August

 I planned to just write a post on all of the excitement we've had lately, but thinking back I decided that August deserved its very own post. This post is ridiculously long, but it's mostly just for me to be able to remember, so no hard feelings if you don't make it through!

 August was an overwhelming, difficult, exciting, miserable, wonderful, BUSY month. Life definitely happened, and I felt super blessed to have my sweet husband, family, and our wonderful friends by my side.

I finished up my summer classes in the beginning of August and made a trip the first week of the month to Southlake to get my doctor & dentist visits in (yes, I still need to find both in Natchitoches)! I ended up staying a little longer than planned and was able to visit with most of my very best friends from high school.

 On the drive home I noticed that my arms and legs were getting very itchy. A week and a half before that some of our Sunday School class went to clean out a sweet lady's yard, and unfortunately Leslie and Emily got poison ivy (after I told them they wouldn't get it in a flower bed- oops!) but I was lucky enough to get away with just a tiny bit on my arm. As it turned out, because it was my first time being exposed to poison ivy, it took 10 days to break out! It was ALL OVER me! I'll spare you and not post any pictures :) I ended up going to the doctor for steroids twice, had quite the scare from a lab error in a blood test, and found out that I need lots more Vitamin D! So, at least from all the itching I now know to take Vitamin supplements AND I get to be a patient of the doctor I went to! No more Urgent Care for me!

Our friends Jake and Kayla got married the next weekend in Alabama so we made a quick trip to Tuscaloosa! We got to see lots of friends and visit with Leslie's family. It was a beautiful wedding!

The next week we lost my precious grandmother who I named Mama Too when I was little. I got to visit her in July, and I was so thankful for the time I had with her. It was very difficult even though we knew it was coming, but it's comforting to know that she's not in pain anymore and that we'll see her again one day. We traveled back to Alabama for the second weekend in a row, and although it was under sad circumstances it was great to have most of the family together.

This picture was taken on our trip to visit Mama Too over Christmas break.

 The week after that it was back to work and school for me! On that Thursday we found out we would be closing on our house on MONDAY! We did tons of packing over the weekend, and thankfully we were able to get most of it done by Monday! We closed that morning, had everything switched over to our name, and went back to work (even though it was really hard to focus knowing we had a house)! That afternoon some wonderful (strong) friends from church helped us to move everything! I pictured it a bit differently in my mind, and forgot that we didn't have a single chair for the house! My parents are on their way now to bring us some furniture, but last week we were sitting in the floor! I'll definitely be doing a house post once we have some furniture!

We didn't have anyone to take a picture of us, so this was as good as it got!

With hurricane Issac moving into Louisiana, Natchitoches prepared for bad weather. I got three days off of school and work (score!) but it meant that Leslie had to leave on Wednesday to head to Lubbock with the football team to beat the bad weather (which we never got, by the way). I had plenty of unpacking to do, and I was glad I could stay busy! I had mostly everything done by Friday, and I decided I couldn't wait any longer to look for a kitten! I knew it'd be difficult for Leslie and I to find time to go together, and I thought it'd be good to have a few days at home with a kitty before I had to go back to work and school. I didn't really expect to find one, but I did! This is Linus, and he will most definitely be getting his own post later :)

Don't you just love him!?