My love just grew for my favorite Craft Blogger! Please join me!

I am obsessed with roaming around any craft blog I can find, but I have my favorites. My #1 though is Soule Mama. When I read her blog I begin to feel like an insecure thirteen year old wandering if we lived close would we be friends, would we craft together?

http://www.soulemama.typepad.com/

Today I read a new post. She has started a new blog called Mama to Mama: Connecting Families Through the gift of Homemade. www.mamatomama.org
The first post is amazing! It's a call to all crafty people to help make hats for

The Caps to Cap-Haitien Project: A partnership with Konbit Sante

These hats will go to newborns in Haiti. It is a very simple pattern, even those who don't sew could make these, and they are made out of old t-shirts! The pattern is available for download on the Mama to Mama site.
Let's start sewing!

5 years!

Conor and I celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary on October 11th. A couple weeks ago we went to Valley View Hotsprings (like last year) to celebrate early. We had an amazing and totally relaxing time! We got our same camping spot, which we really hoped for!


It rained a little bit each day so we relaxed in the tent reading, watched a movie on the laptop, so peaceful!



Our favorite pond to watch the sunset from! Incredible!


Don't worry you can continue to scroll down, this is as naked as it gets here.



yes, that deer is real. Trying to eat breakfast, she really wanted some, she licked my hand!



I had never seen a wasp nest so close! Scary!



So amazing!


Then on our actual anniversary day we went out for dinner at Mataam Fez. The atmosphere was amazing (except for the skanky belly dancer, seriously....), the food was good, not amazing, the service was awesome! Definately worth the experience! It is a beautiful Moroccan restaurant where you get to take off your shoes, sit on pillows on the floor, five courses, eat with your hands.


Wonderful Husband




drinking some amazing tea at the end of the meal.


I'm not looking at the camera, but oh well.


This was not the room we were in, ours was a lot more intimate. Beautiful though!



Cute Husband :-)

Then we drove home through the rain (as it also rained on our wedding day), came home and started a fire in the fire place and watched Baby Mama. Not exactly what we hoped for, but still made us laugh a lot.

One more try!

So, as you've noticed we go through phases of posting here. What happens? We start to believe no one actually reads this, so we stop. However recently it's been drawn to our attention that people do check this on a regular basis and are wondering why we haven't posted anything in .....oh.....forever!

So here's a quick update!

October 2007
Our new nephew Carson Oakley was born! I was able to go to Iowa for about a week in November and spend a majority of that time with my sister and beautiful nephews!


Cooper loves to cook!


Look at that sweet face!

Now for 2008

February we went to Minneapolis, our friends Brian and Ann got married! It was a beautiful wedding and we had an amazing time! It was so awesome to see our friends/family that we miss and love dearly!


Our beautiful friends the Villasenor Kelly's and the Ervasti's


Our "neice and nephew" Maya and Sam *Luff them!*


Brian and Ann getting their dance on



Such a beautiful bride!

One of our favorite families in Denver had their third baby! This was our first time meeting Ari!


In April both of our nieces were born!

Starlet Rose


Kenna Taylor


The girls! 3 weeks to the day apart!


In May, both Conor and I were able to go to Iowa to visit the family! This was the first time Conor had gotten to go back with me in quite some time, and was his first time meeting Carson! We drove through the night, slept a couple of hours and got up in time to make it to church. My Grandma Johnson started a church and we really wanted to go and support her. It was so awesome seeing my grandmother preach! She's so cute!


Conor and Carson snuggling!


don't you just want to eat them up!


snuggling with my favorite boys!






In June we had to say goodbye to Bruce. Bruce was our friends cat that we kept while they got settled in CA. We had him from November to June. At first we hated him, then we came to love him. Such a bizzare creature, he is.


He laid on his back like this often. So hilarious!



Most of you know our dog, Juliet, is a total wuss. So to say the least, Bruce stressed her out a lot, but they had a love hate relationship. By the end, they really did play well together, but there was lots of antagonizing on both parts. The one thing I don't miss is being woken up by Bruce attacking my feet!

My dad, stepmom, and half brother also came to visit in June. We had a good time driving around the mountains. One day we went to the top of Mount Evans and the next we went to Estes Park.


I finally got to see a Mountain Goat!












Me in my mom glasses! Yes I have
transition glasses!




July 2008

We moved in with the Rents, yes we are almost 30 and live with Conor's parents! It is going well so far and we are so thankful that they would consider letting us live there! We are staying there so we don't have to pay rent so that Conor can go through an accelerated nursing program that is 14 months! It will be tough, but we are both looking forward to having him be done with school!

