Where were you? What were you doing?

I remember waking up to my clock-radio alarm in my dorm room. At first I didn't really pay attention to the DJs because I was half asleep but then I heard "the plane just crashed right into the side of the building." I sat up and moved in closer to the radio. They talked about how reports were just coming in about how a commercial plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center Towers. I quickly got ready to go to class so that I could go downstairs to the lobby of the dorm since we didn't have a TV. I came into the lobby and people are frozen staring at a picture on the screen of a plane flying into one of the towers. Then video of the second plane into the second tower. Everyone was so confused. People were frantic on their cell phones calling family members to get more information. I watched as long as I could to gather information before I had to leave to go to class. As I passed a university maintenance vehicle parked by the sidewalk next to the building I was going to enter I stopped with others to listen to the radio and see if there were any new developments since I had left the dorm. I entered the lecture hall of my freshman chemistry class. There were a few students who didn't know about what had happened and those of us who did tried to explain what we ourselves still didn't really believe had occurred. Our professor came in a few minutes later to tell us that one of the towers had collapsed. He said class was cancelled but we all lingered and shared stories of what we had heard and seen so far.

I remember growing up and my Grandfather telling me about how everyone from his generation could tell you where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news about Pearl Harbor. I would tell him and myself, "I can't imagine what that must have been like" when he would tell me the stories. That morning, as I woke up in my dorm room, all of a sudden, I think I understood.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well of ill, whta we shall pay ANY price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose ANY foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty.

-J.F.K.

Celebrate in San Antonio

This past weekend we went to San Antonio for two big celebrations. The first was Elizabeth's 4th birthday party on Saturday. The second was for the Evan's parents' 40th wedding anniversary. It was a great weekend and we got a lot of family time with both families (Evan's and mine).

Elizabeth's birthday party was the first "event" I had been at in a long time with that many people under the age of 5. It was pretty crazy but a lot of fun. Page and Dave did an awesome job with the party and I think it was a huge success. I can't believe how fast both Elizabeth and James are growing up! I would always think it was weird how my aunts and uncles would go on and on about how fast we were growing up and how it seemed just like yesterday that they were holding us as babies....but now I am the one! Elizabeth was born about six months before Evan and I got engaged. I remember John and Judy picking me up from Austin on their way back to Dallas right after Elizabeth had been born so that I didn't have to drive up there alone. I remember John saying over and over "Wait to you see this girl!" referring to his first grandchild. It was a time that I felt so honored and special to be a part of, seeing as I wasn't technically a part of the family yet. I remember Evan waking up that first morning (very early) we were all staying at Page and Dave's house, to go get Elizabeth when she was done nursing but was not wanting to got to sleep, to give Page a chance to sleep. I remember getting even more excited about marrying him and someday it being our child that he was picking up and trying to get to go to sleep.

While we are not quite ready to start that adventure, we love seeing our nephew and niece and are thankful for getting to be a part of their lives thus far. Elizabeth is a great big sister to James and I love watching them together. I often find myself quite content playing with one or both of them at family gatherings and having to remind myself to make sure and talk to everyone else :)

Here are some pictures from the party:

Elizabeth's party had a beach theme. This is her sand castle cake that Page made. VERY impressive!

Beach cupcakes for those who prefer chocolate cake.

Elizabeth (right) playing in the kiddie pool with some of her friends.

The cool play-set that both sets of grandparents gave the kids for their birthdays. Yes, that is a rock wall on the left, a sand box at the bottom, and a tube slide in the back. Elizabeth calls the tube slide "

Me holding James just after he woke up from his nap at the beginning of the party. He wasn't real sure he wanted to be outside where it was so bright. I think it still made for a pretty cut picture though.

Elizabeth opening the birthday present from us. We gave her a book of crafts for kids and a box of craft supplies. I got this same gift from my aunt when I was a kid for Christmas and I thought it was the coolest present. I decided a long time ago that if we ever had a niece of child that was into crafts that I was going to give the same gift. Thankfully, Elizabeth is really into crafts so hopefully this will be fun for her.

On Saturday night we went to dinner with my parents and sister and had a great time catching up with them. My family is very busy with Lisa starting the North East Transitional School a few weeks ago and still going through driving lessons. The three of them also help my aging grandfather (my Dad's Dad) and grandma (my Mom's Mom) on a very regular basis since they are the only immediate family living in the same place as them. They always have great stories about the adventures of helping them. We went to one of my favorite Mexican restaurants, La Fonda's and I had the same cheese enchiladas I have been getting there since I was a kid. They are the cheese enchiladas I compare all other cheese enchiladas to. After dinner, we went for gelato where we talked politics. My Dad loves to talk politics and I guess you could say that keeping up with the news and political issues is almost a hobby of his. Evan and I both enjoy talking to him about the issues because thankfully we share most of the same views and it always makes for good conversation. When we got home we watched the first half of the UT vs UTEP game. UT was going to win so Evan and I went to bed at half-time even though I think my Dad stayed up to watch more of the game.

