Sunday, June 25, 2006

A Fabulous Weekend!

Ok, so I have to say, this weekend was a blast! AND I even took a couple pictures.

So the weekend began of course on Friday when I got off work. Because Jason was working, I decided to putter around and do a couple errands, stop at the pharmacy, grab a Lemon-Berry CreamSlush from Sonic (my new favorite thing), get the mail...just taking my sweet little time. Then I get this phone call while I'm sitting in my car reading the mail...it's Jason. Ok, strange, its 7pm and he's calling me, he should be pretty busy by this point at work. I answer and he's like - "hey whatcha doing?" "Nothin really...errands, reading mail in the car - why?" Then he says, "just wondering how you were doing." "nu-uh, are you ok?" And he's all, "yeah" So then I get my things and start getting out of my car and he says, "Did you stop at Sonic?"...ok, kinda creepy. "Uh, maybe", I say. Then I start catching on, cause it usually takes me a little while, and I start looking around the parking lot for his truck and then I spot him, he's on the walkway to our apartment looking at me! Ha!! I walk over to him and start asking him why he's home? And the little turkey has been trying to surprise me with having the night off so we can go out!! Yippee!!! And here I am, strolling the drugstore out of sheer boredom. Poor guy, he was home waiting for hours for me to come home. And he vacuumed! Love him. So he tells me to hurry up and get changed, which let me tell you, after being dressed up all day, I'm dying to put on my jeans. So I'm asking him what he's up to and what we're doing...and I guessed it! We're going to the drive-in!! Yeah! The drive-in is really fun in the South, because 1. its really warm out and 2. the fireflies and stars are out, which just makes the movie experience that much more fun. So we drive out to some boondocks town and watch Cars, just cause they had one screen and one showing, but it was good enough for us. We had so much fun. He had already packed up the car with blankets and pillows, we ate hot dogs and popcorn. It was such a good time.

Then Saturday comes along, the second day of our weekend. We had already planned that after Jason had done a little songwriting while I slept in, that he would come home to pick me up and we would head to either the Frist museum to see the Egypt exhibit or do a little shopping. We'll you know me, we bagged the museum and ended up shopping. He took us to downtown Franklin, which was really quite cute. The picture above is of their main street for you to see. We ate at this little bakery, where you see Jason standing outside of and then walked to a little furniture store where we fell in love with a beautiful console table!! We had to have it and we even talked the owner into taking the price lower. This is our new table inside our home - I just love it!!

After we spent the afternoon browsing through the shops, we headed off to Jason's softball games. This would be the first time he's been on the field since he moved to Seattle. Plus, with his knee surgery in early May, he hasn't really ran on his knee at all. He was pretty nervous to run on it, but it wasn't long before he was back in the groove and ran the bases twice. He almost hit a home run too, but it bounced off the back fence and right back onto the field. He played two games back to back, while I got to chat it up with the ladies in the stands. It was a beautiful warm night to be outside and so fun to finally see Jason play. Isn't he the cutest in his uniform? The teenage girls behind me took a vote on the cutest player on the field and guess who won? My hunny of course.....that's right ladies.....he's all mine :-) After the game a few of us went over to Chuck Tilly's house for a BBQ to hang out and get to know some people. And by the way, Chuck Tilly is Dolly Parton's drummer, a little sidenote for y'all. It was a long day and by the time we got home we were wiped out. But I felt very blessed to have had a whole day and a half with Jason of hanging out and doing some fun stuff.

Then today wraps up our weekend. We got up early for church and visited a place called Woodmont Christian. The church was stunningly beautiful on the inside and out, the kind of church you would see in a movie for a wedding scene. But the service itself left much to be desired. So far it was the most regimented service we had ever attended. It truly reminded me of mass....for real. We're talking hymnals, recited prayers and pews. I've included a picture of the church and that steeple is 220 ft tall!! After church we picked up our table and headed home to clean up a bit and hang out before Jason left for work. It was a really good weekend and I loved every minute of it.

I've also included some pics of our home, just cause so many of you have asked to see what it looks like. It's still a bit rough, cause we're still working on it.

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Happy Fathers Day Dad!

