Merry Christmas!

Just made this make-shift Christmas card to send along with a gift to my grandpa, so I thought I'd post it for everyone else (re: my mom) to see!

The Creepiest Thing I've Ever Seen

A cremation urn, custom sculpted to look like your face. A steal at only $2,600.


http://www.cremationsolutions.com/Personal-Urns-c109.html

Cody Dishman, State Farm Agent!

Just wanted to let everyone know that Cody was officially selected yesterday to be the next State Farm Agent in Cedar Park! We're really excited about the opportunity, and are so glad that the effort he's put in for the past two and a half years is being rewarded! There's a LOT of hard work and financial hurdles still ahead of us, but we definitely feel like we're walking down the path that God has led us to, and we're totally pumped! He starts training on Monday, and will probably open his doors next June!

And a New Dog - Queso!

Our little Taco has been pretty lonely lately. We've always known he loves other dogs - he had a blast in our apartment complex with his buddies, especially his BFF Cooper the Schnoodle. He also loves seeing his brothers, Reggie & Berlioz. Here's a pic of the three of them together. It was quite a feat to get them to hold still for this picture. Taco is on the left, then "Bear" the shaggy dog, then Reggie.
On top of that, we've been causing some serious upheaval in Taco's life recently. First was the "fixing" procedure, followed by this miserable cone. Look at his right leg - they shaved him for his IV line before surgery. Hilarious! We called him Peg Leg for a while.

Then, just as life gets back to normal, we move into our new house! Taco pretty much loves the house, but without dogs to play with, he's been getting into some trouble. Here he is in our backyard hiding out. He's got that "busted" look on his face - we've been seeing it a lot lately!

We (foolishly?) figured that the solution to this problem was to get him a playmate. We searched around on Craigslist and found this schnauzer/terrier mix in Dallas who was rescued by a sweet vet technician before his mean owner surrendered him to the pound. His name was Roofus, but we renamed him Queso so we can have a full-on Mexican feast of pets. Look at that face!!

Luckily for Taco, Queso LOVES to play and wrestle. He's a bit taller than Taco, so Queso pretty much dominates him all the time. But Taco is in puppy heaven! Unfortunatley, all the wrestling and barking and jumping on furniture is driving Cody and I totally insane. I mean, they're cute but SHHHHH!!!! Here's a pic of the two of them together. It took bribing with treats to get them to stop playing long enough to take this pic!
(Please excuse their ridiculous haircuts - we just took them to be groomed and they basically shaved them bald! I think Taco especially looks silly, but hopefully it will grow back soon!)

Here's our failed attempt at a family portrait. We tried about 5 of these but the dogs kept trying to attack eachother before we could snap the photo. Oh well, here's the best we can do. (Cody's tired expression is pretty much how we've both been feeling all week. A piece of advice: consider waiting more that one week after moving before getting a new pet!)


Despite the chaos (and complete lack of unpacking), we're enjoying our new addition to the family. Queso is great at going potty in a timely manner (hopefully he's teaching Taco about this), and he's getting better about eating. He's a little more cuddly than Taco is, which is kind of sweet, and hopefully he will learn our rules pretty soon.
Welcome home, little Queso!

Home Sweet Home!

No time to post, but I wanted to put a picture of our new house up here! We (FINALLY!) closed today, so we're officially homeowners! We actually moved in last weekend, so all of our stuff is in, but it's still a mess of boxes and misplaced furniture inside, so we haven't taken interior photos yet. Hope this one holds everyone over until then!!

Pic of Our Living Room in New House

Note: this is not our stuff, I took this pic when the renters were still living here!!

More Taco

I finally uploaded pictures and thought I'd share a few of little Taco.

He loves to play with his toys, and I think there's potential for him to be good at fetch, but he always gets distracted by other toys along the way. Here he is trying his hardest to fetch two balls at once. Hilarious!



