Christmas Travels

About two weeks ago, Justin and I set out on a trek across the country, traveling through 12 states for a total of almost 4,000 miles.  We drove for an absurd number of hours through sunshine, rain, snow, and ice (sometimes all in the same day) to celebrate a wedding with friends and Christmas with our families. It was quite the trip!

Our celebration of the season began at home in Dallas.  Knowing that we would be spending a great deal of the holidays away, Justin and I wasted no time finding our Christmas tree and decorating our home.  We upgraded from our tiny Christmas tree last year to a whopping 4-footer this year!  Since all of our Christmas to-dos had to be done a couple of weeks early, we got busy shopping and wrapping and packing.  We looked at Christmas lights with friends and Kellie and I even said hello to Santa at the Dallas Arboretum!  Kellie graduated this December and is now headed to Baltimore where she has found a great job and new opportunities.  I am so excited for her, but there will be quite a void left in her absence.  Kellie is one of the most obvious blessings in my life and I already miss her!

Kellie also helped me to design and make blankets for my little nieces this Christmas.  Aren't they cute?

Those first couple of weeks of December were a flurry of Christmas shopping, wrapping paper, spending time with friends, baking, packing, sewing, making travel plans, and of course, finishing up with work and school for the semester.  (If you were wondering why your Christmas cards may have been a little late, now you know.)  We had a great time enjoying the holidays here at home, and our big plans hadn't even started yet!

Justin and I left early, early on the 16th to head to Denver for the wedding of Zach Smith and Courtney Wilson.  We had good weather and traffic and made it there in time to go to dinner with a family Justin lived with when he interned with Dry Bones a few summers ago.  After dinner, we went out with some of his friends that he hadn't seen in a long time and had a great time catching up.  Justin enjoyed being back in Denver and I enjoyed him showing me around the city that had such an influence on his life.  Saturday, Justin was busy doing whatever groomsmen do the day of a wedding so I got to do a little exploring on my own.  Denver has great public transportation and a fun downtown mall area, or I may not have been willing to brave the cold on my own to go see it!  The wedding was beautiful and the joy exhibited by Zach and Courtney was clear to see.

On Sunday, we made the last of several airport runs to pick up my parents.  My family had decided to spend Christmas in Colorado where some family friends were sharing their beautiful mountain home with us.  After a stop in Golden, CO for lunch and a little tour of some of Justin's old favorite spots, we drove out to Buena Vista, where my siblings were already waiting.  It was a gorgeous drive through the mountains, and we only got stuck in the snow once. :)

The home that we stayed in was beautiful and our hosts were amazingly hospitable.  On Monday, everyone but my mom (who volunteered to stay home with the grandbabies) headed out to the slopes, where Justin tried skiing for the first time.  It snowed all day, leaving feet of powder in some places, but he did a great job.  After a little mechanical problem with his skis was fixed, he even enjoyed it! I had a great time watching him learn and spending time with the family doing something we frequently did on family vacations growing up.

There were plenty of things to do, but it was also a great place to just sit by the fire and watch the snow fall outside. 

We had a gingerbread cookie decorating contest (Justin won)...

Spent time with my nieces...

Built a snowman... (Okay, so we watched my dad, sister, and brother-in-law build a snowman while the rest of us stayed inside where it was warm and played games)

Took the girls sledding...

Went snowshoeing (which is a lot harder than it looks)...

And played lots of foosball...

We had a great time celebrating Christmas with the family and made lots of memories.  Early Thursday morning, Justin and I said our goodbyes and hopped back in the car to head toward Michigan.  Our plan was to spend the night at his aunt and uncle's house in Chicago, but the weather had other plans for us. We drove from about 6am-11pm before the heavy snow and ice forced us to stop in a little town in Iowa to spend the night.  At that point, we had been crawling along through blinding snow for about an hour and had seen one too many cars that had slid off the road.  We spent the night at a hotel and got up early Christmas Eve hoping that the weather would be a little more cooperative for the remainder of our trip.  It wasn't ideal, but the weather was good enough to travel in and we finally made it to little Wayne, MI in time for dinner.  

