Our Christmas/New Years Letter

Our Christmas season was wonderful as we reflect on our time with family and friends. We were busy with travel, but were able to see almost all of our family. As Christmas approached we were not even sure we would be able to do much traveling, so seeing all that we did was such a blessing. Tuesday evening is when they expected the winter storm to hit our area, so, Lindsey’s boss did some shuffling which allowed Lindsey to head home that evening with Cory (a day early). We spent the day Wednesday at Cory’s family’s house, as his brothers began coming home for the holiday. Christmas Eve is family gathering day at the Elsen house, and also Pam’s birthday. All the brothers and spouses were able to be there; along with Sophie and two dogs… it made for a busy house, but was great for Christmas. Christmas morning we woke up at Cory’s parents house with no electricity, heavy winds must have blown down a line. Nevertheless, we got up and around and left for Lindsey’s Grandmother’s house by about 7am. We spent the morning there, including activities of opening gifts, putting together health kits, and playing cards. The afternoon was then spent at Lindsey’s aunt and uncle’s house for Christmas with Annette’s family. That evening Cory and Kendra headed back to Great Bend and Albert, respectively. Lindsey and Annette went shopping the morning after Christmas with Aunt Krys, Cathy, and baby Colbie. The afternoon of the 26th was spent with more family time. Lindsey at the Ben B.J. Goering family reunion and Cory at home with the brothers. Sunday afternoon was the final Christmas gathering we had, which was at Lindsey’s parent’s house.

As we reflect on the year past:
We are grateful that we both still are employed. With the economy in the state that it is, this truly is something to be happy about. Lindsey is still working at Simply Charmed where she is working about 35 to 40 hours a week (sometimes more). Cory is still working in the Tire and Lube Express in the Hays Wal-Mart. He also is employed fulltime.

This past summer we traveled again to Mexico. We spent a week in Cancun. It was once again a great experience. We took advantage of lazy time by the pool, but also took in some shopping time in Cancun as well as swimming with the Dolphins and visiting ZelHa environmental park, where we did cliff jumping, rope climbing, and snorkeling.

A big achievement for this past year is Lindsey earning her Bachelor or Business Administration degree. She took her final class over the summer. It was Calculus online…it was tough. Her diploma and tassel are proudly displayed in our living room.

November proved to be a trying month as we lost loved ones from both of our families. We rely on our memories of the past as we remember Lindsey' Grandfather and Cory's cousin.


Looking towards the next year:
Graduation! We will both walk in May for our graduation. Cory will be almost done after this coming Spring semester. He will also have his last class (also calculus) to take over the summer, but he has made arrangements so that he can walk in May, allowing us to walk together.

Job hunting. While job hunting itself may not be a lot of fun, we are excited about the next phase of our lives. (If you know of anyone who may need one or two people with a BBA degree, put in a good word for us and let us know!)

Turning 25- Again, nothing too major, just seems like a "mile-marker" in our lives. We are proud of what we have accomplished in our first 25 years -High school graduation, College, Cory playing college football, Lindsey working on Magazine staff, College graduation, marriage, etc. - are are excited about what our future will bring!

Vegas – after graduation we are planning a trip to Las Vegas. We will fly out the beginning of June and return about a week later. We will be accompanied by Cory’s brother Chadd and a friend.


We reflect on the past year having good memories and we look to the next year with excitement. We know that there will be changes ahead as we look to start careers and face the possibility of a move, and we are excited about that. We are hopeful and look for guidance from all different aspects, and are confident that with the guidance we receive, and decisions that we make, we will be on the path laid out for us.

We hope that the past year has been a good one for you, and that your next year is blessed in many ways!

Love,

Lindsey and Cory

Update

OK, so we aren't very good at keeping this updated...we will try to get better. Fall semester at FHSU is well on it's way. Cory has been keeping busy with group projects, case analyses, and tests. Lindsey is happy to not be attending classes, it is a nice change of pace. However, just because she is not in class, does not mean that she is not busy. She is working 40 hours, some weeks a few more at work. The stores are closed on Sundays, and her other regular day off is Thursday. She typically works 2 or 3 Saturdays a month.
Our house has been full of visitors over the last couple of months. A wedding of a friend of Cory's family gave us a full house one weekend -People in the guest bed, people on the air-up mattress, one on the couch, one on the recliner, and someone on the hammock in the back yard as well as other guests in and out of the house that weekend. We've also had other visits from Cory's brothers, and had another friend stay this past weekend. We also Kendra on a regular basis. We enjoy having a house were we can entertain company. It's so nice to have our own space!
Up coming we are planning a trip scheduled to go see a KU game the weekend of October 10th. While we are there for the weekend, we will stay with Cory's brother Chadd. We plan on visiting some of the Halloween haunted houses in Kansas City (and Lindsey is hoping to do some shopping) also while we are there.
Other than these few things, there hasn't been too much going on here in Hays. We hope this finds everyone doing well!

