Fun Friday, Saturday, AND Sunday!

This past Friday, I went to my hairdresser and friend, Michelle's house to get my hair cut before our big Girls' Night. Every couple of months we get together with other girlfriends for some good ol' fashioned girlie fun! This Friday we decided to go to the Dessert Gallery for some yummy cake and then go Disco Bowling.

Here we are in our pretty booth at the Dessert Gallery, chowing down on cake!


At the bowling alley Sarah came up with a rule that we had to dance back to our seat after each frame, so we looked crazy, but it made the game a lot more enjoyable!


On Saturday we went to our old Sunday School director's home for lunch before we drove to the Woodlands for a Stone Temple Pilot concert. It was a little wet and loud, but lots of fun!

Sunday we went to the Astros game with our friends, the Stephensons. It was both of their first Astros game as they are transplanted from Arizona. Jeff went into a lottery a couple months ago to get the tickets because the Astros were playing the Boston Red Sox and there was a lot of competition for tickets. We scored tickets! The fans were rowdy on both sides, especially when the beverages started flowing! It was a really close, exciting game and the Astros won! YAY for a great weekend!

Republican State Convention

This past weekend we had a great opportunity to attend the Republican State Convention! It was held Thursday, Friday and Saturday, here in Houston at the George R Brown. I was a delegate and Jeff was an alternate, but he got to vote quite a bit because for some reason not all the delegates came! Crazy people, you don't even have to travel for it! There were about 5,000 people there each day and it is the largest State convention in the US (Democratic ones included)! We got to rub elbows with some big names in politics, including Senator John Cornyn and Railroad Commissioner, Michael Williams. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee were the big speakers, along with Governor Rick Perry. We didn't meet these big names, but we meet a lot of state politicians. My favorite pictures in the slide show are the one of us with President Reagan and the one with me and Mike Huckabee's bald spot. No, this was not the real Reagan, but it was as close as we could get. That is the real Mike Huckabee, bald spot and all! All in all, the weekend was long and tiring, but it was a great experience and I would definitely do it again!

The last picture in the slide show is some flowers I received from one of my families that adopted a precious 3 year old child last Tuesday! I can't show the sweet pictures of him giving me the flowers or the big hug he gave, but I can tell you that being a part of helping him find a forever family was one of the most rewarding things I have done in my 2 1/2 years of social work! YAY for happy endings!

First Home Improvement Project is a success!

This blog post is dedicated first to my husband, who is my other half and the best partner I could ask for. My weaknesses are his strengths and vice versa. It's the perfect combination! The post is also dedicated to Wendy and Jonathan, the master home improvement team that inspired us to try for ourselves.

Okay, we have been married for a year now and we bought the house a year and a half ago, so I'm sure you are thinking...what took them so long?! First of all, after planning the wedding and adjusting to married life, our jobs got crazy. Things are starting to settle down and when we got back from our anniversary trip, Jeff told me he wanted to start by painting our guest bathroom. Those of you who know Jeff, know that when Jeff says he's ready to do something, he means he's ready right now. We got home from our trip on a Friday night and Saturday we went to Home Depot to get supplies. Wendy gave us a time frame, one week, to complete the project. We did it!

First of all, this room was awful! I don't know what they were thinking when they picked the wall paper and they put it directly on the drywall. Therefore, we couldn't remove it without incurring a lot of expense and needless effort. So, we used a couple of coats of oil based primer to cover the paper, after Jeff had spackled and sanded nail wholes and glued down pieces of the paper that had peeled up. Taping and doing that took a whole day! The next day we primed one coat, then waited 24 hours before priming again.

After four days of 5-6 hours per day of work, we finished and it looks great! Wendy is a interior designer and when she came over on Sunday, she raved about the job we did! It was Jeff's very first time painting and if I recall I did a really poor job last time I tried and was demoted to the taping girl. Jeff did most of the work, I have to confess. I handed him paint brushes with paint on them while he reached for the high places from the ladder. He cleaned brushes and worked until he was sore. I worked on the low spots and again was the "taping girl." He let me pretend we were putting in an equal amount of work, but really it was all him! You can tell because he has sweat pouring from his shower cap (my idea after he got a reverse skunk stripe in his hair the first day of painting primer).

