Christmas 2011

We have been blessed to be able to spend the last three Christmases in our hometown, Gig Harbor.  This trip was the last long trip we will have for a while.  We enjoyed everyday we were able to spend with our family.  Our time with the Hagen's is always fun and relaxing.  One of my favorite things to do with them during the Christmas season is cutting the Christmas tree.  We spent our evenings by the fire just hanging out and watching movies after some of the best home cooking! This year we went to the place where Mike and Kathy grew up to look at Christmas lights, went to dinner and a movie and just spent quality time together.  The time we spent with my side (the Jones family) is a lot more fast paced.  My dad plays in a band (The Shy Boys) which keeps us busy on the weekends.  My brother Steven has a son, Kaden who is constantly keeping us running around!  I love spending time with that little boy.  I threw my little sister a baby shower, went to gigs, made dinners, and went on dates with my mom and sister.  We are so blessed to have healthy families be able to spend so much time with them.  We are looking forward to going back up for a couple weeks this summer.

 This is the view from Stephen's room

 Our beautiful mountain

 The Jones family

 Me and Stephen :)

 Mandy, baby Jack (still in the oven) and Spencer

 Baby Shower food!

 Mom, Mandy and I at her baby shower

 Stephen and I at my dad's new years gig.

Our trip to New Mexico

Stephen and I love going on adventures.  Last weekend we decided to take a last min. trip to New Mexico. Stephen planned everything, he got us a great deal on a hotel for two nights.  It was a six and a half hour drive.  The drive up was not to bad, although we were a little worried we had gotten ripped off and would be staying in a dump.  The towns we had to drive through were dumps, the last two hours or so it was a small curvy road with run down houses lining the sides.  I will admit I was greatly questioning Stephen's judgement.  I was very much relieved that the last forty five minutes was only heavily wooded forest.  We arrived in Angle Fire at around three pm.  We spent the day looking around in the two little town shops.  We picked up some hot chocolate, some snacks and a movie and headed back to our room.  The next day we woke up to a winter wonderland!  It continued to snow throughout the day as we explored the near by towns.  We spent hours driving up and down snow covered trails looking for wildlife, to Stephens disappointment all we saw was a coyote and some mule deer.  We had an amazing time, it was amazing to be able to get away for the weekend and reconnect.  I am blessed.

Wait Upon the Lord

God is showing me more and more each day that I need to stop tying to plan out my life.  Everything happens for a reason and I know that God wants me here in Texas.  I moved back three weeks ago.  I  am living everyday as it comes, not looking further then a week or two ahead at a time.  Life is so unpredictable.  Its hard to look at your life and not know what the outcome will be, not knowing for the third year in a row where we will be in 7 months.  Its hard trying to rebuild old friendships or even just hold on to the ones I had.  It makes it harder knowing I will have to say goodbye again in a few short months.  Its hard to always find the good in difficult situations, to know the loss of good friends may turn out to be a good thing. I do believe God is teaching me to lean on Him and not others, to serve Him and live for Him.  At this point in my life I know that He is wanting me to give it all up to him, every aspect of it.  I may not know where this road will lead, what I do know is that Gods plan for my life is much greater then my own.  

55 Days

As you know Stephen and I moved back to WA this summer in hopes that Stephen would be drafted this year.  Although Stephen had a AMAZING year he was not selected in the 2011 MLB Draft.  This came as a shock to not only Stephen, his family and I but also the head of The Major League Scouting Burro.  Stephen had a great year... The only explanation was that it was not Gods plan for our life at this time.  Baseball has been Stephen's life for as long as he can remember,  but for some reason this news seemed harder for me to deal with then it was for him.   God has given Stephen peace about it, and as if that's not good enough he has given him joy in pursuing other jobs.  Stephen moved back to Texas on August 17, 2011.  He will be graduating in June and playing his last year at Texas Tech.  Hes excited to just enjoy the game again.  He will keep the option of playing professional baseball in the future open, but is now pursuing other careers and his excited for this new chapter in his life.

