Lazarus, Mary, Peter, and Paul

Please meet my new (humble beginnings) herb garden!

When we first moved into the barn, and I could not permanently nest, garden, and decorate. I compromised and bought a basil plant at HEB in order to tide me over until we found the perfect house. I brought the basil plant home and started "nurturing" him, that is until I almost killed him two or three times. Chris had to come to the rescue and help me bring him back to life, and then he accused me of having a black thumb - how rude!

After these first few instances of taking care of the basil plant, I decided that I would not be "out gardened" by my husband. So, I dug deep into my ancestral gardening roots and named my basil plant Lazarus since he had been brought to life so many times. After the naming ceremony Lazarus really started to grow and acclimate to his new home - my gardening skills quickly adapted as well.

Here is Lazarus as a baby basil plant - all alone - but ALIVE!

After some time I decided to add some friends to Lazarus the Basil plant so that he would not have to grow up alone. Not long ago I bought Mary the Mint plant as Lazarus's sister to keep him company, after Mary came Lazarus really took off! Apparently plants get lonely! Then this past weekend I got Peter and Paul the Pepper Plants. I even bought a little window box to put them all in. This is after Chris convinced me to not plant a full sized garden that could not be moved to our new house. The little window box will enable Lazarus, Mary, Peter, and Paul to be world travelers and obtain residency in the new Hill Home (which we will eventually find and love).

So here are some pictures of the planting ......

The View From our front door ... of the barn

I do - 6_7_08

I, Christopher Carl Hill, do hereby vow - before our Lord and man alike - these things to you and you alone, Jessica Ann Jordan:

I commit my life to the prescribed soil of your heart.

I vow to always follow and love Christ Jesus with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, so that in my leading, I will always reflect the Lord’s character.

I vow to love you, my wife, even as myself; so, that in this love there will be no sacrifice too great for me to make – that Christ’s perfect will be completed within you.

I vow to support, provide for, and protect the dreams and desires of Christ that He has placed within your heart.

I vow to live my life of service with you and for you before Christ…Being submitted one to another out of reference for Christ, the Messiah.

I, Jessica Ann Jordan, do hereby vow – before our Lord and man alike – these things to you and you alone, Christopher Carl Hill:

I commit my life to the prescribed soil of your heart.

I vow to submit, adapt, and cleave myself to you, always putting my needs as secondary to yours, and to always serve you as I would the Lord.

I vow to adorn myself inwardly so that I might always have a gentle and peaceful spirit towards you.

I vow to respect, admire, and honor you and to lift you up and encourage you to be the man that God has called and destined you to be.

I vow to go to the Lord daily to find my joy, satisfaction, beauty, and nourishment in Him, so that I may freely give of myself to deeply love and cherish you always.

UFC: Undisputed 2009 Hill family style.

So, you should know, this is partially out of left field but it is a blog about a truly momentous occaision in my little Wife's life.

So, ever since Jess and I were friends, she has been trying to wrestle me.

She has wanted to take me out. She would get excited sometimes, run full speed into me with her little 5'2" frame and bounce right off. Now, I must say, she has hurt me several times via an accidental elbow or foot to the nose, face, manhood, etc; but she has never had a true "takedown" moment.

You see, this whole thing started when her friend Kelley Ellis (then Samu) came to Aggieland for a little visit to meet this new guy, Chris. (Jess clearly had to get "bestie" approval of her new "friend") I had long heard heralding stories of wrestling battles past between Kelley, Jess, and other boys.

I clearly had to prove my wrestling mettle.

Kelley came, Jess trash talked, and it was on. We proceeded to have the wrestling throwdown of the ages in (where else?) the Chi-O meeting room! It was awesome. Fact of the matter is, I owned their faces. It was total Hill domination. Time after time, I pinned and tickled the ever living crap out of the two. It was so much fun. We laughed so hard that night. Kelley approved, and the rest is (as they say) history.


Fast forward through 3 and a half years. There have been many more Jordan/Hill wrestling and tickle matches, but my poor Little Honey has not ever had her moment of takedown glory. I mean, I am (after all) a rather large person.

