Hips Don't Lie.

I just want to take the time to announce that there is only one more Monday of school left until summer!  This year has crawled and flown by both at the same time. I feel like yesterday was October but it also feels like it was a year ago. I know it is strange but it has been a learning year for both Holland and I.  We both took on challenges we did not foresee especially with going into the second year of our careers.  I am thinking year three may be the lucky one and if not there is always a silver lining. 

So, I am a firm believer that things come in threes. One of the threes that happened recently was Bleu's hips. Well since he has two hips I suppose this was number 1 and 2. Bleu has it in his genes to have problems with his hips as he gets older. He has been on glucosamine for about a year now and I have just felt like it has gotten worse. He over exerts himself and is slow with moving around for the following three days after a long walk or a lake trip. He just looks like an old man sometimes and thats okay because he is. I wanted to know more of his condition so my primary vet did some x rays a few weeks ago to see what was going on. Just to give some background on our vet- he is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. He is an Aggie which makes him fabulous in my book and he is always so positive. I knew it was about to get serious when we walked into the vet to go over Bleu's x rays and the receptionist even said "Poor old Bleu! His hips are looking rough!" Dr. Nichols told us he classified Bleu's hips as severe hip dysplasia.  Basically, Bleu has no socket in his hips so his bones are rubbing together. This is what causes him to sashay his hips and hop like a bunny when he runs or goes up stairs.  Dr. Nichols recommended for us to see a surgeon to see if Bleu would be a good candidate for hip replacement or FHO surgery. We had our appointment today and we got some good news!

Waiting for the Doctor with dad. 

The Surgeon advised us that although Bleu would be a great candidate for a complete hip replacement in his left hip, he did not feel it was needed at this time. Possibly in a year or two if we feel his condition gets worse, we can comeback in to re-evaluate if the surgery should be done or not.He gave us some ideas on how to possibly prevent Bleu from being in pain. One thing is getting some weight off. So I guess that means no more loaves of bread for a snack? :)  We are going to cut 1/3 of his food out and supplement canned green beans since they have low caloric intake.  Another thing is just giving Bleu some pain meds when we know he has been extremely active.

I am still worried about his hips, but at least we know other options we can do to make him more comfortable. He is such a happy go lucky pup. I mean look at that picture. He is just too adorable.

Keep Calm and Call Mom.

My mom and I after I won a pageant show. I was excited about the crown!

Whenever I am having one of those days when I know I want for someone to just listen, be on my side and/or yell with me and cry with me... I call my mom.  No matter what the situation, she stands by me.  If I feel sad, she feels sad.  If I am angry she gets angry too. I usually call her first because she will listen to me vent, then she vents with me. I also call her when the good things happen and usually when I am driving to and from work. It is rare if the day is coming to an end and we have not spoken on the phone.   I love that about us. 

I am lucky to have the relationship I do with my mom. I can quickly refer to her as a best friend and I can ask her any question and she gives me the best advice she can.  She will also drop anything and everything to help me in any way possible.   I am a grown 26 year old woman and the person I still ran to when I felt strep coming on a few weeks ago was my mom. She took me to the doctor, went and got my meds and ran to get me soup. It just feels good to be in your moms presence.

Mom and I at my 2011 M.Ed Graduation!

One of my favorite stories is when my mom encouraged me to do the scariest thing ever in my life- Move away from home.   I was in the middle of my first semester of college at SAC and Holland was in College Station. We were walking laps around a track at Incarnate Word and I was just telling her how much I missed Holland and how much I wanted to be in College Station, even though I probably wouldn't be a student at A&M yet.  A&M was always my top goal, and I just felt so far away from it and even though I was only 18, half my heart was in another city as well.  I remember she said " Amanda, you need to go there". I was worried what my dad would say, thinking I was just going there for Holland. She told me to write a letter to my dad explaining how I felt and why I wanted to make the transfer. Surprisingly,  my dad walked right into my room and said he was fine if I was ready to move.  Within a few months we were packing up and moving my stuff to a one bedroom apartment in College Station and I was enrolled at Blinn. I distinctly remember the feelings I felt when the moment came to tell my parents bye. When I hugged them my heart felt heavy and there was tightness in my throat.  I am still not great at holding back tears, so that day they just came and I welcomed them. They were scared, nervous and happy tears. This was where I was supposed to be and it was just so strange that my parents weren't in this new place of my life.  All throughout my six years in College both my parents were always there, just a phone call or drive away. I can never repay my mom for pushing me out of her nest that day on the track. I know I would have eventually made it to A&M even if I would have stayed in San Antonio longer. However, that move changed my life for the good and I was fully admitted to A&M one year after living in the city.

