Finally! 15+ years and...

Last night was such a special night. It has been about 15 years in the works but I finally received my Young Women Personal Progress Medallion! I know it may seem silly but I always carried some disappointment not having earned it as a young woman. Its a long story.... but as a youth I completed about 3/4 the requirements, lost my book, started over, completed about 1/2 the book the second time, then lost my book again at girls camp. I think it is probably still floating around the Uintah's somewhere. Anyways, I started again several years ago as a YW Leader and I finally completed it! For the second year in a row, all of our seniors received their medallions! (Although they are all not pictured here.)

Me and my girl Cleo. When she saw my old school personal progress book she fell in love with the old medallion (the gold one with the woman on it). We pulled some strings and were able to find one for her! I got the newest version.

I had to put up this picture because Warren took it. He is becoming quite the photographer. He LOVED my necklace and kept telling me how pretty I looked and how special I was to get it. He insisted on taking a picture of me wearing it. LOVE that boy.

Mi casa es su casa...

Well, I haven't been very good at keeping the updates about our house drama's BUT..... it all started last October when we decided and announced that we were building a house and we have been/were. Well, to make a LONG story short, the builders were lame and took FOREVER to even start construction on our house. They originally told us it would be done March or April '08. Well, they didn't even break ground until April. Our lease on our house we are renting was up in June and our landlord was expecting another year lease to be signed, etc. There is a whole saga in between but we have been really prayerful about it and we decided earlier last month that we would start looking at existing homes and we did. Shortly thereafter, we found this house and we put our first offer in a few weeks ago. It is owned by an oil company and is currently empty, due to an employee relocate.We put in the initial offer a few weeks ago and after much patience with corporate we finally came to an agreement and received a signed contract last Thursday! The process has been painstakingly slow and stressful. The initial offer and counter offers had to be reviewed by at least five (picky) people, etc. (deep sigh...) We are very excited to FINALLY be able to have a place of our own. We are supposed close and move the end of this month. Just a few weeks before the baby will be born! That will be a little tricky to pull off with this belly and Weston's work/travel schedule but I'm sure it will all come together in the next 3 weeks right!? Here are some pictures.
We will have a mighty comfy guest bedroom. All friends and (most) family welcome!! ;) I was trying to get a shot of some of the trees in our yard. We have a ton of huge pine & oak in the front and 6-7 huge oak in the back. Our entire backyard is shaded at all times.
Its barely in the picture but the garage is to the right, detached with a covered breezeway from the back door.
The Front entryway.

Dad's New Tower

Soo, one of our favorite things to do (when time and organization permits) is go downtown and meet Weston for lunch. Whenever we approach downtown Warren always points out the skyline and talks and talks about all the "big, heooge towers." His eyes just light up. He just thinks it is the coolest thing ever that his daddy works in one of them. This was our first visit to "Dad's new tower. "
Warren, of course, loves to take his turn in dad's office. He is totally professional for a 2 1/2 year old. He already knows the mantra....talking on the phone, checking his email. We already have a multi-tasker on our hands! With his pointer finger clicking the mouse repeatedly and the phone up to his ear you can here him saying "yes, uh huh, I understand." If Weston and I get too loud he fervently shooshes us and reminds us "um, excuse me guys, I am doing my important work."

"If you build it, they will come."

I still need to be pinched myself... but yes, it is official! We are building a house! We are so excited! It should be finished somewhere around the end of April or May. We kept thinking about how few visitors we have had since we moved to Texas. Not that we can blame anyone...our accommodations have been a pretty meager, at best. So, we followed the inspiration which came from the movie Field of Dreams... "If you build it, they will come."

Kickin my can

September was back to school time for me and for some reason this semester is kickin my can! I have been going to school part time for years now. The last year and a half I have been taking between 10-12 credits each semester and have been able to manage it ok. This semester, not so graceful.

Currently, I am taking Biology, Biopsychology, Computer Science and a Library Info Systems Class. My CS and LIS classes are fine...the other two are pretty study intensive and eat up most of my time. I have always loved science and done pretty well at it. I am finding, however, that it is more difficult teaching myself science than I anticipated. (I am taking these classes online). I find myself wishing that I had the professor/classmates to interact with and cell models to play with in class, etc.

It has made life around the house a little more interesting and a bit cluttered. My kitchen has become a scientist lab. Everynight Weston comes home to test tubes, chemicals and experiments all over the place. I haven't blown anything up yet but I did suffer a mild burn a few days ago. No worries, nothing a little ice and solarcaine can't fix.

Da Stuff

Weston's first day at Sutherland... and you wondered how law firms get away with charging such high billing rates!!

Angels Landing

As most of you know, Weston received a job offer to work with Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan yesterday. We are so excited for this opportunity. We haven't had our official celebration yet but apparently that didn't stop the angels from getting it started for us! Apparently, there was a serious party going on in our front yard as we slept Monday night. We don't need a confession to know who was responsible for this. Aren't we special?? A job and angels all in the same day!

The perfect touch (notice the "s" in Halls).... nice!