Let's get updated

As always, it has been quite sometime since I have blogged. I read blogs by other people every day and I can tell you I am always quite impressed at how they can sit down and think of something to blog about every single day. They definitely have more intuitive than I do.

So what has been on in our life....well not to much, but I will give you the scoop since I have been gone for over 2 months.

August, we went to Chicago for the wedding of one of Lamar's cousins. We took the train from Memphis to Chicago and let me just tell you it was an experience. Something that we had always wanted to do, but something that we will probably never do again. The wedding was absolutely beautiful.

Lamar and I before the wedding.

It was an outside wedding and of course it had to start sprinkling right before it started. So we were all given these napkins so we could cover ourselves from the rain.

In September, we didn't really have too much going on. We did go to the lake over Labor Day with our great friends Chad and Jenn and her parents. We had a BLAST!! Got lot's of good sunbathing, boating, and company. We actually stayed at the cabin of some of Jenn's parents friends. It was wonderful, have to say it was much better than sleeping in a tent. :)

So far in October, we haven't done too much, but it won't stay that way for long. Next week is Lamar's birthday and then that weekend we are planning on going camping with his parents. Then on October 31, I leave to go visit my family for a week!! I am extremely excited. I am actually going to get to take the kids trick-or-treating and we are having Brayden's birthday party while I'm there as well. Should be lot's of fun and I hope to take lot's of pictures to share.

Well until next time, (who knows how long that will be) have a great day!!!

-Alexis

Girls Night

I am quite excited to finally be having a girls night. I can't tell you the last time I actually went out with just my girlfriends.

Tonight we will be heading to dinner and then to the Orpheum to watch Mamma Mia. Can't wait!
Then tomorrow we get to help celebrate the first birthday of one of the cutest little girl's ever, Lil P. Here she is last December at a Christmas party we had with some friends.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

-Lex

Stand Still

On my way in to work this morning I got to thinking about what I want out my life. Right now, I just feel like I am at a stand still in my professional career. My job is currently less than satisfying, I'm not being challenged by anything in my life career wise, and I just feel like I have need to move forward with my life and get out of this rut.

My brian has been working in overdrive these last couple of weeks trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. Go back to school? Change career paths? If so, where do I even want to start? These are just a few of my questions that have been rolling around in my head lately.

I have come to determine, at my ripe old age of 25, trying to decide what you want to do with the rest of your life at 18 when you're starting college is just too soon. Let's look into that a little deeper, how many people do you know are actually doing the job they went to school for? Well it's not many. Yes there are a few people out there that know what they want to do in life and they truly enjoy their career life, then there are others, let's just say me for example, who changed their major 4 times in college and still don't know what they want to do in life.

Ok, I know I am just rambling on now so I won't bore you with any more.

Hope you all have a good day. And I'll let you know what happens after my life gets moving again.

Happy Anniversary!

It has been one year since I married the love of my life. I feel blessed each and every day to have Lamar in my life. He truly is one AMAZING man and I feel like an amazing woman when I am with him.

We took a little weekend trip to Hot Springs, Arkansas to celebrate the occasion. Our plans were a little delayed since it rained all day Saturday, but we still had fun.

Friday, we drove to Little Rock after work and stayed in their downtown area. We ate dinner at a local pizza eatery then went back to the hotel.

Saturday, we had planned on going to Crystal Falls, Magic Springs in Hot Springs, but the rain and storms decided to take us a different route. Instead of going straight to Hot Springs we decided to take it slow leaving Little Rock and did a little bit of shopping. Early afternoon we decided to head towards Hot Springs. We got into the quaint little town and decided to wander around the downtown area. We went and ate lunch at Brick House Grill, where I had some of the best potato soup EVER, walked along Bathhouse Row, and strolled into some quaint little shops along the way. By this time, we were both tired so we decided to check-in to our Bed and Breakfast, 1890 Williams House, to take a little nap. After waking up, we drove to Lake Hamilton and decided to have a couple of drinks at the Fisherman's Wharf. We then went and ate dinner at The Porterhouse and had some great steaks.

*1890 Williams House was great! We stayed in the Williams Suite and it was fabulous. It had a nice sitting area with a two person jacuzzi tub and the bedroom area with a four-poster bed. This was such a great place and definitely captured the moment of our anniversary.

