Emma Rae Smith

Here are pictures of our new little girl. She has been awesome so far! All she does is sleep. She has only had 1 accident and she ran to the tile. It was our fault too cause we couldn't take her out cause we were hiding her in our apt! :) We will have many more pictures to come! :)

Excited!!!

Well last night we got to go see 'our new house' again! We took some family and friends over last night to let them see what we have been talking non-stop about! It was pretty fun getting to see reactions and hearing ideas from everyone. We were so excited to get to go in it again. We always see something we had missed before every time we go in it. We are soooooooooo stinkin' excited about getting this house. We cannot wait until May 22nd!!! We have so many ideas about how we want it to look! We had a minor scare this weekend about the house, but everthing turned out great. It is truly a God thing we believe more now than before!
Well we decided to go crazy I guess because we added one more thing to our plate last night. My brother and Sister-in-law had a big litter of lab puppies (10) and we have all gotten pretty attached to them. Justin and I knew we couldn't get one because labs need a yard of their own and we only have an apartment. Well since we have gotten the house everyone has been saying how we need to get one of the puppies. Justin has one that is his favorite and it just so happens to be one that is everyone else favorite too. She is beautiful and looks like my mom's lab. She is a whiteish yellow one. Last night someone was coming to buy her unless we wanted her and since Justin wanted her sa bad, we got her. So she is living there until we officially close and get a yard, but she is our new little girl. We picked a name finally last night....so be looking for new pictures of Emma. We have her all set with pink everything so she is good to go!
He is so excited to get her to our house. She will retrieve a ball for hours and he is determined to get her to catch a frisbee. Even though it is our dog, it is really his little girl.
Well that is all for now.

Suggestions!

Ok we are taking suggestions! There are some things in the house we want to redo and will do it this summer. So if you have a certain kind of tile you think looks nice or hardwood floors that you love, or you know the "perfect" paint color, LET US KNOW! Or if you know someone good to help with stuff. We are going to do most of it ourselves with the help of my dad in some areas, but we may need backup! We are adding a privacy fence so any suggestions on ANYTHING, send us pictures or let us know what you think! Of course we will make the ultimate decision in the end, but we know all of you have seen things we have never seen, so let us know! Thank you!!!

Love,
US

YES!

I know all of you guys are just sitting on the edge of your seat wondering what happened!

HAHA!

Well they ACCEPTED our offer today! We were shocked! We were willing to go with the old offer but just decided to take a chance and it worked!!! So we are officially home owners (of course pending on all the home inspections come back good and all that house jazz.)

We are super excited! We got the news about 45 minutes before I left town for a trip with my job so we rushed over there and signed the papers because it had to be done by 5. So we haven't really had a chance to celebrate! But excited is an understatement to describe us right now!

So WOO HOO! We will have to have a move in party (no not the kind where you have to help move, just a cookout or something!) soon!

More to come,
Justin & Melissa

Yay!

Well the other people counter offered and it was much better than we even thought! We went ahead and countered again just to see if they will come lower, but no matter what we we SUPER happy with the price they already offered! I (melissa) have to leave town at 1 for a work related trip so we should know their final offer before I leave!
I bet the person who lives there think we are crazy! We drive by that house like 10 timse a day at least! HAHA! We are just sooooooooo excited. We have already talked about all the things we want to do to it and colors and stuff and we are really on the same page! It is pretty exciting! So as of right now our estimated time of closing is 1 month from today which is may 22. Which is great because that is a 3 day weekend!
Now the horrible part...Moving! We have moved so much the past 9 monthes. I moved then he moved to my old apt and then we moved into the current place we live and now this. But this will be a long term move so we are pumped! It will be worth the long sore days of moving and the unfun boxing time.
Thanks for all of my faithful readers, I know this is just blah blah blah stuff, but this is HUGE! We are buying our first house!!!
Stay tuned for pictures and the final verdict!

AHHHHHHHH!

We are sitting on pins and needles today waiting!!!!!!!!!! We put in an offer on a house yesterday and we are waiting on a response! AHHHHHHHH! I will keep everyone posted on what happens! We are soooooooooooo sooooooooooo sooooooooo excited! We sure hope this is God's will, we believe it really all fell in to place so far!!!

