Thanksgiving

Well we ate and ate and ate some more! We started our Thanksgiving at Ryan's grandparents house in Malvern with his Aunt Gina and Uncle Tom and two of their children Ben and Katie who had come down from Iowa. Also Ryan's parents, sister Allison, and Nelson (the dog) came. And then of course his grandparents were there. We started the morning by having some fellowship and telling stories. Then we ate GREAT lunch around 11:30. Ryan and I loaded up around 1 and head to another Thanksgiving in Little Rock at my grandparents. There we had my grandparents, my Aunt Kris, Uncle Pete, Sean, Thomas, Charlotte, Olivia, , my Aunt Karen, Uncle Ty, Robert, Lauren, Neil, then we had Uncle Pete's sister Elise, his mom Joan, and his newphews Jason, and Alex, then my dad, step mom and step sister and Ryan. We had a crowd! We loaded up our plates and ate again at 2. We sat around and chatted after we ate and then we head over to my moms. There was my Aunt B and Uncle Buddy, my cousins Clayton and Chase and my Gran and my mom. We ate dessert there then just sat there. Needless to say we saw a lot of family today! We are so thankful to have such wonderful friends and family! Thanks to everyone for allowing us to be a part of this special day!

Hit and Run!

Well, in the middle of the night at 1:05 this morning we were awaken to the car alarm of Baxter's truck going off and another car speeding off. Amy and her sister Jill were asleep in Amy's room, Ryan was asleep in Allison's room and I was in my room. Amy and I have to take the Praxis today so we had gone to bed early. Amy and Ryan jump out of bed to see what was going on. Amy said she thinks someone had broken into Baxter's truck. I didn't know anything had happend until the opened the fromt door and they were talking. So we all walk out side and to our surprise the truck's back tire was in our yard. Someone had hit him. It took us a minute to figure out that the main impact was on the back driver's tire. They had hit the truck so hard that it moved it back about 3 feet and pushed it up over the curve. I decided to call the police then instead of waiting until the morning. They came out and he was a very nice police officer. It took about 15 minutes to get all the info he needed and he left. That was about 2:10. At 3:40 I as awoken again with someone beating on my front door and ringing my doorbell repeatly. I jumped out of bed and ran down the hall as Amy is yelling at me. It was another police officer, he first words to me as he yelled, "WHO'S TRUCK IS THIS?'' I thought he was mad because of the way it was park. But come to find out within an hour and a half of the first police officer leaving they had caught the guy and arrested him!! Way to go Fayetteville Police!!!!

Christmas at by house!

This past weekend Amy and I put up the Christmas tree. I absolutely love Christmas. I decorated the living room, but the rest of the house is still Fall. But I can not tell you all how happy it makes me to walk out to the living room each morning and the tree is already lit up. It is wonderful! I am so excited that I will get to spend time with friends and family this holiday season.

Razorback Games

So it is Razorback Football Season. All season long we have been blessed to have so many friends and family come to visit us. We so so grateful that we get to spend time with each and everyone of you. Also the beginning of basketball season is now upon us and we have been going to some of those games this past week as well with different friends. We are so happy that Mary Alice a good friend of Allison and Ryan got to come and share one of those games with us, but we forgot the camera. But Mary Alice don't worry we won't forget that fun night! Even when i tried to kill you! Here are some pictures from the season and the games.

Wedding Updates

Ok, so Sarah and I have been engaged almost 3 months! Just a run down on where we stand - the first month was non-stop go and do and see, trying to find a place to have it. Little Rock was the town, we just didn't have a venue - Sarah's church growing up didn't have a center aisle so she axed it, several other churches we liked either wouldn't do it on the day we wanted, May 23, 2009 (scheduled around the particular photographer we wanted, Hudson Photography) becuase of Memorial Day weekend. We finally found the most awesome place, Trinity Presbyterian in Little Rock. Sarah grew up Church of Christ and I am Baptist, not a huge deal but we were nervous about the Presbyterian thing, just because neither one of us knew much about their practices.

Enough with that, the only other task Sarah put me in charge of was finding the band for the reception, which is at County Club of Little Rock in the Garden Room which over looks my greatest passion (besides Sarah), the golf course and downtown Little Rock. After weeks of research, I came across a band from Little Rock called Tragikly White. They will be amazing, what a night cap to the most wonderful day of our lives. Tragikly White mixes disco, funk and highly danceable 70's, 80's, and 90's music for a crowd-pleasing, high-energy production. So get out your dancing shoes, shine them up and get ready to dance!

As we near our long awaited day Sarah and I will continue to update you with the progess of wedding planning. I thought my part was tough, asking Sarah's parents and getting the right ring. Little did I know the hard part was still to come. Thank God for Sarah and her amazingness!!

Engagment Pictures

We took engagement pictures last month and we wanted to share a few.

Back when we got engaged!

To start this blog off we thought it would be only fitting to share the story of how Ryan proposed. It happened on August 19, 2008.

Tuesday after I got done teaching, I was supposed to meet my step sister, Dad, and Tracey at Rae-Marie's new dorm room but my first teacher's meeting ran way long! We also had plans at 6pm but about that in a minute. Ryan and Allison kept texting me all afternoon wondering where I was. I went home to meet Ryan so we could hurry to the dorm to check it out (by this time its 5:45). Ryan continues to ask me "How long will this take...only 10 minutes?" So back to the plans at 6...meet Jamie, who works for a testing service, and Tim on campus at the University of Arkansas to help pass out flyer's. So Ryan insisted I park on Arkansas Ave and walk up the center sidewalk to meet them at Old Main, they meet us halfway. Jamie started to get out about a 2 inch thick stack of bright colored paper, and I began moaning about how hungry I was and this was going to take forever, yada yada yada. So as Jamie barked directions to us on our walk up Old Main, Ryan started to pull on my hand and I kept swating him away. Jamie and Tim suddenly started walking behind us as Ryan practically pulled me off the sidewalk towards Spoofer's Stone. There was a rose petal walkway leading up to the stone with a bouquet of flowers, at this point I realized there were no flyer's to be past out, just a hoax to get me on campus. Ryan and I sat on Spoofer's Stone as we talked for a little bit before he read a Bible verse to me. He then got down on one knee-before he "popped the question" I screamed YES!! But he continued on and said "Sarah Marie Maulden, will you marry me?" and I screamed YES!! again.

Here are some pictures from that day.

This is when I realized what was going on.


Starting to read 1 Cor. 13. And you can tell I was getting excited.

Hugging because we were so happy!

Our families drove up to celebrate with us.