We went to Justin's grandparents's house on Christmas Eve for dinner, games, and gifts. We don't get to see all of them very much so it was fun to spend some time with them.  On Christmas we did a lot of relaxing and put together a 1,000 piece puzzle - a family tradition.  Sunday night, Justin's parents took us to Greenfield Village, an indoor-outdoor museum, for their holiday nights displays.  It was FREEZING outside but we had a great time and even got to ride in a Model T!

The next few days we were able to see a lot of Justin's extended family and played a lot of games!  It was a good trip and a great way to spend the holiday.

We left Michigan early Wednesday morning and made it home a mere 22 hours later. (Construction, traffic, and bad weather are not your friends on drives like these.)  Thank goodness for audiobooks!  We had a wonderful Christmas and enjoyed spending time with friends and family.  It is good to be home!

Shutterfly

As many of you know, I am a big fan of Shutterfly. I have made several photo books on their site, and even used it to make our wedding album.  They are a great place to get prints, gifts, cards, photo books - you get the idea.  Not to mention that if you're willing to wait for them, they offer some great deals!  One such deal is available right now, which is where this blog post comes in.

Now until December 31, Shutterfly is offering 50 free holiday cards to anyone who writes a blog about them!  If you would like to get in on this deal, here is the link: http://blog.shutterfly.com/5358/holiday2010-blog-submission-form/. They have hundreds of designs to choose from and they are so easy to use.  You just have to pay for shipping!  There are so many to choose from that I haven't looked through all of them yet, but some favorites are Candy Cane Fun, Perfect Present, Gorgeous Gift Card, and Merry Montage.  You can look for your favorites here.

Enjoy getting into the holiday spirit with Christmas cards while you stuff yourself with turkey over the Thanksgiving break!

October

I realized today that I managed to completely miss October on the blog (but only by a day on either side)!  In a lot of ways, I could copy and paste my September post here and it would be pretty accurate. Justin is still enjoying teaching and things are beginning to fall into place with that.  It is still a challenge, but he is putting a lot of energy into finding creative ways to reach his students and being rewarded for it.  I am still at my internship in Garland, still in school, and still working.  This past week was a little rough, but for the most part I have figured out the dance between all of these and it really hasn't been too bad.

We did get to do some fun things in October!  Justin's final bicycle race, the big State Road Race Championship, was held at Fort Hood earlier in the month.  Since it was so close, we spent the night in Belton and my parents were able to see Justin race.  He did well and is already excited about the next season starting!

The next weekend, I was able to go on a little "girl's getaway" with some of my best friends, Kellie and Savannah.  We were planning to leave town for the weekend, but decided that we would prefer to cut out the traveling and enjoy some of what Dallas has to offer.  Kellie found us a great deal at a fancy hotel and we really enjoyed getting to spend some time doing things we wouldn't normally do here.  We also made a little trip up to the McKinney trade days (similar to Canton but on a smaller scale), which was a lot of fun.  Kellie is planning to move to Maryland in December and Savannah is getting married in March, so it was fun to have some time with them before all of the changes take place.  While we were getting pedicures and having girl time, Justin and his brother headed to the Rangers game and found themselves with a couple of tickets that put them about 20 rows behind the Yankees dugout.  Needless to say, Justin was a little bit excited!

This last weekend Justin's grandparents came into town to visit and we really enjoyed having them!  We don't get to spend very much time with them, so we enjoyed showing them our home and getting to catch up a little bit.  We took them to the arboretum (of course), spent time with Justin's brother and sister-in-law, and played a lot of games.  We are already looking forward to seeing them again at Christmas!

Justin and I have been so blessed with good friends and family and we are very thankful for the ways that God uses them to point us back to Him.  Even when life gets busy and sometimes frustrating, we can never doubt that we have been richly blessed!

