Some Photos...because I am good at this Blog thing

Here's some amazing pictures of the last couple of weeks...in no particular order because I am still new at this whole blog thing. Enjoy!

We found this sign in Oklahoma and I made Matt stop to take a picture. Haha! He loves me!

My whole Hazard family. I love these people! :)

Me and Matt at the Dallas temple. We were here for the wedding of some of our friends' and figured out how to use the delay time on our camera. We are high tech geniuses. :)

Me and my dad at my college graduation December 12, 2008. He got to dress up too, since he is a professor at BYU-Idaho. It was cool to get to march in with him and shake his hand.

Happpiness... :)

Today I woke up in the arms of my sweet husband.

This might seem like such a little thing, but it is a little thing that has happened too few times in the last seven months. Matt and I have officially been married for 1 year, 4 months, and 10 days as of today, but of that time we have spent approximately 4 1/2 months of it apart.

Over this time we celebrated the 4th of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and my birthday apart.
I went back to school and finished my degree in Communications as a "single" college student. We began building a house in Texas, which I have yet to see. I also went to several maternity visits and through morning sick days without a husband. Matt found out we were having a boy over his cell phone.

But we are together again now, and I love it. We have spent time with just the two of us, driving, shopping, and talking about our new litttle boy. We have eaten, slept, and sat together. We have held hands. :)

It is amazing how much I love this person, and it is amazing that I don't have to call him on the phone to tell him that! I am really, and truly, happy, and I know that Heavenly Father has blessed me much more than I deserve. I thank him everyday.

Also, thank you so much to all those people who have loved and supported me during these sometimes very hard times. My wonderful family, who made me feel like I had never left home in the first place. Who fed me and clothed me, and helped me through the rough patches. Who loved me unconditionally.

To Matt's family, who did the same and made me feel like I was in a place I had always known, even though I had never been there before. Who called and updated me while I was away, and who are so lovingly welcoming us both back into their home.

To my fantastic friends, who listened to me complain but never let me wallow too long in my own self-pity. Who took me with them to play, and who cheered me on in all I was doing.

These last few months were probably the hardest thing I have ever done...and I am so lucky. I am so blessed. Thank you so much. Thank you.

-Haley

Photo Update

Here is a fantastic picture of what I look like now,
for those of you who haven't seen me for awhile...



And for those of you who haven't seen Allison and Courtney in awhile...

No, not really. In real life, I look like I do in the pink shirt with Allison and Courtney, and in real life, my mom would kill us all if we ALL looked like this! :)

We went shopping this Saturday and stopped in at Motherhood Maternity, where, I am pleased to announce, I bought my first pair of stretchy pants! Woo-hoo! no more rubber band around the button for me! It was pretty fun, and as you can see, we all got pretty into it!

So...I've had some complaints...

OK, ok, ok! I'll update the dang blog! I swear, this is worse than a journal...which, can I just say, I haven't kept since I was about twelve. :)

So what is going on here? Not much. I go to school, come home, do homework, sleep, eat, repeat. It is a good life though, and I can't complain. My family is fun to live with, and I am enjoying being "one of the kids" again. Although it is a little weird, since I am having a kid of my own now!

Speaking of which, the nameless little boy growing inside me has suddenly become quite active! It took me a few days to figure out what I was feeling, but I am convinced now that I am actually feeling him! It is so exciting, and it makes the whole experience a little more real.

School is almost over, THREE MORE WEEKS!! I cannot express my excitement! Sometimes I think that I am going to miss being a student and going to school everyday, and I'm sure some days I really will. But I think that day will be a long, long time from now. :) I am just ready to be done, done, done and to focus my creative energy on other things...like changing diapers. Haha! All stages of life are exciting, it just depends on how you look at them!

We do have some EXCELLENT news! Matt FINALLY finished his training! Yay! The saga that began more than six months ago is finally coming to a close! Needless to say, we are both very happy! Hopefully it works out that Matt can come up to Rexburg for the last two weeks I am here, maybe even in time for my birthday and graduation! That will be a fantastic day!!

