among the wildflowers: October 2009

This time last year, we made our first trip to the Camp Lee Pumpkin Patch. This time around was even more fun because Daddy, Allie and the Allen's were there with us!
Here is Marissa at craft time...she is BIG into coloring these days so she enjoyed it, plus they gave us all graham crackers and hot chocolate which made coloring even more fun!

Allie didn't get into the coloring, but she thouroughly enjoyed the graham crackers!

Here we are on the very crowded, cold and bumpy hayride. Marissa was not at all excited about this part...I had to run get mani and silky (paci and blanket) otherwise, I'm pretty sure she would have screamed the whole time. Once we got on and got situated, it was fun looking at all the pretty trees and well....that's really all there is to say about that....:)

Then it was time to take pictures with the pumpkins (or as Marissa calles them, "punkins")

Aren't they too cute with their hats:) They were fascinated with the hay...

Family pic

Marissa and Bryce picking the mums

TOUCHDOWN!!

By this time, Allie was very sleepy....

Then we went to slide for a minute...

Daddy and his girl:)

Allie says enough with the pumkins, someone take me home and put me to bed! :)

We had a lot of fun and I was very thankful Russell was able to go with us!

*By the way, I am waaaayyy behind on my posts, lots of updating coming soon!! Plus, pictures from our wonderful vacation (which is why I am so behind)...stay tuned....

Russell and I said "I DO"! And it has been the best, most exciting, most wonderful 6 years of my life!

If you will indulge me a little here...I would like to tell you the story of how we met. Some of you may already know this, so you can skip it....but I must say it is one of my most favorite memories and one that I turn to anytime I need to smile. God was working in Lubbock, TX that day and it was because of that day that we now have a beautiful marriage and 2 beautiful little girls.
It was January 28, 2001 and it had snowed that morning in Lubbock, TX. I was living in the dorms at Texas Tech and some of the girls from our hall decided to have an impromptu church service downstairs in the lounge area because church was cancelled that morning due to the snow. After the service, I was chatting with a girl I had met a couple times (I hesistate to use the word friend because we weren't really friends...just accquaintences...which makes the story of how we met even more interesting simply because the day this girl and I hung out was the first and only time we spent time together, yet she was the reason I was introduced to Russell....as I look back on the story now, it is so evident how God ordains each and every moment in our lives) I'm sorry-I'm getting sidetracked. Anyway, so this girl (I can't even remember her name) invited me to go with her, her guy friend, Jeremy and another girl to a super bowl at some apartment off campus. Sounded like fun, so I agreed! We arrived at the party that evening and it was definitely a guy's apartment. There were two couches in the living room, arranged like stadium seating, one in front of the other and one propped up on plywood and cinderblocks. There was a HUGE tv, a ping-pong table where the dining room table was supposed to be and enough food to feed an entire army. I don't remember the first time I saw Russell, but I remember the first time I noticed how cute he was...he was sitting in front of me and I was definitely checking him out, he says he knew I was looking at him:)Later that evening, it somehow ended up being just the 2 of us in the living room when he turned around to me and said, "So, what's your name again?" LOL. Oh my goodness, this moment will forever be ingrained in my memory. So, I tell him and we start chatting...I found out he was from Waco so we talked about going to the Baylor Bear games and I told him my Papa Cotton used to take us to the games when we were kids. And I remember he told me he was majoring in Horticulture with an emphasis in Turfgrass Management and I started laughing because I thought he was kidding....I had never heard of such a thing:) So, we chatted the rest of the night, I caught him checking me out, and then it was time to go. We said our good-byes and I left thinking he was gorgeous, I'm too young for him and I will never talk to him again.
This is the part of the story where Russell becomes Detective Russell Nichols. The next day he calls Jeremy (who was with the girl I knew and was a friend of a friend of Russell's) and asks if Jeremy would call the girl I was with to get my number. So Jeremy calls her, calls Russell back and, you guessed it, Russell calls! The VERY NEXT DAY! This is another moment I will forever have in my memory....it was Monday night, I was sitting in my dorm room, talking to my dad on the phone and my call waiting beeped. I clicked over and it was Russell!!!!! Well, I couldn't leave my dad hanging so I beeped back over to dad and said, "Dad, I gotta go, there is this really hot guy on the other line!" Click. (Sorry, Dad....) That was Monday night, he asked me to go out on a date on Thursday night and well, the rest, as they say, is history:)

Now, for your viewing pleasure, I scanned some pictures from when we were dating...

This was about a month after we met. We drove to Dallas to meet my parents at a cafe to see Butch Hancock play (a Texas Country guy that my dad is in love with...looking back now, I realize that Russell really must have loved me to sit through Butch Hancock for 2 hours...Butch is definitely an accquired taste...)

Ok, so this is a terrible picture of me, but I only posted it because-Look how YOUNG Russell looks! I remember taking that picture...it seems like forever ago!

Here we are all dressed up for my 19th birthday-he took me out on the town in Dallas. It was a wonderful night.

I went through a phase of straightening my hair in college, Russell loved it but my hair didn't. I fried it. That phase didn't last long.

One of my favorite pictures ever. We used this one for our wedding invitations. This was taken outside of the restaurant where we had our first date. Jazz Louisiana Kitchen in Lubbock, TX.