Halloween Happenings (& More)

The last week has been pretty busy around here starting with last Friday, Oct 23rd. I took the day off and Zach had the day off from work, so we took advantage of our time together. We went to a museum for his photography class, then we went to Doug & Linda's ski shop to get our ski pants for the big ski trip at Christmas and then we ventured to Dave & Buster's Frisco for dinner with friends. It was a great day spent with Zach and I was thrilled to get so much done. We had dinner with Justin & Amanda and the girls and had so much fun playing games with the little ones. For old times sake, Amanda and I got a picture together. As always, Amanda had to stoop (sp?) down to my level. Always good times with the Beller's, just wish that we would see each other more often.

Then last Sunday, we went to church and spent the afternoon with the McSpadden's so that Zach could take some pictures of Shevawn while McBaby was/is still in her tummy. Fortunately, this was a good thing for both of us... Shevawn needed pictures, and then Zach found out that his next project in photography was portraits. How perfect! You can see the pics that Zach took at their blog... but here's one of Shevawn and I.

Zach spent most of last week staying up real late as many of you know by his facebook posts... here's what staying up late does to my house (and if you know me well, I'm not a big fan of this chaos. I like order.)

That brings us right up to Halloween... I don't have any pictures on Halloween night, but here's my attempt to dress Derby up as the Dragon. He was not a big fan of his costume as you can tell. I didn't dress up for Halloween, but we did have a costume contest at work on Friday and I dressed up as a gondolier (my parents brought the shirt back for Zach from their trip to Venice). The winners are below... 1st) The Joker, 2nd) The Clown, and 3rd)Scary Larry.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

A week ago today, I was getting ready to go see this...

It was absolutely awesome... I don't think that I have seen a better musical at the music hall in Fair Park and I've been to several. Here's a little taste of the musical... my favorite scene Step In Time. Made me want to be able to tap dance.

Overall... a great birthday... we spent a little bit of time at the fair after the musical. Enough to get our corny dog (or as Oprah called it, Corn Dogy) and try another something sweet which was a fried smore for me. Then we were on our way.

Then on Thursday this past week, the accounting dept at D&B had a day at the fair. So my best bud, Shanna and I roamed the fair and saw all the good shows and ate another corny dog that day. Here are a couple of things that we saw....

A Ford F-150 in shambles from a wreck that two teens walked away from...

The African Acrobats doing their thing, and doing the limbo at 2 feet off the ground...

The Pirates of the Caribbean diving show, where a man jumps from an 80 ft pole into 10 ft of water. Amazing... made me hold my breath.

And my family bricks... Here were are starting with my dad and mom.

My sister and I.

Uncle Jim and Aunt Sharon

Cousin Amy

Uncle John and Aunt Linda

Cousins Heidi and Sean

And the ones who started it all Papaw and Mamaw.

So the story goes that sometime after Papaw passed away and my dad and his sisters were settling the estate, they used some of the money to donate to the fair. This was when I was little bitty as I was not even 2 when Papaw passed away. So if you are ever at the fair, you can always find the Kilgore family on row 256 of the red brick path.

Busy Weekend

Let me start by saying... I just celebrated 3 years with Dave & Buster's on September 13th. A very happy 3 years of employment with a great company I might add. In recognition of my 3 years of service, I was awarded points to spend on a website that had anything and everything. So I choose two items which should hopefully be here by my birthday. So Dave & Buster's furnished my little birthday present to myself... a Vera Bradley Tote and Wristlet. So exciting...

More on the birthday front to come...

So this weekend was busy hanging out with friends. On Saturday, I met up with Sarah, Jessica and Holly to ride together to Shevawn's baby shower. We had some good bonding time and then met up with Jamie & Lana at the shower. The first time that we have all been together since before the summer began probably. Time flies. Here we all are at the shower celebrating Baby McGirl, who will join us in a few short weeks. It was so good to be with everyone again.

