Looney Bin

This website cracks me up!! I mean rolling on the floor, peeing in my pants cracks me up!! It just confirms why I love my weekly trips to Wal-Mart. It's like visiting the looney bin each week. Why I go back the next week for another beating I don't know.

http://peopleofwalmart.com

Check out the man supposedly spotted in College Station, TX. I bet Pamela Anderson is pretty jealous!

http://peopleofwalmart.com/?p=183

Bad Blogger Award

I've been bad, very, very, bad at blogging lately. Actually, for a few months (who am I kidding?) We've just been so busy lately that when I have time to sit down and rest I'm not in the mood to blog.

Where do I begin? Here's what we've been up to lately (in no particular order):

1. Schitterbahn! Ah, how I love the extra cold water that freezes up my tooshie as soon as I plop into my tube. I love the word tooshie because it implies that my bum is small and cute, which it's not! (Note to self...get that bum to the gym!) At least this year there weren't any guys 25+ years old getting into the water at the beginning of a ride sqeeling like girls because the water was so frigid. We stayed in San Antonio and had a fabulous time eating 7 Mexican food meals out of a possible 10 meals. It was heaven.

2. Our trip to Mississippi in October with Michael's parents to visit some of their friends is planned. I know that sounds a little strange but the friends have a separate guest house on the gulf that has mine and Michael's name on it. His parents will stay in the main house with their friends. We'll be spending a night along the way in New Orleans which I'm excited about because I've never been to New Orleans. I'm told it's dirty and seedy but I still want to see what that culture is like and see the effects of Katrina.

3. We had a patio extension poured in our backyard in June and now have a patio table to enjoy. This sounds pretty lame but we're now old folks who own a home and get enjoyment out of such things. The patio the home builder poured was 23' x 6' so it was long an narrow with not much usability. We love being outside grillin' and chillin' so we decided it would be nice to extend the concrete out another 10'. We were thinking we might have the concrete stained or stamped but decided that for now we would just go with plain concrete and maybe jazz it up later when we have more $$. Shesh...owning a home isn't cheap! Here's what we have going on so far.


4. Trip to California next week! We're headed to Monterey and Sonoma, California over my birthday. The last time we went to California was for our honeymoon 5 years ago when we went to Monterey and San Fran. Needless to say we've been waiting for the day when we can go back and enjoy our favorite clam chowder on Monterey's Old Fisherman's Wharf. Michael's been to Sonoma before (before he was 21 so how much fun can that be?)

5. NASCAR November 7th with my bro and his family at the Texas Motor Speedway. I'm looking forward to this because I've never done anything like it. I have a feeling it's going to be LOUD!! Earplugs, anyone??

I'm dying to wear flip flops

Michael and I can't wait for summer to get here. Not because we get 4 glorious months off like we did in college (Long gone are those days...Boohoo!) but because we're ready for some warm weather. I guess you can probably tell that from our small blog makeover.

So, break out the flip flops here's a list of our summer trips we're hoping to go on.

1. Schlitterbahn!! Need I say more? We both LOVE this place. We went a couple summers ago with another couple for the weekend and stayed in San Antonio. This time we're going to plan on going during the week because we're not really into standing in a line for 2 hours to ride one ride while we look at the tattooed portrait of a man's relative's face. What was even more ridiculous about the tattoo was that below the portrait was the person's birth date with a " - " after it like a headstone for a still-living person. Strange, I tell you.

2. Johnson City and Austin, TX and the surrounding wineries. My uncle lives in Austin and has offered to let us stay anytime we're in town. We might stay with him for a day or two and hit up some live music and hole-in-the-wall restaurants. We'd also like to stay at a B&B in Johnson City and visit the wineries nearby also. We love Texas Hills Vineyards.

3. Go to the Mississippi beach. We know some people from Mississippi (I just love typing that out...so fun) that have graciously offered to let us stay in the guest house on their property. Even though we're not really beach people it'll still be nice to get away and see another state's beauty.

For little Miss. Priss

I get on these sewing kicks every once in a while so when I came across this pattern from Oliver + S on another blog I got the itch.  I picked out 3 fabrics and coordinating ribbons to make 3 little skirts for our cute 3 1/2 year old niece.  After a minor glitch with the sewing machine halfway through the first skirt I finally finished the purple skirt (I added the little embellishment with the extra fabric and ribbon).

Here are the fabrics and ribbons for the other two 2 skirts which I hope to work on this weekend:

I hope she enjoys them as much as I enjoy making them.  She's such a cute little squirt.

Now, if I could only learn to sew from an official pattern then there would be no end to my obsessive madness.

Where'd my pillow go?

I just couldn't resist.  I think someone thinks my pillow belongs to her.

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas...

The first Saturday in December my mom and I went to see White Christmas at TUTS in Houston.  This musical (well, really the movie) holds a very dear place in mine and my mom's heart.  Every year since I can remember we always sit down in the den one day close to Christmas and wrap all the presents (not mine of course) and watch White Christmas.  We know EVERY song  and line by heart and could practically star in the movie ourselves if either of us could sing.  So, when tickets became available to purchase last July I jumped on it.  Afterwards we met up with Michael and went to Niko Niko's for some fantastic Greek food.

