Kansas City, MO

So a few weeks ago, the Nugent family went to Kansas City, MO for a Folsom (that's my mother in law's maiden name) wedding. So basically, Nuge's cousin Bobby got married.

To recap the weekend: flew from DFW to KCI on Saturday (the day of the wedding). All of our bags were checked, but only one of Jan and Kevin's bags got lost somewhere in the travel. So they had to make a nice trip to Kohl's for some wedding attire. Not a really good start. It also snowed 4-5 inches the night before we got there, so when we landed, we were greeted by a nice blanket of snow.

We got to our hotel, hung out for a few hours and then left for the wedding. It was really nice and elegant. On Sunday, we went home...end of weekend. Other than that, not too much else has been going on, which is why I haven't been updating. Below are some pictures for your enjoyment.

Jan playing with a snowball...

BP, Jan, Nuge, and me...
Nuge...

Lots of snow...

The happy couple and their daughter...

She was so sleepy...

Nuge and Michael (who was also one of our groomsmen)...

Jan and Kevin...


Me and Nuge...


After the I Dos...

Exchanging vows...

I love his look...those are his parents too...

I think Michael had the same look on his face while he was standing up at our wedding...

Too cute...

Our frozen over pool...view from our room...

Driving to the hotel...

Me...

Nuge...he's so adorable

Us at the airport....

When we landed...

Nuge started working some different hours. They aren't his permanent ones just yet, but they sure are different. For the next 6-8 weeks, he'll be going through training on the first shift. First shifts starts a lot earlier than he's used to, so he now has to be up at work between 6-6:30 am every day. Good thing about that, he gets off earlier, but bedtime is earlier. These past 2 nights haven't been all that great, but we'll get used to it. It sure will be nice when he goes on 2nd shift!

I haven't been getting many jobs this month, but that's to be expected. It was TAKS testing earlier and then Spring Break, so I'm not really expecting much. We'll be going to the lake over the weekends of spring break, but because Nuge has work, we won't be doing much else.

My grandparents moved up here and are getting settled in their new home. So far, they seem to be doing ok. I think they miss the golf course view though. For the most part, it has been an awesome few weeks and I have no complaints. I love my job, I love my husband, I love my family, and I love my Lord. All of which have brought much joy to my life.

God has been truly awesome and has majorly blessed us in ways that can't even be described. He has shown His love and mercies to us, sinners, and we are forever grateful. Through His strength and power, Nuge and I have grown closer...if that is even possible...and God continues to amaze us every single day.

Live Lobster Night!

So on Saturday, we celebrated my dad's birthday. My dad is kind of a hard person to shop for so my sister and I were trying so hard to figure out what to get him. I said that he always talks about eating a really great, fresh lobster dinner. So Cori suggested Red Lobster. For some reason, I knew Dad did not like Red Lobster's lobster so we were trying to think of something else. As a joke, Cori said, "What do you want to do, just go pick up a live one and cook that?" GREAT IDEA CORI!!!

So Saturday, Cori and I went to Hong Kong Food Market and bought the 2 largest live lobsters they had. We surprised my dad by showing up and saying that we were going to fix him fresh lobster, shrimp scampi, creamed spinach, asparagus, and dinner rolls. Here are some pictures from that dinner:
Here is my brother in law, Luke, posing with his lobster.

Putting the other lobster in the pot. It was already starting to turn red after being in there a few seconds.

They are done!

Shrimp Scampi

Lobsters on the table

Creamed spinach

Dinner rolls

Asparagus

The dinner table. Complete with candles. I turned on the light so I could take pictures but the lights were turned off for dinner. Well, that was until my dad turned them back on after the prayer. He couldn't see his meal.

Overall, a very successful dinner. Happy birthday daddy!

In other news, my grandparents are moving up here tomorrow! They live in Beaumont but because of all the hurricanes that have been going through there, they've been evacuating quite a bit and were tired of it. So, they bought a house up here! I can't wait. For the first time in my entire life, I'll be living less than 5 hours from any extended family. We are super excited.

