This is when you know you have the coolest car in town:

One Year Down...

It's our first year anniversary! Hooray! I can't believe a year has already gone by, but as cliche as it sounds, I feel like we have been together forever. I think it's safe to say it's been the best year of my life.

Seeing as today is Sunday and usually gets filled pretty fast with all sorts of church meetings, we decided to celebrate it yesterday. Russell took the reins this year and planned an action packed day.

I woke up to some beautiful roses and a few other surprises. Russ bought me some running clothes and said we were going to start the day off the same way I started our wedding day -- a good run! I loved it! We drove to O.P. Schnaebel park, which is a pretty awesome park nearby that has a huge network of trails, and went on a good, hot, sweaty Texas run.

After getting ready, we went to the beautiful San Antonio temple. We were sealed in the temple last year, so it was the perfect way to start our anniversary and remember that we are sealed together forever, and not just till death do us part. What an amazing blessing!

After the temple, Russ pulls into a Home Depot. Hmm... not exactly what I had in mind for our anniversary, but I'll be cooperative. As we're walking down the aisles, he stops in front of some rebar and tells me to hold it and asks me how it feels. Fine? Kind of dirty? We keep walking, and stop in front of the wooden dowels. After cutting a piece about a foot long, he again asks how it feels in my hands. At this point I'm feeling a little bit like the 12-year-old Harry Potter in Olivander's wand shop. I quickly catch on, and realize I am Harry Potter in Olivander's!!

Confused? K I'll back up... for Russ's job he was told he would be sent on a 2-3 week audit in either Iowa, California, or Orlando. I told him to fight for the Orlando audit, and I would come join him so I could pay homage at the new Harry Potter theme park. Well after pulling some strings, he got the Orlando audit, and all we will have to pay for is my flight to/from Orlando and the park passes. Needless to say, I was pretty excited and felt like a little kid as I held my wooden wand in the car for the rest of the evening. What's in my wand you ask? Just some hippogriff claws and a Phoenix hair. Wingardium Leviosa! (...couldn't resist)

Moving on. We then had a nice dinner at this lovely Italian restaurant called Aldo's. Wow that chocolate cake was yummy. Our cake from the wedding is actually in my sister's freezer in Utah... oops. So we substituted our chocolate cake for this amazing piece, with no regrets. It was amazing.

After dinner we went to the movies! Have you ever seen Inception??
Holy cow, I think I'm still trying to figure it out. Really amazing movie -- I'd recommend it.

Anyway, it was a great anniversary, and I can't wait to finish celebrating it when we go to Orlando in August. Here's to one year, and infinity more to go! 

Happy Birthday Mom!

I love, love, love this picture of us kids with my mom. We were on vacation on the beautiful Oregon Coast. Whenever I look at it, I am reminded of how my mom was so influential in providing us with such happy childhoods. 

A few reasons why my mom is my hero:

• She has sacrificed so much to raise our family. We are all out of the house now, but that doesn't mean she doesn't continue to shape and mold us into the people we are today.
• She never stops serving people! 
• She can run like nobody's business. I'm not kidding -- she can bust out a 10 mile run on any given day. I will be like her someday.
• Is one of the most organized, put-together, talented woman I know.
• Always lends a listening ear.
• Taught me the power of a good fountain drink.

I get to see my mom this next weekend where we can really celebrate, and I really couldn't be more excited. Sometimes a girl just needs her Mom.

I love you, Mom!

Stressed out

We have exactly 2 months till our lease is up and you know what that means... where do we go next?!? I have literally been losing sleep over this all week. 

The main problem with where we live now is it's REALLY FAR AWAY from work... and most other things in San Antonio. But mostly work, which unfortunately, is where we spend the majority of our week and travel to and from twice a day. The summer months have been lovely for the daily commuter, but come fall the freeways turn into parking lots, which for me, means up to an hour each way at it's worst. THIS IS NOT FUN FOR ANYONE (we have learned that a Camille who sits in traffic after a long work day is a grumpy Camille, which is not fair to poor Russell). Just remember this important fact, and try to imagine yourself doing the same thing daily.

