Cold season has officially hit The Richards household... yuck!

So... its been a while since we have blogged, 

no reason in particular... just living life ;)

Last Friday Jordan came home from work not feeling well & has pretty much be knocked out since then :( Sore throat, cough, achy... the whole deal. Poor thing! He finally started feeling better last night & then I woke up feeling sick this morning! Grrr! Jordan has been disinfecting the house with Lysol pretty much all day today, not to mention taking care of me. He also currently has potato soup cooking in the slow cooker ;) I am blessed beyond measure. 

We have both decided that us getting sick = God telling us to slow down. We are always on the go, which can be a good thing, but every now & then it is good to just slow down & reflect. We are so blessed to have everything we have & realize that on a daily basis... we have both admitted that being able to spend the last couple of days together has been nice. Although we didn't like the being sick part. lol

I baked very yummy cookies last night...

 Funny thing though... they were almost all gone by the time I got up this morning... we must have a little mouse... named Jordan ;)

This Friday is the annual Thanksgiving dinner that our church La Loma Grace puts on. We are serving food again this year, we really enjoyed serving food last year. It's a great chance to enjoy fellowship with our church family. 
We are REALLY looking forward to it & are praying that we both feel much better by then!

Thanksgiving is right around the corner & we can hardly wait for that either. Before we know it Christmas will be here, too! Jordan LOVES Christmas, he is like a little kid the whole month of December... it is so cute! ;) We are so excited to have our own house to decorate this year... we get to buy our own tree, put up lights, buy presents, send out Christmas cards! Not to mention... reflect on the REAL reason for CHRISTmas :)

I came across this prayer that I had seen a few yrs ago that really impacted me. I text messaged it to Jordan last night before we went to bed, being that we were in different rooms do to the fact that he was sick (lol) & he LOVED it! So, I thought I would share it...

St. Theresa's Prayer

May today there be peace within.
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts that you have received, 

and pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be confident knowing you are a child of God.
Let this presence settle into your bones, 

and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.
It is there for each and every one of us.

Love & Blessings,

 J & J

A day at the range...

 So... being that Jordan is in law enforcement & is around guns on pretty much a daily basis, he thought it was necessary that I learned how to shoot a gun myself... so this past Saturday we went to the gun range in Ripon. I was beyond nervous at first, but quickly got over my nervousness & learned that I am actually quite good at it ;)

Here are the pictures from our day...

 

Jordan shootin' :)

 Me shootin' :)

My target! 

From what everyone at the range told me, I'm a pretty good shot!

Me shooting, video courtesy of Jordan :)

Jordan shot too fast, so I couldn't get a video of him.

Love & Blessings,
J & J

A season of thanks...

We can hardly believe that Thanksgiving is almost here! And boy do we have so much to be thankful for this year... each other, our heavenly father, our wonderful family, our beautiful home... the list could go on & on!

This year seems to have just flown by... perhaps because we were planning our wedding ;) Regardless, it was a year filled with so many new memories, new adventures, highs & a few lows. We are looking forward to the new year we will soon have a head of us.

There will be many new adventures & a "few" changes...

As some of you may know, Jordan has singed a conditional letter of employment with the FBI. Yes, the FBI :) He does love his current job, but sadly because of the current economy he has little to no job security. We both did a lot of praying on the matter & Jordan happened to hear about the FBI hiring. He did a little research & began the application process. It has been about a year since he started the whole process & it is slowing coming to and end, or I guess the beginning. lol He had to fill out a rather lengthy application, go to a very intense interview, pass a very rigorous physical agility test & recently had a very in depth physical... from his head all the way to his birth marked toes ;) He has passed all of the tests & is now in the background check stage. Once everything is clear, he should begin the FBI Academy in January. The academy is 5 months long & is in Quantico, Virginia. Yes, you read that correctly... Jordan leaves in January for Virginia, for 5 months! We will barely be married 4 months at that time, so that is the part we are having a hard time dealing with :( Jordan has been told that the FBI will fly me out once a month. I could technically move to Virginia for 5 months with Jordan, but Jordan will be living on the base M-F. We both decided that it would be silly to move both of us away from our families, our home & my job when we will only be able to see each other on the weekends. So, for now, the plan is for me to fly & see Jordan as much as possible, which I think we decided would be every other weekend. We are praying & hoping that the 5 months just fly by! We know it won't be easy, but we are faithfully putting ALL of our trust in God, knowing that it is all in His hands & that He sees the bigger picture. The FBI will definitely be a huge investment for our future & we are focusing on the fact that out of what will be a very long life together, 5 months is just a short period of time. At least we keep telling each other that ;) After Jordan graduates from the academy, which should be some time around next May, he will come home & we will have a week or so to relocate to wherever they station him. They let him make a list of 3 preferences... 1. San Francisco 2. L.A. 3. Sacramento. He was told that if you move to a "big city office" first, then you can move back to the place of your choice, after 2 years. San Francisco is a big city office, as well as LA, so we are hoping for either one of those. We would like to only move once. We are planning to come back to Modesto after the 2 years. There are a lot of unanswered questions & little details up in the air at the moment, but we know God has a plan for us & we are going to follow where He leads. We have decided to call this "our little adventure" :)

