some pics of us....

I was just itching to go and take some photos around Waco. For the last few months I've been scoping out some cool locations to take photos around down town. Yesterday I finally decided I couldn't take it any longer and just had to take some photos in these cool locations. So I asked Blake to be my model. :)

Here he is eating his orange that he brought along.

His feet...

Our feet....we both have Tom's Shoes

Super cool wall that I really want to take more pics in front of....

busy, busy, busy

We have had the craziest past month and still have another crazy month ahead of us! About a month ago on March 20 we were down in Kerrville, Texas for our good friend's Seth and Jennifer's wedding. Nothing is cooler than seeing friends that you grew up with get married. Blake and I were both in the wedding and it was just absolutely awesome experience. I thought I'd be fine and not cry, but before Jennifer could even get down the aisle I lost it! :)

Two weeks after the wedding we headed down to San Antonio for Easter. This year we spent easter with my (Katie's) family and had a wonderful time. It was a nice three day weekend! I even got to take some photos of my siblings while I was there, which is always fun for me!

The week before Easter Blake's grandfather was in the hospital because he was developing some fluid on his lungs. We were able to visit him at the hospital on Good Friday. He's out now and has gained a pacemaker through the whole ordeal. We talked with him just a few days ago and he seems to be doing really well. Right after that on Easter Sunday my grandfather was admitted to the hospital unexpectedly with a hernia in his colon. He was able to have surgery the Monday after Easter. He spent about a week in the hospital and is still recovering and healing from all that. I was able to travel to San Angelo this past weekend to visit my grandparents. It was really good to see them and spend some time with them.

This weekend we are resting the Waco, but have a full couple of weeks ahead of us. Next weekend I will be traveling to Abilene for some photo shoots while Blake stays in Waco and begins his finals for this quarter. The following weekend, after Blake is finished with finals, we will be traveling up to the DFW area to celebrate my cousin, Ella's, first birthday! Then the next two weekends we will be in San Antonio for a friend's wedding and then Blake's sisters graduation! So as you can see we are going to be busy!!

What an exciting time of year though! When I think back a year ago, Blake and I were about to graduate from ACU and were about 2 months away from our wedding. Hard to believe how time flies! What an amazing amount of things the Lord has done in our lives!

Finally the last bit of news in the Penfield house is that I got my hair cut. And when I say cut, I mean CUT! :) Here's some pics:

i choose

Yesterday my sister shared a quote of Max Lucado's on her FB status. It is actually an excerpt from one of my favorite things that Max Lucado wrote. He wrote:

I CHOOSE LOVE…..
No occasion justifies hatred; no injustice warrants bitterness.
I choose love. Today I will love God, and what God loves.

I CHOOSE JOY…..
I will invite my God to be the God of circumstance. I will refuse the temptation to be cynical ….. the tool of the lazy thinker.
I will refuse to see people as anything less than human beings created by God. I will refuse to see any problem as anything less than an opportunity to see God.

I CHOOSE PEACE…..
I will live forgiven. I will forgive so that I may live.

I CHOOSE PATIENCE…..
I will overlook the inconveniences of the world. Instead of cursing the one who takes my place, I’ll invite him to do so. Rather than complain that the wait is too long, I will thank God for a moment to pray. Instead of clenching my fist at new assignments, I will face them with joy and courage.

I CHOOSE KINDNESS…..
I will be kind to the poor, for they are alone. Kind to the rich, for they are afraid. And kind to the unkind, for such is how God has treated me.

I CHOOSE GOODNESS…..
I will go without a dollar before I take a dishonest one. I will be overlooked before I will boast. I will confess before I will accuse. I choose goodness.

I CHOOSE FAITHFULNESS…..
Today I will keep my promises. My debtors will not regret their trust. My associates will not question my word. My wife will not question my love. And my children will never fear that their father will not come home.

I CHOOSE GENTLENESS…..
Nothing is won by force. I choose to be gentle.
If I raise my voice may it be only in praise.
If I clench my fist, may it be only in prayer.
If I make a demand, may it be only of myself.

