We've Moved!!!!

If you go to http://www.RayandKatie.com you will find our site using a new Wordpress blog. Thanks for reading & I hope you enjoy our new site & all the new features.
I also have my own "man blog" (thanks Justin for the name) at http://rayzorback.wordpress.com

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Freedom!

It's amazing! I don't have to go to Red Robin and work tonight... or ever! Thank you JESUS for the Freedom that focusing on my career provides! I'm in it! Real Estate is my profession now (even though I'm still waiting of the FBI to pass my background check). Now I at least have time to devote to studying the book some more and getting ready to pass the tests. Also, I have time to really poor into my career there and give it my all! Not only that, Katie and I will have the weekends TOGETHER! That is HUGE! We just realized that we were only married 3.5 Months before we took on extra jobs in order to pay down our debt! Was it worth it? Yes!, but we really miss each other! Not only that, we feel that we have also missed valuable time with the Lord! It was tough when we had to work so late and got home so late and got to bed so late to wake up early and spend time with our Heavenly Father in the morning. I can tell you, many days, we just chose not to. That had a larger affect on our marriage than working two jobs did! That is forsure!

A few days ago I found a podcast: Love Worth Finding Ministries with Dr. Adrian Rogers who has now passed away. I listened to the message: How to Have a More Meaningful Quiet Time and it has REALLY blessed mine and Katie's life! Please click the link and have a listen! If you have iTunes or something that will automatically download a podcast: click here.

For a couple of days now, Katie and I have been following some of his recomindations and it has really blessed our lives. Acutally this morning I'm writting on the blog to help wake me up before I dig into the word.

In our community group, we are studying 1 John so Katie and I are reading in 1 John and meditating on it every morning. We also look in the Psalms & Proverbs as Dr. Rogers suggested. There are 5 Questions that he ask when reading & meditating on scripture:
1. Is there a Command to Obey?
2. Is there a Promise to Claim?
3. Is there a Sin to Avoid?
4. Is there a Lesson to Learn?
5. Is there a New Truth to Carry with me?
These 5 questions help illuminate the passage to greater understanding and use in our everyday lives.

Well, that is it for me. I need to get the day started. I have several friends who "blog" now and in the next post I will highlight my friends who are in missions blogging around the world! I'll also link to many of them over on the side.
The Blog will be changing soon!!! Don't let it bother you if things are scrambled up here and there! I'll get it under control!

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Retirement? Kinda...

Hey Yall!
Well, Katie and I put it our resignation at Red Robin!! Our last day will be Sunday, October 8th! It has come to the time where Katie needs more time for School, I need more time for Real Estate & we REALLY need our weekends together! We've been missing time with one another like crazy lately! And also, with me so close to having my license, I need to be as prepared as possible and that means more study & more readiness to take on clients on my part.
This next week, I will be interviewing several different Real Estate agencies. I will most likely go with Lindsey & Associates but I want the other agencies to know that I'm out there & I want to know what they offer. Being with Lindsey has been a lot of fun & I already know many of the agents so it would be the most logical place for me to stay due to the good relationships already developed there. They also take care of MANY of your business expenses and copying expenses and advertising expenses... etc. That is a HUGE help! I've also been conducting an informal survey about who someone would call to buy or sell a home. Most of the time they say, "Lindsey." I ask why and they usually can't tell me. That means that in this market, Lindsey has the "top of the mind awareness" that would really be benificial to a new agent!! They are the largest agency with Griffin close behind them. We'll see what happens.

A week ago, Katie had some bad strep and this week I have had a few of the symptoms - a day of fever & sore throat. But now all I have is the linguring sinus pressure & sore throat. It isn't fun at all & I'm on drugs, but you can still be praying that we both continue our recovery. When I'm 90 years old, I'll be invincible to colds because of these YEARS of "antibody building" that Katie is helping me do through her Kindergarden class!

I'm off to study & then work at Red Robin - the next to last weekend!

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Busy Bees!

