4th of July

We went to San Antonio to visit family for the 4th of July weekend. It was nice to hang out with family and celebrate the holiday. We went to the Missions (AA baseball team) game on Saturday evening with my parents and sister. IT WAS REALLY HOT!!! It was still fun and a good excuse to get a snow cone. After the game (the Missions lost), Robert Earl Keen played a concert and there were fireworks. No matter how old I get, fireworks never get old!

The whole weekend was great! The only downside was when we were headed back home. We got about half way to Houston and there was a huge traffic jam. It eventually cleared but then there was another one. For miles before both jams, we had seen this unusual cloud of smoke rising ahead of us. We weren't sure if it had to do with the traffic or not. We eventually decided to take a detour and head up to 290 to get into town instead of staying on I-10. It turns out that there was a forest fire along the highway (near Columbus) that had been burning for a couple of days and that was where all the smoke came from. Even as we came into Houston, you could see a gray haze coming from the west. The usual 3 hour drive back home from San Antonio turned into a 5 hour adventure but we eventually made it home safely.

Here are some pictures:[caption id="attachment_281" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Lisa, Mom, and Dad enjoying the concert after the baseball game"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_282" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Robert Earl Keen plays on a stage behind second base after the Missions game on the 4th of July"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_283" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Evan and I enjoying the concert after the baseball game"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_284" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="The smoke we saw while driving back to Houston on July 5th"][/caption]

Kristi's Baby Shower

About three weeks ago, I took part in hosting a baby shower for one of the girls from our small group, Kristi. Kristi and her husband Chet are expecting a baby girl, Adalyn, at the end of July. It was a lot of fun and the shower turned out really well. Not many people were able to attend, but we still had a great time. Teresa, who graciously let us use her house for the shower, also made all the food. Teresa is not only an expert on all things culinary, but she is also the bravest cook I know. When we have Bible study at her house, you can always expect something different but delicious for dinner. My favorite dinner so far was the night she made Pho and spring rolls. Anyway, we were just going to have fixings for sandwiches but Teresa exceeded the expectations by making the bread, roasting and slicing the chicken (with her food slicer), and made potato chips. Everything was delicious. I made coconut cupcakes for dessert that also turned out pretty good. I am terrible at icing cupcakes and I ran out of time so I brought them to ice at Teresa's house before the shower started. You'll see in the pictures that the ones Teresa iced look great while mine are the ones with the icing running down the sides. I will definitely make these cupcakes again for showers in the future but I will work on my icing technique.

We also played a fun game that Shae put together. She made two posters covered with sticky notes that were numbered and had pregnancy terms written under them. You had to choose numbers from each poster hoping to find that you had matched pregnancy terms (like playing a game of Memory). If you found a match, you won candy that went with that term. For example, lets say you were able to find the numbers that both had the term "breast feeding", then you got a Milky Way. It was a great game!

Overall the shower was great and Kristi received a lot of great things. Only about a week and a half left before Baby Adalyn gets to see all of them for herself!

Here are some pictures:

[caption id="attachment_288" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="The beautiful table with the delicious food"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_289" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="The cupcakes (iced by Teresa)"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_290" align="aligncenter" width="441" caption="One of the cupcakes I iced"][/caption]

Ali's Wedding

We had the privilege of attending a great wedding the last weekend in June. The wedding was that of Evan's sister's husband's sister (did you follow that one?) Allison and her now husband Richard. I know it may seem weird to some people that we were invited seeing as we are not part of the immediate family but it seemed normal to us. Dave's (Evan's sister's husband) family has a great relationship with Evan's family. In fact, Dave and Allison's parents hosted Evan and I's engagement party at their ranch in Bedias.

Originally, we were not sure we would be able to attend the wedding because we thought we would be in D.C. this summer. Since our plans changed and we have been in town we were excited to be able to go. Ali and Richard also asked me to sing at their wedding. It started out that I was just going to sing with Dave on a song he wrote for them that was to be played during the lighting of the unity candle. It turned into singing all the mass parts and the songs during communion too. I had only sung at one wedding before (my brother's) but was honored to do it, even if I was a little nervous. Thankfully, I was able to meet and practice with the pianist the Wednesday before the wedding and from that point on, I felt really good about the whole thing. Peter, the pianist was incredibly talented and I knew he would make both of us sound great :) I was also really thankful that Ali and Richard were happy. They attended the practice and it was the first time either one of them had heard me sing so I was relieved that they were satisfied with me and the music Peter and I suggested.

Leading up to the wedding was a little stressful because while it was supposed to be at 3:30 PM, there was a quincinera at 2:30, and then we had to be out in time for Saturday mass at 5:00. We all knew that we would have little if any time to set up microphones, music stands, flowers, etc. I would just like to brag on Evan and the wonderful job he did stepping up to help get everything set up when we were able to get into the church at about 3:15. Everyone was actually ready to go about 3:32 but the priest was late because he was caught in traffic. I am not sure but I think it was about 3:50 when the wedding started.

