I Give You..... FIJI.

As many of you know, Greg surprised me with this trip to Fiji. Up until the morning after our wedding, I had NO idea where we were going. I only knew that we were headed to a beach. Well, as you can imagine, I couldn't really grasp the fact that we were going halfway around the world to FIJI for our honeymoon. If you ever need anyone to plan a trip for you, call my husband. He's pretty incredible. 

Finally... the long awaited pics.

Greetings from Fiji

The infamous Ghost Crabs captured by the one and only, Greg Foster

Meet our friend. He hung out on our front porch alllll week.

 It's hard to see, but this was an orange and blue stingray that we spooked one day when we were walking down to the beach!

Sipping some wine on the front porch of our bure

These next photos are from our underwater disposable camera. We captured some serious photos with that camera. Don't judge the poor quality.

So we went on a little "reef fishing" adventure. These are the fish that everyone else was catching. 

And this just so happened to be the fish that I caught.

Me, holding my shark and almost pushing our guide into the water. Not pictured: me screaming like a little girl.

My man catching an awesome fish. 

Out doing some kayaking. Katie Craig, you'd be so proud.

Holding up a clam at the local clam farm! These suckers were heavy.

Greg, holding up an even bigger clam. 

 Shot of the clam farm. If only this dinky camera would have had the capacity to capture the vibrant neon colors that were inside the clams. Maybe next time....
There are 10 clams in this picture, just FYI.

 Snorkel Trip!

Hi, Mom. 

Snorkeling in about 50 feet of crystal clear water.  

It's Been a While

It has been a while…. A long while… And I apologize. Life has been pretty crazy with a lot of travelling and other oddities that have filled our time. But have no fear! We are back! I guess my first duty is to inform you of all the exciting (and subsequently, not so exciting) things we’ve been doing within the last month:

• Update: Due to schedule conflicts, we still have yet to make it to the Catfish Plantation for my birthday dinner celebration. Yet, we WILL be going soon. And when we do, expect a full report!
• Neely introduced me to crepes. And Nutella. And I’m in love.
• Greg and I have been able to spend some more time with our LifeHouse from the Exchange DFW and have absolutely loved getting to know this awesome group of people. There is nothing quite like getting to spend time with people who are in the same stage of life as you, specially some who have been married for a wee bit longer. Not to mention, everyone in our LifeHouse is hilarious so we spend a lot of our time laughing and enjoying each other’s company.

• My office (and my company for that matter) is very intentional about giving back to the community, which means so much to me. Instead of working one Friday morning, my office set-aside the hum-drums of Corporate America and we went and served at the North Texas Food Bank. Let me just say, my eyes were opened. After we arrived, we were instructed that we would be filling boxes of food that are taken to a local elementary school where children get to take these boxes home to their families. The boxes we were packing provide a family’s meals for the entire weekend. In 3 hours, we were able to pack over 700 boxes which resulted in over 14,000 meals! It was so much fun being able to serve with some of my teammates from The Hartford and I was impressed by the amount of meals we were able to provide by simply giving 3 hours of our time
• I successfully ran a 5k at a local elementary school. It was a successful run, but let me just say, that was the hilliest 3 miles that I think I have ever run. Or maybe I’m slightly dramatic. But it was hilly!
• In other news, I have officially decided not to run the Dallas White Rock Half.  It’s not that I didn’t want to, or that I don’t think I’m capable, but training was literally taking over my life, and therefore was becoming my life. And I didn’t like that part of it. This is how my day was during training: Get up, go to work, come home, cook dinner, clean up dinner, go running, shower, go to bed. The end. Boring. I felt like I was not getting to live life to the fullest because I was running. All. The. Time. Now, I still run, but I don’t have a strict agenda that I’m following and it allows me to have more free time to hang out with Greg and other friends.

• I finally graduated from training!! WOO HOO! After 18 weeks of learning all the ins and outs of the insurance world, I was able to travel to Hartford, Connecticut with the rest of my training class for a “Graduation Week”. We spent the week wrapping up everything we had learned and had a very nice“graduation” dinner where we were able to interact with a bunch of our top leadership. After approximately 12 tests, hundreds of hours on conference calls, several assignments, and lots and lots of reading, I am an official Underwriter for The Hartford. (Just in case you’re confused about what I do for a living, think Along Came Polly. The only difference is that I don’t do risk analysis on people, just businesses!)
• During homecoming weekend, we joined Greg’s family in Houston for his cousin’s wedding. We had so much fun getting to do some shopping, bowling, and not to mention getting one of the best pedicures I’ve ever had in my life (the boys sat out on this one though). I’ve been blessed with an amazing “in-law” family. They literally do feel like family to me and I couldn’t have asked for anything better! Can’t wait to spend some much needed time with both of our families over Thanksgiving!

