Hustle, Bustle, and Scrapbooking...

So, I mentioned two posts ago that I would "explain later" why things would not be slowing down anytime soon....so here it goes. We are going to be moving. Not real soon, but it is going to happen. Basically, Evan is probably going to be taking a job in the near future that will require us to move. The details, at this point, are a little fuzzy, but the odds are by Spring 2009, we will be moving. There are a lot of issues to be worked out and it is not a sure thing yet, but it will most likely happen, we're just not sure when. We are confident enough that this opportunity will work out for Evan to go ahead and put the house on the market. That is why we have been working so hard to finish all the remodeling projects around the house. Because of the current housing market and the great likelihood that we need to sell our house eventually, we are trying to put our house on the market sooner rather than later. Thankfully, since Evan currently works from home, if the house were to sell before we know we are moving, we could just go stay with our parents and he could continue working from there. We will just have to wait and see what God has in-store for us. As you can imagine, we are very excited. God has really brought me a long way when it comes to anxiety. I used to be controlled by it, but now, while all this is stressful for me at times, He has really helped me enjoy all of it instead of focusing on the unknown aspects that we can't control.

So there you have it. All this stuff with Evan's job has also been why I haven't blogged much in the last couple of months. There have been a lot of things happening but we were waiting to blog about them until more people at Evan's current job knew. Also, some of it is just stuff we wanted to keep private. It had been hard to not include some of the exciting stuff that has happened recently since I see this blog as a kind of scrapbook for us. Although, I guess that is also part of having a blog, instead of an actual scrapbook. We have to make decisions about how much we want to share with the world. When we started the blog, we decided that we wouldn't be sharing all of the details of our lives but that it would be a way to keep family and friends up to date with us. Since I took over writing I have continued this philosophy and added a "scrapbook-like" element to it. While I know we aren't planning on changing the original philosophy of the blog anytime soon, I am still looking forward to the future and getting to blog about most of it :) I guess I could start scrap-booking to capture the more personal moments in our lives, but I don't really see myself keeping up with it. I like the idea of scrap-booking but I don't know...it just seems like a lot of work. Although, I was definitely eyeing all the cute scrap-booking stuff the lady in front of me at Hobby Lobby was purchasing this morning.

Another Shower in SA

My Mom, sister Lisa, and I gave one more shower for Kim in San Antonio this past weekend. It was a Lingerie shower. We had a great time and it went really well. The last shower we hosted went well too but this one went smoother than the last. It was A LOT of fun. Thanks to my friend Ashley who sent me the recipe for one of the appetizers that she always makes at the showers she hosts and for a super cute decoration idea. The baked brie was a hit (not to mention I finally have the recipe for my favorite appetizer of all time) and the decorations were perfect! While there was a lot of leg work that went into preparing for the shower last week, it was all worth it. I hope I get to host another one in the future. Here are some pictures:

Baked brie...yummmmmm!

Cute decorations. Good job putting them up Lisa!

Kim with her cake.

My Mom, Kim, and her mother, Rebecca.

Me, Lisa, Kim, and her sister, Jenna.

Only one more month until the wedding!!! I still can't believe sometimes that my baby brother is going to be married! Eric and Kim, we are really excited for both of you :)

Where have you been???

I know that all those faithful readers out there are wondering what we have been up to the last couple of weeks and are anxiously awaiting a new post. I first want to apologize for leaving you in the dark for almost three weeks. Next, I want to do a quick catch up post so we can all get back on track with our lives.

In all seriousness, the reason there hasn't been a post since the end of September isn't because we haven't had anything blog worthy happen to us in that time. It is because it has been CRAZY the last couple weeks and there doesn't seem to be any signs of it slowing down here. I will go into more detail about this in the next post. Right now I need to do a quick catch-up:

1. My roommate and friend from college Julie got engaged on September 20th! She will be getting married sometime in Early 2009...it is looking like January! I am so excited for her and Justin (her fiance). Congratulations!!! Looks like we will finally be making it to Atlanta to visit :)

2. My sister, mom, and I hosted a shower for Kim (my soon-to-be sister-in-law) in San Antonio on September 27th. It was a lot of fun to get everyone together to celebrate their upcoming marriage. It was actually only the 3rd shower I helped plan and only the 2nd that I had a substantial amount to do with. I really enjoyed planning and giving the shower and I hope that Kim enjoyed it too! Here is a picture of us from the shower:



3. The next day we celebrated my Grandma's 80th birthday. We had a family lunch over at my parent's house. Thankfully, my Grandma lives in San Antonio so we get to see her quite a bit. It was a lot of fun to spend more time with family members, including my Grandma, who were at the shower the day before but that I didn't get much of a chance to talk with because I was helping host. Here are a few pictures:

My Mom putting the candles on the cake. My Grandma is in the middle and my Great Aunt Evelyn (Grandma's sister) is on the right. Evelyn is 92!

The grandchildren that were able to be at the party with the birthday girl. Top: Eric (my brother) and Lisa (my sister) Bottom: Charlotte (cousin), Grandma, Shannon (cousin), and me.

