It Pays To Know People

Last night, Mark and I got a call from my aunt who invited us to go with her and my uncle to a Tulsa Drillers (minor league baseball) game. They happened to have tickets to the Love Bottling Co. suite, and wanted to know if we could go. Luckily, we didn't have plans, so we loaded up the Accord and headed  downtown.

The Drillers ballpark recently moved to downtown, and while it was a very controversial move in Tulsa, I think it's great. I'm all about bringing back the cool downtown vibe. So, we walked several blocks and then got into the suites entrance, where we were given some awesome purple wristbands and sent on our way to find our suite. Basically, we were living the lifestyle of the rich and famous.

I would like to say that from now on, I would totally be okay with only watching games from a suite.

Free food? Check.

Free drinks? Check.

Awesome view of the ballgame (and air conditioning and away from rain)? Check.

Basically, we had a fabulous time! It was so nice to catch up with my lovely Aunt Connie

And my cousin Bill even got a ball! His friend did, too - what are the odds? 

From our suite we could see all the downtown buildings:

I do have to admit that in total, I probably watched maybe five minutes of the game, and that's really generous. But, we had great food, great company, and a great time.

Go Drillers! (-:

~Kathryn

PS I know my blog looks weird. Some photobucket thing showed up an wouldn't leave and now I'm trying to figure out how to get my blog to look decent without that, and clearly it's not working out for me. Stay tuned.

It's Been a Whole Year!

Today is our one year anniversary of being married! I know everyone always says it, but time has really flown by. I guess it's because this first year of marriage has been so much fun. There have been challenges, but honestly they have been very minor and not very many, which has been great.

It has been so fun being married to Mark. He makes me laugh a lot, and he is such an encourager. He keeps me grounded when I start worrying about ridiculous things and he gives a wonderful and realistic perspective to everything. I love that we can talk about anything and everything, and still never run out of things to say. I guess you could say we're BFF. (-:

I love how much Mark helps around the house. I mean seriously, I am super spoiled. He does the laundry and the dishes almost every day. How fabulous is that? He also makes sure that Miguel gets his medicine every day, and wakes up in the middle of the night if Melvin wants to go outside. He thinks everything I cook is wonderful, (-: and he is a good sport about everything - whether it's shopping, sitting around the apartment and doing nothing, or having to listen to my music (a lot). He is so serving, and it challenges me to be more serving every day. What I most admire is his relationship with the Lord and how he encourages me in mine. He's the best.

Of course I could go on and on, but basically, I love being married to Mark, and I am looking forward to many more fun and challenging years to come.

For a few laughs, I thought it would be a good idea to review some of the exciting events that have happened in the past year. There was the time we had a fight, the time I finally threw out Mark's old shoes, and there was the day we stole  , er, I mean borrowed some pizza. Mark also lived up to his "through sickness and health" part of his vows when I almost died, and finally, there was the time he was the person that found the missing keys.

Happy First Anniversary, Mark!

~Kathryn

I Know That You Are For Me

Do you ever have one of those moments where the Lord really speaks to you at your point of need and it's overwhelming? I had one of those moments on my drive home today.

First of all, I consider myself to be immensely blessed in my life. I really don't have any room to not be thankful for everything. But, like everyone else, there is usually at least one area where you just wish you could change something. And usually, in those situations, there's not really anything you or I can do to change them. Thankfully, there's really only one area in my life like this, and it's an area that I try to always be positive about. I try to be realistic and I try to do my part to bring about positive change. And while hope is not a strategy, it is comforting. Because I know that while things may not turn out the way my heart would like, I can always pray and hope that it will.

But, all that aside, as I was driving home today I was just bummed. My normal positive attitude about this particular hurt was very quickly turning into hopelessness and I was actually feeling sorry for myself, which I really hate to admit. I was thinking about other people whose situation is better than mine and how I would like to switch places with them. I was thinking about my one situation and how much it stinks and how I can't do anything about it. I was wishing things were different. And I was just very sad.

Rewind to the last week or two. I have always loved Kari Jobe as a singer/songwriter. On her newest album is one of my favorite songs, "Revelation Song". On that particular album I usually listen to that one song and then the skip the song that comes on after that. The last two weeks, Kari Jobe has been talking about a new song. I listened to the backstory of the song on YouTube and about her writing it and heard the song enough to be slightly familiar with it, but it hadn't really sunk in yet.

Back to the drive home. As I was driving home, I had her cd playing in the background, and it was on "Revelation Song". Right at the point where I was really starting to dwell in my sadness, that song ended, and the song I usually skip over started, and I realized it was the new song I had been hearing in the last week. And immediately my mind flashed to the title of the song and the chorus that I had recently heard, and I teared up. I knew that that song was meant for me at that exact moment. And as I intently listened to the verses and really let the words sink in, I realized how the Lord was showing me that He is for me, in my weakness, and He is ever faithful, ever constant. Even in my hurts and in my disappointments, He is for me. As isn't that enough?

