Rocking it at the FWSM!!

Well Chris and I have been watching the Fort Worth Science Museum as it began its remodel. We kinda of have been needing a good reason to go and visit. This weekend was our chance as we had Miss R and his mom visiting. Our choices for the weekends events were to go to the museum or the stock show. I can honestly say I was pleased with R's choice. It was very cold here...and the stock show didn't sound warm to me.

The new museum is AMAZING! When Abby and the kids lived here we went all the time. E use to love playing down stairs in the grocery store and water area! WOW oh WOW has that area changed. It is now much lager and the water area is now outside, which makes better sense! Since it is freezing cold here the water and Dino dig were closed. No worries though we had plenty to do anyhow. There is a whole new kids area with different rooms that cater to new inventions and fun crafts that the kids really loved. One of the favorites is an area were you create a coffee filter into a flying thing. Then you put it into an air tube and watch it fly away.

We also got to make our own kazoo...because after all yesterday was national kazoo day!  There are so many new fun things to do there. We were there about 3 hours and probably could have stayed longer.

R making her kazoo

Teri, Chris, and R

We made the best kazoos ever

I personally love the new CSI exhibit, you go around and try to solve the case! If you live in the area and have not been to the newly remodeled museum I really recommend that you go. Oh I kind of recommend that you wait til after the stock show, as parking is out of control. If you need a friend to join you, I will be glad to come (Chris and I are now members!). We felt it would be best since we have so many small people that visit!

I think this is the sweetest thing....holding her brothers hand!
can you tell I loved using my new camera too....

Visitors....

Winston, Chris, and I have been busy busy busy....we are getting ready for some fun visitors! Chris' mom and little sister are coming to town. YIPPEE!!! I personally have not seen either of them since May, so I am really jazzed. I am sure Miss R has grow at least a foot. Plus also I have not gotten to show off my new bling bling to Chris' mom.

Chris is so cute, he has been planning our weekend for a week now. Tonight and tomorrow they will be helping Chris' other little sister Whitney move apartments. However, we get them from Friday afternoon on. Winston knows something is up since I have been frantically opening and unpacking boxes from the move. He loves to play with Miss R, they are the best of friends. Plus she wears him out like crazy mad, which make Chris and I pleased. I am going to try my best to take some great pictures with my new camera of Miss R, Chris, and his mom while they are here. I just feel a little bad for them since they are traveling all the way from Minnesota for warm weather, which we can not offer!

5 months from here!!!

Wow I can not believe that 5 months from today Chris and I will be saying "I DO". Not only will we be saying I DO, but we will be surrounded by all our amazing friends and family too. Everyone said that the time would fly when planning the wedding. Wow how they were right. I mean I still have a few odds and ends to finish up; but over all I think I have done a pretty good job of staying ahead of the time that is leaving me quickly.

Things I still MUST do:

• Pick the wedding invitation for real (I have many ideas)
• Finalize the back home party location (mark your calendar August 7th is what I am planning!!)
• Finalize bridesmaids dresses (again have an idea)
• Purchase a few things for the welcome bags (once we have a final number of guest)
• Purchase all my cute BEACH GEAR!

Really I am pretty happy that this is all I have LEFT to do! Well I mean that is all I can think of off the top of my head....I would have to get my wedding book to confirm, but I am to lazy today!

P.S. Side note here: but if you have not gotten your passport you need to do so. Abby ordered B's and it took less than 2 weeks to get back to him. Right now is the time! Also if you have not booked your room the deadline was extended til Feb 18th! View all the details on how to book your room on our wedding website, under travel! Can't wait to see y'all there!!!

Crazy....

the weather that is....I mean what is going on? The weather has been so random lately not just here in DFW area but all around the world. Just yesterday I was sitting at dinner with on of my friends little girls. She looked out the window and noticed that the sky was a bit dark and wind blowing around like crazy. Then she looked at her father and asked, "Daddy are we going to have a tornado tonight?" We all kind of looked at her a bit crazy and said, "NO". That is when I then made a statement I MUST TAKE BACK TONIGHT. "Kat, tornadoes don't normally happen in January it is more of a spring thing."

This morning of course when I woke up, as probably with you too, you heard that Haiti had another after shock....I mean how much can those people take. Thinking to my self really what is going on with this crazy weather. Then today after school I went to get my hair cut ( I HEART KAMERON!!!) and then to happy hour with a friend. When a weather alert comes over the radio and what do you know, "Tornado Warning" I had to stop right then and there and say are you stinking kidding me. I have just lied to a sweet little 8 year old girl....A tornado in January, well sure enough there was a "strong" storm that hit a little east of us. I just am amazed that we can be below freezing for 2 plus weeks, now in the 70s with tornadoes. Wonder what tomorrows weather will bring? Oh and Kat, sorry I was wrong....tornadoes do hit in January.

