Winter Beauty

It snowed here a little on Wednesday, but mostly sleeted and then froze. Justin didn't attempt the drive into work and the daycare was closed so both of my boys were home with me. What a nice treat! A twist on working from home: so many employees tried to work remotely due to the weather that the system couldn't support everyone and noone was able to work! So, I ended up taking a vacation day and just enjoyed my family.

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Wednesday was the worst weather day this week but I actually took these photos Thursday morning before it melted. The top one is a bush near the front porch where the rain runs off of the roof. It is a sturdy plant- look at the leaves frozen in huge chunks of ice from the bitter cold runoff! The bottom picture is of a tree at the corner of our house. I think its a tree. Its a large bush-like thing with lots of stems/trunks, but is bigger than a bush. Anyway, its an odd thing to trim but looks cool, and especially so with the ice on its leaves. You may laugh at my horticultural ignorance now. Its okay.

1/1 Picture

The photo tag got my mind to spinning and I am going to post a random pic (or not so random!) each month, something I might not normally post. Here's how it goes. For January, I post the 1st picture in the 1st folder on my computer. For February, the 2nd picture in the 2nd folder and so on. So this year you will get to see 12 shots of our life that you wouldn't otherwise see. Its going to be fun! Won't you join me and post your own random shots?!

This is in the Metro Center terminal of the D.C. transit system. I thought it was a really cool shot and later realized you aren't supposed to take pictures inside the metro system. Oops. We were in D.C. last April to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary and had a wonderful time.

Photo Tag

I was tagged by Sarah M weeks ago and am just getting around to obliging. Here's the deal, you open the fourth photo file on your computer and post the fourth picture in that file and share about it.


So, this is my dear friend Aimee and her sons Noah and Rhett. This was taken about 2 years ago when I drove up to Oklahoma to visit them for a weekend. The picture was actually at Toby Keith's "I Love This Bar & Grill" in OK City. Good food, good company. Great weekend memories!

I now tag.... Aimee, McNeely and Abbey. Go!

Bowling

By Justin

Bowling has become somewhat of a fascination for us these days. Many nights, on our way to bed, we can not help but to stop by the Wii and play a quick game. Honestly Holly beats me most of the time, but there is a rare occasion that I can pull one out. We love Wii bowling.

Tonight we got the chance to go actual bowling with our friends Brian and Erin. What fun a true game of bowling is. I really enjoy the sport. Growing up in bowling alleys as my parents were part of a league and toured the southwest to bowl tournaments, I have a lot of great bowling memories. My best one is sitting in Don Carter Lanes in Fort Worth and finally figuring out how to time my shoes. I was so excited to tell my mom that I ran on the lane and almost made her slip!

We all should spend more time bowling with friends!

Photo Update

Well I finally updated the photos de Eli link above. Feel free to comment on how very cute and adorable our son is! We never tire of hearing it!

Bye Bye Landline

Holly and I are joining the 21st century and doing away with our house phone. Our house phone cost more than our cell phones and rings a whole lot less. If you currently have our phone number with area code 972, that phone will no longer ring on January 15th. Both of our cell phones begin with area code 214. Double check your phone books and make sure you update to our new numbers!

Family in Town

I know, I know, a post without pictures. How dull. Honestly, I never knew how to post pictures till you started seeing an abundance of them on here and now I have a hard time posting without them. But, I thoroughly enjoyed the weekend and only took a few photos, of which weren't really blog appropriate b/c they were of my two nephews and my son playing in the bathtub together. I carefully avoided any potentially embarrassing views, but still they are not really shareable material.

My brother and sister-in-law and two nephews came into town to visit for the weekend and go to the Cotton Bowl. It was a sad and miserable game, but only Kelly, Teresa and Jared went and the rest of us enjoyed the beautiful afternoon at the park. We kept Tyler, the younger of the nephews and while he can be quite strong-headed, he was perfect for us and we had a wonderful time. Yesterday evening and most of today was spent in the living room taking turns playing Wii and relaxing.

Tried today for the second time in 3 days to eat at our new Chuy's in Plano but the wait made us look for an alternative yet again. We went to Abuelo's on Thursday and had absolutely no wait and immediate service. Went to Carabba's today and same thing. These three restaurants are within walking distance and while the service and quality are comparable it shows just how alluring a new restaurant can be. We have eaten at the new Chuy's once, actually on their opening day and happened in at about 10 till 5 and were seated immediately. No way that would have happened if people were aware they were finally open. Poor advertising I say. We were just driving by and thought it was worth a shot to see if they were open yet. Well worth the wait in my opinion, but both times we were on a deadline so we couldn't stay.

Alright, Happy New Year to you all and hope it started off with a bang of the good sort. I'm going to round my weekend off tomorrow by putting up my Christmas decorations. Sigh. Another wonderful Christmas season already over.

Our Christmas

We had a good Christmas, full of family and joy and abundant blessings. Here are just a few snapshots of our festivities.

Eli drawing out a block labeled with a profession, a prediction of his future occupation. This was a Red Envelope version of a Chinese tradition, given to us by Aimee before Eli was born. His pick? Peacekeeper. I think I'm okay with that.

Opening gifts from Santa, with a little help from Daddy. This one was a farmer and animals on a tractor. He also got luggage from us, but that's not really exciting to a one year old!

Where Eli spent most of his Christmas evening while the rest of us opened presents with Holly's parents. We weren't complaining, it was way past his bedtime! All he needed was a handful of bows and a big gift to sit on. Nevermind that it wasn't even his, but Nana's and Papa's.

Getting reaquainted with his cousins, Jared in the Romo jersey and Tyler in Crabtree's. What a precious photo that I don't even remember taking!

Celebrating Christmas at Pops and Grandma's. Eli has just opened his Leap Frog Fridge DJ that counts down the hits. He also got the Leap Frog Fridge Carwash which is entertaining even for me.
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Presents and abundant food aside, we did have a nice Christmas. Our plans changed unexpectedly when Justin's grandad passed away on Christmas Eve. We came back to the Dallas area from West Texas on Friday evening for the Saturday funeral. Sunday was spent with Justin's parents and grandmother.

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Hope you all had a joyous Christmas and have had a Happy New Year so far!