Gotta Keep It Up!

Trying to keep blogging regularly again...

Right now I'm watching House, drinking a nice and frosty diet coke, sitting by my sweet husband. It is quite nice!

We are one month into Dave Ramsey's plan as of tomorrow and we are more than halfway through with our mini emergency fund, the first step! We surpassed our goal and are quite pleased with ourselves :) Next month we may decimate the savings with Christmas gifts, but at least we won't be using any credit for them! Once we move apartments, we can REALLY get going! Wahooooo. Also refinancing my car loan and getting a better rate, paying it off earlier AND paying almost $100 less a month. GO REFINANCE!! If you are with Viewpointbank already, there is no fee, nothing to lose. Very nice!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving/21st bday for the twins weekend! It was so much fun to hang out with the kiddos while they were home. They are the coolest siblings ever. We spent the night almost the whole break over there and had a blast. LOTS of yummmmmmy turkey and stuffing (thanks to mom!), games, bday celebrations, staying up late and sleeping in! Can't wait til Christmastime when we can hang out again!!!

Also found out Laine is moving home after graduating this December! We're so excited we'll get to see her so much more. YAY Laine!! :) (Mom and Dad were super happy too...this is my mom's recurring hope that every child will move back home at some point! :))

We are keeping Jon Jon, our nephew this weekend and are really excited! Anyone have any tips or fun ideas for us to do? I was thinking we could make and decorate Christmas cookies, but I guess that's kinda girly. I know Clint wanted to bike with him, but it has rained alot so the trails might be closed. (Jon Jon's quote when Clint was surprised his mountain bike didn't have gears: "My legs ARE my gears!!") Any ideas?

Well, sorry this post is boring, but I don't have the energy/patience to put pictures up. At least I'm blogging!! Woo hoo!

Catch up post

It always seems really daunting to update after I haven't in quite awhile. I feel like I need to have some awesome post, complete with pictures recreating the last months to you guys. But, if that's the case, then I will never do it. I think I will just allow myself to blab about whatever I wish instead, maybe with some catch up included. :)

This weekend was our Thanksgiving with Lorie and Roger and the fam (Clint's mom and stepdad). Jared was in town so we decided to stay the weekend at Lorie and Roger's. Clint and Jared had a golf day on Saturday and enjoyed the awesome weather while Lorie, Roger and I cooked, went to Sam's for the holiday sample feast, Lorie, Kara and I did our nails and toenails, and just had a leisurely day in general. It was quite wonderful! Then Sunday was the big thanksgiving feast with the whole family. If I get around to it during this post, I'll upload some pics from the weekend from my phone. We cooked up a storm and had a wonderful meal and time with family. Then Clint and I decided to stay over one more night and just go to work straight from their house Monday morning. Woo hoo! I have had some bad allergies and just didn't feel like driving/riding home and or getting anything done at the house.

Homemade croutons for our Thanksgiving salad - cheaper AND yummier than buying them! (Lauren N - thanks for teaching me how!)

I'm really liking my job(s) and having a great time at all the events that come with them. I'm so thankful to work for such great people! In the past few weeks we have been working on: Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 release, Maserati GranTurismo Convertible unveiling, Coca Cola Dallas Elevators Kick Off Pep Rally, New Moon Advance screening ticket giveaway event, Star Trek release, New Moon screening, and many other little details. It has been bussssyyyyy!

The new Maserati GranTurismo Convertible! Prettyyyyyy

Rock T from 97.9 The Beat MCing our Dallas Elevators event!

Leigh Ann and I "posing with" the New Moon cast! We had a green screen station at our event that created these for everyone. Fun!

