Oh, wow. It's been almost 2 months since our last update. Since then we have made our way to San Diego and back. The weather was beautiful, and Casey and Megan's beach wedding was amazing. We were so glad we could be there. We also went to Sea World, spent time at the beach, walked through a swap meet, went deep sea fishing, and spent time on the USS Midway museum ship.














USS Midway ^














^ Us on the Beach at Casey & Megan's Wedding



















^Deep Sea Fishing collage


When we returned home, Cory worked his last day at Wal-Mart and then began working as a Manager-In-Training at Hastings. The store is just completing a new remodel that he was able to be a part of, requiring some extra hours at the store. He has also be working on Calculus, his last class required to earn his BBA.
A little over a week ago we purchased a new vehicle. We traded in Lindsey's car (Sally the Sebring), and purchased a crossover SUV (Lexi the Lexus). The Sebring was having a few problems (Cory hasn't liked it since the day Lindsey brought it back to Hays, but since it was before marriage, he didn't have a lot of say in the purchase) and after some number crunching with Randy, we determined it was feasible to purchase a different vehicle.



















^Sally the Sebring on the lot to be sold



















^Lexi the Lexus in our Driveway

We hope this update finds you doing well! For those of you who don't know, on Monday, July 26th we celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary. We went to Wichita and spent some time with Cory's brother and fiance' and did a little shopping. On the way home we stopped to visit with Lindsey's grandma and were able to see both of our parents before heading back to Hays. It was a good day to celebrate the quick past 2 years. Guess time does really fly when you're having fun!
We are excited to have Kenra back in Kansas. She arrived home (to the Crosspoint Church in Hays) Saturday evening. We were there, along with Mom and Dad to meet her upon arrival after the 20 hour car ride home along with other members of her group. We had a good evening spending time together as a family (everyone stayed at our house). Sunday morning we got up and with a team effort, made a huge breakfast to start off our Sunday morning. The day was leisurely with them leaving in the late afternoon.
We are getting ready to head off on another trip! Cory's brother, Casey, will be married this weekend (August 7th) in San Diego, California. We will board a plane early Friday morning at the Wichita airport. While in San Diego, in addition to the wedding festivities, we plan to go to Sea World and to Universal Studios, see the ocean, and do other various activities. We will arrive back in Kansas Tuesday evening.
After we come back from San Diego, Cory will be preparing to start a new job. He will have one day left at Wal-Mart to finish out his 2 weeks, then he will begin at Hastings in Hays as a Manager-In-Training. This position is approximately a year long position that trains him to come a Hastings Store Manager. After completing the program, he will be assigned a store of his own. We are excited about this upcoming change! For the time-being, Lindsey plans to stay working at Simply Charmed.
That is what is going on in our lives right now! A new update coming soon (hopefully!).

Well, we have made it back from Vegas and worked ourselves back into our normal routines. Back to work and real life. Cory has begun his summer class (college algebra). It has been a long time since either of us have worked those kinds of math problems! This weekend we have made our way towards home. We've been driving back and forth between our parents houses spending time with our families. The time on the road is both the beauty and the pain of having our parents live so close. Pain, because it's "wasted time" we could spend with family, and beauty because we are able to see everyone during a weekend at home. More beauty than pain, for us it's worth the sacrifice. We popped a few firecrackers at Cory's house yesterday (July 3rd) and plan to do more with Lindsey's parent's and neighbors and at Cory's brothers today on July 4th. We will be driving back to Hays this evening as well, as we both have to work Monday morning.
Upcoming events for us: *A boys/family weekend for Cory and some of his family. *Sidewalk sale in Hays (this means work for Lindsey). *Our 2 year anniversary (hard to believe it's been 2 years!). *Trip to San Diego (first full weekend of August Cory's brother gets married in California).
Think this updates you! Hope this finds you doing well!

A lot of things have happened since the last post, mostly because a lot of time has past since then. Probably the biggest even since the last post was Graduation. That day has come and gone. Cory and Lindsey, along with 1,000 other people filled the floor of Gross Memorial Coliseum on Saturday, May 15 to walk across the stage and receive their diploma's (or empty diploma holder). We spent the afternoon Barbecuing in our back yard with our parents, siblings, and friends. We are grateful for the people who spent the day with us, stopped by, and sent us cards and thoughts. Hopefully soon we will post pictures from the day. Now I guess real job hunting begins...
The next thing we have planned is our trip Las Vegas. We will be flying out June 2nd and will return about a week later. We have several show lined up and a long list of sights we want to see while we are there. We will be traveling to Vegas with Cory's brother Chadd and a friend, and will be joined by another brother, Casey, and his fiance' Megan and another friend. It should be a really great experience!
Hopefully we will update soon after our trip.
Thanks for checking in with us!

Well into the New Year

Hello, this is a necessary update, as we haven't posted since New Years.

A few of our goals for this year are to keep our house cleaner, workout, and update our blog more often. So far, two of those three are going pretty well. We've done a really good job of keeping our house a lot cleaner than it used to be. With our schedules, we found it hard, as we would get up in the mornings, go to school and work, and by the time we were both home in the evenings, we only had a few hours to spend making dinner and eating, watching our TV shows we follow and sports, doing any running around, and other things we wanted to get done in the evening (which did not include cleaning). So, now our fridge 'proudly' displays a chore list, which we've done a good job of sticking to. Also helping allow us to get all the chores done is our new schedule that we have begun to accommodate working out. We used to sleep in until we needed to get up for work and school, usually 8 for Lindsey, and varying times for Cory. Now our typical morning schedule is up at 6, at the gym by 6:30, home at 7:45 to begin getting ready for the day, work on chores, and eat breakfast together. It also allows for some extra time for us together, which is nice. The third one, however, well that's still a work in progress. We will continue to try and update our blog more often, to keep everyone informed of the things that are going on in our lives.

Since the last post, we have attended our first KU Jayhawk basketball game in Allen Fieldhouse. We went with Cory's parents and one of his brothers. Following the game, we all began getting phone calls and text messages that people had seen us on TV. We didn't believe it until someone sent us a picture, via text message showing us on ESPN! It was a great experience, and we hope to go back.

Cory started his last semester of being a full-time student. Classes resumed on January 13th. Cory is taking 4 classes, only one is on campus and 3 are online classes, allowing him more flexibility in when he can work on them, and gives him more time to work at Wal-Mart. Cory has completed almost all of the required courses to earn his Bachelors in Management, so he filled his schedule with classes from a new major on campus, Tourism and Hospitality. Hopefully the classes will be interesting.

Lindsey has finally settled back into a routine at work, after having all the college students working more hours over Christmas, and working around every one's holiday schedules. Then completing inventory at the store (counting beads is SO much fun...I hope you can sense the sarcasm). Now the big task at hand is the Glitz and Glam Prom Fashion Show that is coming up this Saturday. Lindsey, along with a co-worker and boss, has coordinated a show of 83 high school girls modeling 83 dresses. That means in the last month and a half, 83 fittings in addition to normal sales have been completed. Now all the dresses have been picked, as of yesterday the order has been determined, and now only the final details (a lot of final details) have to be taken care of. It should make for an exciting event.

Well, this is the update we have for now. We hope this finds you all doing well.

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!