Finally, another blog post…

 

It’s May…the weather is getting nice!  We’re both getting excited to do more projects around the house. In fact, we did one yesterday.  We put in a new window in our “already finished” guest room. I’m glad it’s done, but now we have more sheetrock work to do…and the room is now filled with dust!  Mom and dad will be here next weekend so this week, I’ve gotta clean like a mad woman! (After Dave re-sheetrocks the room and there’s more dust everywhere!)

I’m so glad I have such a talented hubby that isn’t afraid to tackle anything! 

I’m really enjoying my new camera…I take at least 100 pictures a week I’d say.  I was asked to take Mother’s Day family photos at church last week and had a blast!  I feel like I’m finally getting a chance to explore my passion of photography!

I am looking forward to summer nights where Dave & I can go bike riding together…we gave my bike away a few months ago to someone who really needed it, and the nicer the weather has been getting, the more I was itching to get another bike. So we got one last weekend, and I love it! It’s actually identical to one my sister got.

Last weekend, after we went to get the bike, we got to see my cousin Beej, his wife Sandy and their adorable 8 month old son Landon. We got together with them and Kelsi & Ryan at Orange Leaf in Wichita. Had a real good time.  The older I get, the nicer it is to have family close and to get to see them often! 

Well, it’s 9:13 right now, and I’d better go shower so we can get to church. I wanted to get a blog in this weekend though. I have a feeling it’s gonna be a beautiful Sunday!  Happy May 15th everyone!

Spring is finally here!

 

Well, here in Kansas, we are having a cold, rainy Saturday. But I’m so excited, the yards are starting to have a little more green in them! On my way to Buhler today, there were fields that were already very green! Made my day to see that. I can’t wait for it to start getting warmer and more colorful. I need some good stuff to shoot with my new camera!

Had a fun time earlier today. Went with a couple girls from our women’s ministry group to The Mustard Seed for lunch, then on to Adrian’s for some shopping. Had a great time, and got a new Miche shell!

We recently got a new cat, Flip. He’s going to be our outside kitty. He’s adorable. So small and happy.

Will write more later.

Wow…so it’s been a while…

 

I can’t believe it’s been so long since I’ve written. We just had a great Thanksgiving. We went to my hometown, had a great dinner with family. My sister and her husband weren’t able to be there as they went to Boston, but it sounds like they had a great time.

After sleeping in this morning, I went to town and after having lunch with my wonderful husband, decided to brave the crowds of black friday weekend shoppers. Wow, bad idea!  We have this event coming up on Friday, “Ladies Night Out” put on by the ladies of the church. Dinner is served by the men of the church, and ladies sign up to host a table. Each table has a theme and is decorated to match. Well, I decided I’d better get out and get some of my table decorations.  So I braved the crazy people at Hobby Lobby, Target and Wal-Mart.

Got home and my hubby is working on our new front window trim. It looks so nice. It’s nice having such a handyman around! Our house is really getting there, slowly but surely.

Here are some pictures since my last post.

Kelsi got married in August, and is now Mrs. Cole!

We got a new kitty, named Tiger!

  

Joan, my mother-in-law turned 50 in October, so to celebrate, we all went to Tanganyika Wildlife Park in Wichita.

We’ve had some beautiful sunsets this fall.

Our nephew Liam is growing up! He’s 4 months old already!

Squeak and Tiger are best buds…

We quickly coming up on our two year anniversary! The best two years of my life…

Will write again soon.

God has blessed us with a nephew!

After nine months of anticipation, our little nephew Liam finally arrived July 14, 2010!  Shaina’s water broke on last Tuesday night, and after 27 hours of labor, a c-section was done and Liam was here!  He weighed in at 8lbs 12oz, and was 22 inches long!  He is so precious and such a great addition to the Clark family!

Liam was born at 8:34pm, while his anxious family waited. Dave and I, Scott & Rae (Shaina’s parents) and Joan and Marc (Chris’ parents) waited in the waiting room…and finally they whisked Liam out of the operating room in the incubator to the nursery!  We all hurried to the nursery to get our first peak at him. I so wish Shaina could have been there with us, but she was in recovery for about an hour and a half. Chris got to come though…got to hold him and see him in the first minutes of his life. We all went picture crazy.  (As you’ll see in the pictures below.)

