We're parents! Kind of.

Please extend a warm welcome to our newest resident, Participant 1, the Chinese Dwarf Hamster. He goes by Parcy. Tori needed to train an animal for a class (an assignment which I think is ridiculous, because it makes the students purchase an animal if they don't know anyone with one), so we were forced to enslave a small rodent. I felt like a jerk taking it away from his brothers at Petco, but c'est la vie. Well, at least for small rodents who live at Petco. So Parcy is now numbered in our ranks. Currently he is tunneling under the bedding from one side of the cage to the other. I think he wants to escape :-)

Thats all for now. Here's hoping the ice storm either gets really bad, because I'd rather not have to venture all the way to Haltom City in the Corsica.

***EDIT****

Here are some pictures of Parcy, enjoy! -Tori

P.S. Haltom High School is closed tomorrow, so Aaron doesn't have to go. Yay!

Exploring the tunnels for the first time:

Looking cute but his water bottle:

Parcy's seriously awesome cage (thanks to Melinda for letting us borrow it):

From the new couch!

Hey everyone, Happy MLKJDAY!

I'm writing this from our new couch-bed! Our Aerobed was showing signs of busting it's internal seams again (for the third and would-be final time before we took out our frustrations on it by cutting it into tiny tiny pieces and drawing little angry faces on each piece with a sharpie), so we decided to deflate it, put it to the side, and take advantage of a sale at Ikea (It's where Santa shops!)

My (Aaron) first week was pretty good. I started my semester as a crisis counselor and it looks like it will be a lot of fun. I've always preferred on-the-job training anyway. More on that as it develops.

Tori begins her first week of classes tomorrow. She'll be working with two kids this semester, and seems to be excited about that, less so about having to be in Denton every day.

That's all that is going on here at the Evans household. Hope all is well with everyone!

Final Semester, here we come!

It has officially begun, our very last semester here. Aaron had his field seminar and his one class on Monday. Yesterday was his first day at Haltom High School. We went shopping for some work clothes for him this past weekend (more on that later). We both got up at an ungodly hour (6:30). I tried to be funny and take a picture of him on his "first day of high school", but the camera batteries were dead.

Aaron decided to take the Corsica, so he left at 7 just in case it broke down. I had the day off so if need be I could go get him and take him there, or he could take the Versa if the Corsica refused to start in the cold. Surprisingly, it not only started but got him to and from Haltom City without incident. We're looking into other options for him, since we just don't trust the Corsica to be reliable all semester. He's called about getting on a van-pool/car-pool through the T (the public transportation system here), but we haven't heard back yet. If that doesn't work out, then I think we're going to buy another cheap car (the Corsica only cost $1250 when I got it 5 years ago).

I have not officially started my semester yet (classes start Tuesday), but have gotten my class and work schedules all figured out and started planning some things for church. Aaron and I will each be leading a college small group Bible study. Today I met with my co-leader and we discussed what we wanted to study, how we wanted to format the study, and when/where we want to meet each week.

This semester I will continue to provide therapy to the same little boy and will add another client that lives relatively close-by to him. She's younger than him and needs lots of help with her speech, which is great since that's an area that I'd like to focus on more. I will only have 16 hours this semester, so that's a relief. On Monday and Wednesday I will work with the little girl in the morning, then go to my one class for the day, and then head over to his place and work with him. Tuesday and Thursday I have the rest of my classes and will work with them afterwards. Finally, on Friday I will have team meeting for him in the early evening. I'm off on Saturday and Sunday, which will be nice.

So, back to last weekend. It was good, but VERY busy. My mom flew in on Thursday night and I drove to pick her up at DFW. We came home, had dinner, exchanged Christmas presents, and just sat around talking until late (except for Aaron who went to bed early because he was tired from a long day of work).

Friday we slept in, then started some homemade sauce for manicotti. It was absolutely gorgeous and so went to the park and threw around a frisbee and just enjoyed the weather. Then we went to Central Market and got a few things and some gelato....mmm. We went back home, let the sauce finish, and then we cooked the noodles, I made the filling and stuffed them, and then we covered them in sauce and baked them in the oven. It was a VERY good dinner. We made a double batch so there were lots of leftovers to freeze/give away. I still have some sauce in the fridge that I need to freeze, but there's just no room in the freezer. After dinner, we taught my mom how to play guitar hero. It was pretty fun to watch, and I think she started to enjoy it once she got the hang of it. :)

