Sentiments, Rain Delays, and Gratitude

I never really thought people paid attention to my teasers but a friend last night (shout out TayTay) let me know she had been waiting for my promised anniversary post all week so I think I owe it to her to do a little write up!

Last weekend, William and I celebrated our first anniversary. We are going on a cruise in May as the big celebratory bash, but we decided that for the actual weekend of the anniversary, we would each plan a date night for the other and celebrate all weekend! I’m all about dragging out celebrations as long as possible. It just makes everything more fun when you have a birth-month instead of day, two anniversary dates + a trip etc.

We decided we would do William’s date on Saturday night and mine on Sunday night (our actual anniversary was Sunday). So Saturday, we got home from soccer stuff around 4:30pm and William told me to get ready and pack an overnight bag and we’d leave around 6pm. The first place William and I ever met each other was at a Village Church Christmas party at the Hotel Intercontinental. We got in the car and I had no idea where he was taking me but sure enough, we pulled in the Intercontinental and checked in for a little anniversary stay-cation. We checked out the digs and spent some time people watching as the Dallas Military Ball was at the hotel the same night and then headed out to an amazing dinner at Uncle Julio's. It was a great night and I definitely appreciated the thoughtfulness and significance of spending some time in the first place we ever met.

Sunday morning we slept in, had brunch at the hotel and then headed down to church. It was a very overcast and drizzly day and I started to get nervous about my upcoming date night as it was scheduled to take place outside. Since soccer was canceled for the day and it was raining, we spent most of the day relaxing and watching movies (and doing a little laundry on the side). About 5pm, I decided that it wasn’t going to be dry enough outside and my date just wouldn’t be the same if I moved it indoors William suggested we wait and just do in on Monday night. We did treat ourselves to some Cane’s chicken for dinner and defrosted our saved wedding cake for dessert. We had a great, relaxing night in and the cake was surprisingly tasty (for year old cake!)

Monday night, we got to conclude our celebrations with my date night. I told William to take as long as he could at soccer so I would have plenty of time to set up. He got home right around dusk and took a quick shower giving it just enough time to be dark outside. I led him into the backyard through the side door where he found a picnic of our fave Papa John’s pizza, salad and wine on a pallet of pillows and blankets in the backyard. I borrowed a projector and speakers from friends of ours and hung a white sheet on the end of the deck so we had our own little makeshift outdoor theatre! I rented Sherlock Holmes because I knew William had been dying to see it but before the movie, I played him a little slideshow of “Our First Year in Pictures” complete with thoughts and captions on each one. It was an amazing night and we decided we need to do it again and invite all our friends for a little backyard theatre/picnic action soon!

A lot of people say that the first year of marriage is the most difficult. I really hope that is true, because if this is as hard as it ever gets, we’ll have an amazingly easy and wonderful life together! I love William more each and every day and he truly challenges me to be a better woman in all areas of my life. He pushes me to dig deeper with Christ, be more effective with my job, and more intentional with my relationships. He is a constant source of encouragement and my best friend. I know I am so blessed to share my life with this man and am grateful for our amazing first year!!

It's Been A Year

Sunday (April 18) is William and my one year anniversary. In one sense, I can't believe that it's already been a year since our wedding day!! It seems like the time has truly flown by but on the other hand, it seems like we have always been married. I sometimes find myself thinking back to when we were dating and remember how the drive home every night from his house (now our house) seemed to be the most miserable thing in my life. Being married really is much more convenient :)

There are so many things I want to write about this occasion, but I think I'll save them for Monday, after we've had a chance to celebrate with each other because I'd like to say them to William before I post them to the blog world.

Until then, here are some pictures of my favorite wedding day moments...truly one of the best days of my life thus far!

Giving me away...so happy to be getting married!



Fist Kiss as "The Spencers"


First Dance


Cutting the Cake


Dancing the night away...



