October 31, 2008

Carrie Underwear!!!

You see that bluish blob, that's Carrie Underwood! (or Carrie Underwear as Nathan calls her. He is such a kid, but that's just one of the reasons I love him!)

Nathan and I purchased Carrie Underwood concert tickets back in July and the big day finally arrived last night. We were both anxiously awaiting this night for a good while (I think I was a little more excited about it than Nathan was tho, at least I hope so . . . )


Nathan rented a Jeep for the weekend which goes along with a surprise he has in store for me today! He assured me we are not going off-roading. I'm glad he realizes he would appreciate that a whole lot more than I would ;)

He picked me up from work in the Jeep and I don't know how long I was standing outside the rotunda looking at each car and thinking "Why did he tell me he was here when he's obviously not here!" Finally he whistled at me and after I thought "Why is some strange guy in a Jeep whistling at me?" I realized it was Nathan! He loves to put me in awkward situations and see how I react :)


We ate at Mexican Inn before the concert, which is a Clardy family favorite. I love Nathan's face in this pic :)



Um, yeah, we were pretty early to the concert because even though I told Nathan it started at 7:30 like three times, he thought it was at 7:00, so needless to say the theater was pretty empty when we got in there. Maybe it was because we were standing there when they opened the doors and I think we were the third and fourth people to walk in the theater that night.



So, we did what any self-respecting couple waiting for a concert to begin would do, took pictures of ourselves.



And pictures of the tickets because let's face it, I could be making this whole story up and I could've pasted pictures from the internet and then no one would have ever believed me. But a picture of the tickets is an iron-clad alibi, right? (I didn't make this up, by the way, in case the previous comment made you suspicious.)



Little Big Town was the opening act. I didn't think I had heard of this group, but some of their songs sounded familiar and I know I have heard their song "Boondocks." They sang it at the CMT awards last year. If you're still drawing a blank, I won't judge you.



So then we had to wait another 20 minutes or so for Carrie after Little Big Town. Apparently the girl two rows in front of us thought that time would be best spent practicing her dance moves. I caught her in mid-groove in this picture. By this time, every seat was occupied.




The countdown . . . (can you feel the anticipation?)




There she is! She rose up from under the stage, what a diva ;)








She brought a girl up from the audience to sing "All American Girl" with her. Am I allowed to be jealous of that little girl because I so am!


So, she had this big gown on for one of the slow songs and then out of nowhere . . .

. . . the bottom of her dress tears off and she's wearing a shorter dress. It was kind of intense because you couldn't really tell what she had on under that skirt for a while.




I'm also way jealous of the people sitting on the edge of the runway thingy here. She was like inches away from them.
Then Little Big Town got back on stage with her and I thought it was over. I was way disappointed because she hadn't sung some of my favorite songs yet.
But she wasn't finished, thank goodness :)
Then she left the stage and everyone kept clapping because we all knew she had an encore prepared.

Then they brought out the big "C" which when the little boy in front of us saw it, he said "whoa, cool!" How precious is that!
At this point I was erasing previous pictures so I could take more pictures with the "C" in the background because I thought the concert was over four songs ago. But at least my batteries stuck it out for the whole concert :)
So that's all I got. I hope you felt like you were there with me as I included an unnecessary amount of commentary on the whole event. But that is what blogging is all about, right?
I digress . . . there will be more to come soon because Nathan and I will be on an adventure this afternoon and I just emptied my camera for the occasion. Have a happy Halloween/Reformation Day and Friday!

October 23, 2008

All Grown Up

Last night I realized that our little Tatum (our car) had reached a milestone in her life. She know has 10,000 miles on her! Wow, and just after 5 months. I'm so proud . . . they grow up too fast.

Actually, I noticed the mileage long before last night because this milestone means some very important preventative maintenance measures such as an oil change and rotating and balancing the tires (which, by the way, I wouldn’t even mention but Toyota totally freaked us out about missing these maintenance measures by telling us unrealistic maintenance horror stories and so it is forever ingrained in my mind.) But it wasn’t until last night that I realized that Tatum is so young and she’s already achieved so much. She’s like a prodigy.

For those of you that think I’m taking this vehicular personification too far, I’ll think about the therapy, I really will . . .

October 13, 2008

Elaboration on the Biking Trip

So my brother informed me that I did not accurately depict the drama that was his deflating tire. So here is his interpretation:

"We were all ready to go, having just finished the before pictures, when out of nowhere a piercing burst of air startled us all! To our amazement and dismay, we all stared in disbelief as Christopher's rear tire slowly descended to the hard pavement below.'No Worries!' Nathan shouted, as he ran around to the cabin of his truck and emerged triumphantly with a pair of pliers and a spare tube!"

The only problem with it is that I never took a before picture of him and LB, so it is a bit deceiving, but it is certainly more descriptive. The sound of his tire deflating was surprisingly loud. So I guess I'll agree that my previous post didn't do it literary justice. It was, after all, the event that could've ended our fun for the day.

