Poor, poor Wally!!

Whoa! Poor puppy! Wally went to get a haircut on Monday and according to the hairdresser, he moved just a bit too much. Mom sent me this picture and James and I got such a kick out of it, that we needed to share it with all of you. Those of you who know Wally can imagine how upset he is by this. Mom said he hasn't smiled since Monday! Poor thing! I thought you might like to see before and after:

Lots to do, but SUPER excited

I have been busy, busy this week. James and I are leaving for Playa del Carmen, Mexico very early Friday morning! We are both super excited about this time to "get-away" and spend lots of time together. As of right now, I have our dining room table covered with random things I'm afraid of leaving behind and even more random lists that will hopefully help with preparations.

Although I'm really excited, I'm also a tad bit anxious. We ask for prayers for safe travel and no problems during our trip. I doubt I will post again until we return on Tuesday. Stay tuned for an update!

A GREAT Weekend

This was a wonderful, hot, fun weekend! It started off Friday night with James and I going to a Frisco Roughriders Game. Although, we were soaked with sweat five minutes after finding our seats, we had a wonderful time. The stadium is small compared to the Ranger's stadium, so I had a lot of fun "people watching". Following the game, they put on a wonderful fireworks show. No matter how old I get or how many times I have seen fireworks, I am filled with joy each time I see them.

Here is a self-timer picture of James and I before heading out to the game. Thank goodness for our hats or we would have been blinded by the sun!
Although we had choices of chili cheese nachos, cotton candy, turkey legs and peanuts, we chose Dippin' Dots ice cream for our ballgame treat. Chili in the 100 degree temperatures was not appealing to me at all.

Here is James enjoying his Dippin' Dots in his souvenir ball cap bowl. This was before the game started, pretty soon after this picture we were surrounded by people, only increasing the sweat factor.
Mom and I have been wanting to go do some shopping in Mineola for a while now, but just hadn't gotten around to it. Well, Saturday she was off, so I drove over and we had such a fun Mother/Daughter Day. I have never had such good luck in one day and Mom scored pretty big too! Here is a collection of our finds. It is a tough choice on what my favorite item from the day was, but I LOVE the t.v. trays on the left. I couldn't wait to get home and find the perfect spot for all my new treasures!
This is Mom's favorite purchase from the day. She bought these matching stain glass windows. Aren't they beautiful?

Here is my first piece of stain glass. You can't tell from the picture, but one of the panes has a crack, so I got it for a huge discount. It has already landed in my kitchen window.
Here I am playing with all my new goodies!
Saturday evening, Russell, Sarah and Riley were also at Mom and Dad's. I must say the Smith house is way more entertaining now that we have a new family member. Here is Riley with Dad. I like this picture, because you can see how long he is!

For me, this photo shoot was the most entertaining. I wanted to get some pictures of Mom and Dad with Riley. Well, guess who decided he needed to be in the pictures too? Wally! He sat perfectly still, smiling and looking at the camera the whole time. It was so funny!
Riley's shirt says, "Good looks run in the family." I would agree. Look at that handsome Grandy!

Riley and Aunt Rachel

Since I was in East Texas, I spent Saturday night and drove out to camp on Sunday. I NEEDED to see my long, lost friend Laura. It was so wonderful to spend a couple of hours with her and play catch up.
Riley must have really enjoyed the heat of camp, because he was conked out! At this point, I think both of our clothes were soaked through with sweat. Of course I didn't mind. Anything goes when I have the sweet boy in my arms.
While I was gone, James had some good times with friends. He went to see the Batman movie and played a little golf on Sunday. We both enjoyed our weekend, but were happy to be home together last night. I think that time apart is good for us as individuals and helps us even more once we come back together as a couple. I hope all of you had a good weekend and are looking forward to a the last few days of July.

I Knew It!!!

Just a quick brag on my husband, before he figures out I'm doing this. If you read my post yesterday, you will remember that I said, "from what I can tell James is good at his job." Well, today I was proven right! He came home for a few minutes today and reported his good news. He was given a "Commitment to Excellence" award at working for his daily job well done. He makes me proud everyday! I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. I should have some fun stuff to post about on Monday!

When Everything Fell Into Place

A couple of posts back, I filled all of you in on a few details of how James and I reconciled and reunited. I left off with us trying to figure out how and when we could remarry. So here is a brief overview of how everything fell into place.

As you all know, I was living in Tyler and had a good job there. James was in Dallas, had a job that he loved and a new apartment. Trust me, I was very thankful for my job and I LOVED living in Tyler close to Mom and Dad, but more than my job and more than living close to Mom and Dad I wanted to be with James. Believe it or not, we did discuss him finding a job in Tyler and moving to be with me. I was so thankful that he would at least consider that option, but in my heart I knew I could not let him leave his job unless absolutely necessary. He loves his job and from what I can tell is absolutely wonderful at it. There is no way he could find close to the same thing in Tyler. So, we decided that I would move to Dallas.