The hooptie!

Well the past few weeks have been completly consumed with our new project! We for sure didn't need a project to add to our busy busy busy lives, but this one is going to put us through school!

I am not sure if everyone is aware, but we are both about to start at new schools. I am going back to SWOSU starting June 3 to get my master's in counseling. I am going to need it to advance at work so I might as well start now! Justin is starting Mid America Christian University on June the 3rd. His original plan was to attend SWOSU since he got paid to go there because of his Regents scholarship, but we really believe God opened doors for MACU. He will be able to work better hours at work (8-5) because he only has class 1 night a week and he will finish almost 8 months sooner than he would at SWOSU. Since he is not a fan of school, this is something that he really wanted to look into. It is a private school so the chance of getting it paid for is gone, but always remember that when God closes a door, he opens another.

We make pretty good money for 'kids' our age. We can easily pay our bills and save each month. But when you are slapped with my school costing us around 4,000 over the next year and his costing 9,000 to finish we had to start making decisions. Yes student loans are always an option, but we are both very financially conscience so we really don't want a debt like that hanging over our head as soon as we finish school. So we made a plan!

I have a 2008 Toyota Corolla. It is a great car because of the gas mileage. It is the car we take out of town when we go or the one we take when we go anywhere together. The reason? Well he has a 2003 Dodge Ram pickup. It has been getting 10 miles to the gallon!!!!!!!! That is crazy! He only drives it to work and back and we are paying more in gas for it a month than we do for the corolla! Well we added it up and between gas and insurance that truck really isn't worth it. So this is what we did!

My dad has a friend who has a farm. He has lots of farm trucks. He has a truck that wasn't working (the timing chain went out). So he sold it to us for 300 bucks!!! The low value worth on KBB was 2300. So it was a steal! We had some money put back for new furniture so we just took that and flipped that vehicle!

Justin got it running mechanically. He put lots of time and work into getting it going. He is very smart with cars and he knew what he was doing. He definetly impressed me!

My job was the interior. He ripped the seat and carpet out and I cleaned. I took the carpet to the carwash to get the inch worth or dry mud off of it. There was dirt in every area of that truck! (by the way it is a chevy s10 pickup) My dad found us a different seat because that one had holes in it and we cleaned it up good and put a seat cover on. By time i got it all windexed and armoralled it looked pretty nice! Everyone has been impressed that saw the beginning and ending product!

So now that we have this paid for truck up and going, we have his pickup for sale. The money we will save on gas, insurance and payment should pay for school and allow us to not have to take out a student loan. Which we think is the smartest thing we can do.

School is not a fun thing to pay for. Most of my school has always been paid for by pell. Grad school doesn't accept pell so that really has been hard. We thought he would receive pell to help with school, but even though we weren't married last year we still have to file pell togther and I supposedly made to much for us to qualify. Which really stinks. Yea, if my whole entire paycheck went only to pay for school and not any bills we may be able to, but come on! Oh well!

Obviously this is something God wanted us to overcome. And we are. Yes we still are praying for a miracle (you know, hitting it big on the lottery....well i guess that would mean we should start playing!) but we know that we are doing everything we can to be as smart as we can with the money God entrusted us with. We have complete faith that God already has eveything under control.

So if you see us pimpin' in the hooptie - make sure you honk real loud because it is a noisy little truck! :)

Until next time,

Justin & Melissa

P.S. - If you know anyone that is looking for a used truck, send them our way!!!