On Sunday we went to John and Judy's best friends' house for a lunch to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. Page, Dave, the kids, us, John and Judy, and the Murphy's all shared in great food and fond memories. During our sharing time, all of us attempted to tell J&J how much their marriage has meant to us. I wasn't the only one who couldn't get through mine without crying. It was a beautiful time and I hope that J&J were encouraged by all that was said. While there have been some rough times during their 40 years together, their marriage is a true testament to God's power and grace. Their marriage and the way they have allowed God to work through their marriage continues to be an inspiration and encouragement to Evan and I and many others. We are very thankful to have them as an example in our lives. Page and Dave actually wrote down what they said and Page has posted them on their blog, if you'd like to read them. Here are some pictures from the lunch:

Getting ready to sit down to eat the delicious meal.

The AMAZING coconut cupcakes Lynn made. Not that I was surprised seeing as EVERYTHING I have every tasted that she baked was delicious. Did I mention that she owned a bakery at one time? I wish I was eating one right now.

J&J attempting to read our card...the writing was pretty small :)

Bathroom Remodel - Part II: Prime and Paint

Last week we primed and painted the bathroom. I primed the bathroom during the day and Evan helped me paint in the evening on Wednesday. It took longer than I thought it would because of all the small spaces that needed to be done with a brush. While I was hoping to get more done on the bathroom last week, this is all that happened because of needing to get ready to go to San Antonio for the weekend on Thursday and Friday. Here are some pictures:

Bathroom Remodel - Part I: Texturing 101

We embarked on our next round of home improvements about the middle of August by starting to do some research into carpet, tile, paint colors, etc. We have a list of projects we hope to finish in the next couple of months. The biggest one is remodeling our master bathroom. We started this process a little over a week ago. We prepared the area last week and then actually started renovations over the weekend. The basic plan is to paint the walls, trim and doors, replace the linoleum with tile, and paint the cabinets. We did all of these things to the guest bathroom this past spring. The walls of our bathroom have been through a lot and were far from being smooth (see picture below). Most of the problems seem to have come from a previous owner not doing a very good job of removing the wallpaper and old fixtures before painting. Yes, our bathroom is purple....one of the many reasons to remodel.

  

We decided to apply texture to the walls to help cover up some of the imperfections but we still had to do some "patching" to try and get the walls close to being smooth. Here is Evan sanding some of the patches he made.

 

We had to make similar repairs in the guest bathroom before starting but the damage was not as extensive as in the master bathroom. There were about 25-30 "patches" Evan did in our master bathroom.

Next, we removed the baseboards and wall mounted light fixtures, sanded all the trim around the doors (3 closets and the door into the bathroom), taped, and put up plastic to cover big areas. Evan and I both worked to do all of these things and got them done by the time we went to bed on Friday. It was pretty funny to see the original wall paper hiding behind the lights above the mirror (see picture below). Our bathroom is pretty dark as it is but it would have felt like a cave with navy blue wall paper. As Evan was pulling up the baseboards, he found evidence that there used to be navy blue carpet in the bathroom too! Go 80s!

 

Saturday morning we sanded the second set of patches we made on Friday and then wiped down all the walls to get all the dust off. We went to Home Depot while we were waiting for everything to dry to get a few more supplies including a paint sprayer for painting all the interior doors. We figured we could work on that project while we were waiting for paint to dry in the bathroom. This was our 5th trip to Home Depot since starting on this round of home improvements and by the end of the weekend we had made 7 trips. Thankfully there is a Depot that is about 5 minutes away from our house so it isn't a big hassel when we find ourselves going once a day.

Saturday afternoon we started to texture the walls in the bathroom. In the guest bathroom, we used the texture that you add to the paint and while it was easy and it looks OK, we definitely wanted to try something else for this bathroom. After a bunch of research and advice from friends, we decided to roll on the texture. All there is to it is mixing joint compound with water until it has a pancake batter consistency and then rolling it on the wall with a roller that has a large nap. We went for 1/2 inch nap since this is what we had read about at multiple sites online. Evan started with the big roller and I started with the small one on the small spaces. We used a 4 inch brush to do the corners and edges. Some of it looked okay, some of it did not. Basically, it was obvious that there were two different people with two different techniques applying the texture. We stopped with about half of the bathroom completed deciding to sand it all off the next day and start over with only one of us doing the texture. This picture shows where we got to by the end of Saturday.