I quit my job and the timing could not have been more perfect for them. They were interviewing that week to fill another position and said it would be no problem to hire two people instead of one. Whew!!! So, no guilt there! Okay, onto the next thing. What about my apartment? I had one month left on my lease, so we decided "okay, we will take the loss and just pay the rent even though I would not be living there." I decided to put an ad on Craigslist just to see what would happen. What do you know?? A man from Dallas contacted me immediately and said he would be in Tyler taking a 3 week class and needed somewhere to live. He was thrilled to find my place. Worked out perfect for both of us!

James expressed over and over that it would not be necessary for me to work when I moved to Dallas, if that would help get us on the right track. I knew that a super, stressful social work job was not the best idea at this time, but I also knew that I would need something to give me purpose and keep me semi-busy. So, we discussed several part-time jobs that I would enjoy and that would not be far from the house. (I really hate Dallas traffic, as I'm sure we all do) I decided to post a profile on a website for families looking for a nanny. Long story short, I was found, hired and will begin my job as a nanny on August 11th for 5 and 7 year old sisters!! The family has been wonderful so far and I'm not sure who is more excited for August 11th to get here, the girls, their mother or myself. I feel like it is going to be a wonderful fit. I will go to their house in the morning when Mom and Dad leave for work, get the girls up, dressed, fed and dropped off at school. I will then pick them up after school, drop them off at activities "A", "B" and "C" and then have them home when Mom and Dad get home from work around 6 PM.

Now if all of that doesn't sound just wonderful, read on!! Two days out of each week while the two girls are at school, I will be spending some wonderful, quality time with the other love in my life-Riley! Yep, while Sarah teaches voice lessons 2 days a week, I get to keep Riley. I could not be more excited to have the wonderful opportunity to get to love on my sweet nephew.

Right now, I am enjoying this time to really focus on James, myself and our marriage. I could not be more thankful for this life. I will leave you with a picture of James and I at the bowling alley last week.

Woodall Ranch

My apologies for not posting this sooner. Our internet has been down since Monday afternoon, but thankfully we are up and running again. Last Sunday, those of us who could make it went out to Paris to Grandma and Granddad's house. It is always nice to get to visit there, but for some reason this trip was especially fun. It was very relaxed, the weather was nice and we had lots of good food! Now on to some pictures!

This is my new favorite picture of Riley. I just love how he folds up so nicely! If I haven't mentioned this to you before, I'll say it now-I'm in love with him!
Grandma getting a little love from Riley before he had to leave.
Now, I know this comes as no surprise to anyone, but James is a city boy! He has never, ever ridden a horse. E and S, the horse experts, were there to convince him that it was time to take a ride. He was a bit nervous, but a very good sport about it. This first picture is of him eyeing Shorty (I think) to let him know who is boss. Now S is giving him so lessons on what to do. She was very good at that!

E supervising the whole thing. Do you notice she is riding bareback? Granddad decided he better come out and check on things. I'm sure he didn't totally approve of James' choice of riding attire.

This is the best picture I got of all three of them on the horses. I would say the girls look a bit more relaxed than James.
As I mentioned, the weather was perfect that evening. Here is James cooking steaks out on the grill, which was followed by home-made ice cream on the patio. What a great night!
We don't see skys like this very often in the metroplex, so it was wonderful to end such a good day with this view as we left Paris.
Thanks to all the Woodalls for a wonderful day. We really enjoyed seeing everyone and hope to do it again soon.

Sneak Peak

So, I thought I would give everyone a sneak peak at what I have been up to. I think you may remember this...
Now, it looks like this!! This is a little area to your left when you walk in the front door. It is by far my favorite place in the apartment. I love that we don't have to use the guest bedroom as an office. More pictures to come from our adventures at the Woodall Ranch yesterday. Happy Monday!

A Few More Details

We have had many questions come our way and I'm sure there are many questions that have been held back, so I thought I would attempt to answer a few and fill you in on the last several months. I won't go into every detail, because even I can't remember them all!



So let's all back up to April...James has made several attempts to contact me for a while, but I had been dodging his calls, emails and letters. I just wanted closure and had no hope for any change. On April 4th, I had been at Mom and Dad's (my favorite hang-out while living in Tyler) and had come home around 9 or so. When I got home I saw that I had a voicemail from James. I hesitantly listened and immediately knew something was different just by his tone of voice. I took a gamble and called him back. We sat and talked (and cried and cried and cried and I will admit, I probably even yelled at a little) until the wee hours of the morning and for the first time since all of this nightmare had started I could hear huge chance coming from James. Now I could hear huge change from him, but I was still very scared and very bitter. To wrap it up, I was what they call a female dog to him, but he persisted. I was to be in DFW the following night for a wedding and James kept asking if he could drive to Tyler, take me out to dinner and talk some more. I kept saying, "no, I won't be in Tyler." "Where will you be?" "None of your business." Yeah, I was not very nice. Anyways, after 3 hours I told him I would be in DFW and agreed to meet him for dinner.



