Looking forward to big games and family time this weekend

Well it's the weekend so you know that means football so here are my weekly football pictures of who we are cheering on for this weekend. We do have a couple of big games this weekend so we are definitely looking forward to that! First we have Texas playing Iowa State tomorrow, hook em' horns; then Arkansas and Texas A&M are playing each other which is a pretty big game since it has just been announced that A&M has been officially accepted to the SEC Conference for next football season. And of course the biggest game of the weekend being Florida Gators vs. Alabama, Jake has told  me a couple of different times how he feels nervous for the football game so we will see what happens! And then of course we have LSU playing Kentucky which really isn't a big game at all, but Jordan Jefferson is being put back in the game so we will see. Although our weekend is going to be pretty busy since Jake is working all weekend, my mom is coming into town for my sister's two baby showers that are both this weekend so our weekend will probably be filled with lots of family time, and excitement as we look forward to seeing all the precious baby gear for sweet baby Manges! There will definitely be ALOT more pictures to edit and download and blog next week probably since there are two baby showers to document, loving the fun family events though, YAY!

Not the most exciting Tuesday

Well another day has come and gone, our Tuesday was not the most exciting of all days, but it was a good day relaxing and getting some stuff done around the house so I can't complain too much. I went to bed last night with a killer headache, haven't had a headache like this since I was in the hospital this summer so I took some special headache drugs and went to bed and woke up and felt so much better. We slept in a little this morning since Jake was off work today but got up and hung around and ate breakfast together, nothing spectacular just oatmeal for Jake and toaster waffles for me but it was good nonetheless. Other than that we really just hung around the house taking care of a few things, trying to get all my medical claims straightened out with our insurance and  calling my doctor to verify my dosage for medicine for traveling very soon. We also worked on finishing a couple of projects that we started working on over the weekend and then I did some picking up around the house a little bit since our living room and dining room area were starting to feel a little bit messy really just piled with junk.


I didn't even cook tonight just had left overs from dinner last night of chicken, macaroni and cheese, and I cooked some corn to go with that for dinner tonight and we ate dinner while we watched tonight's episode of Glee. After dinner I cleaned up the kitchen while Jake made a yummy trail mix mixture of some different things of mixed nuts we had left over in the pantry and then we watched Dancing With The Stars: The Results Show to see who got kicked off this week and thankfully it wasn't any of my favorites!!! Again nothing exciting happening I am now hanging out listening to some new music while I blog and will probably spend a good while pinning in a little while and Jake is watching Storage Wars while Emmitt snores on the couch.


Again tomorrow is another day closer to the weekend when my mom will be here to visit for the weekend and to go to both of my sister's baby showers, I'm SO EXCITED to see all of my family!! And just beyond excited to see all the precious baby stuff for our adorable Baby Manges coming to join us in December and this Aunt Gigi CANNOT WAIT!! And also just another day closer to our vacation I am desperately waiting for, but still really cannot believe its almost October! Well that is about all about our boring Tuesday, looking forward to the rest of the week!

Oh...one last thing, whoever finds yourself reading this blog and post I would ask that you lift up Sunday Ibok who is a young 31 year old man who has suffered a bad brain aneurysm. The doctors who have been diligently treating him have pronounced him brain dead while he is still on life support, while all of his friends and family and people all over the world are desperately pleading with God for a true miracle that only He could perform. If you would join everyone in prayer for Sunday and his family! Here is a link to his facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=54603344&ref=ts#!/sunday.ibok?sk=wall

Our Weekend

Jake & I had a great weekend, we got alot of stuff done errands and being productive around the house, but also had alot of fun and watched ALOT of football. Jake's work schedule was really great this weekend, he had Friday and Sunday off work so we were able to visit another church around here to see if we can get any closer to finding a church home here. I will write more about the church home search later, but since it is our first to be doing this together I would say it is going pretty good, we have only had a few differences during the whole search. Since Jake was off a good amount this weekend we had some good time to get some fun stuff for me to work on creative projects for Fall decorations and also a few other projects I have already started to work on for Christmas gifts and getting ideas to start working on for the SWEETEST little gift coming to join the Ellison family in December and I am beyond excited!! We also worked on doing some cleaning and were able to rearrange the living room into a better, more open setup that we like alot more, rearranging rooms in the house always makes everything feel so refreshed and new, I love it!