And while my situation hasn't changed, I think these moments when I am honest about my feelings are the moments when I can experience the Lord's healing in a powerful way. And how special is it when the God of the universe speaks words of comfort to our individual hearts? I think it's pretty cool. And I don't think I'll be skipping over that song anymore. (-:

You can hear the song here on her sneak peek for the music video - it will only be up temporarily:


And I am posting the lyrics below:

I Know That You Are For Me - Kari Jobe

So faithful
So constant
So loving and so true
So powerful in all You do
You fill me
You see me
You know my every move
You love for me to sing to You

I know that You are for me
I know that You are for me
I know that You will never forsake me in my weakness
I know that You have come down
Even if to write upon my heart
To remind me who You are

So patient
So gracious
So merciful and true
So wonderful in all You do
You fill me
You see me
You know my every move
You love for me to sing to You

I know that You are for me
I know that You are for me
I know that You will never forsake me in my weakness
I know that You have come down
Even if to write upon my heart
To remind me that

I know that You are for me
I know that You are for me
I know that You will never forsake me in my weakness
I know that You have come down
Even if to write upon my heart
To remind me who You are

I hope you can find as much encouragement in these words as I have.

Grace and Peace,
Kathryn

We Are Home

Well, folks, we made it.

We had a fabulous trip, on and off the road. Mark did a great job driving. Even though I offered several times, he really enjoyed driving and actually wanted to do it. So who am I to argue with that? (-: He got us there in record time.

The trip home was not as exciting as the trip to vacation - I don't think it ever is. But, it was still enjoyable. Mark is already planning our next road trip - so you could definitely say that he had a good time. (-:

I hope you enjoyed our ridiculous video blogs and that they perhaps made you laugh a little. We certainly had fun making the videos.

And now, it is back to reality. Back home, back with the poodles, and back to work.

Happy Monday!

~Kathryn

On the Road Again....

Well, we left Virginia this morning. It was very sad. )-: The drive home is not as exciting as the drive to vacation, which will be very clear by the videos. It does involve a breakdown of sorts, some ice cream, some rather out of control singing, and the arrival at the hotel.

Here is the departure video:



 Here I am, about six hours into the drive. I started to get rather sick of being in the car:



Here I am, trying to entertain myself:



And here we are after a pit stop in Columbus.



And here I am, again, trying to entertain myself:



And finally, our arrival at the hotel:



I also did some of this:

 And here we are:

So there you have it! One more day and we will be home!

~Kathryn

Apparently I'm a Pretty Awesome Bowler

On our final day with the cousins, we went bowling, at the local lanes. I must admit that as a child, I was a pretty good bowler. I generally won, plus I was super competitive, so I had lots of motivation to do my absolute best.

Even when Mark and  I would bowl I would usually beat him.

It's been a couple years since I've bowled, but I just figured I'd pick right back up where I left off and be decent. (And by decent, I mean able to consistently hit the pins, and get a strike or two, so really, pretty terrible, but like you know, in the 80's or something.)

Well, something has changed. Drastically. I bowled a 57. A FIFTY-SEVEN. I may as well have blindfolded myself and spun around three times before I bowled each time. I mean SERIOUSLY. My score card did say 67, though, because on one of my turns the lane was messed up and gave me a strike for free. So that was great, but in reality, it was a 57.

Here's the proof:

And yes, Mark got a 112.  He was on fire.

I think I should have used this:

When we first arrived at the lanes, it was Mark and I with three of  the girls. There were some kids in the lane next to us with their grandmother and the lady came up to me and said, "Are these all your children? You don't look old enough to have these children." And I said, "No, I'm their cousin, but I'm 25." And you could see the shock in her eyes as she sized me up and said, "Oh, Honey, that's WONDERFUL." Clearly she was impressed that I was 25 while looking like a 14 year old, and was just offering me encouragement and celebrating that I apparently will always like at least 10 years younger than I am. It was pretty funny. Ha.

Despite my terrible performance, we managed to have a fabulous time. Here are some photos:

Silly girls:

Sorry this is kind of fuzzy:

And one more:

We had lots of fun. After bowling, we had lunch at Elevation Burger, which is an organic, grass fed beef burger joint. It was pretty fabulous. And, we are now getting ready to load up and see Toy Story Three. WOO!!

And tomorrow we head home. )-: But, we got a hotel for $40 off priceline, and it's a Hampton Inn, so I'm pretty pumped. Until next time...

