Finally!

Finally my creative juices are starting to flow...I know, I know, a little late for all my Christmas gifts to be homemade, but I am managing to pull some things together. I have a problem with just going out and buying gifts for people off a list. I prefer to think of something on my own that they would LOVE or better yet making something. Since I am getting a late start for this year I have plans to work on a few things during the winter months for next year. I am already soooo excited!!! The bummer part is that I can't post pictures of them b/c certain someones may see them. I am enjoying trying to be a more thoughtful person and am thankful for the Christmas season and that it makes me think of others.

Christmas Lights

Kurt and I decided to drive around and check out the Christmas lights around town last night. We did our best to make it as "Christmassy" as possible. We dressed warm, got Dunkin Donuts coffee and listened to Christmas music on the radio as we drove around. No snow, BUT a winter weather advisory was in effect. Christmas Lights don't look quite the same without snow on them. We wrapped up the night with a movie while awaiting the news of our friends child's birth. It was a night to remember!

Hymns

I just got this with birthday money. The words have been such a blessing. There is something about the lyrics in hymns that have such a deep meaning. I love every song and they have been speaking directly to my heart and mind. I come home from work and put it on and it helps to focus my life on the One who cares for me more than I can even imagine. I came across this artist on Pandora. I have the Hymns ones called Roots Run Deep. If anyone is looking for a gift to give someone that can be a blessing as well, I recommend this CD. Check it out!!!

Updates

I haven't posted a few days so I am filling in on what has been happening...

My parents came down for Thanksgiving. We had our friends over to join us and had a great time!


Kurt and I decorated for Christmas complete with egg nog and Christmas music
Mac got a new Christmas ball that he is scared of
Mac got "fixed" and this is him making us feel really bad for what we put him through

A Great Visit

My brother wife and kids came to visit this weekend. They drove 12 hours to spend 2 days with us just because they care about us. I have a great family and am sooooooo thankful for them!!!! Here are the highlights of the trip and for some there are pictures...

-Christmas Photo Shoot after the fam drove all night.

-A long morning walk with Emily and a night "hike" with everyone minus Kurt and River

-Mac getting lots of exercise from Lily

-Claire got her ears pierced for her birthday. No tears!
-Celebrating Claire's 3rd Birthday
-Getting to spend time with these 2 great guys
-Playing a childhood favorite at the party...drop the clothespin in the jar
-Just getting to spend quality time with my family.

Thanks guys for coming out. The girls are a blast. River is cute! It meant a lot that you guys took the time to come visit for such a short time. Can't wait till Christmas!!!!!

Ugg Boots VS. AE Boots

AE Boots
Ugg Boots

First of all...why do I find it soooo hard to get my pictures where I want them??? I need help there!!! This is very frustrating!!!! I want them side by side with a "vs" in between them.

Oh well, onto the real topic. I have battled this decision for almost a month now. I finally decided tonight to go with the AE boots for the most obvious reason...price. Ugg boots are about $180 and the AE ones were $40. I think it was kindof a no brainer. Now I have birthday money left over to buy some other things!!! Looking forward to shopping!!!

Photography Hopes

Andy, Emily and the girls have been very faithful people for me to practice taking pictures. I would LOVE to do this as a side job some day, so if you know anyone that wants there pictures taken for free (for me to get practice) let me know!!!

These were taken this summer when River was still in the belly! Can't wait to take some with the whole fam!

Heritage Park

I was able to have today off which worked out nicely since Kurt had it off too! What a blessing!!! I really have to cherish these kinds of days. It was beautiful and so we headed to one of our favorite parks with our good friends.

Mac and his new "girl"friend Bella.
Adam, Katie and us. I don't know what we will do when we have to move away from each other!! God blessed us with bringing them into our lives the day after we moved to Blacksburg. We have are neighbors and have become like family.
After the park we headed to Five Guys for some burgers and fries. We had a great time just being able to relax and talk.

Finally bought a second pair of sheets for our bed. I'm really excited about that!

Tonight we had a campfire with more friends. It was a perfect evening under the stars, in the woods, just off the Appalachian Trail.

I guess I could say this was a really nice day.