A big plus to our weekend was my dad and brother being in the area for the weekend. Although we didn't get to see them alot this weekend since they were in the Beaumont area most of the weekend for a friends Chief of Police swearing in ceremony for the city of Beaumont a nice lunch and hanging out is always nice no matter what. So on Saturday afternoon we all met at one of our family favorites, Chuy's Mexican restaurant for a yummy lunch. The rest of my Saturday while Jake was finishing his day at work was spent watching lots of very good college football games, although my # 1 Texas team didn't play this week there was so many great games on tv. Some great ones I caught on tv were the Alabama vs. Arkansas game, Texas A&M vs. Oklahoma State, Florida State vs. Clemson, Florida vs. Kentucky, and LSU vs. West Virginia. And the one amazing thing that I loved about Saturday was that EVERY SINGLE team I wanted and needed to win won their games in awesome ways, I was LOVING IT!! We also got to talk to Jake's Aunt Sally quite a bit this weekend and talked alot more about our planning and details for big vacation coming up in just two short weeks. And I'll tell you the more and more we talk about our trip especially to Aunt Sally since she lives there she is taking care of alot of the details and is our official travel guide so we get so excited about it when we hear from her!!

Dad, Jenna, & Me outside Chuy's Mexican Restaurant

LOVE my family :)

What an exciting day today is!!

Today is a GREAT DAY it is only one day closer to our vacation, but especially because tonight is the big two hour season 8 premiere of Grey's Anatomy which just happens to be my all time favorite show and I cannot put my excitement into words! When season 7 ended in May there was so much going and the writers kinda left us hanging by a thread as to what was going to happen with so many of the characters, situations, and just how everything was going to play out. I am so anxious to see how they start off the season, hoping for a really dramatic good one! I am very excited it is two hours long though, I am going to need every minute I can get, plus there are alot of character stories to get through so we shall see! But tonight at 8:00 you know where I will be, the DVR is ready and everything!! I love when all my shows start back up for the fall, just another GREAT thing about the fall season!

 Grey's Anatomy Season 8 Cast looking fabulous

 What will Alex do? Where will Meredith and his friendship go to?

 Dr. Meredith Grey gets fired from messing with the Alzheimer's clinical trial. What will she do? Will the Chief let her come back and work at the hospital?

 Cristina & Owen have hit a rough spot as she found out at the end of season 7 that she is pregnant. While this is great news, she doesn't want to keep the baby because she doesn't want to be a mother, only a surgeon and focus on her career, but Owen on the other hand feels completely opposite. Will they split and divorce or possibly keep the baby?

A collage of images from the season 8 premiere, the beautiful Dr. Derek Sheperd playing with their adopted baby, Zola, Dr. Teddy Altman & "husband" Henry, Meredith and Alex, and Jackson & April. What will happen will Henry & Teddy, when will they actually realize they have fallen in love? Will Alex & Meredith mend their friendship considering all that happened at the end of season 7 with the clinical trial, Meredith getting fired, and everything? And now that April was made Chief Resident how will that change things? And where does this all leave Lexi & Jackson?

 Meredith & Derek and baby Zola discussing their situation...

I can't wait to see how Meredith is as a mom with baby Zola!

Exactly 3 weeks from today!!!

To start off, the most important and exciting things are first and that is what I have a couple of pictures of below. So exactly 3 weeks from today Jake & I will be on our beloved vacation we have been looking SO SO forward to and I have been trying to keep myself busy lately to contain my level of excitement, impatience, and anticipation. I know that right now 3 weeks still sounds like a long time, but I know it will fly by and we will be on our lovely airplane flying up, up, and away to Boston, MA for 9 whole days together! Not to mention in the meantime I have quite a bit of stuff to work on to keep myself busy and definitely things to do that I am looking forward to.

Starting this week I started working on a few of my fall decorations for around the house along with a few Christmas projects that required significant early ordering. We also went on our last grocery trip before our vacation, we got plenty of food to make big meals that we will have leftovers and enough things to have small things like sandwhiches and stuff a couple of nights. I am also BEYOND thrilled about Grey's Anatomy season 8 2 hour premiere coming on Thursday night, oh how I love that show, I cannot even describe it!! I am also looking forward to this weekend because Jake is off on Friday and Sunday and we both always really enjoy those days even if all we do is sit around and hang out at home it is so nice to have someone to sit around the house with besides Emmitt & I haha. Another thing that I am excited about is this weekend my dad and brother are coming to Beaumont for my dad's best friend who just got the City of Beaumont Chief of Police job so they are coming to celebrate that with him so I am hoping we will get to see my dad and brother at some point during the weekend which would be so nice. And then next weekend my mom will be in town since my sister is having both of her baby showers next weekend, getting so excited to see all that sweet baby stuff and getting very ready for my baby nephew/niece to be here, I CANNOT WAIT!