Sunday we woke up and had breakfast in our room then decided to drive to Little Rock and go to Wild River Country water park. We stayed there for a couple of hours, decided we had "been there, done that," so we headed back home to Memphis.

Hope you all had a great weekend!! Lamar and I are ready to start our second year of marriage and can't wait to see what life has in store for us.

Owl vs. Brek

So do any of you know a dog that is scared of his own shadow? Well, that would just about explain Brek. The dog should be a chicken.

Last Friday after Lamar had left for work, and put Brek outside, I hear Brek barking. This is quite unusual for him as once he is outside he is usually quite content, but not today. I finally get out of bed and go see why he is barking. I get outside and look into the pen and see this stump looking object in his kiddie pool. Not knowing what to expect I get closer and decide to se if this object is alive or dead so I splash some water on it. As I splash this object, he then slowly turns its head and two big round eyes just stare up at me. At this point I was a little freaked out, I mean what would you think if you saw two big eyes just staring at you.

I, being the "chicken" that I am just run out of the pen and immediately call Lamar to tell him that there is a baby owl in Brek's pool and he is going to have to deal with it when he gets home.

Five o'clock finally rolls around and I meet Lamar at the house. WE then proceed to the backyard so we can get rid of the owl. After Lamar got it out of the pool it just sat on the ground and Brek had to get his turn with the owl. Long story short, the funniest part of this whole situation was Brek playing with the owl. So please be prepared to laugh out loud just like Lamar and I are doing in the video. You will have to excuse Lamar he is on the phone talking to his dad about this debacle the entire time.

Hope you enjoy as much as we did!

The Crafty Side of Alexis

I'm sure most of you already know this, but I have a little crafty side to me. A couple of my co-workers and I recently threw a baby shower for another co-worker. I of course made the invitations (there is a picture below) and everyone in the office receive one. Most people made comments about how they loved them and that I could do this on the side and earn a little extra income.

So here is where you all come in, I have included some pictures of the invitations that I have created, my wedding and the baby shower and I would like to know if you like the invitations enough to order them from me, if the option was made available. Keep in mind that I can change the fonts, wording, layout, etc to meet your specifications. I am not one to put a lot of graphics or images on my inviations for a couple of reasons a)I am not a graphic designer and do not have the skills, as of right now, to do so and b)I honestly prefer the look of pure paper, ribbons, etc. Below I have briefly described each set and included pictures. Sorry there are so many pictures, but I want to make sure you got the idea of the invitations. Hope you enjoy!

*The pictures are not the biggest and for some reason I don't know how to have them enlarge when clicked on. If anyone wants to help me out let me know.


My wedding invitations


This is the front of my invitation. It was a pocket-fold invitation.

Once opened, this is what you saw: The invitation portion was on the top of the fold, and the information cards were below in a pocket. Since I had a destination wedding there was a lot of information the guests needed to know. Inside the pocket there are cards for Accomodations, Event Details, RSVP, and Directions. Sorry the wording is marked out, but I wanted to protect the information at the time.

This is the invitation itself.

These are two of the cards that were included, the Event Details and Directions

My wedding programs

My programs were a fan and here is a picture of them closed and open

Baby shower invitations and diaper cake

These are the baby shower invitations I made. The shower was for a baby girl and the colors were chocolate and pink.

This is the diaper cake that I made for the shower. The lollipops spell the baby's name and fresh flowers act as the cake topper.

A Must Try Recipe

Wow! It has been quite a while since I last posted. Not much to say for myself, other than I just haven't gotten around to doing it.

I found a great recipe for Taco Salad that I just had to share with everyone. I made it last night for Lamar and I and I have to say it is probably the best taco salad I've ever had. If you make it let me know your thoughts.

Taco Salad from Campbell's Kitchen

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground beef (I used diced chicken breast)
1 can (10 3/4 ounces) Campbell's® Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup
1/2 cup water
1 pkg. (1.12 ounces) taco seasoning mix
2 tbsp. chopped green chiles
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1 can (about 15 ounces) kidney beans, rinsed and drained (or whatever kind of bean you like)
2 cups tortilla chips
4 cups shredded lettuce
1/2 cup sour cream
1 medium tomato, chopped (about 1 cup)

4 green onions, sliced (about 1/2 cup)

Shredded Cheese (I used a four blend cheese, but you can use whatever you like)

Directions:
Cook the beef in a 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat until it's well browned, stirring often to separate meat. Pour off any fat.

