Celebration

In order to celebrate my new job, Matt decided to take me to the Melting Pot, one of my favorite restaurants, but one we only go to on special occasions. My parents called us on Saturday and wanted to celebrate with us, and asked us if we wanted to go to OKC and eat with them. So we left Saturday afternoon and drove to Oklahoma City. We met my parents at Celebration Station and played a round of Putt Putt before dinner. I actually tied with Matt, if you can believe it. It was a pretty easy course though. Afterwards we headed to the Melting Pot for dinner. Of course it was great food and great company.

I think I want to try and find another job, just to get to eat this again :)

We enjoyed getting a chance to visit with my parents and are looking forward to seeing them again next weekend for my mom's 50th birthday. We have lots of things to celebrate this month!

God Is Faithful

On Friday, I accepted a position with Youth Services as a Social Services Coordinator at a Tulsa middle school. I'm really excited about this new opportunity and am so thankful for God's provision of our family in providing this job. When I looked back on everything God had orchestrated to provide this position, it's really amazing. After I graduated last December, I accepted a position at Youth Services as a school-based counselor at a middle school. I was thankful that my job search was relatively short and stress free. There were great things about this job. I got a chance to minister to and encourage fragile middle schoolers. I got to love on them and tell them that I believed in them. What an incredible role! I loved working in the schools and building relationships with the students. But my job had drawbacks too. I was not a salaried employee, so I got paid a percentage of what I billed. Basically I got paid for doing counseling with kids, and that was it. That meant that I didn't get paid for required staff meetings, supervision, phone calls with parents and other required job responsibilities. Not to mention that during school breaks and summer, my billable hours were few. I was frustrated a lot of the time. I really hate having a negative attitude about my job. It's important to me to like my work and not come home and complain every night. According to my supervisor it was a "paying your dues" kind of job that most people starting out in our field had.

When I had accepted that job, my boss had mentioned that the school-based counseling position would be temporary and that he wanted to move me up to the social services coordinator within a few months and they were expecting many new positions to open up. However, with the economic situation and other factors, he told me after a couple of months, that they weren't anticipating any new school positions to be available. I was wanting something more consistent, so I began to look around at other job possibilities within and outside of the agency. During the summer, a position opened up at Youth Services for a family counseling position. I applied and interviewed for the position which required working two evenings per week. I knew that working evenings was common in my field, but I struggled with giving up my evenings which would include not being able to help with AWANA at my church, spending time away from Matt in the evenings, and missing out on other activities that occurred during the week. I felt that I had done my time of not having free evenings in graduate school, and I wasn't sure I was ready to give them up again. Also, the position required working alone a lot in the evening, which brought up some safety issues that worried Matt. I struggled with whether or not to accept the position if it was offered. But God had other plans, and I didn't get this position. However, the person who took the family counseling position was working as a Social Services Coordinator, and her position became available. It was literally best case scenario, because this was the position I really wanted. God worked everything out perfectly.

Throughout the last semester, I have learned that I love working in the schools and this position will give me a greater influence in the schools. It's a salaried position and will require very few evening hours (an occasional family session). I'll still get to do individual counseling and be able to minister to and encourage kids. I'll also be responsible for finding kids in the school in need of counseling and doing intakes to get them set up for counseling and I'll be responsible for making sure the needs of the other Youth Services Counselors at the school are met. I'll get more of a chance to develop relationships with other teachers and staff members at the school. My role will be much bigger than it is now. I'm also thankful that this isn't a brand new position at a new school. The position is well established at the school and I'm not starting from scratch which is comforting. It's also exciting to have a job that I plan to be at for several years. Since beginning college, all of my jobs have been temporary usually only lasting a semester or a year. I never felt like I could lay "roots" down in my jobs. I worked at a couple of jobs in college and during grad school I had some research and teaching assistant positions and internships for my degree, but I always knew they would end after a year or two. I'm ready to settle into a job that is more permanent. God is good and has answered our prayers over and beyond our expectations

From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more. Luke 12:48b

Mail Call

Our day got so much better yesterday when Matt saw that these had been delivered:

We were ridiculously excited to have what we call our "grown up" tickets. They are so much nicer than student tickets which were very plain, boring (with no pictures) and required a student ID to get into the stadium. And the Georgia ticket is twice the size as all the others. I think that game might be twice as important as most of the others too. We can't wait. Is it September yet??

