seems to help her, the redness goes away for the most part and she stops chewing her paws. I don’t think it’s all the grass that is out there but only a specific weed that’s out there. This started about a month or two ago and that’s about the time we got this annoying weed up by our porch where she spends most of her time. So if anyone has any suggestions on how to get rid of dog allergies they would be greatly appreciated.