Married Life (old myspace post from melissa)

Well we have now been married 3 and half months. It has went by very fast, but on the other hand it feels like we have been married our entire life! Married life really isn't what I thought it would be, but it is 10 times better than I could imagine! We are having so much fun! Yes, the stress of the real world hits, but it is cool getting to split that stress and joy with someone else. Yes, we did that while we were dating, but it is totally different when you are married. A lot of people have asked if we have had 'the big blow ups' yet, and I still find myself laughing at that question. If you know my husband at all, you should know we will never have big blow ups. He is WAY to easy going and soft spoken for that! Yes we do disagree at times, but that is probably our greatest strength, the fact that we both bring ideas and personality to the marriage. So no, we haven't had the big blow up. haha. We really aren't the ones to fight like that. We know how each other function so that makes it easier. We just get each other. We get over things and move on and I love that about us. We are very simple people. We want to work hard and earn what we have and enjoy the time we spend together. We both stay pretty busy, but we always find time to just sit and talk to each other (sometimes that isn't until 1 in the morning when our days are so packed!).
I just thought I couldn't love him anymore than I did on our wedding day, but man that love has grown more than I could ever fathom. I am truly blessed to have him not only as my husband but as my best friend. My life is so much fun as his wife and I look forward to spending every day with him for the rest of my life!
So for all who have asked - Married life is amazing! It is truly a gift from God! I wish everyone the happiness we have been blessed with!
P.S. Another big questions is - So when are you having kids? The answer for the wondering: When God lays it on our heart that it is the right time! :) (I know, not the exact answer people are going for!)

What's going on (old myspace post from Justin)

Right now in my life, I have many things going on. The greatest of which is I just recently married my best friend in the world who just so happens to be the greatest woman ever. No, she didn't tell me to write that I whole-heartedly mean it. We got married on January 4 in Las Vegas. Since we started dating, we both somehow knew that we were both meant for each other. Our relationship started as just friends, but eventually we realized what God's will was for us. After almost two weeks of marriage, I can honestly say I have to be the luckiest man alive. (Not that I didn't feel that way before.) God is working on numerous things in and for our marriage, and I can't wait to see where they take us. The best thing about being newly weds is setting up the foundations of our lives together. Luckily that foundation stands on The Rock that is our relationship with God. One of the greatest things is that no matter what God will get us through anything, and I believe that Faith is the key to a succesful marriage. I'm not really finished putting all of this down, but for now its bed time.

Our Wedding! (Old myspace blog from melissa)

Well we are back and let me tell you it was a BLAST! Some people may not know what we did so let me fill you in...We decided after lots of stress and decisions that the best idea was to go to Vegas to get married. My dream was a beach wedding in Hawaii or Cancun but by doing that we would have limited people coming because of costs. We decided having people share this amazing memory with us was important and a different kind of dream so we decided Vegas was the way to go. We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family that love us. We ended up having 20 people fly out to Las Vegas to be part of our special day! We thought we would get some family members and a friend or 2, but we never would have dreamed that this many people would come! Of course Vegas is a vacation in itself so people were enjoying that side of it as well, but they did come for us and it meant so much!We started out by flying out Thursday morning January 3rd from the city. There were 8 of us on the same flight! We all got matching wedding crew shirts so it made the trip fun! Another couple from the college that I work at actually came and got married the same day Justin and I did so that made it all even more fun!Well we got to Vegas and had to go get our license and find the chapel and all. It was a busy busy day!Well Friday rolls around and at 10 that morning the other couple got married. It was a very fun and pretty ceremony. After that it was time to go get ready, we were getting married at 4. And as you can tell by the pictures we did do a little traditional things such as a Wedding Dress and Tux. (By the way, the hardest part of a destination wedding is bringing a dress and tux. Our flight didn't have a hanger place so we had to put them above us in the small little compartments! My mom brought a steamer though so it all worked out). So throughout the afternoon we got all ready and got to the chapel. We had a photographer that was a little....different. We actually got in trouble by him twice for laughing---turns out we weren't showing the emotion he wanted us to. I guess weddings aren't suppose to be fun! Good thing is one of our friends that came is actually a great photographer---we think of her as a professional (she did our engagement pictures as well!) so we weren't worried about him. We were not allowed to have cameras in the chapel though so we had to improvised. We left the wedding in a limo and headed back to our hotel for pictures. We were staying at the Wynn, and if you know anything about the Wynn then you know it is beautiful, amazing and classy! This was a wonderful place for pictures. We did not have April's high dollar professional camera and the pictures still turned out gorgeous! She is the best!The next day we finally had a full day in Vegas with no wedding stress or responsibilities so we were able to go and do some fun things we had planned. I have been to Vegas once before, but this time seemed like my first in the fact that it changes so much and there are so many things to do that you can't do it on one trip. I know most people head there to gamble or party, but Vegas has so many fun things to see and do that have nothing to do with those things! The lights and people are so captivating!Well Sunday our trip ended and we all flew back together. As much fun as we had, it was very nice to come home together. The weekend before we left I moved into the new apartment/townhouse we now live in. Then the day before we left we moved all of his stuff in. So we came home to boxes and a mess! We have started getting things arranged now and it is pretty fun setting up house together! We aren't your typical couple at all! We were best friends long before we were anything else so we would rather eat a frozen pizza and play nintendo then go out to eat and on a real date. We just enjoy spending time together and I think that is the most exciting thing we have to look forward to, every day we get to do that! God blessed us so much and we do not deserve the joy and happiness that he has given us! Our love and friendship was built on Him, so I know that a foundation like that cannot be broken!So as much as I like the uniqueness of my old last name Gribble, I am so excited and ready to see what the future now holds for Justin and Melissa Smith!
Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers! We appreciate it so much!!!