Now, to spare you all from tons more details, we had a very hard, sad dinner that night. Over the next few weeks we spent time talking on the phone and James would drive on Saturday and Wednesday nights to Tyler, spend a couple of hours and then drive back to Dallas. It took me at least a month to really soften my heart and really listen to James' heart, but with time we began to start over. James had been in counseling since shortly after the split and then we began seeing a marriage counselor together immediately after we reconnected. James had also joined a Men's small group and as he says, "was slapped around quite a bit by them." He gives a lot of credit to those men, as well as an older man, Dee who he had trained, for pushing him in the right direction.



I said it took some time for my heart to soften, but once it did-IT DID!! I really don't remember when or how it happened, but as soon as I let my guard down just a bit, I fell head over heels in love with James again. He was a different man and I was a different woman, but we were both better. Once we both knew that no matter what we wanted to remarry, we told ourselves, "okay, no rush. let's take our time." Yeah right, originally we said we would marry in November. As you all know, that didn't work out!! It was excruciating to have been married, to know we wanted to be married and yet not be married. When he would leave Tyler, it was horrible. So we began to figure out how and when we would make this all work and that is when everything fell into place.



To Be Continued...

Empty Nest

A few weeks ago, I happened to look up at our apartment from the parking lot and see a bird's nest dangling off the edge of the windowsill. So I immediately went upstairs, sat on the floor and peeped through the blinds to find a big, beautiful bird perched in the nest. Over the next few weeks I watched as Momma bird prepared her Baby bird to take on the world. I watched as baby bird went from fuzzy and cute to bigger and prettier. I was heartbroken the other day to peep through the blinds and find that Baby was gone. I really enjoyed my chance to witness nature at it's best from the floor in my dining room, even if it meant squatting down and barely raising the blinds. No other time I have been within inches of Momma and Baby birds. As I said, I really was sad to see them go. Today, I was out shopping and look what I found!! A new, cute little friend who will never leave me to take on the world. Is that not the happiest little bird you have ever seen? I haven't decided on a name yet. I hope you all are having a happy, peaceful night. Much love to you.

A Big Ole Mess

First I have to show you James' new prized possession. I must admit, I have enjoyed it a time or two myself. : )

Now onto the big ole mess, I think that all of you know me well enough to know that I love to decorate, organize and nest. Yep, I'm a nester. Anyways, James moved into this apartment at the end of April and a friend from ACU moved into the extra bedroom. Apparently, two men don't care so much for decorating, organizing or nesting. So now that the roommate is out and I am in, I am having a blast! We slowly moved things in over the last month or so, but just dropped it where it would land until I moved in for good. So all of these pictures were taken last Saturday and I have made quite a bit of progress since then. I hope to show you all some much cleaner, cozier pictures of the place once I have my fun with it.



Now, I'm off to IKEA for some curtains and other fun stuff!! I hope you all have as much fun today as I will.

A Second Chance

Well, I decided that it was time to join the "blog world". I have been wanting to do this for some time, but didn't know if I had anything interesting enough to blog about. I think this news falls into the category of interesting enough...

James and I got remarried!!!! Or "undivorced" as James likes to call it. When we left the Justice of the Peace, he said "I didn't know anything could be faster than the first ceremony, but that was faster!" I know this may come as a surprise to many of you. I can honestly say, that I am the last person who would have EVER thought we would be able to work things out. I guess that just goes to show what a lack of faith I had, but also what a low, low place we both were individually and as a couple. I know that I have nothing to apologize for, but I will say that I have felt a little guilty the last few months. So, please allow me to get this out there and then I will be done with it. James and I made a decision early on that we wanted to try and work this out together, not with everyone else. We did share with our parents that we were working on reconciliation and basically left it at that. As much as we both appreciate everyone's support, encouragement and love we both felt it would be better to figure this out on our own. To those of you that I left in the dark or perhaps even lied to, I'm really sorry. I know that all of you love me more than I could have ever imagined and you don't want to see me hurt. For that I will forever be grateful! I will be more than happy to answer any questions that any of you may have about what has happened, how we are doing, etc. I have told several people and James as well, that it is not appropriate for me to fight his battle. That is his job, not mine. When it comes to facing some of you and your tough questions or hard feelings, only he can look you in the eye and say what needs to be said. I have seen the love and forgiveness this family is capable of and I have no doubt that as time passes you will all be able to see James for who he is now. Having said that neither of us expects it to be easy or quick.

We talk alot about what we learned through this experience, what we hope to carry with us through the years and how it has changed us. I can honestly say, that we have seen the Mighty Power of God through this experience. There is no other reason we are sitting in this apartment together today. I have always known the "right" answers in Sunday School and taught the "good" lessons at CDR, but I never truly knew what real forgiveness felt like or what a powerful God he actually is. James and I are trying to get through one day at a time, one battle at a time, one issue at a time, but we both believe that we can not remain silent about our story. It's definitely not time to start "preaching" (in fact it will never be time for that), we are no where close to being strong enough, but we can gently share our story of love and forgiveness. There will come a day when we can change at least one couple's marriage just by being honest about our life.

I really hope to use this blog to keep people informed of our daily happenings, but also as a place to be honest about how we are doing. Not a place to air dirty laundry, but a place to ask for encouragement and advice, a place to share a story or a lesson learned. I look forward to yet another avenue to communicate with those I love. I hope you enjoy!!