CHRISTMAS!!!

It is almost Christmas! I know that I made this point my last post...but it is almost Christmas?! I'm telling you, you wouldn't believe how that one tiny little fact can make this girl grin like a child. I'm not even ashamed! Thank you for enduring my previous posts about all the mishaps of life as an adult. I think the adult part is the hardest thing about our new life. College...even with the exhaustion and fear induced by nursing school...was easy. I mean, I woke up, went to class in sweatpants, came home and took a nap, maybe went to work for a couple of hours, and then just studied. Even all the meals were prepared for us. Or, for another example, when I didn't know an answer in clinical...that was ok, I was a student. Now, if I don't know an answer, there could be a serious problem. Additionally...bills, really? Bills. Ok, Mom and Dad I love you both, for the willingness to take care of those for me for the past 22 years. We don't even have that many bills, I mean, we're young; but I'll be honest, if Brad wasn't around, I might forget them. Isn't that pathetic? Thank goodness I'm learning.

Back to the point....Christmas is coming! Many good things have happened over the last couple of days that have made this oh so real...and oh so exciting!!
1. We got out the Christmas dishes. I LOVE our Christmas dishes, they're perfect and subtle and cheerful all at the same time. I know that this could be classified as materialistic, and I really hope that isn't the case, it's just having snowflakes on my dishes makes me think of Christmas Eve service, shrimp rings at Nana & Papa's, cards on Christmas Eve with my family, totally cheating at the Christmas draw to get Kyle and Lauri, Mom's spinning Christmas tree, her birthday dinner, having time to talk to her on the couch at night, Dad making me a special bed in the den with my favorite sheets and shopping with me for Mom's birthday gift, Luke's birthday coming up and splitting gifts with him, Sarah and Phil coming home (with EMILY!), and SHOPPING with Sarah, Christmas breakfast with Nana, Papa, and Uncle Mark, and all out Christmas day over at Aunt Vic and Uncle Mike's. That's just my family! Think about Macaroni Grill with Carl and Rosemary, Indianapolis with Kenny and Jennifer, Scotty and MJ, and Ally, Kelsey, and Kenny. Gingerbread houses with Ally. COLTS football! I mean seriously, I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!! (Mom, I completely know this is a run-on sentence, it is for effect)
2. We bought our VERY first Christmas tree. Now, can I just brag about how sweet Brad is. He's just not as big of a Christmas decorator or celebrator as I am, not because he doesn't love Christmas, he's just not as insanely sentimental as I am. He knew how badly I wanted a Christmas tree, and how important it is to me that our home be so inviting and cozy and so he went with me to 3 stores to find the perfect tree. We ended up with a 7 1/2 ft. tall tree! Oh my goodness. The thing is huge! It's perfect though! I love it. I promise pictures soon...but there need to be a few more ornaments. Currently, our poor giant has only 15 ornaments on there, with lights. I would refer to this as puny, but we're going to perk him right up. Now, granted, it doesn't spin, but I love it!
3. We have a 24 hour Christmas music station! 95.5. One word: YEA! (I was rocking that out on the way to work this morning!)
4. We're going to a Christmas party. Yay! (I'm taking something on my Christmas serving dish too..yes!)
5. Aaron and Shauna's house is so cute and decorated. I want to go sit on their couch and read a book and enjoy the cozy goodness. I can't even lie about that!

So, overall, we're excited! We get to go to Indiana in just a few short weeks! Hopefully it will SNOW! I love the warmth down here...but I really am hoping for snow for Christmas!

Finally, I would like to just give a praise for answered prayers! The past couple of weeks Brad and I have had more time together on his off days, such as 3-4 days at a time off together. It has been so wonderful getting to spend time together enjoying really feeling like we're married and not on completely opposite schedules. We have had so much fun! We went Christmas shopping, went to lunch with some friends, watched a movie, ate breakfast together, got to eat dinner together for the first time in what felt like weeks...AMAZING! I'm so thankful God works everything in His time!

If I could throw out a prayer request. I know this seems so bad...always having to pray for work, but these past couple weeks have been TOUGH! Not tough at it was before with the people, but my patients have gotten more severe. I have a lot to learn. This is not exactly new news for me, but wow. It gets scarier every day I think about how important it is that I am so thorough in my patient care. I'm learning...tough...but I'm learning. However, I have been so fearful of making a mistake, that I am I afraid I will make one when I am nervous. If you could just pray for peace during my shifts...it would be so appreciated.

