Thanksgiving 2008

I spent Thanksgiving in Lubbock with my dad's family. My grandmother had turned 80 a few weeks before, so everyone got together this year to celebrate her birthday and Thanksgiving. Here are some of the family pictures: This is my dad's oldest sister, Sissy, and her oldest son Danny.Next in the sibling line is my aunt Sandy. This is almost all of her kids and grandkids.

Here is our family! Cozelle didn't make the trip this year because all of her family was in town.

Lastly, my dad's baby sister and her family. It had been about 5 years since I had seen most of her family.We had one of grandparent's neighbors take a picture of all of us together. That is a lot of people to have under one roof! Especially when 7 of them are under the age of 3!!! It was so much fun though.

Of course being in Lubbock, everyone was still disappointed with Texas Tech getting killed by the Sooners! Several of my cousins had actually gone to the game in Norman. But one member of the family still loved getting those guns up in support of the Red Raiders!

This was the funniest thing! She realized quickly that this got everyone to clap and cheer for her and she loved it!

One of my favorite things about my family is that after we pray, we all sing Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow. When we are all together we are practically a full choir! I was holding my nephew while we sang and he loved it!

Everytime I would hold him after that, he would get so close to my face and wait for me to sing to him. As soon as I would finish something, he would just laugh and laugh. He's cute enough doing it that it kept me from being offended! Ha!

It was a busy couple of days, but it was so great being with family. I know that my grandmother will never forget getting to celebrate her birthday with all her great-grandkids helping her blow out the candles!

Big News

What I am about to say will probably shock a lot of you. I am not decorating my apartment for Christmas this year. I am not being a scrooge or anything, I'm just not decorating my apartment because I am moving into a brand new condo!!!!! YEA!!!! I am so excited I can hardly stand it when I think about it! I will be moving on December 27th, so I don't have much time to get packed up and ready to move. It will be crazy but totally worth it! I'm hoping that I can go take some pictures of it soon. They still have to lay the carpet in the upstairs, install the appliances, and do some touch up work on the paint. I will finally have 2 bedrooms so I can have people come stay with me!!! I need to find an extra bed though. I have a full size bed frame, but no matress or box springs. If any of you know of someone wanting to get rid of one, please let me know!

Wooo Pig Sooie & Wreck 'Em Red Raiders!

I grew up in West Texas and my grandparents, aunt and uncle, and several of my cousins live in Lubbock and a lot of them went to Texas Tech. So growing up, my love for college football came from watching the Red Raiders. Obviously now that I am an Arkansan, the Hogs have the #1 spot in my heart but I still root for Texas Tech. I have my day planned out to support both the Hogs and the Red Raiders.

I will listen to the Hogs play Mississippi St. this afternoon and call the Hogs with pride. Hopefully the Hogs will have a good day and can build up some confidence for the game next week!

And tonight, I will have my guns up and will watch Graham Harrell and the Red Raiders take on the Sooners. This game is huge for Tech's chances of going to the National Championship so I'm really excited about it!

I love days filled with great college football!!!!

More Wedding Fun!

This past weekend, I was in my hometown for one of my college roommate's wedding. I didn't get to Abilene until later Friday night, and I still wasn't feeling 100% so I didn't make it to the rehearsal or dinner. But the nice thing about the wedding being in Abilene was that I was able to stay with my mom. It was great to able to just relax and be taken care of! The first wedding event that I attended was a Bridal Luncheon on Saturday.

The woman that hosted the luncheon did a fabulous job! She had place settings of different china for each of us. She explained that each different setting had been given to members of her family at their weddings going all the way back to her great-great grandparents. It was so neat!This is me and Laresa (the bride) leaving to get ready for the wedding!

The beautiful bride getting ready for the big moment! She looked sooooo pretty!!!

This is me and Ashlee hanging out in the bride's room. We all went to college together, so it was a fun little reunion getting to hang out!Me, Laresa, and Julie were roommates. We spent many years together praying for this day! Everything went so well and was a really sweet wedding. Laresa's now husband Jeremy is a very talented musician. He played the guitar and sang the Shane and Shane song "Yearn" as the call to worship. It was such a great way to get things started!

Here are a few pictures from the reception:

And last but not least.....

Mr. and Mrs. Roemisch

I am so glad that I was able to make it to the wedding. Thank you all so much for your prayers!!! I am worn out from the weekend, but I finally feel like I will be completely well someday soon!

