The house... getting closer

January 7th Update:

House is getting closer... we made a visit today and it is sheetrocked, textured and the cabinets are in. That was my highlight. We also met a neighbor directly next to us. We are looking forward to move in day. Not sure when that is yet but it is definitely getting closer. The kids, especially Madi were super excited after today's visit. It looked like a real house! And they were excited to see none other than the.... railing. Don't ask... because I don't know!!!

So without further adieu... The House as of today!

I like the brick better in person than in photographs but here it is in all it's glory!
Yay... since our house is sold this sold sign is really for us!

My excitement of the day... the kitchen cabinets. I am SO excited that they are in!!!!

Moving date expected soon - can't wait!

Happy New Year 2012

So we had another fantastic new years at my brothers house. My brother organizes a couples olympics each year. Each year entertainment is provided by something new it seems... This year it was spinning and spinning... oh and yes more spinning. Seriously -- spin with head on a bat and then throw darts at a dart board and repeat and repeat until you make it to 501 points. Um... I can barely hit the board when I am not dizzy beyond belief and almost falling over. I managed to stick one in the ceiling and nearly nail Ryan with a dart and no he wasn't standing that close to the board oh that's on top of the countless times I hit the wall. The next few games eliminated spinning - phew! Well the last game (and let me add in that I also am not so stellar at shooting pool) my brother-in-law suggested adding in a spinning component instead of being shoot, kiss next. The directions became fondly known as spin, shoot, smooch... repeat til table has been cleared. Needless to say despite my crazy dizziness we made better time this year than we did non-spinning last year. We are already looking forward to next year... girls don't forget the recommended dress code -- No low cut shirts, no low rise jeans and wear a belt! Thanks to Chuck for our family photo -- don't we all look bright eyed at 12:02... Madi lasted a little over an hour after this despite the fact that she nearly fell asleep 10 minutes before the new year and Drew stayed strong until after 2 in the morning. Yep - he hung in there through the car ride home and decided to continue to have a chat fest in bed after that! Crazy Kid!!!

Tree-less

For anyone that knew what our house looked like before the palm trees were removed... All I can say is WEIRD! The tree-less look to the house!

Boxes, Boxes Everywhere

So with the upcoming move on the horizon it was time to get boxes. We heard that you can go on Craigslist to get them but they go fast. We were hoping to get ones that someone just left at the curb... come get them and go. No need to talk or call or email. Well those never posted when it was convenient. So we... er I should say I... decided to email a post from 20 minutes prior and give them Marty's number to call. Well -- he called and told us we could come and get them the next day when he was out of work. We decided to try it despite Marty's lack of excitement to go to some randoms house. The guys had not cut but only a couple of the boxes down so Marty brought a box cutter. Well the guy says he will go look for his box cutter inside and comes out with a machete. Yes a machete. Craigslist creepiness and the guy brings out a machete. Proceeds to tell us that it was the weirdest gift he ever received. What is one's personality that deems being worthy of receiving a machete as a gift? Fortunately, he used the machete only on the boxes and we ended up getting a ton of boxes for free. We had so many, the back of the van was completely full and we boxed Madi and Drew in. They had little peek holes and we provided them with flashlights. They thought it was great fun! Now what to do with all these boxes. PACK... ugh!!!

Ice Skating Adventure

To say heading to ice skate this year was an adventure may be an understatement. We left and decided to stop and pick up our cupcakes for the next evening on the way. Yum for the cupcakes... we figured since we were there we would get a couple extra to taste... make sure they were edible! Well, Drew didn't want one - yes, I said Drew. Concern arose that he was sick. Drew does not often turn down sweets especially if they involve chocolate. He settled on chocolate milk but was a little pouty. We figured we were in for it. We called the resort where the ice skating rink is held to ask them the times of each session. She told me they were 12-3 3:30-6:30 and 7-10. We were stuck in so much traffic we knew we wouldn't make it there by even 5:30 so we opted to catch dinner first.

We ate dinner and headed off. When we arrived we remembered parking in the wrong area last year. We tried a different parking lot and started walking and walking and walking and ended... back at the car. Jeez... We continued to try and recall from last year where we went -- it didn't seem that hard last year. We ended up inside the spa and finally asked where to go. The girl asked if I knew where the main lobby was and I responded yes. Well I guess I thought I knew where it was but clearly I didn't. We were in the completely wrong place AGAIN. We tried one more time retracing our steps and we made it! We excitedly walked past an empty ice rink thinking this was going to be awesome as it was 7:10 and hardly anyone had come. We went in and paid for the ice skating session, looked around the gift shop a bit and went to get our skates. As we are walking to the skate area, Marty notices a sign saying next session 8-11. What??? She said 7... I swear! So now we had almost an hour to kill and we were already worried about Drew lasting when we thought it started at 7. As the time trickled by so did our hopes of an empty rink... We had some hot chocolate and patiently awaited the opening. We had so much fun skating though and it didn't get too terribly crowded! Madi really got the hang of it this year and Drew was a little more hesitant than last. On one of his early ventures a little ways ahead of us, he fell. I didn't want him to worry that I wasn't there so I quickly scooted up to lean over him to assure him I was there to help him. Well... out went my skate from underneath me. As my knee hit the ground my leg went out to the side and as you can imagine at that exact moment Madi was speeding up to us and a flying she went over my leg. Our little pile up provided us with plenty of laughs for the evening!

This has become one of my FAVORITE days of our Christmas time. Cannot wait for next year!!!

Oh and just to top it off... my honey got me a snowman nightlight that I absolutely adore!

Waiting patiently...
Love...


Sorry for the blurry pictures... They were all attempted while I was trying to not fall! :)

Bowling With Santa - Year 2

We had so much fun bowling with Santa again! Much to our surprise Santa made his grand entrance dropping right down our bowling lane! Since I had no idea there was some sort of chimney like quality to the bowling lanes I was not quick enough to snap a picture. But he did come and bowl with us and we took pictures with him by the Christmas tree there! Such a fun day!

Seaworld At Christmas

We had an awesome day in San Antonio this past weekend. We spent the night with Auntie KK & Uncle Larry, enjoyed lounging through the morning with them, lunch at Maggiano's and then headed off to Seaworld. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Seaworld at Christmas time. The decorations are great, the shows are great (and different) and the weather is usually more pleasant than the extreme heat experienced in the summer. We were able to get everything in that we wanted to while we were there. Marty and the kiddos fed the dolphins first, of course. The coral reef exhibit usually follows that.

So beautiful - especially at night! :)

After the Coral Reef building, we went through the Fantasea area and visited all the characters.

From there we went to see if there were any live animal photo opportunities but they had closed up for the day. So the kiddos made Christmas cards with pop up penguins instead and then we headed off to Shamu Express.

The Candy Cane Forest was one of my favorite parts of the day -- I am definitely a sucker for Christmas lights.

The kids went and played on the cargo nets and slides for awhile and then we caught the three main shows... The Sea Lion, Walrus and Otter show was silly and funny as usual. Then Shamu - and who doesn't love Shamu -- there was even a baby Shamu in the show that was fun to see. Finally the the Dolphin and Beluga Whale show... This is one of our favorite shows during the regular season with the acrobats, divers and parrots and macaws flying above. For Christmas they choreographed to music from the Nutcracker.

The day there always puts me in a Christmas mood and the end of the day topped it all, listening to the carolers, Sea World characters, elves and Santa, singing Christmas carols all around the lit up Christmas trees. It was definitely a great ending to a great day!