tagged!!!

My sweet new friend Jaci from church "tagged" me which means I am supposed to share 7 random things about myself and then tag 7 other people to do the same!

Here goes!

1. I love Christmas. A ton. It's always been my favorite holiday. I start listening to Christmas music in October and don't stop until sometime in January. And I don't just listen to the same stuff over and over - I have quite a collection! The other day I tried to count all the Christmas songs on my computer and I lost count somewhere around 150 - yikes! I love that Christmas brings out my creative side, I love that it brings my family together for an extended period of time, I love giving gifts, I love having a break from work, I love Christmas movies (Elf, Home Alone, It's a Wonderful Life, etc), I love holiday baking, I love bundling up, I love writing Santa a note and leaving it with his cookies and milk (yes, I still do that), and I love meditating on what Christmas means - and that just about every year I realize something wonderful and new about the story of Jesus coming to earth.

(ok, obviously I could go on and on about that one, but you get it...)

2. I love shopping - as long as it's not for groceries. Something about it is incredibly relaxing and stress-relieving. (Scary, I know.) Sometimes I go to Target on my lunch break just to look around and chill... and I leave without buying anything.

3. I listen to Talk Radio. A lot. You know, I am in my car for at least 1 hour and 20 minutes every day of the week. My favorites are Hugh Hewitt and Dennis Prager. They don't yell and I learn a lot from them - you should give them a try! :)

3. my husband thinks I'm obsessed with modern means of communication: ie facebook, blogging, etc. He's living in like 2002. (just kidding, matt)

4. When I listen to music - I listen to it LOUD. especially when driving.

5. I LOVE salt! more than anyone else I know. I put it on pretty much everything except sweets. My blood pressure, last checked on Tuesday, is 108/64. Pretty darn good. I should probably start cutting back... but I don't want to.

6. I'm really emotional and I have been since I was little. Ask my husband or an immediate family member just how emotional. I have a huge heart for emotional kiddos who cling to their parents and cry at the drop of a hat - that is sooo me.

7. I love "The Office". I think it's absolutely hilarious & I love how it reminds me of good times with one of my best friends, Meghan. Yes, there are some parts of some episodes that I just pretend aren't there, but still, it just cracks me up. Matt and I are going through them from the beginning right now and last night we watched the one where Jim tells Pam he's in love with her. Soooo good. :)

ok, so I officially TAG: Bobbie Baggett, Heather Greene, Beth LoSurdo, Steph Harrison, the lovely Sarah Bush, Mommy, and Allison Horner. Sarah and mom: either start blogging or post your seven things in my comments :)

our fall photos

I just happened to have my camera when we went on our walk the other night :) these will suffice as our family fall photo shoot for this year, don't you think?

matt and friends

pretty flowers!



maybe small, but a pumpkin patch nonetheless.

The Pumpkin Patch

An observation I have had lately: it seems it is quite the trend to take your kiddos (if you have any) to the pumpkin patch about this time of year for a Fall photo shoot.  I have nothing against this idea, and I think it's a super-cute idea, however I have never heard of it before this season.  When we were little we never went to a pumpkin patch, much less have our pictures taken in cute Fall attire with the pumpkins.  Is this a new thing??  Is it a Texas thing that just never made its way over to El Paso??  I've passed by a few pumpkin patches lately and kinda feel drawn to stop and take cute pictures of something.....  :)

Maybe I'll take Matt.

All of you fellow bloggers who have pumpkin patch pictures up: I love them and your kids are soooo adorable!!!!

thoughts before bed

Christine told me I needed to "post" before going to bed, so....

Praise God, I got 2 more ENT interviews today!  I have really been having to learn patience and trust in the Lord lately.  

To add to Christine's dog list:

1. Newfoundlands

2. Bernese Mt. Dogs

not sure how to spell either of those.

