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Monday, January 21, 2008

Working=less blogging

I am honored that so many people have asked me to update the blog recently. I love to have loyal readers :). So, here's a quick update on our life:


1) Caleb now works for K&L Gates. It's actually the same people he worked with before, they just merged. So, he now officially has 1500+ attorney coworkers over 3 continents. Sounds big time, but he continues to sit at a desk to do document review for the same cases :). They pay good though....which helps us.....

PUT AN OFFER ON A HOUSE! Yes, if you would have told us this time last week we would be putting an offer on a house today, we would think you were crazy. I wanted to start looking in March, Caleb in December. But, the Lord just opens our eyes when we least expect it! So, we're still waiting and trusting the Lord. But, here's a sneak peek:





I will keep you updated,blogworld.

Everyone knows that Caleb is a man of talents....I mean seriously, in the past week he has 1) played the best game of ultimate frisbee he has ever played 2) played the worst game of ultimate frisbee he has ever played (right after his best, now that's a talent!), 3) calmed down Charlie, the 3 month old inconsolable- to -any- grandmother baby in the church nursery 4) worked 50+ hours doing discovery (well, maybe that's not that exciting) 5) learned real estate! Yes, Caleb spent MLK day at the office as our own personal realtor filling out forms and figuring things out so we could be all "official" with our offer. I'm impressed. You should be too.

As far as me, I love my job! I'm finally becoming independent and having my own patients. It's a really fast pace, which I currently love. I mean, the day just flies by. It also gives me such perspective....just today, I treated a 16 year old that just got out of the ICU after pretty intense chemo. Can't talk. Can't eat. Totally neurologically normal. So sad, but also such a rewarding job, just thinking I may make her life a little easier.


So, that's our life update in a nutshell. I will leave you with pictures of our Saturday night entertainment: dodgeball and kickball with community group. AFTER 4+ hours of ultimate frisbee (hence, why Caleb is wearing running tights and I'm in a long sleeve shirt) . Who's walking funny today from soreness in weird places? It's me! It's me!









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Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Working woman!

I started my job at Children's Medical Center this week. So far, it's been 2 days of orientation. Surprisingly, not as boring as I thought it would be. I even had an hour lunch today, so Caleb and I met at Chipotle! That will probably not happen again for a LONG time. Tomorrow starts the actual speech path orientation/competency check-offs, so I'm excited to really start my "real" job!

Caleb and I decided a while back that when I got a job, we would get a maid. I can't tell you how great yesterday was.....go to work, get paid, come home to clean house, go to gym, ahh...wonderful. Love Lilliana already! The only thing that would have made it better was if Caleb was home to enjoy the cleanliness with me! Yesterday was a very long day of work for him (16 hours!), but those days are rare.

Okay, not too much else to blog about. I'm just excited to have a job! And maid! And a husband that is coming home earlier tonight!

Friday, January 4, 2008

Ski Trip Novel (Warning...this will take a while! It's my personal journal!)

From where I left off in the Christmas post...Chelsea and Dane met us in Roscoe early Sunday morning and we all made the trek to Pagosa Springs, CO in the Accord. Although we all knew it would be tight packing, Caleb and I still managed to take too much. Imagine that. So, we got everything in the trunk, but the rule for the trip was "anything you buy, you must keep in your lap" b/c there was no way one tiny piece of jewelry was getting in that trunk :). Garmina, or GiGi, the petnames for our beloved GPS (actually Chelsea's Dad's) helped us all along the way. So, we made it through the tumbleweeds of west texas (actually hit a few.....those things came in families and you can't just stop on the middle of the highway!), got pulled over only once (where Caleb got some of his own medicine of the cop explaining every step of the way what he did so he couldn't deny it; just a warning though), almost ran out of gas, and spent probably over an hour playing the alphabet game because there is NOTHING in West TX/New Mexico. But, 12 hours later, we made it to our home in Pagosa Springs (haha, yes, I did say this to one lady on a lift....what was I thinking?!).
Here is a pic when we were about an hour out.....it was amazing to see the moon rising just over the snow-capped mountains. I wanted to bust out in singing "How Great is our God" but instead, we just all sat and watched in silent awe, thinking about our Creator. This picture really doesn't do it justice.

