A Review Of 2008

Wow...what a wonderful year 2008 has been! Here is a review, in chronological order...

• We celebrated the New Year with friends, and then dug into the top tier of our wedding cake. No, it wasn't our One Year Anniversary. We thought it might be better to eat the cake at the beginning of the New Year instead of on the day of our One Year. I think we made a good decision. :)
• Decided in January that our next vacation location was Alaska. The saving and planning for our dream trip began.
• In January, we also decided that "Corporate America" was not a place that Landon should spend his working life. The saving and planning for a July exit from "Corporate America" began.
• We're not sure what happened in between January and June. Ha! Lots of working and planning for things to come...and spending lots of time together.
• Celebrated Landon's 27th bday in May.
• June came and we packed up for a couple weeks of fun in Alaska. We were amazed at the beauty and the vastness. While there, we took a helicopter ride to Punchbowl Glacier and did some dogsledding on the glacier, mountain biked at Denali National Park, took an 8 hour bus tour of Denali (amazing), went halibut fishing in Homer, took a boat to the Aaliak Glacier (which we saw calve many times) and also went whale watching near Seward... The list goes on. The memories we made on this trip are unbelievable. Sometimes we feel like the whole trip was a dream. Everyone please go to Alaska.
• A week after returning from Alaska, Landon put in his 2-week notice at Chesapeake. It was decided that he would enter the real estate world as a home inspector, with the eventual goal of building up property for rentals and renovating homes.
• Celebrated Jen's 26th bday in July.
• Decided that it was time to move. We spent a couple months finishing up on little things to complete the remodel.
• Headed to Vail, Colorado for our One Year Anniverary!!!! October 20, 2007 was the best day of our lives. The trip was a great end to a perfect first year of marriage. :)
• Headed to Boston a couple of days after Vail to continue the celebration. Great trip!
• Officially put the duplex on the market in early November. Wahoo! We are ready to be on the other side of town near church, friends, family, and shopping. :)
• Landon passed his big test. He is officially a home inspector in the state of Oklahoma. The next steps (liabilty, licensure, LLC, trade name, etc) were also completed in the next few weeks.
• In mid-December, we had officially had little BabyDog Lucy for a year. Yes, she is 15 now and was Landon's childhood dog, but she has been such a blessing and makes us laugh all the time. We also think she is enjoying being an "only dog" and revels in all the attention.
• Clint Williams Design begins working on the design concept for Hubbart Homes. We will be excited to reveal everything soon...

This has been the most wonderful year, and there are so many things that we didn't mention above. We are grateful for our families and friends, and all the little memories we made with each of you in 2008. We can't wait to see what 2009 has in store for all of us!

Holiday Recap

What a wonderful holiday season! We are so blessed to have such wonderful family and friends.

We enjoyed celebrating Christmas early with Landon's dad on the Sunday before Christmas. We made breakfast for dinner, and I whipped up homemade cinnamon rolls. Yummy. Russ taught us some new domino games, and we had lots of laughs and fun.

This was our year to celebrate Christmas with my family. Whitney almost didn't make it home from Chicago due to cancelled flights, but through a series of events she made it home!!! On Christmas Eve we went to church with my family and then came home to a yummy dinner and a game of Phase 10 (my mom's obsession). We woke up early on Christmas morning and headed over to my parent's house for presents and breakfast. After breakfast, everyone packed up and headed to Enid for my extended family Christmas. The only pictures we took were at the extended family Christmas...I know, I'm horrible. We also went to the Rockette's with my family on Friday night. They were awesome! Mom got us AMAZING seats (on the floor, 7th row). If you haven't seen them, I highly recommend that you go!

We still haven't celebrated with Landon's mom and sister, but we should be doing that sometime soon. We are also heading to the Texas panhandle next weekend to celebrate with Landon's grandma...both Christmas and birthday. Let the celebrating continue...

Christmas Break

We are on Day 4 of our extended Christmas Break!!! I love working for the state and having 2 weeks off for the holidays. So far, we have slept, slept, slept, and played games. We are excited for the next few days of family fun and celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.

We hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!

Misbehaving

We went out to dinner with my parents and Julie last night. As always, it was a great time. For some reason we began talking about discipline and how Whitney, Julie, and I acted as children. We were cracking up. Landon and I are crossing our fingers that we have little Julie children, not little Whitney or I children. HeHe. Here are a couple examples...

(Whitney and Jen misbehaving everywhere...very often)
Mom: If you guys don't start behaving we will need to have a "meeting."
Whitney and Jen: You can't make us have a "meeting," OR We don't want to have a "meeting," which was followed by us bolting at top speed out of the area where the "meeting" could be taking place.

(Julie is almost considering misbehaving at Target...very rare)
Mom: If you don't start behaving we will have to step into the Ladies Room and have a "meeting."
Julie: (Starts crying) NO, NO, NO. I don't want to have a "meeting." I will behave. (Acts angelic for the rest of the day)

Also...

