Hail to the chief!

That was the buzz in Midland this week! Tuesday afternoon, former President Bush flew into Midland to say a few words at his celebration event. He came with a whole plane full of people (including his wife and his parents), so from a very far distance away, we were not really able to see George W. Bush and then from an even further away point, we could see George H.W. and Barbara getting into their charter plane to fly home. They had about 20,000 people in downtown Midland, so since there was so much traffic expected, I was the lucky one that got an early release from school! Phil and I headed to the airport to watch the plane land, along with his co-workers and some of their families. This time, I was able to go out with Phil to get a closer look at the plane (in October, I stayed in the office). Wow! I knew it was big, but it really is huge.

After spending a few hours at the airport, Phil and I met up with his Uncle Lyle and Aunt Lorna, as they were in town for the night. They had been travelling through Texas and came to Midland to see us, as well as see the celebration for former President Bush.

That was the biggest news for us this past week. Phil and I have been enjoying a couple days of gorgeous weather (I guess all days here are nice, but these days were exceptionally nice). We were able to go out on our bikes after work the other day and then since he's been working the evening shift, I spent some afternoons running and working up my endurance for triathlon season.

I am still healthy (knock on wood), but I think this next week will tell if I am truly immune to my students. We had a few of them out sick this week, so the bug is just floating around our classroom, waiting to catch someone (hopefully not me)!

January

Can you believe we are already half way through January?!? Things here are flying by and it's only a matter of time before we are experiencing temperatures in the 70's... oh wait, we're almost hitting that already. Earlier in the week, I was all smiles as we finally had a few 'cold' days of temperatures in the upper 30's. Now, we're expecting mid to high 60's from here on out, and it's only going to get warmer. So, all of you need to schedule your vacations and head down to the tropics of Midland!
As for other news, not a lot has happened. We did add a new member to our family with the purchase of a new plant (okay, not really a huge addition, but it's new to our little house). It's a euphorbia dwarf apache red (I call it our cute little pink cactus plant). Basically, it's a plant that I can't kill :) I went to the greenhouse in search of something 'a little Texan,' and when I told the guy that I had a black thumb (instead of a green thumb), he suggested this plant. Of course, I have done nothing to it and let Phil do the work of watering and pruning it! It pays to marry the son of a farmer :)
School started two weeks ago, and thankfully (knock on wood), I have not caught any more viruses. It's been a hectic few days, but this week will be a 4 day week, as the kids have tomorrow off. Then Tuesday, we have an early release since President Bush will be flying in after the inauguration. So, this week should go by quickly. But then it's all 5-day weeks until spring break in March (goodness, what will I do when I have to have a real job with 5-day work weeks and no breaks during summer or winter?!?) I've been staying busy with morning exercise classes at the YMCA. I love the variety of the group classes and I have fallen in love with the Zumba class. It's an hour long aerobic class with a lot of latina-style dancing and moves (basically, we shake our hips a lot and dance to salsa-like music). There are about 50-60 women in the class and it's a lot of fun. Other mornings, I am doing spin classes, Body Pump (strength training) and random cardio sessions. This is all preparation for the Olympic distance triathlon that I am planning on doing in April. Goodness gracious!
Phil has been busy at work planning for President Bush's arrival (which means talking to Secret Service and increasing security), as well as planning for their yearly disaster drill (coming up in June). The disaster drill requires a lot of preparation, which involves the majority of the City operations, so a lot of thought has to go into it. When he's home, he spends his spare time playing his new video games and watching the football play-offs.
We were both very excited last weekend when we were able to see the UND vs. UofM hockey games. A co-worker of Phil's also went to UND and is a huge hockey fan, so he ordered the games on his TV and we went over to watch UND cream the U (sorry Minnesota fans)! We both realized how much we miss good hockey, so I think when it comes time to move, that may have some ranking in our options!

Happy New Year!

Hope everyone's 2009 has started off with happiness, smiles and joy.

Since I last wrote, things down in Midland have been a whirlwind! After Christmas, Phil and I prepared for my parent's visit. They arrived December 27 and the week that they spent down here was wonderful, and very much what I needed. After they got to Midland, they stayed one night before taking me away to visit San Antonio and the surrounding areas. Phil once again had to work, but I think he was okay staying home to play with his new video games from Christmas :)