Boston Logan Airport-where we will be 3 weeks from today, I cannot wait to get off that plane and let that vacation finally begin!!!

What have we been up to lately...besides watching football?

What have we been up to lately? Aside from loving having our football back, we are ready for fall to arrive, especially the weather! We have had several nice weather days where it didn't reach 90, stayed in the 80s, then we had some where it stayed in the low 90s, but we know our fall weather will arrive one of these days! I know in just three weeks we are going to get our serious, glorious, wonderful, and very much needed fix of fall weather and new scenery and we CANNOT WAIT! I know I say something along those lines about how much we are looking forward to this vacation, but I don't think anyone but the two of us can safely understand how deeply we need this trip after this year and especially this summer! But other than that, Jake has been working quite a bit, he just got finished with part one of his management training this week and seemed to really enjoy himself, he really learned alot! One of the many things that I totally admire about Jake and his personality that I so plan on passing on to our children is how to always press on, keep looking for somewhere to upgrade yourself no matter whether its in furthering yourself in the company you work, at church, friendships, being creative, losing weight and being healthy, the options are pretty much endless. Anyways that is one of Jake's biggest qualities that I love and admire!

We have also had dinner with my sister and brother in law twice in the last week which has been really nice to see them more often since we live so close, I feel like that is kinda the point haha! I am really starting to get REALLY excited about this sweet little baby nephew or niece coming in December, only a couple more months! I started having dreams about "him" the other night and he is might cute, OH how I would LOVE to spend my days with him, my world would literally explode with happiness, I just don't think anyone really knows haha. My sister is having both of her baby showers in the next couple weeks, one that her church here is giving her and the other that all my aunts are giving here and I cannot wait to get my hands on all that precious baby gear! I have also really been brainstorming baby central here lately, wish I could share all of my ideas and plans for when the little one arrives but that would give it all away and you know I have to be a little secretive!! :) AUNT GIGI LOVES YOU :)

So once we get back from our trip I plan on really breaking out the fall decor and picking out some pumpkins at either a pumpkin patch or I suppose I could settle for Target haha. I have been brainstorming lots of cute fall decor ideas for the house lately because I am so ready for a good season change and for the holidays to get here. But I added a few pictures below of a few fall projects I plan on working on when we get back from our trip and one that is already in the process of being made since it doesn't involve pumpkins.

Cute baby pumpkins covered with your choice of scrapbooking fall paper and easily glued with modge podge or spray adhesive.

 More baby orange pumpkins in the bottom of a clear vase with curly coming out of the top

 Regular orange pumpkin with a initial made of your choice of scrapbook paper, glued with modge podge or spray adhesive.

 LOVE these...in the process of making mine right now, hoping to make it a little larger than these, it is going to be orange like the one here on the left with cream mixed in and will also have some cute embellishments on the outside. I will make sure I post a picture of the finished product, I can't wait to see how it turns out. It is just either a straw wreath form wrapped in plastic(plastic left on) or styrofoam wreath foam, your color choice of yarn, whatever embellishments you like, ribbon to hang it from, and a little hot glue to make sure everything secure.

Just a simple orange pumpkin with your choice of ribbon to decorate it with and any other embellishments you like.



Long week...another weekend of fun, football, & hanging out ahead.

After such a long week for Jake & I, it is finally FRIDAY and time to celebrate the weekend and its events, which for us always mean our big college football games, Sunday NFL Football, & to continue following the MLB Almost Post-season, obviously following our beloved New York Yankees. If you haven't been able to tell quite yet, we LOVE our sports. When we got married I was starting to get Jake drawn into baseball because he never watched it or was into it growing up and such. And since I personally feel like no one should miss out on the love that is the game of baseball, there is just nothing like a good, exciting baseball game, home runs are such a special moment. But since we both grew up LOVING football there was no explaining that sport necessary, although I was always more of an NFL fan than college growing up, but being married to Jake has really kinda drifted me the complete other way, so it has been really interesting. One game we had on Thursday night that was a little weird since it wasn't on Saturday afternoon or night was LSU and thankfully they won, so the LSU Tigers now stand at 3-0! Our Texas Longhorns had kinda a rough game last week, ended up taking out there quarterback and replacing him with Case McCoy (a.k.a. Colt's younger brother), Case did a great job and we came out with a win. So this week we are hoping to play even better with an even better win, this week we play UCLA Bruins which last year didn't go so well, but this year IS A DIFFERENT STORY! And tomorrow afternoon Jake's beloved Florida Gators are playing Tennessee which should be a good game, we are both looking forward to watching it, he will have to record it since he has to work until 8 tomorrow :( And then our last really big to watch tomorrow which thankfully isn't until 8 so we will get to watch it together is the big Florida State vs. Oklahoma University(who is #1). It is going to be one great game to watch because neither of us like either of those teams, but we will both be cheering for different teams because of the ranking advantages, so we shall see what happens!

