The Polar Express

We went to Palestine, TX and took a train ride on the Polar Express. We were served hot chocolate and a treat by very energetic waiters, had our tickets punched, rode to the North Pole, and received a special christmas bell from Santa! When we were leaving the depot Brynn said, "Cool Action." So, this must have meant that it was pretty amazing!

Gingerbread Houses with PaPa

What a fun time the girls had with PaPa and the icing!

Christmas Angel

Brynn was an angel in the church Christmas performance! Look at how beautiful!

Girls Day Out!

White Rock Marathon

After a very long, windy, and hilly race we successfully completed our very first half marathon on Sunday morning. We went into the race with a goal of completing the 13.1 miles in 3 hours and we did just that. Our final time as we came into the finish line hand in hand was 2hrs. 53mins. and 58sec. It was an absolute unbelievable experience!

Gaylord Texan Ice!

2nd Annual Holiday Lights Visit

This past Wednesday was the Blevins family 2nd annual viewing of the Grayson County Holiday Lights...and of course we rode in style with the Limo, and Brynn actually stayed awake for the entire drive this year!!!!

Christmas Parade

This year was by far the best Sherman Christmas parade that I have seen, despite the frozen fingers and toes. But, Brynn made it all worth while when the parade was over and she looked at all of us and simply said, "well, that was good!"

Deck the Halls

The Blevins household is all decked out for the Holiday season. The tree is up, the lights are on the house, and the stockings have been hung. We have even made a visit to see SANTA! This year Brynn went up to Santa all by herself and told him what she was hoping to get for Christmas.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

We are so thankful for our wonderful family!

Our Newest Addition

Here is sweet little Murpy, our new dog. We are taking care of Murphy for some of our friends for a while. We love him so much. Murphy is the best dog, and he can do some pretty awesome tricks!

Halloween

WONDER WOMAN...
The World is Waiting For You!

Arbuckle Wilderness

Mamu's Surprise Birthday Party

A Fun Filled Family Weekend

Sometimes we find ourselves so wrapped up in so many tasks and duties that we find it hard to even enjoy the simple things in life. Mark and I decided that it was time for a short break away from so many of those things that were taking up so much of our time and energy. We decided that it was time for a chance to get away and enjoy watching Brynn laugh and smile and just be happy to be with her mommy and daddy. We took a much needed break and began by celebrating Mamu's birthday on Thursday night with a surprise party and a home cooked meal. Mamu enjoyed all of the fun fishing supply gifts that she got! Then Mark and I took off on Friday to spend some quality time with Brynn. We headed up to Oklahoma and made our way through the adventurous drive at Arbuckle Wilderness. I have never seen Brynn so happy and excited. I was so thankful to have gotten to spend the day with just her and Mark. It was really special and fun...except for the overly aggressive camel that almost took Brynn's hand off and then decided to eat the cup the food was in. Despite the camel, it was one of the most fun days that I have had. Then on Saturday, we went over to Whitesboro for the annual peanut festival. We had a blast walking around with some friends, eating popcorn and cotton candy and doing some shopping! IT WAS THE BEST WEEKEND...WE ALL HAD SO MUCH FUN TOGETHER!

The Great State Fair

It is truly amazing how much there is to see and do at the State Fair. First we rode the DART train and Brynn thought that was pretty interesting, but she did not enjoy it when it was crowded. Once we arrived we stopped to see BIG TEX and Brynn kept saying, he is tall. Then we managed to sample many different fair foods, see many shows including the dogs and the pigs. Brynn loved the pig races and the 920 pound pig that came out. Brynn and I rode THE SWANS, but some how we ended up on the little duck instead of the pretty swan, but that was probably my favorite part of the entire day. After all of that and the many exhibits we stuck around for the illumination sensation light show. It was spectacular but scared Brynn a little bit. The flames that shot out were very hot and Brynn decided that she needed to put on her sunglasses so that it wouldn't hurt her eyes. It was a fantastic day. Brynn was a perfect angel and wanted to stay and see even more.

