SETTING THE SCENE...

Our Thankgiving table... set for 9 with Aiden playing on the floor close by.

GIVE THANKS

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite times of the year. It is a time to honor our blessings, cherish family, make memories, and kick off the wonderful celebration of Christmas.

just a glimpse of fall in the Carson home...

This year Josh and I headed north on Thanksgiving day to spend time with his Mom's family in Fairview, Oklahoma. Grandma Myrna and Aunt Cheryl did such a great job with the Thanksgiving feast. We were able to visit with family that we do not get to see every year and catch up on everyone's happenings. It was a great Thanksgiving day.

Once we got home Thanksgiving evening, Creed Thanksgiving was in full swing as Josh and I were the hosts for the Creed Thanksgiving this year. To no suprise, I am a list maker. I cannot even begin to count the number of lists I made in preparation for this special day...a few weeks worth ... perhaps a few too many. I put a whole new meaning on "checking it twice".

Mom came up to Oklahoma a couple days early to help me and boy, did she ever. I could never had done it without her. Moms are remarkable people with so much wisdom on all things life related. They got it all. I pray that the wisdom of our mothers shines through us as parents to our own children one day.

More Thanksgiving details to come...

a spoon full of sugar...

Mom planned to take our cousin Mary to Mary Poppins The Musical for her birthday. When Mom mentioned this to Ash and I, we thought we just had to go too! It was a great show and we all had a great time with our sweet cousin. Mary arrived as the 20th Garrey grandchild after five straight boys. We love our boys but she is one special girl. I cannot believe she is 7 years old!

Mary thought DART was quite an adventure. She switched seats a couple times to find the perfect place to sit for the ride to Fair Park.

OU-TX WEEKEND

October brings about the OU-TX football game every year. It had been several years since Josh and I had gone to the game and we were very excited that we got to go this year. Being a student and a spouse of a student, definitely comes with its perks. It was a great weekend for football and family.

Before the game...

HOME SWEET HOME #2

Josh's second Habitat for Humanity build is underway with a finish date set for early 2010. This build will be fully ADA accessible and an incredible blessing to the Baker family. The volunteers on this project come from area churches giving the name of the build The Apostles Build.

More pictures and updates to come!

JOSHUA LEE CARSON ...

Great name, huh? I was quite proud hearing his name called over and over at OU's College of Architecture Scholarship Banquet for four different scholarships he received this school year. Here he is with two of his classmates and dear friends that were also honored at this year's event.

SEPTEMBER...

Wow... where did September go? One big highlight from September was heading south to Temple to celebrate Logan's 3rd birthday with family and friends. He is growing up to be the cutest little man and boy, do his friends LOVE him. The weather proved to be perfect and Logan had a great time. Here are a few pics from his special day.

HOUSTON ...

I traveled to Houston the second week of September for business and had the opporunity to meet my Uncle Bill and Aunt Amy for dinner one night. What a precious family and what adorable cousins I have! It was so great to see them and I cannot wait to go back and do it again.

Kate Isabel - 4 months - I am one proud Godmother!

Happy 3 Years!

Happy 3rd Anniversary! It seems like just yesterday we were on the beach in Cabo reminiscing about "yesterday", our wedding day, one of the best days of our life. Boy, does time fly!

What an amazing three years it has been - our marriage has grown stronger year after year and we cannot wait to see what the future holds for us as a couple and one day, a family (one day). We are very, very blessed.

Although Josh and I were apart on our actual anniversary, he sent me flowers at work and made me feel very special and loved. We planned to celebrate during our vacation which was just a few weeks away.

While packing for our weekend getaway, Josh told me that he was taking me out for our anniversary and that all I needed to know was to pack a nice dress. So... as we were getting ready that Saturday night, Josh realized he did not pack his black dress belt. It was a blessing we happened to be staying in a hotel connected to a mall because his brown belt just didn't look right with his attire and there was no way of making it look right. We dashed over to Macy's to pick up a belt. By dashed I mean we left our hotel room at 7:07 and still made our 7:30 reservations a few miles up the road after buying a belt and finding our car in a parking garage. Phew! We arrive at III Forks right on time and had a great meal. We wish our waiter was a little bit friendlier but we were not going to let that ruin our night! It was so fun to dress up and hit the town. All in all - a wonderful night and a wonderful three years as husband and wife.

