Our Story (Part I)

I wanted to tell our story just in case some of you don't know Andrew or how we met.  If you were to have told me that I would marry Andrew Chaney my first or second year of college, I would have called you CRAZY!! So I'll let you in on how everything unfolded!

This is our Lifegroup and we are basically on opposite ends of the picture! 

I'm not going to lie to you. Andrew was a HOTTIE from day one! I had a crush on him when I met him but I was 18 years old and knew that nothing would ever happen! Anyways, I met Andrew my freshman year in Lifegroup (a small group from church). I could honestly say that I can't really remember really meeting the guy that early on my freshman year though because I was a stupid Freshman that was secretly into every Christian guy (which he is, but I might have been looking the other direction)!

It was really my Sophomore year that I really started getting to know this guy! He would invite me to any sporty thing him and his friends were doing and I absolutely went to every single one of them.  He told me one time that I was actually the only one who would ever respond to his texts.  It was really just because I wanted to play sports...but I won't tell him that! :) We played a ton of racquetball and basketball.  I loved every single moment of it.  It was also this year that we had a class together.  This class was called Fitness Theory and Practice, so we played basketball together every Tuesday and Thursday.  How great is that!?! But again, I had my eyes on another guy...he might have been my teacher...but he just graduated from undergrad, so it was kind of ok. We all have our stupidness.  (Side note: Andrew recently told me that there was one day when we were playing basketball together in class that I touched his stomach and thought I was totally into him.)  This year I also watched Andrew try his hand at the gallon challenge...I don't know how this didn't make me fall in love with him!

My Lifegroup from Waco came to my house in Austin to spend the weekend and had a blast.  My friends thought that Andrew looked just like my brother, so he took a picture with me and my parents pretending to be my brother! Oh how things have changed!! This is the picture from that weekend!

The summer after my Sophomore year is when things really started happening! Andrew stayed the whole summer in Austin with his aunt to shadow a dentist...I think it was to be with me all summer, but he won't admit that! He only shadowed the dentist once, so you decide why he was in Austin all summer. I absolutely did NOT mind that he was with me ALL summer though...I was starting to fall for him...but I never showed him that! Towards the end of May, a huge tornado hit his hometown of Joplin, Missouri.  His whole family was there at the time and it was a very scary time not being able to get a hold of them.  Thankfully his family was pretty much unaffected by the tornado, however, Andrew decided to take a trip up there! I know you are all wondering if I went with him, and OF COURSE I went with him! We made the trip up there with our friend Krystal and were able to help out quite a bit with the tornado relief.  It was a blast to be there and to see Andrew around his friends and family! He was a completely different guy than I saw in Waco! I was starting to like him!

After that trip, Andrew went a couple of weeks later! This ABSOLUTELY broke my heart! When I said goodbye to him, I finally got my first "real" hug from him and I ran inside to my mom and started bawling because I couldn't stand the idea of being away from him! Turned out that Krystal (who was going back with him again) forgot her purse at my house the night before they were going to leave (they were going to leave straight from Andrew's Aunt's house) and instead of coming back to get it that night, Andrew wanted to be able to see me again, so I took it to them the next morning! I got to see him one more time before they left, and I was beside myself! However, after they left for good, I bawled the whole way home from Andrew's Aunt's house.  I finally realized I was falling for this man!

Turns out, my church from Austin was taking a trip to Joplin a couple of days after Andrew left and my friend Madison was going on the trip! I was a freeloader and caught a ride to see the guy that I would one day marry...oh...I mean I was a freeloader and was going to help out with the devastation! :) It was on this trip that Andrew told me that he LIKED me!!!

You will have to come back for the next post to hear the rest of the story.

Change of Plans: Trading in a Theraband for a Stethoscope

WARNING: This post is long and doesn't have very many pictures...But I think it's worth the read! 

You know how God is funny? And you know how God has perfect timing? Well my timing didn't line up with God's timing! IMAGINE THAT! I thought that when I chose a career path to pursue my sophomore year of college that I would continue that until I retired...or at least until I have a mid-life crisis and want to change. Well it turns out that God graciously allowed me to finish college and then let me decide that what I went to college for four years was actually not what I was going to do for the rest of my life.

My freshman year at Baylor University, I had many different thoughts about what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I mean I was only EIGHTEEN years old...how was I supposed to know what I really wanted to do? I contemplated becoming a doctor, but then I realized there was way too much schooling to become a doctor (good for you, Alex).  I thought about majoring in Psychology because I enjoyed my Psychology class.  I thought about being a nurse, but the nursing school for Baylor was in Dallas and I knew that I didn't want to leave my friends and my church in Waco.  So I decided on going the Physical Therapy route.  It was in the medical field and I was able to take some really cool classes. I thought I would love it because I love sports and loved the idea of rehabilitation from sports injuries.

I shadowed a Physical Therapist in Austin last summer and didn't like it because they mostly did jaw treatments (it's as fun as it sounds!). So I knew I wouldn't specialize in jaw treatments.  I then did an internship at an inpatient facility this last semester. I worked mostly with elderly patients and all we really did was worked on their sitting, standing, and walking. After that I knew I didn't want to work at an inpatient facility.  And now I am working at an outpatient facility and am not loving it, or really liking it.  So I finally figured out that I was not meant to be a Physical Therapist!