Grandma, Evelyn, and me sitting at the table.

4. Alot has been accomplished on the master bathroom remodel since I last posted. We successfully scraped, sanded, and painted the door trim for all four doorways (this took a long time). We made some repairs to the cabinet, sanded and painted the cabinet, doors, and drawer faces. We put the cabinet doors and drawers back on and installed the new cabinet hardware. We also cut and painted the trim that will be installed around the mirror. While all these tasks took time, the biggest one that was completed was the tile floor. Evan and I spent a whole weekend tearing up the existing linoleum flooring and measuring, cutting, and laying out the new tile. Evan then finished laying all the tile the weekend I was in San Antonio for the shower and birthday party. I wished that he could have come with me but he had obligations at church he had to stay for. I am very thankful that he got so much accomplished while I was out of town. Here are some pictures:

Evan nailing new panels to the cabinet.

Floor after the old linoleum had been removed and the cabinet painted.

Where we got by the end of the first day of measuring, cutting, and lying out tiles. It definitely took a little longer doing the diagonal pattern but I think it was totally worth it.

Me at the tile saw. I was nervous to try it but with some encouragement from Evan I gave it a try. This picture is of my first cut. I went on to finish measuring and cutting the remaining tiles the second day while Evan moved on to starting to lay tiles at the other end of the bathroom.

Evan did a great job finishing laying all the tiles and grouting.

My cabinet door and mirror trim painting station.

Evan installed the cabinet doors with new hinges and I put on the new hardware.

5. After the tile was finished, it was time to replace the carpet in the two bedrooms and closets. We used a guy recommended by a friend of ours and it went very well. We got a great deal! We had to move out a lot of stuff before they came to replace the carpet so some members of our small group graciously offered to help. Two closets and two bedrooms may not sound like much but when one closet is easily the size of a small bedroom and we use it as a storage room, there was lots to move. I forgot to take a picture of them helping us move but I want to really thank Roy, Claire, Mike, and Teresa once more for all they did to help! Here are some pictures after all the stuff was moved and of the new carpet:

Evan working with a make-shift desk the day after we moved everything out but the day before they came to replace the carpet. Bye-bye old carpet!

We moved everything that could handle being outside into our garage. Where did all this stuff come from??

The new carpet!! Since Evan works from home, we moved his desk back in first.

Close-up of the new carpet. I admit, that at first, I was skeptical, but after having if for a few days, I REALLY like it!

6. The last major change that happened the day after the carpet was installed is that we had our newly purchased bedroom furniture delivered. We have been looking at (I call it stalking) this set for about a year now. The store that sold it was having a moving sale and selling all the floor models in their show room. Thankfully, the set we wanted was in really good shape and we got a great deal! The bed in the store was the wrong size so we ordered that new but it was actually on sale too. The bed is also on back order so it will be a month or two before we get it but it will be worth the wait. The furniture looks SO GOOD! I told Evan that I feel like we have a brand new house with the bathroom almost finished, new carpet, and new furniture. Here are some pictures of the new furniture:

The armoire.

The dresser.

As you can tell, it has been a very busy last couple of weeks. I will explain in the next post why all this craziness with the house and why it will probably not slow down anytime soon. And I promise, it won't be three weeks from now :)

Power Update

Thank you for your prayers! My brother, aunt and uncle, and cousin all got power back over the weekend!

Still In The Dark

Please pray for my brother, his fiance, my cousin, his wife, and my aunt and uncle who are all still without power and are in the areas that they are now saying it will probably be after 9.22.08 before they regain power. None of them sustained any substantial damage to their homes but as you can imagine, the no power thing is really starting to wear on them.

My cousin, his wife, and my aunt and uncle live pretty close to us so they have been coming by to get ice, take showers (their hot water heaters are electric), and get things from their deep freeze that is plugged in at our house. While we love being able to help, they are getting tired of the set up. I really feel for them and wish there was more we could do. My aunt and uncle and cousin are a camping family so they are really handling it all very well but as we talked about last time they were here, it is getting old. The first time they came over for showers on Monday, it was kinda fun getting to hang out. The novelty has worn off for them. I told them our Bath House was open for business indefinitely but I know and understand that they much rather have their own electricity back. Please pray for strength for all of them. Here is a picture of us celebrating Amanda's (cousin-in-law) birthday on Monday night when they came over. It wasn't much but hopefully it was a nice distraction for all of them.

The other thing that has helped is that my Dad came to Houston on Wednesday to check on his employees and the office they have down in Webster (near NASA). He took them a commercial ice maker and then brought my brother ice and some other supplies. He then came up to us and brought us some luxuries like milk, butter, eggs, and cheese. He also brought us ice to give to my aunt and uncle. We had dinner and then he headed back to San Antonio. He had a long day but we and many others really appreciated it! Here is a picture of him with one of the company vans and the gas can he brought with him fearing that it was going to be tough to get gas in Houston. He said from driving around town and observing all the gas stations he passed that he could have gotten gas without any problem up by us.