I’ve gotten to see Liam probably 3 or 4 times since he was born last week and he’s such an angel! He’s such a good baby…hardly ever cries! :-)  Shaina is doing well – getting around a little better every day. I’m so thankful that God has blessed me with such a great sister-in-law! 

Last night, we found out that little Liam has jaundice, so he’s had to have a bili-blanket. She texted me today that he’s doing much better!

Well, I’m gonna post some pictures. Enjoy!

 

Proud Papa!

Momma getting to hold Liam for the first time.

Uncle David…(I think he’s pretty fond of his sweet nephew!)

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Grandma Joan…

Aunt Tori & Uncle David with our little nephew!

Spring is here…and it’s Mother’s Day Weekend!

 

Today is just a beautiful day!! My parents are in town for the weekend. Mom and I started off the day early by going to the Buhler City Wide Garage Sale.  I was going in search of a coffee table. Alas, I didn’t find one that I liked, but we ended up getting one for Kelsi for $10!! What a bargain!!  But we walked around town for about an hour and a half looking and talking to people. It was a really good time.

Then, we went to Dillards’, cause mom’s in search of a mother-of-the-bride dress for Kelsi’s wedding.  She tried on a really cute one, but I don’t think she was sold on it. So she’s in Wichita looking some more!

After we all had lunch together at Bogey’s (such a great place – and it just has a “summer” feel to it. Then Dave and I went to Lowe’s, Home Depot and Stutzman’s Green House. I finally bought some beautiful flowers to brighten it up around here!!  Unfortunately the “soil” (if you can even call it that) around here is just sand. So I really doubt anything would grow that I plant in the ground. So I use pots and planters…I ended up getting some “Yellow Madness” petunia’s and some that are a lavender shade (not sure of their exact name).

 

I’m so ready for summer – and heat!!  I love this time of year when you get back into mowing the grass and being outside.

I’m very excited for Monday…Dave & I got the day off work. In an effort to prevent work burn-out, I asked for the day off so he and I could just get away for a day. He finally has the paint booth done in the garage and I wanted to just spend the day with him not working!! So we’re going to go to Wichita on Monday and go to Tanganyika Wildlife Park!  I was told that there are meerkats that run around your feet and you can pet all kinds of animals!  Then hopefully we’ll get to have a nice dinner somewhere and just enjoy spending the day together.  I’ll post pictures of our Monday date later!

I should also post some of the pictures of the paint booth!! I’m so proud of all the work Dave has done on it! He’s such a hard worker-and so ingenius! 

He’s already started painting…what a guy!

I wanted to make this picture a little bigger. This is a sunset we had a few days ago! So beautiful!  Our God is amazing!

Well, I can’t think of anything new as of now….the cats are doing well and becoming good buds!  Our little nephew Liam should be arriving in approx. 10 weeks!! SO EXCITED!! I want to spoil him rotten!

Kelsi is still in the process of wedding planning…her big day is Aug. 28…so that’ll be here before you know it!

And one more thing…I know I have at least one blog reader. If you read my blog, shoot me an email at tori_bri@hotmail.com. I’m just really curious to know if anyone actually reads it.  It’s fun to get my thoughts on screen!

Looking forward to the rest of this great weekend!

Saturday once again…

It’s early on Saturday – about 6:45 to be exact…Dave had to get up early to go to an I-Car training class in Wichita.  So after getting up to see him off, I’m back in bed blogging.

I have so much to do today. I want to go to town and get Dave’s truck and wash it as a surprise!  He washed my car for me…so I want to do that for him.  I have to wrap a wedding gift for a wedding I’m going to this afternoon. I need to run downtown to drop off some things and I need to run to Maurices and look at skirts – I have some “chips” that get 20% off any item!  Figured I should buy a new summery skirt. Then I have to get home and get ready for the wedding.

