Having a blast on our Texas Christmas trip!

We have had such a great trip so far! Brandon and I arrived in Texas last Friday night, Dec. 23rd. We landed around 7:30 pm. We didn't realize it until we were laying over in Phoenix that Candice and Todd were ALSO landing in Houston at 7:30!!! So, we coordinated meeting at Pappasito's in Humble. We ate dinner and laughed our heads off. It was AWESOME!!!! We didn't take any pictures, but we got some good quality time. My BF is going to have a BABY in July!!!!!! I'm so happy!!!


Brandon & I spent all day on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my mom & dad. We really had a good time. My mom and dad LLLLLLLOVEEEEEEE Brandon!!! They really adore him. It makes me so happy! My dad & Brandon have spent some time together in the office (extra room in the house), installing stuff on the computer, etc. I liked passing by and seeing them together, talking & laughing. :-)


Monday morning, we left early for Little Rock to see Granny, Angie, Jeff & Jessica. We had a great visit with the fam from Mon-Wed! We got to see Granny's new apartment. It's beautiful!!!



We drove back to Texas Wednesday evening and had a nice night together. Today (Thursday), Brandon & I woke up and got ready to go to Southwest Houston. Three of Brandon's good friends live in the Bellaire area. We had lunch at noon with Jon & Tiffany. Their little girl is sooo precious!



Then, we met Michael at The Chocolate Bar. This is the most DEE-VINE dessert place in the world!!! After we left Michael, we drove to Meyerland to meet up with David & Monica. We really had a wonderful day!!!




Tomorrow, it's breakfast with Debbie & Carter. Then we are driving to Roundtop, TX to be with Brandon's aunt & uncle. On Saturday, we will head to San Antonio for 2 days!!!

I hope you are all enjoying your holiday week!

Christmas at The Grotto~ Portland, OR

Here are some pictures from last week in Portland, OR. Brandon took me to The Festival of Lights at The Grotto in Portland, OR. It was soooo BEAUTIFUL!!! Click on the link below!

Christmas at The Grotto

Christmas Day~2011

Christmas 2011


Last year~Christmas 2010 (I didn't fly up for Christmas until Dec. 28th. :-)



It's my first Christmas with a husband! :-) We have had a great week! We had family Christmas with the Ray family on Thursday night. Brandon's mom fixed an enormous meal and we had a good visit. Then, Friday morning, B & I flew to Texas. We are having a fun visit with my parents. We will also be going to Arkansas to visit my Granny this week.

I thank God for answering my prayers for a wonderful, Christian husband!!! All my dreams have come true. :-)

Merry Christmas to all of you!

Love,
Brandon & Kim Ray :-)

Our Christmas 2011

If you need a laugh...

... take a look at THIS!


I subbed in 3rd grade today. The teacher left this fun assignment for the class. Their reindeer tell a story. The body is made by tracing their closed hands on brown paper. The nose is red if you are a girl and green if you are a boy. Their antler points show how old they are. Their eyes go to the right if they LOVE to ...read, to the left if they LIKE to read, and in the middle if they don't. They put a bell around the neck if they are going out of town for the holidays and a ribbon if they are staying local. The legs are as follows: 1 bent leg if you are the youngest, 2 bent legs if you are the middle child, 3 bent legs if you are the oldest and 4 bent legs if you are an only child. Isn't this cute??? There was a paper with the legend/guidelines on it.

Just thought I would share! Merry Christmas!

Brandon got his master's degree today!

Today was Brandon's graduation from Warner Pacific College in Portland, Oregon. I am so proud of him! His hard work definitely paid off. I love my husband!




I love this picture of Brandon and his parents! :-)

Click on the picture below to see the whole album! :-)

Brandon's Graduation

Our first Christmas tree!!!

I have a new respect for my dad. Every year of my life, my dad put up the Christmas tree. He assembled it and fluffed the branches. Then, usually my mom and I would decorate it. I have discovered that fluffing the tree branches is the worst part of decorating a Christmas tree!

So... Brandon put the tree up for me last night and I was in charge of decorating. I made 8 bows to start with, which took some time. I THOUGHT I was going to decorate the tree last night, but I spent over an hour fluffing the branches and only made it around HALF of the tree. With the time I spent on the bows and fluffing the tree, it was time for bed!

So, tonight Brandon & I ate dinner and started watching "It's a Wonderful Life." Then I resumed my branch-fluffing and fluffed for probably 30-45 more minutes. Then I got to do the fun part...tree-decorating!