Phew, now that I got all of that out... here's a little of what we have been up too the last couple of days...

We purchased 100 new cookie cutters & a new mixer, time for baking our favorite cookies... all from scratch! The frosting is made from scratch too & they are de-licious! ;)

Cookies are officially in the oven...

Out of the oven and decorated...

J loves J, of course :)

We took a little trip to the pumpkin patch...

Jordan searching for the perfect pumpkins...

Such a goofball!

Jenna, very excited about the pumpkin selection :)

Happy Halloween 2010! Our first as Mr & Mrs :)

 GO GIANTS... WORLD SERIES CHAMPS!

Lately, we have been pondering...

"Why only a season of thanks? Shouldn't we be thankful every season?"

Love,

J & J

Happy 2 month-iversary...

Here starts the beginning of our blog :) We hope you will all enjoy being able to have a little sneak peak into all of The Richards Happenings. We are so excited about our new life together & look forward to sharing all our adventures with our family & friends.


Today we celebrated our 2 month anniversary of becoming Mr. & Mrs. :) Time seems to have just flown by. We can hardly believe that it's been 2 months since we said "I Do". What a beautiful day that was! We watch the wedding dvd's quite often & all of the emotions of that day start coming back. Seeing each other for the first time is something we will never forget. We find ourselves telling each other that we thought we loved each other then... but with each passing day, our love only grows stronger. What a beautiful gift from God!

This picture was taken moments after seeing each other for the first time.

Tonight we celebrated by... Jordan going to play softball, like he does every Thursday night (he LOVES it), while Jenna stayed home & cooked him a delicious dinner ;) We finished up dinner just in time to watch the Giants win World Series game 2!

Our first month of marriage was definitely a whirlwind... we had an amazing time on our honeymoon, it was so nice to get away & just relax for a few days. We made so many new memories, spent time at the beach, rented beach cruisers & went on a beautiful 5 mile bike ride. We also went to the San Luis Obispo Mission, we both really enjoyed being able to see that.

These pictures were taken at the infamous gum wall in downtown San Luis...

I told Jordan it probably wasn't the best place to take his germ freak wife ;)

Kisses @ Avila Beach

Gorgeous view - Shell Beach

The beautiful cross outside of the San Luis Mission, it reminded us of the one at our ceremony.

Stopped for a quick pic on our beach cruisers :)

Then on September 1st, we got the call we had been dreading for months... Nanny had gone home to be with the Lord. It was such a mix of emotions for both of us. It was so hard to see her suffering like she was, but we were so sad to see her go. We sought comfort in knowing she was with our heavenly father & the love of her life, Poppy. 

"Knowing what I know about heaven, believing that you're all the way home. Knowing that there's somewhere better, is all I need to let you go. I could hope that I could pray you back, but why on earth would I do that? When you're somewhere life and love never ends, knowing what I know about heaven."

Life has continued to change each day since then... as life will. We are loving getting settled into our cute little house in "the city of action" aka Riverbank ;) Here are a few pictures of our house...

Isn't it cute?!

R for Richards :)

We love our new carpet!

One of our favorite decorations.

Love these!

On September 7th Jenna had a milestone birthday, turning the big 25 :) "Jordan made everything extra special. With the passing of Nanny only being 6 days before, everyone definitely needed a good dose of happiness. He was truly wonderful through it all." -Jenna

Headed to Dewz for Jenna's birthday dinner :)

In celebration of our 1 month anniversary we took a trip to the cabin... it is one of our very favorite places & was a much needed trip.

Family photo @ the cabin.

She adores him.

So curious about everything, she loved being able to roam around.

Emme's first time swimming...

Needless to say, she absolutely loved it :)

Looking out at God's beautiful creation.

We are so excited for all of life's adventures, especially because we know we'll be sharing them together.

Love,

J & J