~Kathryn

Road Trip: Day of Cooking Out and Swimming

Well, today was another fun and relaxing day in Virginia. Unfortunately, my cousin's migraine worsened so she was out for the count for most of the day. So, Mark and I made another trip to the pool with the girls. This time we got some video footage and some pics. Let's just say the girls LOVED playing with Mark in the pool. I thought it was VERY comical, so I snapped several photos.

And Mark is in this pic, you just can't see him, because he is surrounded by girls:

And here I am with the cousins. The youngest one is Elizabeth, and it's been two years since I've seen her. She isn't four yet, so she doesn't exactly remember me. We were walking back to the car today and she looked up at me and randomly said, "I still don't remember you." ha.

Here is me and Mark. Yay!

Here are the girls sitting out of the pool for the grown-up swim time, with Mark in the pool. This is a video:



And here I am, talking to Elizabeth, and teaching her the peace sign, which is very crucial to learn:



And here's one final picture from the pool of my, Georgia, and Annie.

Tomorrow we are going to the Zoo. That should be pretty fabulous. And tonight we are cooking out. No photos of that yet.

Peace!

~Kathryn

Road Trip: A Museum and the Pool!

Today was a very exciting day in our nation's capitol. We started the day with a riveting ride on the DC Metro to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. This is the "dinosaur museum" as my cousins call it. Mark and I took the two middle cousins with us. We had to stop for lemonade before we made it into the museum. Of course, the girls took full advantage of the free Metro newspaper:

And here we are, in front of the museum, drinking our lemonade:

And yes, in perfect tourist form, I wore my I "heart" Tulsa shirt and Mark wore his Eskimo Joe's shirt today. All we needed was a fanny pack. (-:

After we wore ourselves out at the museum and ate lunch at the local mall's food court, we loaded up all the kiddos in the minivan and headed to the neighborhood pool for some swimming and pizza.And it was just Mark and I, with 5 kids, all between the ages of 3 and 10. Are you impressed? I was impressed. Here is a video from the car ride in case you don't believe me (their mom got a migraine, so we were without her):



And here is a picture of me with the youngest at the pool. Note the awesome new shorts I have on. I know you can't see them completely, but I got them at Urban Outfitters, and I love them.

And there you have it. A day of swimming, eating, nap taking, and museum visiting. Pretty stinkin' awesome.

~Kathryn

Road Trip Video Blog: Day 2, Part 2: WE MADE IT!

Okay, everyone! Here is the final portion of our video blog on our way to DC!

You should get very excited about these videos because they include me singing (duh), a dramatic story involving ice cream, and our almost arrival at our destination. So how can that not be cool?

So, here's the first one, with us coming upon Morgantown, West Virginia, which happens to be in a song by my girl, Joni Mitchell:



And this is after we were charged an outrageous price for some Ben and Jerry's, so I opted for another brand:



And finally, here I am, about to explode with excitement as we are pulling up to the house!




And there you have it!

We are here and so enjoying ourselves. We spent today getting the shopping out of the way. (-: We went to Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie mainly, and Whole Foods. I got four shirt and a pair of shorts and a skirt.But, I decided I'm taking the skirt back because it doesn't look as awesome as I thought it did at first, plus it was was $20, and that's kind of expensive. And I'm kinda cheap. What can I say? I want a house.

Anyway, tomorrow we are going to the museum of Natural History. So that should be fun!

Catch you guys later!

~Kathryn

Road Trip: Day 2, Part 1

Well, we have made it to our destination. (-:

And of course, we did some video blogging on the second day. There is more singing by Mark, and lots of commentary by me. I know you are so excited. We have six videos, varying from 30 seconds to one minute in length. Unfortunately, they are taking forever to load, so I'm doing three in this post and three in the next post.

Here we are, four hours into our drive, and me about thirty minutes in. Yes, I slept from 4:00am to 8:00am while Mark drove.



And here is what also went down during the trip:



I know you all love to hear Mark sing on the road. You will love this. The memory stick gave out at a rather crucial point, but I think you will enjoy this:



More to come...

~Kathryn

Road Trip Video Blog: Day One!

Hello from the road! We finished our first leg of our trip and have survived, but it only took us about 5 hours and 20 minutes. I guess you could call it a warm-up. We are in for a rude awakening tomorrow.

There's really not much need for me to chat on here, I'll let the videos speak for themselves. They are pretty priceless. Oh, and here's a picture of what Mark looks like while he's driving holding his cassettes:

And here I am, in the passenger seat:

Now that that's out of the way, we will start the video blog. There are five videos, approximately one minute long each.

This first video is right after we left. We were fresh and excited for the trip!