Hey everyone. I only have a few minuets, but I wanted to send a little update. I FINISHED my real estate class & have the certificate of completion! Now, I'm just waiting on the FBI to complete my background check and then I can take the test. I'm VERY excited about FINALLY have a "career" vs a J.O.B. which is "Just Over Broke!"
We will still be working at RR for a while so that we can make more extra $ to continue to pay down debt. It has been flying by recently but will be expected to slow down as I venture into Real Estate. I will have some expenses at the onset that may or maynot be "affordable." Any thing we need, we'll have to take out of our "extra $" that we have been dumping into our debts.

Also, be in prayer for Katie. She has Strep & it is REAL bad! She has had fever, extreme pain in her throat, and is very tired.

Thanks for the prayers.

We love all yall.

- Ray & Katie
(& Sooie & Boston!)

Game Day!!!!

Almost! Our first game of the year is a home game, September 2nd at 7:45 P.M. (on ESPN) and I can't wait! We are after revenge. After the horrible loss last year against USC with their best team and our worst, we are back and better than ever! Some would say we have a great chance this year and I'm not one to argue! We scored the top QB in the country through recruiting last year and he is a freshman this year. It looks like Robert Johnson will be our starting QB, but he knows that Mitch Mustain is waiting on the side lines to take over at the first sign of trouble. Last year, Johnson was in 7 games and averaged 112 yards per game. That isn't near enough this year. He is going to have to really show up. From interviews that I have heard, the team is supporting this decision to start Johnson rather than last years Casey Dick (who is injured some what). The team is ready to play and ready to win and they believe that Johnson will take them there. It will be interesting to see how Nutt chooses to play these too guys. Both are primarily passers but Mustain has some speed as he runs a 4.7 - 40. Just fast enough to be elusive, but we wont see any "Matt Jones" break-a-ways this year. It will be exciting with Monk receiving along with all the depth in the back field! There is nothing like Football season to rescue you from the heat of summer!

Here are some Razorback Links:
Fall '07 Schedule
Hog News
Roster & Bios
Coaches
Hog Wired.com
Houston Nutt.com

Bless those Hogs!
- Ray Zorback

Trip Pictures!

Below are just a few of our favorite photos from our trips to TN & TX. Just click on the small photo to see the large one.




Those dark pictures are of the Gaylord Opryland Resort. That was an AMAZING stop on our trip! We spent 2 hours in there just touring the place and got there just in time to see a water show. The picture doesn't do it justice, but the water shot over 5 stories into the air! There is also a RIVER and an huge GARDEN IN the hotel! It was awesome! We had a great time there.
The other pictures are wedding pictures from our TN trip. We actually caught up with the newly weds on the interstate and that is where the last 2 photos were taken. I wasn't speeding... to bad!

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See yall!

TX & TN!

The last couple of weekends Katie and I have been Traveling! First to Texas where my brother graduated with his Masters from UTD (a smart school) and now to Tennessee where Katie is in a wedding! The picture is of me and Katie lounging around the pool with my neice (on just 2 noodles). We had a blast getting to see the city and visiting with our family.

I'll post of pictures of this weekend in a few days, but I just wanted all to know that we are doing great & having a wonderful time traveling at the end of this summer! It has been great to have a little down time with Katie before she gets tracking at school.

Keep us in your prayers as we travel home & don't forget to sign up for some automatic updates so that you will get an easy email when we post a new message.

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-The Ellen's

Email Updates for our Blog! & Red Robin Stuff

Hey yall! One of the things that drive me crazy about blogs is that if you want to check and see if there is a new post, you have to go to that site. If you keep up with HUNDREDS of blogs (like I do with the news blogs & such) it gets pretty tedidious to know when the irregular blogs have been updated (such as this one). I went on a search and found a GREAT program to fix this for everyone who reads our blog! It is called "FeedBlitz." Below is a from for you to fill in your email address and then click "Send Me Email Updates!" You can unsubscribe at any time though any of the email's. This will only send you an email when we update our site and included in that email will be our most recent post! This is MUCH better than having to check the site each time, although, you will miss out on updated songs and new features that maybe "website" only, so still come back and see us every now and then!!!!!