Other than sports, Jake has been working alot this week since he had a three day management training plus his regular work schedule after his training was over on Wednesday evening. I haven't been that busy really, just trying to get everything taken care of here at home before October rolls around and we leave for our trip, which we are OH SO EXCITED about! Since I have so much spare time on my hands at home I have been trying to get all the closets and cabinets all organized before the holidays roll around since I am planning breaking out all of my fall decorations and working on some really cute fall stuff for the house when we get back from the trip and I want to make sure everything is organized and easy to find. And I am already at the point of counting down the days till our amazing vacation we have waited so long for, its almost to the point of where I sit around wishing that September would just be over already, so I think I am WAY PAST excited!

September 11, 2001

September 11, 2001 @ 8:46 a.m: I remember EVERYTHING about that day like I could walk back there and it experience all over again, EVERY LITTLE DETAIL! I remember it started off just like any other old day, nothing special at all about it, it was just a random day in September. It was a day in September in 2001 when my dad and brother had gone ahead in August and made the big move to Abilene so my dad could start his new job as the Chief of Police at ACU and so my younger brother could start at his new school while my mom, older sister and I stayed back home in Beaumont. I remember I was in the 9th grade at Cathedral Christian High School on the historic day. I was in my first period high school Physics science class with Mr. Lee when our principal walked in our classroom to pull our teacher out in the hallway to deliever the hard news to him but didn't tell the class, which I have always found strange. We left the class and I went on to my second period class which was my Math/Algebra class where I was told what had happened and what was going to happen since there was just so much chaos going on at that point. I remember asking questions, alot of why, and then going to have a devotional with the entire school in the hallway since I went to a Christian school we always did things like this in times like this, and I remember going home early! I remember staying home all day watching the news coverage all day with my sister and two cousins and also baking sugar cookies later because that always makes you feel better and going to eat mexican food at one of our local favorites with my grandparents and mom and still to this day when I walk in the restaurant I can remember the exact booth we sat in that day.

Some other distinct things I remember from that day:

- I remember calling my Dad that day since he was living in Abilene, I remember how emotional and uncomfortable feeling knowing that he was 500 miles away from the rest of our family unit on that scary day. I specifically remember asking my Dad if this was World War III because for our generation, at least someone my age this was the absolute first experience to war or terrorism or anything like that so that was another very uncomfortable feeling.

-I remember that I was wearing jeans and turquoise long sleeve v-neck t-shirt from American Eagle that day.

 picture of The New York Times on September 12th probably printed the day after attacks

 one of the many images I remember so vividly from the news coverage, magazines, newspaper, etc...

 loved what God did to our nation on this day and sometimes think we forget that as a nation and people on a daily basis, we were a different country and people on that day and in the days and months after...

 I will always remember seeing the endless amounts of debris in New York at Ground Zero from the collapse of the World Trade towers. I took my school trip to New York City in March of 2002 not very long after 9/11 happened and will never forget what Ground Zero looked like there was still an inhumane hole in the ground so deep, everything was gated off, most of the debris was cleared off so it didn't look at all like this image but there endless amounts of cards, pictures, notes, flowers and everything covering the gate in front of ground zero and all kinds of memorbial and plaques which was an experience I will never forget.

 Such a beautiful and meaningful memorial

The most creative design of a memorial I could ever think of, so special and meaningful to the victims' families, countries leaders, nyc fire fighters, police fighters, port authorities, everyone in the country and the world because everyone was affected!

WE WILL NEVER FORGET 9/11!!