2 Males in My Life

Yes, these two take up my bed! I'm glad it's a King size.
Picture taken when I came into the room after my shower

Plans for a healthy flu season

My plans are as follows to try and stay as healthy as possible this flu season...

-Get plenty of sleep (pretty easy for me)
-Drink lots of water
-Get Vitamin C from food and vitamins
-Drink hot drinks to wash any bacteria into my stomach where it can't survive. )I read that somewhere, I hope it's true)
-Wash hands
-Avoid putting my hands close to my face

We'll see how it goes. I do think I might be getting a little cold, so I will put these things into practice even more so, so that it won't turn into anything else.

Girls Weekend

Five of us girls set out for Boone, NC for a girls weekend. We stayed at our friend Katherine's parents house and had a great relaxing time. Katherine's mom is a wife of a Dr. and so it was just a blessing spending some time with someone who has been in our shoes. She was so sweet and so motherly. We were well taken care of. She cooked us delicious food and spent time talking to us and giving us recipes. It was just nice being in a home with "parents" and friends who are all going to be wives of Dr.'s talking about life and the future. When we weren't out and about we were cozy warm in the house by the fire or in the kitchen drinking tea and talking. It was a great trip and as we left Katherine's dad said "Well, this was the FIRST annual trip", implying that he hoped we do this again. I hope we do make this a tradition.

Here are some of the things we did...

We had Starbucks coffee, thanks to Katie, for the road trip


We went to a super cute town called Blowing Rock and walked around there browsing the stores and looking at nice houses dreaming of the day that we too will own homes
We went to a craft fair and had fresh hot apple cide
We went on the Blue Ridge Parkway and looked at the views

We went to the Woolly Worm Festival, a big deal thing for that area. Basically the winning worm determines the winter weather based on it's stripes.
We tried to get a group picture at the racing stand and this is what we got...half a sign, 3 out the 5 girls, and a great shot of a Christmas tree and an older man.
We cheered on the worms. That was the thing to do at this festival!
We had lunch at a great restaurant in Boone with Katherine's mom.
We drank hot chocolate with tiny fancy tea cups

Forgetful Me

I forgot to post about my trip to WV to see Andy, Emily and River 2 weekends ago. They were there for Andy to go White Water Rafting and for Emily to have a little vacation. I got to spend all day Saturday with Emily and River.We went to Fayetteville and had lunch at Cathedral Cafe which consisted of white chicken chile and spinah artichokke quesadillas and then walked around the neighborhoods. It was such a nice day weather wise and such a sweet time with my family. I love getting to help out with ny neices and nephews. Emily and I had alot of good laughs and good conversations once again. It seems to be a reacurring theme with us when we get together. We hung out with some other friends that we were staying with in the afternoon and then met up with the guys for supper at a Mexican Restaurant. Sleep that night was a little interupted due to River having a tummy ache but I didn't mind. I knew I wasn't going to get to see him for another few months so it was worth it! The next morning was spent relaxing, drinking coffee , and eating way to much baked oatmeal. I LOVE that stuff!!! Then I packed my bags and went back home. It was a great time and once again, another memory to be stored and brought up at a later time to reminise about .

Thanks to Mac

One good thing about having a dog is that it makes you get out even if it is raining, windy, and freezing cold outside. It doesn't matter how much you really don't want to get out, the dog still has to "GO" as well as burn off some energy so that there is some kind of normalcy in small apartment living.
Thank you Mac for helping me to stay trim and get my exercise despite the not so favorable conditions!

One Thing After Another

-Sleep in as late as possible before heading to work
-COFFEE
-Hang out with the kids in the morning
-Park and lunch with our (the kids and mine) friends from India
-Impressed that my friend from India makes such good food for lunch and ashamed that the kids I take care of get PB&J or Mac and cheese most days.
-Scramble to get my Bible Study done for tomorrow night during the kids nap time
-Scramble to get things together for church tonight
-Leave work, go to Kurt's school for a fund raiser...Some people should be expecting some pretty cool things for Christmas!!!
-Grocery store to get things for church tonight
-Dinner at our friends in 10 min. I hate having to rush down good food!
-Pioneer Girls at church...lots of fun tonight! Girls are opening up more
-Thinking that this day has been one thing after another so deciding to put on my comfy clothes and watch HGTV till bed and then getting a call to see if I am going to Kurt's soccer game at 10:30p.m.!!!!
-So tired!!!
-Blog
-Watch some HGTV
-Soccer game in the very chilly windy weather. Mainly went so Mac could get some exercise. He was a bit neglected in that respect today. We did play fetch in the house though, does that count?
-Bed...Ahhhh

