My birthday and UT

All I got to say is that UT handed me a beautiful birthday present from Stillwater (sorry, Amanda, for the loss). My birthday was yesterday (October 28th if any of you would like to put it on your calenders) and it wasn't that great. Link had accidentally planned an overnight guys retreat last night but before he went my sister Jessica and her husband Jeremy and Link and I went to eat at a Japenese steak house called Shoguns. They light things on fire as they cook in front of you so we were really lucky to leave there with all our eyebrows. Anyway, tonight Link planned a semi-suprise party for me. It was semi because I got upset yesterday from the normality and he told me about it. So we had people (his parents and his brother, sister-in-law, and nieces and Jessica and Jeremy and our friends Kami and Jay) over for steaks and cake. It was a ton of fun. I got chef pasta bowls (they are way cute), a manicure, a gift certificate to a pottery making place (so much fun) and. . . . . . . a new Canon Rebel XL EOS which is a digital camera that has manual or automatic focus, 8 megapixels and takes amazing pictures. I'm sooooo excited about it but also afraid. I dropped the last good camera I had about 6 times before it finally broke. Hopefully I'll have better luck with this one. Link bought me a bathrobe, The Wizard of Oz, and a new pair of tennis shoes!! So my birthday ended up being great (even if it was celebrated a day late) and was only topped off by UT coming out during the second half and winning the game. Oh, yeah, and the extra hour of sleep that I'm going to get tonight is also a major plus!

Ruidoso

A friend of Link's family passed away in a flying stunt show back in July and they were having a memorial for him in Ruidoso last Monday (October 17). It was a sad reason to be there but it gave Link and me a chance to get out of town for a little vacation and spend some time together and with his parents. The memorial lasted about 4 hours (2 hours of speakers and a meal and then a video). I was hoping to get some fun shopping in but unfortunately the shopping wasn't that great. Oh, well, the scenery was beautiful!

Girls' Weekend

I just got back from Amarillo were I got to hang out with some good friends from college this past Friday and Saturday and it was amazing!! I miss hanging out with people my age. It's kind of hard to meet people my own age when your around junior high kids and their parents (not that I don't enjoy hanging out with them. . . they are fun!) all the time. Anyway, we watched a semi funny movie called Without a Paddle, we did a lot of window shopping (with a few purchases) and we got some new furniture put in Traci's bedroom. And by the way, Traci and Crysty, it took me 1 hour and 50 minutes to get home :). It was good to get away from Lubbock and just hang out with the girls!!

Life is such a race. . .

So several of you responded to the last blog by saying that we need to slow down. . . and that is so very true. Sadly, life hasn't slowed down much due to church events. We had one man come in two weekends ago to try out for the youth minister position and we have one come in this weekend. I am really looking forward to someone finally being hired. Then Link will hopefully have less meetings and less activities that he needs to be at.

On another note, I love my new job!! The day goes by quickly and I meet a lot of interesting people. The biggest thing that has happened is that I sent my forms in today for Physical Therapy school!!! If everyone that reads this could say a prayer for me, um, about 20 times a day, that'ld be great. PT school is something that I really want to do and I'm just worried that there are too many people applying this year. So please start praying!!!!

August (what a crazy month)

Link and I have had a crazy month and I'm glad that the month is almost over. We started out having a fabulous time at my friend April's wedding where we met some great new people. It was in Oklahoma so Link was able to meet a lot of my old friends :).

The Tuesday after the wedding Link's grandad had a heart attack. He flat lined and they brought him back, flew him to Lubbock and put a stint in his heart. He is doing amazingly better and got to go home after a week at the Heart Hospital .

My month (besides the heart attack) has been exciting because I got a job as a rehabilation aide at Covenant Hospital. It's great because I'll get paid for getting my observation hours for Physical Therapy school. I'd put my application in July and never heard anything back and then they called on Thursday, interviewed on Friday and was hired 2 hours after my interview!! It was such an unexpected blessing! I've also started doing Mary Kay as a side job and I now have a website so people can order online!! If you would like to look at it, go to www.marykay.com/monicablevins .

Link has been running around crazy for the past month. We have a youth group retreat this weekend. It's actually the biggest event of the year for our youth group. It's in the mountains of New Mexico (yes, New Mexico has pretty parts as hard as that is to believe) at a camp called Blue Haven. We leave Friday and don't have to come back till Monday thanks to Labor Day. I haven't started my new job yet but hopefully I'll get to start it when I get back from the retreat.

That's what is happening in our lives. . . maybe I'll get better at this blogging thing. . .

Monica and Link

Monica and Link

Things are pretty crazy here. It was snowing yesterday and today it's all gone. That's how the whole winter has been. It'll be in the 60's one day and the next it'll snow all day long, be cold for a couple of days and then back up to the 60's and 70's. We're getting a new puppy and I hope to have a picture posted of him soon so everyone can see him.