~ my husband rocks! ~ Timeless :)

Happy Friday everybody!!!


Before I explain yet another reason why my fabulous husband ROCKS, I have an announcement to make!



Coming up next month MHR Fridays will be having a HUGE giveaway! "Why a giveaway?" you may ask. Well I'll tell you, because giveaways are freaking awesome! Not only that, but Austin and I are celebrating our one year anniversary on September 22nd, so I thought it would be easy to remember, as well as September 19th will be the 15th week that we have posted for ~My Husband Rocks~ Fridays! So, on the 19th I will announce all of the fabulous giveaway items, then on the 26th I'll announce the winner!!! Anyone is welcome to enter the giveaway, even if they do not post for MHRF, and if you would like to contribute items to the giveaway, please contact me by e-mail (so that way it will be a surprise when we announce the items) at katylinvw(at)yahoo(dot)com!

This week, Austin rocks because our love is timeless :)

Here is what we would have looked like had we been sweethearts at any other time in the past:

1952

1956

1960

1968

1970

1976

1978

1984

1988

1990

1992

2000

2007

Present

(I found this fun diversion through Kathy - Mama's Losin' It - at http://www.yearbookyourself.com/)


That was our silly reason for the week. Austin is so amazing that this week I have several serious reasons why he rocks.

1. He indulges my silliness, and even enjoys it with me (hence the crazy faces, lol!)

2. He gave up his weekend and spent lots of money at the fair because he knew how much I wanted to go.

3. His favorite part about MHR Fridays? The fact that so many other husbands are being built up and encouraged by their wives. He can't wait to hear the new count every week!

Thanks for reading everybody! Be sure to check in with all the ladies in to hear about more husbands who rock by clicking on the "my husband rocks participants" button in the left sidebar!

And remember, on Fridays From*me Tees will refund your shipping on any order of two or more items if you mention the great adventure and ~my husband rocks! Fridays~ in the "how did you hear about us?" section of your order form, so run on over there and check them out, too! Thank you From*me Tees!

If you'd like to find out more about why I started MHR Fridays, either click here or follow the button in the left hand sidebar (if you would like the code to add it to your sidebar, use this code ).

<a href="http://honestandlasting.blogspot.com/2008/06/my-husband-rocks-friday.html"><img src="http://i303.photobucket.com/albums/nn135/katylinvw/mosaicmhrf.jpg"/></a>

If you'd like to join in the fun, leave a comment on this post with the permalink to your ~my husband rocks! Friday~ post! Remember, this is not just for us girls, guys we'd love it if you would turn it into ~my wife rocks! Friday~ and link up! :)



If you're not a blogger, but still want the world to know about your amazing husband (or wife, or husband to be, or wife to be, etc.) leave a shout-out in the form of a comment! If you're unable to comment, e-mail me at katylinvw [at] yahoo [dot] com and I'll add your shout out to this post!

Have a great weekend!

Bring the Rain . . .

If you have never visited Angie's blog or read the story about their daughter Audrey Caroline, today would be a great day to do so.



Angie is a very, very talented writer, and today (I guess she actually posted it on Sunday, but I read it today) she has articulated so beautifully how we can love a God who lets bad things happen. Praise the Lord for Angie and her family (her husband, Todd, is part of Selah) who have allowed Him to use a terribly painful situation to glorify His name and draw others to Himself. Be prepared to cry . . . a lot.



Thanks for checking in,

Our state fair . . .

. . . is a great state fair! Don't miss it, don't even be late!"

Yep, that's right! This weekend was spent at the world-famous, too good to be true, Iowa State Fair.

Now folks, you've got to understand, that everything I knew about Iowa (before I moved to our wonderful state), I learned from musicals. Ah, musicals!

They're in my blood. I can't help it. I grew up in a house where we believed that there truly is a song for every situation. And even if there isn't, we'll sing something anyway. My dad was in musicals all through high school, and he still graces the stage on occasion for the seasonal church drama or Christmas cantata, and I was in every production that my high school produced from my sophamore year on! They make me happy.