Clint and my Dad have been working hard on the release of DragonFire SDK, the first software development kit that allows you to write iPhone apps - in Windows!!! Until now, programmers had to have a mac, learn the mac programming language, and then create an app to send to the app store. With DragonFire SDK, they can create and test apps using Windows code they already know ON a PC! Clint has had lots of fun with it so far, including creating the website for DragonFire and the graphics for their first app, Unstacker, that is used as an example of the first iPhone app to be created in Windows. It's free - download it from the app store! If you want to check out DragonFire SDK, go to dragonfiresdk.com - send it to anyone you know who might want to create an app!

The awesome logo Clint created!

Angela, Lauren N. and I also threw Katy's baby shower since my last post. It was SOOOOOO wonderful to get to see Katy and celebrate baby Rose. I am SO very excited about his arrival and am just dying to get myself up to NY to see him somehow. It was a great time with friends, I enjoyed it so much! It was so wonderful to get to hang out with Katy, even just for a little bit. She is such a dear friend and I miss her so much these days! It was so great to be able to share in this amazing time of life with her.

Clint, myself, Lauren and Ricardo ran the 5k they talked us into! It was fun, tiring and a success! It got Clint and I thinking about options as far as training for something, but so far I can't really think about running more than 3 miles. Not sure what we will do but we need to do something! It was a good time, thank you guys for telling us about it! Good luck on your 8 mile turkey trot! -- They weren't able to talk us into that one!

Before the run...we look much happier than we did afterwards!

Book club has begun. One day after work I went in to Barnes and Noble to just look through the book and maybe read a bit, since I was planning to buy it on Amazon for about half of what B&N offer it for. I ended up reading about half of the book sitting at B&N! If you know me, you know I am notorious for this, I just can't put books down! But now I'm thinking...maybe I don't need to buy it after all! A couple more trips to the bookstore will do it! :) ...To book clubbers - I teared up at least 3 times in just the prologue and the first few pages...get ready!! :)

This happened awhile ago, but I don't think I ever posted about it: Jillian's first OFFICIAL EP came out on iTunes!!! This album is really pro quality, it was produced by a wonderful friend of Jillian's named Chris August. It has a nice sampling of several of her songs, showing the different kinds of music she writes, plays and sings. Her myspace has a link to it on iTunes, as well as her upcoming show dates, where you can buy a physical copy and get the cutely designed cover. myspace.com/jillianedwardsmusic. You can also hear many of the songs there. More news to come on her budding career. Good things are happening! :)

Buy it on iTunes here!

I should really split these things up into different posts huh? That way it wouldn't seem like there was so long in between posts! Oh wellllll. I'm long winded.

On more thing...Clint and I have become Dave Ramsey followers! November was our first month on our new budget and it has gone very well! We HAVE occasionally slipped and called him "Damn Ramsey" (Freudian!!), but it's more love than hate in the love/hate relationship. I promise it is, Dave!! I know when we get to call in and yell "We're debt free!!" in 8098340698 years, we will be loving you more than ever. Anyway, it's nice to have a good budget in place and to know we are ready for Christmas, at least. Hooray for talk radio!

We also got to go see the So You Think You Can Dance Tour! It was awesome! This was a birthday present from Lorie & Roger and Angela & Charles. Thanks guys!!

So much fun!

CHARLIEEEEEE!

We decided to steal Charlie for part of the weekend, and here is what ensued:

Lots of fun...

(learned a tiny bit on photoshop to do these, that was exciting!)







Adorable cuteness...











And a little mischief...





Doesn't that face just look like he's up to something?? :)

We love Charlie! We're so glad he likes to sleepover every once in awhile. :)

We may be what some call a little "Charlie obsessed," but we don't mind and are proud of it!! (ahem, Jill, Cole and Laine)! If you're going to be obsessed over a dog, why not over the best one ever? :)

Fall, birthdaying, jobs, and talk radio

It's Fall! I love it! We have the windows open right now and it is WONDERFUL!

