New Teammates

My new 1st grade team for next year got together to go bowling & get to know each other last week. After bowling, we headed to TGI Fridays for an afternoon snack! We lost 2 teammates & are gaining 3 for next year. While we are sad to see Rhonda & Kristy go, we are really excited about Amanda, Courtney & Lanette joining us!

Field Day

Today was field day for 1st grade and it turned out to be a beautiful sunny day for it! The kids spent about 3 hours running around to different games & competing against one another. The teachers decided we would have some fun too and the kids enjoyed cheering us on! Below are a few pictures of our fun afternoon!

Babies!

Baby fever has started in our Lifegroup! Yesterday we hosted a baby shower at our house for Courtney & Dustin--the first couple to be pregnant in our Lifegroup. We had a blast cooking out, playing the dirty diaper game, opening gifts & hanging out. Many blessings to the Alban's & sweet baby Hannah!

3 years of marital bliss

For one reason or another Halie and I haven't been able to have our "official anniversary dinner" until last night (over a month late). Halie was really sweet and planned a fancy dinner for us at home. She really pulled out all the stops... candlelight, wine, and we ate on our china for the first time ever! I told her that this is how I always envisioned marriage - her serving me a good hot meal in the dining room in a dress and high heels. :) Just kidding, but it really was probably the most romantic thing she has ever done for me. She also capped it off with cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory! What a great memory!

Don't take it for granite!

It's been a while since we've posted--so sorry! A couple of weeks ago we got granite counters put in our kitchen! We have been wanting to do this for a couple of years now, but there were some other projects that came first. :) It turned out to be quite a big job from going to the granite warehouses to pick out our slabs, choosing a new backsplash, picking out a new sink & faucet--but it was all worth it! I think we have finally cleaned up all the dust that filled our kitchen and house too! Here are some before & after pictures--notice how "white" our kitchen used to be!

Picaboo.com

Yesterday I discovered this really great website www.picaboo.com. It is a website where you can use your digital photos & actually create a scrapbook with backgrouds, journaling, etc! The prices are reasonable too--only $9.99 for the small book. Its perfect for me because I always dread getting out everything you need to make a scrapbook and then having to clean it all up. This way there is no mess & you still get a great scrapbook! I love discovering new things! :)

A Snow Day!

I was awoken at 6:10 this morning by my assistant principal with the news that we didn't have school today. I was so confused b/c there were no predictions of this and she had to assure me that it was pouring snow & sleet outside. Sure enough--its was! Steve and I decided to go play in the snow & ice this morning across the street on the track & playground. We found some chunks of ice that we used for "ice hockey" on the track and there were many snowballs thrown (more like flying snow/ice--not packed snowballs). It was fun though!

Steve trying to catch the snow!

Just being silly!

Kendall graduates!

On Friday, the last sister of the bunch graduated from college! WHOOP! The family all went down to Aggieland for her graduation and we had a great time celebrating with Kendall. It was a long ceremony but it was also neat because it was A&M President Robert Gates' last ceremony before he takes on his new role as Secretary of Defense! He gave a neat speech & also handed Kendall her diploma. We couldn't leave Aggieland without some good 'ole College Station eating at Freebirds & Koppe Bridge. Yum! Congratulations, Kendall!

Christmas Party!

This year we hosted our annual Lifegroup Christmas Party. We all went to dinner together at Patrizio's and then we all headed back to our house for the rest of the party! The girls had an ornament gift exchange & the guys did a white elephant gift exchange. The party wouldn't have been complete without cider, hot chocolate & desserts! Then, we all watched the Big XII championship game between Nebraska & OU the we TiVoed earlier that evening--we've got big fans in our group! It was a great night! Below are a few highlights--more are in the pictures section!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

It's been a lot of fun decorating for Christmas this year! We got started early because we are hosting this years Christmas party for our Lifegroup and its the first weekend in December! Steve decided to tackle the big task of putting up lights around the roof of our house for the first time--lots of work, but I love it! Here are a few pictures of what we've done so far!

Party like it's 1999

Yesterday was the biggest day of the year for Aggie fans. We watched our beloved play the longhorns. It's Halie's family's turn for Thanksgiving this year and we had it on a Friday at her Grandma's house. I like to be locked in to my TV set so I wasn't too excited about that, but at least I would get to see it. Her dad is a Longhorn alum who is a very intense fan as well. It was my first time to watch the game with him as normally he wants to be by himself so he can "concentrate." He doesn't make a big deal about the longhorns winning - I think because he is used to it. Maybe a little too used to it. However this year would produce something different

We haven't beat t.u. anywhere since 1999 and we haven't beat them in Austin since 1994 (which was the last time we were pretty good). The game was mostly a defensive struggle but the Aggies popped out to an early lead. As the game wound on I didn't think we had enough points to beat them. I figured in regular longhorn fashion they would make a last second run when it really mattered. But they didn't. Halie's dad sat on the couch 2 feet away from me mostly quiet and expressionless. Anytime the Aggies would score or do something good, Halie would jump up and dance with the singing Aggie bobblehead doll that I brought. I tried to remain mostly even keeled because after 3 heartbreaking losses this season I know how quickly things can change.