But I digress. The point of this post was to tell you all about the state fair. And Iowa. Most people don't realize or don't remember that two very famous musicals are set in Iowa, and give a little bit of insight into Iowa, and Iowa State Fair, life. For example, this number from The Music Man (one of my all time favorites):

(This song is the first 2 minutes and 28 seconds of this clip)

Lyrics - Iowa Stubborn lyrics

This is one instance where the musical got it pretty spot on. My very Iowan husband even agrees, and my father sings this song to him (us) every time we are there. Austin has even begun to learn the lyrics enough to sing along for parts :)

State Fair was my very first musical, so when I moved to Iowa I was very excited to experience, live and in person, the actual, honest-to-goodness Iowa State Fair, and this year it actually happened! And boy did we experience the state fair!

We got up bright and early on Saturday morning, and went over Craig's (Austin's boss and our good friend) house. Craig is a Harley guy, and he let us borrow his beautiful Dyna to ride to Des Moines with him and his brother Merle and sister-in-law Heidi. Craig's family gets a camping spot every year, and we had planned to camp with them on Saturday night.

We got to the fairgrounds around 10:00, dropped our stuff off at the camper, and went straight to breakfast (because the fair is mostly about eating, let's be serious now people) here:

We walked and walked and walked for HOURS!!! It was wonderful! We ate tons of great food, enjoyed all of the free samples, saw all of the prize winning vegetables and fruits, the butter cow, the butter Shawn Johnson (I'm not sure if it's actually a compliment to be immortalized in butter, but . . . whatever), and although the crowds did not simultaneously burst into perfectly harmonized song and beautifully choreographed dance like they do here:

We did see this:

A wonderfully talented one-man band!

And the most massive bull:

And hog:

And wasps (ew):

A good time was had by all (except for the wasp, who absolutely was harmed in the making of this post, and better him than me)!

The fair definitely lived up to my expectations, and I bet it becomes an annual tradition :)

Thanks for reading everybody!

~ my husband rocks! ~ Cute!!! *ETA*

It's Friday again! Yay! Thanks for stopping by for another weekly husband brag-fest! I just love this! I'm so excited that so many lovely ladies have chosen to join us! Did you know that there are now more than 50 of us who do this every week!??!?! It just blows my mind! Thank you all!

*Edited to add: One of these special ladies, Jamie over at Rose Cottage, wrote a beautiful post about a Christ-centered marriage earlier this week! Click here to read it!*

This week, my husband rocks because he is so darn cute! :)

Austin has recently started a new job (a couple of months ago) working for a cleaning service that works mostly with insurance companies when there has been water damage or fire damage, or mold, etc. The company is experiencing INCREDIBLE growth right now, and because Austin is such a hard worker and so gifted and intelligent and wonderful we are seeing great benefit from this growth. He was blessed to get hired on at a very crucial time, and he has a fabulous boss, and he gets to work with his best friend, Tyler.

(L-R Tyler and Austin. Totally unrelated pic, but it's just so funny because they're both acting "tough," lol!)

All this to explain why he is so excited! He has been working some crazy hours and they are extremely busy, so he's exhausted most every night when he gets home, but he's just bursting at the seams to talk about everything that is going on and all that they have planned and done during the day. His face lights up, and he's more excited than a kid in a candy store, and he is just so stinking cute!

I guess this post contains several reasons why he rocks, (hard worker, dedicated, passionate) but my main point was, he's such a cutie! And he's hot, too! I mean seriously, look at this:




Thanks for reading everybody! Be sure to check in with all the ladies in to hear about more husbands who rock by clicking on the "my husband rocks participants" button in the left sidebar!

And remember, on Fridays From*me Tees will refund your shipping on any order of two or more items if you mention the great adventure and ~my husband rocks! Fridays~ in the "how did you hear about us?" section of your order form, so run on over there and check them out, too! Thank you From*me Tees!

If you'd like to find out more about why I started MHR Fridays, either click here or follow the button in the left hand sidebar (if you would like the code to add it to your sidebar, use this code ).

