OUR TRIP TO THE BIG APPLE

CENTRAL PARK





Thank heavens I wore tennies!



GOING TO A CELTIC RESTAURANT FOR DINNER


The walls were decorated with old pictures of NYC.


WICKED ON BROADWAY





Wicked was phenomenal! Funny, entertaining, great story line. Must see!

TIMES SQUARE




The number of people in Times Square was astounding. It was overwhelming. I honestly felt like we were in a different country or something.


WORLD TRADE CENTER MEMORIAL
It was hard to make it through this. Being there made it even more real and it's hard not to have a personal connection to what happened. There is a fire station right next to the memorial. I honestly don't know how those guys go in and out of there everyday living over and over what happened. God bless each and every one of them.














THE LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN AND HELLO DELI



ROCKEFELLER CENTER



THE STATUE OF LIBERTY




RANDOM PICS

VACATIONS!

If you haven't noticed yet, Michael has been having to travel quite a bit more frequently these past few months. It's a downer when he leaves. :( It's fortunate, however that on certain trips I can tag along and see places we otherwise wouldn't have set aside time to visit. The next road trip Mike has to set out on is to New York City. He leaves a week from Saturday. He knew I was totally bummed that he was having to leave again, so he bought me a ticket to go with him and moved his flight up so we could spend the weekend there! Yay! I want to go to a play, Chinatown and Central Park. Fun times, People, fun times! I have such a wonderful husband and feel so blessed with our life. God amazes me.

The vacation that we've actually been planning for a little while now finally came together and I can't wait! We are going to Hawaii in May! Whoo-hoo! We had been debating on which island to stay at, bed & breakfast or resort, which activities to plan and it finally came together yesterday. It's going to be Freakin'. Awesome.

One of my patients told me that she read a survey that said that it's not the actual vacation that people enjoy so much as the anticipation of the vacation. I'm there, Folks. Anticipating. For. Awesomeness. :)

Austin

Michael is at a convention in Austin this week. I drove down with him Saturday after my patients and made a weekend out of it.

Saturday night we went to dinner at Iron Cactus and then went to listen to live music. I now truly understand why Austin is the live music capital of the world. It was impressive. What's odd is that Dallas has the exact same potential in Deep Ellum that is a big fail. I guess Dallas just doesn't have enough "weird" in its city limits to keep an artsy area like that going. We listened to a band made up of elderly men (seriously one guy was missing his teeth). At first, we didn't know what to expect. We just went somewhere without a cover hoping it would be good. When we saw the men shuffling their way up to the stage Mike whispered, "Let's stay for a few songs to be nice." When they started playing, they blew us away! We ended up staying until we just absolutely couldn't keep our eyes open because they were that awesome.

On Sunday, we drove out to the Inner Space Caverns. It's been years since I have been to any caverns and what a cool experience it is! We paid extra for a whole 20 minutes of "unpathed caves" where you get a flashlight and go back in the caves as far as you can without crawling to go under something. I wouldn't suggest anyone doing that. It was just a part of the cave with the lights off and they gave us a flashlight to wander around for a few minutes. But seeing the cave is such a cool experience. We saw plenty of little bats and they are surprisingly cute in person. :)

Mike had to start his conference on Sunday afternoon so I rested in the hotel room while he had to work. :P That night there was a little get together for his conference so I got to see some of his co-workers that I knew and meet others for the first time. And guess where the get together was? Iron Cactus! We were apparently destined to eat there. Good thing their food is awesome!

I had to catch a flight at 7:30 this morning. :( Mike drives back on Thursday. I'm grateful I got to spend some time with my hubby even if we can't be together for the next few days.

Why Would You Ever Waste Your Day Worrying?

I woke up today with a new sense of purpose. Isn't it funny how easily it can get lost? In all of the "what if's," "wish I had's," and "waiting on's" I sometimes forget that today is the now. Life is not the past or the future but the present.

This seems to be a practice that I'm not very good at. In the past I have so focused on when I graduate, when I have my own practice, when I get married, when we own a house, etc. etc. etc. and have forgotten that waking up with my pug snoring louder than any human, worrying that I won't have time to brush my hair before I fly out the door to the office and wondering if I'll have enough money at the end of the month to pay my bills is all part of life. Life that no doubt can be stressful, hateful and spiteful but joyous all the same! It's easy to say "life is what you make of it" and "change your attitude and it will change your life" but honestly, I don't feel this is 100% accurate. I do believe that sometimes we can wake up and put on a fake smile and make the day better with the "fake it to make it" attitude but sometimes we just have to wake up to the "Really, God, really?" of it all and enjoy the ride.

Today, I am learning to be grateful for the now. For the miraculous now. Stress, pain, suffering, all of it. Thank you Lord for the joy of pain, for the lessons to come and the knowledge to be able to acknowledge the what the heck of it all and still enjoy it.

Check Out The New Website!

Mike built a new website for the office and it looks ahh-mazing! It posts all of my health blogs on the homepage and has a search feature that will pull up any blog containing your search. Check it out and leave comments!

http://www.wholistichealingchiropractic.com

Happy Birthday, Dad!

For Dad's 50th birthday, we had a "Day of Dad." We all dressed up like Dad in fake moustaches, cowboy hats, button up shirts and boots. Then we surprised him in our "get ups" and brought him his gift, a scrap booked collage of stories that people close to him had written.

Jeff dressed as Dad

Howdy y'all!

Little Val all dressed up. You should have seen her pink cowgirl boots!

Mom dressed as Dad complete with a grayed moustache

Cowboy Mike

Some people just don't fit the look...

Crystal was not about to put on a moustache!

But finally cavedDad seeing us dressed up

He thought it was hilarious
Dad opening his scrapbook
Browsing through it

Opening his card from Val

The whole gang (minus me with the camera)

Dad's book

Dad loved his birthday surprises. As Mom put it, "It's not often that we really get Dad, but when we do it's good." We definitely got him good! I think it was fun for him and it was definitely fun for the rest of us!