Marriage Retreat

Over the weekend of January 30th (also known as Ben’s Birthday), Ben and I decided to participate in a very lovely and very free marriage retreat. We traveled three long hours to a beautiful and relatively secluded resort in San Antonio. The trip consisted of 2 nights and 3 days in the Hyatt resort with all meals provided for FREE (paid for by the Army). Of course we had to sit through 8 hours of marriage workshops, but it is was well worth it, and due to my participation, I won us enough books to constitute a mini marriage library.

When we first arrived we were a little unimpressed with our sleeping arrangements not because the rooms weren’t nice or anything, but because we had a room with 2 double beds instead of one king size bed. Ben was all like “Well at least it is free,” and I was all, “I don’t care our bed at home is better, this is not going to work unless you want to sleep alone.” Turns out, when put like that he agreed with me, so I found someone to rectify the situation. We were able to move into a more suitable room once I explained to the facilitator that I didn’t think they wanted us sleeping separately on the marriage retreat because I certainly wasn’t going to cram into 1 double and let the other bed go to waste. Our new room even had a balcony with a beautiful view looking out over the courtyard.

When we weren’t in classes we found plenty of other things to do around the hotel since our goal was to not spend any money outside of gas and not use electronics outside of occasionally watching CNN and SNL (We don’t have cable at home). As a tradition the hotel allows guests roast s’mores in the huge fireplace in the entrance, which was pretty exciting. During free time we borrowed bikes from the hotel and went for a ride through the nature trail. We also spent time laying in a hammock, playing tether-ball, and chatting with new friends. Saturday night they showed Fireproof, which surprisingly enough turned out to be a good film on marriage and relationships*. Both nights we had plenty of free time, so I dragged Ben to the beautiful hot tubs despite his complaints of 50 degrees being too cold (What happened to my Chicago guy???). The hot tubs were huge and had beautiful waterfalls. I loved it.

I’m glad we went. Even though we didn’t learn a lot from the lectures we did get a few extra tips. Despite the fact that I think Ben and I have a pretty awesome relationship, we are always open to learning how to make it better. This retreat was kind of like a mini vacation and we love vacations. Vacations always do wonders for our own personal well being as well as our relationship. If you get the chance to go on something like this, I say take it. It is well worth it.

*I enjoyed the film, but I still had to put aside Kirk Cameron’s bad acting and the somewhat contrived religious message. It was a lot better than expected. 

Spending Fast 2011!!!

Sedona: A possible vacation destination

A friend did a spending fast last year and documented it on her blog. I thought it was brilliant. Although I didn't read about her experience until a month after she did it, I knew I wanted to do it in 2011. The time is now. I originally planned to do this in March, but she preempted my slight procrastination by initiating a challenge in February, so I am rising to the occasion.

What is a spending fast? Simply put: don't spend money. ever. You can pay your bills, fuel your car, and feed your family but that's it. As for feeding your family, you are on a tight budget. My friend sets a limit of $50 a week in groceries and no fast food. I am setting a slightly tighter budget of $160 for the month. Ben and I already lead a relatively frugal existence, so the $160 presents more of a challenge and that is what this is about: The challenge. I'm not going to lie, I'm hoping to add a little more money to our pre-deployment vacation fund, but I also want to push myself to get creative and think outside of the box when it comes to dealing with our budget. As far as gas, we are hoping to use our gas conservatively.

Valentine's will be our only outside expense. I certainly considered not really celebrating V-day, but Ben will be deployed during V-day next year, so I feel comfortable making a reasonable exception. This exception will most likely include homemade cards, dinner paid for with gift cards, and an exchange of thoughtful gifts that fall within a $15 price limit.

I will post updates on our progress as well as savings tips that I already employ along with new ones I learn throughout my journey. If you want to join in, please leave a comment so we can keep up with each other. I will probably do this until the middle of March.

52 weeks of personal history: New Year’s traditions

I wrote this post a few weeks ago but trouble with the internet preventing me from posting.