We have been looking at tons and tons of rental houses (we are trying to avoid apartments. It's time to leave the apartment life. It just is.) So if any of you lovely blog readers have some sound advice, here are the main issues:

• We could live closer to work (which would generally be more central to everything else)
• If we live closer to work, we move further away from friends we have made in our current area
• Perhaps this would show who we really are friends with! (Distance shouldn't be that big of a factor... right? right??)
• Moving gives us an opportunity to make even more friends?
• How much are we willing to budge on our price? Bigger? Nicer? Closer? Further?
• I have an inkling that this decision is about a lot more than the location, it you catch my drift. Sometimes you don't know why you were prompted to make decisions till much later. Remembering this only makes me more stressed.

and last of all...

• Am I totally over-analyzing this?!?

The End of the Great Experiment

The experiment has come to an end. I know you have all been waiting to find out the results of my little test of the Topsy Turvy vs the regular potted plant. Unfortunately, my testing environment was invaded by a hideous monstrous plague. I found this out one afternoon when I went out see my plants and found this.

A fat green caterpillar ate all the leaves off of my plants! I was depressed for a couple of hours thinking of all the tomatoes that could have been. In the end, we only got 6 tomatoes. 4 from the Topsy 2 from the pot. So you know what this means. The topsy turvey produces twice as much as a potted tomato plant! I'm going to be submitting this work to a few academic journals and see if I can get published. I will let you know how it goes.

Coasters

Russ went out of town again this week. This is what our living room looked like when he got home.

If you're thinking "so what? You vacuumed." No, I did not. The vacuum is my official cricket killer. I'm not exaggerating when I say the bugs know when Russell leaves -- they invade the apartment full force. Within an 8 hour period I probably had to kill 5 crickets (crickets the size of cockroaches, mind you). But I'm not brave enough to actually kill them. I just slowly approach them and suck those little guys right into the vacuum. They die eventually.

I didn't realize how ridiculous the other part of this picture was until Russ got home and laughed out loud at me. Looks like I need to invest in some coasters to protect our coffee table. Russ's spare sock just hadn't quite made it from the clean laundry basket to the closet... Hey, at least the sock was clean.


In other news, I ran a 5K this morning with 3 of my friends. I realized I hadn't done a 5K since freshman year of college! I guess I just got way into long-distance training. I had no clue what to expect with this race, considering I haven't been training for speed, it's SO STINKIN' HOT HERE, and the humidity makes you feel like you can't get a legit deep breath, especially while exercising. Anyway, here are the girls post-race... in all our nasty sweatiness, frizzed out hair, and red faces:

Me, Stacie, Andrea, and Shantelle

All in all, I am pretty happy with my time. Major improvement from my freshman-year race, and especially with the crazy Texas conditions. I do have to give a major shout-out to Andrea. This girl is a machine! Stacie and I only aspire to be like her. SHE GOT FIRST PLACE IN OUR AGE GROUP finishing the 3.1 miles in 21:09. Yowzers!

Here she is! Running aficionado. She is now starting to train for her 7th or 8th marathon... I can't remember. Like I said, she's pretty awesome.

Yay for running friends! It was a fun race. Only in Texas do they offer breakfast tacos and orange soda for your post-race refreshment. 

Make Up Your Mind

So we all know how sometimes life doesn't always go the way we expected it to, right? Yes, I'm pretty sure we have all learned this time and time again. But the craziest thing about this fact of life is that somehow, someway, it always works out. It's all about the attitude you keep. Mr. Abe Lincoln knew this to be true, and expressed it so well with the following quote:

 via

If you're wondering if I'm going somewhere with this, I'm not really. Life is really good, and I am so grateful for everything I have. I mean, let's be honest, if I had it my way I would, for example, be able to see my family whenever I want. I could have been there to help celebrate Stu's birthday, and tagged along with Brittney and Stu as they saw Sir Paul McCartney the other night (yes, I know, they saw a Beatle, and I did not. And I am so happy for them, but would be lying if I wasn't a smidge jealous). Or, Russ and I could have gone to the Lewis family reunion at the beautiful Aspen Grove near Sundance and shared those precious memories with the rest of his family. Or, I could be up in Spokane with my parents, spending our free time boating on the lake, which is one of my favorite places to be in the world.