Here we are our first night, at Junction Family Dining. Chelsea just wanted some vegetables, so this is what we found. Yes, our waiter did pull up and stand on a chair to take this pic in case you were wondering:
Since the condo had a full kitchen, the 4 of us went family grocery shopping and we stocked up on food for the week. On a side note....I think this first night was the latest I stayed up. Now, this shouldn't surprise anyone, but I really could not stay awake past 9 pm here! I would wake up wide awake about 6 (the first few mornings I would wake up Caleb saying "isn't the snow pretty?"....he let me know he would like to sleep longer, there will always be snow) and then after a full day of skiing, I just couldn't make it. I even made coffee for the UT game and still fell asleep in the 4th quarter!
Christmas Eve:
Our first day of skiing! Don't we look festive?!
(On another side note....there will only be "condo" pics in this post because I didn't want to take the digital camera to the slopes. Those are on a disposible, which I will try to add later. Also, the condo was originally decorated in the early 80's with a southwestern motif...and it hasn't changed. So, please enjoy the background :). )

This day Caleb took lessons all day, so I skiied the morning refreshing my skills and then skiied the afternoon with Chelsea and Dane. Caleb snowboarded, and although this was his 3rd or 4th time,he wanted to work on his heel/toe turn. He actually got REALLY good! I was impressed:).
This night we (or Chelsea) made chicken tortilla soup for dinner:
We went to a Christmas Eve service at a local church. It was good.

Christmas Day:
This was the view from our deck Christmas morning.....a WHITE Christmas!



It was actually really nice this year to wake up on Christmas morning, in a quiet little condo, and spend time with the Lord remembering what this day was really about. I wasn't off to open presents. I wasn't feeling guilty because we weren't with my family or Caleb's family. I wasn't feeling stressed. I was just able to sit in bed, look at this out my window, and praise the Lord for sending his Son. What every Christmas morning should be like. I think I started a new tradition.

The slopes were empty. Or, maybe just the slopes that we decided to run were empty because.....let me just share with you our Christmas morning "drama" :).
To preface, the day before, Chelsea and I were saying that there weren't very many long runs. So, we got out the trail map and found a really long blue on the other side of the mountain. Perfect. So, that's where we started Christmas morning. ALBERTA was the name of the lift. We all 4 go up....and start going down. "Awesome! We're the first ones on this run this morning!".....then we start going uphill. What?! So, Chelsea, Dane, and I can somewhat pole through the horizontal and uphill portions, but Caleb found out real quick why there isn't a sport called cross country snowboarding. About an hour later, we get down to the bottom. See Alberta lift. Now, let me just tell you, that we're on a completely different side of the mountain....there are no lodges or restaurants, just a lift. Base is about 2 miles away. So, we look at the map, find a way to go up and get down to base and we're off. Poling through nordic-track style and we lose Dane.....Chelsea and I follow Caleb past the sign that says "no easy way down, expert skiers only". Dang. What are we doing? Push through it! Pass another sign: "no grooming ahead, experts only". What?! Through the trees. Push through it. We'll make it to base and get some food and warmth. Almost there. It's snowing heavier, visibility is getting less and less. We know Caleb's ahead. ALBERTA. What?! Yes, we are back down to this lift. Appreciate this dialogue:
Chelsea: "I can't do it again. I just can't".
Caleb: "We have to. There's no other way"
Chelsea: "I just can't go up that lift again".
Caleb: "Let's just take a break and sit here (in the snow).Then we'll go back up"
Chelsea: "I don't know what we'll do different. If we couldn't get down last time, we'll do the same thing again".
Julie: asks 2 random snowboarders if they have map.
Caleb: Looks at map"We have 2 choices: go up the lift and get back down to base, or walk 2 miles uphill".
Chelsea: starts poling towards the lift
(Meanwhile, I'm silent through most of this....let them deal with it....but, my silence doesn't last long. Fast forward 20 minutes:)


Julie: hands on knees, completely stopped
Caleb: "Julie, come on, you've got to push through it, you lose your momentum when you stop"




