We Wish You a Merry Christmas

We are 3 days into the wonderful month of December and I think it is the busiest time for us, by far! We have done lots to make our house festive for our first Christmas without the 'constraints' of an apartment, there are lots of fun parties and events in our neighborhood, our circle of friends, and at work, and I can't seem to get out of the kitchen! Between birthdays (Troy and Matt's is coming up soon), an anniversary (my parents'), a visit from family, and of course Christmas, we are jam-packed this month! But.... I look forward to this time of year for 11 months and it's finally here. And for me, this is what it's all about...

Christmas is...

The glow of pretty lights, big and bright

And those who volunteer to hang them, late at night!

It's road trips for hours, across our great state

And coupons worth clipping for sales that don't wait

Christmas is my puppy, getting herself in a mess

Then falling asleep next to the Polar Express

It's my festive mantle -- (the stockings are coming)

And Christmas in a glass -- so yummy yummy!

Hehehe, that was fun. But really, Christmas brings with it (believe it or not), a cheerfulness, a giving spirit, humility in knowing that we are happy and healty, and very, very blessed.

Now if it would just snow already!!!

(Too cute not to post)

And The Victory Bells Will Ring Out!

Fight, Raiders, Fight! Fight, Raiders, Fight!

Fight for the school we love so dearly.

We'll hit 'em high, we'll hit 'em low.

We'll push the ball across the goal,

Tech , Fight! Fight!

We'll praise your name, boost you to fame.

Fight for the Scarlet and the Black.

We will hit 'em, we will wreck 'em.

Hit 'em! Wreck 'em, Texas Tech!

And the Victory Bells will ring out.

We got tickets for my dad for his birthday, to the Tech/Baylor game this weekend. It was held at the *new* Cowboys Stadium, and we were all really excited to check it out. We packed some turkey sandwiches (leftovers....yum), some cold drinks, and went to tailgate before the game. The weather was perfect, there were so many Tech fans, and the new stadium was amazing. I have never seen anything like it before. It was huge, with steel and glass everywhere, the nicest amenities football can offer, and oh my gosh - the big screen! HUGE! It spanned over 60 yards, and the worst view in the whole place is supposedly like watching a 70" TV from home. Way to go Jerry Jones, way to go!

We ate over-priced popcorn, drank expensive drinks, but cheered hard for our Red Raiders and enjoyed the game. After a nerve-racking first half, we pulled through with a win and it was a perfect end to a pretty great night. It was good to watch a Tech game in person this year, and to see our Goin' Band from Raiderland. It really makes us miss the good 'ole college days though. I hope my dad enjoyed his birthday gift - I know we did! Troy and I agreed that since Baylor and Tech will apprently be meeting up like this every year, we will make this a new tradition, one that the four of us can definitely look forward to. And hey, it may very well be the only chance we get to set foot in this monstrous, but awe-inspiring venue.

Wreck 'Em Tech!

Gobble Til You Wobble!

We hope everyone had a very good Thanksgiving! Ours was filled with lots of family time (and travel), good food x2, and some great memories. Matt and Jo came in on Wednesday and we got to hang out all day, just chatting and relaxing. We stayed up late sipping wine and playing Would You Rather, which was very interesting, to say the least! It was a good visit with our favorite pair, and way too short. On Turkey Day, we headed over to the Davis family casa (aka Rick and Carolyn's) to spend the afternoon with them, the Brognas, Matt and Jo, and the Johnston fam. There seemed to be rugrats everywhere - kids and dogs galore! Of course I couldn't stop snapping away on my camera....

Lunch was fantastic, as always, but we had to duck out shortly after and head toward Fort Worth for our DFW Turkey Day. We listened to the Cowboys game (they won!) and the UT/A&M game (Horns won, nuff said), and rolled in that evening. Us gals started clipping away at the ads for Black Friday and making our plan, and with only about 3 hours of sleep to be had, we crashed. 2:30am came too soon, but a few cups of coffee and an adrenaline rush later, we were fully immersed in the madness that is Black Friday. We ended up with some good finds after about 6 hours of shopping, and wrote it off as a successful and very fun adventure.