September

September has been a busy month for Justin and I.  Between Justin starting a new job and me adding an internship, it has taken a little while to adjust to our new day to day schedules.  We are definitely enjoying our weekends off together, though!  First, we got to go to Early to visit Geoff and Jamie.  Then I got to go wedding dress shopping with my precious friend, Savannah, while Justin took my parents (who came into a town for a family friend's wedding) to the pumpkin filled arboretum. I wish I could have gone with them but I would never have wanted to miss dress day - I obviously can't post any pictures of her, but let me tell you - she's gorgeous.  Last weekend Justin and I went down to Belton so that he could ride in a couple of races in Salado.  He did well and had a lot of fun.  It's so nice to be able to make plans together on the weekends!

Justin is really enjoying teaching and is very good at it. He has such a heart for his students and a natural ability to teach creatively.  That isn't to say it hasn't been a challenge (it's never easy to play catch up when you start three weeks into the school year!), but he is handling it well and is excited about the opportunities he will have with his students this year.  Thank you so much for all of your prayers as we waited for this job.  Please continue to remember him as he adjusts to the challenges it brings.  I am so proud of Justin and I am looking forward to seeing how God uses him this school year!

I am back in school for the fall semester and have started an internship with Garland ISD.  It is going well and giving me a good picture of what working for the schools is like.  It seems like the theme for this new semester for me and Justin has been "challenging but good." I am already having to make plans for the spring semester - my LAST semester of grad school.  I know that everyone says I will miss school, and I'm sure that there will be times when that is true, but right now the idea of finishing is a pretty joyous thought. :) I am still working and really enjoying my job. I am so thankful for the environment and opportunities that I have there and am very thankful that God led me to it!

This has been a week of celebrations in the family!  Sunday was Justin's mom's birthday, and yesterday was his brother, Jacob's.  Yesterday was also Jason and Katie (my brother and sister-in-law)'s 3rd anniversary, and today is Geoff and Jamie (my sister and brother-in-law)'s 4th anniversary!  Happy birthday to Cindy and Jacob, and happy anniversary to Jason, Katie, Geoff, and Jamie!  We love you all. :)

Guest Blogger

Hello all! As the title of this post would suggest, I am not Jana. I am her bike racing, waiting-to-be-teaching, strangely-similar-to-an-old-man husband. Jana has done such a wonderful job updating people on our lives that I felt like it was time for me to share.

To begin, a short explanation: Fire codes. Apparently, due to fire codes, churches cannot allow people to stand in the aisles or sit on the stage in order to get more people in. You wouldn't think this would matter to me, but as it turns out, it does. Jana and I arrived for the 11:15 church service ten minutes early, only to find out that the church was already at capacity. This is unfortunate and hopefully it doesn't turn people away from Christ, but The Village has little choice and did give us a cd explaining the situation and it had a sermon on it.

The sermon is where the thoughts for this blog originated. Matt Chandler, the lead pastor at The Village, spoke about the Gospel of Christ. And while I will do a terrible job paraphrasing him, there were two elements of the gospel that he wanted us to hear. One, very familiar and oft thought about element, is the Jesus died for me. This is true and I find the more I realize just how great Christ is, the more I realize how much of a mess I have made. And the more I see the mess that is me, the more I see the beauty in Christ.

The second element of the gospel is one that I haven't spent as much time dwelling on. Matt said that everything in this world was created by a perfect god and creation was meant to give us love and reverence for God. This is where the blog post comes in.

Marriage, companionship, and friendship were all given to us by God. These are beautiful things that I have been blessed with. My marriage to Jana has brought so much joy and so much pleasure. She is an amazing bride and an amazing woman. (I mean - she wakes up at 3 to go to my bike races...) She is so wonderful, in fact, that it is easy to see our marriage as blessing enough. To see our friendship as the end all. However, as Matt reminded me earlier this week, our marriage points to the grace of God. It is great, but it is great because of what it shows me about God. I fear that if our marriage ever becomes all about our marriage than it will falter under the weight. Our marriage is another creation of God that is meant to show us God, show the world God and to be a source of worship toward God.

