Christmas is here!

We finally have our tree up for Christmas!  You have no idea how long I've been waiting for it to finally feel like Christmas at my house.  I usually put the tree up and decorate for Christmas the weekend after Thanksgiving, but we decided to take a trip to San Marcos this year instead.  Then between Andy's crazy basketball schedule and my new responsibilities at work, our evenings have been overly busy with very little time actually spent at our home.  Last week Monday through Wednesday, Andy wasn't home before 9:00pm.  Ugh!  It's been so weird how very little he's been home here lately.  I don't like it, but I know it's only temporary and not for the rest of the school year.  On my side of the job spectrum, I was asked by our associate principal to take over the team lead for Algebra 1.  So, my job duties have almost doubled in the last two weeks.  And maybe not truly doubled... I just have more weighing on my shoulders, like 8 other algebra teachers for example.

But anyway, back to the real topic of this post... Christmas!  We will spend very little time at our house during the Christmas holidays.  Pretty much just Christmas morning.  Saturday we leave for my mom's to celebrate Christmas with her.  Andy will head back Saturday night and go Christmas at his grandma's on Sunday.  I will probably stay with my mom so that I can spend more time with her and my step-dad.  For Christmas Eve, Andy will drive back to Shiner so that we can celebrate Christmas at my Granny and Popo's house, and we will drive back to our house that night so we can have our own Christmas on Christmas morning.  After we have our Christmas, we'll head to Tarkington to spend Christmas with Andy's parents, and we will probably end up spending a couple of nights there.  Andy has a basketball tournament the weekend after Christmas, so our "break" from school will pretty much be over then but at least we won't have to physically be at work all day.

We decided to not put up all of our decorations since we won't be home much over the holidays, but we put up the important stuff - nativity, tree, and stockings.  I really love Christmas time, and so does Andy!

I can't wait to have all the pieces!!  Love this Nativity set!

Mini Vacation

I was going to post this last night, but both our internet and TV were not working.  Apparently, it was something with fiber optic cables.  I don't know.  It's working now, so that's all that matters.

After our Thanksgiving shopping shenanigans, Andy and I packed up our bags and headed to San Marcos on about 3 hours of sleep.  I know, we're crazy!  But we had such a great weekend!  We wanted to do some shopping at the outlet malls in San Marcos and then Andy wanted to go to Gruene.  So we figured, what the heck why not!  Andy's mom took Maddie Mae back with her so that we wouldn't have to take her to a pet resort or just not go anywhere.  I love his parents so much!  They are always so supportive of us and want to offer a helping hand whenever they can.

So, back to the trip.  We left our house at 4:00am.  I am so glad Andy drove because I definitely fell asleep at some point on the drive.  Poor guy, I know he was tired too.  He's such a trooper though.  Of course we had to stop at Bucee's on our way.  It was quite deserted at 5:30 in the morning which was so nice compared to any other time we have stopped.

We arrived at the outlet malls around 7:00, and I was shocked to see how empty the parking lot was.  All of the parking lots.  It was so nice!  I think there were less people at 7:00am on Black Friday than there are on any normal weekend.  One of the sales associates said that most of the sales started at midnight and that the crowd died down around 5:00.  So we arrived at the perfect time - not crowded and the sales were still going.  We shopped until about noon.  We got most of the girl Christmas gifts, and I got a lot of clothes as well.  Andy found some khaki pants at the Nike outlet which was awesome.  He really needed some new ones.

Andy and I split up at one point, and he surprised
me with a pair of Oakley sunglasses!  I love them!

Now we both have Oakleys!!

It was a good shopping day!

After we finished shopping, we ate at Panera Bread for lunch.  Then we headed to our hotel in New Braunfels.  We checked in, unloaded our bags out of the car, and literally passed out.  We woke up around 5:00 and started getting ready for dinner.  We were going to head to Gruene but decided we would do that on Saturday evening.  So we stayed in New Braunfels and ate at Johnny Carino's.  After dinner, we went to the movies and watched the new Hunger Games movie Catching Fire.  Oh it was so good!  (I promise I won't spill any details!)  If you haven't seen it, you should definitely go.  Andy and I rarely actually go to the movies, but we have seen two movies at the theaters this year.  I know, look at us go!

In the hotel room before our dinner and a movie night

Saturday morning we slept in until about 9:00 and went to work out in the fitness room at the hotel.  Then we showered and headed to Buda so Andy could go to Cabela's.  He said that was our trade-off since he shopped with me at the outlet malls.  But I like Cabela's too so it was a win-win for me.

He was happy!  We walked through the ENTIRE store.
We didn't skip a single section!

For the evening/night, we went to Gruene.  We stopped at the Winery on the Gruene and did a wine tasting plus had a glass of wine.  We had already been there before, but it was still fun.  After our trip to Fredericksburg, I have decided that one of my favorite things is wine tasting.  I'm pretty picky with my wine (imagine that!), but as long as they have something really sweet, I'll be fine.