On Sunday, we made our way to church on a gloomy day. Zach and I became official this Sunday. Two weeks ago, we checked the box at church and this past Sunday they announced us. We are now new members at Riverside Church of Christ in Coppell. It's been a work in process for the past three months, but we are happy and are really excited about joining in the fellowship at Riverside. A new chapter in our lives. We didn't mean to rush out of church on Sunday, but we had to get over to the Kirksey's for lunch. A last supper of sorts for the official small group. It was a tremendous blessing to be together with the whole group again (We missed you, Jessica & Josh!). We'll have to do this often because we have to see all these little ones grow up.

And speaking of little ones... here's our baby. Derby dog is as energetic as ever and he's is a joy in our lives. Zach actually got him to lay on his bed to chew on his toy. Pretty amazing. Stay tuned for the birthday extravaganza.

Happy 29th Birthday Zach!

On Monday, Zach turned 29. Because Zach was in school all day on Monday, we celebrated his birthday on Sunday. We made a day of... first church starting with a breakfast with the Bible class, then worship (which we had to slip out of early) because then it was on to the Rangers game. I wanted to do something fun that he would enjoy that wouldn't be too expensive. So for $16 a seat we celebrated at the Rangers game. This was a pretty pivotal game and unfortunately the Rangers lost to the Angels 10-5. We enjoyed watching from the bleacher seats and we also did some shopping in the giftshop. Zach is now the proud owner of a Josh Hamilton tshirt and I now have myself a Jared Saltalamacchia tshirt. I had to have his jersey because I think it's cool that the name goes all the way from one shoulder to the other. ;-) Here we are enjoying the game....

When we got home from the game, we hung out for a little bit and eventually made Bison burgers which Zach claims to like better than beef. I personally like beef better. My sister got to enjoy the bison burgers with us as she was coming over to pick up her pup, Miley. My sister was out of town all week and we were pupsitting. What an adventure with Miley and Derby dog. Back to Zach's birthday though... he opened his presents from me later that night in the midst of me making his strawberry cupcakes that he took to school with him.

What could it be...

Some TOMS... Make Art, Not War. I felt that these were very appropriate for my artist of a husband. Plus, when asked "if you were to have a pair of TOMS, what style would you like?" His response was the ones with writing on them. There are only a couple like that... so this is the pair that I chose.

This is the other little gift that I had for my honey. I have been meaning to do this for a long while, but I figured that his birthday would be the best time. On Saturday, I got myself a piece of scrap wood from the side of our house and I went to town being somewhat crafty. It doesn't happen all that often with me anymore. So I got the spray paint out and I dug into Zach's painting supplies and this is what I came up with. I had everything cleaned up Saturday night, so that he wouldn't know what I had done, except I forget to put away the spray paint. Still he had no idea. I know that this little plaque is very meaningful. We're going to put a stake on the back and stick it in the flower bed. That way we can take it with us to the next house should we move.

I'll leave you with some pics of the pups during Miley's visit last week.

Finished Product

The bathroom is finally finished. These are just a couple of pictures of the finished shower. It is now completely finished with touch up paint done, stuff put back on the walls, and the rugs put down on the floor. It's so wonderful to have two working bathrooms and I'm sooo pleased with the finished product. Thank you so much honey for your hard work!!

We already have supplies for the next project which I intend to start on soon. We will be replacing the stairs with wood treads instead of carpet. It's a pretty big project, but it is desperately needed as the carpet is really old and gross. Always something to do.

For all those teachers out there, I hope that you're first week of school goes well. To my honey, I'm excited about this semester of school for you because it means that we are going to be that much closer to the finish line. Zach's schedule will be rough this semester, but with all art classes I have no doubt that he will enjoy it.

Six Flags & Such

Last weekend, Zach had the rare occasion of three days off in a row and he didn't even ask for it. So we took advantage of it... I took off last Friday and we enjoyed ourselves. Friday during the day was spent on the bathroom. Painting baseboards, and putting the shower walls up as well as installing the washer, dryer and toilet.

Saturday, Zach and I spent the day at Six Flags... It had been at least 5 years since I had been there and for Zach probably 10 or 15 years. It was soo HOT, but it was so much fun to just be together and hang out at a fun place. We decided it was a great weekend to go because we got to see Toby Mac/Kutless in concert. That was definitely the highlight of the day. Some things that we noticed while there... 1) a $16 hamburger & coke to split between two people really isn't that good and 2) they make you put your backpacks/purses in a locker at each of the big roller coasters for $1 each locker. So lessons learned are... don't bring a backpack/purse with you, and eat outside the park. But other than that Zach and I had a wonderful time!