Shed Progress

Matt's summer shed project is nearing completion. He's been working hard on it in the evenings and on most weekends. He told me the other day, he is ready for a break, and he's in luck because he is very close to being done. Here are some pictures of his recent project.

With a roof and all four sides

Painting.
This is all we have left. Two sides are painted, and we have two left. We're probably going to work on that tonight unless it rains.

Matt and Matt working on the shingles. They were so close to being done when it started pouring and had to quit for the day.

Matt finished up the shingling on Sunday afternoon.

Almost there, just a little painting left.

Matt is excited to be able to clean out and reorganize the garage. He's worked really hard and learned a lot from this project We'll see what home improvement project he has up his sleeve next!

23 Days!

I looked at the calendar today and realized that football season is just a short 23 days away. Rhapsody and I got super excited and decided to start getting ready early.

I love my OSU Cowboys and I always will, but let's face it as OSU fans, most seasons we're usually left frustrated, discouraged, and disappointed, saying "Well, there's always next year". (We used to say, "There's always basketball season," but that's changed recently.) Anyway, this season is the best chance we've had in a long time to make a real national showing. With Zac Robinson, Dez Bryant, and Kendall Hunter all returning along with an amazing schedule including 8 home games, an incredible home opener against Georgia and only one really difficult road game, this could be our year. Matt says we're ranked 11th right now in the polls. I can't remember a time we've been ranked that high, especially not in a preseason poll. My freshman year at OSU I think we were ranked 12 or 14 before the Bedlam game, but after that loss and more importantly the loss of Les Miles, being ranked 11th is a dream come true for OSU fans. A win over Georgia could very well mean a place in the top ten after the first week of the season.

I love football season and am pumped that we have season tickets (thank you OSU for discounts for recent graduates). We don't make it back to Stillwater very often these days, so football season also means a chance to see and visit friends in Stillwater as well as tailgating, great football games, and all the traditions surrounding it. And road games mean having friends over to watch the games and making lots of snacks to enjoy as we cheer for the Cowboys. We're hoping for a great year.

Rhapsody is really excited because this is her first full football season. I know she would love a chance to go tailgating (lots of people and lots of food, that might even beat the dog park), but I'm not sure logistically it will work to take her to Stillwater for any of the games. But don't worry, she'll be cheering on the cowboys from Broken Arrow.

Branson Vacation

We went on our "big" vacation at the end of May this year. Having extra free time this summer and hearing about other people's fun vacations during the summer gave me an itch to take another trip before school started. But we had spent our vacation fund on our May vacation, so we needed to go somewhere inexpensive, and Matt had used a good portion of his vacation time, so we needed to go somewhere close so he didn't have to take off much work. My friend Erica came to the rescue and we came up with the perfect solution. After living in the Tulsa area for over a year, I finally learned that Branson is only a 3 1/2 hour drive, and Erica has family there that own a condo who were willing to let us stay in it for only the cleaning fee. So we headed off with our friends Matt and Erica and Chris and Ivory for a long weekend vacation in Branson. Matt and I had a lot of fun and can't wait to plan our next getaway with our fun friends. We headed out Thursday after everyone got off work and drove to the condo that night. We got in pretty late, so we just relaxed on Thursday night.

Friday morning our wonderful husbands (who all happen to be morning people) got up and cooked us breakfast, while all the girls slept in. After breakfast we headed to Silver Dollar City for a day of roller coasters and amusement rides. Silver Dollar City actually had some decent roller coasters. I think the Powder Keg roller coaster was our favorite. They also had a giant swing that comes in a close second. I'm pretty sure my lungs got a good workout with all my screaming. None of the rides were as good as the Superman ride at Six Flags, but really what can compare to that one :). It's my all time favorite amusement ride. After a long and tiring day at Silver Dollar City, we headed into Branson to get some dinner and then back to the condo for the evening.