The form:

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Katie and I will be working tonight at Red Robin. It is our first Friday Night to work because we changed our availability from Friday's off to Monday's off. I'm pretty excited to see just how busy we get!! It gets fun when it gets busy & time FLIES!

Yesterday we went to a CDT celebration. We all had matching T-shirts, a HUGE flag, A rap, A pledge & were READY to take on the other store's CDT's.... we were the only ones ready. No one else had a song, flag, T-shirts, pledge, etc... We had heard that there were going to be organized games and store vs store contest.... none of that happened. It was like a twilight zone. But we still had a good time playing volley ball and lounging around in the sun. Then our store visited Cherokee Casino! It was mine & Katie's first time in a Casino & it was fun. I don't really understand the addictive nature of the machines. It just didn't look fun to us. We didn't even play a nickle! But I did play black jack with a good friend from our store. He had been plenty of times before and was showing me the ropes. We took $20 to lose & we were successful in losing it!!! HA! It will be fun when we finially get to go see my aunt & uncle in Vegas. Now, I'm not totally in the dark on how to lose my money so I will fit right in with everyone else!

PS A while back I figured that our average would be about $250 to $300 extra dollars per week working at Red Robin. Well, we are actually averaging way over that. In retro spect, we average about $250 on the weekend and around $250 on the week nights so it is actually about $500 per week on average! We're lov'n it! We have been getting great sections lately & we have been blessed with closing shifts & gracious tables! Praise the Lord for helping us to get out of debt!

Thanks for checking back.
Keep us in your prayers!

Bye for now,
Ray

Visitors!!

We are really excited to have Sooie's sister visiting this week! She may be with us for a while while Jason goes on a mission trip to Nepal, so we are keeping her this week to try it out and make sure her and Sooie play well together. They are having a BLAST! They played hard all day Sunday & Monday and today they seem very... subdued! Very tired! They will play for about five minutes and then they just lay down. Sooie has met her match (as far as energy goes). We were surprised to see that Boston is actually bigger than Sooie! We thought Sooie was big, but Boston is Big! Sooie looks more "stream lined" now! She still acts like the dominant one but when they are chasing each other and Boston runs into her, she is surprised by her size too!

A few weeks ago we also had a visitor... Mindy Blagg (formerly Marshall) came and visited for a morning while she was in NWA. Mindy, as promised there is the picture: click on it to see the larger one and save it.
She recently got married to John David of pilotdrift who are well on their way to stardom.


Be sure to sign up for the new email update feature over there on the right side. We update about once a week & you will get an email letting you know so you don't have to check back blindly! The next post will be describing this service in a little bit more detail.

Bye for now,
-The Ellens

6 Months (and one day)

6 Months
Yesterday was our 6 month aniversery! We had a blast! We painted pottery at Different Strokes and then ate out at Brioso Brazil. It was absolutely amazing! Over 15 different meats delivered to your table on a sword! Of course, we tried them all! Our favorites being the House Top Sirloin & the Ribbeye. It will have to be a long while before we go again. I can't really look at meat today! We were so stuffed that we had to go on a short walk BEFORE we got IN to the car!!! That is stuffed! Jason said we would be like a full tick, and he wasn't kidding!
I'll post a few pictures of the pottery that we painted when it come in. They said it would be about 2 weeks before it was fired.

(and one day)
Today we decided to sleep in and head to the Farmers Market with Sooie. What a trip! She was nuts at first, but when she realized that not every person was there to play with her, she calmed down quite a bit and was very nice to have out there. Slowly but surely we will get her used to being around people who are not there for her and I think she will begin to understand the process. She just wants to play with everyone SO BAD! It was a lot of fun.

Well, we will be heading to our "red job" at 2. (The one we use to get us out of the red)

We'll see you soon!