<a href="http://honestandlasting.blogspot.com/2008/06/my-husband-rocks-friday.html"><img src="http://i303.photobucket.com/albums/nn135/katylinvw/mosaicmhrf.jpg"/></a>

If you'd like to join in the fun, leave a comment on this post with the permalink to your ~my husband rocks! Friday~ post! Remember, this is not just for us girls, guys we'd love it if you would turn it into ~my wife rocks! Friday~ and link up! :)



If you're not a blogger, but still want the world to know about your amazing husband (or wife, or husband to be, or wife to be, etc.) leave a shout-out in the form of a comment! If you're unable to comment, e-mail me at katylinvw [at] yahoo [dot] com and I'll add your shout out to this post!

Have a great weekend!

Special Occasions . . .

Happy Thursday all!



I know, I know, I promised vacation details on Monday and here we are wrapping up Thursday and they have yet to appear.



It's been kind of crazy around here.

I feel like I have been on emotional roller coaster for the last week, the stress of preparing to leave, the excitement and joy of being with my family, the stress of the work computer issues, the crazy pace of all of the fun activities we did with my family, the sadness of goodbyes, the stress of coming back to work and getting my house put back together (I hate unpacking), plus several other emotional issues have combined to make me a wreck. And now I'm whining on my blog. I hate that too!

I'm sorry.

Things finally slowed down (somewhat) and Austin and I were able to enjoy an evening together yesterday. We also got to see and spend some time with our very good friends Tyler and Emma who I had not seen since before we left for vacation (Austin gets to work with Tyler everyday, but that doesn't really count). Everybody was pretty wiped out so we made it home early and got to relax a little bit just the two of us.

It seemed like a nice time to have a glass of wine. Our friend Michael had given us a bottle as a gift and Austin asked if I thought we should open it. Before I could answer, he said, "Or, maybe . . . should we save it for a special occasion?" In a somewhat silly manner, I answered with, "I think life should be a special occasion."

Our little exchange wasn't tremendously deep, and said in a corny, joking attitude, but it really got me to thinking. Life should be a special occasion, a great adventure, if you will (:>). Our time on earth is so short and so fragile, and I sometimes feel like I'm just rushing around with my head down trying to get from one "event" to the next. That is the last thing I want for my life, for my marriage, for my family. For my legacy. I want to be remembered as someone who thrived, someone who "sucked the marrow out of life." I want to use the talents and the personality that God gave me to bring joy and light and ultimately point others to Him!

When I get so caught up in the mineutia of the business of life and forget to live, I don't think that is pleasing or glorifying to God, and I get so bogged down with the stress.

I don't know if I really had a point that I was aiming for, or if it all just came out sounding like a second rate eighth-grade graduation speech full of "seize the day"-type platitudes, but this is where I've been the last few days. Thanks for indulging my introspection. I'll leave you with one of my recent favorite songs:

And a "teaser" pic for the vacation stories that will show up sometime next week!

Austin and myself (in the middle) you know, but the two lovely ladies that you can almost see are my gorgeous sisters. Kindra (middle sister) is on the left and Kelli (baby sister) is on the right!


Thanks for reading!

Computers . . . can't live with them . . . really hard to live without them!!!

Especially as a blogger! Ugh! I feel like I have been so disconnected from all of you for way too long! We had a fabulous trip, but one un-fabulous part of the week was that my laptop decided to conk out on me on Sunday. The second day of our trip, we still had seven days to go! "Random hardware failure" Dell called it! Nothing to be done until I got it home. This means that I was completely out of the loop for an. entire. week. I missed every featured blogger at SITS all week! I wasn't able to participate in Marriage Builder Monday, Real Raggin' Wednesday, Thankful Thursday, or Then Sings my Soul Saturday! And I missed out on Tom and Jan's fun tea party! :( I just found out about Debbie's wonderful idea! I missed reading everybody's wonderful insights, and I was completely helpless to do anything about MHR Friday!!!! Absolutely insane!



I will catch everybody up on all of the excitement of our very first ever married vacation later today, but I just wanted to take this opportunity to apologize for being SOOOOO m.i.a. :) I've missed you all terribly!



:)

Tag! I'm It!

Schotzy over at Wings of Eagles tagged me to share five things that I love.

1. I LOVE my hubby :) He's a wonderful, amazing man, with a heart for God and for others, and he's a total hottie!

2. I love my puppy dog - Diddy (the black one)! She's adorable, and she's such a cuddle bug!

3. I love vacations! It is so nice to be able to relax and enjoy the company of friends and family that we do not see often.