We haven't found a tree topper we like yet, so we're going to wait and hope for an after-Christmas sale. For now, I have a big red & gold bow at the top. The tree isn't exactly how i want it yet, but I know I have some more stuff to use in my Texas Christmas boxes in the garage. I haven't dug in those yet. I don't want to buy anything else this year.

We opted for the multi-color tree since we have (2)trees in the living room with white lights that we plug in year-round.


P.S. We got our 7.5 foot, pre-lit tree at Walmart for $98 bucks! Can't beat that with a stick! :-)

I added the tree pictures to my Christmas 2011 album. So, click on the link below and the pictures will be at the front. Enjoy!

Christmas 2011

Christmas season!

I can't believe how fast December is already passing. There are so many things going on. We are going to put our tree up tonight! We wanted to put it up the weekend after Thanksgiving, but I flew to Texas for a funeral. And we've been busy ever since I got back. So, tonight's the night! :-)


I was very excited to buy our first Christmas ornaments together. I bought 6 personalized ornaments! I am very pleased with them. I have more pictures of all 6 in the album below.


I got back to Washington last Thursday. Sunday night, Brandon and I went to the Annual Marriage Team Christmas Social. There was a dessert buffet and fellowship. Mr. & Mrs. Ray honored all their volunteers who give so much of their time. It was a nice night.

Last night, Brandon & I drove to a couple's home in Camas to watch their annual Christmas light & music presentation. It is amazing! They sync their Christmas lights to music on an FM radio channel. You can sit in the car and listen to the music that the lights are dancing to! It's amazing! I have pictures in the album at the bottom of this post. There are short videos, too! Watch them!


After we watched the Christmas lights (the show lasts an hour exactly), we went to eat dinner at our fav Mexican restaurant. It was a fun night! ;-)

Click on this Christmas picture album to see a variety of pics I've taken already in December. Enjoy!

Christmas 2011

Go buy this magazine soon!

There's an article about Brandon's parents in the December 12th issue of FIRST for women on page 102-103. It's been out for a couple of weeks already and I don't know how much longer it will be on the newsstands. If you don't want to buy it, at least read it while you're standing in line at the checkout! :-)

There's a picture of Brandon's parents' book cover and it mentions their names... Al & Autumn Ray. Really neat!!!

One year of love!

One year ago today, Brandon & I expressed our love to each another. We were on the 5th day of our 10-day Texas trip. I didn't know for sure how he felt about me. We were having a great trip, but we were just friends... not even hand-holding.

After dinner with Jeff & Tasha Fox in Houston, we drove out to the observatory at Brazos Bend State Park. Romantic, right??? Stars? On the way to the park, we started talking about our relationship in the car. We both expressed that we loved each other and started talking about our future together. And he held my hand! ;-)

We walked around for 2-3 hours, talking & holding hands. He quoted some poetry to me and shared a lot of his thoughts. It was wonderful!!!

I so am thankful for the love of my life, Brandon Ray. He makes me feel like a princess! I am so blessed and I thank God every day! :-)

Sad day...

:-( Instead of writing about romantic stories from our anniversary week, I want to let you know that my friend Tom Hall died of cancer today. He was only 51 years old. He leaves his wife, Debbie, their daughter Lauren and son-in-law John, and Tom & Debbie's 8-year old son, Carter.

Please pray for the family this week. The funeral is Saturday. Also pray for Lauren as she takes her law school final exams next week. She is preparing to graduate on Dec. 17th.

Tom was a believer in Jesus. He is now WITH Jesus, dancing on streets of gold, having a new body that is free of pain. Hallelujah!!! We will miss him, but we can rejoice that we will see him again one day.

Thank you, Jesus... YOU ARE GOOD.

I love this picture of Tom, ringing his bell as we walked through the wedding guest tunnel to leave for our honeymoon. He looks so happy for us and so enthusiastic about ringing his little bell. It always makes me smile.

Beautiful trip through the snow!

Today, after church, Brandon & I decided to drive to Mount Hood. It was a gorgeous day, sunny and 40 degrees. We didn't make it all the way to Hood because the driving conditions were too hazardous. So, we got within about 15 miles of the Timberline Lodge(Mt. Hood ski lodge) and turned around. It was a beautiful drive!

We drove through some really cute little towns. We ate dinner at a famous hamburger place in Sandy, Oregon called Calamity Jane's. It was fun! I took a picture of the menu. If you look closely, you will see the "Hot fudge and marshmallow burger" and the "George Washington Burger" which has sour cream & cherries on it. The waitress assured us that people actually eat it. Yuck! :-p

Then, we drove to the McMenamin's at Edgefield and had dessert and coffee. It was a great day and evening!

