November in Lubbock

Well it's now November and so many things I never thought would come, have. We had my parents out last week for a visit. We got to see so many parts of Lubbock and the history behind it. We ate at a bunch of places, some AMAZING that I will go back to, and others not so amazing but it's always nice to finally get to venture around your new home. They also bought us a stand up freezer :-) It's SO nice to have some freezer space and actually be able to save money by buying things in bulk!

Sadly Nick could not come down with mom and dad but that was fortunate for me as I reach my next subject. I submitted my thesis on time and it was officially accepted! I needed someone to pick up my signature sheet from the Animal Science building and hand it off to the Graduate School before I could electronically submit my thesis and Nick stepped in and took care of it for me! I only have a few more details to wrap up by the end of the semester but then I'll be officially done with every aspect of my masters and can concentrate solely on my PhD. Perfect timing really because it appears my PhD project will be starting up after the first of the year. Everything was a bit anti-climactic but I'm glad to have it done and over with.

Chris and I are getting to spend more time together and loving it. We are really liking our church and we found a Sunday night group that meets for dinner and a discussion that we really like. Oddly enough we found this over the summer on our cruise in Greece. I was wearing a Texas Tech shirt and a lady came up to me in the dining room and shared that she lives in Lubbock and would love to meet up with us once we moved down. As such, it's not associated with our church and Sunday nights are bad times when Chris is traveling but it's great to have for now.

I'm still not happy with the apartment complex we live in. We're the last building to get painted, half the fences in our little grouping are not going to get fixed because the fencers were not getting paid and they walked out, NOTHING that was on our list of broken things when we moved in in August has been fixed and they have had multiple visits from us, including a new list. While mom and dad were here we stumbled across some houses that are well maintained and decently priced at 59900 and I'm not sure how long we're going to be here but even over 4 years it would EASILY pay for itself... I don't know, it's just a thought. Any of the places to live around here that aren't sufficiently ghetto and run down are EXPENSIVE, it's ridiculous! This is supposed to have a lower cost of living but rent is huge and food is more expensive (there are no stores with loyalty cards) and honestly most of the city is in poverty. I guess I just don't see how it's so sustainable that way? OK, vent done.

I know Chris will have to spend more time in CO now that he has less races but with our bikes making the trip back with mom and dad he will have a constant mode of transportation around Fort Collins. We have great friends in Fort Collins who just bought a new house and have offered their new guest room as a place to stay. It will be nice that Chris doesn't have to crash only on the couch at Nick's place. However, I'm looking forward to more time on the weekends with him :-)

The weather is finally cooling down and I'm looking forward to a winter here :-) I'm looking forward to truly making Lubbock our new home and embracing everything it has to offer us (at least for the next couple of years).

Stresses of Life

I know it's been a while since I've posted. Chris has been gone a lot for work and I have been very busy with school and work. The past two weeks have been very challenging for us, I won't say we got through unscathed but we got through it together and that's what matters. Chris loves his job and while I'm sad that he's gone when he is I love getting to spend time with him when he's home and I'm happy that he loves his job and what he does. I am very happy to be in Texas and getting deep into lab work and school work. I'm finding my place on campus and making friends and my advisor has all of these great potential opportunities for research projects that I can get involved in. One in particular deals with lab rats and testing out a peanut based protein that has been formulated to feed children in third-world countries that are malnourished. As of tonight (9/25/11) I have sent my thesis off to my primary masters advisor for final approval. The steps following will be to make any corrections he gives me, get my formatting perfect (something i'm really good at) and then get my paper crushed down into a journal article size and ready for submission. Then I can officially submit my thesis submission form (yes I know this sounds redundant!) and then I can electronically submit my thesis and I have officially graduated and only have to worry about my journal article submission! November 4th, here I come!!!!! This is the final date for submission for graduating this fall.

I am a little disappointed in how my assistantship has turned out, financially, but with Chris' job being great we're doing well and we have figured out how to make it through the tough winter months!

We both got flu shots this year, every winter I am out of Colorado I get the flu so I thought maybe I could fight the inevitable and with Chris traveling as much as he does we thought it might help get us through those tough winter months ;-) haha

We really miss our great friends and family from back in CO but look forward to the time that we get to spend with them in CO or here in TX. Chris and I finally got to attend church together and we think we have found our new church home. This means that hopefully this winter when he's not working much we will have time to find a small group and get involved. I'm looking forward to having a support network down here to help me with my sanity!

Overall we are happy, the cats are happy, and we love our new adventures that we get to embark on together!

Weekends

Once again it's the weekend and once again Chris is traveling. Mandy has a friends dog she's puppysitting for the weekend so she will have plenty of little boys (dogs and cats) running around to keep her busy. We got most of the pictures up this week. We hung every picture that has the ability to hang because we have more wall space than shelf space. I feel like the place is coming together more and more and i keep finding more pictures hidden everywhere! Classes started on Thursday morning for Mandy and it felt great to be back in classes. Friday afternoon the grad students went out to the farm to get the group-housing hutches set up for our little dairy calves and then feed. It was a lot of fun to get out there and do some work and get dirty.

This weekend is a big weekend for Chris, in the past he's had people near-by to help him out in case he hit any snags and he's by himself this weekend. His boss will be available but very busy since they are timing the Chicago Triathlon with about 10,000 people this weekend. Chris' race is on Columbus this weekend with about 1,500 people. Mandy will get some unpacking, some cleaning and some Thesis work accomplished.

Last weekend Mandy attended a church in Lubbock that reminded her a lot of Timberline back home so hopefully Chris will get to attend soon and both of us can get involved again in a small group like we were in CO. Looking forward to church on Sunday morning again!

The new chapter in our life

Hi all,

So we have both made it to Lubbock, finally! Chris is staying busy on the weekends working races and Mandy is starting to get everything together for school this fall. After many frustrations Mandy has officially defended her thesis and passed the defense, but as the status quo goes there is still a lot of work to be done on the actual written thesis. The cats made the trip like troopers but Bandit's age was showing, he was very stressed by the end of it. They are adjusting to life well in Texas. Chester currently loves that our apartment is still not fully unpacked, this means a jungle gym and obstacle course for him. We are grateful for all the help we received from family and friends when it came to packing and moving. We still have about 1/4 of our stuff to unpack but the place is slowly coming together. We are doing our best to make it our own and enjoy living here. Mandy is looking forward to her upcoming classes and figuring out what fun Lubbock has to offer.

We will do our best to keep this as updated as possible!

Love too all and have a very blessed day!