1.25.2012

Catch Up

Hello Friends! Sorry I have not had much time to blog. I have been so busy getting work obligations going and also it's hard to get access to our computer when my hubby plays games every night :-)

We have had a lot going on since last I blogged! We went to Kansas City, Missouri for my cousin Kurt's wedding. Kurt and Sara made a beautiful couple and we had a blast getting to hang with our with extended family. The Becker side (my mom's family) is such fun and we always party hard!


Some pictures of me and Nathan :)

 My Grandpa, brother Will and cousin Quinten. Handsome Becker men :) Another cute pic of me and Nate from the wedding as well!
My grandma and grandpa with all their kids and their spouses...can you pick out my parents?

My grandparents with all their grandkids plus a couple significant others :) Love this one!!
We had such a blast and are so excited for Kurt and Sara and their new life together!

The week back to work after our trip was LONG and BUSY! This past weekend I worked at a beginner instrument day and had a blast getting to help and pick instruments for 5th graders. Love this time of year when I can see the absolute joy and excitement kids get when they make their first sound on an instrument!

On Sunday I ran my first 5K of the year, the Resolution Run in McKinney. I had gone into the run with hopes of placing top in my age category and had even confessed to Nathan that it would be way awesome to place in the top 5 for females in the race.

So it was supposed to be nice weather but ended up being dreary and cold! I didn't really dress properly, so at the last possible second I decided to run (for real) back to my car to change into running tights. As soon as I was running back up the hill to the starting line, everyone was lined up!! So I started the race kind of flustered and out of breath, which is not normal for me!!

Needless to say, I started down the first hill and noticed I was the only girl in front. All the people in front of me were men, so I wanted to keep that pace going. The 5K Stonebridge course is fun, but has about 2 killer hills. I think that if those hills had not been there I would have had a PR (for non-runners, this means Personal Record). Even still, my time was 25:03, which is about an 8 minute mile.

I finished the race feeling really good since I hadn't seen any girls pass me along the way. As soon as the results came out, I saw that I had placed OVERALL FIRST PLACE FEMALE!! This is a huge step for me and I was so excited that I was the fastest lady!!
It was so cool to know that all my hard work and dedication has paid off!
This is me accepting the trophy, and a picture of me before the race before I decided to change into tights! I think if I had not been winded from running back up the hill from my car I would have done even better!
Trophy!! Now I have to put in a shelf above my medals to display this thing!!

I am even more motivated than ever to keep running and keep up my new life of fitness. I will most likely run my next 5K in February, so stay tuned to see which one!!

Love~Katie

1.08.2012

Long, but Happy Week :)

This week was so long. Seriously, it felt like every day was a week in itself! It was rough getting back to the swing of work, but it was so fun to get back around the kids. I had a great week and started on some new music with them. It's so nice this year to be able to teach the kids quickly and they really are starting to grow as a group :) Very blessed by my job and my kids!

Tuesday was me and Nathan's 3rd wedding anniversary! We celebrated in our traditional way. On our first anniversary, we bought two matching plates to have our anniversary dinners on.


We always celebrate with mostaccioli dinner and champagne in our wedding flutes! We also always buy each other the modern and traditional gifts for that anniversary. For our first anniversary, I gave him a drawing of his favorite wedding picture because the traditional gift was paper.



He gave me a clock since that was the modern gift!



 So for our third anniversary I gave him the traditional gift of leather with a new leather office chair!! He has been begging for one since we got married, so he is in heaven! He gave me a set of crystal wine glasses (modern gift) that matches our anniversary dishes perfectly! Love!



It was a wonderful night with my husband and I am so blessed by him every day! I can't believe it's already been three perfect years!

So after our anniversary, the week was pretty full with school stuff. Some of my students had their All Region clinic/concert Saturday and that was so rewarding to see them on stage! Nathan came out to have lunch with us at Chili's with the kids and we had a blast!

Today was our first day back to Sunday School since 2011 ended, so we were pretty pumped about that! We attended Jerusicho for the first time and it was a great service! Custer Road is starting a new service based on missions for the community called "Jerusicho". You can learn more about it at www.jerusicho.org.  After some worship and word from Tim, we wrote letters to veteran's in the VA hospitals, wrote letters to troops coming home and wrote to active servants in the military. It was a pretty cool thing to know that someone somewhere will feel the love and blessings from our church and me. I pray that my letter may help them in some way through their journey. Looking forward to going again soon!!

