{"Tis the Season" and 6 years}

(FYI... we have decided to make our blog private, so if you want to continue reading our blog then leave us your email address or mail your email address to us at ashspassion@hotmail.com.)

For being sick. It has already started. We weren't allowed in our house this whole last week...Monday through Friday. We were getting new windows put in the house b/c the old one's contained lead. So, the whole week we were in a Hotel. We enjoyed it b/c we had a pool to swim in everyday and we had a WONDERFUL breakfast every morning. I didn't have to feel bad for sitting around in the hotel room doing NOTHING. The baby got really congested about a day after we got into the hotel and Tanner had just gotten over a fever. I got the flu while we were in the hotel but it didn't last long. It started in the evening and lasted about 24 hours. It was a fever, sore throat and aches. Then i noticed Gavin and Tanner started getting congested. Now, as of today, they are coughing alot and just sound congested. We have already had to start his albuterol treatments for the first time this season. Hopefully it doesn't turn into something serious b/c about ONLY 30 minutes after his treatment he sounded like he was struggling to breath again. So, we have to try a few things and if it worsens at all then we have to go into i guess the pediatric ER....BUT hopefully when he wakes in the morning he will be better! :) Crossing fingers! I have a sore throat still and am getting a cough. Lucky for shane, he never gets anything!

The stay at the hotel was not an enjoyable one in the night. We were waking up all through the night. The baby didn't sleep good b/c he is congested so he was waking up a few times in the night. Tanner kept waking up in the night yelling for Gavin. "Gavin where are you?!?!?" We didn't get much sleep. We were so glad to be back in our house and our bed! We slept good too! All of us did!

Our new windows and doors look fabulous! I love em! It looks updated and just so good! :) When we moved back into our house yesterday we noticed a package! It was something i have been waiting for for awhile! We turned our 2007 blog into a book. It looks fabulous!!! I can't wait to do 2008 and 2009!! I don't even want to think about how much it will be though! It will be thick.
:)
I put out my christmas decor today. I couldn't resist! Minus the Christmas tree. That will come after thanksgiving. It was weird though. I put it out and turned on some Christmas music, but i had my windows open....weird! It seems like it should be COLD when listening to Christmas music, but i loved it anyway. The weather is so dang nice. It worries me a little for when January comes around...thinking we might get dumped on with lots of snow! We will see.

I came to realize something over the past 1-2 weeks. I miss my longer hair. I am now going to grow it back. Yup. I won't grow it as long as it was before....it was REALLY long. But it will be past my shoulders. I have loved my new hair style, but it seems like i have to trim it every 2 months in order for it to look good. So, the growing out process right now is not going to be a pretty one. This type of haircut just doesn't look good when it grows out! So, i am excited to have long hair again and shane is excited for me to have long hair again too. :)

