Happy Anniversary!!

Today marks two years since Kyle and I exchanged vows. What a joy these years have been!

Oklahoma....really just an extension of Texas....

That title may sound a little pretentious, but seriously, I can't tell that big of a difference between Oklahoma and my beloved Texas. Don't get me wrong, its no Houston (or any other big city for that matter) but small town rural Texas = what Oklahoma is like (or at least what I have seen).

I flew in Saturday and Kyle picked me up at the airport, with just a few delays, around 12:30 or so (I was supposed to arrive at 11:55, but some genius in Alabama left the plane's battery on all night, so it was delayed getting to Houston, and thus delayed me getting to Oklahoma). Instead of driving back to Altus, Kyle decided it would be nice to spend a night in Oklahoma City to celebrate our anniversary. We checked into a very nice room in a hotel in downtown, ate some lunch and relaxed until dinner. He made reservations at the Melting Pot (which was within walking distance of our hotel), and it was soooo good! All of this was in a district they called "Bricktown" and it was really nice. The buildings were really neat, and they preserved the historic aspect of them as most of them were probably built when Oklahoma was still mostly "indian territory". If one ever decides, "Hey, I want to go to OK City", I would definitely recommend this area; very neat. Kyle really likes to plan things like this, and I definitely appreciate that quality about him. We really did have a great evening!

After breakfast on Sunday morning we made the 2 hour drive to Altus. People, if you miss the "country" and don't want neighbors, move to OK. Seriously, when I think "the middle of nowhere", this is exactly what I think. Not in a bad way, its just ranch after ranch with a small town thrown in here and there just for kicks (and probably so people don't have to drive too terribly long to do grocery shopping). Altus is not a bad town, its TINY, but not bad at all. I would take this over Del Rio any day (no offense to any Del Rio-ites, but you have to agree that the beauty of Del Rio is your friends and close community, NOT the town). Anyway, I digress. The town itself reminds me very much of downtown, and surrounding, Navasota. For most of you, that is a very poor reference point. Its a small Texas town about half way between Richmond and College Station. Anyway, there are a lot of old brick buildings that look very "western" in downtown (which is like 2 blocks) and the rest is just your average small town. That is why I say Oklahoma is really just an extension of Texas.

Charleston/House Update

My mom and I went to Charleston this past week to pick out the finishes for our house and it was a lot of fun. I was actually kind of dreading it because they get money out of you any way they can (and I hate that kind of a thing; when did people stop making good products?!?!). Anyway, the trip started off a little rocky as there was some bad weather in Houston Monday morning and our flight was delayed a couple of hours. But we still got there in time to go out to the lot and tour the model home in the neighborhood. I couldn't just copy and paste a picture of our floorplan, but you can see it

here
We added the bonus room upstairs as well. The way they decorated their model is pretty ugly; don't worry, I do not plan to take notes from their designer. Here are some other pics I took:

Our lot: Its sold!! :)

View from the back corner of our lot

This is our siding color, NOT our house

This is what our house will look like, plus a room above the garage

The next morning we went to the design center and picked out all the finishes from appliances to wall color to faucets. I didn't take my camera to the design center (dumb, I know, but I was nervous and forgot). After that we drove down to one of the public beaches to have lunch, again me still without a camera. Wednesday was pretty much a day we had to ourselves (no errands to run) so we went to downtown Charleston and explored down there. We had lunch at Bubba Gump Shrimp (very touristy place, but since one of my brothers' nickname is Bubba, we had to go). Then we explored the open air market, a must for those visiting Charleston: they have some very cool stuff, and walked around the shops on the main drag. After dinner we headed back to the base (where we stayed) and relaxed for our departing trip the next morning. Here are some miscellaneous pics of Charleston:

A very cool church downtown

Me trying to be artistic (thats not the camera strap, its looking out from under a covered area); I tried...

Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.

Me trying to be artistic again, I thought the lighting on the church was nice.

Well, thats about it for now. I'll be heading up to Oklahoma next week to see Kyle, so I will update then.