Moving forward hurts!!!

Day one of moving...I was still happy! lol

Or maybe I should just say MOVING, HURTS a lot. Needless to say I have spent my entire 3 day weekend doing something I DISLIKE MOST in life!!! MOVING!!! MOVING!!! MOVING!!! Yes much to my mother dismay, I am posting this post, I am sure to hear about it later...not for the fact that it is about moving, but more about moving into Chris'.

I spent all day and night Saturday at my house putting all things that belong to me in boxes and such. I also spent many moments revisiting wonderful memories. Then was saddened by the fact that my whole life for the past 6 years or so will now live in STORAGE!!! I keep telling Chris how sad this makes me, but he seems to not understand... I will explain why later! After a very busy Saturday night, I headed "home" to grab some shut eye before the big move on Sunday.

Sunday's plan WAS to go grab the moving truck, load up all my belonging, and then head to the storage unit to unload. All this was to be done by about 1 so Chris could grab the end of the Cowboys game. Did you notice how I said WAS?  This is the way our actual day went:

• 9:00 arrive to rent truck!
• 10:30 leave with truck (computer systems down, causing us to have a very hard time getting our already rented on line truck)
• 10:50-12:20ish loading truck with all of my life!
• 12:30 arrive at storage unit
• 12:45 realize the unit I purchased on Jan 1st has a lock on it
• 1:15 new unit give to me, now to unload
• 1:50ish lunch....then off for one more load
• 2:10 loading truck with the final stuff
• 3:00 unload at storage
• 4:00 unload final thing that I took to Chris' at house
• 5:00 RETURN the truck
• 5:45 left truck rental place and headed home

Do you see the many issues that we came across? I mean, I should have know when we had such a hard time renting the truck that morning that things were going to be rough! Not just rough on our bodies, I can't even count the bruises and cuts I have, but rough all around! Poor, sweet, wonderful, amazing Chris made it through the move with only a few dirty words and such! He was a trooper even with all the hold ups.

Now lets discuss the difference between how guys move and us women! I of course LOVE all my things...Chris, he likes his things but would get rid of them and just buy new easily. When I came to terms with moving into Chris' house I had to start fighting my fight for MY things. I mean Chris too has now lived on his own for 6 years...so together we both have fully furnished houses. Thus making moving in together hard. However, I knew I would have to fight for a few of my most loved items. The items I fought for were:

• my bed: it is much better than his guest bed, but we kept his mattress
• my dresser that my grandpa redid for me...it in no way fits into the decor of the house, but he is letting me keep it for our next place, so it lives in storage for now only NOW!
• my other nice dresser...it came from my mom's good friend's father. I got to bring it to the house!!
• all my AMAZING RED KITCHEN AID appliances....well this one was easy as he likes to cook
• my fiesta dishes, these will be the ones we use for everyday eating now and after the wedding
• of course my clothes and shoes
• a few picture frames and decorative items too....but not to much because we don't have much room

poor Bob her room has been taken over

and of course I had to bring all of Little Bear's toys to the new house!

Now keep in mind these are only the things I got to take to the HOUSE!!! The rest as you read earlier went to storage for our future home or what ever. This is where Chris finally realized why I am the mess I am I think. At first we were just loading up the major things like beds, couches, washer, and drier and such...then it got to the little things. The 20 questions began here: Why do you need to keep thins? Can't we just buy another one if we need it? How will you use this? Blah, blah, blah. Of course for each item I would have my reason for moving it on to storage. Then he got smart....and the questions changed. As he was carrying out this very cute old step ladder/stool my mom gave me......Okay why is this sentimental to you? What value has this added to your life? Who is this from your mom, grandpa.....? You see this comes from his work back ground I think; the way he changed up his approach as he could see I was a bit defensive. I mean who isn't defensive about someone wanting to throw out all their things, when he has a whole house of his things!!!

Long story short, it hurts me to have to move all my items into a very nice state of the art storage unit! (of course I picked the best for my things) However, I know that one day we will have my things back and can merge them with OUR soon to be new things....in our soon to be new house! As I told Chris yesterday, "When I am sad about my things I will just run over here and sit in my unit for a while." He laughed very hard at that, but knows I will do it! Oh and then today when he wanted me to take a few things to good will...I got the oh but my best friends, mom's, sister may have given that to me so I hate to get rid of it! He thinks he is so funny, but what is funny is guys just see belongs as stuff. Women see them as memories, happiness, and much more! Apartment life is not for me anymore, now to unpack the things I snuck in while Chris was at work today!!!

I didn't plan for this.....

Okay I am pretty sure no one in the world was able to plan for what happened today in Haiti, a magnitude 7 earthquake. You never could plan for such a horrific event I guess. However when WEDDING planning you try to think of it all. I mean some were horrified that I would plan a beach side wedding in June, a hurricane month. However, I did some research to find out where hurricanes typically hit. The Dominican Republic is not high on the list of hurricane locations, well the Punta Cana side of DR isn't. Also when we visited the site I did some more research. They did claim that hurricanes were pretty rare in that area.