Brad is doing great at his job. (I think so at least!) He doesn't talk about work like I do, he's a bit quieter since I chat 24 hours a day for him, but he likes it. His coworkers seem really nice, and he said the guys he works with on his shift he really likes! Yay!

Ok...time to get some sleep. This was supposed to be short. I just am NOT a short and sweet kind of writer! Have a great day!

Thanksgiving and beyond...

First and foremost...I would like to announce that my disastrously bad looking pumpkin roll/sandwich cake tasted just fine! Brad made it presentable for me when he got home, and many of the pieces were gone! So yay it was not a total failure!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We really did have a great time here in Austin! It was so hard being away from home, and I may have shed a few tears when talking to the family, but it was nice being with Shauna and Aaron and their family. The meal was DELICIOUS! We had turkey (obviously), stuffing, green bean casserole, cream corn, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and rolls. While I know it is a typical Thanksgiving meal, being able to have that with friends and not by ourselves, made it that much better! YUM!

So, last night I decided I was going to be the complete Black Friday shopper and go out WAY early to the stores for my Christmas shopping adventures. I mean, I had a plan. I was going to go home, take a quick nap, and be shopping by 3 am. I was planning on going to the outlet malls at 3, Kohls at 4, Target at 6, and the mall after that! I mean this plan was perfect...all until I fell asleep and didn't wake up until 5:30 am, so I decided it wasn't worth getting up then and decided to get up at 7:30 instead. However, still managed to have a good day shopping. Kohls had fantastic sales. Can I just tell you, it has been at least three years, if not more, since I have been able to go shopping on the day after Thanksgiving! I loved it! I love all the people, and the feeling of Christmas, and the Christmas music! It makes me so happy! Seriously, I spent like 2 1/2 hours at the mall and didn't buy anything, but I had a great time! I love talking to strangers in line, I just do! So today was great! I only lasted until about 1pm, so I came home, took a snooze and then decided at 9ish it was time to go again. This turned out to be an adventure!

Brad and I had rented a couple of movies and needed to return them tonight, so I thought I would do some shopping on my way. So, I stopped at the gas station on my way to Old Navy. The sweet gas attendant was in a good mood and gave me a punch card full of punches so I could have free coffee next time I come in! She said she was feeling happy! I was all excited, but then I got back to the Rodeo. I pulled the gas pump out of the car and apparently was holding onto the handle. As I was doing this, the gas poured, and by poured I mean shot out at me and all over my clothes! I saved my coffee, but literally I REEKED of gasoline! However, I didn't see the need to go change, because I just wanted to go shopping and go home.

So, I walked into Old Navy, and was all determined to do some shopping. However, every time someone walked by they were all like "Do you smell gas?" "Is something burning" or "Why does it smell like the gas station?" Seriously, it was embarrassing! I kept having to tell everyone that I was the reason the ENTIRE store smelled like gas. It was a trail, I couldn't get rid of it! The worst part was when all the employees went to their manager and told her they were concerned about the gas smell in the store, they were worried they had gas leak. Ok, seriously...there are many issues with this.
1. Vehicle gas and natural gas (or whatever that would be that would be leaking at a store) smell NOTHING alike!
2. It was clearly located in a small area that traveled whenever I traveled...do you REALLY think the store is going to catch fire?
3. I then had to go up to the manager and explain that she need not fear, because the smell was ALL me. Ridiculous.

However, there were good points because I saw our friends Tamara and Jim at Old Navy and got to catch up! They are in our small group, and we didn't have small group this week so we didn't get to see them! They are such a sweet couple! They also pointed me to some jeans that only cost $15 for Brad; who could pass that up?! After running into our friends, I then was revived on my shopping spree and continued to pollute the air of Old Navy. When I got to the cash register I apologized to the girl, and she laughed and then asked how the smell didn't bother me. Seriously! Just wow. I explained I had a head ache, but didn't see the need to change clothes for an hour of shopping. I don't know any one else who has these mishaps.

I then went on to Barnes and Noble, and had the same issue. The cashier was a cute girl who laughed with me, and right as we were talking about it, another employee told me she had been really concerned because she smell gas all through the store. I think I'm a mess.