Other than that, life has been pretty simple and quiet. Work is going good on both ends. I'm working more because in a couple of months, I won't be working anymore because Nuge's hours will change. So I'm just trying to work as much as I can before that whole thing goes down. God has been truly amazing and has blessed us more than we could ever imagine. I can't wait to see what all He has in store for us over the next 50+ years!

Sick and Job Promotion

Well it has been a long time since I've updated...that seems to always be the opening line of these things huh?

After Christmas break, I found it very difficult to find a job. Apparently teachers were not allowed to take off after the break...or were well rested. Either way, I got to spend a lot of time hanging out at home, cleaning, organizing, and just all around being a stay at home wife! It was great! I did, however, miss working. I actually really love my job and miss it when I can't find work.

I was able to fix some pretty awesome meals...if I do say so myself. I made, for the first time ever, homemade banana bread! I had asked some ladies on TheNest for some of their favorite recipes and so I got a few responses. They all sounded really good, but I didn't have all the ingredients for any of them, so I just made up my own based on what they had in theirs. It turned out amazing.
I was also able to make lunch for Nuge. He would come home for lunch for a nice home cooked meal! It was so nice to see him during the day instead of waiting until 5:45 to see him again. I've discovered that if I put Rotel in anything that I make, Nuge LOVES it! So pretty much everything I make, Rotel goes in it. Nuge isn't a big fan of "home cookin," so I had to make it to where he would eat it. Let's take a moment to thank God for Rotel!

Along with cooking, I was able to buy little bits and pieces for our apartment. Our sunroom went from this:
to this:
Nevermind the mess on the table. I've been sick and haven't felt like cleaning too much. The curtains were bought at Target. They still aren't finished being hung yet, but I was by myself when I did this so I couldn't hang the rod all the way. It's getting there though.

I also bought some cute little bedside lamps from Target...thanks to my sister who is awesome!
They are a little small, but I think it works. This is also a good shot of our new nightstands. The Streets gave us this one and then we bought the other. He also gave us a dresser:
This is where I do my hair and makeup every day. You can see that our bed isn't made, but I promise, I make it every single day. Just not the past few days because I've been really sick and just haven't felt like it.

Also, my dad is awesome! He put up these shelves for us:
These are above our potty. Obviously they hold our candles because I've been obsessed with candle lit baths. So the other night when I wasn't feeling good, I decided to take a bath. Nuge lit all the candles for me and I got in and started to soak it all up. Then I noticed something...
Woops! Yeah, one of the candles was a little too close for comfort. But it just kinda looks like a knot in the wood. So now we know to NOT have the candle on the right sit there while taking a candle lit bath.

So all this talk about being sick...yeah, it sucks. My sister was super sick and so was my niece and I hung out with both of them. Cori is still really really sick. My fever has gotten all the way up to 101.9. I haven't had a fever in, oh geez, I can't even remember how long it's been. So needless to say, I'm pretty miserable. I've had to turn down jobs. Why couldn't I have gotten sick on the days when jobs were scarce? God's funny that way. But here is what has soothed me:
Yep. Ladies and gents, we have tea and honey (new thing that Nuge bought me). Lozenges, Mucinex, thermometer, ibuprofen, and crackers (which is really the only thing I have eaten the last few days). That is a recipe of goodness for the sickness.

Now for the most exciting news ever! Nuge's bosses have been talking to him for the past month or so about a new job opening up. A few weeks ago, they gave him some paper work to fill out. Ya know, stuff like drug testing and the W4 and stuff like that. He still never heard a hardcore yes or no on the job. That is, until today! His boss came up to him, handed him the formal confirmation of a verbal offer. We aren't sure about the exact details of the job, but we are pretty certain that his hours will be 3-11pm. We know he will probably be on the manufacturing line doing QA stuff, but I'm not sure of the rest. We will keep you updated as we know more...hopefully.