Stir 1/2 can soup, water, taco seasoning, chiles, cumin and beans in the skillet and cook until the mixture is hot and bubbling.

Heat the remaining soup in a 1-quart saucepan over medium heat until it's hot and bubbling.

Arrange the chips on a large serving platter. Top with the lettuce, beef mixture, remaining soup, shredded cheese, sour cream, tomato and onions.

Serves 6.

On the Mend

Brek did great yesterday at the vet. They told us he was a very well behaved dog and everyone loved him. I know everyone always says this about their own dogs. He is at home on the mend. He got to stay inside today and will probably stay inside most of the week. He is not supposed to get his incision wet so with it raining outside, that would be a little hard not to do.

THere is some good news and bad news in this whole situation though. Which do you want first? The bad news...no no let's go with the good news first....

The good news: We are going to Hattiesburg this weekend to see Lamar's family for Mother's Day. I know isn't that just great!

The bad news: While in Hattiesburg, Brek is going to be one unhappy dog. Not only will he not be able to play with Carmel, Lamar's parent's dog, he will not be able to get in the ponds and swim. You see, he is not allowed to jump or run for a week and he is not allowed to get wet for 10 days. CRAZY!!

The poor thing doesn't know what's coming...Again! I hope he isn't too mad at us after this is all over.
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Ok so this next part is completely off subject, but I need a new name for my blog. Anyone have any stellar ideas?

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-Lex

A New Man

Our little man went to the vet this morning and he will come home a different man.

Happy May Day!!!

***Update- See below in Purple, the significance of not being seen***

Did you even realize that there is such a holiday as "May Day." Well there is and you know what, as a kid, my family celebrated this holiday.

It dates way back, and is not very popular in the United States. If you want to read more information about go here and read the History of May Day.

As a kid, we would always make our baskets the night before and get them ready to be delivered. You would then wake up the next morning and go to different people's houses, such as family and friends, then put your basket on the door or ground (depending on the type of basket you made) and make a beeline so they wouldn't see you. **The trick is you don't want the neighbor to see you! If you get caught, you are supposed to get a kiss.**

I remember celebrating May Day in Nebraska in the little town I grew up in and everyone was familiar with the holiday and participated. After we moved to Tennessee, we did it one year and no one had a clue what it even was. So needless to say, the tradition of celebrating May Day in our family went away.

Happy May Day Everyone!!! Sorry I don't have a little basket for you.

-Alexis

This is for Lamar....

....so Lamar is trying to get a free macbook air laptop through one of "those" websites. Yes, we know it's crazy, and yes we know it's possible, because I do know a few people who have actually gotten one. The thing is, he needs your help. He/I normally would not do this and I hate to ask, but if you would, please go to the website below and sign up for one of the offers. 

I know there are not that many people who read my blog and I really hate to ask, but if you want to help Lamar then go here:

http://www.freemacbookair.com/?referral=fx57b5

Thanks!

-Alexis

Spring Is Here

Springtime is officially here and I am SOOOOO excited. I used to say that winter was one of my all time favorite seasons, it still is if there's snow to look at. But here in Tennessee, the best season is by far spring and fall.

We had a fairly uneventful weekend, but it was fun none the less. Friday night, our friends Brad and Katy came over to have dinner and hang out for a while. We had hamburgers and twice baked potatoes (thanks to hungry girl). Dinner was pretty good. We then just sat around and talked for a couple of hours. Brek loved the company and was quite fond of Brad. We will have to have them come over again.

Saturday, Lamar ended up working all day from 7 to 6:30. I was a little bored, but did get some good America's Next Top Model marathon watching in. I also took Brek on 2 walks. It was such a beautiful day, I hated to spend the entire day outside. Saturday night we went over to Ray's house to hang out and eat hamburgers again. We sat outside and just talked for a while. I will say, that being the only girl with a group of 4 guys was quite interesting. I'm glad they feel so comfortable with me and all, but "guy talk" is much different than "girl talk."

