Ryan's Name Game

This is a fun thing to try ... cut, paste and erase my answers and fill in your own!
1. YOUR REAL NAME: Ryan Matthew Hooks
2. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother and father's middle names) Thomas Ann
3. NASCAR NAME: (first name of your mother's dad, father's dad) Bobby Paul
4. STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name) Hoory
5. DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal) Blue Dog
6. SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, town where you were born) Matthew Henderson
7. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd fav color, fav drink, add "THE" to the beginning) The red diet dr pepper
8. FLY NAME: (first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name) Ryks
9. STREET NAME: (fav ice cream flavor, fav cookie) Pralines n Cream Oatmeal n Chocolate Chip
10. ROCK STAR NAME: (current pets name, current street name) Cooper Tomas
11. PORN NAME: (1st pet, street you grew up on) Amy Parkview
12. YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (first 3 letters of real name plus izzle) Ryaizzle
13. YOUR GOTH NAME: (black, and the name of one of your pets) Black Charley
14. STRIPPER NAME: (name of your fav perfume/cologne, fav and candy) Allure Twix

25 thing I bet you didn't know about me!

1. When I was born my father told the nurse that my name was going to be Tiffany so that is what they put on the baby bracelet. When my mother saw it she freaked. My dad was so excited that he forgot that we lived on Tiffany Lane and my name was supposed to be Brittany.
2. My freshman year of college I swore off dating for a year because of some bad choices I had made and my mother thought that I was never going to marry so she called my childhood youth minister’s wife and had her convince me to date again.
3. I never dated anyone more than 2 weeks until I met Ryan and we dated 4 continuous years until we married and now have almost been married 2 years.
4. I have never had a speeding ticket in my life. Yea for being a granny driver! I had never had a wreck until I moved to San Antonio.
5. I have never missed a Baylor Homecoming in my whole life. 26 years and counting!
6. Not one single thing when wrong at my wedding. It was the most perfect day of my life and I would never change a thing about it! I married my best friend and true love.
7. I have been to the same resort in Cabo San Lucas Mexico on vacation 5 times.
8. I alphabetize all 200 of my DVD’s and am very anal to keep them that way.
9. I never planned on or wanted to be a teacher even though I have many teachers in my family but, I have come to love it!
10. I spent 1 week out of 5 summers in High School and College to re-roof homes for needy families with World Changers! I am a pro!
11. I had 2 knee surgeries in High School to fix my “dancers knees” and my friends took my everywhere in a wheel chair so that I could enjoy my senior year.
12. My guilty TV pleasure is Big Love on HBO. I am totally sucked into polygamy. (Don’t agree with it but am fascinated with those involved)
13. I am an English teacher and I stink at grammar and spelling.
14. My junior year in college I almost ruptured my appendix while on a Baylor Student Foundation recruiting trip in Little Rock, Arkansas. I thought it was food poisoning and called my mother in the middle of the night from the hotel room bathroom floor and she told me to go ask the front desk clerk for 7up and crackers! Yeah, that will fix it! When I got back to Waco I had my roommates take me to the Baylor clinic and of course they did not know what to do with me so they sent me on to the hospital. I had an emergency appendectomy a few hours later and still have the scar to prove it!
15. The summer after my sophomore year in college I worked at Camp Buckner in Burnet, Texas and somewhere in the town I picked up Pertussis (sp?) (Whooping Cough) and infected half of the staff with it. We were all placed in detox for a week to protect the children we worked with. Later I read that there were 84 cases of Whooping Cough in that county that summer. Yikes!
16. I have had the same best girl friends since 1st grade and the 4 of us still get together every summer for a get a way! I hope we keep this tradition going forever!
17. My best friend and Maid of Honor, Lyndsey, set up Ryan and I on a blind date in March of 2003. Man can she pick them!
18. As a child I ate tomatoes like apples, with a little salt.
19. I sang “I saw the light” at a church children’s choir talent show when I was in 6th grade. If you don’t know the song is about a woman seeing her husband in the window of their house with another woman and they were not being shy. Why would my mother let me sing that song???
20. If I could have any job in the world it would be to be a radio talk show host about love and relationships or being a photographer.
21. My mother and I could totally be wedding planners! It would be a great team! We planned my wedding down to the last candle!
22. I became a Christian and was baptized at the age of 9. I grew up in a wonderful faith focused home and feel blessed to have the childhood that I did.
23. I have never been to a real concert of any sort.
24. I want to live on a beautiful ranch in Oregon, but I want that ranch to be in Texas!
25. I married for money! Just Kidding, I am the sugar mamma in this relationship!