1. My dad used to have us write sentences when we were in elementary school and we misbehaved. For example, "I will not lie." I used to get in trouble because I would write "I" 25 times down the page, and then I would write "will" 25 times down the page, and so on until I was done. It was faster, can you blame me?!
2. Mom spanks Whitney and I, we laugh. Mom gives Julie a look, she cries.
3. Another punishment for misbehaving (from Dad), was scooping the dog poop in the backyard. I'm still scarred from that experience. This was the worst punishment of all. Thanks Dad.

HA!

Lucy the Moosey

We played holiday dress-up with Lucy today. The moose ears didn't quite fit her head, so we put them on her belly. She was not happy. Lucy says "Merry Christmas."

Lucy also wants everyone to know her Christmas list:

1. Fresh grated cheese delivered to the door daily.
2. A walnut tree.
3. Lots of puppermints.
4. All of Grandpa Mitch's lost socks.
5. Her own ottoman to sleep on every night.
6. Cataract surgery.

Weekend Wrap-Up

We didn't do anything too exciting this weekend, but here's a wrap-up...

• Made the February ski trip official! Woohoo! We are so excited to spend a few days in Winter Park with friends. We are all ready for now...new ski clothes purchased for Landon and we have paid in full. Yay!
• Had date night...Taco Bueno and 2 Redbox movies. We watched the newest Indiana Jones and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. Landon loved Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (not). We are so exciting. :)
• Volunteered at church on Saturday morning. Crossings does a backpack/toy drive for inner city schools...and we sorted and boxed the items for delivery this week. It was SO heartwarming to see all the backpacks/toys for the children. But, not just for material reasons. It was obvious that so many families had spent time filling the backpacks with love and prayer.
• Watched Sam Bradford win the Heisman. Yay! Also, got totally annoyed at Billy Sims for yelling "Boomer" a million times. Congrats to Sam!
• Watched the Survivor season finale. We are so glad that Bob won! He is the cutest old man, and we think he deserved to win. On the reality TV topic, we have noticed a new alarming trend for me...I cry at every finale of reality television. I cried last week when Starr and Nick won Amazing Race, and I cried last night when Bob won Survivor. I WILL NOT cry if Vicki wins Biggest Loser. I will be mad. (For those thinking we watch way too much TV, The Office is the only other show...).
• Cleaned the whole house top to bottom.
• Finished all last minute Christmas items...gifts are purchased and wrapped and Christmas cards have been mailed. Now we just have a few more Christmas movies to watch and lots of holiday snacks to eat. :)

We hope everyone has a great week!

Lab Rat

Most of you know that one of my main focuses at work is Cardiology research (pacemakers and ICDs). I love my job, but I spend hours chasing patients via phone and begging them to be compliant. Of note, I also have some really good patients who make my life wonderful. :)

A mass email was sent out about a month ago asking for people between the ages of 20-30 who are healthy, have a normal BMI, don't regularly exercise, and are non-diabetic. I fit perfectly into this category. For some reason, I feel like I owe it to the world of research to participate in a study and be a good patient. This was my chance...

I started the study today. I am now back at work AND sweaty and disgusting. They did some general testing and then I exercised for about 45 minutes with a heart rate monitor on and this mask thing on my face. Awesome. My short hair looks fabulous and I have indentions in my face where the mask was. I'll be going back 3 times in January to exercise and drink milk shakes and get my blood drawn. Should be interesting. :)

33

You know those little information boxes that hang on realtor signs...the ones that have an information sheet on the house telling price and size and showing pictures of the inside of the house. Well, I have a confession. Today I took all the papers and made tiny little numbers on the back (for tracking purposes, of course). There were 33 pages. I'm sure that our numbers will dwindle as our neighbors grab the information sheets, but hopefully they've already looked it up on the internet and don't need our little papers. Please don't come by and take all of our little papers unless you want to buy our duplex. That would mess up my count. :)

Little Things To Be Happy About Today...

A challenge from Whitney.

What 5 seemingly insignificant little things made you happy today? (besides the obvious big things, family, friends, health, income . . .etc)

TODAY, this made me happy:

1. Being able to sleep in an extra 15 minutes.
2. Dove chocolate.
3. Hearing on the radio that the Rotary Club is having a "special signing Santa" at Northpark Mall for those children who communicate via sign language.
4. Getting in my car and having Landon and my favorite song of the moment come on the radio...the song is "Chicken Fried" by the Zac Brown Band.
5. Knowing that tonight I finally have a night to relax.

What made you happy today??

A Letter

Dear Texas,
Please stop whining and crying about not going to the Big 12 Championship game. People should not feel sorry for you. Remember...OU lost to Texas, Texas lost to Texas Tech, and Texas Tech lost to OU. Therefore, we have a 3-way tie, not a 2-way tie. Texas Tech beat you. The Big 12 South winner cannot be decided by using a "head-to-head" method as Mack Brown likes to think. That would take us in a never ending circle. We happened to play a more difficult schedule, and the computers happened to love us, but you don't deserve to go to the Big 12 Championship game anymore than OU or Texas Tech.

Thank you,
The Hubbarts