Monday, July 11, 2011

Headin' West, My Friend


We're moving to Denver.

It's true. We're moving from The Woods to the mountains. Matt got an amazing job offer with his company that we'd be absolutely crazy to pass up. He's essentially working two jobs right now until his current group finds his replacement. As the summer goes on he'll be spending about half of the week, if not more, in Denver until he's more permanently in his job and we're all there, which is effective the second week of September. This is so bittersweet for me. It took me a while before I could even talk about it without crying. No doubt this will be such an adjustment for me for all the obvious reasons. My family is here. Here is my home. It's warm here. I will freeze to death in Colorado. I'll probably get myself into a hundred car accidents trying to drive in the winter weather. (I'm seriously so nervous about that.) I'm so happy here in The Woodlands and with our life here, it will not be an easy process for me. That said, I'm also excited at the opportunity to have a life in Denver. Out of all the places to get transferred to, you can't do much better than Denver, right?! Plus my Aunt Jennifer and her family will be just a little over an hour away in Ft. Collins and my dear friend Tami lives in the very suburb we got our house in. I'm so incredibly thankful for them. Tami has already done so much for us, I look forward to the friendship I'll have there with her.

We just got back from a whirlwind trip to Denver. We accomplished our goal of signing on a house and we're incredibly excited about it! We'll be living in Arvada, a suburb just west of Denver. We're still trying to get over our shock of how quick it is to downtown--maybe 15 minutes?! We're so used to everything being so spread out here in Houston and planning 30 minutes to 1 hour to get anywhere-even in The Woodlands. It will be so easy to go into Denver (again, 15 minutes!) to do so many fun things and Matt's commute will be so incredibly short, it will be wonderful. We're actually super close to Golden too. In fact, our zip code shows up as Arvada or Golden depending on where you search or who you ask. Matt's big thing when finding a house was having great mountain views. He figures if we're uprooting to Colorado, we better go all out and have a wonderful house with fabulous mountain views. He got it all. Here's the view from our master bedroom. (Most all rooms have a great view in this house...)
I'm so excited thinking about our new house. It's awesome. There's an incredible patio sure to make for lots of outdoor living in our future, plus we get the fun kids play set in the backyard--that's really exciting! As soon as we move in we're going to add another bedroom and bathroom in the basement (it's unfinished right now). There's a nice, big storage area we're going to leave down there, and then also a huge space in the basement that will be perfect for the babies' play area. I'm also looking forward to our wonderful kitchen. It's got double ovens, so bring on the Holidays! Double ovens also means I better step my game up as far as cooking and baking go, right?! I'm looking forward to that when I get the time. Meanwhile, I guess we'll enjoy double the boxed, 3-ingredient brownies and cookies! I'm happy Cole and Cam will each get their own room and once we add the bedroom in the basement, it will be a 5 bedroom house. So once again, bring on the Holidays and bring on what we hope will be many, many, MANY visitors. More pictures to come...

Our house here officially goes on the market today. We'll be living super crazy these days trying to always have the house ready to show. I'm notorious for my "sad times" that I get in situations when I'm leaving family/friends or when they're leaving me. In that aspect, it's probably a good thing we're moving so quickly. "Sad time" is definitely not a good place for me to be in. I don't eat, I have tummy issues (even more than my little Crohn's-self already has), I cry a lot, and one action or word can lead me to a dangerous downward spiral. I'll cut the drama--but it's not a fun place to be in! I'm constantly trying to stay focused on all the hundreds of tasks at hand so I don't get trapped in it. And again, it's not like we're moving somewhere horrible where we'll know no one and no one will ever come visit. We're moving to a great place and I'm remembering that we're lucky to get such a great opportunity and so thankful Matt has such a wonderful job right now. To get through the stressful and sad times of selling our house (that we love so much) and moving away, I'll just keep thinking of the exciting new path our lives are taking and settling into our new house...Good times ahead!...

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Baptism Day

The babies were baptized a couple weeks ago at our Church we love so much. Even extra special about it was that the minister who married us was able to stand up there with our babies to bless them himself personally during the ceremony. He is now the senior pastor at our Church. I'm telling you--Reverend Meador still could be Roy Williams' twin! He is such a sweet man, Matt and I think it is incredible our lives have passed with him again and he was able to participate first-hand in our babies' baptism 8+ years after he married us. We weren't able to take any pictures of the actual baptism but we were able to get a DVD of it from the Church. I'm sure we'll make some of you watch it at some point so you can see how absolutely precious Cole and Cam looked with the minister as he held them and blessed them. ;) They did so well though. No crying from these babies!

Adding to the special aspects of the day were all our families and friends that attended the baptism and little party we had at our house afterwards. Matt and I are always so touched how much these babies are loved and we were particularly touched by everyone that Sunday. We definitely had the biggest showing that day, taking up the most pews by far! Luckily we were able to get in some pictures in the Church afterwards...


It's kind of hard to see their baptism outfits in detail in these pictures. I love them, they're perfect. I thought we'd have a hard time narrowing down all the pretty dresses we'd find for Camryn. Not the case--they're all so crazy expensive!...For a dress she wears one time! Janie and Jack had a most precious dress, for $169. I don't think so. Who in their right mind would spend that??? Shockingly enough, that's where we found Cole's adorable little boy one-piece suit. On sale for $22. That's a rarity at Janie and Jack. I can't believe the steal we got on his most perfect baptism outfit. We ended up at Macy's for Cam. After searching through several super expensive dresses, and too ornate at that, we found her perfect dress. Just the tiniest detailing and at the right length so it doesn't interfere with her crawling (one of her pet peeves-at 10 months, the girl's already got certain issues). The price tag said $40. I figure that's just the going rate for these dresses anymore so I reluctantly go to pay, because truly, it is her perfect dress. You can imagine my surprised excitement when it rang up for $20! I'm not one of those people who always or can only be happy if a I find a deal, but after cringing at the thought at what we'd have to spend on nice baptism outfits, I was pleasantly surprised with my luck at finding a good deal on precious outfits--outfits that are now sure to look adorable on Cam's future baby dolls!
With Grandpa and Grandma Jackie
With their favorite Aunts Cheryl and Nora
With their beloved Cary and Great-Grandma Jenny
With their Mimi and Brent
With their favorite Uncle Robby. Seriously, they love him--I think this might be the first time Camryn has ever cried with him! She's clearly done with the picture-taking process here.
With Brent's Dad, Earl

Always up for any reason to get a cake from RJ Goodies...We enjoyed a most yummy cake. I had them put some doves on it since the babies are in the "Dove Room" at their Church nursery.
Amanda and James were there for all the festivities




Celebrating with Shannon and her new sweet baby girl Carlin
Moments after this picture was taken Cole took a nice snooze on Cary

We're so happy Grandpa Bill was able to be here for their baptism
Still in recovery mode from our NKOTBSB concert the night before. We had such a fun weekend!
With Grandma Dolores
Cam was definitely ready to snuggle up with baby doll and sleep well after her big day of celebration