You can imagine my concern when I came home from school to see the news of the earthquake. I couldn't believe such a thing...all those poor people and their lives destroyed. How tragic this must before them. Then they began reports of the after shocks and possible tsunamis. Oh heavens that is when it occurred to me that the resort is very close to this location. I mean never in my wedding planning did I even think about the idea of an earthquake or tsunami could take out my wedding. I mean heck I thought I had covered it all.

Today was just another day that people, or I , realize that no matter how prepared you are for life it can change in an instant. Yes my wedding will still take place on the beautiful beach I visited in November. Yes, the resort is still standing just as it was when I visited....However, others will be morning loss of not only their belongings, but family, and friends too. These things that happen really make you stand back and think about what is important and if you value it daily. I am thankful that I can still have my dream wedding, but heart broken for the people there. Our prayers will be with the people of Haiti as they have suffered a magnificent loss today!

Wedding Dress and Home Party!!

(My mom made this rock for Chris and I! It is one of the rocks from the spot where Chris proposed to me....one of my favorite Christmas gifts!)

I am so excited....my wedding dress is in! My wonderful bridesmaid Julie and best good friend Alison and I took off after school on Thursday to go see it. I was so shocked, because they said it would take at least 13 weeks to get in. Therefore I figured late February for sure, so you can imagine how surprised I was when they called.

I couldn't wait to put on MY ACTUAL DRESS, you know not the stores. I mean since I found the dress the smallest size they had in store was a 10. You can only imagine how many clips it took to look right. Again, why I was so happy to have my correct size 2 dress! I slipped in it on very carefully; and then got all strapped in. AHHHH it was AMAZING, WONDERFUL, and GORGEOUS just as I remembered! The girls loved it too (which is the best part!). Now of course due to my wonderful height I will have to have some alterations...but just a few!

Now Chris and I are currently trying to figure out an amazing location for our HOME TOWN party after the wedding. Since not all our friends and family will be able to attend the wedding in the Dominican, we want to have a small celebration back home. I have come up with a few choices, but Chris is making this a bit hard! Therefore if you live in our area and know a great location I am OPEN for suggestions. We want somewhere:

• That is pretty without a lot of decorating!


• Can hold about 100 to 125


• Great food and adult beverages!!


• Where we can dance the night away

I really don't think that is TOO much to ask for, right? Okay maybe a bit, but let me know if you have any ideas. The more the merrier....plus I would like to have this narrowed down by the end of the month. The final details are starting to come together, only 167 days til the wedding!

He has done it....

Just before the holidays I went ahead and put a poll on my side bar. Mostly I put a poll up to see if that would help initiate a certain someone to do their part! Well it worked!! The poll is gone now because Chris has done it! Actually he did it sooner than this blog; but with me being sick starting school and much more I have not gotten to it.

Chris has planned the perfect honeymoon for us! I am so excited! You know it is super fun to be completely jazzed about your beach wedding, but then to add an amazing honeymoon, that is just over the top. After many ideas (some I had to say NO NO NO to) he finally chose the spot. You know I think since I had done majority of the wedding planning this was the easiest thing to do, right? Well after many text and phone calls back and forth he realized I didn't want to really be apart of the whole picking things. Therefore, Chris finally narrowed down the choices to 2 and then listed the amenities for me. (See he does know how I work...tell me what I can get from each place then let me pick!) Finally the decision was made: Sandals Royal Bahamian.

I am very excited about our stay there. We will be staying in the Royal Village Honeymoon Suite. The pictures are just lovely I tell you. I am sure it will that way in person too! Chris is super excited about it too so that is nice. He was a little worried about going from the beach wedding, to a beach honeymoon; but i think he is pass that now! Let's see only 172 days till we say I DO!

SEARS....Life well spent!

or so that is there motto! Okay first I need to begin this with, have you recently visited Sears? I personally dislike shopping, mostly because I am no good at it. I mean if it is not from Target then I really hardly go there. Therefore, Sears is not really on the TOP of my shopping list or on it at all really. I mean as a kid we would go there for electronics and appliances but that is about it.