The wedding is gonna be fun! The bride and groom are two former co-workers from Lowen. I’m so interested to see how it is…she’s a very eccentric person – very artsy…so I think her wedding could be very different! Hopefully I’ll get to see lots of old co-workers.

I just love the warmer weather we’re getting. I want to mow the yard so bad…Dave says we need to do some yearly maintenance first on the mower. Last year, I attempted to mow our entire yard (almost 1 acre) with our push mower. I thought, “Hey…it’ll be a good workout!” Well, our mower kept dying on me and it took forever!  I keep telling him that it’s my goal to someday mow the lawn with our push mower. He thinks I’m crazy. Maybe so.

Dennis and Traci’s wedding is 3 weeks from now! So excited for them!  Dave & I actually had the priviledge of introducing them at our church small group.  One night, Traci was sharing about how she loves to ride motorcycles. It got me thinking that maybe we should invite Dave’s friend Dennis to small group. Maybe they could at least be friends. They’re both such nice people, why not?!  So Dennis came one night and I think they hit it off immediately! They are such a great match – God really has blessed them with each other!

Well, mom wants me to put up some new pictures…let me see if I have any interesting ones.

These are the Easter eggs I dyed at our Women’s Connection event at church a few weeks ago. I haven’t dyed easter eggs since I was a LITTLE girl! I remember we did it once at Grandma’s house.

Squeak – it’s kind of a blurry picture…

Our tree in the front yard – finally budding out and showing signs of Spring!!

Can’t remember if I’ve posted this one, but I love this picture! He’s my cat man…such a handsome guy…love him with all my heart.

Well, that’s about all I can think of posting right now. I’ll have more after the wedding today.  Congrats Steven & Traci!

The Kitters and Squeak

I’ve been wanting to make chicken and noodles for about a week now.  Things have just come up to where it never happens.  Well, I was determined to make them Thursday night.  Well, needless to say, our chicken was thawed incorrectly – and we didn’t want take the chance of eating it if it was smothered in bacteria.  So, somehow, it got left in the sink over night. I got up early this morning to thaw our NEW chicken…once in the kitchen, there it was. The old chicken (that had been left in the sink when we went to bed) was now on the floor!!  The cats had ripped into it and looks like they both probably got a good size bite!  It’s absolutely amazing to me the amount of mischief they can get into during the 6-7 hours a night we’re sleeping.

We definitely have our hands full when they’re inside together, but they’re so much fun…just wanted to post some pictures.

I guess I could include a little history of our cats.  The Kitters – who was originally named “Cat,” Dave found at his apartment on Ridgewood when he still lived in town. This was long before I was ever in the picture.  His side of the duplex was the northern most in the complex, and was basically on the VERY north edge of town. So someone probably dumped him – who didn’t want him – and Dave took him in.  He said that “Cat” would climb up on his roof and hang out. Kind of funny. But Dave got attached, and brought him to live in the country when he moved to our house where we live now.  When we recently had small group here, the kids kept calling him Garfield!

Squeak came to our house out of tragedy. We were headed to church on the morning of our one year anniversary, and we saw our other cat, Grayson, in the road. He’d been hit by a car and didn’t make it.  I’ll put up a picture of our sweet kitty Grayson.

We decided that we needed to fill that void pretty quick, so we headed to Wichita to the animal shelter! After looking there, we hadn’t found the perfect cat yet. Dave told me that he’d always wanted a black & white kitty, so I didn’t want to give up until we found one.  Next, we headed to PetSmart where, there she was!!  Sitting next to her sister “Serena,” there was our kitty. She had the prettiest face.

So we brought her home a week after we’d lost our G-buddy. So she’s been a Clark now for almost three months, and she’s so fun! After we brought her home, she started showing real sickness symptoms. She was sneezing ALL the time, had no energy, had wet eyes. So we took her to the vet where they said she had an upper respiratory infection – which they also said is common in kittens that come from a shelter environment.  So we nursed her back to health – and before you knew it, she was a spunky kitten again!

(We didn’t pose them like this, they did this on their own. They’re buddies!)

 

They like to wrestle too!