Trip to San Antonio

Jeff and I love to visit San Antonio. I think it is one of the most romantic cities I have ever been to and Jeff and I have made a lot of wonderful memories there. It is one of our favorite spots for a weekend getaway! This weekend we decided to do just that, get away. We were both in need of some relaxation and we wanted to spend some quality time together before Jeff started getting busy again at work. Jeff suggested we wake up early, like "walking club early." In other words, we got up at 5 AM and were on our way to San Antonio at 6 AM!

In spite of the early departure, we still made our regular stop to Buc-ees. Yes, my husband bought beef jerky at 8 AM! We got to Fiesta Texas right in time for them to open and we stayed until they closed at 10 PM. We rode the new ride, Goliath, which our friend Derek calls a "parking lot coaster." Besides that we mostley saw shows and tried to stay in the air conditioning as much as possible. It was HOT! We also got to see Fiesta Texas' outdoor summer show, The Lone Star Spectacular. It is a laser and firework show and was a wonderful end to the day, especially since the sun was down and there was a nice breeze.

Sunday we slept in, checked out of our hotel, and headed for the Riverwalk. We took the stroll of around a mile and enjoyed the views along the way. We ate lunch at Casa Rio and then went to Market Square to look around. On our way back to the car we visited Marriage Island. I have seen it from the river boat tour, but have never actually stood on it. It is a really cute naturally made heart-shaped island where hundreds of marriage ceremonies are performed each year. We also saw a beautiful cathedral with fountains in front of it where children were playing in the water. Around 4 PM we headed home and made a stop at Buc-ees again on the way. It was a perfect weekend!

Houston Project 2008

Last night we completed Houston Project 2008. I mentioned it in an earlier post, but this is our church's approach to get as many people as possible involved in local missions. We were at one of the 8 sites, called Allen Parkway Village. We truly loved getting to know the community and the kids! We had a VBS, middle school and high school program (w/ real rappers), a ladies' Bible Study, and evangelism at the site. I was also able to connect with a couple of the moms of our children, which was a pleasure. Jeff and I directed the 5 year old group and boy, they were active to say the least. The most difficult part was that we were outside under tents that had no sides. We tried to put up netting to keep all the kids in, but it was a constant struggle to contain them. They were literally in their own backyard and are used to having free reign of the whole complex.

Tavoris, Kaleub, Deneshia, and I


Jeff and I after completing our first year doing Houston Project together:


A group picture of all the couples from our Sunday School class that served at our site:


We did our best to keep all the kids together and God gave us the opportunity to spend a lot of one on one time with one of the kids that liked to escape, Kaleub. I immediatley knew that some of Kaleub's actions were beyond his control. It wasn't until last night that I understood. Kaleub shared with me that his mom recently went to jail. In the same evening one of our other frequent run aways told me she saw her cousin go to jail for shooting someone. My heart goes out to these kids, who in their first 5 years experienced things that no one would want a child to experience! If you would, please pray for these precious children and their families, we would appreciate it.

Happy Birthday, America!

4th of July weekend was a lot of fun, as anticipated! Jeff and his dad did a ton of work on the yard and it looks great! We even got two new lavender plants in our front flower bed. Friday night Jeff, Lisa, Jaime, Jeff's parents, and I went to see fireworks downtown with thousands of other people. It was a great time even though the lines to get out were crazy! Saturday, everyone came over to our house for yummy food and fun!

The chef and I after lunch


We weren't expecting our kitchen faucet to break, but thankfully Jeff's dad offered to install a new one. We love the result!



After the Albus clan left town, we went to my parents house to spend some time with Sarah, Clayton, and Wade. A fun time was had by all!

Jeff and I with "Batman"

Exciting weekend

We have plans for an exciting weekend...don't worry pictures will be posted as always! Jeff is home from work today. Live Nation believes in celebrating holidays right, by giving at least a half day, this time a whole day before a holiday.

Tonight or tomorrow morning, my sister and her fam (Wade, Clayton, and baby boy number two) are coming for the weekend. They will be staying with my parents, but we hope to spend as much time with them as possible. Tomorrow at noon, Jeff's parents are coming into town. They were sweet enough to offer to help us do some yard maintenance! They are amazing! Then Friday night, Jeff's sister, Lisa and her husband, Jaime are coming to go to the fireworks downtown with all of us.

Saturday we are having everyone over for brisket and roasted corn. This was Jeff's mom's idea and a very good one at that. We plan to hang out with my family Saturday and Sunday before we go to our Houston Project meeting Sunday afternoon.

Houston Project is a local missions initiative our church does annually. We help small churches or communities put on a VBS program in the evening. Jeff and I are teaching the Kindergarten group at one of the apartment complexes. Please, pray for God to be glorified and for people to make decisions for Christ.

If you like our new header, please comment. I worked really hard on it! HAPPY JULY 4th!

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!