Sorry about the bras in the above picture.  We went to Rice Village after eating dinner and we were having such a good time that we decided to take this picture with Santa.  We didn't realize until after we took the picture that we were standing in front of a Victoria's Secret window but if we'd taken pictures by another bench then it would have been with the homeless man taking a nap.  Needless to say we were okay with the bras.

Static Head!

Sammy!

This is very random but Samantha Brown was at a mall in Dallas in September doing publicity stuff for Ecco shoes. We HAD to go see her so we waited in the long line to get her autograph and a picture with her. We're so goofy but it was so cool!

San Antonio Vacation

I'm working my way backwards in time since I've been a slacker at blogging.

The middle of December Michael and I took a few days off from work and made a trip to San Antonio.  It seems that this might be our yearly tradition since December 2007 we went for a few days to Fredericksburg and in December 2005, I think it was, we went to Las Vegas.

Along the way we stopped in Shiner, TX to visit the Shiner Brewery.  They had a nice facility, but the tasting was nothing like what St. Arnold does.  Oh, how we miss St. Arnold.

This sign in the Shinery Brewery parking lot cracked me up.

Okay, on to San Antonio.  We stayed at a beautiful historic hotel just 2 blocks off the Riverwalk.  It was nice to be so close that we could walk down there anytime we wanted to without the hassle of parking.  When we checked in the man at the desk told us we were upgraded to a 4th floor room with a view of the park across the street.  We were pretty excited at the sound of such a nice view but when we got up to our room we realized that it really wasn't as nice as it sounded because we suspect the park was the homeless park.  Oh, well.  Whenever we were in the room we were either sleeping at night or taking naps during the day.  I sure do miss those naps.

At La Fogata (Yumm! Best Mexican food ever)

Alamo plaza

Home Sweet Home

Erica reminded me that I haven't posted any new pictures of the house since we moved in. I can't believe it's been almost 5 months since moving in. It seems like just yesterday.

Den/Kitchen

Fireplace in Den

(Any ideas for decorating over the mantle?  mirror, artwork?)

Kitchen

Coffee bar in kitchen (sorry the picture is so far away)

I got Michael a Keurig coffee maker for his birthday and he's loving it!  Secretly I'm loving it too.  We're going to paint the coffee bar cabinet black and distress it soon so that it blends in with the rest of the room.

Decorations above the kitchen cabinets.

Thank you, Hobby Lobby!  If I have to spend our money somewhere you are the place I would like to spend our money at the most.

Dining room

I think I'm going to work on sanding and painting the furniture black since the finish was damaged during the move.  This might take a while but we'll eventually get to it.

Office

Not much in this room except my desk which you can't see (thankfully) and the file cabinet.

Our bedroom

I think my next project will be curtains for our room since our neighbors behind us have very bright spotlights shining in their backyard and in ours.  With fences only 4.5' tall it looks like daylight in our room even at night when they have their outside lights on.  Bummer.

Our bathroom

Note to self: Need to get new towels that match the bedroom.  These ones are so raggedy.

Our flex room or whatever you want to call it

This technically is called an optional 4th bedroom since it has a full closet.  We're going to eventually get a comfy chair and floor lamp so that we can do some reading in here.

We haven't taken any pictures of our guest bedroom but we do have one in case anyone wants to come visit (hint, hint).

Long time no talk

I've been bad about updating our blog since we started it. I know I should update it more often but I guess I just feel like no one is probably even reading it and there's really nothing worthwhile to write about most days anyway. But, faithful Marianne is reading so I'll work on updating a little more frequently for ya.

Shop Till I Drop

I'm driving to Houston tomorrow to go to the...


Whoohoo! I love going to the Nutcracker Market and shopping till I drop (literally). My mom and I end up shopping from 10am to around 6pm straight with a short break to eat a lunch brought from home. My feet get sooo sore and tired but it is totally worth every aching step to see the convention center filled with a glorious array of Christmas gifts and home decor items. Hopefully I'll find a few Christmas gifts to mark off my list. Happy shopping!

Busy, Busy, Busy

The past couple months have flown by! Michael and I closed on our first home in September and moved in a couple days later. Things haven't slowed down since. We're loving our new home and all the extra space we have to spread out. It's a welcome change, might I add, that we have a house now. We've spent the last 4 1/2 years in an apartment while Michael finished up school and during those years we ached for a home of our own. God has greatly blessed us in giving us a wonderful home and fantastic neighbors.

I'm now working on decorating which is fun but completely overwhelming. My house is a blank slate for all the decorating ideas I have rattling around in my head and what do I do?...I freeze, go blank, crumble. I guess it's like that ol' elephant my dad always used to tell me about...take it in small chunks. I'll get there eventually but it sure would be nice if I could get over my fear of hanging things on the walls. I've been reading a few blogs on home decor to inspire me. I love Nesting Place and all the neat ideas of no-sew curtains and more. This woman can do wonders with a hot glue gun!