Deer walking through someone's yard.  We were so close to it!

Wine tasting!

We had dinner at the Gruene River Grill.  It was delicious!  Then we headed over to another winery/wine bar.  They had free wine tastings, so we found something we liked and bought a couple of glasses of wine.  This place had a fire pit lit outside so we just hung out next to the fire and enjoyed each other's company.  There was a band playing at Gruene Hall that night, but we decided to skip out since there was a cover charge and we'd never heard of the band.

Gruene water tower decorated for Christmas

Gruene Hall decorated too!

It's soo good!

Enjoying the fire!

I love taking pictures of Andy and I... Well, I promise
we didn't drink too much wine.  The dang flash was on! LOL

Then Sunday we headed back home and back to reality.  Andy dropped me off at the house and we unloaded the car.  Then he met his mom halfway to pick up Maddie so that I could get stuff done around the house and ready for the upcoming week.  Now we have two and a half weeks until Christmas break, but I think that break is going to be consumed with basketball tournaments and practices - ugh!  But hey, a break is a break and I'll take anything at this point in the school year.

Black Friday

I have never truly been Black Friday shopping before.  Andy and I have ventured out mid-afternoon on the Friday after Thanksgiving, but we've never been those crazy people that wait in line for hours prior to the store opening to get that good deal.  Well, I can't say that anymore.  When we moved into our home in Katy, we gained a media room which means we were short a TV for the living room.  Technically, we had a TV for the living room, but it was 32 inches and that was not going to work for us.  We like big TV's.  So, Andy said we would wait until Black Friday and get a new TV then.  And we waited. 

Target had the sale we were looking for - a 47" TV for under $400.  We arrived at Target around 6:45 pm.  They didn't open until 8:00.  We had driven by around 5:30 and the parking lot was completely vacant.  But at 6:45, the line wrapped around the shopping center.  Thankfully we were right at the corner of the shopping center because by the time the doors opened the line was around the shopping center and all the way down the street.  Craziness!

On our way to check out the good deals!

We would have been in and out of the store in less than 10 minutes had I not decided last minute to buy a pair of Beats headphones.  So, our total time in the store was about 15 minutes.  Despite being cold for over an hour waiting outside, the overall experience was quite fun!

Blurry, but we survived our first Black Friday!

After we left Target, we went by Wal-Mart to see if they had a $9 coffee pot that Andy's mom wanted.  Now, that was HORRIBLE!  Grant it, it is Wal-Mart, but oh my gosh.  It was awful and all I did was walk around.  I wasn't even trying to buy anything "big."  They didn't have the coffee pot which I was thankful for because the checkout lines literally ran the entire length of the store, front to back.

When we got back home, Andy hooked up our TV in the living room while I packed our bags for our mini-vacation trip to San Marcos.

Andy listening to our new headphones.  They are quite awesome!

New TV!  Fits perfectly.
Now all we need is the shelf from Ikea for above
the TV and pictures/books to fill our book shelves.

 

Thanksgiving 2013

This year for Thanksgiving, my mom decided to host the meal at my house so that Andy's dad would not have to travel quite so far.  We didn't have school Wednesday, so my mom came to our house late that afternoon.  It was good to catch up with her and chit-chat most of the evening.  She woke up early Thursday morning to start on the turkey and dressing.  John (my step-dad) brought my granny and popo (my mom's parents) that morning.  I was so happy my grandparents could make it.  Thankfully it was a close enough drive and John didn't mind driving them.  Andy's mom showed up a little later that morning.  Unfortunately, Andy's dad woke up that morning and didn't feel well, so he stayed home.  That was a little sad for all of us.  Hopefully, he'll start feeling better and can make more family functions in the future. 

Side note, for those of you that don't know... Andy's dad has been battling prostate cancer for the past three years.  A few months ago the doctor told him that there was no chemo left to "kill" the cancer.  He is taking an oral chemo that supposed to help control the cancer.  It's been a very rough few months for us, but we pray every day for God to heal him and take the cancer away completely.

Back to Thanksgiving, my mom prepared an absolutely delicious meal, as usual.  One year, I'm going to have to watch her from beginning to end and take notes so that I can make the Thanksgiving meal.  Andy's mom brought deviled eggs, a veggie tray, and a yummy Pinterest dessert.  My granny brought her homemade banana pudding which is my absolute favorite. 

We have so much to be thankful for, and we love our families dearly.  Of course, I made everyone take pictures before they left!