The Name Game

This is a fun thing to try ... cut, paste and erase my answers and fill in your own!

1. YOUR REAL NAME:

Brittany Lynne Oates Hooks

2. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother and father's middle names)

Lynne Ray

3. NASCAR NAME: (first name of your mother's dad, father's dad)

Jack William Dalton

4. STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name,

first 2 letters of your first name)

Hoobr

5. DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)

Green dog

6. SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, town where you were born)

Lynne Longview

7. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd fav color, fav drink, add "THE" to the beginning)

The Red Tea

8. FLY NAME: (first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name)

Brks

9. STREET NAME: (fav ice cream flavor, fav cookie)

Cookies n Cream Oreo

10. ROCK STAR NAME: (current pets name, current street name)

Cooper Tomas

11. PORN NAME: (1st pet, street you grew up on)

Sadie Tiffany

12. YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (first 3 letters of real name plus izzle)

Briizzle

13. YOUR GOTH NAME: (black, and the name of one of your pets)

Black Charley

14. STRIPPER NAME: (name of your fav perfume/cologne, fav and candy)

Burberry Tootsie Roll

Our baby is all grown up!

Today is Charley's (our puppy) 1 year birthday. I am so glad that he is getting out of the puppy stage but I will miss his super cute puppy face. I will get pictures on here of our 1st year with him later. I am at work now, but I wanted to let everyone know that Ryan and I are wishing Charley a Happy 1st Birthday!!

Valentines Weekend!

It's that time of year again! Time to bust out the choloclate covered strawberries, roses, and cards. My take on it is that if my darling husband isn't treating me to all these things through out the year then we have serious problems. This year consisted of dinner at a favorite Greek restaurant of ours and a movie (The International- it was kind of slow for an action movie). Then we played games and ate chocolate dipped strawberries from Godiva (BTW- not worth the 40 bucks I shelled out). Today we went to the SA rodeo to see my cousin, Will, show his pig. It was so stinky but great to see family and learn all we did about pig showing. If my child one day wanted to show pigs then I think that I would be ok with it. They are pretty darn cute! Well, here are pics, mainly for the family that was not here for it. His pig today did not make it to the judging but we are pulling for his pig to win tomorrow. Good Luck Will!

Swagger the Pig

Sweet Surprise!

I have been a bit under the weather this week with a bad cold and my darling husband brought home a beautiful arrangement of pink roses and tiger lillies. It was so thoughtful of him to think of me. I am starting to get my smelling sense back so now I can smell them and they are amazing! Thank you love! I love you!

San Antonio Rampage

Tonight a life insurance company took out Ryan's dental school class to San Antonio Rampage (Minor League Hockey) game and put us up in a double box suite with lots of yummy food and drinks. It was a free date night for many of us poor couples and something that I had never done before. It was great seeing old friends but my favorite part was when the players started fighting. Man are those guys intense when they fight! Well, it was another fun night out in San Antonio!

Ryan, Sam and Derek

Yes, that is a fight!

SUPER DOGS!

Tonight Cooper and Charley completed 8 weeks of beginner dog training at Petsmart and they had their big final exam. Charley placed #1 at the top of his class. His roll over trick put him over the top (54 out of 55) points. Cooper also did very well with a 52 out of 55 points with his waving trick that was a show stopper. We are so proud of our boys...maybe intermadiate trainig is to come?

Charley Rolls Over

Cooper Likes to Wave

Merry Christmas Ya'll!

Well I sure do hope that this Christmas was the last time that Ryan and I have to drive 7 hours to East Texas for the holidays. San Antonio is fun but we live entirely too far from our families. We had another fun filled Hooks/Oates Christmas and here are the pics to prove it.

Ryan and I kicked it off this year by not decorating our home one stitch, we knew that we would not be here to enjoy it so we rebelled. But we did wrap gifts and took lots of pics.

After Ryan took the 2nd part of his board exam on the 22nd and 23rd we spent all Christmas Eve driving to Kilgore to celebrate with the Hooks.

Brandon and Jessica

Keith and Paula

We also had our very own dog kennel with 5 inside dogs and 1 cat.

