a chipotle burrito and tank of gas.

wow.....been only like a 1,000 years since I've posted. so sorry! not sure anyone even read this anymore since I am so lame. there is SO much to catch up on and I think that's why I have put it off for so long because I don't even know where to start! So I am going to attempt to catch you up on some of the epic and important events of 2011 before we move to far into the new year....attempt is the key word here.

Tdub headed back to the states (Little Rock, AR) in early Sept for a 2 month training to become an instructor pilot for the C-130. Aaron, my little but bigger brother was engaged and his wedding date was October 29th. So i Space A-ed my way to the USA and arrived in Texas mid-October. I got to spend about a week and a half helping prepare for the wedding and getting to know and hang my new sister-in-law (who I am in love with) and bro. It was a sweet time, we met up with the 'rents at the lake house for a last weekend of fun in the sun before it got too cold, and then back to Houston for the wedding bells!! Aaron and Marianne's wedding was perfect, so God honoring and a beautiful, fun celebration! They are a beautiful couple inside and out and Tdub and I were so honored and blessed to have been asked to stand beside them on their wedding day and in life. Here's some pics...

morning of the wedding we had a brunch for all of our out of towner family at Aaron's sweet pad:

Baby Bro getting ready for the big day...

Momma putting on the bow tie...little boy all grown up.

proud big sister. :)

my beautiful new sister!

Tdub headed back to The Rock while I headed back to Midland for a week and a half to hang out with mom and dad, catch up with some old friends, get some R&R and eat a lot of Chick-fil-A!! I rented a car and headed to the hill country to make the rounds in Kerrville, Boerne, and SA. It was wonderful but not long enough. Feel like I just barely got to scrape the surface catching up with people and definitely didn't get to see everyone I wanted too! (Sorry, if I didn't get to see you!)

We own a rent house in San Antonio and have this 5 bedroom house fully furnished for single AF guys to live in while they are going thru training in SA. We have needed to un-furnish it for a while now so we could rent it out to a family, but the whole living two oceans away was a small problem in that plan. We knew it had to be done this trip back to the states, one of those things you know needs to happen, but want to pretend doesn't exist. :) Weeelll, Tdub got done with his training mid-Nov and headed to San Antonio to help me and my sweet parents (huge shout out and thank you...there is NO way we two could have done it without them!) that came and slaved away to help us have a HUGE furniture sale (we are talking 8 TVs, 5 desks, 4 couches, 2 dinning room tables, 8 dressers, 5 beds, etc...) and un-furnish the house, clean it and get it ready to rent. a two day sell and few postings we sold everything!! and an added bonus...one of the families that stopped to look at the sale ended up renting it from us, so we never even had to put it on the market! yay! really thanking the Lord for that one!!

this is me placed and I do mean strategically placed into the car with boxes on top of me leaving the rent house in our cram packed rental car. it has to be unsafe to fit that much stuff in a moving vehicle.

We then headed back to the Schrank's lake house to celebrate an early Thanksgiving with my side of the fam. It was a sweet weekend full of too much food, playing Settlers of Catan, jet skiing and boat riding (guess this was the last time on the lake before it got too cold :), drinking coffee on the porch and just being together.

'merica...

T-dubs magic...

proud alumni...(if we are home our flag gets flown, first time ever all 4 were flown! thanks, momma!)

The Schrank-mans.

We said goodbye to Texas and the people we love there and headed to Colorado with the Chapman's to do round 2 of Thanksgiving...not the smartest choice for the hips and booty, but worth it for the family love!

We were reunited with all of T's brothers and sisters (he is the oldest of 8 kids plus two of us daughters-in-law), his Mom and sweet Grandmother I had never met before! This was the first time we were all together since our wedding 2 1/2 years ago! SO fun and sweet to all be together. It is no small or quiet function when the Chaps get together. We played the first offical "Chapsgiving Games" where the events ranged from a potato chuck to paper, rock, scissors, to a yell off. Tdub got 1st place in the games...guess he felt the need to defend his title as the first born and oldest of the kids since he is not the biggest/tallest any longer. ;) We spent a little over a week in Colorado Springs, hanging out, laughing, hiking, and shopping and eating more Chick-fil-A and Chipotle.

sweet G-ma.

T doing his magic once again.

Chapsgiving games:
Potato chuck...

drawing on our heads...

the great scream-boli...

paper, rock, scissors...

#1 and #2...in birth and in games.

closing ceremonies...you can't make this stuff up.

'da champ.

T very reluctantly fulfilling his Grandma's one Thanksgiving wish...to play the violin for her. it was truly a Thanksgiving miracle.

this is why we can't have nice things. keepin' it classy. (I have thrown away all his pearl snap shirts so he can no longer rip his shirts open in 2 seconds.)

she kept us laughing the whole week. oh golly!

wanna-be hipsters.

There was a rather large damper to the end of our trip...we went hiking for a couple hours with two of T's brothers. I had put my purse in the trunk of our car to "hide it". Now let me pause and say I had been traveling for a good 5 wks by this point and ladies you know what happens when you travel...your purse isn't so much a purse as a small suitcase that becomes a catch all for anything and everything you may need while traveling...well this was the state of my "purse."

this is me before the hike:

this is me during the hike:

We came back to our car after being on the hike for about 2 hours and popped the trunk to retrieve my purse and it was no where to be found. *stomach drops here* look again...yeah...still no where to be found. *blood rushing, panicked face, maybe a few small cuss words here* mind starts racing...ok what all was in my purse...uhhh, ipod, ipod nano, iphone (let's hope the robbers like Apple products), headphones, sunglasses, handmade leather wallet from China, scarf T got me from Nepal, cash money, American and Japanese drivers license, credit/debit cards, my military ID and the list goes on and on and on...ugh. From the same parking lot, same time frame there was a car stolen also, they believe the snatchers were hiding in the bushes and watching people leave for their hike and then went in for the kill. The police came out and filed a report, he said they would probably take the valuables and drop the purse so that is all we would get back...I'm thinking Mr. Policeman, no offense, but pretty sure they ain't gonna drop my super cute red leather purse with a huge flower on it. I don't care who you are, it's cute. :)

this is me after the hike:

After feeling sorry for myself and sick to my stomach I was able to give thanks and see some perspective that it is just "stuff" that was stolen. We were not harmed or hurt and the only thing that was not in my purse that was of importance was my passport. Definitely thanking the Lord that it was in my suitcase or I would still be sitting in the US waiting for a passport to be printed. The worst part is just having to replace everything, it takes a long time. We make a jokes about it now, Tdub will ask, "have you seen the camera case?" oh, yeah, it was stolen. Where's our full Subway stamp card? oh, yeah, it was stolen too... I'm sure we will continue to discover what is missing for a long while, but trying to keep the perspective that I can be sad, and feel violated and miss my super cute red purse with a flower on it but the bigger picture is it is just stuff. Praying that this is used in their life for good, somehow. Maybe just that they could see that this was a person with a life that they took a part of and not just a purse they stole. Just wish if they had really wanted that Chipotle burrito and tank of gas that bad they would have just asked.