Saturday we lounged around most of the morning and then left for Dallas around 3. We picked our friend, Megan, up from the Dallas airport at 4. We then went to dinner at Trinity Hall Irish Pub. It was a little expensive, but the food was good, and the dessert was awesome. After that we had some time to kill before the movie we wanted to see started so we went and bought our tickets, then looked around Urban Outfitters for a while. We got a 3x5 rug for our living room for $9! Then we went and saw Milk, a movie about the first openly gay elected public official in the U.S. and his assassination (not a spoiler, it's in the trailers and you're told right at the beginning of the movie). It was about the first gay rights movement and the battle against Prop 6 (a proposition that all gay school teachers and those that support them, should be fired). It was painfully familiar with the recent events surrounding Prop 8. It was a very good movie. Sean Penn was fantastic. After the movie we drove back, dropped Megan off at her dorm, and then came home and crashed.

Sunday, Aaron and I woke up and got ready for church. We went and saw lots of people we hadn't seen in a while (all the TCU people were getting back for classes), and met a couple new people too. Then we came home and Aaron made burgers for lunch. Mom finished packing up all of her stuff and then we drove to DFW and dropped her off at her terminal. Then Aaron and I went shopping nearby the airport. We went to Old Navy and got him 4 pairs of pants and 4 new polo shirts for work. We went to Target and got a couple of things for the house, then went to Best Buy and Aaron got a 3 month live subscription for the xbox 360 (so he can play games online with other people) and I got a DVD. Then we still had some time before we needed to pick up our friend, Caity from DFW so we went to Outback and split a meal and small cheese fries. We had gift cards for Target, Best Buy, and Outback that we had received for Christmas. Finally, we picked up Caity at 8:30 and drove back to Fort Worth. We decided to stay a little while over at the house and visit with everyone. Then came home and went to bed.

Like I said, it was a very busy weekend (with lots of trips to the airport).

In latest news as to future plans, Aaron and I have applied to Camphill Soltane (check out www.camphillsoltane.org for more information) for next year and they are supposed to contact us sometime this week to set up interview times for us. We are crossing our fingers that we get it, and so is Jason Fish since if we do get it, we'll be within an hour of him.

I've got to get going to work now. I'll let Aaron write up about how his first day(s) at his field placement were.

It's beginning to look a lot like.... new year's?

Hope everyone had a merry Christmas. We did, though it didn't turn out the way we had planned. We didn't end up spending that time at the resort we mentioned in the previous post. Apparently somebody thought it would be cool to not inform us that we needed to have a combined income of at least $50,000 a year in order to take advantage of this specific promotion. I didn't even know it was a promotion, I thought it was just a stay that we had been given. Well, the resort failed to mention that aspect in the many months I had been talking with them about it, and so the morning before we were going to leave they called and let us know. At least we didn't drive out there for nothing.

The rest of the holiday trip went well though. We headed up to my grandmother's house a bit earlier than expected and picked up my aunt Tracy along the way. We had a wonderful family dinner. Tori is happy with her Christmas gift: a fashionable watch; I am happy with my gift: Guitar Hero III. She has been wearing it pretty much all the time, and I have been playing it pretty much... ok not all the time, but at least once a day.

So it's back to work for us both. Now we are just preparing for next semester and enjoying the break from class work.

Happy New Year!

It's Beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

Hello internet! Just wanted to post an update on how we're doing.

I have finished my classes for the semester (thank goodness) and all of my finals are behind me now. Just one more semester to go! Taking 21 hours this semester was brutal and taking 4 finals in one day was pretty rough as well. Next semester I'll only be taking 16 which will be a lovely change of pace. The only downside is that I will have to drive to Denton EVERYDAY because I have a MWF course. I do have a job for next semester though. I will be continuing to work with the kiddo that I've been doing therapy with this semester and possibly adding another client if I have time (we'll see).

Aaron is done with his classes and is in the midst of finals. He had one test Monday evening, a paper due Monday afternoon, another test Tuesday, and one more on Thursday. I know he will also be glad when this semester is over with. Next semester he will have his field placement at a high school in Haltom City (about 30 minutes from our house) and two classes on Mondays. He will most likely only be able to work on Saturdays because his field placement will take up most of his time.