So there it is ladies and gentlemen, our update of the month! :)

Just wanted to share...

So Nuge and I have been living in this apartment since Sept. 5. He has been living in it since August sometime. So that means that our stuff has been in here for almost 5 months now. I am JUST now getting to the de-cluttering part of living here. I think it will be an ongoing process, but at least I'm starting somewhere.

The other day, I decided to really get serious about it. I went on to The Nest, where I get a lot of inspiration from other "nesties". One girl said to try out FLYLady. So I did and boy am I glad I did! She gave me a place to start because I felt too overwhelmed to just start somewhere. I did pretty much what she said and now, our apartment is finally coming together!

Here are some pictures of what I have accomplished and what I still have left to do. The apartment isn't completely clean, but I'm working on it so bear with me and I'll show ya pictures later.This is the coat rack my sister and I put up. On the left is the front door and on the right is the "hall" closet.
These are on the wall of the living room. My sister helped with these too. They are above and to the left of the TV. My camera battery was out, so I had to take quick pics. Whole living room will be up later.
This is our fireplace...obviously. We are going to put up some candle scones tomorrow on either side of the picture to make it prettier.
More of these will go over our fireplace. These are in our "hallway" right in front of our laundry room. The candles belonged to my grandmother but I will probably get cream ones later.This is our bedroom. Nuge and I hung those curtains a few days after we got married. Our first project as man and wife! I put the bed skirt on the other day.These are in our bathroom. I'll change what's in them as the seasons change. Cute huh? The inspiration came from Nuge's mom.Our laundry room.

Our dining room. This is really messy right now and we will get to this tomorrow. The table was Nuge's when he was young. Then it was his great aunt's, now it is ours. My sister and I hung the mirror.

The kitchen sink, spice rack, and bottle of wine that the Nugents got us for our wedding. We are gonna open it on our 1 year anniversary.
The other side of our kitchen. That toaster is the best thing ever!!! Poaches eggs and makes toast. Awesome breakfast maker! And Cutco knives? Nothing better!

So that's a sneak peek into our apartment. More and better pictures will come.

Now that I have Nuge off for a few days, we are gonna do more cleaning and organizing. Can't you hear the excitement that's in his voice?! I can! :)

Honeymoon!!

We finally got to take our "real" honeymoon! Since we got married in September, we wanted to wait until after hurricane season to go to Jamaica. Nuge's parents treated us to 4 nights in Negril, Jamaica at Couples Swept Away All Inclusive Resort. It was amazing!
We flew out of DFW on Tuesday morning. Our flight was to land in Miami and then head to Montego Bay. We had about 20 minutes from the time our DFW flight landed and our flight to Jamaica took off. We were literally running from one terminal to the next. When we got there, they were already calling names saying that if we didn't show up, then our seats would be canceled. When we arrived at the gate, they asked us what our names were and so we told them, while still running, and they were like, "OK GO!!" and we boarded the plane. We sat down, caught our breath and filled out our Custom forms. Had a great flight to Jamaica! We land, go get our bags...nope, not there! My first reaction was, yep, I knew this was gonna happen. Everyone that was on our DFW flight lost their luggage. The airline people in Jamaica thought it was OUR fault for booking flights so close together. Um...not our fault! Jan and Kevin originally had us on an earlier flight, but when we got our itinerary, we were scheduled for another one.
Anyway, so Nuge goes to find help, I'm standing with about 3 other girls who's husbands/fiances/whatever went to go find help too. I found out that one of them checked her wedding dress. Yeah, she was freaking out. But I told her that since she wasn't getting married until Friday, it was cool. They were gonna have our luggage back either that night or the next day, I assumed. So then Nuge comes back with an airport guy in tow. We head to the baggage complaint area where about a dozen (DOZEN dad) were complaining about the same thing. We were all assured that our bags made it on the next flight out of Miami and that we would get our bags either that night or first thing in the morning.
Good thing I read the message boards and FAQ's and took the advice to pack a carry on just in case something like that happened. So we had our bathing suits, a change of clothes, and a few other random items. One thing we didn't have...contact stuff. I can sleep in my contacts and it doesn't bother me, but Nuge cannot. He wasn't too happy.
When we get through Customs and stuff, we are greeted by our resort. They offer us free Red Stripe and have us sit in the lounge. We load up on the bus for one of the scariest rides ever! Good thing we were sitting on the second row so we couldn't see what was really going on. The landscape was BEAUTIFUL! On one side of the road there was beautiful, blue-green ocean and then on the other, beautiful green mountains/small hills...depending on where you live.
When we get to the resort, we are handed a glass of champagne and a cool wet rag. They show us to our room. AMAZING!
Inside the cabinet: 3 bottles of free liquor, 1 bottle of red wine, a mini fridge stocked with: juice, tonic, bottle water, white wine, champagne, and random cokes. All free and stocked daily.
So that's the view from the inside. The view from the out...