Clint's birthday was this past week and we had a lot of fun. I gave him some jeans he had been wanting (and that I had been wanting him to have;)) and the Garmin Forerunner 305 for biking! It shows all sorts of things like the map of the ride where you can compete with your own last ride and your heart rate, speed, altitude, calories burned (you put in the weight of your bike and everything!), and then you download it all to your comp and use the cool software to analyze it (and google earth). He is excited about it! We had a relaxing day and lots of fun. :) I'm so thankful to have such a wonderful husband and I LOVE celebrating him as much as possible! We also went camping with his family last weekend and had a blast. Then we stayed the next night in Waco and watched the Cowboy game (grr) with Cole, Jill, and Amber! It was so much fun. I love them. :)

I started my new job this week. I'm working part time with the marketing company I've been working with and the rest of the part time with a PR company that I met through Hawaiian Falls. I have really enjoyed it so far and can't wait to really get going with it. I love the people I work with and am enjoying the work itself a lot too, so yay!

Ugh, the Cowboys aren't doing so well huh? Booooooo. This has made me start listening to the ticket after the games during the week, which then made me start listening to other talk radio in hopes of finding the Dave Ramsey show. Then I realized it had been a week and all I had listened to was talk radio! So I'm on a talk radio streak. Anyone know any good talk radio channels or shows?

Testing 1 2 3

I'm setting this up to post automatically to my twitter account in hopes that I will update more. Let's see if it worked!

By the way, I'm LaurenBrock on twitter, and Clint is JamStudioClint. :) Follow us and leave a comment that you did so we can follow you back. I love Twitter!!

***EDIT - Clint's personal twitter is ClintKBrock. JamStudioClint is his work one. Follow him too! :)

What have we been up to?

Wow it's been awhile!! But I'm back in blogging world, at least for today.

And today is a special day because HUDSON PETTIJOHN was born!!!

He looks so adorable, doesn't he?! I love him already. I'm so proud of Nat for delivering him too! Way to go girl!! Love you guys! I really wish I could be there!

Since that is the most recent news, I guess I'll go backwards from that to fill you in. Let's see. Currently I'm finishing up working at Hawaiian Falls for the summer (I am an Ambassador of Fun there - which deserves its own post) and am looking HARD for a teaching job. I made it into the teaching pool at RISD, but there are no math positions open right now, so for now, that's a no go. I'm signed up to sub if nothing works out. Also applying everywhere else and trying to find "ins" to get an interview. If you have any ideas, let me know!

Clint's dad is recovering very well from his heart surgery, and we are so thankful for that!

One of my best friends in the world in pregnant, and I'm SOOOOO excited!! I love you Katy and Kristian and baby Rose! :)

We kinda totally failed on The Zone Diet. Right after we started Clint's dad had his heart attack, and I was taking my math content test, getting a new job, etc. Things got hectic and stressful and there was not time to calculate and cook each meal perfectly. Grr! It really is a great diet and we are starting to do it a little more in a moderate way.

We have started running! By started I mean we will run for the 3rd time tonight. Our goal is a 5k with a tenative half marathon in the future (why do I ALWAYS type marathong??) We found out that the drive in front of our apt is a half mile around, so that makes it really easy. We've only done a mile at a time so far, but tonight I think we are trying for 2 (or maybe 1.5). I hope the running bug gets me again. I loved to like running last time! Haha.

We went to Del Lago over the 4th with my family. It was a lot of fun! My family used to go there for little vacations some summers, it is resort on Lake Conroe, but we had heard they redid the resort and WOW!! It was amazing!! I loved it. I need to post some before and after pictures from when we were little and we went. It even has a little waterpark now. We had tons of fun and watched the most amazing fireworks in the most perfect place - right underneath them! I've always loved fireworks, but I always wish I could be closer to them, so that I can lay down and look straight up and they are right there. And that is what we got!! We even had pieces of cardboard from the fireworks falling on us. It was so wonderful and romantic too! I can't believe it was our second 4th of July married. Time flies!!!