We will be spending our first Christmas together at a resort in Tyler, TX. Thanks to Aunt Pam and Uncle Wayne, we have 2 days and 2 nights at an all-inclusive resort. We'll check in after 5 on Christmas Eve and check out the afternoon of the 26th. After that we will drive up to Mt. Vernon to Grandma Ann's farm. Aaron's parents and sister will be driving in on the 26th as well. We'll have a big family dinner on Saturday night with relatives from around that area and then drive home on Sunday.

As for the rest of our winter break, we will be working our tails off since our income will drop next semester. We will also be making plans for after graduation and definitely relaxing and enjoying the break from classes and studying.

In other recent news we had our annual Christmas party with our TCU "family" this past Friday. It was bittersweet since it will be the last Christmas party we have together. It started with about 10 people our Freshman year and this year there were 17 people at the party. We will most definitely miss all of them. Most of us will graduate in May and move away to grad school or jobs. It was a very fun time. We had our secret santa gift exchange, visited, played the endless setlist on rockband (which Aaron was seriously excited about), and capped off the evening by celebrating our friend, Phillip's 21st birthday at midnight.

I'm going to stop for now since it's late. Goodnight.

PICTURES!!!

Are finally posted to the right. Just click on the slide show and it will open on a larger page. Feel free to copy/save any that you want.

Post-Thanksgiving Post

Hello all. We had a good visit with my Dad, Phyllis, Grandma Heath, and Jay Lee. We got there at about 10:30 on Wednesday morning. Just to clarify the reason that I couldn't drive was because I was wearing my glasses because my contact had torn, not because I have horrible vision at night or anything. The glasses prescription is a year behind my contacts. The hotel room was very nice and comfortable with the best bed I've ever slept on. We got up at 7:30, got ready, and had some warm breakfast before heading out. I drove us while Aaron rested some more.

On Wednesday we went to lunch with my dad and Jay. Then we took Jay to Wal-Mart to pick out a gift with the birthday money we gave him. It was very fun. We hung out at home, making lists of things we'd need for Thanksgiving dinner and then ate dinner at TB's (a really good barbecue place).

I got up at just after 7 on Thursday and Phyllis and I started the turkey (in the new fancy electric roaster they got us). We cooked until about noon and then took everything across the street to Grandma's and had a very tasty Thanksgiving lunch. It was pretty good for my first time making the Thanksgiving feast. Everything came out really well. Aaron did the dishes and we put away leftovers. Then we spent the rest of the day watching football, doing homework, and pretty much lounging about.

On Friday we drove to San Antonio to meet up with my sister Cindi and her new husband David. They got married on Wednesday. We picked them up downtown and then met my nephew, Jarrod at the Alamo Cafe. It was a very tasty and filling lunch, and a nice visit. Jarrod's dad came and picked him up and we dropped Cindi and David back off downtown and drove home. We got back to Del Rio a little after 8. We stopped at the Skillet for dinner, and that's when my throat started to hurt.

I went to bed before 10 on Friday and woke up with a fever on Saturday. I spent all day Saturday on the couch feeling crummy. My throat hurt and my joints all hurt too. My fever would go away for a little while when I took medicine, but kept coming back. Saturday was pretty yucky and we just watched football all day.

Sunday morning we got up and I still felt bad. I took a shower, which totally wiped me out. We got everything together (and by we I mean Aaron) and left about 11. We got home just after 6.

This morning Aaron took me up to the UNT health center and I've got strep throat. They gave me a HUGE painful shot of penicillin in my lower back. They said that I will be contagious for 24 hours still after the shot, but should feel MUCH better tomorrow. Aaron is at the store getting a few things (like a new toothbrush for me and some lysol spray). I am at home in bed and waiting for this medicine to start kicking in. I haven't been able to eat because my throat hurts too much so I'm hoping that I can get some food in me tonight so I'm not too weak to go to class tomorrow. Finals are next week and I just can't afford to miss.

So other than the strep, we had a really good visit. Hopefully I'll be back to myself again by tomorrow morning. Let's just hope that I didn't get anyone else sick, especially Aaron since he's been sleeping next to me and closed up in the car with me.

P.S. I promise I'll get the wedding pictures loaded soon, as you can probably guess I wasn't as productive over the break as I thought I was going to be.

Pictures of our wedding....

Are FINISHED! Yay! We have burned DVDs with the pictures on them (thank you Mr. Fochtman) and will be sending them your way if you would like one. We have full printing rights to them so you can make prints if you like. Also, I will be posting them online sometime during the Thanksgiving break (or I will give it the old college try at least). Let me know if you would like a DVD.