Beautiful huh?
So after unpacking what little we had, we changed clothes and went to dinner. There was a cute little grill 2 buildings down from us that had cheeseburgers, hamburgers, hot dogs, and other random snacks. Since we hadn't eaten since breakfast, we were pretty hungry. After that, we went exploring where we ended up at another dining area. Not wanting to miss anything, we quickly got something to eat there too! Good stuff!
It got dark and we didn't know our way around too well, so we went back to our room to just chill until our luggage came. Since Nuge was freaking out about his contacts, I tried to ask random guests who walked by our room if they had contact solution. Of course it was around midnight and either they were too drunk to know what I was asking, or thought about how weird it was for some random person to ask them for contact solution. Either way, we didn't get any.
We decided to head to bed and just figure something out in the morning. Nuge didn't sleep too well because of his eyes but I was just fine...until he kept waking me up.
At 3:00 in the morning, we get a call from the front desk. Our bags have arrived! They told us they would be there shortly to deliver them to us. Well, Jamaican time: Shortly = an hour. But we got our bags and we took out our contacts and went back to sleep.
Some of the activities that we participated in: snorkeling x2= awesome, glass bottle boat= snooze, catamaran cruise= started out slow, but got to be very amazing, parceling= relaxing, awesome view, a lot of money, but greatness!, dinner at Feathers= amazingly romantic!, paddle boat= great fun until Nuge got hurt, sailing= awesome and very relaxing...until the water would splash, and basketweaving...yep, basketweaving! It was awesome and we did a great job!

Above: mine
Below: Nuge's
It only took us an hour and a half, but I think they are great! We are going to use them at Christmas for our dinner rolls!
We also participated in relaxing in a hammock to watch the sunset.
It was a great time for all! When Saturday came, we were super sad to be leaving but happy that it wasn't a beautiful sunny day. It was actually very rainy and gloomy...just like how we felt.
Our flight home wasn't bad. It was a straight shot, so we were able to get our bags this time! When we were over DFW, we could see all the Christmas lights and city lights and it was just amazing. We were also able to see the moon rise. Very spiritual.
So that's it...that's our Jamaican Honeymoon. I will post more pictures of the snorkeling and parceling when we get our waterproof cameras developed.

2 months is long enough!