Altus, this and that

Kyle hasn't even been a Altus a whole 2 weeks yet and I miss him like crazy! They have kept him relatively busy with academics and SIMs since he's been there, and he is really enjoying learning a "big boy plane" as he calls it. So far, he has mainly been learning what all the buttons do, and learning the pre-start up check list. Apparently, there are a lot of things to check before you can even turn on the engines. And then, there is more stuff to check, but I don't think they have gotten quite that far yet; not proficiently anyway. Here is a picture of the cockpit (apparently many of those knobs serve dual purposes):

Like I said, just learning all this stuff has kept Kyle pretty busy. I think the Wii he got for his birthday helps out too ;)

Besides all the goings on with my car, things have been relatively calm for me. As I posted earlier, I went with my parents up to College Station last weekend to visit my brothers. That was fun. They have turned out to be pretty cool people, and it is so neat to see them go through the Corps and have some of the same experiences Kyle did. Some of the experiences we had at A&M are some of the most fun and treasured memories I have. Its nice to still have such a close connection to Aggieland, and I am so glad for my brothers that they are making their own memories up there.

Also, my mom and I are going to be taking a trip to Charleston in a few weeks. Since Kyle can't go with me to the design center to pick out some of the finishes for our house, my mom offered to accompany me. That's going to be a lot of fun. I'm so excited about having our own home and personalizing it! I can't wait until its done and we can move in!! After that trip, I get to go to my brothers' final review at A&M. They are going to be juniors next year (which means in a year they will be in their senior boots, which blows my mind). And then I am going up to Oklahoma to visit my guy and we will celebrate our 2 year wedding anniversary! I can't believe its been 2 years since our wedding (and we have been a couple for 7 1/2 years!). I'm really excited, not only that we have been married for 2 years, but that I will get to see him on our anniversary this year! (Last year, he was cross country and was gone for it). Plus, I miss him a ton and can't wait to see him.

That's about it for now; I will keep you updated as things happen around here.

I think I won't drive again for a while

Well, I picked up my car today, and it was fixed to my satisfaction this time. Its amazing what people will do for you when you tell their boss they aren't doing a very good job. I'm just glad that its fixed and I can put all this behind me. But on the way back from the repair shop I must have had a "hit me" sign on the passenger door or something b/c 3 people acted like they had the desire to hit me. I'm convinced that one of them would have if I hadn't hit my breaks. She decided that she wanted to be in my lane and didn't really care if I was there or not. Lets just say that all three of these drivers were not from around here (America) and probably don't have a valid drivers license or insurance. No big deal, I just felt like someone really wanted to send my car back to the shop after it had been out for a total of 2 minutes. Moving on...

I think my frustration has peaked...

If I have a piece of advice for anyone, at the moment, it would be to not get into any type of auto accident. Obviously, the word "accident" itself implies that you didn't do it on purpose, but if there were any way to avoid it, I certainly would.

If you haven't caught on by now, this is something that I am dealing with at the present moment. The short story is: on our drive from Del Rio to Houston, a car in front of me ran over a piece of sheet rock in the road, and having no way to change lanes (we were passing some trucks), I hit it with the front end of my car. I was fine, a little shaken up, and there was some damage to my car (obviously, I hit a piece of sheet rock going 75 miles an hour), but nothing internal. Should be no big deal to fix right? Wrong. For whatever reason , my particular service representative at the body shop is the most unhelpful person and is actually quite rude to me. Its like I am a nuisance to him. First off, there was a crack in my front bumper. They did not replace this despite my expressed desire for them to do so, they puttied it and painted over it AND I can still see the dimple where the crack is. Next, they tried to tell me that damage to my undercarriage was prior damage. Wrong again. My car is only a year old and I take care of it. Anything damage to that front end was done by the same piece of sheet rock. I am beyond frustrated at this point. We have contacted our insurance adjuster again, and he was going to contact my service rep, so maybe it will get done right this time. But if I ever have another problem with my car, I WILL NOT be taking it back to this place.

My beef is not that I had the accident, things like that just happen, but when I take my car somewhere to get fixed, and pay my deductible, I expect that things get done properly and not to be treated rudely when I say that the current state of repairs does not meet those expectations. To me, that is unacceptable.

Sorry to vent, but this has been what I have been dealing with since I have been back in Houston. And with Kyle in Altus, that makes things that much more complicated.

On a brighter note, I got to see my brothers this past weekend at A&M's parents weekend events and Kyle was able to visit with one of his very dear friends who is moving to Japan in a few days. So we both had a really good weekend. He has been in Oklahoma for a couple of weeks now, and that's going well thus far. Its mostly been academics but he has done a couple of sims as well. He'll actually get to fly the plane in July. I'll post more updates on that later.

Gotta give credit where credit is due...

I can't take credit for our little makeover here.... I got it from this blog. They have a bunch of really cute designs and they are free!