On a different note, I can't wait for skiing this year!

so you're not wondering...

okay, so apparently if I say anything with the word "baby" in it I might make people think I'm having one... see comments on the last post  :)  ...  so just for clarification, we're not (planning on) having a baby anytime soon.  Just in case there was any confusion. We do still like thinking about having one someday, thus the baby names.  You have to be prepared, right? 

Before a baby comes along, we would like to get a dog, but we've decided we can't get one until we find out where we're going to be living after June of 2009. (ie residency)  

This weekend we went to Barnes and Noble and looked at a big dog book just for fun...  we really like: 

1. Labs

2. Golden Retrievers

3. Springer Spaniels

4. Brittany Spaniels

5. Pointers (this is the most recent...)

6. other various breeds up for adoption...

If you have any advice on dog breeds, we'll take it!!

My family has had a lot of pets.  We had a beagle named "Hokey Pokey" first, then along came Sarah's rabbit "Snowball", then Kevin's Lab "Brownie", then Sarah's second rabbit "Oreo", then my lab, "Teddy".  Now my parents have a cute yellow lab named "Bailey" - she's precious.  Matt likes to laugh at us because apparently we like to name our animals after sweet treats.  :)  only some of them.

This is Bailey, the newest of the Bush family pets - she's so fun to play with  :)

p.s. I'm insanely jealous of my brother and his wife (Kevin and Kelly) who just got their 2nd puppy.  :)  I still love them, though!

6 months!

We've been married SIX MONTHS!!! How quickly it has gone by!! It's been absolutely wonderful. Here are just a few of my favorite things about marriage so far.... in random order, and off the top of my head, of course.

1. attempting to make dinner for Matt.

2. watching Matt grow in Godliness and learning from his faithfulness and discipline

3. being excited about where next year will take us

4. helping in the nursery at church together

5. living at the Sycamore Tree close to Nathan and Bethany & Josh and Melanie!!!

6. getting my husband hooked on The Office.

7. Gloria's

8. Having Sarah stay with us :)

9. having other people over, too.

10. going for walks in Highland Park

11. sleeping in

12. talking about baby names

13. signing my prescriptions, finally, as Christine Whinery PA-C

14. having my best friend around all the time. and knowing he'll always be around. :)

There's so much more. but we're going for a walk in Highland Park - Woohoo!

sarah's birthday fun

What a fun day we had celebrating Sarah's birthday! Luke had the great idea of surprising her with a day at Six Flags, and it was tons of fun. :) (except for spending part of the afternoon being absolutely terrified.... i don't like roller-coasters). We spent the whole day there, then went to Manny's for yummy Mexican food, then had cake and ice cream at our place with a few friends. Here are some pictures :)

warming up on the "Sombrero"

Yay for the swings!!

Matt was decidedly one of the "not cool" people (holding his arms out) on the "Gunslinger"

How cute are they?!?

baby shower thief!

It seems a lot of people in our lives are pregnant right now. My wonderful Medical Assistant, Angela, is going to be having a baby in about a month. We had a baby shower for her at work the other day. It was great fun. It's always fun to do something out of the ordinary during the work day, don't you think?

Well, another co-worker and I decorated our conference room the night before the shower.... we went all-out with balloons, streamers, confetti, table decorations, and a super-cute "it's a girl" banner that hung from the ceiling! It was all set to go and all I had to do was pick up the cake the next day. That morning, one of my co-workers came by my desk and said "Do you want me to put a table cloth on the table, or do you need help putting up more decorations?" I said no, that I thought it was probably fine with what we had already done.... little did I know...


When I finally went into the conference room with the cake, the only decorations that were up were some of the balloons and a few of the streamers. I asked where the rest of the decorations were... and no one knew. We decided someone had taken them down and everyone was appalled!!! The nerve!! It was actully quite funny :) Our first suspects were the drug reps who had been there earlier that morning, but then someone got on the phone with our cleaning man, and he had taken them down the night before. (I felt kinda bad for him cause i think he got in trouble.... and he was just trying to do his job.)


Nonetheless, the shower turned out great!



Dr. McMillin, Angela, and me!