4. I love our appliances. Shortly before we got married, Austin purchased all brand new stainless steel appliances to be the icing on the cake of our dream kitchen

5. I love Chipotle burritos! And I hope to enjoy several while on this vacation :)

Thanks for reading everybody! Hope you're all having a fabulous weekend! Signing off from beautiful and scenic Colorado Springs! :)

Austin'$ Money Minute$ . . . ?

As you all well know by now, I think my hubby is pretty awesome. I am daily impressed by his abilities and his wisdom.

As I said here, he is wonderful with money, and I think that a lot of people would benefit from him sharing his expertise in this area. To that end, I pitched him the idea of writing a post, once or twice a month, answering questions or giving tips about how we can all be smarter with our money.


His initial reaction was that he did not really want to do this. His financial savvy is such a natural part of his thought processes that he said he just expects it to be "common knowledge," and he would hate people to feel like he was talking down to them or insulting their intelligence in any way. He also does not want to come across as being egotistical about this God-given knack. He is always the first to give God the glory for all of His wonderful blessings.


However, I pointed out to him that while these things seem obvious to him, before we started dating I looked at money in a completely different way, and I think that a lot of people out there don't realize that there are a lot of areas where they could be saving money and spending more wisely.


We decided to let you decide :) I've added a poll to the right sidebar, and we really want your absolutely honest opinions!!! Austin has said that if the majority of you vote yes, he will "guest blog" :) So, if you vote yes, and have specific questions, please be sure to leave them in the comments or e-mail them to us at hossandkatylin(at)gmail(dot)com.


You won't hurt our feelings if you vote no, but if there truly is a desire for this kind of information, I'd feel uber-selfish keeping it locked up in his beautiful head!

:)

~ my husband rocks!~ interested!

Austin ROCKS! He really does! He is one of those people who is good at everything he attempts! And he is a wonderful husband!

This week I have really appreciated his attentiveness. This was starkly apparent to me one evening as we were laying in bed getting ready to fall asleep. (Pillow talk rocks, one of my favorite parts of being married!)

I was prattling on and on about my blog, technorati, BlogHer, blah, blah, blah, blah, you get the idea! I looked over at him and kind of expected the glazed eyes, "uh-huh" face, but he was paying attention to everything I was saying and taking it all in.

He said, "I honestly don't understand it, but I'm glad that you're enjoying it." Isn't he cute :)

I love that he will take an interest in things that I enjoy simply because I enjoy them. My husband rocks! :)

Thanks for reading everybody! Be sure to check in with all the ladies in the participants list by clicking here or on the "my husband rocks participants" button to the right to hear about more husbands who rock!

And remember, on Fridays From*me Tees will refund your shipping on any order of two or more items if you mention the great adventure and ~my husband rocks! Fridays~ in the "how did you hear about us?" section of your order form, so run on over there and check them out, too! Thank you From*me Tees!

If you'd like to find out more about why I started MHR Fridays, either click here or follow the top button on the right hand side (if you would like the code to add it to your sidebar, use this code )

<a href="http://honestandlasting.blogspot.com/2008/06/my-husband-rocks-friday.html%22><img src="If you're not a blogger, but still want the world to know about your amazing husband (or wife, or husband to be, or wife to be, etc.) leave a shout-out in the form of a comment! If you're unable to comment, e-mail me at katylinvw [at] yahoo [dot] com and I'll add your shout out to this post! Please comment - ESPECIALLY if this is your first time! I'd hate to miss anybody, and would love to put you all in the list! :)

Have a great weekend!

Happy Friday!

Good morning all you beautiful people! I feel like I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off this morning trying to get everything ready for our fabulous trip! Therefore, my ~My Husband Rocks!~ Friday! post will be up this afternoon! I apologize for the delay!

In the meantime, you can go here to read about how ~My Husband Rocks!~ Friday came to be, or click here or on the "~my husband rocks!~ participants" button in the right sidebar to visit the other ladies who are bragging on their husbands! If you are participating, but do not appear on that last, please, please, please leave me a comment or e-mail me at katylinvw(at)yahoo(dot)com, and I will rectify that situation as quickly as possible!

Thank you for your patience with me!