Whatever happens though, I will fly back to Texas December 17th, at which time I will finally see the house we are building and where it is! It looks good in the pictures though, and I trust Matt to do most of the "adult" things in our life anyway. Haha! He takes good care of us, I am very lucky!

Ok, well I hope this satisfies for awhile cuz that's all I've got! I love you all!

FISHING FOR PROS

Well its been some goods times here for the Hargrave Family. Haley is developing quite well. And yes the votes are in we will be expecting a little boy come next April. So of course I had to take my little cousin out for a little fishing trip with one of his buddies. We caught all these fish in about 20 minutes. Not to bad if I say so myself. : ) and of course we had to fry them up that night!!!!!


Oh yeah and great news we have finally started to build our new house as you can see behind me



We are pretty excited. The house should be finished around the first of February of next year. So plenty of time for Haley to get the babies room just how she'll want it to be. I finish my training (finally) at Ft. Sill and will be heading down to Ft Sam, but not for long. I am going to go up to Rexburg to do some Home town recruiting and be there when Haley gets to walk the stage at graduation. So exciting. Haley is pretty pumped. Any how thats all we got for now.

Another Week in Paradise!

Well this would be great but its more like................




This............


Oh sorry, was day dreaming there for a sec. When your like a couple few thousand miles away from your wife and your first baby you tend to get a little depressed. (Oh, did I mention I live in a 15x15 foot solid white room?) No I'm not in prison I'm at a mandatory officer training school waiting for it to start. Ha Ha Ha. Good news Haley and I have picked out a new lot in the same neighborhood, and building will commence in like a few weeks. Needless to say we are very excited. Haley is coming along smashingly in her school work. Even though she wants to quit almost every day, she is quite the trooper for hanging in there. Greg and Nancy have been fantastic in helping us out at this time in our life.
I have been officially reasinged at Ft. Hood to the 1st Cav/1st Brigade HHC (or for you non military that is the Headquarters Battalion). We will permanently move to Ft. Hood beginning February of next year. My legs are all healed up and I commence training the last week in October.
On another note I had an interesting conversation with my cousin in law, Jake Roecker about Mohammad and religion. The interesting fact was fallibility in religion. For those that have read the Koran (which is a very interesting piece of literature, and contain some great words). It contradicts itself just to may times. You have to have other books to help decipher what the meaning of phrases are. In some ways the Bible does that to itself at times also. That is the beauty of the Book Of Mormon. An infallible book, the infallible word of God to help guide us and help us in our day. It is such a great feeling in an era that is so fraught with uncertainty that there is a guiding light with which to set our course by. Anyway just a thought. Something I wanted to just throw out there. From our family to yours hope yall have a good one.

Matthew & Haley

The Challenge...da-da-daaaaa!

This morning I awoke to a very threatening sign hanging in my kitchen. I just wanted to share it with you all.

_________________________________________________________________________

Next Friday’s Challenge

BOWLING!!

Mom and I challenge you and a partner (date, friend, etc.) to a game of bowling next Friday at 7:00.

BEWARE, BE SCARED, and BE PREPARED!!

(This is not for the weak or squeamish)

Mom is a great closet bowler AND has style to boot. You will see the competitive juices ooooz from her body, you will hear her trash talk in ways that will make you blush, and you will gasp in dismay at her bulging biceps as she hoists the 6 pound ball!

We will pay

(cause winners always pay)

. . . for the bowling, then we will split up and you can pay to finish your night with your partner however you want (cry in your ice cream, go to a movie, go to your friends, . . . whatever it is you do), and mom and I will continue our own date celebrating the victory.

DON’T WAIT . . . get your partner today so they can also anticipate getting annihilated by the MOTHER of all bowlers!

_____________________________________________________________________________

I just want you all to know that I plan on being there and I plan on doing some trash talking of my own! Bring it on baby! :)

YES.... I did Graduate from College!!!!!