My family has never been super big on New Year’s traditions. When my sister and I were younger, right after midnight we would run around the house like mad fools trying to be the first to touch, use, or kiss this or that item in the new year, but that is pretty much the extent of our traditions. In one of the more recent years I got out pots and pans and banged on them inside the house and out in the streets to ring in the year with my little brother and sister. This year we did something completely new. My little sister, Taytum, and I made popcorn balls and bread together (using my brand new stand mixer). Afterward we all played the new WII that we got for Christmas. Then around 11:55 we turned on the TV to watch the ball drop. Once the clock struck midnight, we called family while we drank sparkling cider and ate black-eyed peas. We had so much fun! I look forward to following that tradition every year. Normally we eat the black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day, but I think I enjoy doing it at midnight. I suppose it doesn’t matter when we get to eat them as long as it happens at some point. The Black eyed peas are supposed to bring luck and money in the New Year, so we put some in our tummy and 3 dried beans in our wallets.

This New Year Ben and I decided to set some goals for the year. We made a couple goals last year and really enjoyed the results, so we have decided to expand on that general idea. Basically we picked several categories to set goals in. Our categories: financial, spiritual, relationship, physical, and individual.
There are a few that I will probably post more about than others. One of our relationship goals is to have at least two active dates a month. By active, we mean dates where we can actually take pictures and record the event with our brand spanking new camcorder. We are hoping to capture, record, and further document these dates so that we can have specific memories to draw upon when Ben deploys. We want to create a sort of date memory book for each of us before he leaves. I also want to share one of our goals in the spiritual category since I will probably be posting recipes/ pictures for this one. We have decided that I will cook at least one fully nutritional yet vegetarian/vegan meal a week. This is in the spiritual category because we want to follow the Word of Wisdom more fully by eating meat sparingly.

What goals and resolutions did you come up with this year?

Happy New Year!!!

The Lull between Christmas and New Year’s

There was no lull for us this year. We flew into TX on the Monday after Christmas and were off to Dallas to pick up my family the following day. I do have to say, I’m not used to this small town living. We are 1.5 hours from Austin, 2.5 from San Antonio, and 3 from Dallas. We are right in the middle of nowhere. I call it Texas’s butt hole, but maybe that is not appropriate to put on my blog. I guess you should just ignore that previous sentence if it offends. The point is, it was a very long trip to get my family and come back. The trip was made even longer by the fact that we got lost, and it rained the entire time.

Once we successfully brought my family back to our lovely government living quarters, we had a grand ole time. I can’t remember much of what we did, but I do know that we spent a lot of time driving around because apparently we didn’t get enough driving on the 7 hour trip to and from Dallas. While they were here we did happen upon a lovely little German Imbiss. This place has wonderful and authentic German food. We ended up eating there twice in the three full days that my family visited. I also took them to the deer neighborhood. I was so excited to show them this cool neighborhood. So excited, in fact, that it prompted my mom to relentlessly tease me over my giddiness (who am I kidding? My mom does not need prompting).

So what is so special about this neighborhood? The DEER!!! It’s not that I haven’t seen deer before, because I’ve seen plenty and that’s not even counting petting zoo style. There is just something about this neighborhood (I’m guessing the woods directly behind it) that attracts so many deer at any given moment. You can drive through this neighborhood in the day or at night and there will be about 20 deer just chillin’ in people’s yards. If you wanted to, you could probably even stick your hand outside your car and pet one. Not that we did, because that’s just gross, but if you wanted to, you could.

Since I was unable to attend my family’s Christmas, we had Christmas again.

After our large breakfast and some wonderful apple cider that I made from scratch, we sat around the Christmas tree and exchanged gifts.
Later that night we went to see this really cool Christmas light show that they put on at a nearby lake and camping ground site. It was very nice. It probably took us about an hour to drive through the entire thing.

Although we spent New Year’s Eve with my family too, I’m going to save that post for another time. I really enjoyed the time that we got to spend with my family. Much like our trip to Minnesota, this visit was just too short. I also wish that my Dad and sister, Brittney, could have visited as well. I can’t wait to see my family again, but I’m thankful for the time I was able to spend with my mom and my two adorable siblings.

Here are a few more pics from my family's visit including our trip to the First Cavalry Museum.

African American Genealogy

I have decided to focus my genealogical intentions on my dad's side of the family. I am starting with Huell and Walls; the names of my grandmother and grandfather respectively. This is proving to be a lot more difficult than I thought. My grandparents know very little about their parents and ancestors. I was able to get partial names from them and approximate death dates. My grandmother was able to give me some locations, which is helpful, but they know a lot more about cousins, aunts and uncles than direct ancestors. I never realized how difficult this was going to be. Fortunately, I have made some headway and have been able to find information that they didn't even know. My grandmother is enjoying the different things that I am finding, especially about her mother's line, since she died when my grandmother was only 4 months old. Another thing that has helped me has been the stories I did for the Advent Calendar. My grandmother unknowingly gave me a bunch of details that I have been able to use to form a partial time line. She doesn't even realize she knows these things until I point them out. I guess that is the power of story telling. You get so immersed in the memory that you are able to access information that you didn't even know you had stored. There are certain pieces of information that can only be accessed through the process of telling a story.