Great Start to The Weekend

Last night since Jake got off work early we were able to get our weekend started off early in a fun way by getting to have dinner with my sister and brother in law at their house. It was our first time to have dinner with it just being the four of us, but needless to say it was a delicious meal that my sister cooked, a wonderful herb roasted pork roast, roasted red potatoes, fresh green beans, and a yummy green salad. They showed us the sweet baby's room which we both loved, all they have left to do is hang wall decor stuff up and get the bed from my mom in a few weeks when she comes from the two showers and get that all set up in the room and also a chair/glider that they ordered from a baby furniture store here in Houston that will be here in October and it will be ready for a sweet baby!! We are  really starting to get more and more excited by the day for this nephew or niece of ours, I really feel like it is a boy and have just felt like that all along, but I guess we will see! 

Another fun part of our weekend that is such an exciting part of every Saturday for us is College Football, it is so fun for us to get into each other's teams together and see what kind of good games happen each week, WE LOVE FOOTBALL!! I took the liberty of putting up a few pictures of our top three teams that we cheer on every Saturday no matter what since I really didn't have any other pictures to put up on here today! But anyways we will see how this Saturday of College Football unfolds for our household, I am really hoping for an exciting one, those really make for the best games!! Best luck to your teams and hopefully it is a fun Saturday and weekend for your family no matter if your teams win or lose! HAPPY SATURDAY :) 

Garrett Gilbert -Quarterback- University of Texas Longhorns #7

 HOOK' EM HORNS

GEAUX TIGERS!!

We love Les Miles and Jordan Jefferson and love to cheer on the LSU Tigers!!

Let's GO GATORS!!

I have been back from my exciting, fun trip to Abilene for awhile now but haven't sat down to upload the pictures to the computer and onto the blog and write about my weekend. So here we go...the last weekend of August Jake drove me to meet my parents in Temple (which is halfway between Katy & Abilene) so they could pick me up and take me back to Abilene for the weekend. It was really great to even get away for just a couple of days and so so incredibely wonderful to get back to Abilene and see the girls and spend the weekend with them! We got back pretty late on Wednesday night and hung out for a little while before heading to bed and then on Thursday morning Sara & Elizabeth came over to hang out since I was basically DYING to see that sweet baby girl who can talk like a four year now, wow! But I just hung out at my parent's house for the remainder of the morning until lunch time when I went to Oscar's for mexican food with my dad and brother and then went shopping for Elizabeth birthday presents with my mom later that afternoon when she got home from work. Luckily at the two stores to choose from there in Abilene for kids toys we were able to find Elizabeth some cute things like some adorable big girl pajamas, a sweet Madam Alexander baby doll, and a hilarious pink singing pig named Percy who sing My Girl. Once we got finished with our shopping we met my brother for dinner at Little Italy which was so delish as always! Then on Friday I had a hair appointment that morning to get a very much needed haircut and then my dad & I took Claire took lunch at the Hot Dog place as she calls it, I got to give her her birthday present since I wasn't able to come to her bday party since I was in the hospital in Houston and she loved it, it was such a precious pink ballet backpack to put all of her ballet clothes and such in with her name monogrammed on the front and a cute Angelina Ballerina book all about ballet that she loved and loved. I stayed all day over at the Trammells house and spent some much needed time with everyone and later that evening had dinner with all their family and mine included which was fun.

Then Saturday we had the BIG BIRTHDAY BASH of Elizabeth & Scout, which was fun with swimming, pizza, cupcakes, lots of kids and families that I have missed desperately, and open presents with a very exciting two year old. Elizabeth and Scout and best friends who were born two days apart and have had their birthdays together since they share so many of the same friends. Later Saturday night my parents & I went to dinner with the Trammells minus Sara & Talmadge who were at the Grace Museum Gala, so it was the grandparents with all the kids so we had dinner with them and then went to have frozen yogurt together which really fun. Then Sunday was spent just hanging out around the house with my parents until we left to meet Matt & Jenna in Temple for them to pick me up to take me back to Katy with them. So needless to say it was a GREAT ABILENE weekend and I needed it so much, it is so crazy how much it has helped me through everything!! Enjoy the sweet pictures :)

 Claire Louise

 Elizabeth enjoying swimming at her 2nd birthday party

 Claire & Avery having fun swimming at the birthday party

 The birthday girl posing for a quick picture

 Singing happy birthday to Elizabeth, cannot believe it has already been two years since God blessed us with her!

 She was really enjoying her icing

 LOVING her birthday cupcake

 Claire having another piece of pizza poolside

 Elizabeth having a Caprisun poolside

 The birthday girl making her funny face

 She is loving this cupcake

 YUMMY!!

 Happy Birthday to you sweet girl!!!

 She was blue icing everywhere!!

She LOVED percy the Pig singing My Girl to her!!!