We arrived in San Antonio late Sunday night, so it was up to bed to rest up for the days ahead. Monday, dad had to work (those husbands and their work-- I guess someone's got to earn the money while the other spends it!), so mom and I met up with one of her friends (Kathy) that lives in the area. First off, Kathy took us to a bridal store so I could get fitted for a bridesmaid dress for my friend Kayley's wedding. After getting business out of the way, Kathy was our gracious tour guide that lead us through the craziness at San Marco outlets. One word to describe the outlets: AMAZING! There were so many stores and goodies-- I was proud of myself for not buying everything in site :) We spent about 5 hours there and maybe hit about 1/5 of all the stores. Whew! After the stores, we drove to the town of Gruene and walked through the adorable streets of this historic little town. Here are mom and I outside of the Gruene Hall (random interesting fact: the cover of George Strait's first album has a picture of him standing inside of this bar/dancing hall). Then, back to the hotel to pick up Bob and head to dinner at Red Robin (yum)! The next morning, mom and I met up with Kathy again while Bob stayed at the hotel to work. We toured the Alamo, took in the sites around the town and then spent the majority of our day at the riverwalk, just walking and taking in the scenery. With all the walking and long days, mom and I were exhausted, so Tuesday was an early goodbye to Kathy before returning to our hotel for a nap. After dad was done working, we once again headed into San Antonio for dinner and walking along the riverwalk.

Wednesday morning, we headed back to Midland. Dad had to work the afternoon shift, so while he stayed at our apartment, mom, Phil and I went to gather some things so we could decorate our apartment. We finally got our wedding pictures, so we bought frames for those, as well as a mirror for the living room. The boldest thing was painting an accent wall in our bedroom. Mom and I surprised Phil by choosing the color and painting the wall while he was at work, so I think he's still getting used to it :}

New Year's was spent at the apartment and playing Dominoes. We taught Phil the game of 'chicken feet,' and of course he had beginner's luck and beat us all! We all made it to midnight, celebrated with some drinks, made a few calls to friends and family, and then crashed for the evening.

My parent's left early this morning to head back to CO. I think their trip was entirely too short, but I'm sure Phil thinks it was just right :)

The next time I see them will be in May when I head back to CO for Tom's graduation (maybe?!?), so hopefully the time will fly by quickly.

It was great to have visitors, so if anyone wants to head on down to Midland, we would love to have you!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the south! While the rest of the world is being blanketed with snow, our one Christmas wish did not come true :( Instead of snow, Phil and I celebrated Christmas with 70 degree weather. But, we still had a lot to be thankful for, so we can't complain.

We had a lot of fun decorating our little apartment and for what we have, the house looks pretty cute. It helps that Phil has a smaller tree, so it fit nicely in between our fireplace and TV. We put up lights in our windows, put Christmas cards from friends and family on the unofficial Christmas wall, and Phil helped me decorate my first gingerbread house! We took the easy way out and got a pre-cut house, but I think we did a great job with decorating it!

As for the holiday, Phil unfortunately had to work this whole week, but we figured this was a time to start new traditions. Christmas Eve, Phil was at work, so I attended our church's service (since the congregation is only about 40 people, there is only one service), then waited for Phil to come home from work so we could open one present (I was the little kid that was waiting by the tree the minute he stepped through the door)! We made apple cider, opened one present each and then headed to bed (with visions of sugar plums in our heads)!

Christmas morning, we got up, opened the rest of the presents, ate Monkey Bread, then headed to a new church to attend their Christmas service. After church, it was back home to get into sweats and play with our new toys! Phil played his new Tiger Woods game for playstation while I camped out at the kitchen table and scrapbooked. Ah the life!

As for the rest of this week, Phil is finally on his Friday, so he is looking forward to his weekend. My parents are coming tomorrow (!!!!!), so today I will prepare (and anxiously await) their arrival.

We hope everyone had a safe and blessed Christmas! We'll post soon with our adventures of New Year's!

Wishing and hoping for snow

A lot of you may be wanting to strangle us for that title, but Phil and I have been bit by the snow bug and unfortunately, there is nowhere to go. Although, according to the weather forcast, we're supposed to hit temperatures in the teens tonight with a high of 32 tomorrow, so maybe we'll get to see flurries :)

As a side note, for those of you that recieved our Christmas letter, we obviously were not in the right state of mind and we stated that our 2009 was a busy wedding-planning season. No, we are not planning on getting married again (although another honeymoon would be okay with us). So, spread the news: Texas has brainwashed us and we don't even know what year we're living in :)

In other news, I am rejoicing because I am officially on winter break! I can't brag too much as Phil is on another 9-day stretch at work. Today, he is 3 days into it, so when December 27 rolls around, he will be all smiles as he does not have to report for duty at the airport for a few days. We still don't know what we have planned for our Christmas festivities. I think we'll do a Christmas brunch (since Phil works the evenings of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day), but I guess this is the time to start new traditions, so we're trying to plan things out. My parents are coming in one week and I am anxiously counting down the days until their arrival!

