Inner Space Cavern

Over our long weekend, Cole and I ventured to some caves not too far from us. The Inner Space Caverns were discovered in the 60s when they were building I-35 in Georgetown, TX (that's about 15 miles north of Austin). We took the Adventure Tour that was about 1 hour and led you through the developed parts of the cavern (aka paved walkways and lights). It was really cool but our tourguide was a little goofy. Here are some picures from our adventure!

Paradise!!!!!!

We spotted this beach on the way to Islita. This beach is called Playa Corrillo! We had to stop and take a picture, we just couldn't resist it!

More Pictures from Costa Rica

Honeymoon in Costa Rica!

Cole and I spent the week after our wedding in beautiful Costa Rica!!! We started out in San Jose and stayed at the Orquideas Inn at the start and end on our trip. Here are some pictures!


















We then traveled by car to the pacific coast to Islita. We stayed at Hotel Punta Islita, the most beautiful place I've ever been! We had great meals, our own private pool, and lots of fun events. We went horseback riding, boogie boarding, and got a massage! It is a place we will visit again!!!!!

Cole is Home!!!!

Cole returned from a year long tour in Iraq on November 4th! I am so happy that he's home, safe and sound! Here's a picture from his welcome home ceremony! It's really cool, they have banners everywhere, a DJ blasting songs, and a smoke machine for the soldiers to run through. He had a short, but unexpected, lay-over in Germany so he was a couple of days later than was first expected, so it made the anticipation that much greater.

Pretty flower! I have like a million of these. Again thanks to the previous owner!

Yummmmm, tomatoes!

I'm not sure what this is, but it's pretty! I guess it was planted by the previous owners.

Here is some more squash!

The first fruits! Yea, it's so nice to be able to see the fruits of your labor! This is a squash from my garden. It's almost big enough to pick and eat!

Here is Gus the cat, our new addition to the family! He's a big ole cat that likes to get his belly rubbed!

Cole's Proposal

This was addressed to Brother Randy, the pastor at FBC Killeen. He was the one who read the e-mail and got on his knee for Cole!

I moved to Killeen, courtesy of the Army, against my wishes. Once it became apparent that God wanted me there I embraced the idea. I have spent years praying for, not just any woman, but a woman like Ruth, Esther, or Abigail, a woman like that described in Proverbs 31. That has been my greatest desire. I believe God has used circumstances in my past to show me just what a godly woman is worth, so for that I can be thankful. If you can find one, she is truly worth more than anything else this world can offer.

Once at First Baptist, I got involved in the Single's Dept. and met Beth McLaren. At first I, of course, noticed her and then got to watching her behavior to see if she was consistent. Everything about her just amazed me. I remember being surprised that here was this beautiful, single, young woman who could've been out anywhere else but here and she just always surprised me with her personality and convictions. I had a very specific list of traits I wanted in a wife and she met every one, and them some. God is truly able to give us more than we can imagine.

We eventually started dating and we had to have an honest discussion about where our relationship should head, given my upcoming deployment. This is where I turn into an idiot. We both knew we were interested in marriage and decided to "date purposefully". She agreed to wait for me while I'm deployed and she continues to be supportive of me. I thought I needed to see if she would still be there for me when I got back before I proposed. I was feeling really insecure. I just can't look at her and feel anything but gratitude to both our God and her for her unmerited love and devotion. Part of me has been afraid to really believe in God's answering my prayers, perhaps a bit like some people's hesitancy to accept His greatest Gift of all. How can I claim to believe she is His answer to my prayers and say that I must make her wait? I am now ashamed of my failure. I need her and God's forgiveness.

Bro. Randy, my failure to propose to this greatest of all treasures any man could hope to find now seems like such a denial of God's Grace on my part. Beth and her family have embraced me without cause and she could certainly have her pick of men, but she wants me. I can't escape the example of Boaz with Ruth. Once he was aware of her heart, he didn't hesitate. I want to correct my hesitancy. Beth should've seen me off to Iraq with a ring on her finger and the promise that I would return to claim her.

No, Brother Randy is not proposing to me, he's just standing in for Cole who's in Iraq (that's who I'm on the phone with). It might be a little non-traditional, but I loved it! So that means that I'm engaged to Cole (this is for those that are a little slow)!

Understanding the Left

Here's a link to a great article attempting to get inside the head of a liberal (I know, a scary thought) and figure out why they believe what they do. It's very informative and reinforces my belief that liberals have lost their grasp on reality.

Cole left Saturday for a year deployment in Iraq. This is a picture taken right before he left. He's currently in Kuwait, safe and sound!

Hurricanes and Global Warming

Well it seems the environmental alarmist will take anything and try to convince us it's caused by global warming. Everyday there are news articles concerning this subject. Of course these groups have come out and said that this so called "unprecedented" hurricane season is caused by, you guessed it, global warming. They could never believe that nature (and maybe even God) in itself is strong enough to create this much havoc and that this is not the first time we've had a healthy hurricane season. Below is an exert from an article about this subject.

At the 27th annual National Hurricane conference, University of Colorado
atmospheric scientist, Dr. William Gray explained that nature, in the form of
periodically changing ocean circulation patterns, not humans, is responsible
hurricane cycles including the cycle of increasing hurricane activity that the
world is currently experiencing. According to Gray, the number of Atlantic
Hurricanes during the last decade, including 2004's above average season, is
part of a completely natural, not at all unusual, multi-decadal cycle that
scientists have monitored for more than 100 years. For approximately the
past 25 years, the U.S. has experienced a relative lull in hurricane
activity. Unfortunately for those living near the coasts, we recently
began to come out of that cycle and into an active cycle like those experienced
from approximately 1930 through 1950. Indeed, in the 1940's 23 hurricanes,
eight of them category 3 or higher, hit the U.S. mainland

Katrina Commission?????

The city of New Orleans is still under several feet of water and many democrats are calling for a Katrina Commission. Michelle Malkin puts is best when she calls this a "Bush Bash". These politicians don't want to "figure out what went wrong" they want to make the president look bad. If they really wanted to prevent this from happening again they would be asking the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of Louisiana some serious questions.

Cole will most likely be leaving today to help out with hurricane relief. He flies helicopters and will be running missions for the relief efforts. Please pray for his safety and for those that need him and his unit.

Neal Boortz was in Austin to sign his new book, "The FairTax Book". Of course since he is one of my favorite radio personalities, I had to go see him!

An Exercising President

The LATimes has an editorial article chastising the president for exercising, for doing something good for his body (my thinking, if it's good for the president it's good for America). This guy is obviously not a big fan of Bush and will take anything (and I mean anything) to cast a negative light on him. In a country where more than half of its populace is overweight, I think that Bush is a great example. Here's a guy with a super busy schedule (no one can refute that) and he still finds time to exercise, what a role-model! I say to President Bush, keep running, cycling, and lifting and ignore these negative comments.