Julie: "I can't. I'm blacking out. I can't see".
Caleb: "Come on, you can do it" (hands her very frozen power bar and starts scooting down with his snowboard)
Julie: lays down in the snow, gets sick in the snow
Caleb: who knows what he's thinking at this point; he was such a good sport with us
Chelsea: thinking "I can do this. Atleast I'm not sick"

We all 3 pitifully make it down to BASE! Caleb takes off my skis for me and we take a long lunch break. Whew, all better. What a memorable Christmas morning! I don't want to sound negative....we all laugh about it now. We had a wonderful trip, it was really only 1 hour of the whole trip I think all 3 of us would consider "miserable". Btw, Dane did make it down to base that 2nd run :).

Skiing was great the rest of the day (I actually think we just 2 more runs!). We also saw Santa and those will be must-add pics from the disposible when they are developed :). Went home and had pork loin, roasted potatoes, green beans, rolls, and peach cobbler for our Christmas dinner:
Played a game of Ticket to Ride:


What a GREAT Christmas!

After our Alberta experience, we were all pretty tired and decided to take Wednesday off, be lazy, and play in the snow. We bought sleds, went sledding down the golf course behind our condo (sorry, no pics!).
Made a snowman:


Made snow angels:

Stayed warm by the fire:

Relaxed in our oversized jacuzzi tub. Yes, there was a room in the condo and this is all it was:

On Thursday, Dane wasn't feeling good, so Chelsea and Dane took another day off and Caleb and I hit the slopes. We had a great pace....2 runs, break for hot chocolate. 2 more runs...break inside for gatorade/power bar. 2 more runs....break. This was our pace all day. I did 3 runs at thet end of the day, and I was exhausted :). Needless to say, I knew it was my last day. It was fun to get to ski behind Caleb and watch him carve the mountain. He became a pro! That night we made dinner in and watched the UT game. After the infamous play, our nightly conversation consisted of Chris Jessie....I felt so bad for him. Caleb wanted them to show his shameful face over and over (which they did). He didn't touch it!

On Friday, the boys went skiing and us girls went shopping and got massages in town. We made some friends with the locals....the store owners would send us to their friends' boutiques with notes to give us a discount. We knew we couldn't buy much due to the rule about carrying anything you bought in your lap, but we did both come out with a few good buys (and fit them in our suitcase!). One lady called around to find us a massage within walking distance (the boys had the car). We ended up going to her lady, a "hippie grandma", and I couldn't have described her better. We both said we never would have gone there had we seen her card or her shop,but the massage was great! And a good price! She did some weird humming and put a bowl on our stomach to make some noise and chimes over our bodies.....weird, but whatever. Good massage. We both said later we had a hard time not laughing :). After a day of shopping, we had planned to take a taxi back. Well, we ended up shopping until around the time we thought the guys would be coming back. So, picture this: standing outside in the cold on a streetcorner, waiting to see if the guys drive past. (we had a left a message on Caleb's phone about a coffeeshop we were in but I forgot he couldn't check messages, so they didn't get our message)

Chelsea: "It's cold. This wasn't a good idea. They'll find us inside".
Julie: "I feel in my heart like they are going to be in the next 100 cars. Let's stay out for 100 cars and then we'll go back in." Starts doing step moves to stay warm while counting out loud 1, 2, 3...
Chelsea: "Can you look at me so people will think we're talking instead of counting cars?"
Julie: laughs, attempts to look like conversation, but the counting isn't near as efficient; at 70...."hmm, I'm not feeling it as much anymore"
Julie: "81.....there they are!" starts flailing her arms and jumping, "they're 82!)
Chelsea: laughing and embarrassed

Thankfully, Dane saw us (Caleb didn't) and we made it home and saved our $20 taxi money. We packed up and realized that our vacuum did not have a hose to vacuum back up our ski clothes. So, here we tried to rig it...it didn't work:

The guys were awesome and were able to "cram and slam" our trunk shut. As sad as it was to leave,we awoke and were out the door by 5:30 am for the trek back to Texas. We made it in good time, maybe this is why?