Anyway, the real point of this post was to share this helpful video for people starting out on their African American genealogy adventure. It may not be super helpful. I'm actually partial to Darius Gray because I have read the books he has authored with Margaret Blair Young and watched their movie called "Nobody knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons" when they screened it in Hyde Park. Ben and I even got to Chauffeur them around after church. Do I sound like a groupy? Anyway, it is helpful if you are starting out on this journey. I hope you enjoy it!

No Fork In This Branch

I recently jumped into (what I consider) real genealogy. This interest was prompted by a closeness and familiarity I've felt to one of my ancestors named Mariah Elkins Loy. I contacted my grandmother about her. My grandmother is a genealogist and pretty good with all of that sort of stuff. We started digging around and found out a few more things that helped us flush out Mariah's story.

Once we figured out that little mystery, I started looking through my family tree that my grandmother has on Ancestry.com. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, but then I found something. I found a name that looked familiar. That's when I remembered Ben's mother telling us about a women named Mary Hooker in their family line. I couldn't remember exactly what she said about her because I was wondering why she decided to tell me about this women, when I should have been listening to the story instead. I do remember that at some point during her story I interjected with "What an unfortunate name." Anyway, the point is I'm glad Kathie told us the story, even though I'm the only one who remembers it, because we found out that my family and Ben's are related. You have to go back to the 1600's to find it, but it's there. I guess that is not really anything to be super excited about. I should probably be more creeped out by it actually. The thing is, you would never think that Ben's pure line of blonde hair and blue eyed direct descendants of Mayflower riding ancestry would ever cross paths in such a large way with my mutt mixture. Our lines even follow each other for a couple of generations!

Isn't that just fascinating...and slightly creepy. Of course, I embrace the creep factor by calling Ben cousin.

Christmas in Minnesota

For the first time ever, I spent Christmas away from my family. Luckily, no huge disaster occurred, I didn’t melt or anything. Anyway I was more likely to freeze in the Minnesota snow. Speaking of freezing, I learned that frogs freeze in the Minnesota winter and then come spring they thaw out and continue living their lives. Is it possible for me to do the same thing when Ben deploys?

We enjoyed our time in Minnesota. While we were there we went to the temple, which was really nice because instead of driving 3 hours we only had to drive about 15 minutes. I especially enjoyed Christmas Eve. The whole thing turned out to be quite a mystery. I kept asking people what sort of family traditions they had for Christmas Eve, and nobody seemed to remember what exactly they do every Christmas Eve.

It wasn’t until we got over to Ben’s brother’s place that the mystery was revealed. It was rather lovely. We had a nice Christmas dinner and gathered together for a spiritual devotional that they accented with illustrations of the story of Christ’s birth and Christmas hymns that we all sang together. Ben and I really enjoyed the wonderful spirit that we felt as we participated in this tradition and look forward to adding something similar to our own families repertoire of traditions.

Christmas day was certainly a completely different experience for me. The kids opened Santa’s gifts, and then we paused everything and ate breakfast. Breakfast was very good. We ate yummy breakfast burritos and sweet rolls.

After breakfast and phone calls to family, we opened the rest of our Christmas presents one at a time in order of birth. The rest of the day was very relaxed. Ben and I stayed in our pajamas all day as part of our own family tradition. We didn’t have a big dinner, but a lot of snacking on junk food throughout the day. The kids got to eat anything they wanted whenever they wanted on Christmas day including soda for breakfast. This most definitely has its ups and downs.
Down:
1.After eating so much junk food, I ended up very sick on the flight and trip back to TX.
2. I never felt fully satisfied even though it felt like I was constantly eating.
Up:
1. We got to eat stuff I wouldn't normally buy.
2. I don’t want to eat such fatty fried food for a very long time (maybe not until next Christmas). This is worth two on its own :)

Ben and I had a lot of fun spending time with the family in Minnesota. Both of us felt like the trip was way too short. This is by far my favorite visit to MN, and as a result I’m now fancifully considering living there after our stint in the Military.