Sunday we didn't get much done because we both had to be at church really early (6:45 AM) to help with the music ministry and when we got home at 3:00 we both just wanted to take a nap. We woke up at 5:00 and went to the Depot to get some supplies. After church we were at our ABF (Adult Bible Fellowship - like Sunday School) leaders meeting at one of the leader couple's house and got some tips from them on the texturing. Gail and Jose built their own house (they did most of the work themselves) some years ago and have a lot of wisdom in this area. Evan and I were admiring their texture in their kitchen and dining room and Jose told us he used a roller with the largest nap he could find and thinned out the joint compound to more of a paint consistency. This was encouraging since of the texturing we did, the part that had looked the best was the part done with the paint brush, but the thought of having to do that over the whole bathroom was intimidating. We got a 1 1/4 inch nap roller and some drywall to do some more practicing before starting on the bathroom again. Sunday night we sanded down all the texture we had put up the day before so that we could start over on Monday. I wish we would have gotten pictures because of course, the dust was everywhere. I was following Evan and the sander with the shop vac but we both were still pretty dusty :) I was thankful that a few days earlier I had covered our closets (inside the doors) with a sheet of plastic to block out dust. Even with the doors closed, there was a thin layer of very fine dust on the plastic sheets.

On Monday, we decided that I would do the texturing. Evan doesn't really like doing anything that involves/resembles painting. He will do it, but he prefer not to. He did the yard work while I textured. Since the yard work is usually my job, and I like to paint, I was fine with the set up :) It took about 5-6 hours to texture the entire bathroom but it will be worth it. We both think it is going to end up looking great once it is all painted. If it would have been a bedroom, I think it would have gone faster, there were just alot of edges, corners, and small spots I had to finish with the brush and that made it a longer job. Here are some pictures of me doing the finishing touches with the brush and the finished product. Yes, I am wearing a shower cap because when rolling this stuff, just like with paint, it tends to fly off.

 

 

Depending on how my back feels tomorrow, and how much time I have, I will prime the bathroom tomorrow and then paint the following day. Hopefully by the end of the week, the painting of the walls will be done!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I got the craving for chocolate chip cookies over the weekend so I made some Monday night. The only problem is that Evan doesn't like them so I have to eat all four dozen cookies. I know, I could have halved the recipe, but I didn't think about it until I had already started making it.

After talking to my sister-in-law Page about how she used an ice-cream scoop (her blog posts on this: Ice Cream Scoop-Part I and Ice Cream Scoop Part II) to make cookies the other day, I was inspired to break out my cookie dough spoon for another try. As part of our wedding present from my parent's neighbor (who is an amazing baker) we got this cookie dough spoon. Here are some pictures of it in use:

  

It is supposed to help you spoon the perfect cookies. When I first got it, I was intrigued because I had often wondered why my cookies didn't look like the ones I would see on TV. They tasted fine but never looked like I wanted them too. So I tried the cookie dough spoon and I couldn't get it to work because the dough was always too sticky and I couldn't push it out of the spoon. I gave up using it for awhile. I then tried it on refrigerated (pre-made) cookie dough and it worked great! Although I was bummed I couldn't get it to work on home-made cookies, at least I could use it and the cookies looked great.

Well after talking to Page, I almost wanted to buy a ice-cream scoop like the one she has to try with my cookies, but I resisted. Instead, I tried spraying the cookie dough spoon with non-stick cooking spray before using (Page gave me the idea) and it worked much better. I had to spray the spoon pretty frequently, but I got it to work and the cookies turned out great. I don't know why I didn't think to use the spray before but oh well!



The only problem is that I may have gotten into using the cookie dough spoon a little too much because I poked a hole through it with my nail when I was spooning out the last couple of cookies on Monday. It still works so I will probably continue to use it.

Party, Party, Party!

This past weekend, we went to San Antonio to see family and for two parties! My brother, Eric, is getting married in a little over three months and Evan and my Dad gave him a tool shower on Saturday. I wasn't there except for the very end where they opened presents but Evan said it was a lot of fun. Actually, he said it wasn't as fun as HIS tool shower, but that it was still pretty fun. This is for the obvious reason that he got to take home tools after his shower. Here is a picture of Eric opening gifts. Right after this picture, he lifted up the shovel to put it behind him and we were all nervous that he was going to put his new shovel through our father's TV!!!



While the boys were are the shower, my Mom, Aunt Bernadette, sister Lisa, and I went to dinner and then for gelato. Evan had the camera so I don't have any pictures of us on our girls outing but it was a lot of fun. My Mom and I have talked before about how different and how much fun it is for her to interact with her children as adults. I have agreed that I have really enjoyed this latest stage of our relationship. Saturday night was a perfect example of this. We told funny stories, caught up on recent events, and just enjoyed each other's company.

