Grease is the Word!

My little sister Kari was in her first theatrical production! She was in the chorus line for ECHS's production of Grease. This is one of my favorite musicals of all time so I was a little worried going into the theater...."Are these kids going to mangle my movie!?!" But they did a FANTASTIC job, and Kari was so pretty and bubbly when she was on stage. I was really proud of her. In the fist part of the play she was a girl, but in the second act she comes back dressed in boy's clothes. It was adorable...only her with her straight skinny legs could pull it off so awesomely! Enjoy the pictures!

The Great Turkey Day Migration!

For Thanksgiving Brad I decided to split our time between our two families. We both knew that this was going to be a momentous task since they live so far away, but we thought that we would try it this year. First, we went to Milam, TX. This is approximately 5 hours from our house if anyone was wondering. We arrived close to midnight on Wednesday evening. We spent Thanksgiving Day with my family, and we had a great time. A lot of my cousins were there this year, and we took pictures, played football, ate a lot of really GREAT food. Then Friday morning, I went with April and Michael to my favorite event of the year: BLACK FRIDAY SALES!!!! We divided and conquered, and I ended up buying a lot more stuff than I had previously planned. That's okay though because I am going to give a lot of it away for Christmas. Then after I got back to my grandma's house (we had to drive an hour and a half round trip to get to the nearest stores), we had lunch and got on the road. Next stop, Cedar Park, TX. We planned on staying Friday evening with Brad's grandparents at their house. It took us around 6 hours to get there, and man were we happy to see them! We had only been there an hour or so when it is decided that we need to head down to Burnet, TX to see his brother. That is another hour in the car! We finally made it there, and I was so happy to be out of the car! We hung out with them for a while, and we got to see Brad's mom. Then we took baby Christopher and went back to Cedar Park for the night. Then the next day, we went back to Burnet/Marble Falls to see everyone again. Sunday morning, we hung out at the Foster home and played with Christopher. We were sad when it was time to leave, but we knew that we had another three hours in the car! We finally made it back to EL Campo. I don't think I have ever been so happy to see our house. We had a lot of fun over the holidays, but I think next year we will just pick one place to visit!

Birthday Surprises!

This was one of the best birthdays I have had in a long time (maybe not quite as good as 21, but very close)! Brad made me breakfast before he left for work. The school was having a Teacher Appreciation Breakfast that morning so I got more goodies once I got to school. Then, when I got back to my room, my mom had brought me a dozen pink roses and a Happy Birthday Balloon! It was so sweet! Then at lunch time, Britt showed up with Pizza and a cookie cake. I knew that she was coming to eat with me, but I didn't know that Mom, Dad, and Brad were going to come too! We just had this feast of fun in my classroom. Brad also brought me a dozen cream colored roses and a CHEESECAKE (my favorite) when he came! All of my students were really nice all day telling me happy birthday as well. Then that night, I went out to eat at Los Cucos with Niesha (my birthday twin), Brad, Mom, Dad, Kari, Britt, Sharryn, Blayde, Kelley, and Kayla. We had so much fun...until the Employees came out with the Sombrero and whipped cream to sing happy birthday. Needless to say they got more of the whipped cream up my nose an in my mouth! Afterwards, Brad and I went back to Mom and Dad's house and I opened presents with them. They got me a lot of really nice clothes for work (I needed them so badly!!). It was an AWESOME DAY!! AND...I got a ton of text messages and Facebook wall posts from friends...and we all know it can't be a great birthday without Facebook!!

I got a job!

I got a job teaching high school English! I am really excited, and hopefully everything will go well! Brad and I are really excited because it feels like I have just been treading water since I graduated with nothing permanent to do....I AM READY FOR ROOTS! :) I will post details and pictures of my classroom later.

Hanging out in O-town!

We went to see my cousin Wendy last weekend in Overton! She is getting married on June 5, 2010 so it's getting close to the deadline for us to order bridesmaid dresses and such. Brad and I decided to make a weekend out of it and go up early...this was a good plan. When we got there we went to the opening of a new sports memorabilia store because there were going to be former Dallas Cowboys players there signing autographs according to the advertisement. This was trickery I tell you, trickery!! Poor Jason thought he was going to get autographs, but all he ended up getting were the awkward and pressured smiles of the store workers. The place was EMPTY when we got there...and we soon found out why. There was a former Cowboy's player there, but in order to get an autograph you had to buy his $25 biography. This purchase then authorized you to buy one of the six things they had for sale that you could get autographed. So pretty much you had to spend about $40-$60 dollars to get the autograph of a guy no one really cared about. So we just walked around the empty store (outnumbered 3 to 1 by employees) and tried not to make eye contact with the guy that we were supposed to be getting an autograph from...it was like he was telepathically saying, "Cheapskates, BUY MY BOOK!". After this we went to Chick Fil A where Jason told us about something called Fred Lobsters (a car race). Think Nascar but with cars that value under $1000. The purpose of this race is to drink a case of beer every 40 laps...there are 120 total so that is quite a lot of beer. We laughed so hard that by the end of lunch we were making plans to go to the next one in Feb. 2010. I will keep you posted on specific dates if you are interested! They had a birthday party for my cousin Josh that night, and then we baby sat little Micheal. Sunday we drove to Shreveport, LA and went to David's Bridal. We must have tried on every dress in that store, but ultimately we came back to the first dress that we tried on. It is really pretty. I will post pictures of some of the dresses that didn't work out quite as well! Anyway, Brad and I had a good time, and we can't wait to go back and see everyone!

Dustin and Christina's Wedding! 08-08-09

This was one of the prettiest weddings I have ever been to...the ceremony was at a beautiful church in Dallas....huge stained glass windows, 50 foot ceilings, and stone walls, etc. The place was beautiful. The preacher had a lot of funny things to say although I am not sure he was trying to be funny as much as we just thought the things he said were funny! The reception was located at Winfrey Point...it's a reception house on a cliff that overlooks a lake. GORGEOUS!!! There were also a lot of really cute details that Christina implemented that I had never seen at a wedding before. The Bride's cake was a chocolate masterpiece made by some guy from the food network, very cool. Outside on the patio you could get lemonade, sangria, or tea out of these really cool glass pitchers, and there were several different types of cigars available for the gentlemen or adventurous ladies to smoke on the other side of the porch. Last but not least...there was DANCING!! With Christina I expected nothing less, but everyone was on the dance floor having a good time. It was really nice getting to see all of our college friends, and getting to see people we haven't seen in a long time. At the end of the night we were talking to all of the single/dating people and trying to decide who should get married next so that we can have another party! Overall, it was a really fun night, and Brad and I are so happy for Christina and Dustin!!!

Matagorda Beach Trip!

On Labor Day Brad and I went down to Matagorda Bay with some family and friends. I hadn't been to Matagorda Beach since I was in elementary school so I was really surprised by how pretty and clean the beach was. We set up a canopy tent and chairs, and everyone played in the water and looked for sea shells. We all brought stuff for a picnic lunch, and I don't know how but sandwiches always seem to taste better outside. After lunch while Brad took a nap (big surprise), I made sand castles and buried people in the sand with the little kids. It was an awesome day! We could not have asked for better weather or a nicer place for our picnic and fun. We will definitely have to plan more trips down to Matagorda in the future. It would even be a nice place to take pictures!