One of my favorite parts of the day is when I let Taco out of his kennel. He always comes out and stretches out on my legs, like he's giving me a puppy hug. Sometimes that's followed by a few licks (kisses), but usually he then tries to eat my pants/feet/face, so it's a short lived moment, but sweet none the less.



Just thought I'd share!

Pink & Perfect!

My sweet mother-in-law sent me flowers to my office yesterday! We had just gone to lunch together, along with Charis and her two kiddos, and a couple of hours later I got this gorgeous bouquet of pink flowers! Roses, carnations, lilies, daisies, and those cool tall things - snapdragons maybe? Anyway, it was so exciting and really made my day!


I'm so lucky to have Patty for a mother-in-law - she's smart (hello, math major!), talented (photography whiz!), thoughtful (pink flowers!), a genetic gold mine (have you met Cody?!) and loves Jesus (the best part of all!) I couldn't have asked for better in-laws! So thanks Patty! Love you more!!

Introducing - TACO!!

We got Taco yesterday, and we love him to pieces already! He's an 8 week old miniature schnauzer and weighs about 6 pounds right now. He's super cuddly but has a lot of spunk too, which should make him an excellent addition to our little family!

Taco has two brothers who recently joined our extended family - Reggie was adopted my my parents last week, and my sister has Berlioz with her at her apartment in College Station. Once Cody and I met those two, it took us less than a day to decide that we must adopt the final member of their litter! My parents kept Taco for us for a few days last week, and my mom brought him to me yesterday!

Cody is loving Taco too! We've known that we would get a dog eventually, but we've been hesitant to get one since our apartmments have been kind of small. But we decided not to wait any more, so we sold our treadmill to make room for his play pen and crate! So far, he's not a huge fan of being left alone - he cried the ENTIRE three hours we were at church this morning. I called my sister Cyndi for advice, and we researched puppy separation anxiety for a while, eventually deciding that they are just typical puppies and are *hopefully* going to get over it eventually. It's heart breaking to hear his whimperey cries when we leave the room though! He's just too cute to be in that kind of misery!!

Here we are - a happy, dog-owning family! Taco loves other dogs (even though he's kind of scared of the big ones) and can't wait to make more friends, so if you want to set up a doggy play date, let us know!!

Cruising with State Farm

We went on a cruise a couple of weeks ago with Cody's coworkers and their significant others. A huge thank you to Brent & Amberly, who sponsored our way to this super-fun vacation! We had a great time and loved getting away from work & responsibility for a week!

Here we are at the life boat safety drill. I tried hard not to think of Titanic. :)

We went horseback riding in Cozumel, which was really fun. We rode around, saw some Mayan ruins, and then spent the last 15 minutes of our ride GALLOPING! That was really fun and something I didn't think I'd ever get the chance to do, so I'm glad we didn't wuss out. :)

Here we are in Roatan, Honduras. Don't be deceived by my smile - I HATED this hike, which I have dubbed our Honduran Hike from Hell. But I survived, and I guess in retrospect I'm proud that I made it. But next time we're in Honduras, we're just going to go to the beach or something.

In Costa Maya, we spent some time hanging out with Brent & Amberly. They're so much fun, and we're so blessed that Cody works for such a great insurance mentor. :) We go to church together too, so Cody sees a lot of Brent, but they have a lot of fun together and don't seem to mind hanging out six days a week!

The highlight of the cruise for me was the magic show - my first experience with magic was at Lauren's bachelorette shower, and I've been a sucker for live magic tricks ever since. This duo was amazing and pretty funny too. I had my mouth gaping open like that for most of the show!

Okay, the real highlight of the show was watching Cody show his wild side in the Karaoke Superstar competition. Both he and Brent made it to the finals, and they were both wonderful - the two best performers of the night! Cody's coworker Pat took some video of it, but I'm not really sure how to upload it, so suffice to say his performance involved a lot of hair gel, crawling around on the stage, running through the crowd, and ripping open his pearl-snap shirt. It was awesome and I was never prouder to be his wife. :)