 My mom still brings out the "kid" in my sister and I. When we go to the lake house, she is always sure to have stuff for s'mores so we can chat and grill treats by the fire. She still chases us with bugs and scares us and laughs at our screaming. Whenever we go shopping, she will purchase clothes for us.  I always tell her " Mom, I HAVE A JOB! I HAVE MONEY!". She always tells me my money is no good.

Ness and I with mom on Mothers Day 2010. Yes Vanessa your hair still looks better dark and that balloon changed our life forever with its catchy tune when you hit it. 

Mom, I cannot thank you enough for all you have done for me for the past 26 years.    I am so lucky to always have someone on my side to tell me that I have a right to feel how I feel and you always have pushed me to the be the best I can be. Thank you for always being a cheerleader on the sidelines for me.  I love you SO much and I do not know if I can ever express how appreciative I am of you. I love you, I love you, I love you.

Happy Mother's Day!

Relay For Life

Last night was amazing.  I was on my first Relay for Life Team with some co-workers from school. One of our colleagues, Mia Altamirano was diagnosed with Breast Cancer this past Fall. She is SO strong and has been missed every day at school.   Every week,  someone from Clear Spring makes a visit to her to keep her spirits up and of course to get our Mia fix.

Our Team name was in honor of Mia. We were called "Mia's Maniacs". Our coach, Michelle was our captain of the team and did an amazing job of organizing and getting every one pumped up for the big day. Purple sashes were made that said "Cinco de Mia" and we had plenty of fiesta wear to show our team spirit! I got to the stadium around 8:15 and walked until 9:30. During that time, there was an illuminaria lighting that was very moving. There were hundreds of white paper bags decorated in honor of people who are currently fighting or who have battled cancer before.  They put candles(battery operated) in each bag and turned off all the lights in the stadium. All the teams then did about two laps in complete silence while music played in the background. Although I am unsure of how many of those illuminarias    were for people who had lost their battle vs. how many were just in honor of people still fighting, it is astounding to see how many peoples lives have been affected by cancer. Then to think that  those bags are just a fraction of people whose lives have been changed forever.

It was a fun evening, we played ultimate frisbee, did the cha cha slide, sat around and talked, laughed and played volleyball. I went home at 12:30 but the event lasted all throughout the night! I was honored to be there in honor of our dear friend Mia and for all the other survivors and fighters.

If you want to see more on our friend Mia and our awesome Coach for putting this team together read this ARTICLE!!!

Week Re-Wind and COMPOST!

Wheeeew. This past week was a crazy whirlwind. It was Fiesta week in San Antonio and Holland and I went to Niosa with my family on Tuesday night. We had a field trip with the Kinders on Wednesday to the Magik Theatre to see the Velveteen Rabbit.  My throat was hurting but I thought it was just from the weather change, possibly yelling to friends at Niosa.... but it was worse.  I got strep for the first( and hopefully last) time ever.

I have never felt so sick in my life. Thank GOD my mom was here to take me to the doctor and get my meds and calm Holland down because he looked like he had seen a ghost when I was just laying on the bed not talking with a 102 fever. I feel SO much better.  Thankfully we had Friday off for Fiesta so I only had to call in to work for one day.

So after 2 full days of recuperating, we got back out to celebrate Fiesta some more. We went to the King William Fair which is held in a downtown historic part of town. It is AWESOME. Holland and I kept talking about all the houses we wanted to buy in that neighborhood. They are just SO cool. The fair had a lot of the same food as NIOSA, but they also had some art vendors as well. There were TONS of dogs around because they had a puppy parade in the morning.

Sunday was dedicated to friends and our garden.









 Today I forced Holland to do his project.... a compost pile. Now I have only told a few the story of the first compost pile because it is slightly embarrassing and very gross.  So..... the first compost pile was an old recycling bin that we put a bunch of our food into... it eventually just turned COMPELTELY TURNED into a bin of..... maggots. I was so afraid that Bleu was going to eat some of it and come and puke up worms in the house so when Holland was gone one weekend I paid someone to take it away... FAR AWAY.