Check out my pictures below...

Mt. Hood trip

Canoeing with my Honey...

A year ago today (Saturday), Brandon & I traveled to East Texas (from Dallas) to go canoeing on Caddo Lake (near Jefferson, TX). Brandon used to live in both Dallas and Longview, so he was familiar with Caddo Lake and had been many times. He wanted to share that experience with me.

We stopped at a store on the way to Caddo Lake to buy items for our picnic lunch. It was fun! During the canoe trip, we paddled to a pretty cove and ate lunch. We canoed until dark. Then, we drove to Tyler, TX, ate dinner at Applebee's and visited with his best friend from college. We had such a great visit! :) James & his wife Deanna have the 2 cutest little boys! They were so much fun to be with.

Brandon's friend, James, took the 1st pictures of us together in front of their house in Tyler. I call this pic the "love" picture, even though we hadn't expressed our love yet. That's coming on Tuesday!!! Stay tuned!

Funny things...

I've meant to blog some funny things, ever since Halloween. These are just some things that have made me laugh lately.



On Halloween night, Brandon & I had the cutest little trick-or-treater. He was probably 3 years old and he was dressed in a big, puffy, blue & red Spiderman outfit. He was little & short. I opened the front door and he was just standing there. I exclaimed, "Oh my goodness! Who are you???!!" (which in itself is hilarious, because clearly, he was Spiderman). He tilted his little head almost straight up to look at me through his mask, and with a lisp said, "I'm Pide-uh-man" (That's Brandon's favorite Halloween memory! He loves me to say it like that little boy said it). :-) So cute!

So, I'm gushing over how cool he looks and digging in my candy bowl when the little boy remembers to say "Twick-O-Tweet". ;-) Brandon also loves this. We wish we had a picture of that little boy. He was so cute!

Our good neighbor-friends across the street turned their garage into a haunted house that was AMAZING. Our neighbor, Staci, is very talented and creative. Their 15-year old son had a football game that night, so Staci and her daughter operated the haunted house. Brandon & I went over and walked through it. It was awesome!

We passed out candy from 6:30-8:30 pm. So, around 9 pm, I went to the front window in our house and looked out to see if any more kids were coming. What I saw instead was a 6-FOOT GORILLA jump out in the street in front of a mini-van, scratching & jumping like gorillas do. Oh my gosh, people... I laughed and laughed... It was our neighbor's son, Peyton. He got home from his football game and put on a gorilla suit. So hilarious... He's a big kid, too. The gorilla looked real! The minivan belonged to some neighbors down the street. I bet that man had a heart attack when a huge gorilla jumped in front of his van. Peyton let the minivan pass and then he took off running down the street. I really enjoyed watching that little episode. Very funny...

Here are a couple of funny little things...


This year was the first time I've ever carved a pumpkin! I didn't plan ahead and buy special candles for lighting the pumpkin. So, I grabbed the only 2 small candles I had and put them in the pumpkin. I had 2 small jar candles with the scent of "Buttercream Cupcakes". They smelled DELICIOUS! People said you could smell the candles from the street. So... during the trick or treating, a little boy (probably in 2nd-3rd grade) was leaving my porch after getting his candy. He walked past my pumpkin and yelled to his mother on the street, "OH MY GOSH!!! THIS PUMPKIN SMELLS SO GOOD!!!!!" :-) It made me laugh!

One night last week, we drove through McDonald's for a large Diet Coke. We pulled up to the window and a young guy passed the Diet Coke out the window and turned away. There was no straw. Brandon & I looked at each other and waited. Finally, the boy turned around and Brandon asked for a straw. As Brandon pulled away from the window, he said, "Wow, that guy was a few fries short of a Happy Meal!" :-) It made me LAUGH! It was especially funny since we were leaving McDonalds.

Something that just happened tonight... Brandon has a tendency to leave things in the floor; and not just in the floor, but in the PATHWAY. And Kim Ray has the tendency to never look DOWN when she's walking. So, earlier today, I tripped on the small fan on the floor beside my bed. We laughed and Brandon said, "Hun, I don't want to lose you prematurely. I'd hate to have to put "If she'd only looked down..." on your tombstone." :-) That made me roll with laughter! Then, tonight, I was walking around the bed toward the bathroom and I tripped on Brandon's pants that were on the floor, right in the path to the bathroom. I got so mad! And he laughed and laughed... :-) I don't look down!!!

This is the Boo Bash link, but I just added Halloween pictures to it. Click on the picture of Ethan and then scroll down to the bottom to see the new pics...

Boo Bash 2011

One year ago tonight...