Here we are waiting in line for the bobsled. This was at the beginning of our day and as a result we don't look quite so tired.

And here's the exhausted end of the day look. Sunburnt, and sweating... but ready to enjoy the Toby Mac concert!

A couple of peaks at the progress in the bathroom. The tile on the floor is completely done and therefore the appliances and toilets were able to put back in place. Very thankful to have that extra toilet in the house as well as be able to wash clothes at my own house.

This is the tiled shower walls with no grout. Zach was busy doing the grout on this today. No more peaks until it's finished!!

An update on our Derby Dog... he's doing very well adjusting to his new home. He is really getting the hang of potty training and he has already learned to sit and lay down. He loves his toys and has strewn them across the entire house.

You'll notice that his ear is down now... we think that this is a result of being a little more relaxed. I think that being in a new place stressed him out a little and the muscle in his ear just wouldn't relax. I think that he's decided that he likes us and let his ear down just for that reason. ;-) He's so sweet and soft and cuddly. Sometimes it just makes me want to hug and squeeze him so tight.

Derby Dog

Now time for an update... almost two weeks ago, Zach and I adopted a new puppy names Derby. We were already looking for a new dog not 4 days after Bailey's passing and we contacted at least 6 different people about dogs. The people we were contacting were all Craigslist posts and I don't think that they were very responsible about removing posts once that had rehomed the dogs. Anyway... by Tuesday, July 7th, I decided to try other avenues. I had looked on this website for Jack Russell Rescue in Dallas and I came across the pic below.

I emailed the contact on the post to ask whether this little pup was a male or female and she replied that Derby was a male. At the time, I immediately said no and moved on, but she said if I would fill out an application she would see what little girls were in the area for me. I filled out the application online and not 30 minutes later, the rep for Russell Rescue was contacting me. Almost as if she was a sales person, she was trying to find out what we wanted in a dog and also went to work right away. She gave me several options of little girl dogs in the area, but none of them were exactly what we wanted. We were really wanting a puppy so that we could train them up how we wanted and because they wouldn't have known anyone else besides us. So probably about 12pm that day, I called her back and said that we would like to meet Derby and see if he would be a good fit. From there, she proceeded to tell me that he would need some stitches removed from a recent surgery and that she would get that done that day if we were really interested. So she did and that night, she actually came to us to check out our house and make sure that we had a fit home for the dog. So she brought Derby over along with his mom Gracie and we got to make a decision about who we wanted. We stuck with Derby dog and we have now had him for almost two weeks.

Another puppy pic from the adoption agency

Our family pics from the adoption agency... as you can tell he's a little rambunctious. Just like we like him.

Not a real good pic, but this shows you my favorite quirks about Derby dog... he has one ear that stands up and the other stays down. They're supposed to both be down and if we massage the one that stands up while folded, it will stay down for 5 seconds. Once he shakes, it goes right back to standing up. He's cute that way!

A little about Derby dog that just must him irresistible... Derby's mom was brought to a shelter because she was a stray. They thought that she was just sick and so they were treating her, but it became apparent that there were also puppies involved in the mix. No one ever claimed her from the shelter, so Russell Rescue took her and they also cared for the puppies when they were born. Gracie had a litter of 8 puppies on January 30, 2009. The adoption agency named the litter after cities in England. So that's where the name come from... Zach and I thought it was cute and so it has stuck. Derby had already had all of his shots and had also been neutered when we got him and I just couldn't pass that up. That's a lot of money saved. He was not potty-trained, but he's learning real fast. He loves his toys... he has at least 5-6 toys out at a time. At one time I came home and there were actually 13 toys out of the basket we keep them in. He loves to cuddle at the end of day when he has played real hard. He seems to do well with other dogs, especially since he came from Russell Rescue where the lady was taking care of about 10 dogs at the time that we got him. He was the last pup left in his litter and we are lucky to have him.

All that to say... welcome to the Shirley family, Derby! (haha... Derby Shirley rhymes.)