Southern summer, barefoot, blue jean night...

For the first night in what seems like forever it was a nice evening outside. I got home from dinner with my mom and just had to go sit on the back porch. The weather was just perfect! Then I went and grabbed my book and just enjoyed the evening. It is a night like this that my heart aches for a home of our own, with a porch of our own, and some land with no fences or trains near by. The last few days I have had to pray for patience. I want a home of our own so badly and yet nothing is coming up that is right for us. I get discouraged and frustrated, and then I remind myself that it is better to wait for the right house then settle for something that we won't be happy with. After all, the house we buy will be the home we bring our babies home to and the one we will be in for awhile. So, Lord give me the patience and peace of mind that we will find the right house for our family when we are supposed to find it.

In case anyone was wondering, I am still on my weight loss journey! I have currently lost 34.6 lbs!! I feel great about myself and I want it to keep coming off! Cheryl and I have started running. Yeah you heard me...running!! We have even signed up to RUN two 5K's this fall. The first one is September 10th and it is the Heels for Hope race. This one supports Ovarian cancer, which is what Cheryl's mom has, so we are running for her. The next one is the Race for the Cure in October. Our goal is to actually run them, knowing we will have to walk some of it. Right now we can run two miles with a break in the middle on the treadmill. It has been too stinkin hot to run outside. We are going to need to get over that soon! The running is going great and I hope we keep it up! We have been at it now for 7 weeks, slowly building up over time. I am having issues with my knee bothering me. If you don't know or remember I tore my ACL my sophomore year of college. I had it repaired but it has never been the same and hurts more often than not now. TJ is taking me to get a brace this week so I have a bit more confidence in my knee when running. It doesn't hurt when I run though, so I am not going to give up!

Work is busy as usual! This semester I am a coach in Lessons in Leadership, a class on campus at UCO. I must say I am so excited about this. The students in this class are in the class because of a leadership scholarship. The students are split up into small groups and a staff member on campus is their coach for the semester. Basically, we just guide them through the semester and make sure they stay on track. I hope I can be a good example of a leader to these students and help them on their path to whatever they want to be!

July was a crazy month. Kaytie, Cheryl, and I went to the NKOTBSB concert and mom and I went to Colorado Springs for a week! Then last weekend Kristen and I hosted Kim's baby shower! Little Andrew should be making his appearance any day now! :) I will leave you with a few pictures of the summer!

Until next time,
Leigha

NKOTBSB

Garden of the Gods

Flying W Ranch

Fourth of July

Kim's Baby Shower

My Wish

Being married is an interesting institution. When you are dating you still both have your separate lives. You have fun together, go out on dates, enjoy each others company then at the end of the night you go home to sleep in the middle of your own bed. When you get engaged life becomes a whirlwind of excitement with planning your wedding, bridal showers, bachlorette parties, and dreamy eyed hopes. Then you get married. You say I do and walk into real life. Your side of the bed is not the middle! Then it turns out you married every bit of each other, families and crazy people included. You both still have jobs like you did before, but now you live together and they affect each of your everyday life. You each still have your own friends, but when they drop by they aren't just dropping by his house or yours, they drop yall's  house. You each have had separate established lives, and now you have to combine all of your assets and fit them into one tiny house. You go from yours and mine, to ours! Then there are all of the outside factors that come into play. You may have known about issues that plagued your significant other, be it family, work, or other, but now you to have to deal with those issues in real time.

If you think about it Hollywood has all of these movies about love, but consider the topics. People are single and falling in love, people are single, in love, and getting engaged, and then you have the engaged and getting married movies. They all have happy endings. They end with the couple getting married. Cut! Move on to the next show. Then you have all these movies about married people. They aren't too happy, life is tough, and they get divorced. Then they fall into the single and falling in love category and so on and so forth.

I am a dreamer. I am madly in love with my husband and I want to forever feel this way about him. Our life circumstances aren't picture perfect. We both brought baggage to the relationship and now we have to deal with our lives together. This isn't a bad thing. It is nice to go through this crazy life with a person you love. However, a marriage is something that needs defending. You need to take a stance against all the crazy outside forces and put up a barrier. Protect the reason you fell in love. Protect each other from all the little things that can tear people apart.  Do everything in your power to make sure you two together are stronger then apart.

My wish is this. I hope that for the rest of our lives we take moments to just each other. Make time to go away with just each other. Hide from the rest of the world for a few weekends a year. Put on some Norah and talk about nothing other than our hopes and dreams for the future. Work talk, family talk, financial talk, and when it is time kid talk, all of it is off limits. For a few weekends a year we are in our own bubble and make our own love story movie. Keep the foundation of your love strong and powerful and everything else will work itself out.

I love my life. I am so happy I found someone to share my life and adventures with. Now I am going to hold on to it tight and make sure that whatever trials and tribulations lay ahead for us, that we are strong in our love and relationship that we can take it head on.