Living Happily Ever After

Inspiration

I’ve been noticing lately that inspiration is very easy to find and I seem to be increasingly influenced by new and various “inspirations” almost daily. This is a very blanket statement that I will try to describe in some recent life experiences.

Inspiring Moment No.1
The NCAA tournament this year inspired me to get serious about being a Baylor fan again. In my college years, I was one of the most die-hard Baylor athletics supporters on campus. This partly stemmed from the fact that I HAD to be at events because I was usually working them, but mostly stemmed from a genuine passion for my school and a desire to see my classmates succeed on the field (or court/track/etc.) Some of that passion has waned over the past few years but our trip to the sweet sixteen, being surrounded by a relatively full house of fans wearing mainly green and gold and watching a team who undoubtedly left everything they had on the court re-inspired my love of good ‘ole BU.

William and I at the Sweet 16 in Houston


Inspiring Moment No. 2
I got an email from Real Simple magazine that directed me their website where I inevitably ended up browsing through all their “quick tips” and “solutions” slideshows. This picture inspired me to get serious about organizing my closet.



Inspiring Moment No. 3
Several months ago, I came across a link to an acquaintance of mine from Baylor’s blog. I clicked on it (because I often have slow days at work and these things help get me through) and was immediately inspired for all sorts of reasons. First of all, I want my blog to be as exciting as hers (it never will be. I’m just not that kind of person). Second, she has amazing photos of homes and spaces that inspire me to try new things with our décor and take on some new projects. She also posts delicious recipes that make me want to cook, great fashion spreads that not only inspire me to go shopping, but to take things I own and try them in a new way, and sometimes just fun blurbs that inspire me to laugh. At the risk of this person finding out I’m online blog stalker, I’m posting the link to her site here because it’s just that good and inspiration is meant to be shared.

Inspiring Moment No. 4
I can’t get through an entire blog without mentioning my new business venture in AdvoCare. Today, I listened in on a conference call where they announced outstanding performances by other distributors and the successes that people have found in their AdvoCare business. The top earning distributor in the last pay period (2.5 weeks) brought home a check for over $97,000. This is overwhelmingly inspirational to know this person was once just like me and has worked their way up to making almost 6 figures not annually, but every 2 weeks. Incredible. Really. (**legal disclosure- results are not typical**) I don’t think my goal is to make 100 grand per pay period, but if they can do that, surely I can make a few thousand a month , right??


Inspiring Moment No. 5
At the risk of sounding cliché, I am constantly inspired by our amazing God. Sometimes in the beauty of nature, sometimes in the love or acts of service from my husband and friends, and sometimes in the recount of stories I’ve heard countless times. Easter always moves me, but this year, I was especially touched trying to reflect on what Jesus really did for us on the cross. I tried to put myself in His shoes as he watched his friends betray Him, as He prayed and pleaded with God for another way to absolve the sins of the world, as He was berated, beaten and abused and ultimately nailed to a wooden cross to hang there until He died. I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around it but even greater was the moment that He rose out of death’s sleep and walked out of the tomb as our risen Savior. It inspires me to live every day in light of the cross. To bring glory and honor to God in everything that I do, and to live to serve the Lord above everything else.

Here’s our “church family” Easter picture from last Sunday. All these people (plus many not pictured here) are also one of the greatest sources of inspiration in my life, constantly pushing me to draw nearer to Christ.


Praise God for every inspiration, the insignificant and great that surrounds all our lives. Maybe someone will find something I’ve written in this blog a little bit inspiring. I hope so.

In honor of a former name....

I know this blog is called "Becoming the Spencers," but as most of you know, before that happened, I was a Becton. There was a lot of pride attached to the Becton name and we even had a town on the map in Texas. Please enjoy this story from the Lubbock Avalanche Journal about my former life and ancestry. Just for reference, I am related to all the people quoted in the article. Polly Wampler is my aunt (dad's sister), Gail Wilson is my cousin (Polly's daughter), and Ute is my dad's cousin.

http://lubbockonline.com/stories/032910/loc_597672050.shtml

P.S. I'm thinking of keeping the name Ute alive...look for little Ute Spencer coming in approx. 4-6 years.