Clint also did something sweet for me during our blogging hiatus. I was putting off getting my hair highlighted bc I like getting it done at this one place by a sorta expensive haridresser and since I have been kinda in between jobs we were low on money. Clint secretly made an appointment for me and told me we were going to brunch with his parents. Then he drove me to the hair place instead! He is so sweet. AND on top of that, while I was there he secretly took my car and washed and cleaned it, inside and out! And if you've ever been in my car, you know that is a big job. :) He is such a sweetie! And then the other day I woke up and he had cleaned out and vacuumed out my purse for me! I don't deserve him. :)

Well, that is all I can think of to update you with for right now. I probably have some pictures in my camera to post later of some of these things. Glad to be back in blog world. Thanks for not getting mad at me while we were gone!! :)

This might seem stupid...

but we are starting another blog! I realize we have not posted on this one in quite awhile, but hopefully having another will help us get back on the bandwagon. Our new blog can be found at

Life in the Zone - Hopefully

and will be our journal of our new fitness and diet plan. We'll keep track of progress, struggles and general thoughts and changes on what we are doing. We are really excited about this and I hope you'll read it so that we will have to stay accountable, haha.

In other news, I am studying to become a 4-8 grade math teacher! I take my test a week from Memorial Day and then will be eligible for hire! So, if you know anyone who needs a brand new teacher, ha, let me know. :) I'm also looking for a summer job until I get a teaching job, so any info on that would be great too.

The kiddos have been back in town from school and we've been having fun with them. It's so fun to have the whole family together!

Let me know what you think of our new blog! We are loving the new plan so far and in fact in quite full from my yummy breakfast right now. :) We'd love to chat with anyone about it!

My Sister is Famous!!! Part 2

Jillian's first online album is now available at Cdbaby - click here to go to her page!

"Indie acoustic melodies and lyrics that sound like lullabies and feel like sunshine."

8 great original songs for only $5.99! How could you not buy it? :) Honestly, her songs are really some of my favorites. They make you think and also make you happy. You can hear excerpts at cdbaby too.

If you like Jill's music, please feel free to re-blog (is that a word?) this so that we can help her spread the word.

If you want to hear full songs, go to her myspace: myspace.com/jillianedwardsmusic.

Also, she is opening for Sleeperstar at House of Blues here in Dallas on May 1. Clint and I will be there and we'd love to get a group to go! Check it out! How cool is that?!?!













Isn't she just the cutest??

Biking.... again!

This time it was Erwin Park up in McKinney. We went there because my 5 yr old nephew (who lives in McKinney) had his tonsils removed (which I'm jealous of) so we stopped by to see him on the way.

We've had easier 4 mile rides... This one was tough because I'm used to the 50 degree days we've been having, today was in the 80's. The last two times I went were when Lauren was busy with the 2nd half of her friends who ALL decided to get married this year, so she hasn't been in a while. We both shouldered a tree but we didn't crash, we got a good workout in and shot a short video of a fun spot we found on the trail.

The sound at 0:05 isn't a bird ;)

What is...

...the cutest thing you have ever seen at a bridal shower? I need some cool ideas! Games, decorations, favors, anything you have seen done that was really thoughtful, inventive or cool. My cousin is getting married and we are throwing her a family shower - and her family threw me one and just did so much really sweet stuff for me. (Think hand initialed, homemade iced cookies, hand tied favor boxes in our colors, a game involving a video of my soon-to-be husband, a cake from Stein's, amazing food...etc.) So, since I'm pretty sure my readership (if you can call it that) is 99% female, I thought I'd ask for suggestions.

Also, I need more followers!! If you read our blog, scroll down and click "Follow." Come on. I look like a nerd.

Happy Monday everybody. Just four more days until Friday. Haha.

A couple pics from the shower the Lilley's threw for me. I wish I had more on my computer right now...I need to get them from my mom.

BREAKING NEWS!!!

How cool is that?!