Future Bearcats

It was an exciting Homecoming Football game Friday night. Everytime that we got a touchdown Brynn would get so excited about the band playing and get her pom poms and start cheering and clapping! She had so much fun at the game with her best buds!

Happy Birthday Leigh Leigh!

We celebrated Leigh Ann's birthday on Friday before the football game. Brynn helped lead us all in singing Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to KATY!

This past weekend we got together to celebrate another important birthday! Although Katy's real birthday is on October 6th we celebrated it a little early so that Steph and the girls could go down to the coast area to see Rob. Rob has gone down with his job to help with the hurricane relief efforts, and the last time that he was sent to help with one of these disasters he had to miss Katy's 1st birthday. Steph wanted to make sure that Rob didn't miss out again. Here are a few pictures of the birthday bash!

Another Lake Adventure!

Spent some time relaxing at Lake Texoma again this evening. Brynn jumped in the water, Mamu and Mark went fishing, and I relaxed and took some fun photos of it all. Check out the big catch! Brynn loved it!

15K Sherman Arts Fest Run

SURPRISE!!!

Surprise Mark! Happy Birthday!

We threw Mark a surprise birthday party at his favorite restaurant, La Mesa, Friday night. He was so surprised and speechless! We had a great time, and we were so happy that everyone was able to come eat with us!

Philippians 4:13

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

We successfully completed the 15k run in the arts fest this morning! It was such a challenge but we are both so happy to have completed this task and reach a huge goal that we had set for ourselves! It is so amazing to have run the entire way and see that finish line. We felt so many emotions, but we were determined to not give up and to complete the run. And that we did, hand in hand across the finish line! And much to our surprise we both won medals in our first ever 15k run. The results were as follows:



Running Time:
Lindsey: 1hr. 36min. 2sec.
Mark: 1hr. 36min. 3sec.

Overall age group placement:
Mark:
1st place (men's 25-29 age group)
Lindsey:
2nd place (women's 25-29 age group)

Overall Placement:
Lindsey: 41st
Mark: 42nd

(more pictures to come)

Preparing for the Sherman Arts Fest Run

We have successfully made it up to running a little over 7 miles, but we are really going to challenge ourselves Saturday morning at the arts fest run and go for the 15K. That is about 9.3 miles. Hope that we can do it! It's going to be real tough.

Halfway to the Half Marathon!

Went out tonight for an hour long run that got us up to 6 1/2 miles! I can't believe the progress that has been made. We have made it to the halfway point and will now continue to head for a total of 13 miles.

Yippee!

We ran 6 miles last night!!!! But, still feeling so tired today.

Making Progress

We did a 5 mile run tonight for our half marathon training!

GO BEARCATS!

Half Marathon Training

We started our official half marathon training today. A good 4.5 mile run. We really pushed ourselves tonight and went about a mile farther than usual. It felt good to reach 1/3 of our overall goal! I guess I forgot to mention that we are running a half marathon (13 miles) in December!

Off to work I go...

School is now back in session and I am already so worn out it is unbelievable. You forget how chaotic the first few days of school are. There are so many emotions that by the end of the week everyone is drained. Thank goodness we already have a holiday on Monday. I am ready for a break! I sure did get spoiled to sleeping in during the summer, not watching the clock every five minutes to make sure I wasn't missing anything, and I really enjoyed staying up late at night watching so many movies. It has been difficult to get back into that old routine and roll out of bed so early in the morning. I can't remember the last time that I woke up when it was still dark outside. Anyway, it has been a pretty good first few days of school.

Happy 1st Birthday Keelie!

Sunday was a fun filled day at the Jordan house as we all celebrated Keelie's 1st Birthday. There were lots of toys to be opened, and big sister Katy helped out with those. Then we sang Happy Birthday and let Keelie play in her cake. After that, we were off to the pool for some more fun. It is always so much fun when everyone in the family gets together!