John, my Mom, me and Andy

Popo, Granny, John, my Mom, Andy and me

Andy, his Mom, and me

The instagram photo :)

XM Radio

When we bought my Equinox a couple of years ago, the dealer never registered my XM radio.  So for the past two years I have been listening to satellite radio for free.  Yes.  For free.  I even called XM Radio to make sure that they weren't going to try to back charge me, and the customer service rep said that my car wasn't even registered in their database.  Woohoo for me!

Well, a couple months or so ago... whenever it was Friday the 13th last, I had my satellite radio that morning when I left for work, but when I got in my car on my way home this is what I saw...

It was a sad day... a sad day indeed.  But I'm too cheap to pay for it now, but I'm getting weaker by the day because I really miss my commercial free radio.  My cousin Jillian says that I can negotiate the price with them and get a good deal.  I may have to seriously look into it.  For now I guess I will be sticking with the local country stations of Houston, Texas and the not-so-wonderful commercials that come with it.

Christmas Lights

Andy and I have never hung up outside Christmas lights because in Tarkington you couldn't really see our house unless you pulled in the driveway.  But now that we live in a subdivision, I convinced Andy that we HAVE to hang up lights.  So Sunday we went to Target and bought some lights.  Andy spent the afternoon hanging them up, but once it got dark we decided that we want to change them.  Maybe this upcoming weekend we will be able to finalize our decorations, but if not then we'll finish it after Thanksgiving.

I will post pictures of the house once we get it fixed the way we want it!

Thanksgiving at Granny & Popo's

Last weekend we celebrated Thanksgiving with my grandparents on my mom's side of the family.  It's always so great to see family!  We had the typical Thanksgiving meal - turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, corn, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, chicken noodle soup, banana pudding, and pecan pie!

I have a good looking family!

It was also Blair's (my brother's girlfriend) birthday that Saturday.  Andy and I got her a bag from Vera Bradley.  It's her first ever item from Vera Bradley, and I am so glad that I was the one to start her collection.

We're still alive... I promise!

I think this has been longest time off I've taken from the blog since I (or rather Andy) started it.  I have honestly missed it, but our new life in Katy, TX has been... well... busy.  So here's a brief recap (aka highlights) of the past couple of months.

We started our new jobs with Katy ISD at the end of August and that will require a post all on its own.  Just know that it took us a while to transition to our new schools and our new roles at those schools, but things are finally a little better.

Before school started, our dear friends Brandon and Joy spent some time at our house while they were transitioning from their home in Cleveland to their rental house in East Bernard.  We haven't had a chance to spend a lot of time with them, but it's so nice to know that they are close to us.  Hopefully, once they're settled in their new home and things are somewhat "normal" we can see each other more often.

Andy's parents visited for A&M vs. Bama game, and it was Andy's mom's birthday.  We had good food and good fellowship.  If only the Aggies had come up with the win!

Yummy football food!

 And we got a little crazy... Andy's mom made us a BTHO BAMA sign to put in the yard.  And Andy decided to blow up our huge Reveille for the front yard.  I guess it's go big or go home!

This is how we do it at the Rice house.
Thanks and Gig 'em!

Doug and Wendy came to our house for Doug's birthday.  We ate at Longhorn Steakhouse, and it was delicious.  That was mine and Andy's first time, and I'm pretty picky about my steak but it was quite tasty.  After dinner, we went to Top Golf.  We were told the wait time was 2 hours and 45 minutes, but Doug was determined to stay and celebrate for his birthday.  I assume most people added their name to the wait list but then ended up leaving because we only waited 45 minutes to an hour.  We had a blast!!

 

We took a half day off of work on Friday and went to Tarkington one weekend.  We went to the pep rally, volleyball game, and the cross country meet the next day.  The kids were so excited to see us, and we were so excited to see them as well some of the staff.  You don't realize how much you missed a place or missed people until you haven't seen them for a while.  I definitely had some tears in my eyes.  It was such a good visit.

 

Miss these kiddos!

The Taylor girls basketball team participated in the Race of the Cure run/walk 5K in Houston.  So of course, Andy and I joined them.  Last year, one of their coaches was diagnosed with breast cancer so this meant a lot to the girls.  Andy and I ran the 5K and then walked the 5K afterward with the girls.  We had a good time but were definitely wiped out when we got home.

The crowd during the run...

The crowd during the walk.  There were TONS of people!

My cousin Jillian called me one weekend and ask if I wanted to go with her to College Station to an A&M football game.  Heck yes!!  I hadn't been to College Station in years.  It was such a fun day girls trip.  I love talking to her and getting her opinion on things.  She's such an independent and strong woman.  Here are our pics from our trip. 

Also, it was my first time to see Johnny Manziel play live.  He's much smaller than in real life than he looks on TV.

Since we have actually had visitors stay at our new house, we got our guest room fixed up.  At our old house, we didn't have a spare bedroom with a bed.  Now, we do which makes me really happy!  I love having guests over.

And then we got new bedding!