Oooo, free internet at the Best Western

Couldn't stay awake driving anymore, and you need to be awake when there is a deer jumping out in front of your car every 2 minutes. We made it to Junction, Texas, but since I couldn't drive any more and Tori's eyes aren't in a good enough condition to be spotting deer proficiently, we stopped for the night. We have no cell phone signal either. Interesting note, this is the first time I've used a landline in... I don't know how long.

Apparently animals think the big bright light is something to jump in front of. I love the absolutely stunned look deer have when you stop and honk at them. "What is this creature, why is it staring at me so brightly, and what is it trying to say? Can't it see I'm trying to mosey across the street at a leisurely pace?" Of all the times to cross the road, you pick when I'm driving by. Is it really necessary? The grass is just as green on that side of the road, I promise.

On our way!

Tori is on her way home from class, and I just got out. It's packing time!

We'll be leaving within the hour for Del Rio, Texas, for Thanksgiving with the Rosalez side of the family. It looks to be a good visit, and I'm looking forward to some time to relax. I have a few assignments that are due when we return, and they are big ones, but I have a week to do them so it shouldn't be that bad. Tori has a bunch due though, so she won't get the same opportunity to relax. She is sadly having to look forward to winter break for that. On the plus side, we'll have 5 full days (I believe) to enjoy, so the drive will be worth it.

I'm going to get back to packing, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I can't believe Thanksgiving is next week!

Things here in Fort Worth are busy, but good. I've got finals in two and a half weeks and Aaron's are the week after that. It's really crazy how fast this semester has gone by. I am truly glad for it though because I am SO ready for it to be over. 21 credit hours, a job, and a rather unpleasant commute everyday has me about to the end of my rope. Luckily though, next semester's 16 hours will be a breeze by comparison. :) I know Aaron is also looking forward to next semester. He'll be "working" full time (his fieldwork at the high school) with only 4-6 hours of class.

We'll be heading down to Del Rio for Thanksgiving. Luckily our schedules work out so that we can leave on Tuesday when I get done with classes. With such a long drive, it's good that we'll get a nice long visit in between. We've mostly planned out our gift purchases for Christmas and even already gone ahead and bought a couple of them. Hard to believe that December is so close. One of the local radio stations here is already playing Christmas music! It really is rather ridiculous. I mean, at least hold off until Thanksgiving is over. Aaron and I were joking the other day that pretty soon people will be saying, "It's already March! Why don't you have your tree up yet?!" I hope that this somehow cycles out and we can have Thanksgiving be it's own holiday instead of just the segway into Christmas. As a kid Christmas used to just sort of sneak up on you. Now it's a long, drawn out game of anticipation. Too stressful that way.

Anyway, enough of my tangent about the whole holiday thing. I'm just glad that December is almost here because that means finals (bleh), but also means we get a few weeks off to recover.

That's all for now, hope everyone is well.

oh and p.s. we got our new bed in the mail and haven't had to sleep on the floor in two whole days!

October

Hi everyone! October has come and gone, and so we thought we would give an update about how things are going. We switched our blog to aarontori.blogspot.com so people can comment. Also we like the layout better.

We've gotten into the swing of things with school and work. Tori is now working with a kid in Keller who has autism, and not only gets class credit and experience in a field she enjoys, but also gets paid! She is also still babysitting for some friends of ours. I'm still working at Texas Steam, and the job is going well.

We've got everything in our home the way we like it, with the exception of our bed (more on that later), as I think the last that we reported was the desk being finished (in more ways than one!). Currently we are occupied with school, work, and planning for the future.

Our bed: Last week we noticed that our bed (an inflatable Aerobed) was bulging at the bottom. Last time it did this, an internal seam burst, and this time it did the same thing. As a matter of fact, it was the same seam. We slept on it for one more night after reporting it to Aerobed and requesting our second replacement in a year, and that night an external seam burst. Tori woke me up at 2 am asking if I heard a sound of air rushing out of the bed, and I sat up. Apparantly I had my pillow resting on top of the external seam that burst, because when I sat up air started wooshing out. Our friends have lent us a mattress until our new bed gets here. Thanks friends :-)

That's about all for October at least. We'll be heading to Del Rio to visit Tori's brother, stepmom, dad, and grandmother for Thanksgiving. We hope everything is going well with you all!