Once we started our Spring/Summer Garden Holland brought the idea up and I told him it was a lllllll his project.  I told him I would help dedicate things to put in the compost, but he needed to build it, and take care of it and not let it turn into a pile of maggots. ( I know the maggots are "good" for the compost  but seriously.... the last one there wasn't even any dirt left.... just WORMS ALLL WORMS EWW.

Holland building our compost area. He even put a wire fence in the front so Bleu cannot eat anything from it! YAY :)

 Baby Bleu after being brushed, just relaxing. Hannah just being cute.

 Our pretty backyard! Our Neighbors behind us recently built their own privacy fence so we have a fully fenced in yard now!

 Holland sent me some flowers to work last week and they were still doing okay but half of them started to die. Wanted to dry them out and save them because they were so gorgeous.

 I have tried a new way of labeling our garden out. RIVER ROCK! My mom has a bunch of these leftover from my cousins wedding centerpieces and I just used a paint marker to mark the veggies. Cheap and easy.

Here are a few other photos from the weekend! On the bottom left corner you can see the finished product on the compost pile! Summer is almost here! Every weekend it feels more and more like it.
Hope you all have a fabulous week!

Capturing Moments

I did a photo shoot yesterday for a little girl who is turning one next month! Kinsley Brielle Estelle. Such a fun little lady to work with. She never got fussy and was happy go lucky the whole two hours we were at the McNay. 

The photo shoot yesterday was such a neat thing to be a part of because I did her moms(A'Livia) maternity pictures around this time last year at the same location- the McNay. 

Holland and I also captured some sweet moments of Kinsley as a newborn. 

Yesterday in the middle of some Estelle family pictures, I got to help capture another super sweet moment that involved something  sparkly!!

Cory and A'livia- Holland and I are so happy for you both! You both are so lucky to have one another for life partners and Kinsley is such a lucky girl to have you both as her parents.  It has been fun helping y'all capture moments this past year :). Congrats!!

When we were 15...

When we were 15, we were crazy. We were freshmen in High School. We had the world at our feet. The best thing of all was that we found each other in the mix of all the craziness.

I remember the first time I saw Holland. He looked pretty similar to the photo above. But he had on a white button up shirt. He remembers us first meeting at lunch, but I remember it being in front of our High School. Holland was and still is handsome. I thought that for sure the first time I saw him, but so did many other girls. Girls would flock to Holland. We had cement tables and benches on the outside part of our cafeteria and when I would walk to lunch (I am not kidding this is what I saw pretty much everyday) I would see Holland sitting on the table part of the bench and at least 8-10 girls surrounding him. This kinda drew my attention away from him. Yea, he was still cute but we could be friends. I never wanted to be that "girl" drooling over a guy with a pack of other girls.

Holland was on the swim team and as an "initiation for fish" and to cut time off your swim, the freshmen would shave their heads. One day in December I remember making that walk into the cafeteria and Holland was all alone.... and bald. Sitting on his concrete stoop without his flock of females. I remember pointing and laughing, but then we sat together with some friends and ate lunch.

In the beginning of the year we formed mutual friends between us, I even dated a guy that Holland went to Middle School with. However that only lasted like 3 months because that is typical when you are in High School. I found out later that Holland liked me when I was with his friend, and once I was single and I started to like Holland he wasn't interested anymore.  By the time March rolled around, I was crushing on Holland waaaaay too much. I couldn't handle myself. I did all the typical things a 14 (ALMOST 15) year old would do. I would beg my friends to call him at his house(WE HAD NO CELL PHONES PEOPLE). I would have them ask if he felt the same way and PLEASE SIT WITH ME AT LUNCH. SO much for not being "That girl" right?

Right before spring break I just told myself I needed to confront him. I was going to Florida for Cheerleading Nationals and on Friday after lunch I took a deep breath and walked up to him after he got a soda from the coke machine. I remember his face.... I caught him off guard. I said " Hey, I just want you to know that I like you..... I want to know if you feel the same..." and then my heart did this

sjdhfgsdkljfhgsdljfhgdsljghgdfjkhldfsgkjhdfsgkjdfshgdfksjhgsdkjhfgaskljhdiuashc!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He looked totally shocked and he told me that he liked me as a friend, and that since I dated his friend that he knew from middle school, he didn't know if he could ever be my boyfriend. I was sad..... but I moved on. I went to Disney World came back from Spring Break and again.... did what every 15 year old would(or at least should do ;))  ..... I ignored him. No more sitting together at lunch with friends, no friend phone calls, ANYTHING. And you know what people, it worked like a charm. Weeks later he was calling me just to "chat". He came to my birthday dinner at Macaroni grill and I made SURE to look super cute for that dinner.