The wedding was BEAUTIFUL!!! The church, the bridesmaids, the BRIDE!!! It was all wonderful. There were a few moments of confusion like when Dave and I ran over to sing the unity candle song but the priest didn't realize there was going to be a song so he encouraged Ali and Richard to light it while he talked about the symbolism. All the while, Dave and I were on edge waiting for an opportunity to start but it didn't come until after they were finished. We still got to sing the song and it went really well. Dave did a great job writing and performing the song and it was an honor to get to sing it with him. The wedding was over with about 7 minutes to take pictures before 5:00 mass started. I am sure that the average spectator didn't even notice how stressed some of us where about the time and the confusion due to the fact that the priest couldn't make the rehearsal the night before. Page (who was a bridesmaid) and I talked about how it was probably only people like us, who were involved enough to know and who were prone to over-stress about plans and preparation, that cared or even noticed. Thankfully, my fall onto the piano bench also went unnoticed by just about everyone. I was getting up from my seat to head to the microphone for what I thought was the unity candle song and while I successfully cleared the cord that I was trying to step over, my heel caught the back of my dress and I came tumbling down. Thankfully, again, the piano bench was where it was, otherwise my whole body would have landed on the tile floor instead of just bruising my knee. I was terribly startled and embarrassed convinced that I had caused a huge distraction. Thankfully, the piano was pretty much out of sight and not even Evan, who was only about 10 feet away but out of sight because of the alcove we were in, knew I fell. I did rip my favorite dress, but I have a great tailor who was able to repair it. You can only tell it was repaired if you look at it really closely.

Here are some pictures from the wedding:

Ali and Richard's Rehearsal and Wedding

Congratulations Allison and Richard!!!

Rain?

As of tomorrow, it will be three weeks since the last time we received rain at our house. This is unusual since we live in Houston and we usually average a little over 5 inches for May and June (each). As I type, the sprinkler is going in the back yard to try and revive our dying grass. We bought a sprinkler when we bought our house three years ago and have probably only used it 2 or 3 times since. This is now the second time in a week we have watered. Since the forecast is looking very dry and hot for the next week, it looks like we may have to get into the habit of watering. So much for the saying, "It rains somewhere in Houston everyday!"

To Drum Another Day!

Evan got Guitar Hero World Tour for Christmas and while we have played it some since then, we have been playing it a lot in the last couple of weeks. At first we were just playing different songs and taking turns playing drums, guitar, or singing. Evan is one of those people that is just good at video games and so it came as no surprise to me that he was really good at the guitar. I am not one of those people but I still decided to try and play the drums on most of the songs. I was terrible when I started but I am improving the more we play. For the record, I am still playing on "Easy" but in my opinion it is all about having fun.

Last week we got serious and started doing band play with Evan on guitar and me on the drums. I love to sing but I don't feel like I am playing a video game when I am singing. Also, I thought the drums would be more fun even though they would be more challenging. Evan is a lot of fun to play with because he doesn't get mad at me when I mess up or cause us to get booed off stage. For the record, every time we have been booed off stage has been because of me, not Evan :) We are both very competitive but still able to have a lot of fun with it.

Last night we were playing and I started to get frustrated because I was consistently missing the note every time I was supposed to hit the red drum pad. Since I am right handed, I hit all the drums/cymbals with my right hand, except the red drum pad. I told Evan, "I think there is something wrong with my reflexes all of a sudden!" After starting three songs over because of my "poor" playing, Evan sat down to see what was going on. He was missing the red notes too! He did some more trouble shooting by playing in the Wii Freestyle mode and came to the conclusion that the red drum pad was not responding. Honestly, while I was disappointed that it was broken, I was more interested in the fact that there was nothing wrong with me!

Evan did some web research into fixing the problem since the warranty expired a while ago. Evan is VERY good at troubleshooting and fixing things. I was confident that as long as it didn't involve soldering (only because we don't have the materials) Evan could fix it. Sure enough, after taking it apart and applying a little electrical tape to reconnect the wires to the back of the drum pad, it was fixed!

Memorial Day and Shrimp Burgers

I promised more posts come the end of May and here they are! Since my last post, a lot has happened and plans have changed. Our move has been postponed and it looks like we won't be spending the first part of the summer in D.C. No worries :) God has really done a work on me since I was a teenager in the area of adapting to change. I used to really stress when plans changed or when there wasn't a plan at all. While I still struggle some with the second scenario, I am improving on the first. I'll have to post an update as to our moving time-line later when we know more. As for now, we're just enjoying the beginning of the summer.

Over Memorial Day weekend, we had a great and relaxing time. We watched movies, played on the Wii, slept in, and did some shopping. We really enjoy cooking together and I love trying out new and somewhat intimidating recipes when I know we will have the time to do it together. There was a recipe for shrimp burgers in the April issue of Southern Living that looked really good but like one of those recipes that I would tear out, put in my recipe binder, and never fix. Never fix because of the prep that was involved and good shrimp can be expensive and it would take a lot of planning. I decided Memorial Day would be a perfect opportunity to try the recipe since we didn't have much else going on. We went to the grocery store in the morning, did all the prep stuff after lunch and then had them for dinner. They were pretty good and the sweet and spicy tartar sauce definately had a kick to it. I don't know if we'll ever make them again but it was a lot of fun! Here are some pictures:

[caption id="attachment_232" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Amy making the patties"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_234" align="aligncenter" width="242" caption="Evan making his shrimp burger"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_235" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Enjoying our shrimp burgers"][/caption]

Check back at the end of May...

So as you may have noticed, I have not been posting much the last couple months. We have been doing well but are in the middle of a big transition so I haven't really had time to do much blogging. Please check back at the end of May when I will start to post again. We will be living in D.C. for most of the summer and then moving to Charleston, WV in the middle of July so there will be plenty to post about :)