Update & Funny Costumes

This past week has definitely been a trying one. I didn't see much improvement with the shingles and by Thursday I couldn't swallow because my throat was swelling. I was at my emotional limit with being sick, but Friday had to make another trip to the doctor's office. After several hours and blood tests later, he decided that it is a combination of my body getting tired of fighting the shingles and an allergic reaction to some of the medicine I was on. The bad thing is that there is nothing he can do to fix it because it could make the shingles worse and they are actually finally starting to heal. So, he sent me home with strict orders for resting and a liquid diet for a week. Did I mention I was at my emotional limit?!?!?! I decided to stop by Bizys to get some soup for my new diet and was cheered up in a hurry!


Ha!!!! I didn't even recognize my dad when I first walked in! I couldn't laugh out loud, because I couldn't even talk but I was cracking up on the inside!!!! It was definitely the highlight of my week! I have high hopes for this coming week. I have followed doctors orders and haven't left my apartment or had solid food since Friday afternoon. While this is pretty depressing when you live by yourself and the Hogs won in the last home game of the season, I do think I feel a little bit better today. It still hurts when I swallow or talk, but I can do both a lot easier than before and the shingles are much better. I actually slept all through the night last night without waking up in pain. That's the first time that has happened in weeks, so I'm pretty pumped! Since I'm supposed to fly to Texas on Friday to be in the wedding, I'm praying that each day gets better!!!

Not fun...

It has been a while since I have done a post and I actually have some fun things to post from last weekend when I went to Dallas for a friend's Bachelorette Party. But, I have had a slight interruption in my life since Sunday. Before I left for Dallas, I came down with a viral infection that I thought was just going to include a sore throat, ear ache, just general not feeling good. I went to the doctor and got a shot on my way out of town and thought that would do the trick. By the time I got home on Sunday, I was feeling worse and and started having extreme pain in my back and rib area on my left side. Then I had a nasty looking rash everywhere I was in pain. I went back to the doctor to find out that I have shingles!!! I am one of the fortunate people that carries the dormant chicken pox virus and whatever caused my sore throat triggered the dormant virus. Let me just say that it is the most miserable and painful thing I have ever been through!!! I have had to take a couple of days off of work because I can't hardly stand to have anything touching me and am having to take lots of pain medicine. A sweet lady from my church emailed me today because she has had them before. She said that it was 10 days before the pain went away for her. My dad has had them before and it was about that long before he wasn't in pain and it took months for the rash to go away. While that is encouraging that this will come to an end eventually, I am in a time crunch that stresses me out! I am supposed to be in a wedding in about 2 weeks. I would appreciate your prayers that the pain will quickly go away and that the rash will at least not be as visible by the time of the wedding. This is also a really busy time for me at work and I have to go back tomorrow. I'm praying that I wake up tomorrow feeling a lot better! If not tomorrow, I have to be better by Saturday! I will be soooo mad if I end up missing the Hogs vs. Rebels!!!!!!!

Wooooo Pig Sooie!!!!!

I still cannot believe that the Hogs pulled off the upset over Auburn!!! Don't get me wrong, I am THRILLED that we won but still shocked. Every time the score scrolls across the bottom of the screen, I am scared that it is going to say that Auburn won and that I have been dreaming! Ha! This was definitely the best game we have played all year. I think our young guys are finally getting used to playing in the SEC and the older guys are settling into the new coach's system. Hopefully this is a sign of good things to come! Go Hogs Go!!!

And the winner is...

Friday night, the University of Arkansas hosted "Friday Night Live - Latin Soul." This was event held on campus as part of Hispanic Heritage Month. Bizys was asked to participate in a queso and salsa competition with other local restaraunts.

When we were setting up our booth, we noticed a large stage to the left of us and a band was setting up too. I was hoping that they were going to be good because my dad is really picky about music. I was afraid I would be left to man the station by myself if they were bad!

They were so good! The band is called Havana NRG and they are an eight piece Cuban Salsa band from Dallas. Even though I didn't understand a word they were saying, it was so much fun to listen too and there were a lot of students out there dancing! It made me wish I could get out there and join them, and that my hips moved like some of those girls' did!!! For about 2 hours we handed out samples of our salsa and queso. The students were given a ballot so that they could vote on their favorites. At the end of the night, the band announced the winner and the one word I understood was "Bizys"!

We have always thought we had the best queso, but it's really nice to have the proof! They said that they wanted us to come back next year. At least I have some time to brush up on my Spanish!

