Jason's birthday was the beginning of May, and the day before his birthday, his parents arrived for a visit. The day of Jason's birthday, my parents arrived for a visit....yes it was planned that way and most would think, "oh my gosh, both sets of parents together in the same house! you must be stressed!" Quite the opposite I'd say. Jason's parents and mine get along with each other as if they're best friends. We are so blessed for that. It was a perfect beginning of the month with an array of family activities. Both Jason and I highly value family time, so it was a real treat to take a "stay-home" vacation and spend quality time with his parents while they were visiting. We celebrated Jason's birthday at Texas Road House with the family, and then returned to our house for a cake reception with friends. I think he had a great time. (There's a link on the right side of my blog page if ya want to see pictures)
The summer months: All quite a blur because we were busy working and with church activities, etc. But during the summer Jason and I made new friends and met cool people.
June: At work in June, I met the coolest customer ever! (I pick favorite customers of the day just to add something fun to my day) and this customer not only won for the day, but for the week, and month, and well she's totally my favorite customer. Her name is Rachelle. Being the huge makeup fan that I am, I had to ask her about that fabulous lipstick she was wearing. Little did I know that it would strike up a brief, fun conversation- and the presentation of her business card before I got back to making lattes. When I got home that day, I looked up her website and browsed and thought, "Wow what a Jewel, I really did meet the coolest customer ever!" Remember that admiring people thing written in one of my previous posts where I say my brain kind of falls out and I lose my train of thought and can only smile...I was totally hoping that wouldn't happen next time I saw her.....it didn't I was fine....okay, maybe I got a wee bit timid, but that's just what happens when I think highly of someone. (if you haven't, read my admiring people post, the "brain falling out thing" I just mentioned probably wont make any sense, so read that post) Anyway I sent a brief e-mail to her letting her know how glad I was to have met her. I totally wanted to keep in touch with her. I've seen her every now and again at Starbucks and it's always nice to see her. I didn't have a business card to give her, but I did giver her a Starbucks gift card just because she's fabulous.
July & August: I'd say the hi-light of July & August was meeting new friends at church. Okay, I think we met them a little sooner than July, but July was when we began to spend time with them. We were introduced to "a nice young couple" Rod Hazen wanted us to meet because they just moved from Minnesota. Chris & Theresa, whom Jason likes to call our neighbors because they live just a mile & a half away from us. He's from North Dakota, where their neighbors were like 5 miles apart, so within a 5 mile radius or shorter, they're neighbors. Being we were one of the young adult small group hosts, we invited them to our home for small group Bible study. They came, and they fit right in. After our small group meeting ended, and everyone else who had to pick up their kids left, Jason and I had some time to visit with Chris & Theresa. Jason and Chris went to the same university, and the four of us enjoyed visiting with each other. We offered to "show them around the city" and later that week they came over for dinner and then we were off to see the city. We went to down town Tempe, and explored Mill Ave. Cold Stone and Coffee Plantation were our stops. We went all over the city, on a driving tour being it was late, and none of us wanted to be outside after walking down Mill, even when the sun goes down it's still hot, and remember, they moved from Minnesota! Speaking of still hot when the sun goes down, a few weeks later, they braved patio dining with us at Oregano's. We also met Sid and Andrea, another young adult couple who were new at church. One of the other young adult leaders introduced them to us. They along with Chris & Theresa have often stuck around to visit after small group sessions concluded for the evening. Sid and Andrea are both managers in the world of retail, so we do not get to visit with them very much, but when we do, it's like time has not passed, easy to "catch up" and we are so glad to see one another. Aren't those kinds of friends the best!
September-October: I was often wondering exactly when it would start cooling off here, and rather envious of my friends and family members enjoying cooler weather "up North". Okay, I wasn't really envious of my friends and family up North, but I did find myself checking the weather of where they were. I was thinking it would be so nice to go up to Omaha right then. We did get to go to North Dakota for labor day weekend though, which was wonderful!
As usual we stayed busy with work and church activities. Jason actually picked up his drum sticks again, and became one of the two drummers being rotated in the praise band. Pastor Kim said, "he shocked us with his talent". It's really neat to see him do something I thought he might not ever do again because of major burn out. I'm glad he's part of that team. Does everyone know the story of how Jason & I met? We met at Phoenix First:He was a drummer, I was a new vocalist in the band and the leader introduced me to the team, mine & Jason's eyes met, "and the rest was history" as they say. There's a lot of romance in that story but I'm not telling it in this blog, I almost went off on a rabbit trail there didn't I? Alright, back to Sept.Oct. & what we did then....during the entire month of September, I do remember trying to find a store to transfer to, one closer to me because the commute was very exhausting, and pricey. So the end of September, I ended up transferring to a Starbucks less than 2 miles away from my house. Cool, I was getting more hours and wasn't far away from home....only problem was I really missed my old store and still do! I'm not unhappy at my new store, but I didn't realize how much I'd miss my store! Oh well, the change was a must. I've adjusted.
November: The month was definitely filled with a lot of change adjusting to a store transfer, and a brand new schedule. Jason and I communicated mostly by phone calls & text messaging, and post it notes in the house. Oh how awesome it was for us to have a day off together! We'd spend the time "re-grouping" and catching up. Allright, I'm half way exaggerating about our communication, but we didn't get a whole lot of quality time together in October or November because of my work schedule. It's all worked itself out though.
We enjoyed a trip to Safford for Thanksgiving to spend the holiday with my sister & parents. Although brief, it was a much needed little get away that was so refreshing. On our drive home, we began to talk about plans for Christmas. Jason's family is coming to visit us! That's going to be so exciting!
December: This month has been busy, but nice. Jason and I both got to enjoy a little stay at home vacation last week. We enjoyed sleeping in, crossing off some items on our holiday to-do list and got almost all of our Christmas shopping done. We also spent time decorating our house and putting up our Christmas tree. Now that most of our Christmas shopping is done it's pretty much just smooth sailing until Christmas guests arrive. We are looking forward to having Jason's family come for a visit. We pick up his sister & her husband & daughter from the airport tomorrow! His parents and brother will arrive sometime Thursday! On Christmas eve, my brother and his wife & kiddos will join us for our festivities! I'm very excited about Christmas and can hardly wait for all the fun with family to begin! So, perhaps the next time I post a blog, it'll be a little shorter than this one, with a few pictures of all the fun going on!
Merry Christmas everyone!