I CHOOSE SELF-CONTROL…..
I am a spiritual being…… After this Body is dead, my spirit will soar.
I refuse to let what will rot, rule the eternal. I choose self-control. I will be drunk only by joy. I will be impassioned only by my faith.
I will be influenced only by God. I will be taught only by Christ.
I choose self-control.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness and self-control. To these I commit my day.
If I succeed, I will give thanks. If I fail, I will seek His grace.
And then, when this day is done, I will place my head on His pillow and rest.

Max Lucado
When God Whispers Your Name

I absolutely love this little piece. The first time I read it was when I was in high school and honestly I don't think I've read it since then. When I saw it on my sister's status I was reminded again of this awesome writing so I decided to find it on the internet so that I could read it once again.

It spoke volumes to me the first time I read it and it speaks volumes to me once again. Now it touches me and my experience at work and as a married woman. It caused me to reflect on each of the fruits of the spirit and why I, Katie Penfield, choose each one, each day.

I choose love....

I choose to love those around me both near and far. Those that are hard to love and those that are easy. I choose to show those that I love, that I love them and never take a single day with them for granted.

I choose joy....

Each day I will choose to begin my day with an attitude of joy. I will not look at rising early for work as a chore, but as a blessing that God has provided a job. I will choose in the midst of hatred, chaos and bitterness around me to be joyful from the inside out.

I choose peace....

I choose each day to take a deep breath and be at peace. I will seek to remind my self of the peace that passes all understanding and I will share this peace with those around me.

I choose patience....

I choose to be patient despite the circumstance. If those around me seek help and are unwilling to take no for answer, I will be patient. I will seek to be the source of aid despite the difficulty it might take to reach the solution.

I choose kindness....

In the midst of the unkind and angry attitudes around me I will choose to be kind. No matter what words are spoken against me or those around me I will not gossip and become a part of the source, but will be kind.

I choose goodness....

I will seek the favor of those around me in honestly and trust. I will provide those that know me with a person that can be depended upon.

I choose faithfulness....

My husband will never doubt my love, my employer will never doubt my loyalty and my family will never doubt my devotion.

I choose gentleness....

A soft word spoken in the midst of turmoil will soothe the soul and provide a gentleness that encompasses all unsurities.

I choose self-control....

I will love, be joyful, have peace, be patient, show kindness, offer goodness, be faithful, delight in gentleness and in these things I will exhibit self-control.

end of winter, beginning of spring

I meant to share some photos from a few weeks ago when we had snow here in Waco! Blake and I went out to this old historic cemetery that is right next to the law school and took some pictures of the snow.

And on a totally different note....I've planted some flowers in pots outside our apartment!! Spring is in the air! Here's some pics of these beautiful flowers!

I can hardly believe it's already March!! 2010 is already starting to just fly by. We've been pretty busy lately and have a busy month ahead of us still. Two weekends ago we traveled down the SA to visit family and for me to throw a lingerie shower for one of my best friends that is getting married to one of Blake's best friends. That was a lot of fun and we are now gearing up for their wedding that is less than two weeks away! Here's one of their engagement photos that I took of them that same weekend:

Just this last weekend we headed down to Houston on Friday and stayed with some family of mine. Then on Saturday evening we went to a John Mayer concert with Blake's brother, Travis, and his girlfriend Jackie. We had a lot of fun!! It was a really great concert.

Blake is now on spring break this week. I took today, Monday, off so I could hang out with him and re-coup from our busy weekend. It has been well worth it! We have just been relaxing all day and went to the movies to see Alice in Wonderland. We were a little disappointed with the movie, but still had a great time.

Anyways....that's about all for now. We'll have a semi-restful week and weekend this week with Blake off and us just staying home this weekend. But the following weekend we will be off the Kerrville for our friend's wedding, which Blake and I are both in! I am sure I will have lots of pictures to share from that!

my wonderful husband

Well we had a really great weekend just relaxing at home and a really wonderful Valentines day. We both kind of considered it our first valentines day in a way. You see, before we got married our "anniversary" was on Feb. 6. So we always kind of combined our celebration and gift-giving of valentines day and our anniversary. This year we will be celebrating our new anniversary on June 27 so it left Valentines day to be celebrated all on it's own on Feb. 14!