Another Update (Tori)

Hello all! An update on things here in Fort Worth:

It rained pretty much the entire first three days of this week. It was rather dreary and annoying. It didn't help that I have been fighting a cold since Saturday night. I thought it was just allergies (a lot of wind around here has made them pretty bad for everyone) but then it moved to my chest. I'm doing much better, but Sunday and Monday were tough. I've still got some chest congestion and a pretty nasty-sounding cough, but feel MUCH better.

Aaron finished our desk on Monday morning! The sanding and first coat of finish was done Sunday and then he put the second coat on Monday morning and it was in the living room waiting for me when I got home from babysitting! It looks pretty good if I do say so myself. I'll take some pictures this weekend and put them up. It hasn't gotten completely organized yet because we've both been busy and I've been asleep a lot.

Aaron got a computer game called Spore that he's been wanting for a while now. He got it yesterday and spent a few hours last night playing. It seems like a pretty cool game, the basic premise is that you create your own species and evolve and work your way up from a single-celled organism. I'm not sure where it ends (if you work until you reach "higher intelligence" or not), but I guess we'll see.

Aaron went to a crisis counseling orientation session yesterday at the high school he'll be working at next semester. He got to meet the staff and others that he'll be working with and received his name tag and parking permit. So now he's official. I think he'll be going back a few more times this semester to meet with his field adviser and work on gathering data for his honor's project and another research project he's doing for a class this semester. His research sounds pretty interesting and involves the worth the wait abstinence program.

Last Friday, I went to the team meeting for the boy that I'm going to be working with. We call him Chiquito for confidentiality purposes and so that's what I'll call him here as well. I got to meet Chiquito, his other therapists, his mom, and little brother. I observed while one of the other therapists ran through a session with him while the team leader (my supervisor) took data and made notes on what changes needed to be made to his program and set goals to work on for the next week. It was really interesting and a good learning experience for me. Then on Saturday I went back and had what we call a rapport session with Chiquito. I just went to play and get acquainted with him and allow him to become more familiar with me. I brought a toy with me just in case and we ended up needing it. He usually has Saturday and Sunday off from therapy and so my presence on a Saturday wasn't very welcome. We let him know I wasn't there to work, just to play and I presented my toy (a loud squeaking stuffed penguin). He then warmed up to me and we spent the next two hours playing outside in the yard. Poor kid doesn't know yet that starting next week I'm actually going to start working him on Saturdays too. I didn't go on Monday due to the fact that I wasn't feeling well enough to keep up with two full hours of playing. Yesterday, I went and met with my supervisor and she trained me on all of his programs. It was a fairly good session (especially considering that I'm new and unfamiliar to him). I observed all of the programs and was able to work on a few of them with him myself. All in all it was a great experience and I'm very excited about being able to work with him.

Tuesday was the 9th, our first month anniversary. Time has certainly been flying by! I need to ask Jason how the pictures are coming. I promise we'll get them out to everyone as soon as they're ready.

Well, that's enough for now. Next time I'll have to make sure Aaron writes the update so that you all can hear from him too!

Newlywed Life (by Tori)

Hello all! It's been almost four weeks now since we got married. We have both started back to school and are settling into our routines.

Aaron has a full class load as well as being president of NASW-TCU (National Association of Social Workers-TCU chapter) and a job. He's working at a company called Texas Steam. They have contracts with trucking companies and go there to pressure wash their trucks each week. It's hard work, but pays well and the boss is a really great guy (thanks again Kathy for telling Aaron about it).

I also have a full load of classes, am babysitting for a couple families, and just recently got a position working as a behavior therapist with a young boy that has Autism here in the Fort Worth area. I'm very excited about getting some experience as well as having the opportunity to work with a very well-known professional in the field.

We travelled up to Oklahoma over Labor Day weekend for a short visit with my mom. It was a nice visit and we managed to drive up and back in between storms, so the drive was nice and easy.

We have been working on our place, mostly trying to get everything organized and consolidate our things. We've gotten it almost finished. We lost our closet to a new washer/dryer and shelving and so had been hanging clothes on a portable rack. We purchased a wardrobe when we were in Oklahoma so now we not only have a place to hide our clothes away, but some more storage space too! We found a nice desk for free and are working on refinishing it. It's close to being finished and once that is done the house will be done. I'll be sure to post some pictures of it when everything is finished.

We received our pictures from the photographer on a disk last week. We have given them to our friend Jason to edit, so once he is finished we will be posting them on here and making DVDs for those that want to print their own pictures. We do have full printing rights to them so it won't be a problem for you to print them anywhere you like.

That's all for now, we'll keep you updated on things!