A Couple Last Firsts

Today officially marks the end of an era. Kenzie and I both completed our last first week of school! We also celebrated a few other lasts as we paid our last tuition, bought our last book, applied for graduation for the last time, bought our last parking pass, and yes – even putting together our last first day of school outfit.

We are really excited that we only have 14 more weeks of school and then we get a piece of paper that will hopefully increase our future marketability. Yet again, our schedules are perfectly conflicting with one another as Kenzie has night classes on Monday and Thursday while I have them at conflicting times the rest of the week. We hope that once we are done school and in real life we will get to see each other a bit more. We end up having to meet at really odd times to see each other some days.

We also decided that we are going to walk in the graduation ceremony on December 13. It should be a great time and Kenzies parents are even thinking about coming out for the ceremony. That’s about it for us though. Kenzie really likes working with all the old people at the retirement home that she is working at and I found out last week that my boss is moving to another job and so I am following right behind him and taking all the responsibilities of his current job in preparation for the potential job in January. Things are looking great and we are happy. We are seeing the lasts of the firsts disappear and are more than happy to see a few of them go.

A Life of Vacations

We just spent an entire fun-filled week with my family and boy did we have some good times. The entire vacation was somewhat ruined by the gloom and doom of school only being 2 weeks away, but we tried to enjoy ourselves. We had some fun activities and loved hanging out with the family. Some highlights included watching Annie slide under Alixa in a head-first slide to home that would have made a professional baseball player envious, a trip to the zoo that included one cheetah, several squirrels, and Chinese kid on a scooter, and intense games of Axis and Allies with the new family member Roberto.

We liked spending the time with the family and had a lot of fun. We got to meet up with a friend of mine from high school, Mike Woodin, and have dinner with him and his wife. Kevie also joined us and we had a great time reminiscing about high school, middle school, and all the fun times we had together. We also got to see Kirstin and Kenzie managed to get herself a nice massage. Well, it wasn’t that nice because Kiri actually worked on her knee and made it so she had trouble walking the next day, but now it feels better!

Now we have one week before our last semester of school begins. We are really anxious for our lives to get officially underway as we get jobs and find out where we will being our life. This semester should be a good one and we will certainly be busy as we job hunt, work, go to school, and basically try to find out what the heck we are doing with our lives. We had a great summer and we are officially tired of vacations and are looking forward to a week or two in our own bed. Life is really a lot of fun for us right now and the next few months will be a great time for Kenzie and me.

Bakin' at the Lakin'

Our trip was a lot of fun but let me just say I think Missouri is the hottest place I have ever been in my life! The fact that the lake is right in my grandpa's backyard worked out well. It was a lot of fun to spend a week with my family.

Nate caught his very first catfish, which until then he didn't believe existed. Of course we spent a lot of time swimming and tubing on the boat, but we also got my family addicted to scrabbable (or however you spell that). It was pretty entertaining. As Nate said, there were a wide variety of spellings accepted and at one point I think Spanish words were introduced. One night even ended with Will and Cristen singing a lovely duet of Light up my life to Nate to entice him to play for a few more hours. That was soon followed by Elvis and an hour of other duets. I haven't laughed that hard in a very long time.

We celebrated Nate's birthday while we were there. He got to spend a fun-filled day at the outlet malls. He wasn't too excited about that but he did get some nice Polos and we got to eat a Outback at the end of the night. We also went bowling and everyone there except for Nate got beaten by my five-year-old cousin, Danny.

It was sad to leave everyone, but we did get to stop by Memphis and see Melissa on our way home. She has a cute little apartment and is studying hard to be a nurse. After Memphis we headed to Knoxville to help Jarom and Alixa move in. By the time we got there they had all the stuff moved in so we just helped them unpack then enjoyed some dinner and a game of Settlers.

We had a great trip and kept ourselved entertained while driving by looking for large, weird ceramic animals. We are very happy to be home and I don't think either of us want to be driving anywhere for a while! Below are some of the pictures we took with Nate's new camera.

Our chauffeur, Uncle Will...

What happened when Nate and I tried to get on the tube together...

Nate, striking one of his famous poses...

One of the weird ceramic animals we found...

Happy Birthday to Nate!!!

Another weird, ceramic animals we found...

What we were swimming with at the lake. We saw this 4 foot long fish floating...

A Journey Of Firsts

We just got back from a fantastic trip to go meet up with Kenzie’s family at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. I figured the best way to describe it would be to describe the new experiences that the trip offered. These are all of the firsts that occurred on our journey.

First time I found a giant chicken in Kentucky

First time I got peed on by a turtle

First time I have ever caught or seen a catfish

First time I have ever been punched by a 5 year old square in the jaw

First time I have fallen off of a tube going 35 MPH

First time I have seen OAR spelled ORR in Scrabble (granted the speller is Uncle Hillbilly-Willey from West Virginia)

Kenzie will give you all the real scoop on the trip, but its enough for me to say that I loved the trip and had a lot of new experiences.