(Small, yet relevant, rabbitt trail) - I got a new game a couple of weeks ago for my PS3 called UFC 2009: Undisputed. Basically, it is a super cool mixed martial arts, boy game. Picture wrestling, fighting, and testerone mixed all together into a video game that my poor wife finds totally ridiculous.

...back to the main trail...

Saturday of our anniversary, we wake up and get coffe. We're kind of watching tv, hanging out, and about to start getting ready to go to Anthro (which Jess is super pumped about).

I am standing next to the bed about to start getting ready. Jess sneaks up behind me in her "Little Honey" fashion for what I think is going to be a loving hug from behind. I lift my arms to reach back behind me and hug her.

I guess I should've thought through this moment a little more. I guess I should've known that she'd been watching me play UFC and learning some new moves. I guess I should've remembered that my little wife is sneaky and silly....but I didn't.

She proceeded to grab me around the waist put her right foot in front to trip me and pushed off the wall behind her with her left leg:

Shock. Disbelief. Admittedly, some serious awe. My wife had performed a perfect trip takedown.

I wonder what she'll try and pull for our second anniversary.

Mr. Hill

:::Things To Share:::

Happy Friday to all:

Chris and I have much to update you on; in fact we have been keeping many lists of things we need to blog about - but then losing them and forgetting all the fun and interesting things we wanted to tell you about! Most importantly being our first year anniversary trip to Austin, which was AWESOME, we will definitely be update you all on that this weekend!

For this Friday though - I wanted to just leave you with some interesting links to recipes, music videos, and a business presentation that I feel are all very interesting and very necessary for your life :) ......... also giving you more insight into me, in a funny way!

First: I absolutely LOVE Taylor Swift, never before in my life have I loved an artist like I love Taylor. When I was in Jr. High I was totally too insecure to have favorites .... so now that I have matured into a married woman I now have the freedom love all things silly. So I present you with this here video: T Swizzle

Second: Revealing some of my dorkiness..... When I was a sophomore in College and Chris and I had just met and were becoming friends, I attended his International Finance class with him with Dr. Karry who had also taught Chris's Dad, Todd, in grad school. Chris invited me to come because he wanted to flirt with me in class, I mean I went for that reason too, but I LOVED what the class was about! I was totally starved of all things business related over at the Liberal Arts school and had no idea what I was missing .... needless to say .... Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of my first semester of my sophomore year I would skip lunch after my three classes and hop on the bus over to the business school and sit in the third row with Chris and listen intently. All this to explain why I love the following presentation that I think everyone should watch .... now matter what you do in life or what you are interested in: Simply Interesting

Third: Two recipes that I have Made lately that I feel I must share
Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Icing
Cake Part - do not use the icing recipe use the one below
Icing Part - These are fantastic cupcakes that I have made before and love,
but the icing is really fantastic on red velvet cake so use this recipe
instead!
Orzo Stuffed Peppers (Super Yummy)
Peppers - I use Italian Turkey Sausage in the filling in order to make it a meal.
Just cut the casings open and put it in a pan and cook!

Red Velvet Cake Story: I LOVE LOVE LOVE red velvet cake. I don't remember when I first had it or why I love it so much, but it is my absolute favorite! So naturally I really wanted red velvet cake for my wedding cake, but after thinking what it would look like to be at a wedding and cut into the cake and it be RED we opted for white. But, I asked the cake lady to make the top tier of the cake Red Velvet, ya know the part you freeze and then eat on your one year wedding anniversary. So, when the time was right I took the cake out of the freezer and let it thaw, and then I gathered the family around to watch me cut the cake. So imagine a hyper excited situation - really excited about red velvet - as I cut into the cake I realize it is PLAIN WHITE NORMAL cake and the utter disappointment ensues and it was HORRIBLE. So, instead of letting in ruin the moment the next day I made a red velvet cake (my first try at it) and it turned out absolutely AWESOME! I totally suggest that you all make the above recipe, it is absolutely delicious!

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend, be looking for more posts soon!

Much love :)