We celebrated Thanksgiving with the Hughes family that afternoon, playing and watching lots of football, sharing our traditional and hilarious game of charades, and eating lots and lots of yummy food. Troy and I snuck away late that night to go watch The Blind Side at the movie theater, which is absolutely wonderful. What a great movie to lift your spirits and get you in the holiday mood!

Overall, it was a Thanksgiving to remember and we are ever grateful for the blessing of great family to share it with. Happy Turkey Day, everyone!

Doe, a Deer

Last weekend was a 'girls weekend' for Chels and 'boys weekend' for Troy. Troy headed out Friday afternoon with some friends from work to hunt in South Texas for the weekend. The guys had a good 'ole time, like usual, with grill-cooked meals, cold beer, and lots of deer stalking. Unfortunately, only a few of the guys got themselves a good doe, and even more unfortunately, Troy was not one of them. He did, however, see a buck fight over a female deer, which apparently is really cool. All-in-all it was a relaxing and fun trip for him, though he was happy to be home on Sunday!

Shopping was in the works for me last weekend...lots of shopping. I got a lot of things done Friday, but the high ended when I locked myself out of the house that night :( an hour, $75, and one sad puppy later, I was finally in. Ugh! We have done this twice now (at least this time I had my phone with me). So needless to say, the neighbor has a key - which Troy has already had to use! Ha! Saturday was yucky outside so Whit and Al came over and we watched our Red Raiders kick some Sooner butt! It was great :) They played with Tess a lot and we just vegged out and chatted all day. Haven't done that in a while, and it reminded me of the old days :) Al and I did a bit more shopping that evening and called it a night early. Sunday I ran out to the outlet mall to get some stuff and then met Troy for some errands and a movie with Blake. Unfortunately, Blind Side was sold out so we saw the Boondock Saints sequel All Saints Day. It was okay...I'd say 7/10 stars. The first one was way better!

We have very busy week and weekend coming up and are trying to brace ourselves! We start with Turkey Day with Rick and Carolyn and then we head to Dallas for Turkey Day Part Deux, family photo session, and the Tech/Baylor game on Saturday! Wreck 'Em Tech! All in all, we are looking forward to seeing everyone and spending time with family, especially Matt and Jo - fresh off the plane from Florida :)

Cheers!

Thursday marked the start of our anniversary celebration, and it was great! We loaded up the car (pup and all) and headed to Fredericksburg. We stopped at Trattoria Lisina, an Italian restaurant at the Mandola Estates, for an AMAZING Italian lunch. That was just the start of a wonderful tour of the Hill Country's best wineries. We sipped, we ate, we took photos. It was really beautiful. We checked in to our cabin late that night and boy, that was a surprise! It was really quaint and cute, but definitely small :) Troy kept hitting his head on the doorway because they were so short! The house was built in the 1800s and is the oldest home outside of Fredericksburg. It was so quiet out there and all of us - including Tess - slept through the night.

Texas Hills Winery

Our 1800s cabin at Settler's Crossing

Becker Vineyards

The vineyard at Becker

Day 2: At Our Favorite - Grape Creek

Our stash, 7 wineries and several tastings later...

Sunday was our actual anniversary and we had a good ole lazy day, followed by a delicious dinner. We went to Perry's and ate like royalty. The food was soooo good. Then, after a few days of thawing, we pulled out the cake cutter and champagne flutes from the Big Day and cut into our wedding cake. Wow. That is all I can say - wow! It tasted just as good as it did the first time we tried it, and it brought back so many memories.

So I guess that brings me to the reason I am even able to reminisce about a lovely weekend and the taste of great wine, while eating leftovers from a fantastic steak house and thinking about digging into that yummy cake again...my husband. We have been together for over four years now and I look back at our life together after only one year of marriage and think "How lucky am I?!" It brings tears to my eyes thinking about how patient he is, how understanding and thoughtful. He is there for me in everything I do and everything I could hope to do, and I know that is rare. He is my best friend and I love him all the way to the stars and back.