OK, so officially its still Father's Day here in Nashville and I'm sitting at home thinking about how much I wish I could be with my family today. They went out and celebrated Father's Day by having dinner together. Though of course my dad got in a few hours of work at the office, like we knew he would, I'm still very glad that the rest of the family was able to be with him for a lovely dinner this evening.

But now a moment for my dad....Dad, I miss you so much today, words don't even express it. It felt very cliche' to think of going to get you a card, it just didn't seem enough. So, thankfully with this blog, I can give you a little more honor than that. To be honest, the last couple weeks I've really been missing you and our times together. I keep hoping I would get my phonecall at work asking me to meet you for lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. I never took for granted the times that we were able to spend together. Just yesterday Jason and I went to a movie and as I walked into the theater and smelled the popcorn, I thought of all the times that we shared going to the movies. I couldn't help but tear up a bit. I think it was probably my favorite thing to do with you. We would of course have to get there early to see the previews, buy a large popcorn, soda, ice cream and find the perfect seats. And after the movie was over, we would sit there till every one would exit the theater and then rush off to buy more tickets to do it all over again! Well, maybe we only did that a few times, with the back to back flicks, but I sure loved it. Ok, well it might be a tie between the movies and hobby shops.

You understand me and share my passions; reading, hobbies, the love of being surrounded by nature and water, the quiet of a house and a cup of coffee... there are so many things that make me miss you so much on this day. I remember in our Edmonds house, I would sit in the huge old blue velvet chair in your den and admire all the beautiful leather bound books on the shelves. We would spend hours listening to the Bible on tape and finally when I was thirteen upon finishing the Bible from Genesis to Revelation together, you took me to celebrate at the Space Needle for dinner. That still to this day is the only time I've ever been up there. You taught me how to put a car model together, it was a purple camaro.

Over the years, you've allowed the women in your life show you how they need to be loved. You recognized our strengths and encouraged us to hear the Lord for our life. You have never been to proud to be molded by the Lord and that has been a model for me in even choosing my mate. Sure we've all made mistakes, but its in how you've gotten up each time, fought for truth and understanding to become a better man that has won my respect and love more than anything. You learned how to love us girls individually and how to love mom the way she was created to be loved. Your extremely patient and tender and have never settled for the status quo of what most people think a father-daughter relationship should look like. If there's one compliment I've continually heard over the years, its how amazing that we are as close as we are as a family. Well dad, you have a lot to do with that, because you have fought for this family and gone beyond the call of duty to do what it takes to get there. You continually sacrifice for all of us, now even to include two more daughters to invest in. Thank you for never giving up on any of us. For choosing to trust us above what you might hear from others, to believe the best in us and to never give up on us.

I also want to thank you for all you've done over the last few years in loving mom the way she needs to be loved. You have learned how to become a safe place for her to bloom. She is becoming stronger in who she is and overcoming her fears and I am so proud of her. You both have a treasure in each other that is real and I've learned so much what it means to fight for something you believe in by watching how you two love each other.

I've included in this blog some of my most treasured pictures of you with the family, and yes, there are a few from the wedding, just cause you look so dashing in your tux and hat!! Plus, we talked for years about that first dance that we would share at my future wedding and now we have pictures to capture that moment in time.

So in conclusion.....I love you and you did great! (You can put this away now...)

Love, Kimberly Dawn

Monday, June 12, 2006

My First Day!


Well today was my first day at a new job as a legal assistant with the Adams & Reese, Stokes & Bartholomew law firm. They are the largest law firm in the Southeast. They have over 800 employees in 10 different offices. And there are 34 attorneys alone in the Nashville branch. One thing I will say that is really cool, is that there are a lot of women that work in this office and that is a refreshing change from my last job with Revenue Science - there was way too much testosterone goin' on there! I support 2 attorneys, Paul Krivacka and Larry Stewart. They are both really nice guys and have been with the firm for a really long time - Larry for 26 years and Paul for 8. There's a lot of training to do for sure! I started my training today and will continue through all day tomorrow. It is a whole other world working for a law firm rather than a technology company - they have procedures for everything imaginable! I'm sure once I get the hang of it, I'll probably really enjoy it. The law offices are on the 27th & 28th floors of the building pictured above and they're located downtown just 3 blocks from where Jason works at Mortons. It's great cause I can see Jason between when I get off work and he goes into work. Tonight for instance he didn't have to be in to work till 7pm, so he cleaned up the apartment all pretty, had soft music playing in the background and cooked us up some yummy dinner. We had a good 40 minutes together to eat and talk before he headed off to work. Oh! One more thing I have to say for the benefit of my Seattle family back home...the only Starbucks in all of downtown Nashville is my building!! God is good :-) I believe He even cares about those little things :-) I'm also praying through this job, I will have more of an opportunity to meet other ladies and build some friendships. I've been getting pretty homesick and been really missing my girlfriends lately. I work next to 3 other ladies right now, Melissa, Brooke and another Melissa and they're all really nice and then I met another girl, Christina who's on the other side of the office. So, its a good start. AND, even though I'm not really supposed to get vacation for the first 90 days of being with the company, the Office Manager who hired me, Mary, she said that she would work with me on getting some vacation time around Labor Day so I could go home to see my family!! Yippee!! And our goal is that with both of us working , we hope to get ourselves a cute little starter home close to downtown in the next year.