Celebrate!

On Tuesday, I had two reasons to celebrate. The first reason was that the October edition of the "Celebrate Arkansas" magazine came out and Bizys was the featured restaurant! The pictures don't really do it justice, but it is a great article and we are really excited about how good it turned out!
I love this picture of my dad! He works so hard to make sure people get great food and great service, so he definitely deserves this recognition. Speaking of my dad...this leads me to my second reason for celebrating. Tuesday was also my dad's 56th birthday!His favorite dessert in the whole world is homemade banana pudding, so I made one and surprised him with it that night. My step-mom usually makes it, but she is still recovering from surgery so I made it for her this time. Thank goodness his favorite dessert is sooooo easy to make!

A New Blog and a New Baby!!!

Mandy and I are best friends from college. The funny thing is that we went to Hardin-Simmons in Abilene, not the U of A, but I didn't have any digital pictures of us from our college days. This picture is from 2 years ago when the Hogs played Vanderbilt in Nashville, where Mandy and her husband live. She was a great sport and went with me to the game and she made an excellent Hog fan! I got the best news this weekend that she is going to have a baby in April and she has a blog to keep track of all the baby news! I could not be any more excited about either of these things! Mandy and David will be the best parents and I cannot wait to meet Baby P!!!

Wedding Bells!

Last Wednesday, I loaded up to head to Mt. Magazine with Hillary for her wedding! We had to make a very important stop before we left town.

Every bride deserves a little pampering before the big day! Once we were looking good from the manicures/pedicures we hit the road. As soon as we got to Mt. Magazine, we went into the lodge to see how things were coming.
Things were looking good! The rest of the night we hung out in the cabin with Hillary's parents and started getting organized for the next day. Thursday morning, I woke up to this glorious view!
I took a minute to thank God for this amazing setting for such an amazing occasion! Then, it was off to work! We stuffed these cute bags with goodies for the overnight wedding guests.

After we delivered the bags to the lodge and ate breakfast, we had some time before Josh arrived so Hillary and I took a walk. We walked up a trail to the highest point in Arkansas.Hillary and her family were so organized that we sped through the things that needed to get done and had a lot of time Thursday afternoon to relax while we waited for the rehearsal and dinner.

The setting for the wedding was so beautiful! Hillary had asked me to sing "How Great Thou Art" at the wedding and there could not have been a more fitting song! Here's the happy couple at the rehearsal dinner. So cute!!!Speaking of cute! No lingerie shower is complete without petit fours! Hillary got beautiful lingerie gifts and we all had a great time at the shower. We started the morning of the big day off with a bridesmaids breakfast. We all came in our pj's and NO makeup which was a lot of fun, but not so good for pictures!

Hillary's "Bride" pj's were so cute! After a fabulous breakfast, we headed off to get ready for the wedding! I was so nervous before the wedding that I didn't take hardly any pictures, but trust me, everyone looked GREAT and the wedding was PERFECT!!!! Audra, me, Hillary, and Sarah at the reception. We had a blast!Brooke and Mike Gray are one of the funnest couples I know! Mike did a great job performing the ceremony too.
My dad and my step-mom always call Hillary their adopted daughter. They were so happy to be at the wedding! Finally, after a long day (and this really long post!) the newly-wed Mr. and Mrs. Bazyk loaded up and headed off to their new life together!I could not be more blessed to know Hillary and Josh and share in this weekend with them. I am confident that the Lord has great things planned for their marriage and can't wait to see Him use them for His glory!!!

Hog Wild Weeked

This past weekend I had a great time kicking time of the Razorback football season! The celebrations began on Friday night with my friend Joe's birthday. We had the cutest cake for him!On gamedays, I tailgate with my parents and friends who come by to join in on the fun. It is an all day event and we come prepared for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

These football shaped doughnuts actually ended up being desserts instead of breakfast, but they were still delicious!
My dad is so proud of his new grill! It is really funny how many people will come by to look at it.

Hillary, Josh, Holly, Justin, and Ashley came by and hung out with us for a while. It was so much fun but not the ideal weather for taking photos. It was sooooooo hot and humid! I'm pretty sure that by the time we took this picture I had no makeup left!

I was so anxious to get inside the stadium to see all the new changes that have been made. I am so happy with the new Hog on the field!!! I was pretty happy with all the other changes too. I wish that the game hadn't been quite so close. But, it's always good to start with a win!