Sunday was supposed to be our lazy day since Lamar wanted to catch up on some sleep. I knew this wouldn't last long, just because Lamar is not the type to hang out indoors. So we laid around until about 12 then we both went outside and started to work. He went to work washing the cars, which by the way, mine looks fantastic and I can finally see out of my front windshield. I went to work raking and cleaning out the area on the north side of the house. We then had to go to Lowe's to get some supplies for Brek's fence and I wanted to get some flowers. I felt so domestic planting flowers. We were going to plant a garden, but the area we wanted to do it in is full of sand so we put that off for a little bit.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Blogger Help

I need a little Blogger help. How do you all upload pictures into blogger? It seems like everytime I try it always messes up my formatting.

So I'm asking, how do you all upload your pictures:

1. Do you insert them all first then do your tryping?
2. Do you insert them one by one after you've typed and then move them to the area they should be?
3. WHat formatting do you use when uploading them?

Help me please!! I just want to know what works best for everyone else, because they are a headache to me.

They're Gone!!!

Ok, ok, I know you all are still waiting on me to post Part II of Little One, and I promise I will get there. But first, let me just tell you that these two little precious children have just left the premises of the Rutland household:

They left about 30 minutes ago, and the first thing conversation Lamar and I went like this:

• Lamar: "Listen, can you hear it?"
• Me: "Hear what?"
• Lamar: "Nothing!"

Don't get me wrong, I love my niece and nephew to pieces, but all I can say is, 6 nights with two screaming children in an 800 square foot duplex, 2 bedrooms, wood floors, and a loving mother, it almost too much for me to handle. Just ask Brek, how much he liked having the company.

Hope you all have a great day! I'll be back with Part II and a follow-up of the week I've had.

The Burgman Family Grows

Before I move on to Part II of Little One, I just had to let everyone know that I am now the proud cousin to beautiful baby twins. Annaliese Rae and Lucas Cole were born last week to my cousin Cole and his wife Julie. They are just precious.

My Aunt Becky is holding Annaliese and my Uncle Ray is holding Lucas.

Congratulations Cole and Julie!!! They are absolutely beautiful! I can't wait to meet them. Also, congratulations to Grandma and Grandpa Burgman, you too look great holding your new grandchildren!

The Little One, Part I

Well as usual, I am a bad blogger! I can never seem to get in the mood to post, but there never seems to be any problem reading any of your blogs. It is my morning and afternoon ritual. As you can tell, I have some free time at work, and what better to do than read blogs.

Well Kayt has come and gone and we had a FABULOUS time. We didn't have a whole lot planned throughout the week, but I managed to keep her busy. She got to run some errands for me that needed to be done for quite some time, but this whole working 8 to 5 Monday through Friday, puts a damper on some things.

On Wednesday, after a little bribing ;) I got her to paint my kitchen. And man, does it look way better. Not that the house we live in can look a lot better, but just giving it some color really helped. And guess what, I have some pictures. I know we should all be impressed.

Kaytlyn hard at work painting.

Taking a little break to smile for the camera.

Since Lamar got me the Wii for Christmas I have bought the Wii Fit. And let me tell you, this can be quite humorous at times. Just imagine, a handsome man hula-hooping. Yes it can be hilarious to watch. Unfortunately he wouldn't let me take any pictures of him, so I got a few of Kayt and I doing some yoga.

Well this is enough for today, I need to get some work done. But stay tuned there will be a Part II. Oh and for the title, my new nickname for Kayt is "Little One." Don't ask why, its just what I chose to call her last week :)

Alexis Needs

This is a fun activity that I found on a few of the blogs I read: Allie and Steph over at the Adventures of Jon & Steph. The object is to type your name then needs (Alexis needs) into google and write down the first ten responses that make sense. So here it goes:

1. Alexis needs an Angel (I would conquer to this, we all need Angels every now and then)
2. Alexis needs our Help - Who doesn't need help every now and then
3. Alexis needs your vote - I don't know what you're voting on, but hey if it means I win, I'm all for it :)
4. Alexis needs more guy friends - I have the best friends in the whole world, but hey let's admit it's always nice to meet some new people. (I wonder how Lamar would feel about this one, he doesn't read my blog, so I doubt he'll ever know that I need more guy friends :)
5. Alexis needs pimpin - I don't think this needs an explanation
6. Alexis needs a new memory card - I can only think this might be because I just took mine out of my digital picture frame to upload some new photos and haven't gotten around to doing it yet.
7.Alexis needs a job where I can work from home - THis would be fabulous!! although I would probably not get anything done work wise.
8. Alexis needs to flirt with Jax or Lucky - Who are Jax and Lucky???
9. Alexis needs glasses, and new hair - I would agree it is about time for some new glasses. I would also agree it is time to do something with this hair. I am trying to grow it out so I'm holding off on cutting it.
10. Alexis needs some well wishes - I don't have anything seriously wrong with me, but I am going to the doctor soon to find out why my foot has been hurting.

So I'm all done and that was a lot of fun. To be fun, I might ask Lamar to do the same thing, or better yet, I might just do it for him. He's not really into this blogging thing. :)

Til next time...Have a good day.

-Lex

Lamar needs...

As I stated before, I thought it might be fun to do this for Lamar. He probably won't comment, but hey that's ok, it was still fun.


So here it goes:

1. Lamar needs new administration - Hey now, are you trying to tell me I'm not good enough ;)
2. Lamar needs to step up NOW - What are you stepping up to???
3. Lamar needst o just freak out on everybody - This is talking about Lamar Odom, I don't know what it means or who this guy is. But hey if they want Lamar to freak out, let him.
4. Lamar needs shooting eyes restored - Don't really know what to say about this one.
5. Lamar needs a strong, supportive, and nurturing family - He doesn't need this, he already has this. His family are some of the most supportive and nurturing people I know.
6. Lamar needs a great deal of direction - If they are talking about cleaning, then yes I completely agree with this statement.
7. Lamar needs to get comfortable with the system - What system, married life???
8. Lamar needs football - One of the things I love about Lamar is that he doesn't have to watch football, he honestly never really watches football. I love being able to go out during football season on Saturdays and Sundays and not worry about "missing the game"
9. Lamar needs to earn his extension - Please work on this so we can get out of our dumpy house. I mean I married him for his money ;)
10. Lamar needs the ball to be effective - I'll just leave it at that.

I have to admit, I cheated a little on his, because most of these were not the "topic" line of my google search, they were in the description. Give me a break though, because Lamar is not a very common name. Although there were some funny titles, but they didn't go with the "needs" part of this post. Let me just a name some of the few that I thought would have been funny:

1. What's up with Lamar??


2. Lamar is wrong


3. Lamar's Donuts

Hope you all have a great day!! I know I will, tomorrow is Saturday and I'm going shopping with the little sister. Can't have more fun than that.

-Lex

"MmmmmKay"

We all have pet peeves. I know I probably have more than most people. But I can't help it, certain things just bother me.



I took an Intermediate Word 2007 class for work the other day and the name of this post stemmed from the class. You should be able to pick up on it under #2 below. There are a couple of things that are bothering me about this class. Let me just tell you about them, so you can all join in my misery:

1. Now keep in mind this is an Intermediate class, but yet there are people in here that have never opened Word. This just does not make much sense at all.


2. The instructor, although fairly decent, loves to say "Mmmmkay." And I don't know about anyone else, but it is about to drive me INSANE.

Since I'm on the topic, I'll name a few of my pet peeves. I would love to hear from all of you about what your pet peeves are.

1. People smacking their gum instead of chewing


2. I have a weird pet peeve about people saying words over and over, such as "mmmkay", "um" or other words that are used excessively.


3. The Paul Harvey Show (He has past away now, so hopefully I won't have to listen to him much more)


4. People stealing food out of the refrigerator at work that is not theirs. Come on people, don't you know I could put poisoning or something horrible in there.


5. People who take up my precious time. i.e. 1)Taking an Intermediate class, when you should be in Basic, 2) Cashiers at the grocery store who take forever to scan your items because they are too busy talking to their co-workers and making a complete fool out of themselves.