But alas, real life is here, and you know what? It's good. It's really good. If I have learned anything in the last year of my life, it's that sometimes you need to make up your mind to be happy, and after you do this it's pretty much a guarantee that your outlook on life will be a bit brighter.

Shamu Sized Proportions!

We just spent the evening with Shamu! And our red cup. Yes, we love our cup. It is a Sea World season- pass-holders exclusive cup, where we spent $25 for free refills ALL YEAR. Just bring the cup, and the Diet Coke, Thelma's Frozen Lemonade, and all other sorts of goodness flow year long (a necessity when it's 95 degrees outside with 90% humidity).

Tonight was perfect, however, as it had been a rainy day and thus the temperature was a bit lower and the crowds were a bit smaller. And I got to spend another night with my best friend, which was the best perk of all. Even more than the red cup.

Double Rainbow!

I have to publicly thank Caitlin for officially making my day. I was at work. 3:00 came... and we all know what happens at 3:00 -- yes, the afternoon office job slump. Then this video came into my life, and I could not stop laughing. And then I showed Sada, and we were both suppressing muffled laughter for probably 10 minutes.

Here's to appreciating the little things in life.

Happy Birthday America!

We are so proud to be Americans! I love this country and am so grateful for the freedom we have.  

God bless America! 

It has been a good weekend so far, consisting of sleeping in, relaxing, and flying by the seat of our pants. The weather has thankfully cooperated enough to allow for a few BBQ's... which is a must in Texas. Again, God bless America.

The girls at tonight's BBQ. From left -- Shantelle (a new friend!), Stacie (the hostess with the mostest), Andrea (new to San Antonio, which we are so happy about!), and moi.

The Dude picture. From left -- Brett (married to Stacie), Aaron (married to Shantelle), Russ (married to me), and Scott (married to Andrea).

Oh, it's been a good weekend. We even got to watch the Sea World fireworks tonight from the Valero gas station parking lot with Brandon and Megan. Classy, I know. But it was still fun. And here's the best part -- the weekend is still going! No work tomorrow = happy Camille. 

Hope all y'all have had a happy and safe 4th of July! Here's to America!

The Yellow Desk

I bring you the craft desk. When Russ and I went to buy paint, I was confident I was going to go with a safe, clean white. He persuaded me to "go all out and get something fun" -- and I'm so glad he did. We went with a bright and cheery yellow appropriately named "tulip." It definitely brings a pop of color into the room, and it makes me happy just to look at it.

We happened upon another great addition to our apartment a few weeks ago. We have been wanting to buy a coffee table, but dang! Those are expensive! So I had been craigslist-ing and searching Target and Wal-Mart for some bottom of the line table that would "get us by." On our way to my company party we stopped by the outlets. They have the store of all stores -- Pottery Barn Outlet. Yeah girls, you read that right. It's dangerous and amazing all at the same time. They had a beautiful and solid, real wood coffee table for 75% off!!! It was just about the same price as all the fake wood tables I almost bought from Wal-Mart. Oh we love our table.

I'm still looking to either make or buy some other accent pillows to go with the gray & yellow pillows I bought from Target a few weeks ago. And something to put in that lone silver bowl. One thing at a time, Camille. So here is the view of our living  / dining room with the new couch, craft desk, and coffee table. The door on the right is our front door...

... it's a great little place to come home to at the end of the day.

Word to Your Mother

This home slice is back! He flew in last night from Cincinnati, thus making it back before I felt the need to resort to the ingenious Japanese invention to fill that empty void.

He also has work off today, and I did not (shocker!). We ate our cereal together this morning while watching Full House. As I walked out the door to go to work I told him to get a job since I can't support his lifestyle of sitting around the house on a weekday in his basketball shorts. But that was just a funny joke I will never get to say again, since he is actually an incredibly hard worker, and his company just rocks in the vacation department. Oh, I'm so funny.

Someone else has arrived in San Antonio -- our friend Alex! And by Alex, I mean the wonderful hurricane-type weather that has hit this side of the country during the Fourth of July weekend, therefore squelching all ideas of laying by the pool and eating fabulous food at BBQ's. Major bummer!

Needless to say, I'm still happy about the three-day weekend, and to have my gangsta husband back home where he belongs.