Jillian is opening for Bethany Dillon at a concert in College Station!! I'm basically related to someone famous now!!

If anyone wants to go, or knows anyone who loves Bethany Dillon who would want to go, you can buy tickets here. Clint and I will both be attending, if anyone wants to ride down with us! So exciting! :)

Jill's myspace is myspace.com/jillianedwardsmusic if you'd like to hear her latest stuff - it's really great! :)

upcoming posts

We are in Waco right now, about to go see SING! :) So there will be an upcoming post about that. Also, we are overdue for a post-Valentine's Day post so that's coming too. It was wonderful!

Left town right after my wonderful friend Michelle's bridal shower. It was so much fun! We are so excited for her and Cody, they are getting married in 6 weeks! Cody is such a great guy and I'm SO glad Michelle found someone so wonderful. We had fun celebrating them!

Anybody on twitter? I'm getting addicted.

I really need to fix up my blog. I'm not in the know about all the new stuff. I still just have my old links to blogs that I never update or add to. Help!

blogging!

So, we thought we'd start video blogging now that we have a camera...but that isn't so much happening and honestly I don't feel like people like it as much. Or maybe it is just bc we haven't been posting consistently lately. Let me know if you have a preference.

Lately we've been playing a lot of Guitar Hero World Tour. I'm the drummer and Clint's the guitar hero. It's quite intense. The other night we had been playing for about an hour and I realized I had been sweating for awhile!! So I guess it's a little healthier of a habit then sitting on the couch watching tv, at least. AND I'm beginning to think I'm an actual drummer...so I might have to try to learn for real. Then I could say I play like...4 instruments (not to say I play any of them well enough to actually claim them, but it would sound cool at least). Right now Clint is practicing up on the drums. I think he is trying to make sure there is still nothing that I am better than him at in the video gaming world. Maybe THE coolest thing about it all is that we got to make our own rockers that look like us. Well, they are crazy rockstar versions of us, at least. We'd love to come have anyone play with us! It's a lot of fun and we crack up at each other a lot. Wow I talked a lot about Guitar Hero!!!

In other news, I got a free magazine subscription (Marie Claire - not my fav but it'll do for free!) from our coke rewards points! We've since stopped buying diet coke so I don't die early from some kind of aspartame poisoning, but my days of being a total diet cokaholic paid off. Pretty cool!

I'm not sure if I have told the blogging world about our breadmaker we got for Christmas from my parents, but we love it! We have made white bread, cinnamon swirl bread (twice! it's Clint's favorite favorite), and we just tried rosemary bread - like Macaroni Grill's - the best ever! It came out pretty close! It's so nice to be able to make something SO homemade without making too much of a mess. And it's SO yummy!

At work we launched the new website - tangle.com - after much hard work and anticipation. My profile is tangle.com/laurenbrock. Be my friend :)

I'm working lately on having a positive attitude in different situations. I've found that it actually does work if you just look at the positive and stay joyful, life is in general, better. I usually try this in the morning when I'm usually grouchy and really not wanting to be awake. Just smiling and knowing this day is one God planned for me makes me joyful and helps me realize all that I have to be thankful for. And that really helps me not be so grumbly. Just a random little idea I've been working through. :) Contentment.

Read the whole Twilight series in a couple weeks. Loved it. SO good. I'm a big fan. I need some more books to read. Also read The Shack. Anyone heard of it? I thought it was great...did I hear that it was controversial? Any thoughts? Any book recommendations?

We've been eating chili like manly men. We had a huge thing of ground beef that was on sale, had to defrost it all, made an insane amount of really good chili, and are trying to finish it in time. It's pretty funny. And yummy.

Valentine's Day is Saturday and I have Monday off!!! Wonderfulness! I can't wait. Our first one married. :) Happy Valentine's Day everyone! <3

Fun at the Dog Park and Not So Fun at the Dog Wash

We got a new video camera! And Charlie is the cutest/funniest thing ever!