Summer Time 2014

I got most our house out of boxes before I left for my open ended vacation. We moved 5 days before I got on the plane. Marques started working the day after I left for a temp. job while we wait to hear about jobs in his field. I flew to Utah with my sister, and her 3 kids. The flight went incredibly well. The airlines we flew charged for everything, but it was fine and it got us from point A to B. My sister, Kellie, was waiting for us on the other side. It was a was from the airport home, but it was just fun to be there.
Week one: We started GRANDMA CAMP the next day. The four days to follow were all filled with the most wonderful activities and events to not only bring the cousins together, but as sisters we enjoyed so much! All five of us came home with all the grandkids! Yes all 15 of them, and us five girls stayed at my parents house for 4 days. It was a blast, and a life changing experience for me and my sisters to reconnect our sisterhood like never before. So glad this will be a yearly thing.
Week 2 was spent in Salt Lake. I stayed at my parents other home there all by myself. It was nice to have some down quiet time after the past few days. I visited with Marques' grandma and aunt most the days I spent there. But the main reason I went was to support his sister getting out her endowments! I am so greatful for the church and the blessings that come from being a part of it. What a wonderful experience for all of us. I am so glad that she chose to do it while I was there. What a good time of life for her, we are so proud to have her as out siste. I loved also being able to remember mine and to reflect on how blessed I am to have a wonderful mom who helped me through it with ease to make the most of my day! I love you mom.
Week 3-5 were spent in LA. My sister Lindsey lives there in the northern part and my sister Christine lives an hour south of there. So I was able to see and spend time with them both. When I first arrived I had no leave date. Most people asked how that worked out as I left Marques at home, but he is so great and told me to come home when I was ready, lol. It was fun to see people's faces too. Christine was able to bring home my baby neice, Jaide, from the hospital while I was there. Jaide's adoption into our family had just become final and it was so good to see and hold her. I also got the privilege of visiting with Marques' dad and step-mom. We ate several meals together, mom and I got nails done, and dad and I got to go to the beach for a family reunion thing! It was so fun to see our family from the varela side and to enjoy a day at the beach again!! Toward the end of week 4 Marques flew out and we spent some days with both sides of the family. We then packed up the car we bought from my bro in law and headed out on the 24 hour trip back to Texas!
My husband was so gracious to allow me to go.. He stayed home and worked a ton of hours even overtime! What a great Husband!!
Once back home I started looking for jobs and finished putting our house together. We have found several unlivable things in our house that needed to be fixed like dining room and bathroom lights out (the electrition had to be called as we tried everything we knew), the dishwasher and microwave, sink with a hole in the bottom, leaking focet, and non working shower. So we had lots of people coming to fix all those things. And hey I learned how to and installed toilet paper holders in all three of our bathrooms!! That's a good thing! I also found a job fairly easy. About 20 minutes after I applied, I received a phone call and got an interview. We had a small run around that I had a second interview with another school and thought I missed my chance for the first one, but it all worked out and I have a good job as a Content Mastery Resource Teacher in a Junior high. Marques is still doing steps for jobs, and hoping to hear soon on some positions. Please Please pray for us as we wait to hear back that we will get a good job that can be a good career path for us! I will also post pictures and now that I am home and in a routine again, I will start posting more regularly. Love you all--

Leading into Summer

Well, as usually I have let it go a couple of months, lol. So the end of April was pretty normal. Marques' school was winding down. He got to go to D.C. to present his last project. He was also able to site see a bit and seemed to really enjoy it. And might I add his group got the top group rating in his whole school for their project. I was so proud of him, and his group!! We continued to feed the missionaries as we always do. And as it  has gotten warmer, Rio is enjoying the park, but gets tired much quicker, and arrives home to be a dead doggie! I took on a second job for the last month and a half of school to help try to ease our money situation. I worked for the After-school program that I was working for before we did our internship. So it was long hours from 7 in the morning til 6:30 at night, but we made it through. At the beginning of May my mom came into town for the big day... GRADUTAION!! We were both so proud of Marques, and how wonderful was it to watch him walk up there and here his name in the graduating Class of 2014!! Wow, this moment that I had been wanting and waiting for for two years was here. It seemed so surreal. But non the less I was so grateful for my mom coming, and being able to share that special time with her. My husband did so great, and I will never forget not only what he did here, but what he has done for our family. So proud of you Marques!!! I couldn't have asked for a better spouse.

As the summer started we left for up north to spend time with my sister who had moved here. My parents both flew in and it was wonderful to spend a weekend with all of us! Two weeks after that we went back up there to start the search for a place to live. We figured that at least for now while we wait to here on some jobs in Texas that we might as well stay here for a while, but be by family. So we spent that past week and half at my sisters house. It was a nice break since I didn't have to come back to work and we were able to spend some good time there looking for houses. We found a cute little townhouse that really reminds me of Daybreak in Utah. It is more rent then we were hoping to pay, but we had a really hard time finding places that would not only take our pupster, but that didn't allow smoking. It seemed that every place really smelled like smoke, but we got blessed and found our little house. The last two weeks spent in C.S. were mainly packing up our things, and doing our cleaning to ensure that we got our deposit back. It was wonderful that last weekend there, we had some of the missionaries we had fed in the past few years there come back to visit. I threw a little birthday bash for Marques as well, and they got to come. As most of you know, I grew up with missionaries in my home and really loved being able to serve them in C.S.. It was a full house that night as I invited friends too, but we had a great time, and we got to say good-bye to most our close friends. On Tuesday of that week, at the end of June, I took off for our new home. I got to experience driving the U-haul with my puppy three hours. Let me tell you that was quite the drive. But hey I only called Marques crying once when I broke the visor, and I didn't have to worry about falling asleep as the adrenalin was plenty to keep me awake. But we both made it safe, and were excited to try something new...Until next time--