Carter did it!!!

Carter Graduated this Friday with his Bachelors in Bible with a minor in Youth Ministry. We are so proud of him and I know that he is very relieved to be done with school!

Here is Dr. Gieger presenting Carter with his ring at the ring ceremony.

Scotty and Carter are a little excited to graduate...

Carter and his parents

So Proud!!!

Wearing his academic hood a new way.

Brothers

Us

A little Update

Well we have been super busy the past week, between finishing out our jobs, packing, and saying all our goodbyes and a few other things it's been crazy. Our Christmas program for dayschool was on Tuesday and I'll leave you with a little clip from that, it is the kids singing falalalala's for Deck the Halls. Until I have more time to post, just know that we are alive, well, and Carter graduates tomorrow (yay) so his family is now in town after their flight into OKC was cancelled because of fog, and us thinking they wouldn't be able to get in until tomorrow after graduation.

Amber Needs.....

So when the blogging ideas run out I am turning to something I saw on another blog. The rules are you go to google and type in "your name needs" and see what it is that you really truly need according to the web. So here is what my search of what "Amber Needs" came up with.

1. Amber Needs some ideas. (yes, how did they know!!! Christmas gift ideas would be great too.)

2. Amber Needs your help (Mentally, physically, spiritually, yes yes yes!!)

3. Amber Needs donations (Once we get to Oregon, donations really would be helpful for furniture, or we'll take money, but we'll always take money.)

4. Amber Needs a boyfriend on Flickr. (ummm...don't they know I'm married. How embarassing! anyways, isn't it a little akward to need a boyfriend on a photo sharing site?)

5. Amber Needs you and your money. (I think we've already covered this one)

6. Amber Needs to go but the door is locked. (hmmm, well unlock it already)

7. Amber Needs a home. (Amen to that, the time is coming soon though!!!)


now we'll do Carter just for fun....mainly because I'm bored.

1. Carter Needs to be muzzled because he's devouring people alive. (umm yeah, WHAT??)

2. Carter Needs to attack the basket to get slumping nets. (his are just weird so far).

3. Carter Needs to shut up. (I'll agree with this one sometimes, but other times I can't get him to talk.

4. Carter Needs help with his pants. (Good thing he's a big boy now and can take care of that by himself.)

5. Carter Needs his passport taken away. (Oh no, what did he do now?? Goodbye Europe)

6. Carter Needs to stay retired. (I'm sure he wouldn't be opposed to early retirement)

7. Carter Needs attention petition. (I never thought I was neglecting him.)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

In my classroom that is. Since we are moving in a little less then 2 weeks (yikes that is soon) we are not decorating for Christmas which is a little dissapointing for me since I LOVE Christmas. But, I have decided to do a lot of decorating in my dayschool classroom to make up for it. So here are some pictures of what it looks like so far.


Although I didn't do the snowman bulletin board it goes so well in here. The christmas tree is decorated with ornaments made by my kiddos and their parents, and then "hung" by themselves. Even our little clips on the wall are now festive. Also, please note the santa hats on the monkeys!! You may have to click on the picture to see it better. We also have Christmas lights hanging on the other wall that is not pictured.

This is the bulletin board right outside our classroom. These are all seven of my "angels". For those of you who keep asking when we'll have kids...right now these 7 plus the 2 I babysit are more then enough and leave me pooped every day.

Whew I made it.

I had this crazy Idea that I wanted to go shopping this morning (Black Friday) so we could get the clothes we need while getting more bang for our buck. So after a lot of begging and convincing Carter of the geniousness of this plane he finally agreed and let me take 150 bucks with me.

The alarm clock went of this morning at 3:30 and I begrudgingly (sp?) rolled out of bed, got dressed, brushed my hair, and tried to look decent. I got into more car and happily turned on the Christmas music and journeyed down the dark empty streets until I pulled into the very full parking lot of Kohls. When the doors opened at 4 I worked my way in and proceeded to shop for stuff for us, and try things on for the next hour. Well that was my mistake, I should have gone in and out but that doesn't work so well for me. By the time I got in line at 5:15 I knew it was going to be awhile because the line wrapped all the way around to the back of the store, but little did I know that I wouldn't check out until 6:45 even after moving to the "faster" line.

By the time I walked out I was fully expecting it to be bright and sunny but nope the sun was still breaking through. However, when i got home with all my goodies, including a few christmas gifts I added up the actual price of them and discovered that they were all worth around 495 dollars. I was shocked, I would never be able to spend that much on clothes at one time normally. But, don't worry my friends because I only spent 187 and that includes the $19 dollars of tax. So despite my busy long morning it was ALL WORTH IT because I'm one for a bargain and saving $308 totally makes my day!!