After all of this, we celebrated by defrosting the top of our wedding cake and sharing some surprisingly delicious long awaited cake! Cheers to TEAM ALBUS!

First Wedding Anniversary

We did it! This past week Jeff and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary! We grew a ton this year as a couple, especially through some of the trials God has brought us through. We are grateful for His grace and the love and forgiveness we have for one another through Him! We celebrated by taking a trip to the DFW area. My cousin, Christopher got married on May 17th in Waxahachie, almost exactly a year after our wedding day on May 19, 2007. We went to the wedding, spent time with extended family, and reminisced about our wedding day. Because I am so sentimental, I have included some photos of our wedding, along with those of us at Christopher's Wedding.

On Sunday afternoon, Jeff and I spent some time with my life long friend, Katie, her husband and new son, Caleb. I meet Caleb a week after he was born, but this was Jeff's first time to meet and hold Caleb. Notice this is the biggest smile Jeff has of all the pictures we have from the week! We are looking forward to seeing this happy family again this summer when they come to Houston.

Sunday evening through Tuesday Jeff and I stayed at the DFW Hyatt Regency. After we got married last year, we stayed at the Hilton of the Americas here in Houston for a couple of days before we left for our honeymoon. We ate at the hotel restaurant and laid out by the pool, so this year we did similar activities at the Hyatt Regency. We ate at the Hotel restaurant, Mr. G's on the evening of our anniversary. The food was great, but the ambiance was even better! I told Jeff I felt like we were on the Titanic, minus the ship sinking! The restaurant had a lot of dark wood and candle lighting. The waiters were all dressed in tuxedos and provided excellent service. Even the matrodee was very sweet and shared with us that he and his wife have been married for 41 years! He wished us a lot of blessings for a marriage as happy as theirs. The night was very romantic and the perfect celebration for a wonderful first year of marriage! Tuesday we went enjoyed one of our favorite past times, going to Six Flags over Texas. Apparently, all of the DFW High School seniors also had the same idea! It was CROWDED and Hot, but we still had a great time riding roller coasters and enjoying the day together!

My sister, brother in law, and nephew also attended my cousin's wedding in Waxahachie and we were able to spend most of the next week with them at their home in Keller, TX. Thanks for the hospitality guys! Wade went out of town on business for most of the week, so Jeff and I spent a lot of quality time with Clayton and Sarah. We had a great time! We were lovingly nicknamed: Wendy and Captain Hook, by our precious nephew, who is going through a Peter Pan phase. We went scrapbook shopping, to the park to feed the ducks, the play ground, and Jeff's favorite: Cabella's with "Peter" and his mom. I'll admit it, my husband LOVES stuffed animals, not the plush, cute kind, but the dead, stuffed kind (i.e. the taxidermied pheasant we have displayed in our home). I know, I know...how can I handle it, being the animal lover that I am? Well, Jeff is very accommodating in that, he limits the display of this treasured possession to the office of our house, or his "man room." Well, at Cabella's there are hundreds of these so called "stuffed" animals. Elephants, zebras, wolves, panda bears, and many other varieties are displayed throughout the store in all their splendor. I took a lot of pictures of these displays, but I will spare y'all all of that and show you just two. It was actually cool to me too, even though I tried not to think about the fact that the animals were D-E-A-D.

All in all we had a fabulous trip and were even able to spend a little bit of time with Jeff's mom on our trip to and from Dallas. She lovingly took care of our "stinky cats" as she calls them. It was a great combination of time together, with family and with dear friends! Cheers to the first of many happy years as a married couple!

Bowfire & my first Limo Ride!