In the morning while getting ready to go to church Blake presented me first with a beautiful card that included a super sweet message to me. He talked about in the message how he is so blessed and happy that we are now a family, just me and him, our own little family. It was so sweet and thoughtful and of course brought lots of tears to me eyes. He then gave me a beautiful necklace that is a sterling silver chain with a round pendant that has a tree in the middle with each branch ending in a little heart. A little card was attached to the necklace that described how the tree represented family and around the edge of the pendant it says, "A family's love is natures masterpiece." It is sooooo cool!

I was of course blown away by his thoughtfulness and carefully thought out gift. What an amazing man I am married to! And as if that wasn't enough he also got me a super cute green zipper/hoodie jacket! He did awesome! My gift to him was not as exciting, but given with as much love! :) I got him a new leather Fossil wallet! Something that was much needed since his old one was ripping.

So after gift giving we headed off to church and then stopped off at Panera for lunch, which was soooo yummy! Then we just hung around the apartment, watched the Olympics and relaxed all afternoon until the evening when we went to Texas Roadhouse for a super yummy dinner!! All in all it was a wonderful day! Although I have to admit that every day with my Blake is a wonderful day! :)

jump starting a car

So our lives hadn't been too crazy here lately until this last Tuesday night. I went to the mall at about 6pm to get a Valentines day gift for Blake. All day my car had been acting kind of funny every time I tried to turn it on so I wasn't super surprised when leaving the mall I discovered that the battery of my car was completely dead. So of course, what did I do? I called Blake. Unfortunately, neither he or I had jumper cables (lesson learned: need to buy some and keep them in our cars). So he had to call a law school buddy to borrow some.

About 20 minutes after I called him he arrives at the mall. It's about 7 pm at this time. We get our hoods open and find my battery very easily and then begin looking for his. Apparently, PT Cruiser's are built differently than every other car out there. And we could not find anything that even resembled a battery. We finally discovered something in the back right hand corner that said something about the positive connnection for jump starting a car. But it was pointing to a regular looking bolt that was sticking up out of something else. Here's a little picture of an engine to give you an idea:

See what I mean? So after trying to figure it out for about 15-20 minutes (It's now 7:20 and getting dangerously close to the start of the new LOST episode) we decide that we just are going to have to get another friend to bring their car. Meanwhile I am on the phone with my Dad trying to get his advice. Thanks Dad for being so patient! :)

So we call our friend Mallory, we absolutely love, and she comes with her car. We knew it'd take her about 15 mins. to get there so we go into the mall to get some food for dinner. Cause it is like 7:30 at this point. So while waiting for our food Mallory calls to say she is there so Blake goes out to meet her while I wait for our food. Thinking that they were well on their way to getting my car started I go out to meet them only to find that Mallory's battery is just as complicated. It had absolutely zero labels as to which part on the battery was positive and which was negative.

Of course, what do I do? I call my Dad again. I explain to him that the only discernable difference is that there is a cover on my battery over the positive and she has a cover over one of her's. So my Dad says that we should just assume that a cover means positive and take a risk. He was correct!! We got my car started!

So now it's about 8 (forget getting home in time for LOST) and my Dad recommends that we park my car in front of a car repair place so that we don't have to re-jump it the next day to get my battery checked out. Our food is getting cold so I want to hurry and the only place I could think of was Pep Boys. Now I loved the Pep Boys in Abilene, but the one here is AWFUL!!! I had my oil changed by them a few months back and promised I would never go back. However, I couldn't think of anywhere else and I just wanted to get home so to Pep Boys we went.

When we pulled up we discovered that they were still open so I sat in my car while Blake ran in to see if they could take a look at my car. Luckly they could so I pulled into the garage. Now you think at about 8:15 at night when NO ONE is there it wouldn't take more than 30 mins. to look at a battery, change a battery and pay for a battery. But no....the guy there checked our battery pretty quick, but from then until the time we were finished was about an hour. The guy at the counter was not very good at organization or multi-tasking and seriously lacked in customer service skills. All a very bad combination.

So needless to say and without further explination we got home around 9:30-9:45 with a new battery, but cold food and zero patience. We ate our dinner and then went to bed because we were so exhausted. At least we have a good story to tell and while at times we were a little frusterated with each other we made it through our first big frusteration as a married couple. And praise the Lord we had just gotten our tax return money deposited so the battery expenses weren't too big of a heartache. I guess there always is a little blessing despite all the frusterations. :)