As for me I am living in Washington with my family.  I was offered a job at St. Clare Hospital working as a Phlebotomist.  They offered me the job before we knew Stephen would be going back to Texas.  After we found out he would be leaving, I decided to stay here and work so that we could say money and hopefully buy a house in the next year or two.  I also want the hospital to like me so that they will hire me back in June.  Well its only been to weeks and I cant stand it any longer.  I miss him so much.  I have booked a flight for the end of October (55 days left.)  I have also decided to stay through December so that we can save money as long as we can.  Ill be moving back down to Texas in January,  I have a few job options so we will see what happens.  I realized now more then ever that family comes first.  I know that there is a reason for everything, and above all I know that God's plan for our life is much greater then our plans for our life.

Camping with the family

We have been camping a lot this summer! After our trip to to the cost we went with my brother Steven and his wife Ashley to staircase.  We camped right on the river with several hiking trails within walking distance of the camp site.  We had a great time exploring the trails and hiking around.  The second day we went down to the lake.  We decided to blow up the air mattresses, lay down and paddle across the water to a large island/bolder.  All throughout the water you could see stumps and rocks shooting out. We climbed to the top and I looked over and saw Stephen thinking about jumping! I looked down and there was shadows where you could see the rocks and stumps.  There was a spot right in the middle where it looked pretty clear, after some bribes and contemplating I decided to jump! The water was so cold.  It was a great trip.  It was fun to be able to spend time with Steven and Ashely.

We decided to go camping at the base of Mt. Rainer with Stephen's brother Jonathan and his wife Alisha. On our way up to the mountain Jonathan got a call offering us a cabin for the weekend. We had a blast, we ended up hiking down to a lake, all together the hike ended up being almost 10 miles! That afternoon the boys went fishing and Alisha and I read and talked.  We had such a great time.

Family means everything to me.  Being able to spend this summer with Stephen, family and friends, was such a blessing.

Camping at Cape Alava

Stephen and I love doing things together, especially things outdoors.  We have not had many opportunities to do many things while living in Lubbock (if you live there you know exactly what I am talking about.)  Considering both Stephen and I came from Washington where everything was only a hour away (I mean everything, the city, the ocean, the country, mountains...EVERYTHING!) it was very difficult living in such a flat place in the middle four hours away from anything.  So of course as soon as we got back to Washington we where none stop going, going, going.  Our most recent trip was a camping trip about four hours away in a place called Ozette.  It was a beautiful drive around the Olympic National Rain forrest.  About two hours outside of Ozette we had to stop and get a camping permit and a bear can (a large tub with a lid that locks to hold our food so that the bears can't get into it.) We arrived, got our packs on and started the three and a half mile hike through the rain forrest to the coast.  The hike was much longer then i had expected and after leaving the bread and having to turn about about a mile to get it we finally made it and set up camp, only to find out that the sleeping bag that we had received for our wedding that was a double sleeping bag, came in two pieces... we had only brought one.  Let me tell you Stephen and I are not the smallest couple, so that was a adventure in itself. We had a great time walking to beach and hiking around, I even got to touch a seal! We later found out that the seal had come up to the beach because it was molting not because it was friendly. It was a very fun camping trip we cant wait to go back.

Moving Back Home

Well we are working on our third move in the past two years.  We moved to Lubbock Texas from Gig Harbor Washington where both Stephen and I grew up.  Stephen was offered a schalarship to play baseball at Texas Tech University.  We were married and moved there a few days later.  We moved once while in Texas and now we are on our way back to Washington.  We could not have done these moves without the help of good family and friends.  My mom flew down to help me drive, we were able to stay at our friends house when our lease was up, and we had a lot of help moving, so thank you all! We are in AZ now visiting family before we finish the 3 day drive back home. We got to see most of my aunts, uncles, cuzens, and my great grandma.  We have been staying with my Aunt Jenny and Uncle Mark's home.  I am so thankful for the time I get to spend with my Uncle, there is no other person I would rather stay with or spend my time with while I am here.  I wish I lived closer so I could see him more. He has a heart condition and we don't know how much longer he has... Nothing breaks my heart more then to say goodbye to him.  I have 2 more trips planned in the next couple month and am looking foward to spending more time with him :)
We will be back in Washington in 2 days! I have not seem my family (other then my mom in these past couple of days) and am very much looking forward to just spending time and hanging out with them. I will be looking for a job with a airline this fall and in the mean time i will be working a summer job somewhere while Stephen will be off playing baseball for the summer.  Im so happy to be on my way back home and am looking forward to these next few months as we get settled in.