Start all over again tomorrow. However, I have Friday off!!!!! Can't wait! I'm heading to WV to see Andy, Emily, and River, eat at Cathedral Cafe, Pies and Pints, take a nice fall walk, and hold my nephew as much as possible before I see him again at Christmas.

Life is busy, but fun right now!

I've Returned

I'm back, exhausted, and thankful for all the memories made this trip. It was great.
Lots of quality time was spent with family along with a lot of good laughs. It was "too funny". I made it to Dunkin Donuts the morning of the wedding with my sister-in-law. We brought back coffee and donuts for the fam.

Anyways, here's some pics to sum up my time...

Spending time with my nieces and nephew

Being a part of my brothers wedding

Spending time with family (everyone from the WarkenBollback side that was at the Rehearsal Dinner)

This is a pretty bad picture of everyone...we all probably got about 3 hours of sleep that night, however it has a lot of fun memories that go along with it

Big Events

I leave tomorrow at 4: 15 A.M. to catch my 6:00 flight to Milwaukee, WI. Kurt will come out late Friday night to join in the fun. Kinda bummed he can't come till so late, but Med School calls...

Here's what's going on:

#1 Seeing my nephew, River, tomorrow for the first time and holding him as much as I can till I have to say goodbye.
#2 Plans to hang out/shop/go out for lunch in Milwaukee with Emily and the kids
#3 Probably play Settlers of Cataan with Andy and Emily
#4 My brother John's wedding on Saturday
#5 Spend time with lots of Family (parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins)
#6 Hopefully go to a Dunkin Donuts

Can't wait! I'll be back Monday to let you know how it goes, plus some pictures

Things

I am a big fan of games. So...if you are looking for a fun to game to get for yourselves, give to a friend, or ask for for Christmas, here is one I recommend. I played this last night with a bunch of friends at a birthday party and boy did we laugh. I had tears coming out of my eyes. I hadn't laughed that hard in a long time!!!
You can check out more at www.thingsthegame.com

The Results

My friends Katie and Katherine came over to help with the jelly. The 3 of us squeezed into my very small, extremely hot, kitchen (wide enough only to open the fridge). I talked through the process, we measured everything out, we took turns stirring, we set up an assembly line, and things went smoothly. No major mishaps. Every jar took it's seal (we reused jars and lids). After we followed all the steps to making the jelly, I was in charge of removing the scalding hot jars from the oven, Katie was in charge of filling them, and Katherine was in charge of putting the lids on which had been in boiling hot water. I made biscuits (actually just the kind from the can) and we sat down to taste the fruits of our labor. It was a great time enjoying our friendship! I could not ask for better friends here in Blacksburg! The girls went home with jelly and one inspired to make some herself.

Katherine with the grape pulp. You can also see the width of my kitchen.
"Bring it to a rolling boil"
Finished product (these were the ones I made the day before with the lady from my church (the giver of the grapes to make this possible)

Grape Jelly

I had my first lesson yesterday on making grape jelly. I came home with a batch (about 6 jars) ready to be eaten and 6 cups of grape pulp (really think grape juice) to make a batch all on my own. My teacher said I needed to do that so I learn better. I have plans to do it tomorrow after work. I have some girlfriends coming over to do it with me, so I guess I'll be the teacher this time! Should be fun. I'll let you know how it goes.

Here I Go Again

I'm going to try blogging again, not that I think I have anything to important to say, I just think it's fun reading my friends blogs as well as people I don't know but that do things I like, so maybe my friends will want to see what I'm up to these days too.

I am trying to fill up my time while Kurt has to study so I don't get bored or bug him to much. This seems to be a good way to do that. Also, I have been wanting to start an account on here so I could make comments on the blogs I was reading. :)

Anyways, stay tuned to see what the wife of med student does to fill her time while her husband is studying...