We had such a picture-perfect first year of marriage, and since it is the season for giving thanks, I realize I have so much to be thankful for in the short time since we said "I do." We have spent several festive 'first' holidays with our wonderful families, became 'Aunt' and 'Uncle' to a precious baby boy, bought a beautiful new home together, took on some interesting DIY projects, went on a ski trip, some beach trips, and quite a few road trips, celebrated with friends as they bought new houses, got engaged, or celebrated a marriage; we prayed hard for family as they healed from an injury or illness, tried new things, and moved to new places; we learned a lot about others, and even more about ourselves, found some new friends and found ourselves growing apart from others. We realized more than ever, the gift of having a job (even if it isn't perfect!), trying new things, and staying hopeful. We found happiness in the small things - drinking wine with friends on the back porch, listening to the crickets, the smell of good BBQ, and the feeling of puppy kisses on your face. Life is full of blessings, and opportunities to find blessings through the not-so-good stuff. It takes my breath away, the blessings in our life.

Happy anniversary Love. Here's to 100 more...

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

First, as promised, here are some photos from last weekend's dinner with Taylor, Lindsey, and Jackson. I'd say it looks like Jackson and Tess got along well:

This was quite a week, followed by a surprisingly relaxing weekend. Friday we did our typical La Finca dinner date--ya can't beat fajitas and 'ritas! Though now that I think about it, we didn't technically order either of those. Eh, change is good sometimes--to spice things up. So we had a nice dinner and then called it an early night (we haven't gotten a straight night of sleep since Tess joined the fam, having to wake up every couple of hours and let her out). Saturday morning, however, we found that the pup surprised us; she slept through almost an entire night! We have to feed her at 5:30 each morning, and she slept until almost 5. That means almost 7 hours of straight sleep... sleep that was very much needed.

Now for some not-so-good info on Tess: We got a call earlier in the week that one of the puppies in Tess' litter had coccidia (an intestinal tract infection caused by microscopic parasites that puppies can get from their mother's poo). So although we already took her to the vet and she tested negative, I Googled the parasite and noticed some slight symptoms in Tess and decided to take her to the vet again to re-do the fecal test. Now the 'ugly' part...We had to bring in a sample of her poo! And since she conveniently decided not to poo the morning of her vet visit, we had to go through the yard and pick the best poo to bring. Ew. Ew. Ew. That was a stinky car ride... but after two hours at the vet, he found one strand of the parasite, almost untraceable. So now our poor pup is on meds for 14 days. I am just glad we had her re-tested, and that she will be healthy again.

Tess is really doing good though, learning and growing. And she is so smart! She has nailed the whole "sit" command (yay!) and we have started working on her playing fetch consistently. She found the stairs on Friday, and after a few wobbly attempts, she decided she loved going up and down all of them. She often decides to skip the last step though, with a grand finale of flying through the air in an awkward leap, and almost always lands face-first into the floor. It is very cute. Kennel training is still going well, better than we expected after the first week. I think she is starting to see her kennel as her safe place instead of puppy jail. And HOORAY - progress is being made in the Lucy-Tess interaction. I think they are only a few days away from cuddling and giving me some grossly cute photo-ops.

Saturday night we went over to Patrick's apartment to help Allison set up for a surprise party. His birthday was that night, and his girlfriend Erin was planning a party. Little did she know that Pat was planning to propose that day and he turned the birthday party into an engagement surprise party. It was so nice to be a part of their special day, and it brought back memories of our engagement too, over two years ago! Our one year wedding anniversary is quickly approaching - next weekend! Can you believe it...one year already? Needless to say, Tess is our anniversary gift to each other, but we decided to take a small trip too (why not?!). We took Thursday off and are heading to the hills, The Hill Country that is - Fredericksburg. We are going to do some wine tours and tastings, maybe a bit of shopping. It is so pretty out there, especially this time of year, so I will be taking lots of photos, which will likely make their way here. We are staying at an awesome B&B; really it is more like our own log cabin. We will be coming back on Friday, and are thinking that we will do a nice dinner on Sunday and then attempt to thaw out our wedding cake. I really really hope it tastes as good as it did one year ago. We sure followed the strict instructions of our baker and saran-wrap, foil, tupperwared the heck out of that thing...

Enough rambling for now. I will leave you with a cute little face. Have a great week, and we will post again soon!