• I’ve yet again put off reading Les Mis, and instead have started reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. After seeing the previews for the upcoming movie, and hearing rave reviews of the book, I knew that it was a book that I wanted to read before the movie came out. We’ll see how it turns out!

Well, that seems to be a pretty boring and mundane list. But, I am going to attempt to finish editing photos from Fiji and post them! Wishful thinking… after staring at computer screens all day, its definitely a struggle to go home and work on a computer some more. Keep your eyes peeled!

-K

Keeping Up with the Fosters

It’s Friday, and that is a fact to rejoice about because I am absolutely exhausted. As if getting married two and half months ago wasn’t a big enough life change, several things have been happening around the Foster household that have been keeping us more than busy. Here’s a little insight into what’s going on:

• I am ALMOST done with my training at work. Yes, I have been in training for four months, but at the end of October, I will officially be done! I’ve described the training process to several people as the equivalent of being in another semester of college, except for this in this particular semester, I study/do assignments/take tests/sit on learning conference calls for 40 hours a week. And it’s all about insurance. I have learned A TON, but if you knew me in college, especially my senior year, you knew that going to class and studying didn’t necessarily happen for a total of 40 hours a week. Ever. So, it’s definitely been difficult and mind-boggling, but it will definitely pay off.

• For the first two months of our marriage, Greg was the perfect house-husband. He ran all of our errands, cleaned the house, and went to town on decorating. He hated it. BUT! The tides have changed. We are so excited because Greg has been asked to be the Worship Pastor at The Exchange DFW in Keller, TX! Yes, we do have to drive about an hour anytime we go to church, but whoever said that God was going to provide in “convenient” ways? Oh wait, they didn’t, so we are more than blessed to be asked to come on board with this church. This is going to be quite the adventure for us because it is not only a job for Greg, but it’s a place for both of us to grow and serve. I could not be more excited to join with this body of believers and serve alongside Greg.

If you're in the area, come check The Exchange DFW out!

• I am currently training for the Dallas White Rock Lake Half Marathon. It’s difficult. I’m in the middle/end of week four. The training is 12 weeks long. My legs hurt. I’ve always wanted to run a half marathon and decided that it was time to finally commit. Not only to achieve my goal, but to keep myself in shape since I sit at a desk all day! Ugh! I’ve “attempted” to train for the Bear-a-thon at Baylor for the past two years, but always gave up because I never have had the time nor enough sleep to train appropriately. I also tend to develop tendonitis in my knees when I run longer distances or hills, so we’ll see if they behave and I can make it through the end. It’s iffy.

• What I’m currently reading:

• Les Miserables 
•  I read this book back in 7^th grade and it immediately became one of my favorite books. Now that several years have passed and I can’t quite remember what happened, I decided to read it again!

• The Pioneer Woman’s: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels 
•  My mother, after hearing me say that I wanted to read this book several times over the past year, bought this book for me for my birthday. I can barely put it down! Aka, I’ve put Les Mis on hold. For now anyways….

•  Greg and I have joined a Life House at The Exchange and it’s complete with 4 other young married couples with “no kids”. That was the rule for joining the group. NO BABIES ALLOWED. We are definitely the “youngest” couple of this crew, but really looking forward to doing life with these people.

• I am SO excited about this Saturday night! To celebrate my birthday (yes, the celebration still continues!), Greg and I are joining my family and going to the Haunted Catfish Plantation in Waxahachie! We saw a special on this old plantation a year ago and we’re finally getting to go experience it for ourselves. Update to come soon!

• The Moose is getting lazy. What a surprise? Now that he’s a city dog, his favorite pastime is sleeping and playing chase in the house. He’s a spoiled pooch.

• I’ve been crafting! We’ve been doing several decorating projects around our little humble abode and trying to spend as little money as we possibly can! Because I love to decorate, I had tons of good foundational stuff from college that I’ve been busy painting and “re-doing” to match our new little house. Here's a pic of one of the lamps that I re-did with my momma!