We were falling for each other. All of our friends knew it, we knew it... it was just the question of WHEN WAS HE GOING TO ASK ME TO BE HIS GIRLFRIEND?!" Looking back now I guess it only took him about 3-4 weeks but at the time it felt like months. On April 13, 2002, I asked him to come to one of my cheer competitions at Fiesta Texas. We hung out there all day, and then some people went to hang out at my friend Jessica's house. we were all jumping on the trampoline and then laying down looking up at the stars. *No this isn't the moment he asked me, but I am getting to it. *  Daylight savings time has just occurred I think the week or so before this. Hollands parents were extremely strict with Hollands curfew. I don't know what they did to him when he was late but OH MY GOODNESS, Holland was always asking people the time so he wouldn't be late. Freshman year he had to be home by 10, every year after that his curfew grew an hour later(p.s. I am to totally doing this with my future kids)

 While we were laying on the trampoline Holland jumped up and said "OH SHIT!" I AM LATE! We thought it was only 9:40 but it was already 10:40! I called my mom to come pick us up and told her to hurry because Holland might get killed for already being SO late! We ran upstairs to Jessicas room to get our stuff and right there in front of her bunk bed struggling to catch his breath probably from fear and from running up the stairs so quickly, Holland asked me to be his girlfriend. I literally screamed and hugged him and said yes then booked it back down the stairs to run outside to tell my friends! On the way outside I tripped and broke my big toe on a cement stair but I was so excited I barely felt the pain. Holland made it home and he was still alive the next morning .Thank you Jayne and Mr.Whit for not killing him :).

I could write dozens of more posts on all the funny times we had when we were younger. I definitely want to use this blog to remember all the fun things we do and I really want to put all the past memories on here as well.  I will leave off with this.  When I was 15, I had NO idea Holland and I would be where we are now. We started off our relationship by celebrating every single month because again, thats about how long relationships lated in High School. On our one month anniversary, Holland brought me a dozen red roses to school, for 3 months he gave me a James Avery ring with a butterfly engraved on it. By the time we reached one year we were so excited to hit such a milestone! Yesterday we celebrated that same milestone, but for the 11th time. It still hasn't gotten old, it has just gotten better.  I know how cliche this sounds, but I am really excited for all the new memories we are going to make together. Here is to 11 years babe! Cheers :)

If you want to see some more old school photos, you can watch the video I made for our Ten Year anniversary last year!

Ten Years Video!

11th Anniversary

Holland and I celebrated our 11 year anniversary this weekend! We started off by going to Real Ale's 17th Anniversary party in Blanco. The event had around 1,000 people and it was dog friendly. THANK GOODNESS Hannah did not give us hell and was actually decent. She was going around sniffing everyone and making friends with other wiener dogs. Bleu was the social butterfly like he always is and was literally smiling the whole time. 

After the anniversary party we set off towards the lake house in Sunrise Beach, one of my favorite places in the world! I fell asleep in the car and woke up to Holland veering off onto the shoulder saying "WAKE UP! WE"RE TAKING PICTURES IN THE BLUEBONNETS!" The roads going up to the lake house were FILLED with bluebonnets. It is the best time of year in Texas. 

I had THE BEST shirt for our impromptu photo shoot :) Thanks Chris Mahler.

While I was going through pictures for this post I was laughing so hard out loud at how funny Holland was.

FACEBOOK PROFILE PIC!!

 Okay so my sister and Holland both told me that rattle snakes nest in bluebonnets. I did not have time to research this before our photo shoot and Holland wanted me to lay on my belly. He kept saying "JUST DO IT and GO FOR IT!!"I was hesitant but eventually got over it.

 Today we were REALLY lazy and laid in bed watching tv for what seemed like forever. Even and Hannah and Bleu were asleep and lazy with us. We don't have cable and we overdosed our selves on hoarders, say yes to the dress, extreme couponing and some drug enforcement agency show where they look for submarines. We came to the conclusion that extreme couponing is a form of hoarding. Seriously, you need 500 rolls of paper towels? You need all that formula? Oh and you don't have a baby? Makes total sense.... haha.

Once we got going we hung out at the deck and Hannah and Bleu sunbathed and swam. We went on a boat ride and ate lunch at the marina as well.

We had a fabulous weekend away. This weekend really felt like summer was here.  8 more weeks and we will officially be there!