The other thing that has helped is that my Dad came to Houston on Wednesday to check on his employees and the office they have down in Webster (near NASA). He took them a commercial ice maker and then brought my brother ice and some other supplies. He then came up to us and brought us some luxuries like milk, butter, eggs, and cheese. He also brought us ice to give to my aunt and uncle. We had dinner and then he headed back to San Antonio. He had a long day but we and many others really appreciated it! Here is a picture of him with one of the company vans and the gas can he brought with him fearing that it was going to be tough to get gas in Houston. He said from driving around town and observing all the gas stations he passed that he could have gotten gas without any problem up by us. Thanks again Dad!

On the other side

We are on the other side of the storm and we are in good shape. It was pretty scary Friday night/Saturday morning and I didn't get much sleep. I don't know how much rain we got but the wind is what made the biggest impression on me. It was pretty intense. I laid awake just waiting to hear glass breaking. Thankfully, I never heard any, although I heard a lot of other things that were pretty unsettling. We lost power about 1:15 AM on Saturday and from that point until I got out of bed around 8, I probably only got about four hours of sleep.

It didn't stop raining here until about 4 or 5 PM. The winds didn't stop until later but by the afternoon they had died down considerably. Around noon, Evan and I went out to walk our street and survey the damage. We were pretty surprised by what we saw. Because of how our house and fence are arranged, you actually cannot see our front yard or neighbors' yards from our front door. All we can see is our "back" yard and it didn't look too bad.  There were a few medium sized branches and tons of little branches and leaves in the yard. The only other damage was that a section of our back fence (about 10 ft. long) had fallen down. When we stepped into our front yard, the first thing we saw was the uprooted tree in our neighbors' front yard. Then two houses down, we saw that the brick wall (originally about 8 feet tall) in-front of their house had been knocked down by the wind. We made it to the end of the street before turning back because the rain had picked up again.

We headed out again around 4:30 and walked down to the front of the neighborhood. You can see all the pictures that I took here. Other than our tours of the neighborhood, we passed the time by playing chess, cards, and hanging out talking with neighbors. We started getting ready to go to sleep around 9:30. Just as Evan was headed to the garage to get more gas for the generator the power came back on. I don't think I have ever been so happy to have the power restored. We could have handled it if we would have had to go longer without power but I think I was so excited because I had started to accept the fact that it could be a week or more with out power and it was just so unexpected.

I didn't sleep much better last night because of the thunderstorm that rolled through early this morning. We got about five inches of rain in about a three hour period. Evan said he woke up in the middle of it and thought he was having a flashback of the previous night. I couldn't sleep because I was worried about water coming into our house since the ground was so saturated from the earlier storm. Thankfully, that wasn't a problem.

While things are progressing, the area as a whole is far from being back to "normal." I don't really know how to describe it but it is just chaotic in many places. I have not felt that it is chaotic in the sense that things are unsafe, but chaotic in the sense that people are getting restless and impatient. I told my brother today, who is still in San Antonio, that if I were him, I wouldn't come back until I had to.

Overall, we are very thankful, and consider ourselves blessed. Thank you for your prayers. Please continue to pray for the entire area and especially for those in leadership positions as they face many difficult decisions in the upcoming days and weeks. I think the thing we all need the most is patience.

Hunker Down!

Yes, there is a hurricane coming to Houston later tonight/tomorrow morning. We have been getting a lot of calls/emails from people wondering when we are leaving. We are not leaving. We are going to hunker down and ride out the storm. We are far enough north and not in a flood prone/low lying area that we should not experience any major problems. According to the latest reports we could get up to 8 inches of rain and up to 70 mph winds. We have got enough supplies (food, water, batteries, gas for the generator, etc.) to last us around 4 or 5 days. We have moved everything from outside into the garage or inside the house and are nailing down a few loose fence posts this morning. I am arranging everything this morning so that if need be we can be in the bathroom/closet for an extended period of time although we don't anticipate that we will have to do this. I like what the mayor said in one of the many press conferences from over the last couple of days..."this is not going to be fun, this is not going to be pleasant, but we will get through it." I paraphrased but I think you get the point. So far there have been tons of reports saying that the mandatory evacuations have gone very well. We are obviously not in a mandatory evacuation zone nor or we in a voluntary evacuation zone. My brother and his fiance, who both live in Deer Park, left yesterday afternoon to go to San Antonio around 2:00. They were not in a mandatory evacuation zone but their zip code is bordered on two sides by mandatory evacuation zones. Also, they were going to go to San Antonio this weekend anyway for Kim to get her bridal portrait done and for Eric to go to the UT vs. Arkansas game with my Dad. The game has been postponed but it looks like they will still have nice weather in San Antonio for Kim to get her bridal portrait taken. It took them about 6 hours to get to San Antonio where it ususally takes a little less than 4 hours from Deer Park.

We will have our cell phones but will be trying to conserve battery life so my Dad is our point of contact. We'll see you on the other side of the storm. For updates on the storm, this is the place we check most frequently along with the news: SciGuy Blog. He is a science writer for the Houston Chronicle and we always check in with him during hurricane season since he has what we feel is some of the best coverage without the hype.