Finally, the best part of my night. You know, I moved to Austin and was sad about never running into someone I knew when I was out around town. So tonight, I was extremely excited when I ran into Tamara and Jim, and then I got to Blockbuster! The guy working seems to be there every time either one of us goes to the store, but I didn't figure he ever remembered us. Well, he was telling this guy about the new Die Hard movie and the guy was all bummed because no copies were in. However, Rach saved the day, as I had just turned it in. Now, I found another movie to rent and got up to the register, and told the employee my last name and he goes, "Brad right?" Seriously, he didn't even type the name in and he KNEW our name. How sad is that? The guy that works at Blockbuster is our buddy! He then tried to get me to buy some yearly deal that they have now, and used the fact that he knows us as ammo to get me to fall for it. I didn't, but it was sad that he was able to use that against us. Wow.

Haha...so all in all, life in Austin gets better by the day. We make friends with the video store employees. Yay for us! No pictures tonight, sorry. Just wanted to share another adventure. Take care!

Oh....disaster.

So with this being the eve of my very first Thanksgiving away from home, I really wanted to cook or bake or do something Thanksgiving-ish. However, I feel the need to share with all of you my disaster. Brad and I are going to our friends' home for Thanksgiving tomorrow, and I really wanted to bring something with me for dessert. Well, last week Brad and I were able to purchase a Kitchenaid stand mixer with some of our wedding gift cards. We have been SO excited to use it, and it even came with a recipe book . Of course there was a pumpkin roll recipe that seemed absolutely perfect for Thanksgiving, and apparently to me, owning a Kitchenaid makes me a baker. I have news for you...I was so very wrong! :) I can't even explain the magnitude of a mess that was our kitchen, and sadly Brad was not here to witness my adventure, so I took pictures for him to see. Let me just explain the situation. I think it might make you laugh. Thankfully, after a crazy week at work, it really did just make me laugh.

First off...I should have known from step one that this would be a problem when I was expected to put a layer of Crisco on a cookie sheet, cover it with wax paper, and then spread MORE Crisco out. Seriously..I just created a fatty embolism for someone, not even kidding. I could cause a blood vessel to be clogged just with one ingredient.

So, this happens, but I'm still on the "I'm gonna make this work" train. Think again Next step, I was supposed to cover a kitchen towel with sifted powder sugar. Many problems in this.
1. I read 3 cups, recipe stated 1/4 cup. WHOA!
2. On a kitchen towel seriously?
3. In a kitchen with NO counter space?
4. So I tried the kitchen table...No no no
5. Move BACK into the kitchen with my 3 cups of powered sugar and out comes the cake from the oven.
6. I am supposed to remove this cake and flip it over with the wax paper onto the 3 cups of powdered sugar towel immediately. This part actually went WELL!

Ok, onto the next issue. Roll the cake from narrow end to narrow end. Problems...
1. The cake cracks
2. Then it cracks again
3. Here my 3 cups of powdered become an issue as it has caked itself on the towel, and barely touched the cake.
4. Then the cake broke it half. My goodness, could this get worse? YES oh yes it could!

Next, I just decided to leave it broken, and make more of a sandwich. At this point I called Brad at work and informed him of mission failure. He thought this was funny, and said if I was interested we had ingredients for cookies. One failure is enough for tonight, but the show must go on...so it was time to continue with the project. Filling. The filling itself was easy, throw the ingredients in and turn the mixer on for 10 minutes. I can't even mess that up. However, putting the "filling" into/onto my two 1/2 pieces that were supposed to be a nice roll, this proved to be a problem, as you will see in the photos below. Which brings me to the pictures...these are the state of the kitchen during my catastrophic evening. Thankfully, this has all be fixed, and it now SPOTLESS and smells suspiciously of bleach; I may have gone a little OCD to ensure we did not have ants with all my sticky messes. Alright, onto the pictures...

This doesn't look so bad...keep going.
Why did the drawers have to be open? Why did I have nothing under the rack that cake was sitting on? Why did I try to use 6 eggs instead of 4, and because of this leave two extra eggs sitting there in a bowl? Why did I think a strainer would work for sifting the powered sugar? Oh, if only I knew....
Those cans are the pumpkin and evaporated milk cans. We also have all my prior ingredients, measuring cups, and measuring spoons sitting up there on the counter.