Our class is starting a new relationship study this month based on the 5 Love Languages book.


Nathan and I took the assessment ahead of time and found out that our Love Languages differ! There are 5 Love Languages: Words of Affirmation, Giving of Gifts, Acts of Service, Physical Touch and Quality Time.  It was SO COOL to find out our Love Languages because now we will do more acts based on each others' findings. Stay tuned to find out more about this study and our love languages!

I have also completed 1 week of my 14 day Ab Challenge and already feel like I have a much stronger core. Will let you know at the end of this week if it was worth it ;-) Only got in two runs this week...Monday night 3.10 miles and today I ran 5 miles. Wish I had more time for running and I am going to make a better effort to go this week! I am determined to make 2012 an even more fit year than last!

I hope everyone has a fabulous week! Ours will be a 4 day week as we are headed to my cousin's wedding in Kansas City on Friday.

Love and blessings!

1.01.2012

A New Year off to a Lovely Start!


Last night we celebrated New Year's Eve with some amazing friends! I started out the day by having banana pancakes at the Original Pancake House with the hubby...yum!! Then we finished cleaning our house, which feels amazing because everything is SO organized and ready for the new year.

After cleaning I decided to go out for a quick run, 3.10 miles (5K distance) to get a run in so I could have some champagne calories later! ;-) Relaxed for a bit and then the fun began!!

We went to dinner with Christina, Rob, Ray, Brooke, Jay and Zoe at the Londoner. Funtimes were had by all! Christina had a great quote of the night about "living" it up, so I wore my cute dress from my bachelorette party 3 years ago! Here are a few pics from dinner:





 After dinner we headed over to Megan and Jason's house for their annual New Year's Eve Party! Megan and Jason are members of our New Directions Sunday School class, and we also hung with Christina and Rob, and Cristen and John who are also members of our SS class. We had a blast and definitely all agree 2012 will be an amazing and exciting year for the New Directions (and new additions!!!!!)  

So now begins 2012! This has been a LAZY day, but I did start an Abs Workout challenge I read about on Pinterest today.
 
 
***Ah Pinterest, how you have changed my life and so many others' lives as well!***
 
 
Not only did I get inspiration to do the 14-day Abs challenge, but also saw a cute way to display the guidelines! I'll let you know if I see results after the 14 days, but  at least I feel the abs hurting now! ;-)

Nathan and I decided to play a few games today as well, which is always our favorite pasttime on lazy days. We'll finish out the first day of 2012 with black eyed peas, wild rice and pasta-roni. There is NO way I am cooking (other than heating up some pasta, rice and beans) on my last day of break!
Tomorrow I go back to work, and Nathan goes back Tuesday...don't know why my district is the only one who has to work/have students back tomorrow, but I am excited to see them :-) I know 2012 will be an amazing year at school and in our home with our families and friends.
CHEERS!!!

12.31.2011

New Year, New Blog!

Well 2011 has come to an end. It was an amazing year with great blessings for Nathan and I! We have a tradition that every Christmas Eve we write down what major events happened in our lives that year.
  • We celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary!
  • We joined our Sunday School class, the NEW DIRECTIONS! We are so thankful for this class!
  • I joined the Trustees board at our church, Custer Road UMC
  • We had an 11-11-11 party to celebrate the awesomeness of the number 11!!!
  • We visited Estes Park, Colorado for a Becker family reunion and to celebrate my Grandma andGgrandpa's 65th wedding anniversary! This wasd also our first trip to Colorado together and we hiked many beautiful mountains and loved every moment of this trip!
  • I ran my first 1st half marathon (and 2nd!)
 This year was a full one, but we are looking forward to next year with great excitement and anticipation!

We thought it would be a pretty great time to start a blog. First off, we hope this will help chronicle the daily in's and out's of our lives that family and friends might want to read about. I also want to write about my newly inspired love of running!! Lastly, we hope to bring our love for life into this blog and share it with you :)

Here's to 2012 and may it be a great year for Loving Life!!