So this week, I have been extremely grateful for the marriage I have with Jana and my reaction has been more worship of God and his Goodness.

The last 2 months

It has been a while since I've written on this blog. Let me explain.


My computer decided to fail me, and while I probably could have figured out a way to stay caught up here, I thought a) it would take a really long time to blog from my phone, and b) what's a blog without pictures??


The good news is, I now not only have a new computer, but two busy months worth of stories, pictures, and updates! The only problem is deciding where to begin.


Since my last post, Justin and I have been blessed with some amazing experiences and opportunities.  I'll try to hit most of the highlights...


Our First Anniversary


On August 1, Justin and I celebrated our first anniversary.  It has truly been a blessing being married to Justin.  I have learned so much from him and have absolutely loved getting to know him better every day of this past year.  He is loving, encouraging, forgiving, and so much fun to be around.  It is an incredible blessing to have him as my companion!

To celebrate our anniversary, Justin and I took a much anticipated trip to Fredericksburg, TX.  We shopped, ate, and enjoyed being away from school and work to spend time together.

While we were there, we visited the Wildflower Farm, which included a "butterfly haus" and free wine tasting.  (They sure love their wine in Fredericksburg!)

We also discovered a candy store that sold amazing fudge and some of the best chocolate covered strawberries I have ever tasted!  

On our anniversary, Justin and I went to Becker Vineyards.  It was beautiful and we definitely learned a lot!

Before we left town, we headed out to Enchanted Rock.  If you've never been, you should check it out!

We loved our time in Fredericksburg and were sad to see our trip end.  It was the perfect way to spend our first anniversary!

We had dropped our puppy off with my parents on our way down to Fredericksburg.  When we came back through to pick him up on our way home, my sweet little nieces were there for a visit!

It was fun seeing them interact with little Beau... They are getting so big!

I'm not sure which Beau enjoyed more: playing with the girls or eating the treat we brought him!  Both were pretty cute. :)

When we got home, Justin and I decided to treat ourselves to one more thing... the Dallas World Aquarium!  The 100+ degree weather seemed to have given everyone else the same idea, but we had a great time in spite of the crowds.  It is a very neat place!

A Visit from Justin's Parents


That same day, Justin's parents came into town from Michigan!  We hadn't seen them since Christmas, so it was nice to be able to see them for a week!  We got to take them to the Dallas Arboretum and they were able to make it to two of Justin's races.  I really enjoyed having people go with me to watch!

Justin's dad brought his bike with him, so he, Justin, and Justin's younger brother, Jacob, got to go ride together.  Needless to say, there were a lot of bikes in my living room that week. :) 

Justin had a great time getting to ride with them.

We are so thankful that they made the trip down.  We wish we could see them more often!

Some Big News

Last Friday, Justin was hired by Dallas ISD to teach high school English at Skyline High School!  This is something we have been praying for for a long time, and we are so thankful that he has this opportunity.  Working at the bike shop has been good for Justin in so many ways and we are very thankful for the opportunities he has had there, and we are excited about the new opportunities that will come with this new job. School started on Monday but we are still waiting on some paperwork to come through before Justin can start.  He is ready to begin, so we are praying that the process will hurry along so that he can meet his students!

The Latest Race

One of the most obvious perks that comes with this new job is that Justin and I now have weekends off together!  We celebrated our first weekend off with a bike race.  You may have heard of the "Hotter than Hell Hundred" in Wichita Falls.  Cyclists come from all over the country to compete in this hundred mile road race, and thousands - yes, thousands - of people come out to ride in the rally. Since the hotels had all been booked long before we found out he could go to this race, Justin and I left the house just after 3am on Saturday morning to drive to Wichita Falls for the insanity. Let there be no doubt that I love him.