Yesterday, Chris and I had a new awaking with SEARS!!! We had planned to run in and do a quick little registry for Chris. I mean you know he needs to get some fun tools and such on our wedding list, and he thought Sears would be a good choice. As we pull up to the mall we realize that EVERYONE in Fort Worth must be at the mall. It was a mad house and parking was few and far from where you wanted to be. Thanks to Chris' parking karma we got a nice little spot next to Sear. Once we walk in I tell Chris we should probably go to the home living section to find the "WEDDING REGISTRY". Walking, walking, walking, walking...we have done 2 circles at this point and still have not seen a sign or person to talk to about this. Finally I just randomly walk up to this older lady at the check out and ask, "We would like to start a wedding registry, where should we go?" That is when the lady (who had very few front teeth and what she did have were black) pointed down the aisle. Keep in mind this is an aisle with bedding and pillows on it to a random computer shoved in between all the merchandise. The lady said, "just go over there and do it." I look at Chris (who has done a good job of keeping calm, until now) he said, "No we want to start one and go around and click on things". The lady then says, "yes go to the computer and set it up". Once we had made our registry log in and such we were apparently ready to go.

I hand the lady our paper with our registry number, for her to then ask for my ID! I think to my self, "WHY?" Does she not believe that it is me who wants to register for these wonderful things? Do they often have people come spent their precious time picking things out for fake registries? Oh no that is not the case in fact she needs my ID so that I can use the scanner. That's right people they must have a high theft of scanners from their registry area (which is the hidden computer). After about 40 minutes of just trying to get the scanner we were off to point and shoot! This store was not for me at all so I just followed Chris and clicked on what ever tool he wanted. You know he has been the clicker at all the others...its was my turn, plus they had my ID! As I followed Chris I soon realized that Sears is an interesting place. It was by far our most interesting registry experience ever. All the other stores have it so together and ready to go! Then when we finished up I walked back over to our helper lady...handed her the scanner to get my ID back. Then she said okay bye. That was it!! Wow all I can say is WOW for our whole experience with Sears.

Welcome WEDDING YEAR...

or to those of you who are not me, 2010! I am considering this wedding year in my book not just 2010!! You know looking back everyone has to decided if the past year was a good one, just okay one, or blah one! I look back and think of the many things that made my year. I think it was a great start, rough in the middle, but finished STRONG!!!

Let's see it is hard to decided where the "year" starts for me...unlike the rest of the world I really consider my life to revolve on a SCHOOL YEAR calendar.  Well the great start to my year was that I DID get to keep my JOB for another year. I was not going to be booted out for not speaking Spanish. Best yet I even got to stay in my own classroom. That really is a miracle for me, thus I have changed rooms 4 times in my 5 years of teaching now. Also Chris and I started began the year by adding to our family.  That's right our sweet little boy Winston.  He has brought us many ups and downs...but mostly ups!  We have really enjoyed training and loving on this little guy more than anything.  The only down fall is that um, Bob...she is not a fan of Winston.  Bob's 2010 resolution is to live in a house with a barking dog and not hide all day! (but that is for another post and day)

The rough part of my year pertained to my grandfather. The down fall began when I had to rush home to help my mother with him. He was simply not listening to anyone; and well if he disliked some one I wanted it to be me rather than his own daughter who takes care of him. Therefore I guess I am the one who began his trip to heaven by asking him to move in with my grandmother at her nursing home. He was very much against this idea, but knew he deep down that it was the only thing. His at home care lady no longer could do him justice, and he was getting hurt still. Therefore away he went, very angry and upset but at least we knew he was safe. Soon after that mom informed us that grandpa was not well. Luckily we were able to spend his last few days with him before he passed. Thus making this the rough part of my year. After much love and support we have managed to now celebrate many things knowing he is up in heaven looking down on us!! I am sure he is over joyed and the next thing I shall write about.

The STRONG FINISH to my year.....of course it has to do with an amazing man, friends, and family. My year ended with a bang when Christopher asked me to become his wife. He had only heard from both my grandparents a couple of times, "well are you going to marry her?" (Therefore I am sure grandpa would be pleased to know that he is, and grandma just thinks Chris is handsome!) Chris made my dream come true by asking me to marry him, but also by allowing me to celebrate it with those I love most. He arranged the most amazing proposal ever (click here to read)....having my family waiting at the dinner table only moments after asking me the question. I had no idea any of this was to happen, and still today tell him how amazed I am! I love that he cares enough about me to make sure that moment was shared appropriately. I also love that even when I don't think he is listen to what I have to say, I now know he is!

Yes there were many other amazing things that were accomplished this year, but these three were the highlights. Here is to my wedding year! I hope it ends with an even larger bang than this one did...kind of hard to top a proposal, unless your having your dream wedding on the BEACH!!

I hope that you all have had some amazing ups to help out with the few downs that everyone faces in life. I know that 2010 will allow you each a chance to re-do or begin new things. Here are a few for me:

• to simply lose a few extra pounds before I subject my self to all my wedding guest on the beach for a week.
• to laugh every day (not hard with 6 year olds around)
• to not be as hard headed on things (mostly for Chris' sake)
• to enjoy every moment and make millions of memories
• to love those around me no matter what has happened in the past

HAPPY WEDDING YEAR TO YOU ALL!!

OR I SHALL SAY 2010!!