Love & Spontaneity

After finishing up my spring semester of school, I feel like I haven't stopped going..... Immediately after the semester ended, as I have mentioned, Brett and I moved from our north Dallas apartment into our first home in Garland, Texas. The move, packing, unpacking, starting to work at a new location have been overwhelming enough, but on top of that I have continued to take summer classes which began the Monday following our move to Garland. So, the past three weeks every day for THREE hours I have been captive in my three week long government class. I have realized over the past three weeks that I do not enjoy talking about politics, especially with people who have incredibly differing beliefs and moral standards. This class has been emotionally draining, and I am happy to have completed the course TOMORROW. All that to say... I have been in need of a break.

Brett, too, has been busy with different stuff as well over the last month, or so. I may have mentioned before that Brett became an umpire this season for baseball, and he LOVES it. I have enjoyed seeing him take to something that he likes to do and has fun doing. Umpiring, too, has been a financial blessing for us in our season of moving into and purchasing our home. Though it has been such a blessing, this spring we have found ourselves in lots of different areas of life and spread a little thin. We have been tired once we both get home and left time with each other on the back burner until life decided to slow down. 

A couple of months ago, Brett and I decided that for our (first) anniversary we would take off Friday-Monday of Memorial Day weekend, our anniversary was May 28th. I had been looking forward to taking off for those four days and just spending time with Brett and getting away from all the busyness. We were unsure, with the house expenses, if we would be able to go on a weekend trip or just have a "stay cation", but honestly I didn't care... I just wanted a break from schedules for a while. 

Brett decided the on Friday that we should go to Hot Springs, Arkansas for a spontaneous three day, two night vacation of relaxation. (I love having a husband who loves treating me.) We got up early on Saturday morning and loaded the car for our four and a half hour trip to Hot Springs. I loved this time together (even though I slept a good bit of it) because I got to hear stories about my husbands childhood vacations to Hot Springs with his family. I love when my introverted husband shares stories with me that I have never heard over our nearly seven year-long relationship. 

About an hour from Hot Springs, we decided to stop in the middle of nowhere at a gas station for a bathroom break and to stretch our legs. While parked at the station, an employee of a small tire repair shop behind the station noticed that we had a flat on the rear passenger side of our car. Now if you are like me and have never really been to Arkansas, this was the only gas station for about 30 miles both ways around us... and probably the only tire shop for an hour or so from us. The man kindly told Brett that we had a flat, which we had not (not would not have) noticed. Thought they had just closed their tire shop, he graciously offered to reopen and repair our tire until we could get to Hot Springs and buy a new tire to replace it. Needless to say, we were extremely thankful that we did not have a blow-out on the highway without civilization nearby to get it fixed. Would that have been stressful... With only about fifteen minutes lost on our road trip and a few cute pictures taken to document our adventure, we were back on the road to Hot Springs. 

I decided on this trip that I really like taking vacations with my husband. He is not one to stress out if things don't go his way and is incredibly flexible when things, like a flat tire, happen. The remainder of our trip we had a flawlessly smooth and relaxing time. Saturday evening we explored historic downtown Hot Springs, went to the tower overlooking the mountains and city, and ate some darn good pizza at Dough Boys on Central Ave. We also went to the wax museum and treated ourselves to some yummy ice cream. After sleeping in on Sunday, we went to get a massage at one of the spas in downtown. This was one of my favorite parts of the trip. (Brett and I decided we should get massages at least twice a year, for our anniversary and my birthday, of course... ;) hehe.) We wrapped up our night with an anniversary dinner and a magic show, which was wonderful. Monday, after checking out of our resort, we headed to the Garvin Woodland Gardens for our last activity. We got to see beautiful views of the Ouachita Mountains and take pictures of the garden's gorgeous waterfalls. This was a perfect ending to a wonderful anniversary weekend! 

We are already thinking about where we want to go for our anniversary next year. Anyone have any ideas? Where are some of your favorite vacation spots?  

Moving Day & Mother's Day

The life of the Gilpatrick Family has been really extremely scattered lately. Since the middle of April, right after our closing date of our house, we have been living out of boxes and off of fast food. That's what I get for accidentally packing our can opener two weeks before our moving day... oops! We had been working on our house for weeks painting, staining kitchen cabinets, and doing little fixes to get it ready for move day.

Well, our moving day finally came on May 12th, and we were so ready to finally be in our new home. We rallied up all our family from Henderson and Stillwater church family to help us move our things from our third floor apartment to our house in Garland. About seven vehicles were loaded up with ALL of our belongings as we paraded from North Dallas to our new residence thirty minutes away. We are so thankful to have everyone who helped us move, because it would have been much less enjoyable had it been just Brett and myself.