Happy Thanksgiving

We hope you all have a great Thanksgiving full of family, friends, good food, and of course thankfulness. We will be spending tomorrow with our friends in Ponca City and I personally am looking forward to stuffing myself silly since it's the one day it's allowed.

We'll Miss Texas Roadhouse

One of the places that we'll miss when we move back to the West is this yummy restaurant. They have great tasting food, especially their steaks for great reasonable prices. And, their rolls with cinnamon butter is to die for!! I know that some of my family who are reading this are nodding in agreement since when they came down for our wedding I took them here and then they liked it so much they went back after me and Carter were honeymooning. So this is my tribute post to the Roadhouse, you will be missed but I know we'll eat you again one day!!

Carter and I after our date night at the Texas Roadhouse on Friday night.

Carter enjoying his huge steak and sweet potato.


My humongous, yummy loaded sweet potato. This is the first place I've had them and they are delish!!

Quick Trip to North Bend

In case you didn't know last week we made a quick trip to Oregon. We flew in on Thursday and out on Monday thanks to some great families who wanted us to make it out before we officially came in December. It was a quick and fun trip that helped us to rekindle our excitement, although we were still excited it was nice to refresh it since we hadn't been there since june and visit while not being interviewed. The weather was absolutely gourgeous while we were there. It was perfect sit on the beach and soak up the sun weather, but we didn't make it to the beach at all. But I guess it's okay since soon I'll have years to visit it as much as I want!! Although I toted my camera around with me the whole time we were there I only took like 5 pics, whoops, I've really got to get better at that!

On the main route from Eugene to Coos Bay there is an Elk Reserve with tons of these guys just loafing around. These were the smart ones since Elk season opened while we were there. I can just imagine the hunters salivating as they pass these guys on the road.

We went bowling on saturday, followed by tacos and kung fu panda. here are some girlies at the alley.

On our flight from Okc to Portland we flew over mount hood and this was our view. It was absolutely gourgeous!!

Oh wow, it's been a while.

Just wanted to quickly let our readers know that we are alive and well. We had a quick trip to North Bend over the weekend that went great and we are now counting downs the days until we leave with eager anticipation. Hopefully I'll get a longer post on here soon!

My last hope

I have not been feeling well for over a week now. I have this awful cough that doesn't seem to want to go away and I'm all nice and congested and have gone through way too many tissues. Not only is this cold/whatever the heck is it annoying, but it is zapping my energy. I've tried a few different medicines and at the insistence of some women at church that this stuff works, emergen-c is hopefully the immune boost I need to get my system right again. Especially since we're flying to Oregon Thursday, I really really don't want to be sick while we're there!!!

What a great guy I have!

On Saturday morning I got up and went to volunteer at Free Shop at church dreading the thought of coming home and cleaning up our apartment. It really was the last thing I wanted to do and I was wondering how long it would take me to do it so that I could get a nap in. Well, as I walked in the door everything was magically clean. Well the magician himself was sitting on the couch and informed me that I had a suprise in the fridge as well. To my delight I found some chocolate truffles made by Sweet Shop that I love but can never justify spending money on. These are some of the best chocolates ever and you can make one piece last a whole day they are so rich!! Anyways, it was super sweet of Carter to do this for me and I was thrilled at his making my day easier and better!!!

I kinda ate one before the picture...Whoops!!

We did it

Well our votes are cast (note the stickers) and we just need to see who ends up winning this thing.

Tomorrow

BE A GOOD CITIZEN AND DON'T FORGET TO VOTE!!!!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Guess who we were for halloween....









If you answered Bam Bam and Pebbles you would be correct, if you guessed fred and wilma you'd be wrong. You'd also be wrong if you guessed Adam and Eve. It did seem a little obvious to us that we were Bam Bam and Pebbles, but at least fred and wilma were in the same cartoon. However, the people that asked if we were Adam and Eve left us a little perplexed. Perhaps their not at all familiar with their bible stories, or with Cartoons...we don't really know what they were thinking.

Anyways, Carter's social club held their Banquet tonight (halloween), so we had been brainstorming for a while on what we wanted to be. Carter came up with this idea and despite lots of looking for cheap costumes we couldn't find anything. Sooooo after a trip to Hobby Lobby we purchased this material and I decided I would sew them. Now if you know how to sew then these costumes would be a piece of cake, 20 minutes top with a sewing machine. However, I don't really know how to sew, and I don't own a sewing machine (not that I could use it even if I did) so you are looking at the product of about 5 hours of hand stiched torture. But I now am very very proud of my handiwork and really want to learn how to sew for real!
Carter's club decided to go trick-or-treating downtown (which we only ended up doing for like 10 minutes) and then we went to an adult sponsors house for hotdogs and socialization which was okay. The interesting part of the night was when we noticed cop lights in the front of the house and then people said the cop was going around the back of the house. The next thing we know he is hollering at us to get out of the house and put our hands on the wall. At first we were a little worried, especially since the sponsors wife was freaking out saying "what did you all do while we were gone" "why'd we let you come." And then the cop starts asking us questions and telling us he knows we have marijuana and then we start to realize through the dialog that this is one big setup. Finally the cop goes, "I'm just kidding you guys, I'm the next door neighbor and I came by for some hotdogs!" It was very entertaining though and apparently they had been planning it for days.