The modern gift for your third anniversary according to the "Anniversary Gift List Experts" is leather. Josh thinks this list is kind of silly and would like to meet the experts that put this list together but we have followed it the past two years so why stop now. We thought about buying leather furniture, perhaps a chair or ottoman, but with not knowing exactly what next May brings for us we decided on watches, leather-banded watches of course! Needless to say ... I LOVE my anniversary present! Yes, Josh picked it out himself - he did good. I have ordered Josh's and it is set to arrive any day.

Southbound 35

We cannot believe the summer is over! Josh and I enjoyed an extra long weekend together this past weekend just before school starts back up - what we are calling our Summer Vacation. What a refreshing few days and much needed time together. Vacationing on a budget took us southbound to Big D and the Westin Galleria. Heavenly! Here are some fun things we did on our vacation...

We caught the Rangers vs. Red Sox game Friday night which ended up to be a great game with even better weather. Sadly, the picture of the two of us at the game didn't turn out...

Josh took me by The Hope Center for a job tour. What a blessing Josh was given to be put on this project this summer. It is very impressive. Just a couple months to go before it is opened for business. I am standing in the first floor entry/atrium area in front of the massive fireplace.

The pool called our names several times throughout our stay. Complete with cabanas, it felt pretty beachy just without the sand.

We attended Sunday service at Gateway Church in Southlake Sunday morning. The pastor at Gateway happens to mentor our pastor back home at Journey Church, which we love, so we thought we would check it out. Massive and quite groovy! We spent the rest of the day exploring the DFW area and stopped in Roanoke for a late lunch at Twisted Root. If you haven't been, go. It was delicious!! I have a new favorite thing - Watermelon Sweet Tea. Yum!

One of Josh's favorite things about Dallas is Top Golf. He enjoyed several trips to Top Golf over the summer and wanted to show me what it was all about. I didn't attempt to hit any at the driving range out of fear of total embarrassment but we did play mini golf after Josh hit a couple rounds. What a neat concept and great for all ages. There are two different levels at the driving range. We were on the upper deck. Josh is aiming for those white targets ...

Who knew DFW Airport has an observation area!? I am fascinated by just about anything, aviation being one of them and Josh has always had a passion for flying so after a bit of "googling" I came across Founder's Plaza at DFW, just off runways 18L and 18R. You can hear air traffic control talk with the pilots and observe the hundreds of departures and arrivals these two runways have each day. A fun, free outing for us.

We ended our vacation with dinner and a movie date on Monday night. We ate at Two Guys from Italy which is somewhere Josh was dying to go back to after we ate there with Ashley and Landon over a year ago. Needless to say, we were SO stuffed going to the theatre and concession stand purchases were definitely not in the picture. I take ownership of picking the movie, The Ugly Truth. Josh predicted the ending not even halfway through but it ended up delivering some good laughs.

In addition to a wonderful vacation, we also celebrated our third wedding anniversay!! A few weeks late, but better late than never! Post to follow.

A New Home ...

No, not for the Carsons but for a very deserving single father and his son. Through a recommendation of one of Josh's professors, Josh added a new job to his resume this past year as the Construction Manager for our local Habitat for Humanity. He just recently finished up his first build sponsored by the OU Greek Community and is moving on to another that will break ground this month called the Apostles Build, sponsored by local churches. What an amazing, eye-opening experience.

The Build Site

Josh framing the house.

Raising the roof...

Drywall is up!

Josh with some of his classmates.

Kitchen in progress

The new homeowner close to the end ... Joseph and his son, JoJo.

I will post some more pictures as soon as we get our hands on some of the finished interior pictures. Joseph has a great home now to raise his son in all built by the hands of very gracious volunteers.

HOPE

Josh made his home in Plano this summer for his intership with Beck which was a wonderful success. He really enjoyed the project he was on, The HOPE Center, not to mention the people and culture of the company. A special thanks to my mom for her hospitality all summer long. It was such a blessing for Josh to have a home away from home. I happened to enjoy my frequent weekend trips to Texas as well. Josh's project is set to open in October. We definitely plan to make it back for the Grand Opening.

I am very excited to have Josh back home as we start the countdown to the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. School starts back up August 24th. More summer highlights to come...

Here we go...

Welcome to The Carson Chronicles. We hope to share some of our everyday blessings with all our family and friends from coast to coast. In fact, I created this just after our first anniversary a couple years ago and never updated it so we are starting all over. Lets hope we are better at it this go around!