The Holidays

Chris and I had a great Thanksgiving with his family at our house. Yes, this was the first Thanksgiving or Christmas that we stayed at home since we've been married. It was nice. Chris' mom, sisters, and nephew came up on Wednesday night and left on Friday. Chris and I had a relaxing few days off by ourselves. We even went to dinner and a movie (Quantum of Solace).

Two weekends ago our church had a Christmas dinner that we attended. It was a fun time to eat good food and get to know some people better. Here was our attempt at a self portrait by our teeny Christmas tree before we went to the party.

For Christmas we will be travelling to Missouri. The plan is to leave around lunch on the 23rd and stay in Rolla until Christmas morning. We'll get to spend some time with Chris' mom's extended family, which is always fun. Then we'll head onto my parents' house in Joplin to spend a few days with my family. We'll probably be there until at least the 29th. After that, I'm not sure what we'll do. Let us know if you want to meet up with us somewhere along our journey!

Also, here our some recent pictures of our Maggie Mae.

Chris picked the huge pumpkin from the pumpkin patch himself! He got his $5 worth! Also, here are the pictures (before and after) of our bedroom.

Merry Christmas to us

Chris and I are the proud new owners of a queen bed set and mattress (which is our Christmas present to ourselves this year). Yesterday we finally purchased the bedroom furniture set we had looked at a few weeks ago and also bought a mattress. We're excited to have this since we've been sleeping on my old bed since we got married. The main problem with that was the fact that I slept towards the middle of the bed before we were married. So now the mattress sags in the middle. I'm sure Chris will sleep much better in a few days.

Yesterday we also picked out our new bedding set. (There are so many things to get when you change bed sizes. It was also much more difficult to pick out bedding than I thought it would be.) Now all we need is some sheets to go with our new comforter.

Today Chris has begun taping all of the trim in preparation for painting tomorrow. He is off from work this whole week so the bedroom "remodel" is his project this week. Knowing Chris he will be done painting well before I get home from work tomorrow. The furniture is delivered on Tuesday and that's probably when he'll pickup the mattress too.

The goal is to have everything setup in our bedroom and the twin beds disassembled and our old bed assembled in the guest room all by the time Chris' mom and sister come to our house on Wednesday night. I'll be sure to take some pix and post them after we get everything in its place.

The BIG mini

050209 - 0730

The above time is when I will be running the half-marathon that I am officially registered to run in next year! I'll be running in the Indy Mini Marathon, which takes place in downtown Indianapolis. (It is the largest mini marathon in the country!) The race course passes many well-known parts of Indy, including running around the infamous Motor Speedway track.


For those of you not familiar with the running world, a half marathon is approximately 13 miles. My goal is to run the entire length and not just barely finish - I want to be prepared, as much as I can be. With having 6 months to train, I hope to prepare enough to finish in 2 hours.


So day 1 of training started yesterday and I have 170 days to go. I'm excited to take on a new challenge even though I know it will be tough at times. For instance, last night I ended up running for a half hour in the rain - that's just a sign of things to come. I've been running 5-6 days a week for at least 20 minutes for a while now and I needed a change of pace. Chris will help me with my training plan since he has a lot of past experience with running. (He's ran 17 miles twice before!) I think the longest I've ever ran is 7 miles, but we stopped for a break at the half-way point.


I'll try to post on when I've hit significant points in my training - i.e. when I hit 7 or 10 miles on my long run on the weekend, when I compete in a 5K and 10K race as part of my training, etc. I'm excited yet fearful at the same time of what I'm getting into, but I'm convinced that the more time I have to train, the easier the race will be. Much blood, sweat, and tears to come...most likely and hopefully much more of the second than the others.

October 26, 2003

Today marks the 5 year anniversary since Chris and I have been together - 5 years ago today we started dating. I remember sitting on the porch swing of the CCH when I answered yes to Chris' question from the night before. Our talk on the swing was a continuation from the night before when we went on the infamous railroad walk where we walked along the railroad tracks in Rolla for hours. That's when we really got to know each other since we talked the entire time. (Good thing it was the night to set our clocks back for daylight savings time - the extra hour came in handy.) When we got back from our walk, we were sitting on the couches of the CCH when he asked me to be his girlfriend.

Sometimes it's hard to believe that's where it all started. I guess God has unique ways of bringing people together who then fall in love.

Here's a photo as a kind of throw-back from the old days. This was the first photo Chris and I took together after we had started dating.

BARNES collage

Here's the BARNES collage I put together. I think it takes a minute to actually see it.

B = two windows on a building

A = historical building downtown

R = light pole

N = trusses on a railroad bridge

E = a cool piece of architecture

S = a bike rack

P.S. Amanda - I found this frame at Walmart. It would work perfect if you wanted to make your own too! I'm glad my last is shorter than it used to be, or else I would've had a hard time finding a ready-made frame.

Anniversary #3

So Chris and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary a couple weeks ago. I can't believe it's been that long already! We didn't do much but we did go to this nice restaurant called McGraw's to celebrate. This restaurant is unique in that it looks like someone's house from the road. It's "landmark" is an old boat on a pile of rocks that sits near the road. And it's right on the river too.

As a present to both of us (for our anniversary) I put together a series of pictures spelling out "BARNES". I took pictures of things in downtown Lafayette that looked like the letters in BARNES and put them together in a picture frame. Some of you may have seen something like this before. I thought they were neat when I saw them, but they are so expensive to order from the company who does these. It proved to not be very hard and is special to us because all of the pictures were taken here in town.

