Reminiscing on Baylor Law School, the past 3 years, and our first born!

Wow, it's so hard to believe that we have been in Waco already for 3 years! Jacob had his last class of law school EVER today! It seems so unreal that he is almost done! Last night we went out to dinner at Olive Garden to celebrate the fact that law school is almost over and had a great chat about our time here. We were thinking back to when we first moved here, to the great town of Hewitt, TX that is. The day after we moved in we took our UHaul to the rental place and then drove around Waco for a little while. We found a movie theatre and tons of restaurants. We began to realize that Waco may not be the worst place in the world to live, like some people had told us. Coming from Austin we didn't have very high expectations for this place, but it actually wasn't so bad after all.

Pretty soon after we moved here we met some amazing friends, Lauren and Greg. They had just moved down here from Seattle for Greg to start law school. They had no idea what Texas would be like and were very surprised by our crazy thunderstorms right after they moved in. It didn't take long for them to fit right in. It was so funny meeting them because it was like we all just clicked with one another. Lauren and I both like to run. Greg and Jacob both loved baseball. The boys were both in law school together and liked talking about 'law stuff' that me and Lauren never understood. We all liked to watch the same tv shows, and even watched them together many nights. They had 2 dogs and we had 2 dogs. We have a border collie and a lab and they have 2 mixed border collie/labs. Oh yeah, did I mention we lived only 3 houses down the street from them! It just seemed meant to be that we meet them! We are so thankful that we did meet and develop such a great friendship. Unfortunately after our first year here, Greg got offered a job at the law firm he had been working at over the summer. It was a great deal for him, so they couldn't pass it up. He needed to start working at the law firm before he graduated, so that meant they were going to have to move back to Seattle! I was so upset about the news and didn't really know how we were going to make it down here without them. We didn't really know anyone else here. Greg and Jacob had become very close and studied together all the time. They even talked on the phone late at night about their cases (like little teenage girls). Lauren and I did everything together. We worked out together, made dinner together, watched movies together, shopped together and supported one another throughout the terrible first year of law school. Who were the dogs going to play with? They used to play with Trucker and Bailey all the time and didn't have any other friends! Thankfully, we have stayed in touch with Greg and Lauren and still completely support one another! We even went to visit them this past spring break and stayed for a week! We're also going on a cruise with them this summer to celebrate Greg and Jacob's graduation along with Lauren's parents, Jacob's parents and Jacob's brothers and their girlfriends. We can not wait!

The last 2 years of law school were pretty rough. The second year was a bit easier than the first and I actually got to see Jacob some. We started going on walks together again, taking the dogs to the park and going to movies. It was as if we had a somewhat normal life, compared to the first year here. It wasn't too long into the second year that I found out I was pregnant with little miss Jayda Michelle! That was the most exciting news ever for me and Jacob. We were soooo happy and could not wait for her to get here. Jayda finally arrived on July 24th, 2007 and we couldn't have been more proud parents! It was the most amazing thing that has ever happened to us! Jacob had off an entire month before he started back for his last year of law school. It was wonderful having him around to help with Jayda for that month. I definitely couldn't have done it without him. He is an amzingly wonderful daddy! After that month, Jacob started the awful, dreaded Practice Court. We had heard tons of horror stories about practice court. It started in August and would last until the beginning of February. Let me just say, those were the longest 6 months of our ENTIRE lives! We had a new baby to take care of and Jacob was averaging 3 hours of sleep a night. He had SO incredibly much reading to do I didn't think it was humanly possible to actually do it. Jayda and I hardly ever saw him because he had so much studying to do. Usually, we would see him for dinner for about 15 minutes a day and then he would be back to studying until 2 or 3 in the morning. This is no exaggeration, but exactly what our lives were like. We never went on walks anymore and the poor dogs never got out. I felt so sorry for them, but I can't take them out on my own. Jacob and I didn't even have time to watch one t.v. show together. We also couldn't go out of town on the weekends because Jacob would have to study the entire weekend! It was really hard because Jayda was only a few months old and I was wanting to take her all over the place for people to see, but we were stuck here for 6 months! Anyways, you get the idea that it was pretty terrible. This is one reason why I can't believe that Jacob is about to graduate. We have been through SO much here and Jacob has endured so much. It is simply amazing that he has made it through this craziness and that we are still a happy family. There is no way we could of made it without God by our side. He definitely gave us both the courage and determination to perservere these past 3 years. I'm so thankful that we found a great church home while we were here. We had some very supportive people there that were always understanding of what we were going through. And of course, thanks so much to both of our wonderful families. They have both been so supportive of us throughout law school and we can't wait to be much closer to them very soon! Anyways, I think that's enough reminscing, I'll post some recent pics next!