Home from Vacation

We are home from Mexico and trying to get back into our routine. Saturday, June 13th we left Hays when Lindsey got off work. We stayed with Cory's brother, Chadd, until we flew out on Tuesday, June 16th. While staying with Chadd, we saw a movie, went to a Royals game (well, part of a Royals game), spent time in the College Basketball Experience in the new Sprint Center, tried to visit the Zoo (unfortunately we only saw the parking lot since the zoo was closed), and went to Harrah's casino, where we ended down about $3.00. Tuesday started out at 2:15 am as our flight left at 6:00 am. Some of the activities we participated in while we were in Mexico besides hanging out at the pool at the resort were swimming with the dolphins and going to a park called Xel-Ha, where we snorkeled, climbed on a rope bridge, and jumped off a couple of cliffs. We were very fortunate with the weather while we were there. While we were booking our tours one afternoon, it rained for about 10 minutes, and it rained while we were on our way to an activity. Other than being hot, the weather was great. We left the resort Monday at 10am and flew out of Canucun at 12:40 arriving back in Kansas City a little after 6:30 Monday, June 22nd. Tuesday we drove back to Great Bend and Albert and drove back to Hays Wednesday morning. We were both back to work Thursday.

Hope this finds you doing well.

Summer

Summer is officially here, which for us just means we don't have classes {and that isn't even true for Lindsey this summer}. The first big event of the summer is our move. We had some trouble getting into our new rental house on time, but, a week and a half later, with water and a new bathroom, we were able to move in. Luckily, we had allowed ourselves two weeks of overlapping with the lease from our apartment. The landlords completely re-did our bathroom, so we had no water to the house for about the first week of our lease. This made for an interesting living situation since we had arranged for family to come help us move on the 15th (the day our lease was supposed to start) and for our cable and Internet to be switched to the new house that day. We spent a week spending the evening at the house watching TV, and then returning to the apartment to sleep on an air mattress and use the restroom and shower. But that is all over with now, and we are moved in and getting settled. We have turned in the keys and left our apartment "the cleanest an apartment has ever been left" according to our old landlords. Hopefully we will be posting pictures of the new house soon. It is so nice to have our own space and not have people constantly walking above us, or slamming doors and drawers in the neighboring kitchen. Also, Kyzer has come home and is adjusting very well to city life. At first, he barked at the door a lot because of the traffic, but that is getting less and less. I think he is glad to be here.
Lindsey is taking one class online this summer. She is taking Calculus thought Hutchinson Community College. Fort Hays decided to do only online courses this summer, to cut costs on campus. And the choices of online classes are limited. Calculus is the only class standing in the way of Lindsey's Bachelor's of Business Administration. So, it will be a challenge this summer, but the reward will be worth it!
We will be taking our trip to Mexico as we had originally planned, well, kind of. Originally we were going to return to the same resort we visited for our honeymoon, but we decided to go to a new resort this summer instead. Rather than being 45 miles south of Cancun, we will only be about 25 (or so they tell me, directions are not my forte). We will be leaving for Kansas City after Lindsey gets off work Saturday, June 13. We plan to attend a KC Royals game on Sunday, which unfortunately means we have to miss Lindsey's grandmother's birthday party. Monday will be a lazy day, since we have to be at the airport Tuesday morning at approximately 3:00 am, to prepare for our 6:00am international flight. We will be staying with Cory's brother and he will be taking us to the airport (thanks Chadd!). We will return to Kansas City June 22nd.
I think this novel pretty much covers what has happened and what will be happening coming up! Thanks for checking in!
Love, Lindsey and Cory

Upcoming Vacation

As you may or may not have known, we were planning a vacation back to Mexico this summer to the same resort we went last summer on our honeymoon. We booked our trip back in December or January. Since booking our trip, we have been watching the developments in Mexico. First was the drug cartels, but after researching, we were confident that we would be okay in the area in which were were going and the activities in which we would be participating. The newest development is obviously the swine flu (the the h1n1 virus to be politically correct). We now are questioning the safety of a trip to Mexico. We have been looking at our options, and as of right now we are planning on changing our reservations to a resort in Jamaica. We have not yet made the change, as we are waiting to see how everything plays out (and saving for the additional expense we will incur). We just wanted to the the chance to update everyone on our vacation plans.

We hope this finds everyone doing well!

A much needed update

I realized this weekend how long it had been since we did an update, so here is a much needed up date!

Really, not a lot has changed since the last post. Cory is still working at Wal-Mart and Lindsey is still working at Simply Charmed and Simply Elegant.

Recently, Cory took a trip to Denver, Colorado with two of his brothers and a friend. They went to a Nuggets vs. Clippers game and did some other sight seeing while they were there.

In other news, our lease on our two bedroom apartment will end at the end of May. After much time put into checking the classifieds, making classifieds, driving by addresses, and looking at places, we found a new place to rent. May 15th we will move into a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house, with a nice front porch, a fenced in backyard, and a 1 1/2 car garage. Quite the change from our little apartment. We are really excited. Also, we will be able to have Kyzer, our dog, who has been at Cory's parent's house, since we cannot have pets in our apartment.

Thanks for checkng in, hopefully it will not be as long before we update again!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year. We hope that the new year brings all God's blessings and the best life has to offer.
We are enjoying our last week or so before we return to classes for the Spring semester. It will be busy as all of our semesters are. Lindsey will be working on finishing up the requirements for her Management degree and working nearly full time. On January 10th, Lindsey job will expand, as her boss opens a second store in downtown Hays. She has been working on all aspects of opening a new business and is getting a lot of great experience! The new store will be a Prom dress store, opening on a trial basis from January to May, then the plan is to re-open in October on a permenant basis. Lindsey will also travel to Dallas mid-January with her boss to experience her first market.
Cory will also have a full schedule of classes, as well as working nearly full time. He continues to work in the Tire & Lube Express (TLE) as a technician in the Hays Wal-Mart.