On Wednesday night Jeff and I went to a performance that we have been anticipating for months. Jeff's company promotes concerts, as most of you know, one of the tours they promote is Bowfire! Check out this link: http://www.bowfire.com/ The musicians are extremely talented and it is a fusion of all different genres of music. There are 15 musicians total and each plays at least one instrument, most play two. They play violins, violas, electric violins, electric cello, regular and electric string bass, bass guitar, acoustic guitar and electric guitar, drums, keyboard, and a Chinese instrument: the erhu. They also sing and dance (similar to river dance). I smiled the entire show! It was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G and the best part was that we saw it in a very small venue! It felt like we were on stage with the group. Y'all should check the website out and if they're coming to you soon, get tickets, it's totally worth it!

Thursday was SO much fun for me! My supervisor at work ordered a stretch hummer limo to take all of us out to lunch. Lots of people are quiting the foster care department, two of which had their last day Friday. So, we celebrated nearly 20 years of combined service the two have provided to foster children with a big hoopla. My supervisor and her supervisor even did a lip sinc to "I've grown accustom to You." It was very sweet and I loved my first Limo ride ever! My co workers were laughing at me, as a snapped pictures the entire time. It turned out to be a huge group of us at the restaurant, so the day felt like a mixture of the Prom and a Wedding rehearsal dinner. Enjoy the pics!

Weekend Fun!

We had a nice weekend, partly because we had a lot of fun plans, and partly because the weather was BEAUTIFUL! We get extra excited about the weather because there is such a short window of time before it gets really hot! Jeff filed the 10 Q at work on Thursday and completed another quarter of a lot of working over time. He was relieved and actually didn't have to work as late as in the past. Thursday night, he brought me flowers as an early 1 year anniversary present. So SWEET!! He wanted me to be able to enjoy them since we won't be home for our actual anniversary! He also surprised me by taking me to the new Habashi restaurant near our house. It was a lot of fun, but I didn't have my camera. :( Jeff got Friday off and spent time resting and going to the neighborhood pool, while I worked. That night we went to the opera to see Billy Budd.

Saturday we spent the day grocery shopping and cooking for a get together we had at our house Saturday night. Two couple friends from church came over for Brisket, potato salad, coleslaw, deviled eggs, and strawberry short cake. Jeff and I were new at cooking most of these menu items, but with the expert help of our moms, we did it! Jeff did a great job on the brisket, it was very tender!

We went to Sunday School this morning and then worked extended session with the 2 1/2
and newly 3 year old class. This was our first Sunday of a program where we will be serving once every 6 weeks. The kids were precious and so much fun!! Jeff was a hit! Why is it that all men have to do is show up and kids have an instant buddy?! At one point I looked over and all the boys in the class were huddled around Jeff listening to him read a book. We had a blast and can't wait for the next time!

After church we took left overs from last night to my parent's house for lunch. We wanted them to get to test out our experimental menu. We visited and celebrated Mother's Day with them.

Enjoy the pictures and I will try not to wait so long before another update!

Wonderful Weekend!

We had a wonderful weekend!! The weather was beautiful and we enjoyed several fun activities! Jeff will be working late again starting tomorrow, so we shared some quality time together this weekend.

On Friday night, we met up with some people that were friends of a friend for dinner. Everyone was really nice and we met several new couples. On Saturday night we went to the wedding of one of the couples in our Monday Night Bible Study, Jen and Jeff. It was a very sweet ceremony and I actually got Jeff on the dance floor quite a bit...my Jeff, not the groom...that could be confusing!

Today we had a full day. After church we attended a graduation ceremony for The Quest Men's Fraternity. Jeff has been going to the study on Sunday evenings since September and worked hard to create a "Manhood Plan." He received a certificate and a nice marble remembrance stone.

Here is a picture of him with a couple of the guys from his table group:

And with his proud wife:


After the graduation, we went downtown for an Aeros hockey game. I bought Jeff tickets for his birthday and it turned out to be a great game to go to because it was the last regular season game and they qualified for the playoffs!
During the game:

The Aeros won in a shoot out and here is the final score board...Go AEROS!!!