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...

School's Out!

Thursday was our last day of school and my last day teaching Kindergarten! I will be teaching 1st grade next year and I am so excited about it! We had an end-of-the-year party outside with the 7 other Kinder classes with a bunch of games the kids could choose from. It was a lot of fun! I will miss my kiddos, but I'm sure I'll have some of them again next year in 1st! Here are a few pictures of some of my kids. Yea for summer time!!

Harish & Johnny just finished the swim race


Lauren, Kate, Logan, Rick, Kiley, Skylar in line for tattoos



So Cute! Rick & Logan


Best Friends ~ Allison & Avery


Sweet Kendall


Kyle & Clay hoola hooping

Finished!

Well the tile folks finally finished at midnight on Saturday. Halie and I both think they did a really good job. Halie's in love with the floors so that means that I am happy too. Right now I am working on putting new baseboards back up. Halie is busy cleaning the dust off everything. When we eventually get everything in ship shape we'll post some final pics.

Day 3...

Day 3 and things are finally starting to come together. As you can see tile is being laid. They have done a great job, especially with the pathway around the bar. We were a little worried about that because we drew that pathway ourselves, through the carpet. There is dust everywhere and our fridge is still in the den, but soon we'll be able to clean everything back up and enjoy our new floors.

Day 2...

Day 2 - They finished tearing out all of the old tile and tack strips. In order to make the floor nice and smooth they had to spread "float" everywhere. This is a picture of the float that is drying. Apparently new houses in Collin/Denton don't have very smooth foundations so we required float everywhere. José the installer says the older homes in Dallas have perfectly smooth slabs. Go figure.

Out with the old. In with the new

Halie and I are embarking on a very ambitious flooring project in our home. When we bought our house 2 years ago the previous owner had put in builder's grade carpet for the quick sell. Well, it is already showing signs of wear in the high traffic areas. The previous owner also laid his own ceramic tile and let's just say that craftsmanship is not one of his gifts.

We've decided that we're going to be in this house for several more years so the floors need to be replaced at some point. We've decided to put tile in all of the high traffic areas as well as replace the existing ceramic tile. Halie paintstakingly picked out the perfect tile for us. The crew is coming this morning to start tearing stuff up. We will keep you posted on the progress. Check out the photo album for the before pictures. All the furniture and baseboards are removed, but you get the idea.

Headed off to Seattle

I was just informed this week that there's an opportunity for me to take get a training class in Seattle for free next week. So my company is flying me up there for it. I've never been to Seattle so I am looking forward to it. Hopefully it won't rain the whole time. The training is for Cisco's Unity Voicemail system. While I have been mostly doing wireless projects at my job, I am learning more and more about IP Telephony (phone calls over computer networks) and am starting to move my area of focus in that direction.

I'm staying downtown which is near the training center. I hope to have enough time to explore the city and see some of the famous sites such as the Space Needle. If I find any 12th man signs, I will be sure to rip them down!

Yet another victory

We met up with the Coopers again for another intense game of spades. It was a hard fought battle. They were sand bagging like crazy but were scoring a lot of points. We were bidding well but not getting good enough hands to rack up the points. We ended up with a score of 415 (boys) to 455 (girls) with one hand to go. (First one to 500 wins). When it got to my turn to bid we knew we had to get 9 tricks, but there were only 8 tricks "out." We took 9 anyway. Whichever team didn't get their tricks was going to lose. We thought we were doomed, but somehow we managed to pull it out being dealt fairly decent hands. The girls were unwilling to pose in dunce hats for a picture. They didn't want another picture on the internet. That's fine, we can make due!!!