presents under the tree

Tree? Read "christmas bush".

We are DONE with the wrapping of presents! (as in I just finished wrapping Sarah's gift(s)...stay tuned) A few facts about the holiday:

The ability to wrap gifts in expert fashion has been handed down among Guevara men for generations. Cue Francisco José de Paula Santander y Omaña de Guevara, a man who once wrapped the very gifts of Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar Palacios y Blanco, need I go on? My grandfather was an architect...the trait was not lost through the generations. My father assumed the noble task of teaching this time-honored tradition many moons ago-and I will continue the excellence.

A well wrapped present (read: expertly wrapped) will allow unwrapper to open one end with moderate difficulty and slide box out with little to no difficulty. No tape shall bind paper to box (Cue Dad's genes).

It does take more than one piece of tape to wrap a present. If you are convinced otherwise, you are not wrapping well.

I take extreme pleasure in wrapping presents such that all of the above are observed, as well as painstakingly ensuring that no tape is visible to unwrapper at time of unwrapping (Again, Dad's genes).

While wrapping Sarah's gift, I had a moment of introspection (Cue Mom's genes); I realized that this is the most I have enjoyed wrapping a present and I can't wait to give Sarah her gift. Not so much for the gift itself, but because I am more in love with my wife than ever before and just can't wait for the opportunity to bless her.

Wrap and wrap well folks.

-jonathan

wild mustangs

Sunday
We started this past week with a jelly making event-quite the "empty the freezer of grape juice" project.



Monday
monday.

Tuesday
I drove to H-town for a m-school interview, while Sarah was aprendiendo that espanol.

















Wednesday
During that interview-I decided to hang out on the helipad at Memorial Hermann. I was "that guy" with the camera.

































Thursday
I kerbey laned it with Patrick, a slow breakfast with great coffee and pancakes thicker than steaks. Highpoint of the week. Can't decide if the gingerbread pancakes had anything to do with that.

Friday
Okay-I wish I had a picture of this. I bought 4 whole beef tenderloins with the chain. Genetically certified, pasture-raised, grain-finished, premium gold, 30 month old black angus steer. So I'm a food nerd, and that's what I get excited about. For the other food nerds out there-I think this was choice-moderate, I've never understood why tenderloin needed to be prime. Remember the "empty the freezer" party on Sunday?

Saturday
Birthday party...cupcakes, bounce house, an appearance by cookie monster. Typical things you would find at a birthday party.

Sunday
More jelly! The grape is called a mustang grape, and they grow wild in Texas. Tomorrow we have to do another one of those monday things.

what have we done lately?

I'm going to copy Jonathan's blogging style. Let's see...what's happened lately?

Jonathan interviewed at Texas Tech for med school

Jonathan has an interview at UT San Antonio tomorrow & Texas A&M in October

I am still working as a school nurse and it's going really well-very busy, but I feel like I'm getting the hang of things

We got a "new" couch and new barstools that are delightful

We have planned all of our weekends from now until Christmas with activies that we are really looking forward to (Baylor Homecoming, football game with friends, visiting our parents, home group retreat, babysitting our favorite girls, etc.)

I've been taking Spanish classes and now am trying to listen to the news in Spanish via NPR podcasts (I don't understand much at all)

So it's been pretty exciting around here, as you can tell. Maybe some of our upcoming activites will lend themselves to being more interesting and we'll have something to actually blog about. Until then.....

top picks from september 1 --> 14.

mint
applewood smoked, salt cured pork belly.
shiner 99
austin, texas
two m-school interviews.
5K + ike rain/wind.
2-1.
the huge lime tree leaves.











-j

Restoration

First, sorry it's been forever since I've posted. This week has been....mmm...what's a good word....hard. More on that momentarily.

So today is Labor Day and I love it. For starters, I think every weekend should be three days. Also, I love when it's Monday that you get off because not only do you have a 3 day weekend to look forward to, but when you do go back to work it's only for 4 days. I love it! It has really been a delightful weekend. On Saturday we got up early and went for a run at White Rock. Later that afternoon we had a friend in town for the afternoon and we got to go to one of our new favorite places (The Crooked Tree coffee house) to hang out. Then we had a relaxing dinner at home. Sunday we got up and went to the grocery store before everyone got out of church and things got crazy busy. We bummed around our apartment the rest of the day until it was time for church. And today has been a lot of relaxing at home. I made a batch of cookies for home group this week and we took a nap this afternoon. Right now Jonathan is out at the store getting a few things we forgot. Sprinkled all in between weekend activies was watching The Office DVDs getting ready for Season 4 which comes out on DVD tomorrow! It's really been a refreshing weekend which is exactly what I needed after last week.