The race started around 6:30am and lasted about 4 hours.  Justin was stoked for this race and we expected he would do pretty well in it.  This was true for the first 80 miles or so.

Throughout the race, there are three "feed zones"where supporters are allowed to hand off water bottles and other various types of nutrition to the riders as they come by. My job for this race was to travel to each of the feed zones and hand Justin a fresh water bottle. Next time I think I'll hand this job off to someone else.  It seems easy enough, but when you give someone with absolutely no sense of direction  a poorly labeled map with no directions through an area full of closed roads (due to the various cycling routes through the town) and that person's cell phone which has her GPS on it dies, it is unlikely that she will make it to every one of those feed zones. (Sorry, love.)

Despite this, Justin was doing remarkably well during the race, until a pot hole popped his front tire and forced him to pull off to the side of the road to wait for the wheel truck. Justin probably still would have been fine if it hadn't been for the rider with his head down who crashed into him. 

I always worry about Justin crashing while he's riding his bike, but I didn't realize that standing near the bike could be such a hazard!  Unfortunately, this little accident bent the back wheel and left Justin with some bruised ribs and a very sore leg.  By the time everyone had been cleaned up and Justin had new wheels on his bike, the group was far ahead of them.  The official who had seen the crash told him not to panic and let him draft off of the truck to catch back up to the group.  When they came through the final feed zone (which I did make it to!), Justin was going so fast trying to catch the group that he missed his water bottle, meaning that he only had about a half bottle of water for the second half of the race.  Not ideal.

Impressively enough, Justin did manage to catch the group and finished with them, but wasn't able to pull out a win this time.  It was just one of those races you have to laugh at and recognize that even so, it could have been much worse. (I walked by one guy with a broken collar bone and another with a bike that looked like it had been broken in half.  Eek!)  I am thankful that Justin wasn't more seriously injured and that he can laugh at his unfortunate circumstances!

If you've stuck with me this long, I'm pretty impressed. :) I'll try to stay caught up with posting on here now that I have a working computer. Hope everyone has a good week!

Surprises (Good and Bad!)

Well, we've had a few fun things happen in the last couple of weeks and a few not fun things happen...

First, I watched my car turn 100,000 miles, which I was probably a little too excited about. Yes, I really did stop and take a picture.  

Unfortunately, a few days later at about 100,300 miles my car decided to fail me... at a light, at a busy intersection, with 5:30 traffic.  Not good.

A couple of police officers, a tow truck, a few days, and $700 later, we were good to go again.  Thankfully, my parents had flown out of DFW to go to Philadelphia for the week and left their car in our care... what good timing they had to leave me with a spare car!

Before they left town, my parents treated Justin and I to something that I have been looking forward to since I heard about it in December...

WICKED!!!

While I was studying abroad, I had the opportunity to see lots of shows, and this one easily became my favorite. I LOVED getting to see Wicked again with some of the people who have been subjected to my enthusiasm for it the most.  If you haven't seen it, you must!

Please note how my dad and my husband are wearing the same outfit...

We also celebrated my good friend, Kellie's, birthday!!  Several of her friends and family members were able to make it out to dinner to surprise her, followed by cake, etc. at our place.  Kellie is one of my favorite people in the world and it was fun to celebrate with her!

This weekend Justin and I were excited to hear that my brother and sister-in-law were coming to town, along with my sweet baby nieces!  We grabbed our umbrellas and made plans to go to the Rangers game... Unfortunately, the weather had different plans for us.  Because rain delays took over the game, we ended up going to dinner with them instead, where Justin and I got to see the girls walk for the first time!  It is hard to believe how big they are getting.  They're starting to look more like little girls than babies! 

Around 9:30, there was finally reason to hope that the rain might let up and the Rangers might actually get to play, so Justin and Jason headed to the ballpark and Katie and I took the little ones. We were a little disappointed that our plans didn't pan out the way we had hoped, but it is always good to see Jason and Katie and the girls.  It doesn't happen nearly enough!