If you can't figure out this picture, it's probably a good thing. But, I coudln't not post a pic of Garmina. She was a big part of our trip.
Whew, that was it. We had a great time and if you made it to the end of this....I'm impressed :).






Thursday, January 3, 2008

After much anticipation, our Christmas events......

I think I'm going to do this in 2 sections....pre-Christmas, and Christmas ski trip. We've just had so much fun lately and it's all captured in photos, I can't leave anything out! I will spare you though, and try to just pick 1-2 pics per event :). Caleb will vouch, I take about 10+ pics of everything!
The week before Christmas was filled with fun parties:

-Community group Christmas party/white elephant exchange. Here's Jacob with the coveted white elephant gift from Caleb--a box of disc golf discs! This group is such a blessing to us.

Caleb's Work Party:

Here we are with Brent and Erin. This was a fun party, but not as "swank" as last year's. It was at the Old Red Courthouse. We attempted to take our Christmas card picture with Caleb as the judge and me sitting in his lap, but I don't think anyone would have known what this was :):

Bible Study Christmas Party/Ornament/White Elephant Exchange:

I must admit, I FORGOT my camera at this party! So, I stole this pic from Shannon. But, these girls are my rock in the middle of the week. We laugh, cry, share, and grow together. I learn so much from each of them! Some are becoming Mommies....little Noah Wilson was born just yesterday (the baby showr pic from October). Congratulations Jocelyn and Ricky!

Note: I guess I'm wearing a lot of grey this season, but it's not the same shirt :). One's actually a dress with tights....yes, me, attempting a trend!


Shopping with Nana:

Okay, I've got to work on the arm stretched out pic. And, I think I'm trying too hard not to blink. But, this is a tradition that I wanted to include in the blog. Since I can remember, Nana takes me out for a day of shopping. She may be 76, but she can definitely out-shop me anyday! Here we are taking a break (that I needed!) for cookies :). I love that Nana only lives 2 hours away now (moved from GA this summer). Thanks, Nana, for all the goodies and more for the memories!
Roommate reunion:

Man, I love these girls. We manage to get together about once a year for a reunion. Kate had just gotten back from spending 3-4 mos in Africa 2 days before this and still has her African hair that was AWESOME! You can't tell so much by this pic. It's awesome how the Lord brought us all together 6 years ago and how similar our life was then....and how different our lives are now. All in good ways. 3/4 of us are in the metroplex, but I don't think we'll ever pull Lindie here. Texas maybe?! 2128 for LIFE! Haha...



ROSCOE!!
We drove out to Roscoe the Friday before Christmas to have "Christmas" with the Ratliff fam. We met some friends from law school in Abilene for dinner, and it was great to catch up. No pic...sorry! So, Saturday morning, we took Caleb on a tour of some of my favorite Sweetwater/Roscoe memories. We piled 6 of us in an Oldsmobile (I was in the front middle, yes!), and were off...
1) Doris's Sweet Shop....where it's Jesus' birthday all year long! I have such great memories of this place. For YEARS growing up, my Dad would pull me in the red wagon from our house to Doris's every Saturday morning to get donuts. We wouldn't miss a Saturday we were in town. I remember one Saturday it was icy/snowy, so we attempted to make homemade donuts....but, other than that, it was Doris's. And it was wonderful. Here the 6 of us are eating the best donuts known to man: (sorry it's so dark, no flash!)

We then took him out to Lake Sweetwater, to the boat dock and to the lakehouse. No pics of these, we just drove by...too cold out! Then, off to see the windfarms:

It was sooo windy! But, Caleb and Grandaddy went to take a pic by them. I even layed down on the ground and couldn't get a pic of them and the turbines--they are huge!

Connie, Ali, Al, and Stephen joined us later in the day. We opened presents, ate a LOT, and watched football. Here are Ali and Caleb hanging out on the couch:

Then, Amanda and Kylie came over for a while after a wedding. Amanda went to the reception, but left Kylie with us....she is the cutest little girl ever! Amanda is a great Mom, and I don't get to see them enough :(.


Okay, so that was pre-Christmas. Chels, I will get to ski trip in the next day, I promise! There's just so much to include on that blog, I don't want to miss any of it b/c of tired of blogging :). How sad am I?!