One reason we didn't do much for our anniversary is because we are leaving for a week long trip to Jamaica this coming Saturday! We're excited to have a relaxing week at an all-inclusive resort, but we're praying that the tropical storms stay away next week. Chris is excited to go scuba diving since he hasn't been able to in several years. (He is a certified diver.) I'm excited to water ski again since I learned to last summer. And we're also gonna try horseback riding, which I am excited to do. I'm sure it will be interesting.

I know we're both looking forward to having some time off, as this is our big vacation for the year. Since graduating from college, we've taken a week long trip every year which has been nice. We went to Lake of the Ozarks last year, so Chris wanted to take me on a nicer trip this year. I'll be sure to post pictures after we get back!

Stacey's Wedding

We made the trip to Joplin last weekend for Stacey Veazey's wedding, in which I was a bridesmaid. It was a simple yet very sweet wedding. It was also a lot of fun. Here are a few pix.

Late April

The weather has been warmer as each week in April progresses. This weekend Chris and I took advantage of our Saturday afternoon, after the overnight and morning rain, by putting in an electric fence for Maggie. No she can run around in the front or backyard (not both at the same time) at her liking. She's still getting used to it, but we're already enjoying it. Hopefully that will mean no more potty walks right before bed.

Chris and I have also been going to Southside Church in Lafayette recently. I believe we've been a total of 4 times since we've moved to Indiana. Southside is a new church (probably about 50 to 60 official members) forming in Lafayette and it's so new that they don't own a building yet. They just celebrated their first anniversary this March. The church currently meets at a hotel downtown, which actually works pretty well for now. We've found this church to be the "best fit" for us in the area and most of the people there are 20's to 30's. I for one am excited at the growth they've seen in just one year and the niche that this church will hopefully fill in Lafayette/West Lafayette. Chris and I found that there wasn't a really good non-denominational church in the area, or at least one that we connected with. I think this is where we're going to call our new church home. We're also excited because we'll be playing on a co-ed softball team this summer with some others from church. I'll be glad to start playing again.

Chris and I ask that you be praying for Chris' mom's parents, as they're going through some rough times right now. Chris' grandma found out a couple of weeks ago that she has breast cancer. She had surgery yesterday and has hopefully been able to go home from the hospital today. Meanwhile Chris' grandpa has been going through chemo. They are surrounded by friends and family which helps tremendously, but we know that prayer can be powerful.

Inside our new house

Here's a virtual tour of our new house in Indiana.

Walking in the front door...

Turn to the right and you run into the office, spare bathroom, and spare bedroom. Chris has his Xbox in the office and my scrapbook table has found a home in the spare bedroom.

Walk straight ahead from the front door and you'll run into the living room.

To the right from the living room is our eat-in portion of the kitchen on the other side of the half wall.

And our kitchen...

Turn to the left from the living room and you'll find the master bedroom - complete with bathroom and a nice size closet. Maggie was happy to help me take pictures!

If you turn to the left off of the hallway between the front door and the living room, you'll find the laundry room which leads into the garage.



You can see the peg boards and workbench that Chris has been working on. He's done well at organizing the garage.

Here's a view down the street to the end of the cul-de-sac. There's a total of 5 new houses that don't even have sod yet - one of which was just moved into the other week.

Hope you enjoyed the tour!

Two Months in Indiana

So we've officially been in our new house for two months now and everything is going well! We were able to get every unpacked in less than a week (thanks to Chris' encouragement). Everything is pretty much in its place except for all of our books that we don't have bookshelves for. We even have curtains or some kind of window treatment on every window except for the one small window in the kitchen. Chris was finally able to park his truck in the garage this past weekend. We have a pretty small garage and no shed, so it's made for some creative organizing on his part.

Our jobs are both going very well. Chris really likes his new job working on quality issues for the engine castings. He's already been able to solve a few problems they had been having. He will be going to Germany the first week of April to visit a supplier. Chris has been busy and there's been days that he's hardly had time to sit down, but he's enjoying it a lot. I'm also enjoying working in the CAT environment for the first time. I've already worked on a variety of projects from a new office building to cranes. I love not sitting in front of a computer the entire day. We can also ride to and from work together on most days. I feel like I see Chris a whole lot more now! And it's been great to save on gas too. It's takes us about 20 minutes to get to work, which isn't bad.

Maggie has been adjusting just fine. She has had to learn that she goes out on a leash anytime she goes to the bathroom since we don't have a fence in our backyard yet. An electric fence is in the plan for one of our spring projects.

No church home yet for us. We've gone to a variety of churches, but none have really hit the spot. I'm convinced we're so spoiled coming from a church as good as Richwoods! Please continue to pray for us on this. We did get to have dinner with a minister and his wife, which was really nice. They were very helpful in suggesting a few more churches.

To some people's amazement, we have not joined a gym yet. Chris and I take turns running and walking the dog, switching off in the morning and at night. Our neighborhood has a nice system of sidewalks and roads that we are able to walk and run on - it's definitely one reason we liked the neighborhood so much. There are also 3 ponds with surrounding sidewalks that we can really enjoy on a nice day like today!

And despite our hardest efforts, we're still doing our grocery shopping at Walmart! Walmart is the closest to our house and it is still the cheapest, unfortunately. There is a Meijer, but it's all the way across town. We're hoping that they will soon build the Meijer that there have been rumors of very close to our house. The mall and most of the other stores to shop are on the other side of town and not on the way home from work. But the Super Target is right across the street from work, and I love it! I hadn't shopped at one before and we've been there a few times since we've been here.

We're looking forward to the warmer weather that seems to be sneaking up on us. And I will try to post to our blog more than quarterly! (I know Chris won't post because he told me he didn't even know how to get to this!)