In the midst of all of this, I got to take midterms this week... those things sneak up on you in these short summer sessions!  School is going pretty well - that is, I haven't quit yet - and Justin and I are both still enjoying our jobs.  We have been very blessed in the last couple of months and have received plenty of reminders that God is in charge -  and more importantly, that that is a good thing!

Hope you all have a happy 4th of July weekend!

Sweet Saturday

Now, I know this may come as a great shock, but on Saturday I did NOT have a bicycle race to attend. Whatever did I do with myself?? I'm glad you asked. Here are some of MY hobbies from the weekend.... nothing as exciting as racing, but we can't all be crazies. Look what I did!

First, I decided to see just how many plants we can grow out on our balcony. We had flowers out there but the heat has long since shriveled all of those. This time I went for herbs...

Okay, I planted some flowers too... I have my doubts about them, but you never know what might happen!  Hopefully these pots will be much prettier in a few weeks.

I also decorated a little with the summer decor that Justin's mom sent!  She keeps us festive.  Thanks, Cindy!

Then, I made a pocket organizer for our closet door.  This is going to be very useful I believe.  It's hard to see the details in this picture, but trust me, it took some time.

I also made an earring holder...

I even worked on a scrapbook that has been on the to-do list for many months.  It's amazing what a girl can do with a couple of work-free, school-free, race-free days!  Maybe I'll see another one someday. :)

Race Days

I'm thinking about changing the title of my blog to "Justin's Race Results," or something equally fitting. I'll try to throw in some other tidbits about what's going on around here, but these races really do make up a large part of that precious free time outside of work and school.  Here are some highlights for you!

GS Tenzing Crit

Frisco, TX

These are from two separate races over Memorial Day weekend.  Here's Justin at the starting line. (Please note that I even got a smile out of him!)

See those clouds rolling in?  This was taken at the evening race... The guys started racing in the blazing sunshine and finished in cool rain and wind.

Here he is up front just before winning a prime.  Justin ended up third in both the morning and evening race.  That's been his magic number lately!

Texas State Championship Criterium

Fort Worth, TX 

The Texas Championship race was held on Memorial Day.  Because Justin had to work, he had no expectation of being able to race that afternoon.  In fact, I'm pretty sure he ate a brownie or two for breakfast. 

As it turned out, Justin's boss decided to let him off early so that he could represent Bicycles Plus at the race, which meant that about five minutes after hearing about this race for the very first time, I found myself in the car flying to Fort Worth.  You see, by that point we had less than an hour to get to Fort Worth before the race registration closed.  After a couple of setbacks, we made it to the race in the nick of time and Justin raced over to the starting line.  This meant, however, that he had to start in the very back amongst 60-70 cyclists.  Not where you want to be in a competitive race! 

Justin worked his way to the front, only to have a mechanical problem on his bike pull him out.  He quickly took care of it and was let back into the race.  He managed to work his way back up to the front a second time and ended up getting third in this race, too!

Bike the Bricks
McKinney, TX

Here is Justin with his buddy, Chad.  They both work at Bicycles Plus and frequently ride together.  These two took a trip to Austin for a race last week and had a great time!  They even stopped in Belton to have lunch with my mom... wish I could have gone with them! Here they are before the "Bike the Bricks" race Friday night. There were a LOT of cyclists at this race and Justin ended up 5th.

                                                          

Justin has continued to race in a weekly crit series and is having a great time!  He was recently moved up to the next division of racing and has quickly gained enough points to "cat up" again. One of the most exciting things that has happened recently was an offer from Bicycles Plus to sponsor him.  This means they are going to pay for all of his races (even the ones he has already finished!) and give him jerseys to represent them... not a bad deal!  The shop has been very good to Justin and we are very thankful for them.

If anyone feels like going to a race sometime, I have a feeling I'll be able to find one for you... just let me know!