On Sunday, we went to our nephew James' 1st birthday party. It was just a family birthday party but there were still about 14 people there. Anytime we get to hang out with our niece and nephew is a great time and the party was no exception. Here are some pictures:

The theme of the party was "Bouncing Balls" so Page (Evan's sister and James' Mom) made sure all the food was ball or circular shaped. It was really tasty and incredibly cute!



James crawling out of the ball pit. Yes, they have a ball pit in their living room! It takes up a little space, but it is one of the kids favorite toys.



James was not real sure about the candle. "My cake is on FIRE!!"



James with his cupcake version of the cake. This was only the second time in his life that he ate sweets other than fruit. The first time was on his actual birthday a couple weeks ago when he had a similar cupcake.



"Why is everyone staring at me and taking pictures of me?"



After the cupcake...the sugar is starting to set in!



Elizabeth and I in their new tent. My siblings and I had a tent similar to this one when we were growing up and it was definitely one of our favorite toys. Ours was the same size as a twin bed so you could put it on your bed and "camp" inside. It was a Pound Puppies tent....anyone remember the Pound Puppies??



Elizabeth, James, and Page reading one of the books we got James for his birthday.

August?!?!?!

Wow, is it already August? The entire month of July just flew by for me. Between our trip to Alaska (almost have all the pictures up for viewing) and my sister Lisa staying with us for two weeks, the whole month just disappeared.

Lisa flew back to San Antonio Thursday since our parents got back from their trip Wednesday night. It was the first time she had flown by herself and she did a great job! We had a lot of fun and I was sad to see her leave. I am so thankful for the time we had to hang out and bond over the last two weeks. We went to an Astro's game, went shopping at Harwin, the new outlet malls in Cypress, the Galleria, got her hair cut, practiced driving and parking, and cooked, cooked, cooked! Lisa and I both like to cook and bake so she make a cookbook in preparing to come visit us of recipes she wanted to try while she was here. We made most of the recipes that she brought including pimento cheese from scratch, strawberry buttermilk sorbet, blueberry muffins, garlic mashed potatoes, along with some of Evan and I's favorites. I would have to say that all the cooking we did together was my favorite part of her being here. My other favorite part is that we went walking almost every morning. I decided once school was out that I was going to get back to exercising regularly but I really hadn't done it. Lisa walks with our parents most evenings so she pushed me to go with her. I am really thankful because I really think that I will keep it up now. She gave me the jump-start that I needed! She also gave me a much needed jump-start on assembling a recipe binder that I have been wanting to make for almost two years now. We both subscribe to Southern Living and I love tearing out recipes from the magazines. I started putting the pages in clear plastic sheets to protect them and then got the idea of organizing them and putting them all in a binder after seeing that my mother-in-law had organized all of her recipes that way. Judy, my mother-in-law, is the one who gave me a subscription to Southern Living many years ago for Christmas and has thankfully continued doing so because she has got me hooked! Anyway, I told Lisa of the binder idea and she thought is was great so she made me sit down and work on it one day. She helped me sort all the recipes I had torn out and put them in sheet protectors. We didn't finish it that day, but she encouraged me to stick with it and before she left, I was able to finish it! I know it sounds silly that I would be so excited about finishing such a task, but it has been waiting for me for almost TWO YEARS!! Of course it is not really finished, and it will never be, because I will continue to add to and subtract from it for years but the initial work is completed. Lisa even made a cute cover for me :) Here are some pictures:



Lisa, Me, and Evan at the Astro's game against the Cubs. It was a really close game but the Astro's ended up pulling it out in the bottom of the 9th to win 2-1.

 

We took Lisa to practice parking three times while she was here since she just got her permit. Here is a picture of Evan working with her. Evan did most of the "instruction" and he did a great job of being patient and encouraging. Lisa did a great job and definitely showed progress over the three "lessons" we went through.



Lisa showing off the purse she got on our trip to Harwin. It was definitely an interesting experience :)



Lisa at the airport right before I left her to get on the plane by herself. I went with her to the gate since it was her first time to fly by herself but she didn't really need my help. I think we both felt better that I was there just in case. She looked so grown up with her new haircut, outfit, and jewelry.

I realize now that we didn't get any pictures of us cooking together which is a huge bummer since that is what we spent the majority of our time doing. I guess she will just have to come back soon so we can do some more cooking and get a few pictures as proof.

All in all it was a great two weeks. Lisa, you taught me a lot about you, about myself, and about being a big sister over the last two weeks. I am so proud of you and all that you have accomplished. Thank you for being patient with Evan and I as we walked the line between big sister/brother-in-law and parents. You are welcome to come stay with us anytime, even if Mom and Dad aren't out of town :)