Shane and i have our 6 year anniversary tomorrow! November 15. We probably won't do anything. At least right now. Shane planned something for us a little later that i will tell you about after we do it. ;) I am excited!
Six years! I can't believe it! Time is flying by! I get so sentimental anytime i think about what we have done, what we have been through, what we have accomplished and where we are going with our lives. It is amazing. I couldn't have picked a better man to enjoy the journey with. He keeps me going, he makes me want to be better, he challenges me, and he lifts me up when i am down, and he keeps life spontaneous and exciting. Sure, we have our moments of difficulty with one another....who doesn't?! Seriously. But what matters is how we make it through those difficulties together and become better from it, together. Together, we have grown so much from the first day we met. We have plenty more growing to do. I am excited i have him to do it with.
If you don't know our story.... i met him at a basketball game. Funny b/c that is his second love. I tried playing basketball in middle school, but our team lost every game. We stunk. Anyway, I was there watching a friend coach her basketball team and shane was there to watch another girl of interest play IN the game. I was there alone and He came up to me. I ended up telling him where i lived. Never thought he would actually stop by, but he did. Then I also ran into him at a subway, which might have sparked in him a reminder to call me to ask me on a date. :) Before i knew it we had been together everyday for a week. As soon as i realized that i took a step back b/c i thought it was going too fast. I mean, i was there waiting for my RM to arrive in like 3 weeks. YUP. My rm and i were meeting up at BYU to get the courting process going. I know! This wasn't the plan. I was there to have fun and was going to marry my RM. We had been talking for 8 months already. We had talked about marriage even. Soooo, this definitely wasn't in the plan! I didn't know what to do. I was just there to have fun. So, I stopped calling Shane for 2 days. I needed time to think and to take a breather and think about what was going on. He didn't like that and still gives me a hard time about it. After those two days of not returning his calls he came over to confront me. :) hahaha. ANYWAY, from there we dated for three months and then got married! It was quick! I ALWAYS told myself i would know a guy for all 4 seasons before i married him, and i thought girls who married guys quick were absolutely NUTS. Well, he turned me into a nut i guess. B/C that was freakin quick! I still wouldn't recommend it to ANYONE to get married that quick...it isn't smart. Luckily, i was at a time in my life where i felt i was in tune to the spirit more than i had ever previously been. And luckily i picked good b/c you really can't know a person and who they really are THAT quick! :) Really, i am so lucky. I got married at age 22. At BYU-I when guys found out i was 22 and not married they were SHOCKED. And some called me "old". hahaha. Seriously?. Anway, that is a different story. We met each other at the end of July, had our first date in August and married in November. We had our original date set for dec. 27th. Shane came to me practically begging me to change the date to Nov. 15th b/c he couldn't wait that long. hahaha. ;) I was in shock. Seriously. I was thinking, "we already made our invitations...we are already getting married quickly, but now you want me to do it even quicker?!?!" Who are you?!?! hahha. You know i am kidding hun. So, we changed it and had to make a separate piece of paper to slip into the invite that we changed our wedding date! haha. I love our story. :) It's the best. AND before he even proposed to me i had already set the temple date for our wedding....yeah, i had called and set it. :) hahaha. i know. I knew he was going to propose as soon as he got my ring, which was soon, but i didn't know exactly when and i didn't want the day we wanted to get married to be booked up....so i called and set the time and date. I told him afterwards what i had done. :) We got married in the SLC temple...where i always wanted to be married b/c that is where my mom and dad got married. My mom for many many many years gave me the nickname 'Goat'....i don't know why so don't ask why. Seriously. One day she just called me that. So, our wedding day i meet our Sealer and find out his name is Brother Goats. How hilarious is that?!?! Also, i want to Jenks highschool and now that is my last name! :) So funny huh?! The wedding day was perfect and that night in our beautiful hotel room..... i got food poisoning. Let's just say that our wedding night was NOTHING like i had planned in my head! But what really has gone the way i had planned for it to go?!?! :) Despite that everything has turned out wonderfully. That is the way i tell my story of it all....shane usually has a different story. :) I love you Shane. Happy 6th Anniversary.

{Texas, here we come}

We got a call yesterday from the Air Force telling us that we have been accepted into the AEGD one year residency and we are being stationed at Wichita Falls, TX. It wasn't our first choice. It was like # 5 or 6 on our list, but we will take it. :) So, this May we start our adventure. I cannot wait! In the 2000 census it showed a population of 105,000.

Here are a few things we are not far from...
1. 4 hours from where i grew up(Tulsa)
2. 2 hour drive to Dallas.
3. About an hour and a half from Shane's good friend who he grew up with in Idaho.
4. 7 hour drive from my best friend, rather than about a 20 hour drive.
5. 7 hour drive from my Aunt and Uncle and cousins.
6. 6 hour drive from the beach.
7. 15 minutes from the OK border!
8. 2 hour drive from OKC or Dallas temple.
9. 2 hour drive from Six Flags.
10. 5 1/2 hours from Sea World.
11. 5 1/2 hour drive to the beach.
12. 2 hour drive to the World Aquarium
13. I could go on and on, but i won't.

Other things to enjoy...
1. SUN and hardly any snow! Shane's buddy says it snows there only a couple times a year. The average temperature in the winter is about 40 from what i read. The sun shines a lot more than it does here! I get all 4 seasons, but with a milder winter and more SUN! yay! I know, it gets really hot in July and August, but its nothing new to me. Oklahoma had some pretty hot summer's. That means lots of swimming.
2. Thunderstorms! If you know me you know i love a good thunderstorm. Every spring and summer i always miss the OK storms i experienced all growing up. Well, now i get to enjoy them for at least a year while we are there. We are in tornado alley, big time, so let's hope a tornado doesn't go through while we are there.
3. Rodeo's. I love rodeo's. It's been awhile since i have been to one, but i can't wait.
4.I have a lot of friends in Texas...college friend, highschool friends, elementary friends...all of whom i haven't seen since those days. And Shane's buddy is there too.
5. Lots of outdoor swimming. If you live in the south you know there are plenty of pools to be found, so we will be swimming a lot.
6. Lots of outdoor BBQing! Ever since i had Tanner BBQ chicken and grilled veggies are my new favorite food. I could eat it everyday all day. I love perfecting my chicken over the grill. I would love to get those wood chips that you put at the bottom of the BBQ'er to smoke the chicken to make it taste even better! Aaaahhhh... lots and lots of bbq dinners. Okay, i bbq'd a lot this summer, but with the weather there i can do it more.