Fiddlers, Fun and Fat Loss

As an intro, I’d just like to point out that I really love alliteration (see title)!
This past weekend packed in a lot of events in multiple categories. After some work travel last week, I came home to a few days of in celebration of “Spring Break.” Since my boss is on a cruise and out of pocket completely, he let us all share some time off so I got Thurs-Wednesday of this week as a mini spring break from the office! I’m still doing some work from home, but mainly trying to catch up on various maintenance issues, doctor’s appointments, and chores that are difficult to complete outside of the 9-5 work schedule.

We kicked off the weekend by attending "Fiddler on the Roof" with William’s family on Friday night. William’s mom got his step-dad tickets as a Christmas present and so graciously included the whole family in the outing. The musical was great and we even saw the final performance of on the most acclaimed actors in the lead role of “Tevyah”. As somewhat of a musical expert (and by that I mean I played some roles in community and school versions of musicals), I thought he was great in the role, but you can tell his voice had seen better days. Despite that, it was great and so much fun to spend time with all the fam.

Saturday was a day of yard work and errands but concluded in celebration of our great friend Justin’s birthday in the Bishop Arts District. We had a great time hanging out with some friends and browsing all the fun shops in the area. Since William and I are still cleansing, we knew we couldn’t eat pizza at the party so tried to fill up on salmon and broccoli before we got there. Even though our healthy meal was delicious and satisfying, I think it was the toughest challenge either of us has faced so far to turn down Eno’s pizza! Pizza is somewhat of a passion at our house and a weekly meal staple. We’ve both done great on the cleanse though and are feeling and seeing some great results! I have even had more energy and stamina in my work outs this week!

Sunday was a great day of church, soccer and browsing for landscape designs. We will hopefully have some fun landscaping updates to the backyard later this month! I’ll post pics when it happens.

All in all, it’s been a great few days and with only 2.5 days to go on the cleanse, I’ve lost over 5 pounds and probably some inches too. I’ll keep you posted on total results from the cleanse after I do final weigh and measures on Wednesday…Until then…

The Challenge

Today, William and I started a 24 day health and nutrition challenge through AdvoCare. The program is a 2 part challenge starting with a 10 day “cleanse” and then followed by 14 days of a “lean and trim” process. I thought by posting this to our internet audience, we could create a little bit of accountability to stick with our goals and complete the full 24 day program.

As some of you know, I’m actually a distributor for AdvoCare products after falling in love with some of the products during our annual Texas vs. the Nation game, and I’ve been told this is one of the best ways to get started in AdvoCare and become familiar with some of their top selling products. So, here’s the breakdown of what the next 24 days look like for William and I.

Days 1-10- “Herbal Cleanse”
About a month before William and I got married, I did a “natural” 7 day cleanse that was recommended to me from a fitness instructor. Basically, I ate fruit every 2 hours until 3pm then I switched to raw veggies. On day 3, I got to add in a small amount of lean protein. It was miserable and I was starving most of the time, but I did lose weight. The problem with this was that the meal plan was completely unrealistic for everyday life so it was a quick, temporary fix to the extra pounds I wanted to get rid of pre-wedding. When someone first recommended this cleanse, I was scared of the word altogether but after doing some research, I found it to be MUCH better and more maintainable than others I have heard of in the past.

Basically, we have a few shakes and mixes we take in the morning and replace our normal breakfast with a meal replacement shake. The shakes by themselves aren’t bad, but can be made even better by blending in some ice and frozen fruit. It’s actually a better option than my normal breakfast, which is usually some kind of bar and a banana.