• I just spent way too much time on Pinterest looking at food, and now all I want to do is bake and cook and try tons of new recipes. It’s a wonder Greg and I are both not 400 pounds. Food is definitely one of our biggest expenses (even with me cooking at home almost every meal!) and it is definitely a shared hobby/loves in our house. The Fosters love to eat.

• Speaking of food, we were blessed by an elder from church the other night. He graciously funded a VERY nice date night for us in honor of Greg coming onboard at The Exchange. We couldn’t have been more thrilled! We ventured around the corner from our house and ate at Houston’s. Neither of us had been to a Houston’s before, but we both enjoyed some delicious steak (which we hadn’t had since our wedding) and glasses of delicious wine. It was a celebration indeed. I am so proud of my Gregory.

Other than all these oddities, Greg and I are just loving getting to spend time together and learning what it means to be honoring and loving spouses. Some days are great, others are not so great, but I’m definitely realizing more and more that the little things don’t matter, and it’s my biblical role to love and support my hubby ALWAYS.  I am far from perfect at this, or anything else for that matter, so it gives me even more of a reason to depend on the reality of God’s Grace and Mercy daily.

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Hebrews 4:15-16

Another Year Older

This past weekend was a birthday weekend at the Foster house. WOO! I officially turned 23. The day was filled with so many sweet moments and I feel absolutely blessed by my husband, my friends, and the ladies that I have the privilege of working with.

The day started with some Chocolate Chip Pancakes. Mmmm, one of my very favorite things in this world. Thank you Jesus for Chocolate Chip Pancakes.  Greg got up early to slave in the kitchen and prepare my breakfast feast. He even used the chocolate chips to craft the number 23 into one of them.  Again, so delicious. 

Later that day, I joined some of the ladies in my office for a birthday luncheon. I was treated to a Chicken Picatta lunch at Cheesecake Factory (another one of my favorites), an awesome Anthropologie gift card (yes I have been caught browsing at work, oops! Haha), and a very massive cookie cake! This is only the beginning of me being spoiled on my birthday. As far as that gift card goes, I conveniently had a 15% off your entire purchase coupon, so I may or may not have done my shopping on my way home from work that day…. :)

When you’d think I’d already had enough spoiling for the day, Greg and Neely had arranged to have a barbecue at our house with all of our Dallas friends! Greg spent the day making some delicious gourmet hamburgers and prepping some corn on the cob to be grilled. Everyone that came over pitched in and brought the chips, buns, and beverages.  Neely even slaved and made me a 4 layer birthday cake!! Each layer was a different color of pink (impossible to tell from the pic that I took), but it was delicious and she even made and topped the cake with my favorite cream cheese icing! Mmm. She definitely has more patience for those kinds of things than I do. Its one of the reasons I love her. 

Anyone who knows me knows that I love to shop. Due to the fact that Greg and I have been living off of one salary for the past couple of months, my shopping habits had to stop cold turkey. Okay. Maybe it WAS a good thing. Anyways, knowing that I’d been deprived from buying anything (due to my growing self-control), Greg surprised me and gave me a shopping trip to Lululemon! WOO again! I’ve been needing a new pair of workout capris since I threw my old pair in the trash a couple of weeks ago (sad day…). So, he satisfied my desire to go shop and pick out my own things while blessing me with something that I really wanted! He’s the best. 

As you can tell, it was a day of good eats and I was overly spoiled.  Not only that, but when it was all said and done, I felt so loved and blessed to have the friends that I do. We were able to sit around and chat and laugh and be real with each other. My friends (and hubby) are a huge blessing to have in my life, and I know that this season of life that we’re experiencing would be WAY different without them. Love you all.

-K

Well... its official. We are finally getting settled in and are following the path of most young American couples. We're starting a blog! I say we... I really mean me, Keely. But who knows... maybe i'll be able to talk Greg into posting every once in a while since his thoughts are probably more worthwhile than mine.

We've definitely been busy. Moving in, decorating, re-decorating, making new friends, starting new jobs... it has definitely been crazy. Hopefully soon i'll be sophisticated enough to share pictures and recipes and excerpts from our lives as a husband and wife.

For now, all you get is the satisfaction of knowing that I may be attempting to keep everyone updated about our adventures.

-K