And oh, oh yes, that would be my final product. Spillage and all. Don't you even worry, I wrapped that bad boy up and put it in the fridge just like I was supposed to. Someone will eat this, and they will like it! I would liken my creation to an eel. It is the length of my finger tips to my elbow. I'll give an update later on the taste, but I will tell you...I ate the batter and I ate the filling and they really were GREAT! So YEA!!!

So there's the story. I hope you enjoyed my trials.

As for news. This week has been pretty great, but uneventful thus far. Brad has been a sweet man and got up every morning with me at 4:30 am! I'm spoiled, I can't even lie about it! He is at work tonight, hopefully he'll really be able to enjoy Thanksgiving tomorrow without being too tired after working tonight. Work this week has been very tough for me. I do want to just praise the Lord, because yesterday was just awful...I mean truly awful. I cried at work, and that's just embarrassing. (Don't worry, just over stressed, all is great!) Today though, was my VERY best day I have had since I began at the hospital. I mean, the nurses with me at the pod were such a team, our tech was awesome, it was a positive atmosphere. It was just wonderful! It made yesterday just seem like it was so long ago. It made me realize that I'm not a bad nurse, and that bad days will happen, but life goes on. So I am so thankful for that! Other than that, we're excited for Thanksgiving tomorrow, but we will miss home! We hope that everyone has a fantastic Thanksgiving!! To our families, we wish so badly we could be with you all! We love and miss you, but only just a few more weeks until we'll be home! Take care!

Company

Only time for a short post tonight, but more to come sometime soon. We had company this weekend! I'll tell you one thing, it sure was nice to have people to talk to on Friday night while Brad was at work! Really though, we had a great weekend with Brad's parents! We've missed our families, so it was so nice to have Carl and Rosemary here with us. I wish I had taken more pictures, but we forgot our camera on Saturday. They arrived on Friday, while I was at work and were able to spend some quality time with Brad. When I got home it was nice to catch up and show them our wedding pictures. I crashed early though...apparently work wears me out! :)

Saturday when Brad got home he was exhausted, so Rosemary and I got to spend a little time shopping. We had some fun...it's pretty nice having all those shops right across the street from us. Once Brad woke up we went down to New Braunfels to the Wurstfest. We had some absolutely DELICIOUS fried foods and listened to some great music, and Carl and Rosemary danced! :) Brad and I didn't, aren't we losers? It was such a neat experience though, because we have heard so many things about Wurstfest, so it was nice to experience it first hand.

Sunday, after church, we went to the UT women's basketball game against Missouri State It was so fun, even though Missouri didn't win. Both teams were pretty impressive. I forgot how much fun watching basketball was. That evening Brad and I went to a get-together or his section of Samsung at Dave and Buster's. We had a great time, I really enjoyed meeting his coworkers, and we rocked out those games! :) We won 4 coffee mugs with our tickets. That was fun! When we got home, we watched the Colts game with Carl and Rosemary..such a sad ending if I might add. I was quite upset with the past two weeks of play by them. Poo!
So! We had such a wonderful weekend with Brad's parents...we LOVE having company! Here are a couple of pictures from the game.
Having a great time at the game!
The Rudy's blimp that shot out coupons! So fun!
Texan pride right there!
It is a pretty neat arena!

Brad and I also had Tuesday and Wednesday of this week to spend time together which has been wonderful. We've decided that we want to begin working out together, so the past two days we have taken advantage of the beautiful weather here in Austin and the Hike and Bike trail, and have started running together. While, I may not like running, it is so nice to have some quality time with Brad outside in fresh air and sunshine and having the chance to just talk to each other. It makes running TOTALLY worth it! Yay!

Well, that's all for now. The Lord has been taking such amazing care of us down here, and life is good. Brad's job is going well, and mine is getting better. We have been blessed with an amazing small group who had some real words of encouragement for me about feeling down lately. We're so thankful for them! We hope all is well for all of you! We LOVE hearing updates on everyone and their lives...so keep us posted! Take care!

Two Months

As of today, we have been the Allison's for two months! YAY!!! To celebrate, or to just enjoy a weekend, we went to San Antonio on Sunday after church and spent Sunday and Monday there. We loved it. It was our very first tiny little road trip together since getting married. Brad is a huge advocate of road trips, and after this past weekend, I would love to continue with our little visits. San Antonio is such a unique city; I've never been any place quite like it. They are so proud of their history there, and I think that is pretty neat. We visited the Alamo, and the Riverwalk...clearly we are tourists still. Here we are at the Alamo. These next couple are at the San Jose Mission a little south of San Antonio. There is a route you can take that runs from the Alamo to six other missions that used to exist. These places are so peaceful and neat and the buildings that are still standing are incredible. We had a nice time just walking around this one.