Our engagement (old myspace blog from melissa)

It started out that we were going to go out to dinner. As I was about to get ready he told me his brother had called and he needed to go and help him move some furniture. So he left to do that as I got ready. He called me about 45 minutes later and told me that his brother had broken down and he was going to let him use his truck but he needed me to come and get him so we could go eat. So I went to get in my car and that is when it started.
I opened my door and there was a notebook opened on my seat with 2 pictures. The note explained to me that I was going to have to follow the pictures to get to the next stop. The first picture was a picture of raisinets (our favorite popcorn topper!) and the second was like a cut up piece of a picture. I learned that I would be getting a piece of the puzzle each stop. On the back of each picture he had written a note of the reason that place was special. This one was because he loves our movie nights. They are our favorite dates!
So my first stop was Wal-mart. I went to the chocolate isle and there underneath some raisinets bags was another piece of the puzzle and a picture of imagination station(our first date place after we crossed the friend line). On that picture it said can you still fly?
So I went to imagination station and I found the pictures in the little airplane that we took pictures in on that date. I have another piece of the jigsaw puzzle and a picture of our spot at the reservoir. On that back of that picture he had wrote how he is glad that this place exist and where to look for the next clue.
So I went to the reservoir and finally found the next set of pictures. The next picture was to my old apartment-his new one. This picture said that this was where our first kiss happened and that it is just a little redecorated now.
So I went to his apartment and found the next set of pictures. This one had a picture of the big sign at the lake. This picture said that I now probably know where this is going so don't speed and look for warning signs.
Well I kinda just figured it was the lodge so I kinda missed a step....But if I would have stopped at the big sign he had the next set of clues on a warning sign. The picture was of the dock at the ampa theater. On the back of that picture he wrote that the first time we got to have a long face-to-face friend talk was here. You're still my best friend and I want that forever....Do you remember which bench?
So even though I skipped that step I still knew where to go. I went to the ampa theater but I didn't see his truck but I walked down the dock but I still didn't see him. He had the last picture that completed the puzzle taped to that bench. All of the pieces put together made up a picture of my ring. Then he came out and got down on one knee and proposed (with a diamond ring with PINK yes PINK sapphires!!!). And of course through my tears I said Yes!
He had his brother drop him off at the lake so that he could drive back to town with me. He was so creative and made it so special because he incorporated all the special memories of our relationship.
I don't deserve to have a fiancé like him but thank God for giving him to me!

Who really wants to know about our lives?

Blogging has become very popular in our world. It is just one more way I guess we stay connected. I actually enjoy reading other's blogs. I like knowing what is going on in their lives. So I decided to start one about our lives. We don't really have exciting lives really, but we do have things come up that may be fun to blog about. I may even grab some of my past blogs from myspace and go ahead and post them here for those of you who don't have a myspace.
I hope you guys enjoy reading about our lives! I hope we can express the joy we have in our lives right now with everyone!

Justin & Melissa