Cooper and Charley enjoyed as much lap time as the could get.

After a few days time we were off to Waco for the Oates/Palmer/Rhodes Christmas.

It was most fun to watch Carter and Clarey get into the holiday spirit.

Clarey and her 4th Christmas dress from Aunt Lanna.

The Kiddos look happy about their presents.

Clarey feeding her Baby Belle that we gave her for Christmas.

The Girls!

All the grandkids with Mom Ruth!

Sweaters and Jeans!

Matching Purses!
Our traditional gingerbread house with Carter, Aunt B and Uncle Ryan.

The Oates Clan

After another Merry Christmas Ryan, I and the dogs made it back to San Antonio to play with our presents and ring in the new year with our life group friends. We still are enjoying our next few days before school and work start Jan. 5th.

Only 5 more months till Ryan graduates from Dental School so we are looking for a new place to call home and for Ryan to begin his career in dentistry.

Happy New Year. We hope 2009 brings you many blessings!

Papa Jack will be missed

Many of you may know that my grandfather, Jack Rhodes, of Longview, Texas, passed away Saturday December 13, 2008. He was 83 years old and married to my grandmother, Ruth Rhodes for 61 years. He was a wonderful Christian man and will be dearly missed

Here is the link to his obituarary. It was written by his grandchildren.
http://www.legacy.com/News-Journal/Obituaries.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonID=121412616

Back to School

Well, Ryan and I are back into the swing of things here in San Antonio. He statarted his last year of dental school in July and only has eight months left before graduation. I am into my 4th week teaching mostly Seniors and I have to say that I love my job. I really never expected to find my niche teaching high school but I have to think that teaching is in my blood. My mother has been a passionate and dynamic teacher for 30 plus years so I know that I got it from her. And without my encouraging grandparents to pay my way I would not be fulfilling my teaching destiny. I am already sad to think that I will be leaving in June and most likely will never see these kiddos again. I do not know what the future holds for our family but God never ceases to surprise me.

My first blog

This entry comes with much uncertainty in how dedicated I will be to the blog, but because of my boredom I will give it a shot.

In two weeks I will go back to teach high school at Robert E. Lee in San Antonio, Texas for what looks to be my last year there. I just can't believe that I am now a certified teacher and have lived through my first year. I really was truly blessed to be at Lee for my first year. Ryan is in his 4th and final year of dental school at UTHSCSA and will graduate in 10 months!!! Yea! We are not sure where the Lord will lead us but our eyes and ears are open to His direction.

To kick of the summer while Ryan was in Brownsville doing a clinic rotation and I was finishing up my last week of school I got a knock at the door and was notified that the house we were renting had been sold in a foreclosure auction that morning and we had to move out ASAP! So in the two weeks following I found us a new house and packed up all our belongings so we could move before our already paid for vacation. Needless to say it was not the best way to get the summer going. But we really do like our new home and since it was so close to the old one it didn't take long to move. But with the help of great friends it wasn't so bad.

This summer has been fun since we both had a few weeks off at the same time (the joys of being a teacher). In June we traveled to Haiti, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel on a Royal Caribbean Cruise. It was Ryan's first cruise and my 2nd. We climbed Dunn's River Fall, a 600 foot water fall, in Jamaica; swam with sting rays in the Grand Cayman, and spent a day on a catamaran in Cozumel. It was a wonderful vacation and a great stress relief for Ryan.

On the beaches of Haiti.

Dunns Water Fall in Jamaica.

Swimming with Stingrays in Grand Cayman.

Snorkeling in Cozumel.

Our favorite Freedom of the Seas employees.

After the cruise we spent time in East Texas with both of our families. We are lucky to have both sides of our family in such close proximity. It was then that I found out that my parents have decided to make the move from The Woodlands to Waco to be close to more family and their grandchildren. Now the pressure is on for Ryan and I to move to Waco. Ryan is not so sure about this!! :) On our trip to Longview I got to see my neice and nephew Clarey and Carter and play photographer. Here are some pictures of Clarey in her dedication gown.

Carter (2 years 10 months) and Clarey (10 months)

Our only children at this time are our two beagles Cooper (10 months) and Charley (5 months) who keep us very busy. They get into trouble all the time but they are just so cute!

Cooper 11 months and Charley 5 Months!