Had myself the most interesting conversation today. You know I consider myself a some what learned man. I mean I'm not that intelligent (but I did graduate from college) Some of my family ;) are under this slightly skewed opinion that I graduated but with only my associates degree in some amazing degree like:
- basket weaving
- pottery
- canoing
- camping
- smore cooking
- or hay manufacturing
(I made that last one up)
Any who, now to be fair to those wonderful classes (which alot of them I did take ;) and to clear up any and all confusion (however ridiculous it may sound) I, Matthew W. Hargrave did graduate from college with a bachelors in general studies with 3 minors, Health Science, Animal Science, and Military Science. (yeah i know alot of sciences, but hey what ya gonna do). Any way just thought I would clear that one up oh and to wow ya'll some more My family and I will be attending Baylor University in 2013 to receive my masters degree in Business and Hospital Administration. So there I just thought I would clear that up. Have a wonderful week everybody

Matthew

Bro Mort and I (a teacher at the college) at Graduation. He doesn't wear that funny dress for fun!!!!!!!

A Little From Me!

Hey everybody! Matt has been doing an EXCELLENT job of keeping up this blog (because we all know how diligent I was! Sorry!) and I thought I might get my 2 cents in from Idaho!

I got here about a week ago and jumped right into school again. Pretty much it is the same-old, same-old, except now when I introduce myself and say an interesting fact about myself (don't we all just love that first week?) I get to say that I am finishing school while my husband is in Oklahoma. I thought it sounded pretty self-explanatory, until a very concerned classmate asked me why we had separated and if it was permanent or if we were just "taking a break." I decided that maybe I should be a little more specific after that. Sorry Matt. :)

I am taking 17 credits and about three art classes, so this semester should be...interesting. I am trying to stay positive. On the off chance that I am not madly trying to climb a mountain of homework though I m having a pretty good time! This weekend I went with Griffin and a bunch of my friends and a bunch of his friends (and a bunch of people that I don't think either of us have ever met) on the Alpine river. It was a fun day and it felt good to get one last "adventure" in before everything freezes again.

I am also pleased to announce that I have not thrown up for the past week! Yay! I think that we are getting closer to the end of this first trimester thing and I can't say that I am going to miss it! But we are really so excited to be welcoming this new little life into ours and I will keep you all updated on what's going on!

Another week another..............well nothing!!!!

Well Well Well .... another week at Ft. Sill for me and another week down for Haley which means one more weak closer to Graduation. One little piece of excitement that we had this week was that Haley had her first sonogram of our new baby. It's pretty exciting to think that little bit of black and white image is going to be our baby. I know yall that have been through this before probably find this boring to read ;) but we're pretty excited.

Winter is coming around and its beginning to be cold. In Oklahoma its dropped down to the 80's (wow) In Rexburg its all ready getting down to the 40's. We finally decided on our house that we will live in come next year. Haley is all excited to put the babies room together. She wants white everything.(Hey she's gonna be the momma so whatever she wants) My deer heads still go on the wall. Compromise right. That's what marriage is all about. But of course anything Haley wants built well I guess she's gonna get that too. Kinda love the girl alot. Like to keep her happy. Haley ran the Alpine river this weekend. Always a load of fun.

Well anyway we hope everybody is doing well and hope yall enjoy the picutres we've put on.

Matt & Haley

This is what our new house will look like. Grandpa and Grandma Hazard came down to Killeen and helped us pick stuff out for the house.

Almost forgot, Haley and I celebrated our first anniversary as a married people. Mom, Wayne, and Sarah helped me put together a little restaurant at the house for Haley.

Took a ride over to Luckenbach Texas, ( Jerry Jeff Walker, Waylon Jennings to just name a few) Haley found herself an Idaho license plate on the wall of license plates. There's literally 100's of plates put there.

Be careful where you step down south!!!