We got to see our friends Cassie and Chris Haw who were in town for a book tour. Chris wrote a book with Shane Claiborne called "Jesus for President." It's now in it's third printing! Which means over 70,000 copies sold! Check out www.jesusforpresident.com If you get the chance to see them in your city you should, it's an incredible show. A few members of the Psalters are traveling with them and are a fantastic bonus to the performance. The whole experience brought chills and spurs exciting conversation. It had a huge effect on me, not because it was new information (definately on the same page with what they are teaching), but I believe the Lord brought up a lot of memories and past dreams that I had let go of.

July 19th is Conor's birthday. With everything going on there wasn't much of a party planned. However he really wants to see the new Batman movie. So Saturday night we will go, with whoever wants to come with us! So if you're in town give us a call!

That's all for now. Maybe I can get Conor to add some later!

homemade christmas

alyssa and i have started a family tradition of "homemade christmas", meaning that we make gifts instead of buying gifts. apparently, cody (alyssa's bro) has always wanted me to draw him something, and he is a big bob dylan fan... what to do, what to do... i know, i will draw him a portrait of bob dylan!

four years, each better than the last...

We just celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary by driving to valley view hot springs (about 3 1/2 hours south in the mountains) for a few days. This particular hot springs was "clothing optional." We don't particularly like looking at nude middle-aged hippies, but we love being naked... and nature:















this deer invited himself into our camp to beg for food. conor was surprised by the deer's courage. conor was also naked.
















a grueling hike up the mountain brought us to these three beautiful pools.
















we watched the sunset at this pool right before we were repeatedly dive-bombed by bats. conor squealed with delight, while alyssa sqealed in terror.
















as much as a camp site can kick ass, ours did.
















you wouldn't know it from these pictures, but alyssa walked around naked more than conor.
















there were more beautiful things to look at besides drunken pagan boobs and sage burning old man's saggy balls... like this sunset, for instance.




















how do you roast a weenie sans protective clothing? very carefully.
(don't worry: hand in view, junk blurred)

the more-phine the better!

just had scope surgery on my knee. that's right, team haggerty has 2 surgeries under it's belt in a month. i haven'y been out of the recovery room for more than an hour, needless to say, i'm still pretty fucking high. weeeee!

alyssa sans appendix

she went in thinking it was another kidney stone around noon. turns out it was appendicitis. she had surgery around 6, and stayed overnight but she's probably coming home today. she is doing really well.

we moved...

we love our new apartment, which is a first. we have moved every year since we've been married: four years, four apartments. our hope and prayer is that we will be happy enough here to stay for a few years. we'll upload pictures later.

pornography...

Bjork, from my (alyssa) perspective

The entire day leading up to the show I was so excited/nervous I was in the bathroom several times, if you know what I mean. On the way there I realized it had been some time since I was that excited for something.

When she came on stage I couldn't stop smiling. She opened with a new song "Earth Intruder's." The emotion and excitement was building. I thought, "I think I'm gonna handle this without crying, this is good." Then.......her second song was "Venus as a Boy" which happened to be the song I was singing while I was getting ready for the show....I lost it. Not only did I cry, but it was the ugly cry. I had to concentrate on stopping or I knew it would be non-stop the rest of the show. When she sang "All is full of Love" i cried more. Some of you might remember this was the song I walked down the isle to on our wedding day. It was full circle for me and Conor, Red Rocks is one of the first places Conor took me on my first trip to Denver and there we were watching the person perform that our equal love for got us talking 4 years ago.

The sound was incredible! it literally felt like all the worries of life fell away for the moment. But reality set in quickly after the show when Megan and I stood in line for the bathroom and a severly drunk girl ran in, dove under the sink counter to grab two huge industrial size rolls of paper towels, then ran back out pin-balling from wall to person to wall to the door to get out. This was followed by our long uphill walk to our parking spot which required walking in and out of a long line of cars. Try walking uphill with a ton of people in the thin mountain air trying not to inhale all of the car fumes.

Regardless, it was incredible. Words can not fully describe.

may 15th

+

+
=

audio-gasm

stole this from alex's myspace... (fixed broken link)

seriously... that's some funny shite.

a little perspective

how many people died from the shootings @ VT on monday?

how many people died from bombs in baghdad today?

our hope...

1 Corinthians 15:54-57

When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true:

"Death has been swallowed up in victory." "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

anonnymous posting

now available... colin!

quick show of hands

really, does anyone read, or even know this is here?

quickey...

conor is busy as hell with school, a job, hanging out with his amazing bride, co-leading a small group (with alyssa and seth), and co-leading a book study (fredrick beuchner's 'a sacred journey') with bobby. alyssa is settling in to her new job, and doing a fine job at it. as well as co-leading the social justice group with conor and seth, she is involved in a prayer ministry @ church as well as a women's small group. ... in a nut shell.

Stop Bitching (Thanks Charissa)

So, I can't tell you how many people have complained about us not updating our blog. We have now and no one has posted, except Charissa. So, this post is dedicated to her!
God, I love you Charissa!