how I get from here to there

My little purple car and I have had some good times together over the past 10 years. I remember getting her on Valentine's Day on 1998. I had decided on a cavalier, and I got really excited when II found out they had a purple one with a cd player! In those early years, she took me to high school, to work at Circle D, and we made the drag and enjoyed the night life in good 'ole Roby, Texas. Then she was patient with me as together we figured out our way around the big city of Abilene! In college, she was lots of fun on those late night Bueno and Sonic runs. Spring break of freshman year, she took her longest trip to date and went all the way Waco and made it through a huge rain storm. She even survived a couple of speeding tickets and wrecks. The last few years, her life has been fairly calm, thankfully we've stayed away from those tickets and wrecks on the way to Bonham and back home, and it's been a while since we've made the drag, but we've had fun, and she's been a good car. I hope her new owner will take good care of her!

We decided that was time to say bye to my little purple car and trade her in for something a little roomier. I had fun going down memory lane as I cleaner her out. The glove box had some things I hadn't seen in a while, including my first cell phone (the one my dad got me for emergencies only--it's one of those thick black flip phones and could probably be used in a cell phone museum somewhere:)), an old Roby phonebook from 1998 with my sweet grandma's handwriting on the front, and handy map of Abilene that my sweet mama drew for me with all the places I needed to go (it was the result of several teary phone calls when I was totally lost and her discovering that when needing to get from super Walmart to the mall, I went all the way back to Treadaway...if you know anything about Abilene, you probably know that this is definitely not the most efficient route!).

We researched various car options, looking for a cute, roomy, safe, reliable, fuel efficient car to replace the little purple one, and decided on a Honda CR-V. It is glacier blue and has one of those lock/unlock things on the key....something I've been looking forward to for a while now. It also has GPS navigation, and if you read the previous paragraph, I'm sure you can understand why this will be quite helpful for me and my non-existent sense of direction. So, without further ado, here is our new car!

I'm looking forward to making fun new memories with my cute new car!

Summertime....and the livin' is easy....

We've been enjoying summertime here in Clarksville.

Another school year ended with its usual craziness. This year was especially wild at my school, because our campus is being renovated and we had to pack EVERYTHING (54 boxes to be exact). Only elementary teachers save so many awkward to pack, fragile, heavy, bulky things, that we hope to remember to pull out once or twice a year to enhance the education of our future leaders!

Since then, Keith and I have both been working at ACU. Keith got a job as the campaign manager for the new enrollment marketing department. He gets brainstorm how to "sell" the ACU experience to highschoolers with a great group of people and "play" with spreadsheets. He's enjoying it. It is not the type of job we expected, but it has been a blessing. I'm working part time in the education department as the assistant director of the reading clinic, a class where senior education majors tutor children one on one. My job is a lot of fun too; I get to help the college students look at test results and decide how best to meet their client's reading needs, grade their lesson plans, and fill in when a tutor is absent. It's a fun, low-key summer job. I'm finished by lunch, so in the afternoons, I rotate napping, shopping, TV, laying out by the pool, and such....I know, I know it's a tough life:)

During the evenings and weekends we've spent time with each other and with friends. We started watching LOST and we LOVE it!! We're hooked. It's a great show--abc.com has them all for free online right now, so if you've ever thought about watching it, now's the time. You. will. love. it. It is not a show you can watch sporadically, because if you do, you'll be really confused. We've enjoyed a couple marathons already and have just finished season 2.

We're happy that our friends, Nick, Lauren, and sweet Emmy moved to Abilene! We've shared several meals and played lots of games with them! We've also had some fun visits from out of town friends like Whitney and Suzanne, two bffs from ACU that are lots of fun! Both of these girls are the kind of friends that I don't keep in touch with quite like I should, but every time I see either of them we're able to pick right up where we left off. I'm thankful special friends like that!

Last weekend we went to see Jacquie, Spruce, and Lynlee. We enjoyed getting to play games with them and some of their new friends on Friday night. You can't beat a good game night! Saturday we hung out and played with Lynlee; she is growing and learning so much! That night we celebrated Jacquie's b.day! We went and ate at one of those fun Japanese steak houses and then enjoyed a Rascal Flatts concert. You can read more about our history with Rascal Flatts here. It was so much fun! Such a better experience. Let me sum up the contrast for you....concert number #1--drunk teenagers falling on us and getting muddier than a pig pen full rooters, concert #2--Clay Walker wearing tight jeans, shaking his stuff, and thinking he's 15 years younger, concert #3--soft grass, shade, lots of fun songs to sing along to, sweet kids sitting behind Keith making shadow puppets on his back, funny families to observe, and last but not least, "Spike" (our term of endearment for the lead singer) got a haircut:) Although this was by far the best experience of the three, they all had good friends and lots of laughs in common! Sunday morning we joined them for chuch, met lots of friendly people, and heard a great sermon by Jarrod. Oh yeah, I can't forget to mention meeting precious Rylee, Jarrod and Lauren's sweet daughter!

Hope all of you fellow bloggers are enjoying your summer!