Hey every body, Okay so its been kinda like forever since we last did really anything to our blog. Well lets start off with the most exciting news is come next April Haley and I will be welcoming a new edition to our little family. Thats right our first baby. We are really excited (pretty much terrified at the the same time) but we are very happy. Still don't know what it is yet Haley is about 3 months along and really hasnt been to bad with morning sickness or that whole thing but I have never met someone that can sleep as much as she can. Its amazing, its like in a 24 hr. day she could be asleep for 20 hrs. of that and be just fine. But really we are really stoked.
I'm currently residing in Ft. Sill Oklahoma (STILL) For those that don't know i kinda hurt myself. The official term is bilateral stress fractures or pretty much my legs are busted. I have been in walking cast for 2 months and have 2 more left to go before they will release me back to active duty. As of now I sit around doing paper work and doing blog stuff :) Haley has returned to Rexburg, Idaho to finish her last semester of school and then a few online stuff and she is done (yeah!) We are all really excited about that. I'm pretty proud of her for finishing what she started. Now our kids have no excuse when its there turn and they say school is hard. ha ha ha oh what sweet sound we shall hear!
Well thats all I really have right now. Put a few new pictures on enjoy.

Matthew & Haley

This was right before we left for Rexburg, A good friend of mine (Kevin Lee) took us up for a flight to see Rexburg from a whole diffrent view.

Josh came to visit (Jason, my stepbrothers kid) came to visit and we had ourselves a little silly string fight.

This one is for Haley. For yall that dot know Halloween is Haley's favorite Holiday. This was our apartment last year in Rexburg.

Hey Ya'll!

Well, here it is! Our amazing and exciting life, online for all to see and experience! In all reality though, not that much has happened, but I will take the time to update everybody on what has been going on in the South!

Matt and I moved from my mom's and dad's basement in Rexburg, Idaho, to his mom and stepdad's guesthouse in San Antonio, Texas, about two weeks ago. Getting here was quite the adventure, as we loaded up everything we own in this world onto a 20 foot trailer and the back of my tiny Suzuki Swift. My dad and Matt's sister, Bekah, came with us to help keep Matt and I company as we drove, and off we went!

Along the way we got to stop and see some of our favorite people, including Grandma Hill and Aunt Peggy in Utah, Uncle Clay, Aunt Annie, and Grandma Pat in Oklahoma, and Grandma and Grandpa Hazard and the Skallas in Texas. But after a series of near-death experiences (really...it was way too close) severe wheather and golfball sized hail (which cracked both the truck and the suzuki's windshield) and several much-too-expensive gas tanks, we finally arrived at our destination! San Antonio!!

We got here just in time for Matt's youngest sister, Sarah's, highschool graduation party. The entire family came over from all over Texas and we celebrated with some good-old-fashioned cookin' and then we went shootin'. It was great! :)

The next day was "tourist day" and we all headed to downtown San Antonio to spend our last day before we had to become "locals." We went to the Bass Pro Shop and ate catfish (yuck) and did some deer hunting. :) We got in a little Texan history at the Alamo, and then again at the IPEX Theater where we saw "The Price of Freedom" which was about the Alamo. After that we went to the famous River Walk and rode a little tourist boat around the walks and shops. It was so beautiful! We finished off the night eating on the Walk at a little mexican resturant while we were serenaded by a marriche band. (OK, I have no clue how you spell that word.) All in all it was a great day.

My dad and Bekah flew home a few days later and then it was just me and Matt and his family here. We played a little and I helped Matt pack his bags for his Officer Training Camp. I also started school at UTSA last Monday...and then I quit school at UTSA last Tuesday! Haha! I guess even some things we plan for just aren't ment to be! I will now be going to school in the Fall back at BYU-Idaho, and I am excited to get to see everybody again!

Matt left for training in Oklahoma last Friday, and ever since then I have just been hanging out with his family, going to BBQ's (which are HUGE here) and visiting people and running errands and applying for jobs and helping out and just generally enjoying life! It is wonderful to know that no matter where we go there are such good people there who are so willing to love us and take us in! We are very blessed!

Wow! Sorry this was so dang long! I guess I just had a lot to share! Haha! Well, hopefully I covered all the important things! I love all of you!