October 12, 2008

The Biking Trip that Almost Wasn't

Saturday my brother, his wife, my husband and I went on a bike ride. I bought a bike on Thursday and I was ready to put it to good use. But I wouldn't say the trip went off without a hitch. We got off to a late start and my brother's tires were flat, but we got them pumped up and we were on our way. Well, at least that's what we thought first my brother and LB forgot their helmets, so my brother had to go back inside and get their helmets. Then when he opened the door to get back in the car, LB's water bottle fell out and spilled everywhere. So he had to back inside and fill it up. After all that, we were on our way to the Trinity trails. So we get there and get the bikes out of the truck and naturally I had to take pictures. So my brother and LB were posing for a nice "beginning of the trip" photo and then . . . 



My brother's tire lost all air because, surprise, it had a HUGE hole in it. 


Luckily Nathan had another tube. 


So we got all fixed and we were finally ready to go.


In the meantime I was able to get a good picture of my new bike :)


Here we are ready to go. After that, we didn't run into any more problems, thank goodness. 



So we finally made it back and when it was all said and done, we rode 8.4 miles in an hour and a half. Impressive, right? At least I think so. My brother has this cool application on his iPhone and while we were riding it was measuring where we were on the map and how fast we were going and calculated all kinds of stats. You can also take pictures with the phone and it will show you where on the map the photo was taken. So if you want to see the stats for our trip click here.


And of course I had to take a Napoleon Dynamite picture.

October 10, 2008

Mini Series #4: The Beth Moore Conference - "I am an Heiress of God!"

Back in August (again, I know you are edified by my blogging procrastination), I went to a Beth Moore conference in San Antonio with some sweet girls from work. Aside from reigniting my passion for blogging (thank you siestas!) my passion for Christ was rekindled. I had only participated in one of Beth's Bible studies and I had never been to a conference and let me tell you, it was powerful.



The theme verse for the conference was Psalm 16 and I'll tell you, it was just what I needed to hear! We focused on verses 5 & 6. Here they are:



"LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance."




Here it is in the NASB translation:



"The LORD is the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You support my lot. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Indeed, my heritage is beautiful to me."



We talked about how we are co-heirs with Christ because we are sons and daughters of God Almighty. Everything that belongs to God will soon be ours when Christ comes back in glory (Oh, Lord come quickly!). Wow, powerful right? Our God is so amazing.



Beth focused in on the fact that if we knew we were heiresses of God and if we told ourselves that everyday, would we live the same way we are living right now? We would give ourselves away so easily? Would we consider ourselves worthless and dispensible for the Kingdom of God. Certainly not! We are so important to Him that he has promised us a double portion of His inheritance.



You see, in Biblical times, the first born would receive a double portion of the father's inhertiance. So because Christ is God's only son, he receives a double portion from the Father. But God says that we are co-heirs with Christ and will therefore also receive a double portion! Our God is so generous.



Here's the cool part. Beth talked about how God Himself is also our inheritance because in the Psalm it says that He is our portion. But God's inheritance is His people . . . us! He loves us so much that all He wants is to have all of us fully devoted to Him. And when Christ comes back in glory, He will have that! Now there is no way you can say that you have no value. We are God's inheritance. Not only do we long for Him to come again, He looks longs for us! What a word from the Lord!

October 4, 2008

Mini Series #3: The New Apartment


Ahh, that's better! No more empty apartment :) Here are some pictures of our new apartment (now that we've had some time to settle in).

Our new, smaller dining table.
 
Our decorationless (it could be a word) kitchen. 


My girly guest bathroom.


The guest basket you get to use if you come stay with us (you could be the first!)


Our Texas-themed guest room . . . 



Our tiny master bathroom


But the walk-in closet totally makes us for it!



There I am in the mirror (I am such a dork). 


I could live in this closet. I was way disappointed when I saw our tiny bathroom but what a blessing to have a walk-in closet! Can I get an "amen"? That's all for now.

October 3, 2008

Mini Series #2: The Old Apartment

I know you've all been on the edge of your seats waiting for the next installment of my mini series and it's finally here! I have to admit, this is not one of my best posts but I feel obligated to stick to written covenant in my previous post. Okay let's take a stroll down memory lane (or at least my memory because I'm not sure any of my readers have actually been to my old apartment . . . ) and visit my old apartment.


Sadly, all these decorations above the cabinets did not find a place in our new apartment :(


We also had to get rid of this table :((


Pay no attention to the unmade bed!


So after much time and work (by my husband) we (I use the term "we" loosely) got everything in boxes. Now remember all this happened back in August. I know what you're thinking. My procrastination is awe inspiring, right?



What a sad looking empty apartment. But wait! It gets better. You'll have to wait for next time to see what I mean ;)