This second video is after I woke up from my nap and Mark talked a little. My apologies that I didn't realize I couldn't turn the video camera on its side. Ha. Oops., but don't worry, I fix it party through the video:



This next video is of our pit-stop. Very thrilling. (-:



This next video involves Mark's cassettes and the joy he experiences with them:



Impressive, eh? And here is our final video after our arrival on the first leg of the trip. We got this hotel off of priceline.com for $50. So now you can see what we got with us!



And there you have it. Do you feel like you were with us in the car? I bet you wish you were in that backseat with the cooler. (-:

Until tomorrow, Ciao!

~Kathryn

The Great Hair Debacle of 2K10

Do you all remember how I discussed that my hair experienced a tragedy of mass proportions while I was on the choir tour? Well, those pictures have been recovered and are crying out to be shared.

So. I decided to let my friend, Emily, do my hair. Everyone always says how great she is with hair, and I need something great to happen to my hair, so I was all in.

Unfortunately, the photos don't start until AFTER the first hair disaster. Yes, I let her do my hair twice. The first time it was supposed to be loosely curled. After searching google images, I could not find a picture to really fully grasp Disaster Number One. So, imagine you or your mother's seventies style feathery hair with some 1990's curls and a little of Kelly Kapowski. And imagine the majority of the curls being on the bottom half of the hair. Let's just say it wasn't pretty.

Emily and the other girls decided it was absolutely necessary for me to wash and blow dry my hair so they could start over. And so the pictures begin.

Here is Emily, in hair washing process, immediately following Disaster Number One:

Notice here that hint of craziness in her eyes. I should have known.

Here I am, innocently believing that what was about to happen would be great, and would make Mark glad he married me.  Again, notice the crazy eyes.

So. After the hair washing, which actually went smoothly, I blow-dried the ole locks and then let Emily try again on my hair. How does that saying go... "Fool me once..." hmmm... anyway..... The look that was tried was the "wavy look" except when Emily described it to me, it sounded really cool. She took that Chi and "waved" my hair and I sat, imagining that Rapunzel herself would be jealous.

I knew something was going wrong when the girls didn't want me to look at the mirror. I mean, really, how is that a good sign?

Then, my hair stylist's sister, Elizabeth, was brought in to try to "undo the damage" of Disaster Number Two. Apparently once you've styled your hair with a Chi, it's really hard to undo it without frying your hair. The undoing didn't really undo. So, do you want to see what my hair looked like?

Yes, folks, that's my awesome hair style. "Wavy". And the best part was that there was no time to change it. So, I pony-tailed it, and sang my little heart out in the choir concert. By the end of the night, I gave up on my vanity and took down the ponytail and embraced Disaster Number Two. Here I am, with Elizabeth, emotionally recovered from said disaster, but clearly not physically recovered:

And so, I think it may be safe to say, Emily has "lost her touch".

~Kathryn

Cooking with Kat: Potluck Potato, Ham, and Cheese Casserole. YUM!

This is one of my favorite meals to eat. You could definitely consider it comfort food. (-: It's a perfect meal for having people over, because pretty much everyone likes it, and it's pretty easy to make. I had two sweet girls come help with the cooking, so we had a fun time and everything was really yummy.

Here are the ingredients:
2-3 lbs potatoes, cubed
1 lb ham, cubed
1/4 cup onion
1/4 cup plus 1 Tbls butter
1 can cream of mushroom soup
8 oz sour cream
1 teas salt
2 cups cheddar cheese
2 cups stuffing

So. Here's whatcha do:

First, you cube the potatoes and then throw them in a pot to boil.

While the potatoes are boiling, you chop the onion and saute the onion wiht the salt and the butter until the onion is soft.

While that is cooking, you mix the can of soup with the sour cream. Karlie is rocking that here:

Once the onion and butter are done, you mix them in with the soup mixture.

Then, you drain the potatoes that are cooked but not falling apart and put the potatoes back in the pot and pour the soup mixture on top. You also add the cheese and the ham and stir. Here's Emily, stirring with her whole heart. (-:

And me, too:

After everything is mixed together (try not to destroy the potatoes), you pour the mixture into a casserole dish. And finally, you pour the stuffing on top and coat it with the final tablespoon of melted butter.

And then you look at the beautiful dishes:

And then you cook it in the oven at 350 degrees for around 45 minutes, or until bubbly. And then you serve it up and eat it:

Oh yeah, don't forget to poll the taste testers:

See? They all liked it. Because it is AWESOME. And you will like it, too. Seriously. You need to go and make it now and tell me how much you love it. (-:

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Oh, and Mark and I leave for our road trip on Sunday. We will be video blogging and regular blogging the experience. So, buckle up, it's going to be an exciting ride. (-:

~Kathryn

Prayerfully Remembering

(To read more of Cohen's story, please visit Megan's Blog)

~Kathryn