Last week was my first week of school with the kiddos. Some things have developed with my job so I now (thankfully) have a preceptor with me everyday. It's a different person everyday, but at least there is someone there with me helping me to know what to do. I felt pretty lost most of the week, not knowing exactly what to do at any point in time. I'm still learning a lot just about basic assessment skills and then there is the mound of paperwork to do with every person that walks through the clinic doors. And one thing that really struck me was how many kids come to the clinic for things that I can do nothing about: loose teeth, headaches, general malaise, throwing up after eating lunch and running around outside, irritated eyes (not pink eye), crying, fake coughs, toothaches, I mean the list goes on and on. So I'm getting ready to see what this new week will hold. My supervisor is supposed to come by and see me this week and hopefully teach me how to do some of the things that I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to be doing but just don't know how to do them. When I left on Friday I was so overwhelmed and really dreading the coming week. Saturday night I had a break down and ended up just crying but couldn't explain what I was so upset about. My sweet husband was so wonderful in listening to me try to explain what I was stressed about and asked me questions to help me process all the craziness. He prayed for me and talked to me and reminded me that I'm at this job, at this school for a reason that I may not know or understand, and that's ok. It's been a very restorative weekend.

Jonathan and I are also trying to rearrange our living room. My grandmother is giving me her piano whenever we can make room for it in our apartment. In order to do that we have to get rid of one twin bed that is currently posing as a very lame couch. So, does any one need, or know anyone who needs an extra-long twin bed? It's in great shape, comes with mattress, box spring and frame. Also, if you have any suggestions for getting rid of unwanted furniture I'd love to hear that too.

As promised, I did take a first day of school picture. I wasn't going to, but Jonathan said I had to. I tried uploading it, but for some reason it's not working right now. I'll try again later.

That's all for now!

work and play

I am now officially a school nurse. I've completed a week of new nurse orientation and one day of staff development. The students start on the 25th (and yes, I do plan on taking a first day of school picture) and I have lots to do before then. I'm still trying to get things situated in my clinic, but I don't really know how I want things yet so it's a bit of trial and error for organization. And there are a lot of tasks that I'm supposed to complete before the school year starts, but I'm still not clear on what those are exactly. I think I'll really like it once things get going. I feel a bit like a fish out of water right now trying get the hang of things. Everyone that I met today at my school was super nice and they all asked me if I speak Spanish.

On a totally different note, Jonathan and I went to the Ranger's game last night with our friends Michael and Judy. They hooked us up with some sweet seats (second row behind home plate). It was really fun despite the rain and slow start to the game. I got scared of all the pop fly foul balls. One man did get hit in the face with a broken bat. Eeek! So here's a couple of pics from the game!

new album.

The internet is not up to date. Yet anyway. Take this internet. We bundled our first anniversary (march oh-eight) with a friend's wedding in Colorado.
-j

weekend...

What a delightful weekend. It's been a bit of an emotional one for me with the ending of my nanny job. But my husband has been a huge support and let me have pizza and wine for dinner on Friday when I was bummed. We also got dressed up and went for a stroll in Victory Park (super trendy area of Dallas) and did some good people watching while we had gelato. It was very therapeutic. Saturday and today have been normal weekend days: laundry, kitchen cleaning, grocery list, church tonight...normal things.
We did go for a run this morning. We're on week 4 of our 5K training. We've been following this running plan in order to get ready to run our first 5K in September. We also found (thanks to our friend Judy) a podcast that goes along with the plan. Some guy put it all to music and tells you when to run and when to walk. It's great and you don't have to pay attention to a watch or anything. I'm really liking our running routine. We both feel so much better about being in better shape. It's amazing! Today we got all our running gear on and drove over to Katy Trail to do our workout there. We started our 5 minute brisk walk all pumped up when the iPod died, oops! I hadn't charged it in forever. So we kinda had to guess and make up our own thing. Luckily, the trail has quarter-mile markers all along it so we could tell how far we were going.
Tomorrow is the big day when I start my new job. I'll be spending the rest of today making sure my outfit is perfectly ready and that I have all the paperwork I need and such. I'm very excited to see how this grown-up job goes. This week will just be orientation stuff with all the new school nurses. Then I have a week of "staff development" at my school. The kiddos start on Aug. 25! I'm sure I'll have plenty of interesting tales to post about once things get rolling.
For now, pray for me as I start this new adventure!

Hello World

This is my first post....enjoy. We have some catching up to do, 24 years worth. I am going to tarantino you on this, so we'll start with the most recent bloggable activity. We took a recent trip mid-week trip to Fort Worth. Eventually you'll have all sorts of digital media through which to peruse and snoop your way into our lives. Aren't you excited?
-Jonathan

First Post

Hello,

We started a blog. It's been a long time coming; We've been talking about doing this for months and finally took the plunge. So here we are. I don't know that we'll always have exciting things to write about. We do sometimes get passionate about a few things and I'm sure those will come out. Mostly this will just be the tales we gather from life. It should be interesting...
-Sarah