In the Trick-or-Treat line downtown

Our friends Summer and Waldo...oops I mean Scotty

Bam Bam (with his hat he worked a good hour on)

Pebbles (Can I please say that it took FOREVER to wash my hair out)

Dayschool Halloween Party

Sorry for the lack of posting, but we really haven't had anything interesting going on to post about. Today was our halloween party at dayschool and we started off with going trick-or-treating to all the classrooms so they could show off their costumes, and get some goodies. That went really well although it was very chaotic with so many kids walking the hallways and us trying to herd the super excited kids. Then our day continued as usual with the promise of a party if they were really good once they woke up for nap. We went down for early naps so we could wake up at 1:30 for our party and that went better then I expected.

Our party was fun and I had 4 moms come into to help which was great of them! We had two stations, cupcake decorating, and making a spider. Once they were done with those we ate some yummy food which I was determined to make healthy because I really didn't want to completely sugar up these little 2 year olds who I feel are way too little for tons of junk. So in the morning I let them have one piece of candy after we trick-or-treated, then at the party the only junk we had were the cupcakes and then I had the moms bring in fruit and veggies and crackers to snack on. We made a big mess and it was a little crazy, but it was lots of fun!!

One of the little girls didn't dress up, then a clown, pebbles, a pirate, a bee, a princess, Steve (from blues clues) and a dragon (he doesn' t have the head part on but it was cute).

My kiddos trick-or-treating

I'm passing out candy

Carter herding along some kids

A mom helping with the spiders

Look at that spread!!

First of the season

We just turned on our heater for the first time this fall. Our room was a chilly 64 and we like to stick in the 68-70 range. So, it looks like our warm fall might be coming to a close.

A day at Day School

Now, for those of you who I don't go to church with here are some pictures of my classroom. The jungle theme was the teacher who is taking over for me in january, but I have now expanded on the idea and the halloween stuff, back wall, and both the bulletin boards are all my doing. Enjoy!!
(You can click the pics to make them bigger)

This is the board in my classroom

This is the board right before you com in my room

Today we had a special treat at Day School. The firemen came and gave us a safety talk, and then we got to go out to take pictures with the firetruck. The kids were so excited during the safety talk, until one of the firemen started to put on his fire suit. Then he went from being friendly to being super scary and a few of my kids started to freak out, a couple of them climbing in my lap for safety. But in all it was fun, with my kiddos in their super cool fire hats, fire badges, coloring books, and edible firetruck snack it was a fun filled, tiring day.

Some Kids Loved the firetruck

Listening Carefully

It's the Scary Man
Some kids weren't as big of fans

Now, for those of you who I don't go to church with here are some pictures of my classroom. The jungle theme was the teacher who is taking over for me but I have now expanded on the idea and the halloween stuff, back wall, and both the bulletin boards are all my doing. Enjoy!!

I can't wait

I can't wait till I can stand here and look at this in person whenever I want! I love the ocean and how peaceful it is!!

Obnoxious

So yesterday when I got home from work I heard a loud noise every time I walked into our bedroom. It sounded like a vibrating/humming noise that was pretty loud and obnoxious but I figured that it would go away. Well at 9 I walked into our room again and the noise was still going on and when I put my hand on the wall it was vibrating. Now I know this is not normal and I'm starting to wonder how in the world I'm going to fall asleep with this loud noise (I like falling asleep to quietness) especially one I'm not use to. Carter was also starting to wonder if it was our heater/ac system but my guess was that somebody has a huge fan upstairs with the one problem being that nobody lives upstairs. So I get on my computer and send a message to maintenance letting them know the issue and that something might be broken in our room.

When I got home from work today I checked my email to find this response:
10-15-08, Wednesday. Sorry, but the noise you are getting is from upstairs with some equipment that we have to dry up water that leak in from the roof in the bedroom. We should be done with it later today when it is dry ed up. Thanks Jon S. Apt. Maintenance Supervisor.