The past few weeks have been full of decorating, writing (and messing up) our first Christmas letter, wrapping presents, shipping packages (we have officially kept the postal service in business), listening to Christmas music and just getting in the spirit of everything. Oh, and of course, I am sick once again. I cannot wait until my body is used to Texas and school germs. This time around, it was a cough, headache and severe ear infection. Once again, I went to the doctor and got put on multiple medications. The cough and other aches are gone, but I still have difficulty hearing out of my ear and there is still some pain. The deafness has worked to my advantage in some ways since the kids were very excited for Christmas, so instead of talking, they thought yelling screaming everything was the way to go. If it was loud for me, I knew it was blaring for everyone else.

We also celebrated my entrance to the quarter-century club this week. We are now a household of 25 year-olds (that act like 10 year-olds sometimes)! Phil just laughs when he sees how excited I get for my special day. Here I am with my new bike that he got for me. I guess I don't have any more excuses to not train for triathlons :) Thank you everyone for your warm wishes, thoughts and calls!

We hope everyone is having a blessed holiday season. Hopefully you all should be getting our cards in the mail soon (we're still addressing some, but they'll get out-- don't worry)! Merry Christmas and have a safe and happy new year!

'Tis the season

We made it through Thanksgiving and now we're heading into the time for Christmas! This is my favorite time of the year and Phil is quickly figuring out that I am a child at heart. Everything is so exciting during this time and I am anxious for all the Christmas has in store-- from the beautiful decorations around town to the wonderful church events to the fantastic songs that everyone just can't help but sing along with. I love it all!
The first picture is of us after we completed all the cooking for our first Thanksgiving feast! We were too tired and exhausted to change out of our sweats, so we just ate as we were. So, not the most romantic or beautiful scene, but we were so impressed that we were able to cook everything and get everything done, I guess we didn't care what we looked like! We had the full feast of turkey, mashed potatoes (not out of a box!), green bean casserole, bread (homemade!), gravy, stuffing, cookie salad, pumkin pie and cinnamon ice cream (from our amazing ice cream maker). Whew! Yes, we had leftovers as lunch and dinner for a couple of days after.

To keep the Thanksgiving traditions rolling, Phil and I got up and went shopping on Black Friday at 6am! We were one of the first ones at Target and we loaded up on the things we needed then headed over to Kohl's, where Phil was an amazing husband and went straight to the back of the line so I could shop and not have to worry about waiting. Unfortunately, our Kohl's was not prepared for the events of the day, and while the line wasn't that long, we ended up waiting for 56 minutes. Ouch. But, after dropping our items at home, we left the car and walked to the mall to finish up with things (the mall is about 1/4 mile from our house). It was great to walk in the fresh air and even better that we didn't have to deal with the mess of parking. After the morning events, we came home, decorated the tree and the house, and I started wrapping presents-- yes, I couldn't wait.
As for now, we've stayed busy with random activities with our church, co-workers and just each other. Phil and I laugh sometimes because we know we were meant to be together. One night last week, we realized that we had not set up the tent that we got for our wedding, so we just set it up in our living room and had a camp out. It's so fun to have those random adventures and to have someone that loves to do them as much as you. If we had snow here, I'm sure we'd be the couple that goes out to sled down the hill with the little kids.
Hopefully everyone else is having a blessed holiday season. We got our Christmas cards ordered, the house is decorated, and I'm getting ready to start my baking spree of the season, so Christmas is all around!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing you all a very Happy Thanksgiving!

We are so thankful for the love and friendship of everyone and we are so blessed to have been given so much to be thankful for. We hope that God has blessed each one of you as much as he has blessed us.

As for our Thanksgiving, today Phil is completing his 9-day stretch of work, so for our afternoon (he will be home about 4p), we are having some of his co-workers over for some appetizers, adult beverages and of course, watching the football games (Phil says that he roots for anyone that plays against the Cowboys!) and just having a relaxing evening. Tomorrow, we will have our real feast of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberries, bread, green bean casserole, cookie salad and pumkin pie. Yes, it is only the two of us and yes, we will be eating leftovers until we are green in the face :) I'm sure we will have stories and many memories to share of our first thanksgiving, our first big meal to cook and our first Black Friday shopping experience!

Last year in Midland, the town was 'covered' with a little over an inch of snow, but with the high around 65 today, I don't think we'll get anything but sunshine. I'm hoping the snow is just building power and we'll have a few inches of snow for Christmas (but not much later because I want my mom and dad to be able to drive down here on the 28th)!

Once again, happy turkey day to one and all and may you have much food to fill your stomach and many blessings to fill your heart!