Speaking of new home stuff. Since we've never owned a home we've never lived in a neighborhood (except when we were growing up of course). Since we've never lived in a neighborhood of our own we've never noticed people who decorate their homes for Halloween. This October we were AMAZED at all the people in our neighborhood that decorate their homes and yards with spiders, zombies, caskets (yes, I said caskets), and the like. I was totally blown away by one house that had spiders that were at least 3ft by 3ft crawling up their house and caskets in their yard. There must have been 6 or 7 spiders. There was one house, though, that took the cake for the most ridiculously decorated yard. This house had 9 of those inflatable yard characters along with what seemed like 10 pumpkins sitting on 4 bales of hay. Come on, do we really need 9 inflatable yard characters lined up side by side around the front and side of a corner lot? It completely amazed me. Now I'm just wondering what Christmas will be like. I hope we're not going to be dragged along into "keeping up with the Jones'". Supposedly a couple of our neighbors are making gigantic candy canes for each of the houses on our street (there are only 7 houses on our street). I'm still pondering outside lights and if I want us to go to the trouble of putting them up. We'll see as it gets closer.

Catch Up

Wow! So much has happened in the last month which has kept both of us so busy I haven't had time to write. Where should I start? I guess I'll just hit on the major points like our 4th wedding anniversary and buying a new house. Yes, you heard me. We celebrated our anniversary AND bought a house.

Our 4th wedding anniversary was July 10th. Michael had the day off work so while I was working at my home office he surprised me with a beautiful flower arrangement, a balloon, and some chocolate covered strawberries. He was so sweet to take the time to pick out the flowers and the vase and have the florist put the arrangement together. What a thoughtful man! I took July 11 off from work and we went to Granbury, TX for the day to shop around the historic town square. We had a great time together just strolling along the sidewalk and popping into stores.

After I finished with work Michael took me to dinner at an Italian restaurant we had never been to. The food was good and because it was our anniversary the waiter brought a free dessert. It was funny, though, when we were seated at our table and noticed that ALL the people at the other tables had white hair. We laughed to ourselves because we figured we must have looked out of place being as young as we are. Oh well, we didn't care. The food was good and the atmosphere was very quiet (no young kids or babies) which made for a romantic evening.

Our lease is up at our apartment the middle of October so toward the end of July we figured it was time to start finding a realtor and begin the house hunting process. A friend recommended a realtor so we set up a meeting with her to "feel her out" and then we decided to have her be our realtor. She set us up with a website that posted available houses in our market and price range as they came available to help us in our hunt. Michael and I spent many nights going through hundreds of house listings before we narrowed our options to around 12 homes. We set up an appointment with our realtor to look at the houses a couple weekends ago and after exhausting the 12 or so homes we figured we'd have to begin the process again with web searches because none but 2 houses we saw that day appealed to us. That's when our realtor decided to show us some new home communities we didn't know of. She took us to the cutest neighborhood of Cape Cod style houses which we fell in love with. There was a spec home that was in the process of being built and we liked the floor plan. So, we're buying the spec home and it is scheduled to be completed August 26th. We found the house just at the right time, too, because it's at the stage where we can still pick out some things like carpet, tile, etc. while still getting the house at the spec home price. Michael and I went to their design center this past Monday and picked out the carpet and extended the tile to all rooms except for the bedrooms. We're so excited! We truly feel that God led us to this house at the right time and that He is opening all the doors for us to walk through.

Now, on to buying the refrigerator, lawn equipment, etc. Poor, poor credit card.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Test #2: PASSED!!!!!

It's official! Michael is now a licensed pharmacist! He will begin working at his own pharmacy soon instead of with another pharmacist. We are both very excited!

Test #1: PASSED

I just ran to the mailbox to check and see if the results of the first part of Michael's board exam came and it did...he passed!

Now we're just waiting on the results of the second part which we should hopefully know by the end of this week.

iMac

Michael and I finally bit the bullet and bought a new computer.  So, I am now blogging on our new iMac.  Isn't it beautiful?

I still have so much to learn about Apple computers since I didn't grow up with an Apple but I'm getting there with Michael's help.

Pencils down

Michael finished taking the last of his licensing exams on Monday. He said it was very tough but I'm sure he passed. Now we just have to wait for the results. Thank you to everyone who was praying for him and for following up on the results.

Our anniversary is Thursday so we're planning a nice meal out and then Michael and I are taking off work on Friday for a trip to Granbury, TX. I've been wanting to go to Granbury for a long time and Michael and I are finally getting to go. From what Michael tells me it's a cute town with a historic square that has tons of cute shops. I can't wait! This will be a nice get-away from our usual routine of work/study/testing even if it's not a get-away to a far off place. On second thought, if anyone wants to chip into the "Send Michael and Katie on a fantastic vacation to Tennessee" fund we would be more than happy to accept donations! Hahahaha!

Testing...1,2,3

Michael will be taking the first out of two pharmacy board exams this Friday. The second one is scheduled for July 8th. After he completes both tests and sends in the licensing fee, he will officially be a licensed pharmacist. Yay!!

He has been studying very hard in preparation for the tests, however, please pray that the information would be quickly and easily recalled during the testing.

Beauty

This is just a picture of a rose I took. I liked how it turned out so I thought I'd share it.