My future husband was getting on a plane to fly to Texas. Brandon went to his Thursday night masters degree class and got out at 10 pm. His non-stop flight was for 11:30 pm. He landed in Texas at 5:30 am. I was waiting at the airport to pick him up. :-) We then started our 10-day visit, getting to know each other in person.

On Friday morning, Nov. 19th, Brandon came walking out of Bush Intercontinental airport in Houston around 5:45 am. We drove to the Cracker Barrel in Conroe and had breakfast. Then, we drove up Interstate 45 to Huntsville for Brandon to meet my parents. We visited with them for about an hour & a half. We needed to get on the road toward Dallas because we were going to a concert that evening.

We drove my car to Dallas and had lunch with some of Brandon's good friends that he used to work with when he lived there. It was great meeting people who knew him and loved him so well. It was very interesting meeting them and hearing stories. I met awesome Christian people who were very interested in meeting me, as well, because they cared about Brandon so much and wanted God's best for him.

Friday night, we ate dinner with another good friend named Crystal and went to a Steve Green concert. It was really beautiful and special. Afterward, Brandon stayed with Paul & Gloria at SMU and I stayed at Crystal's apartment. Crystal is AWESOME and for anyone who knows Denise Lormand-Hagee, Crystal reminds me of Denise. AN AWESOME WOMAN OF GOD... I loved staying with her and soaking up inspiration.

I will walk down memory lane on my blog this week. I can't believe it's been a year already... Time flies! :-)

Sweets by Kim Ray!

Every Tuesday night I bring a dessert to the ladies' Bible study I attend. Tonight I brought my mom's sugar cookies from an old recipe in the 1970's, probably. My yankee girlfriends said those were the best sugar cookies they'd ever eaten! Some even said they were "PERFECT!" ;-)

I used a lips cookie cutter because I thought it would be cute. Then I decorated them with my homemade icing. Also, I bought a gingerbread house cookie cutter at Ross last night for $1.99. I used food coloring to make the brown "house" icing. I used the picture on the cookie cutter backing as my example. I think they turned out really cute!

I'm still toying with the idea of having a bake shop one day. Thinking and praying about it... Who knows!? :)

Have a great Wednesday!

Busy week & new pictures...

I had a very busy week. I went to the doctor again for my hives. I spent most of the day in Portland Tuesday, getting my hair done, getting my wedding rings inspected and cleaned and running some errands. I spent part of 3 days baking cakes, making icing, cookies and running errands for the baby shower. I hosted the baby shower Thursday evening and then attended 16 hours of seminary classes with Brandon on Friday and Saturday. I'm exhausted to say the least. This week will be a little less busy, thankfully.

Here are some pretty pictures I've taken lately. I also turned my hair brown this week. Enjoy!!! ;-)

Fall~November 2011

Mel's Baby Shower!

I hosted a shower this afternoon for my good friends here, Jim & Mel. They just adopted a newborn baby girl from Atlanta, Georgia. I'm pooped, so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Good night! :) Click on the link...

Mel's Shower

The Love Picture!

The picture I just added at the top of my blog was taken almost a year ago. :) It is a very special picture to me. It's one of the 1st pictures we ever took together. We weren't an official couple yet. I was surprised that Brandon wanted to take a picture together. Also, he put his arm around me and held me close for the picture. That was a surprise! :)

We were in Tyler, TX visiting Brandon's friends from college during Thanksgiving Break. We are coming up on the year anniversary of meeting face to face (November 19th). Brandon & I can't believe it's almost been a year!!! :) Seems like 5 minutes ago.

After Brandon's friend Tate took this picture of us, I put it as the wallpaper on my iPhone. Brandon noticed that I put it on my phone. Later in the week after we had defined the relationship, he said he liked that I had put our picture on my phone and that it made him think I liked him. :) I did!

The beautiful fall...

I may be driving you all crazy with gorgeous fall pictures. I just can't help it! This is my first time to really see fall colors. Almost everywhere I look there are bright reds, yellows and oranges. I love it! I even saw some deep purple trees today. The last picture that says "Lookout Ridge" is the entrance to our neighborhood. I like seeing it every day. :)

Candice and I drove to Maine in the first week of October 2003. The trees really weren't changing yet. I flew up to Albany, NY to stay with her for the Columbus Day weekend, plus a few days. We had a great trip! And the weather in NY and the Northeast was awesome, but the trees were still green. So... that was really my only trip somewhere away from Texas in the fall because I was always teaching.

So, here are some new tree pics. I just took them today! Enjoy!!!

Fall Trees Nov. '11