When the dust had finally settled though, the score was still there 12-7 Aggies. What a sweet sweet victory. The Aggie faithful everywhere really needed this one! 365 days of pure bliss.

Faghet aboudit

I went to New Jersey last week for work. I hadn't been there since I lived there almost 15 years ago. I was excited to see that the place I was going was only an hour away from where I lived. Another thing I realized was that I was going to be about 5 minutes away from Piscataway which is where Rutgers is. Who's Rutgers you might ask? I always thought they were some obscure college team with a lousy football program, until this year and all the hype they've received. It was just a couple of weeks ago when they knocked off #3 Louisville in their biggest win ever. So like on all my trips, I try to go see the stadium where other schools play football.

Rutgers stadium wasn't all that impressive. It reminded me a lot of Colorado's stadium, although maybe a little bigger. It wasn't that tall but was sunk into the ground a bit. The Rutgers campus wasn't nearly as nice looking as I expected. Most of the buildings were fairly non-descript. I figured an old New England school would look much nicer.

After my visit to Rutgers I stopped by my old house. I snapped some pictures of it for my parents. I lived there for 3 years growing up. It was kind of weird to go back because it still looked the exact same and it brought back a lot of memories. I also took some pictures of the lake where I learned to sail and where I spent a lot of time. Check them all out in the Gallery.

A&M vs. Nebraska

We went down to A&M this weekend for the last home football game of the year. We took our friends Melanie & Toby who are big Nebraska fans. We had a blast, even thought we lost AGAIN by 1 point. We are beginning to think we have a curse seeing as the last 3 games we went to this year we lost by 1 point in the last minute! Nonetheless, we had fun cheering on our Aggies and eating at Freebirds! It was a fun car ride back with 2 happy Nebraska fans and 2 bummed Aggies. :)

ESPN College GameDay!

Halie and I took a trip down to College Station for a weekend full of football! ESPN GameDay came to Kyle Field for only the 2nd time ever. I had always kind of regretting missing the first time when I was in school, so I made sure we went this time. We got there about an hour early and had a really good spot along the fence. Unfortunately, I don't think we got on camera.

It turned out to be a very long day as the game wasn't until 7pm that night. And sadly the Aggies ran out of time to beat the Sooners. It was a very exciting game but one that left a sour taste in my mouth when we decided to throw from 3rd and goal at the 2 yd line.

We also visited the bonfire memorial which is the first time I've seen it. It was quite a thing to behold and was very tastefully done. Each of the doorways has a carving of the person's face and some notes written about them. The doorways face each person's hometown. It brought back the memories from 1999 when it all happened.

Happy Little Campers

Halie and I went camping a couple of weekends ago at Cedar Hill State Park which is just SW of Dallas. I took Halie on her first REAL mountain biking trek. There is a 2.5 mile loop there that is pretty technical and challenging. I was very impressed with how well she did. We spent the evening cooking hotdogs over the fire and listening to the Aggies beat the Baylor Bears! It was a great time!
There are pictures in the Gallery!

The Dinner Station!

On Wednesday night, some of us girls from Lifegroup went to a really cool place called The Dinner Station. We prepared 8 meals each together that we can keep frozen and thaw & cook it whenever we would like! Trichelle & Rita have both done it before and said it's delicious and easy--just my style! Here are a few pictures from our fun night!

Boulder, CO

Wow it has been a long time since we posted anything! I thought I would put up a few pictures of my trip to Boulder. I went there last month for some training. I've never been to Boulder before so it was a pretty neat experience. I didn't realize that it is RIGHT next to the Rocky Mountains. It's a very beautiful town. It's pretty liberal, but I was interesting to see the difference compared to North Dallas culture. Check out the pictures in the pictures section

New pictures from the vacation

The Coopers sent us their pictures from our vacation so we've added some of them to the photo album. There's some good ones so check it out! Have a great 4th of July!

Snap back to reality...Oh there goes gravity

We just returned from our trip to Playa del Carmen and that's the song Halie was singing on the way back. It was our second trip with the Coopers and it was another great one. We stayed at Gran Bahia Principe Akumal (quite a name). It's a huge resort with several pools and long stretches of beach. We had a great time relaxing and soaking up the sun. Halie and I took an excursion to a nearby park called Xel-Ha to swim with the dolphins. It's something that she's always dreamed of doing. It was quite an experience. They wouldn't let us take our water camera with us so we were limited on the number of pictures we could take. Click here for a video of the Dolphin Foot Push. This was a blast! Check out our pictures in the Photo Album.

Back from the lake...

This weekend we went to Lake Conroe for a little family reunion with Steve's side of the family. We had a lot of fun catching up with everyone and playing on the lake. Our adventures included tubing, water skiing, boating, jet skiing, flying in the flying boat, and eating my mother-in-law's tasty homemade bbq! Unforunatley we forgot our camera, but here are some Steve's dad took.

Some of the cousins before dinner

Our nephew Clayton & his cool cowboy hat!

Just landed in the flying boat!

Waiting to ride the motorized skateboard...