Other news to note: last Thursday evening Jason and I went to Mortons to celebrate my new job and ran into Tracy Bird (for those Country fans out there, he was the one that sang one of my all time favorites, "Watermelon Crawl"). Jason had waited on him a couple times before and befriended Tracy to the point where Tracy had given Jason his cell phone numbers a couple years back, so he came over to our table to meet me - it was really cool to meet him, but I wasn't cheesy enough to ask for a picture...I had to play it cool :-) So instead I posted a picture of his from his website. Then a couple nights ago, I was sitting at home watching TV when Jason calls me in the middle of his shift (which he never does) and I answer and he asks me to burn him 3 copies of his best 5 songs, label them and rush them downtown to Mortons. The table he was waiting on had a couple guys that were writers and longtime friends of Dierks Bentley and they said they were meeting with him this week. The main guy (can't remember his name) said if Jason could have a CD in his hand before he left the restaurant he would show it personally to Dierks Bentley and another producer. So of course Jason calls me and I kick into crazy overdrive, burn the disks, label them, package them and rush downtown and literally pulled up right in front of their taxi - they were so impressed that Jason (and his devoted wife) pulled it off in time!! So be praying - I'm believing that it was a God-ordained meeting!

That's all for now!

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Some Random Thoughts


It's 11:30 at night and Jason is on his way home from work. I've been keeping myself busy with little projects around the house, like painting this mirror of mine from gold to pewter silver and finishing a puzzle that I had started with my in-laws while they were in town. (both of which I included pictures of). Other than that, things are pretty slow. I've really gotten out of my routine and have developed a horrible habit of sleeping in pretty late - like 12 noon! I guess its justified since Jason and I stay up till 2 or 3am every evening when he gets home from work. He's naturally a night owl and is quickly converting me to one as well.

But that all may change fairly soon since I've been interviewing with a couple different companies in downtown Nashville. The first position is for a reservationist/sales & marketing assistant position with Mortons part-time, with great hours though the pay isn't the best. The second position that I'm also interviewing for is with a huge law firm as a legal secretary. The pay is much better than Mortons, but with it will come regular business hours, 2 lawyers to assist and a state Senator when he's in town 5 months of the year and a very strict dress code (my least favorite part). Those of you that know me well, I'm a jeans and tee-shirt kinda gal. :-) I've interviewed with Mortons twice and tomorrow will be my second interview with the law firm, Adams & Reese/Stokes and Bartholomew. I think both places like me, I just have to decide between the two and its really quite a hard decision. I will say that a huge motivating factor is that we would really like to get out of debt asap so we can buy a house, so with me working a good-paying job would really help us out.

Another update I can give you is that Josh Brooks, Billy & Bettie's grandson that was critically injured in the car accident a couple weeks ago, seems to be doing better. Jason was visiting him quite a bit until his mom had to give him a fake identity in the hospital after an unfortunate event with a nosy and insensitive reporter who tried to conduct an interview with Joshua in his room. Since then, he is only allowed to have immediate family visit him. But from what we know, he is off the respirator 100% now and when Jason had visited him once last week, he actually recognized Jason and said his name, which was really exciting.

One final pic I've added is of my crazy sisters. I love this picture and had to add it, because I miss them a lot right now and this picture makes me smile. Yes, that would be Kris administering some discipline to Kati :-)