As most of you may know, I took this year off so that we could find out where Andrew would be attending Dental school and then I would apply to the Physical Therapy school in the same city. Well, I figured out that it was God's way of telling me to reconsider my career path.  God has perfect timing...remember?? Also every day after work, Andrew would ask me if I really wanted to do Physical Therapy because I was miserable every day I came home from work.  I didn't want him to be right because I just graduated from college to do Physical Therapy! What would my parents think??

So I have made up my mind and I will hopefully be attending NURSING SCHOOL at the Health Science Center (same school as Andrew!) next May!  I say hopefully because I need to take one class to be able to get into the nursing school and the school that I will be taking that class is being very difficult right now.  However that is my plan.  I plan to attend nursing school to get my Bachelor of Science in Nursing and then immediately continue for a Masters of Science in Nursing to become a Nurse Practitioner.

So if you are a nurse or know a nurse or just want to give advice, please don't hesitate to give me some advice! I would love some knowledge about the journey that I am about to embark on!

Thanks for reading! Can't wait to hear from y'all!

Update on Papa

Andrew's grandpa "Papa" went to the hospital yesterday after having a stroke.  It was horrible receiving that news, but we got a call later yesterday afternoon with some pretty incredible news! Papa was prescribed some medicine that could have had terrible side effects, but pretty immediately after taking the medicine, he was able to speak clearly and he got feeling back in his body.

Today Papa was able to talk to Andrew and told him that he was glad the stroke happened on Saturday because he had to go to work on Tuesday! Papa seems to be back to his old self and we are very relieved! Papa has a CT Scan today to get more information about everything and I will be sure to let y'all know if anything changes! He is scheduled to go home on Tuesday.

Please pray that Papa would continue to improve and that he would be able to go home soon!

Our Apartment in San Antonio

I wanted to give y'all some pictures of what our apartment looks like so that you can picture us actually at the apartment and hopefully make you want to come visit us! We LOVE company!

This is a picture of our living room where we watch our beloved TV shows and play many games of Call of Duty a night.  I didn't get a picture of Andrew's new TV, but he loves it...it's his baby!

This is a picture of our dining room/bar area.  We don't usually eat dinner at the table, but hey, when we have company it sure does come in handy!

This is our kitchen! If you saw our place in Waco, you would know that a bigger kitchen was a big selling point for this apartment.  We had a kitchen the size of a closet in Waco, so we are thrilled to have so much more room in our kitchen.  We also love our "granite" countertops!

This is our guest room...where y'all will be staying! Another great thing about this apartment is that since it is in the medical center and students usually have roommates, both of the rooms we have are huge! Please come and make yourselves comfortable!

In the guest room, we also have Andrew's desk to study at! I told him that this could be his Baylor room since he has so much paraphernalia! This is a picture of Andrew hard at work studying for his Ethics final that he has on Wednesday!

This is our room! Don't mind the sheet that we have hanging from the window, we are still searching for curtains to put up! My grandma gave us a gift card to Hobby Lobby and I got the sign for above our bed! This is absolutely something she would have given us!

This is our plain jane bathroom.  I knew the other one would be used more by our guests, so that is the one I decided to decorate better.

This is our HUGE closet! Don't mind the huge shelving unit with all of our t-shirts! We also have another closet the same size in the guest room!

This is one of our favorite things in our house! Since this is our first time to buy nice cookware, we decided to get a hanging pot rack so the pots and pans wouldn't get scratched! We absolutely love that it is in the laundry room and out of the way! It saves so much space!

And last but definitely not least...the guest bathroom! I was finally able to decorate a room with yellow and gray and I absolutely love it! It may or may not be my favorite room in the apartment!

I hope y'all enjoyed the little tour of our house! You will have to just come see it in person to get the whole tour! Hope to see you all soon!!

Leap of Faith

We have moved out of our comfort zone that we call Waco. We moved to San Antonio a little over a month and a half ago and it sure is different here. Not only is the traffic different, but the people are different. In Waco, we could get from one end of the city to the other in about twenty minutes. Here in San Antonio it could take 20 minutes to go one mile. YIKES! The people here are nice and pretty friendly, but they aren't the friends we have known for at least four years. This has been a pretty tough transition because our friends aren't with us, but we are making it! 

I'm going to brag on my amazing husband a little bit here because he is the reason we moved to San Antonio! He started dental school at the University of Texas Health Science Center about a mile from our house about a month ago. He is doing very well in school so far and I am beyond proud of him.  Above is a picture of him on his first day of school.  Isn't he cute! 

I also found a job here in San Antonio for the first year that I am not in school.  I am a physical therapy technician at Promotion Physical Therapy. I love being able to work and talk with patients, however I don't love the full-time part of the job.  I am exhausted every night I come home from work because I am on my feet all day every day. Above is a picture of my first day of work! We were both wearing scrubs so I made him take a picture with me! Did I say that I get to wear scrubs every day at work...Can you say pajamas at work!!

So as I write this blog post, Andrew is working on making teeth out of wax (which is what he is doing above). Our life so far in San Antonio consists of school/work, eating, and sleeping. We have a pretty boring life right now, but that is what we call the Leap of Faith. We have officially started our life together in a new place and we are learning so much about each other as we rely more and more on each other.  It has been fun to watch who God puts in our lives and to see what He puts in front of us. We love living life with each other and can't wait to see what happens in these next four years in San Antonio. I will try to keep you all posted with the craziness that we call life!