My first thought was "really, you left a huge loud fan on all night long right above our head, how rude and inconsiderate" then I realized that I guess it was neccessary but they could have at least knocked on our door or emailed us to let us know what was going on so we didn't have to question it for 30 minutes last know. In all, I'm pretty ticked off at maintenance right now and am hoping they redeem themselves!

Disaster Area

So our little apartment got disgusting...not just a few things here and there disgusting, but trash piled up and stuff everywhere where we could hardly get around without jumping over something disgusting. I am not proud to admit this nastiness of our apartment but I have a problem. This problem is called cleaning up after myself...and I've had it ever since I could remember. When I was growing up the disaster was contained to my room, but now that I'm in charge of cleaning up it just doesn't happen as frequently as I'd like. It's not that I like it dirty, it's just that when I realize how bad it's getting I'm overwhelmed by the amount of stuff and decide to do something else.

However, I am proud to say that yesterday was spent in deep clean mode. Shower and toilets were cleaned, floor vacuumed, stuff dusted, all the laundry was done, kitchen was spotless! Now, let's see how long I can keep this apartment clean.

And the countdown begins....

Prayers Please

Becca Thompson is a woman that I look up to. Her and her husband Brad stepped up at the church when I was in high school and decided to take an active part in the youth groups and our lives. They both are such special people to me and my whole family. Well, just last week I found out that Becca hadn't been feeling well and finally went to the hospital. After many tests they thought she may have adult acute leukemia and did another test that they got the results back from on Tuesday. On Thursday they were admitted into Stanford Medical Center with the almost 100% sure diagnosis of Adult Lymphoblastic Leukemia. From everything I've heard and have read from others including her own online journal, she is being so strong through this. She is drawing comfort and peace from God and is a great testament to those around her. I don't think I could be half as courageous as her if I was in the same situation and my heart breaks for all that she is going through as well as her family. So please pray for her to be responsive to her treatment and to make a 100% recovery. She is only 33 years old and they have three children under the age of 9 so please pray also that the children find comfort in this process as well.

If you want to keep track of her progress, or just sign her guestbook to let her know you're praying for her (which she would greatly appreciate) you can go to her caring bridge website at
http://www.caringbridge.org/cb/viewHome.do

This is a picture taken 3 years ago of the youth and a few of us back from college. Becca is standing in the back in the blue sweater next to her husband Brad.

Fall Break

Fall break of freshman year I went on a mission trip to St.Louis to help out with an inner city congregation.


This year I technically don't have a fall break but I will spend the weekend sleeping in and lounging around enjoying the apartment to myself. Although, I will miss Carter he will be having a great time on his mission trip to Galveston. I am so proud of the work he will be doing there especially since he turned down tickets to the OU/UT (one of his dreams of going to) game this weekend because he already commited to the mission trip.

Chef Carter

So Carter doesn't know how to cook. A few months ago I taught him how to make scrambled eggs so that has been the extent of his "cooking" unless popping frozen stuff in the oven counts. In an attempt to fix this I've been making him cook his own dinners lately while I help him, sometimes he's not very happy about it but he's proud of his accomplishments so far. His menu now consists of orange chicken, and hamburger helper. Both come from boxes and have easy to follow directions, but I never knew until now that unless you have some cooking experience the directions aren't that easy at all. But I am very proud at how well he is doing and that he is making the effort!

The Unbelievable!

I just paid 2.99 a gallon for gas and filled up for under 40!! I've been waiting for this day to come and am happy my gas tank was hungry!

Presenting Cloris Leachman on Dancing with the Stars

Now I have been known to watch Dancing with the Stars and I really truly enjoy the show. This year I'm not overly crazy though about the celebs they have on the show but I'm watching it online at ABC.com anyways when I'm bored. Well while watching it I laughed harder while watching Cloris Leachman, the 80 something celeb, then I ever have while watching it before. Her dancing itself is not that great, but I didn't really expect it to be. However, her attempts at trying to Woo the judges was great, unlike anything another contestant has ever done. You can see for yourself here!!

Duct Tape has many uses

Carter has been wanting a new wallet for a while because he says his is "old." Well it appeared to still be in good shape so I told him he can just wait until Christmas. Apparently this was not a good enough answer because when I came home from work today he had made his own duct tape wallet. Tacky, Yes. Trashy, Yes. So stinkin cool that he could create this from tape, yes! When I asked him how he knew how to do it he said he looked up the instructions online...thank goodness for the world wide web!! Oh yeah, in case you didn't notice...he didn't think the duct tape gray looked good enough so he wrapped the outside with electrical tape, phew fashion crisis averted.

For all those interested in their own "special" wallet, we will be selling them for 5 bucks each and we'll even let you personalize your color. Hmmmm maybe we should open our own store on etsy...