6. People who use the self-checkout lanes, but don't know how to use them.


7. Cashiers chewing gum while they are working

Well those are just a few. I'm sure I could go on and on, but for now I will stop. As I said earlier please feel free to share some of your pet peeves with all of us.

-Lex

Once Upon a Time...

...There was a young working wife who had a blog. For some reason, she was never able to post on a daily basis or keep things in the right time order. She would always post pictures of things that happened months before....Yes I'm talking about me, I'm sure you guessed that though.

Since I am so far behind, I will start with the big snow storm of 2009.


So without further ado, I present "Memphis Snow 2009"

Brek decided he would help me make a snow angel

Brek and I at Shelby Farms

My pretty seafoam green house in the snow

Kim and Stacy (Lamar's parents) the night it started snowing

My little family (Me, Brek, and Lamar) the night it started snowing

Brek and Lamar

Well that's all for now. I will back later this week to give you some updates on what Kaytlyn, Lamar, and I have been up to.

Hope you are all having a great day!

Guess What....

...My sister is coming into town today!! I am super excited and cannot wait to spend the week with her. I will try to be a good little girl and take some pictures of our week together. We have a few things on the agenda, but nothing major yet. Hopefully we will get in some good shopping though. There is absolutely nothing better than shopping with one of my favorite people in the world!

Hope you all had a great weekend, I know Lamar and I had a good time in Hattiesburg visiting his family. Of course I didn't take pictures, because that's just how I roll :) I know I always prefer to read blogs that post pictures, but I never seem to take any pictures so I can post them. The ones that I did take (about a month ago when it snowed) are on my home computer and I never seem to blog from home. Maybe one of these days I will get some. In the meantime, hope you don't mind me just babbling on about nothing.

Well I'm off to go get groceries so we have something to eat this week.

Go TIGERS!!!!!

It's Been awhile

Well I think we can all agree that I am not quite the best blogger in the world :) It's not that I don't want to blog, it's that I don't think I have anything blog worthy to write about. So this post really has no point, but I just didn't want to be at the bottom of the list anymore for not blogging.

I do have some great news, my little sister is coming to visit in two weeks and then my older sister and her two children will be here two weeks after that. It just seems so funny that I go months without seeing any of my family and then within a couple of weeks I'll see some of my favorite people on this planet.

Lamar and I are planning a camping trip with some of great friends Rachel and Scott while Kayt is in town. Lamar and I got into camping when we first started dating and fell in love with it. We have recently grown out of it a little, but it is still fun. I'm very excited to finally have a dog to camping with. I'm not sure what all the other people in the campground will think, but oh well, we've all dealt with "those" campers before :)

Sorry for such a random post of nothing, but like I said I had to get off the bottom of the list.

Have a great weekend! Ours will be pretty busy, I'll have to take some pictures so I actually have something to post about next week.

-Lex

Happy Belated Valentines Day

Better late than never, right?!?!


Lamar and I hada pretty low-key Valentine's Day. I've never been a huge fan of the holiday, but hey it's a reason to get all dressed up and go have a good time. This actually was a great day for the two of us and Brek. Here's how it all went down:

• Breakfast in bed, made by Lamar



• Took Brek to the dog park



• Brek learned that he could swim and LOVED it



• Showered and got all dressed up

• Went to Spindini for dinner (a little uncomfortable because of the seating situation, sorry I don't have pictures)



• Went to the FedExForum for Motorcross

This was my first ever Motorcross event. I was little (read: a lot) nervous during the beginning. (Lamar told me I was acting like his grandmother). But after a few jumps I actually got a little into the whole thing. I think the most amazing portion of the entire show, was the 10 time National Trial Champion came out and did some pretty impressive stuff. Here is a video just to prove to you how talented this guy is. The bike he uses has no seat, because they are not supposed to sit down. The guys feet will never touch the ground the entire time he is on his bike performing. He can go from a complete stop and climb up a four foot wall and then turn around and never put his feet down. AMAZING!!! This guy has incredible balance and skill.

Snow in Memphis

Well this has been a long time coming, but it did snow in Memphis back in January. Lamar just happened to be off work and was able to take some pictures of our little one and his first time in the snow. He was a bit scared in the beginning, then a little curious, then a lot playful, then decided he would pose for the camera.