Golly, it has been forever since I've updated. Work has been crazy, as well as life.
It's funny; when Nuge and I were dating, we had all this free time and felt like we were together all the time. Now that we are married, it feels like there are not enough hours in the day and we feel like we never see each other anymore. We both go to work in the mornings, come home in the evenings, are dead tired, and then go to sleep at a very early hour. What happened?!
We have bible study/Christian fellowship on Wednesdays that has been known to last until 1 AM. Then on Thursdays, we watch our niece so my sister and brother in law can have date night. Usually, once a week, we have dinner with the Nuge side of the family. Usually once a week or once every 2 weeks, I go and hang out with my friend, Meagan, who's husband is stationed in San Angelo. And then on Saturday nights, we attend church. It doesn't seem like a lot is going on because we still have 3 or 4 days of "nothing" to do, but it just doesn't seem to be enough.
Nuge has never been a morning person, and his jobs requires him to be at work at 8 (like any normal job would). He has been with the company since we got married 3 months ago and he still can't seem to adjust to the hours. He wakes up a few minutes before he has to leave and then he comes home completely exhausted. I feel bad for him because he is so drained all the time. Me, I go to work between 8 and 9 (depending on what school I'm at) and come home between 3:30 and 4:30. My hours are a little more flexible, but I'm not near as drained as he is.
A few weeks ago, he got word of a job opening in his company that his boss thinks he would be great for. It's a 2nd shift (3pm-11pm) with more pay. The hours are more of his thing and we think it would benefit both of us. We are praying that God will direct us in the direction He wants us to go. He is supposed to meet with his boss today to discuss the opportunity. We are praying for good news!
We leave for our honeymoon tomorrow! Jamaica, here we come!!!! We are staying 4 nights at Couples Swept Away in Nagril, Jamaica. Our flight leaves early tomorrow morning and we will be returning late Saturday night! We are so excited!!!!
I will try to be more consistent with the updates. It has just been really hard with work and life and stuff. But Christmas break is coming up, so I will be off work for like 3 weeks or something like that! YAY!!! I do have some big plans though. Organizing the apartment! My mom, mother in law, and my sister have all offered to come over and help us out. It's not THAT bad, but all 3 of those ladies have much better skills than we do in the art of organizing. Hopefully, they can teach us a few things and then everything will be great!!!

Hi! Where have you been?

So I haven't been on lately because...well, I guess there is not really a good reason. Just plain ole laziness, I guess. I was sick a few weeks ago and so that was no fun. I was out of commission for a whole weekend...which is not usually like me. I also legally changed my name to Nugent, so that was a very BIG highlight of my month! I love being Mrs. Nugent! It makes me feel super special to know that I share the same name as the love of my life! YAY! (Yep...totally get excited about stupid things.)

I also started my new job this week. I'm a substitute teacher for Arlington ISD and it has been a very interesting week. So far, I have done 7th grade English, 3rd grade, 1st grade, and today I conquered 5th grade. I like the older grades better because they are more self contained and independent. I'm also a big fan of switching classes. I like having the kids for a little bit, then sending them on to their next class. It makes it less stressful for me and more interesting since the class starts over with new kids. Tomorrow, I head to my old Jr. High school to sub for a 7th grade Science class. I'm very excited about it!

We started doing a bible study with our friends the Streets and the Walkers. We meet Wednesday nights and so far it has been some of the best conversation that I have ever had with friends. It is very refreshing to be in the company of other married Christians that are headed in the same direction; that are wanting to strengthen their marriages and their personal relationship with Christ. I love every minute of it. Thankfully, Nuge feels the same way. These past few weeks have been very peaceful and encouraging.
This week, we learned about how having Christ as the center of the marriage can affect the marriage, other relationships, and yourself. We also talked about the man being the head of the household. I know there are a lot of feminist who feel "belittled" or whatever by this, but after Kyle and Kim explained it in their words, and then took it to the Word of God, it became a bigger honor to have the husband as the head. The men are like the tree trunk. They are stable, rooted in The Word, and support the house. The women are like the vine that wraps around the trunk. They need the support and comfort of the strong, God fearing man. The women can't grow unless the men grow. They go where the men go. I may not be saying it as eloquently as Kyle and Kim, but it was very inspiring.

So that's pretty much what's been going on in the Nugent world. Not too much, nothing too exciting, but for us, we are stoked to be married! Almost one month!