The unfortunate thing is that we will only be there a year. Are we going to be able to do all these things...haha...i wish. I think Shane will be a lot more busy than he is now. He won't get long Holiday breaks anymore either, unfortunately. That is the nice thing about school...they give you time on Holidays. But when you actually start working it isn't like that anymore.

If we could move to a new place every 3-4 years i would love it. I love experiencing new places and doing new things. I don't know what i am going to do when we actually have to settle down somewhere. We will just have to travel A LOT.

Anyway, I am excited to be back in my homeland, where southern accents are everywhere and the good ole southern country feel is present. I love it. We are really excited and can't wait. Can you tell?! :)

p.s. I probably won't be posting again for another 1 1/2 weeks to 2 weeks. LOTS goin on.

{Halloween, Fall, baby Jaydon, Learning new things}

This is what we have been up to in the past week...

Raking the leaves and playing in them. That tree with the yellow leaves is on that is in our neighbors yard, but part way in ours, so we get to enjoy the beauty of the bright yellow leaves everytime we walk out our back door. I love that tree. We pile all of our raked leaves next to the curb and the city comes by and sucks them up in some machine. It is nice. :) The boys look really happy to be having mommy take this picture, don't they?! :) haha.

After we raked all the leaves we came inside and had some yummy hot chocolate.
Here are the boys carving their pumpkins a few days before halloween and we also made caramel apples, which is a fall tradition.

Here are our boys on Halloween. Tanner has been waiting for a WHOLE MONTH to finally get to wear his costume, as you all know from one of my posts a month ago. He was the coolest and cutest Buzz-lightyear and everyone that saw him had to say something about how cute he was, which was A LOT. :) I had to agree with them. I wanted to eat him up all night long! Gavin was sooooo cool in his Optimus Prime. He ran into another Optimus, he also saw Bumblebee and Megatron!!! People would see him and start singing the Transformers song or they would say, "Oh, that is my favorite movie!!" He was proud. Little Jaydon was a giraffe. Gavin wore this when he was 10 months old and it was a tight squeeze. It's a size 12-18 month costume. Jaydon fit perfect into it. Anymore growing and he wouldn't have fit in it so well. Here are their pumpkins all lit up outside. I wore my sisters Kitty Ears, tail, and bow around my neck. :) It was a fun fun night. There is a certain street we go trick or treating on that is pretty hoppin every year. It was fun. We also started a little funny family tradition....We had a trial-run Turkey dinner on Halloween night. I made a little Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and rolls. We ate that before we went trick or treating and we listened to scary sounds while we ate. It sounds funny, but it was kind of fun for us and it got us EXCITED for Thanksgiving Day!!! :) And Auntie Holly was with us the whole time which made it even more special. :)

And here is baby Jaydon. He is 5 months old now. Isn't he the cutest?!?! He sleeps pretty good through the night, but he is in a habit of waking up at about 4:30 in the morning. Anyone have any advice on what i can do so that he will stop waking up and just sleep 12-13 hours straight?!?! I know, i could let him cry it out, but he is different than my others. He screams hysterically and acts like he is dying. I just can't handle letting him do that. I have tried once and he will go on and on. The longest i let him cry for was about 2 hours and he won't stop. Any other ideas?

And here is daddy teaching Gavin to ride his bike without the little wheels on the back. We are going to go to the tennis court later today to teach him b/c we don't have enough room here at our house. If we were at the tennis court i think he would get the hang of it a lot faster. By the way, i learned how to ride my bike on a tennis court...remember dad? So, it will be fun doing the same thing with Gavin. :)

The day after Halloween i took all the Halloween stuff down, cleaned my house, and put up Thanksgiving and a few Christmas decorations. I am going to hold off on listening to Christmas music until Thanksgiving. It will be hard, but i need to wait.