After a hard day at work and a hard day at play in the snow, Brek and I decided it was a good idea to stay inside where it was warm and fall asleep on the couch.

I don't have any great pictures to show his size difference, but our little man is getting pretty big. When we first got him at 7 weeks he was 15 pounds. Now at 4 months, he is a whopping 45 pounds and growing.

He has a job!!

Well, the good news I posted about yesterday came through and Lamar is no longer unemployed come Monday morning. We were very excited when his previous company called him back and told him they had a new project that they would like him to come back and work on.

I know I have said this a million times, but I want to thank all of you for prayers and help during this time. It was definitely not easy at times, but we have made it through. We are very excited to know we don't have to move and are able to stay around our "family of friends".

We love you all!

-Lex

Good News is definitely a possibility

We could possibly have some good news to share with everyone. I'll keep you updated.

In other words, two posts in one day; I think I'm setting a record :)

Thanks again for all of your prayers!!

-Lex

Round Two

It has been awhile since my last post, but honestly nothing much has changed.

Lamar is still job searching, but has two interviews this week. Unfortunately they are not in the Memphis area, but we will have to make do wherever he gets a job. He has one interview in Vicksburg, MS and the other is in Hattiesburg. Although we (read: he) would love to move to Hattiesburg to be close to his family, we don't want to move from Memphis. This is where our life is at the moment.

We are in that stage of life where we just want to start "growing" our roots. I want to move somehwere and be there for a while. We are both tired of moving and want to just finally call someplace "Home."

Thank you all for your prayers during this time in our lives.

-Alexis

The Job Hunt Continues

The job hunt is not done yet. Lamar is still talking to a bew people on a daily basis and so much sounds promising, but so much is also dissapointing. This whole unemployment thing has really started to get to Lamar. The man does not like to spend his days in the house for anything. On the weekends is always going and doing something. So these past three weeks sitting inside daily, watching tv, sleeping on the couch with Brek, etc. is starting to make him go stir crazy. As he states, it is too cold to do anything outside, so he just stays in. I'm really hoping Brek isn't getting to comfortable with this situation, because I'm really hoping it doesn't last that much longer.

In better news, I recently won two all-inclusive (the only way we are able to go) trips to Cancun. My work has been having a membership drive and there were qualifications to meet in order to receive a trip and guess what, I met those twice. Which means, Lamar and I (hopefully) will be going to Cancun sometime in March. We will be staying at The Eldorado Royale. There are quite a few people from work that will be coming and bringing their signicant others as well. Should be quite a bit of fun. Even though I don't know how I feel about people I work with seeing me in my swim suit. (Someone you work with should never see you half-naked, at least in my opinion.)

Hope everyone has a great rest of the week and please keep the job hunting in your prayers for Lamar.

-Alexis

One Down, One To Go

The job search is still continuing, but as I stated in my last post, at least he has a couple of interviews lined up. Lamar's first interview was in Hattiesburg and he just got done with it a couple of hours ago. He said it went pretty well. We will just have to find out. His next one is tomorrow here in Memphis with the Corp of Engineers. We are crossing our fingers and praying that the one in Memphis works out. As much as we would love to be with his family in Hattiesburg, our life is here.

Thank you for all of your prayers during this time in our lives.

-Lex

Rough Times

These past couple weeks in the Rutland household have been a little up and down. Some might say they like living their lives as though they were on a roller coaster, but you know what, I think I prefer to be on a merry-go-round. Nice, slow, and never change pace.

As some of you might not know, Lamar lost his job last Tuesday. His company had to do a lay-off in these hard economic times. Lamar was going stir crazy sitting at home all last week, so he decided to head to Hattiesburg on Thursday to see his family, and I'm sure more importantly, do a little deer hunting in his off-time.

Through the bad, some good news has come as well. He has two interviews scheduled for next week. Today in the mail, we also got his results back from the FE exam he took back in September. The great news--HE PASSED!!!!!!! This was his third time to take the exam, and we couldn't be happier that he is finally an E.I.

Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers this upcoming week as we prepare for the interviews. For now, I am heading to Hattiesburg to spend the weekend with my wonderful Hubby and his family.