First house picture, of course :)

A couple of weeks leading up to our moving day, we received so much help from my in-laws to complete our projects on the house before actually moving in. They helped us our dining room wainscoting and the staining of our kitchen cabinets. We definitely could not have done these projects with our them offering to help us. The finished product was so beautiful!! Take a look.

This is our dining room. My favorite room of the house.

The weekend of moving day was also Mother's Day weekend. We kind of planned the move the day before Mother's Day on purpose so that we could for sure see both of our mothers that weekend. (Even though both of our moms worked so hard to help us move that weekend, I'm sure that wasn't the dream mother's day, but we were so glad to spend time with them.) Sunday night, Mother's Day, Brett and I went to the Ranger's game with my parents, sister, and future brother-n-law. I got two new Ranger's shirts at the game, and we got to see Nelson Cruz hit a grand slam!

Something else that began for me last Monday was my May-mester in school. I decided to take all the summer courses that I could, and I started my three week Government course last week. I am enjoying the course, especially the fact that in two more weeks I will be done with it. ;) I am also taking History and Statistics this summer. Woohoo....

We also just celebrated our first anniversary together. Be expecting a post from our anniversary trip, as well as, more pictures of our home as I finish decorating. Have a great week!

His Compassion

To all who stop in regularly to read my posts, I apologize for my absence and lack of posting over the last month. Goodness... Has it been that long?! Lots have happened over the last month and to get you up to speed I will be sharing a "new house/moving" post hopefully very soon. I am stopping in to write a quick post about an incident that happened to me yesterday.

First of all, I wanted to share that along with moving to Garland this past weekend, I also started my new job. I have worked for the company DSW, or Designer Shoe Warehouse, for the last six months near our old apartment in North Dallas. Thankfully, with our recent relocation once we bought our house, I was able to get transferred to the Firewheel Town Center DSW in Garland. I started working at the new location this week and am so far enjoying it, though it will take some adjusting to.

The incident I wanted to share actually happened to me while at work yesterday (Thursday) at the new store. Now having worked at a shoe store for six months, I am very surprised that something like this has not happened to me until now. The results of this story, however, have given me a wonderful new perspective of the Lord and His compassion.

Here we go. Okay, so as a sales associate, one of my jobs is to help assist any customer who needs help find a specific shoe, style of shoe, or size. I am expected to take care of the customers as best I can, doing most anything to keep them pleased with our service and products. Yesterday, there was an elderly man who came into the store and immediately asked if someone could help him find some shoes he was looking for. I was paged to help him by a manager, and I began attempting to find what he was looking for. This man was looking for very specific styles of shoes in which we did not have much to choose from, and we also did not carry much in his size. Finally, we found a pair that looked like they would work, and he decided to try them on. Because he had recently had surgery and could not physically put on the shoes, he asked me to do it for him. Now, I know what you are thinking... "No big deal! He is elderly, of course I would put on his shoes for him." But a couple of things that you don't know are that within the few minutes that I was helping him find his shoes, this man was incredibly rude and cranky. He continued to insult our shoe selection and my service because I "couldn't find anything for him". And the kicker was that as I looked down at his feet, I swear he had some sort of fungus growing out of his toes. I was already frustrated with this customer, but I decided to bite the bullet and help him with his shoes. THEY FIT! Success! Because these pair fit, the man decided to buy them and just wear them out of the store. As I was checking him out at the register, I continued to offer him a store membership which would help him by giving him back coupons for future purchases. Immediately, he told me "NO!" and how he never finds shoes at our store and that what he was buying today was "secondary". Frustrated I managed to smile a few more seconds until he left the store.

How could this man be so angry and ugly to me when I had done everything I could to serve him well and give him what he needed. Immediately, I was reminded of the story in the Bible where Jesus washes his disciples feet. I am positive that the disciples feet were not well manicured, clean, or smelling nice. I am also positive that Jesus did not choose to serve them in this way because He thought that they would be forever faithful to Him. The point of Jesus washing His feet was rather to emphasize HIS faithfulness to us. Goodness. I am human, and one of the hardest things for me to do is to love people unconditionally. To love people like Jesus loves sometimes seems nearly impossible, especially when people don't seem lovable. Something I pray for myself is that the Lord softens my heart to people where it has become hard. I pray that I can serve as Jesus served, even when faithfulness is not returned to me.

At our wedding, last May, Brett and I decided to have a feet-washing ceremony after exchanging our vows. I especially pray that the Lord continues to allow us as a couple to serve each other as Christ serves the church. Here is a picture from our wedding and I hope it reminds you to serve someone this week.

Have a blessed weekend! And expect a new house post soon with pictures of our home!!