Working hard on breakfast

At the entrance to Silver Dollar City

See Matt I can keep my hands in the air on the rides

Girls on the teacups

Umm, I'm glad I wasn't in their teacup. They all came stumbling off the ride. They must have put all their engineering minds together to come up with a way to get the most spin out of the cups

After our long day on Friday, we tried to have a more relaxing day on Saturday. Once again our husbands fixed us breakfast and then we headed off to play putt putt at a fun course in Branson. It was hotter than we were expecting, but we all still had a good time. You know it's an intense putt putt course when they put nets at each hole for you to retrieve your golf balls that go in the water.

Erica wanted a picture proving that her ball was closest to the hole

Score card- Matt and I got first and second. I have never even come close to beating my husband at miniature golf... ever.

After putt putt, we went to the outlet mall in Branson. At this point we separated, and I'm not sure what the guys did. I think Matt said something about a Black and Decker outlet and air hockey. We girls browsed around and did some clothes shopping. We left the outlet mall, after a stop for ice cream, about 4:00 and headed back to the condo. We had a low key evening and just ate pizza and played board games. We played two games of Apples to Apples followed by two games of Settlers of Catan. Erica dominated the game playing and won both Apples to Apples games and the first Settlers game.

This is what happens when you play Settlers of Catan with engineers

Sunday morning we packed up and left the beautiful condo to head back home. We stopped at Lamberts for lunch, and that was an experience. They throw hot rolls at you to serve them, and you should have seen the size of the chicken fried steaks. I wish I would have gotten a picture of it.

On the balcony of the condo

Matt enjoying the view of the lake

Erica and I showing off our new shirts

Waiting for a table at Lamberts. They open at 10:30, but start taking names at 10:00. We got there at 10:30 and had an hour wait before we got a table. It was worth it though

We had such a fun weekend, and I got my vacation fix for at least a few months :).

Dog Houses, Date Nights and Other Baugher Happenings

Here's an update of what we've been up to lately as the summer starts to wind down.

Last week we had a fabulous date night! We went to see Wicked at the Tulsa PAC. I absolutely LOVED the show. I had heard from several people who had seen it that it was a great show, but it really was better than I expected. The music was phenomenal as well as the acting, props, and story line. I told Matt we have to go back whenever it comes to Tulsa again. It was well worth the money. We went to dinner before and had a fantastic night. We were able to go on a weeknight to save a little on the tickets (or at least get better seats). As we were driving home, I said that it was nice to not have to drive an hour and a half to get home (another perk of living in a bigger city).

Before the show

Lately, Matt has been spending a lot of his free time building a dog house for Rhapsody. Okay, he says it's a shed to hold our lawn stuff and free up garage space, but Rhapsody and I know better :). Rhapsody has been supervising the construction and has been helping Matt by taking all the nails out of the boxes, tearing up the boxes, and scattering the nails around the yard, so Matt can reach them easier.

Here is some of the progress he's made.

Rhapsody supervising Matt getting the foundation ready

Rhapsody enjoys having us outside with her in the evenings

We have a floor

And Walls (well some walls)

Making Progress. Rhapsody is very excited about her new house.

The last few weeks we've also been helping some friends move into their first house, and Matt has been helping to install a new shower for some other friends. We've also discovered a new board game we both like called Settlers of Catan. We've played it several times in the last month and haven't gotten tired of it yet.

We now have a full-time pastor at our church, which is very exciting. His first Sunday to preach was July 19 which happened to be the one-year anniversary of our last Sunday at our church in Stillwater. We loved our church there and that was one of the hardest parts of leaving Stillwater. We had a great Sunday school class and we loved our preacher. He was an incredible teacher and very knowledgeable of the Bible. It was hard to leave the friends we'd made from our Sunday school class when we moved and we were both anxious to get settled into a new church quickly. Hearing our new pastor in Tulsa get introduced on his first Sunday, I found myself reflecting on God's faithfulness in helping us to find a new church where we have grown spiritually and met some great friends. We are anticipating some changes in our Sunday school class in the next few weeks that we are very excited about. We took a leap of faith to join our church that was without a senior pastor at the time, but we know we're where we are supposed to be and are so thankful for the Lord's faithfulness in leading us here.

Next weekend we're heading to Branson with some friends for an end of the summer mini-vacation, and football season is just around the corner!!