Monday morning we took a walk after getting some breakfast, and we came to the Tower of the America's (or over the America's, I'm not sure which). We went all the way up and looked out over the city and then we watched this virtual tour of Texas. Who knew this state was so pretty? One thing about San Antonio that we noticed though, the air is DEFINITELY not as clean as Austin. These are just some pictures from up in the tower.





Down on the Riverwalk, which I had no idea was actually a side walk along the river, we found a true mariachi band. (They were so good!)


The view at night time.
We found the cutest outdoor theater over by our hotel, we want to go back if there is actually a play there sometime.

So, overall we had a fantastic weekend, and a FABULOUS two months. We're loving this marriage thing! :) Life is good here in Austin. We've made some really great friends, (we miss you friends from home though!) and the Lord has truly been working in both of us and guiding us as we grow together and figure out where all we are headed in life. This week Brad got off of shadowing and is all by himself at work. Woohoo Brad!! He seems to be liking it, although we're not liking the not seeing each other part. Only a few more weeks though, and then we're smooth sailing!

Can you believe it is already November? My goodness! Next weekend, we have our very first set of visitors, Brad's parents! We're excited to have some company. We've been planning some outings for awhile now. We think we've cooked up some good ideas. (Note to you who do not live in Austin...you come, we plan and we'll having a stinking good time so GET HERE!) For Thanksgiving, Shauna and Aaron have invited us to their house. Those two have just been awesome! So, we're now invading on them for Thanksgiving...but thanks to Hil we have a turkey roaster pan to put to good use. We will really miss our family, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say especially me because this will be my very first holiday away from my family. We'll miss you guys!

If I could just make one little request for prayer...if you could just pray for my job. I'm feeling a bit defeated. There are great days, but there are bad days, and while I know this is exactly where I am supposed to be, I've just been feeling a little negative towards it. It is a little different than I expected...but that is both good and bad. I am learning so much, and for that I am so thankful! Thank you for the prayer though!

So, that's all for now! Take care all!

Amazing Race

So, this past weekend we had an Amazing Race-like competition in our nearly/newlywed class. It was awesome! Four couples from the class, and three couples who are leaders participated. It was more of a scavenger hunt around Austin, but we had such a great time! Here are some of the pictures from the day! We had to get creative on some, it was a blast! First off, find a Texas shirt...Yay for Katie and Evan who both had Texas shirts on! :) This couple is so sweet! We have had so much fun getting to know them through game nights lately!
This was supposed to be high heels..although we were supposed to find someone wearing high heels (we did later!) . Thanks to Tac for his idea here! Find a cross.

Take a picture with the train conductor of the park. This is Allison, she and Tac were our partners in crime! We have also really enjoyed spending time with these two lately..they're so much fun!A sea animal. I thought I'd try to score some points for creativity of the pictures...Brad was not impressed.

Brad and Tac found a dugout!
Find the Keep Austin Weird slogan..there you are Sarah. Look for one of these in the mail..or a Christmas stocking, or on your daughter. I haven't decided which yet! :)
A Starbucks cup. Let me just tell you, I looked in EVERY single trash can we passed until we found this cup...and here it is in all of it's glory! Yea!
Three in ONE...Austin skyline, the bat bridge, and a campaign of 2008 slogan (it is on the bridge in the background).
Find a musician...we all know it is my dream! Find a chin up bar...we improvised..and about 5 minutes later found a real one...but I think this is cute!

Rock Island...hahaha...apparently there is actually a place called Rock Island in the middle of a bunch of soccer fields..but we thought this was better!
First aid kit, harder to find than you would think.
After the scavenger hunt we all went to the Whole Foods market for lunch, and we girls wanted some pictures with all the pumpkins! The boys gave in. We didn't get the chance to take one with the other couples...but we three were sharing a car.
Just the girls!
Us!

P.S. We won! We consider it a team effort with Tac and Allison! :) We were with Aaron and Shauna also..but at some point we got lost and they walked all the way to Whole Foods...pretty impressive! Have a great week!