You can have a mid-morning fruit “snack” and hardboiled eggs if you’re really hungry. For lunch, you eat some veggies and lean protein and can even have a complex carb (so for this meal we are eating turkey sandwiches on whole wheat bread w/ mustard and baby carrots/fruit.

Afternoon snack is nuts/fruit and you also get a yummy spark drink to give you a little energy boost for the afternoon. For dinner, it’s just a matter of picking healthy options such as lean proteins (chicken, fish etc) and fresh, steamed veggies. You take a pack of cleanse tablets before bed and make sure you’re drinking LOTS of water throughout the day and that’s it.

So, that’s what we’ll be doing the next 10 days. I’ll try and keep posting updates and will explain phase 2 when we get there. I’ll also kick this off by listing a few of our goals over the next month or so…
1. Tami to lose 12-15 lbs and keep it off!
2. To get in at least 4 good workouts a week
3. To develop better eating/cooking habits for both of us!
4. To feel better and have more energy day to day
5. To feel confident and comfortable in a swim suit (there will be before and after pics but I’m not feeling like I’ll be able to post those online at this point. Maybe if my results are good…I don’t know.)

Wish us luck!

What Might Have Been

For as long as I can remember, I have been a fan of the winter Olympics. Maybe it’s because I grew up a few hours from mountains and snow but rarely saw a lake or ocean. Maybe it’s because my parents hated beach vacations so I was naturally inclined to prefer winter because that’s when we traveled. Maybe the passion my best friend Jeana had for it growing up rubbed off on me, but regardless of the reason, I truly love the winter Olympics. I love watching almost every sport (with the exception of curling). I even think the Biathlon is exciting to watch. Though I don’t really understand the correlation between cross country skiing and riflery, I’m still on the edge of my seat hoping that the American hits every shot. I love the half-pipe, downhill, moguls, luge, bobsled, ski jumping, hockey, and every combination of any of these, and, for as long as I can remember, I have loved women’s figure skating most of all.

I know the public admission of this may knock my “cool” level down a bit, but I don’t really care about being cool anymore, so I can live with that. I think part of my love for the sport has stemmed from the complete domination by American women in so many games. I loved all the ones I can remember…Nancy Kerrigan, Michelle Kwan, Tara Lipinski, Sasha Cohen, Kristi Yamaguchi, Sarah Hughes…I still remember watching each of them skate and, in some cases, tearing up as they took the medal stand. I don’t know if it’s my knowledge of the figure skating world that’s changed or the talent of the US team, but I was really bothered by the fact that last night (well, maybe the short program night) was the first time I’d ever heard of Rachel Flatt. For me, her name very accurately described her performance last night. It was good, but left me feeling flat. But I digress…

Despite my love and respect for this sport, for some unknown reason, I have gone through my 26 years of life up to now and have never set foot on an ice rink. I know we went to malls that had them as a child, and I always wanted to try it, but for some reason, fate hasn’t allowed me experience that yet. At some point in college, I realized that this was something most people have done at some point in their lives that I hadn’t, so I decided to “save” it; to make my first time on the ice a meaningful and significant moment. I tried to go in Rockefeller Center at Christmas time in NYC on a trip, but there was a 3 hour wait. William was going to take me in Steamboat a few years ago, but the place closed early. So as you can see, God’s plan has obviously been to keep me from the ice. I think I have finally figured out why. I think I would have been great on the ice, maybe even unstoppable. I might have been the first woman to successfully land a quadruple toe loop in competition. However, God knew that my immense success on the ice would make me miss out on growing up as a “normal,” non-Olympic champion teen. He knows my heart would have become proud at all my gold medals and glory and maybe not been as close to Him, so he has set up roadblocks in my path to greatness up to this point.

Hopefully, I am too old now to begin the path to Olympic stardom from scratch, so I will finally be allowed to at least skate once, just to see how it feels. I publicly promise to my blog audience that I won’t take it any farther than just a pleasure activity. There. Now I’ve said it, so bring on the skates.