Jennifer’s 30th Birthday

To my wife with love

To celebrate Jennifer’s 30th birthday, Nana and Pappy watched the kids, and Jennifer and I snuck off to San Antonio.  On the way down, we stopped for lunch at Rudy’s BBQ, then hit up Ikea and the San Marcos Outlets for some shopping.  Nana let us use her reward points for a free hotel on the Riverwalk.  After checking in, we walked down the river and got some Mexican food and margaritas.

The next morning, we met up with Jennifer’s college roommate, Kim, for breakfast and some sight seeing.  We went to a great place, the Guenther House.  Afterwards, we walked through a flea market and picked up some souvenirs for the kids.

I tried to get a deal on these guitars, but could only negotiate 10% discount (tax).  I bought one for Nathan anyways.  It broke after only 2 days playing with it.

After the flea market, we visited the Alamo

That afternoon, the weather was beautiful so we made the short drive out to Gruene, one of our favorite hill country destinations.

There was a great band playing in Gruene Hall.  They were called Flat Top Jones and played mostly classic country and western swing music.  The entire band were former professional musicians and were all extremely talented.  We danced a few songs, but mostly just sat back and listened to the music.  It was really fun.

My beautiful wife, Shiner Bock, good music, Gruene Hall, and great weather. Doesn’t get much better than this.

The lead guitarist also played a pretty mean fiddle

After the band was finished, we walked over for dinner at the Gristmill.  We scored a table overlooking the river.  Jennifer had the chicken fried chicken, and I had the chicken fried steak. It was just about perfect….as you can tell from the empty plates. We also had pecan pie with ice-cream for dessert.

After dinner, we strolled around town a little and did some more shopping before heading back to San Antonio.  It was a gorgeous evening and the weather was great.  Gruene is really pretty at this time of night.

The next morning, we got a five pound cinnamon role for breakfast.  It was from Lulu’s Bakery and is apparently somewhat famous.  This thing was about the size of my head.  We ate on it for about three days after we got home.

On the way home, we took 281 and stopped at Longhorn Cavern State Park.  Jennifer had never been in a cave, so we took a tour.

In this passage way, they told everyone to duck or bend over.  Jennifer didn’t have to.

This was a pretty neat cave.  It was formed by an underground river, so it is long, narrow, and doesn’t have many ceiling formations.  I’m looking forward to taking the kids back one day.

That evening we finally made it home and the kids were excited to see us. 

Hannah had been practicing riding her bike and was eager to show off her new skills.

What a great finish to an outstanding weekend!

Christmas in Evadale and Devers

After getting moved into the new house, Aunt Rebecca and Uncle Jon Michael came down for a visit.  We carpooled down to Devers to visit with O and Mimi; Candace, Kolby and Micah; and Will, Christina, Liam, and Kate.  It was the first time in a while for us all to be there at the same time.  We had a good visit and it was fun to see everyone and catch up some.  The kids had a blast playing with their cousins.  We didn’t take many pictures other than when we were opening gifts.  Here are a few shots from the trip:

One afternoon, we snuck over to Evadale to open gifts with Nan and Pop. 

Hannah got a Tangled doll and matching wig

Nathan got a toy gun. Pop was showing him how to use it.

And a black cowboy hat and cowboy boots like Pop.

Ok….I think that’s all the Christmas posts until next year:)

Christmas

We spent Christmas in our new house with Nana and Pappy.

The kids got a couple of early presents from them.

That evening, we went to the Christmas Eve service at Christ Chapel.

The next morning, the kids were up early and ready for Christmas!

They checked to see if Santa ate his cookies

And then got started on the presents

After the presents, we read the Christmas story.  Jennifer made coffee cake and we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus. 

Then Jennifer and Nana made a big lunch for us.

We ate it at our little table

And didn’t wait too much longer to buy a bigger table from craigslist.  This was one of Jennifer’s Christmas gifts.

That afternoon, it started snowing and we actually had a white Christmas!  The kids went out to play a little

We tried out sledding on the small hill in our yard

It was a little crazy with all the moving right before the holidays, but we had a great first Christmas in our new home.

Moving

After 5+ years at the Overhill house, we decided that we had outgrown our home and needed a little more room. With a family of four and a dog crammed into 1300 square feet, we were maxed out. We also were ready to get rid of our pool. It was about 10 years old, and we had a feeling that major repairs were coming soon. As we contemplated where to move, a major driver was getting in a good school district for the kids.  Our search landed us in a small community west of Fort Worth.  We hunted for houses for about 2 months and finally found one we liked.  We made an offer and while we were negotiating, the house next door went on the market.  It was the same age, but about 300 square feet bigger and had nicer finishes.  And the list price was the same!  So we withdrew our offer next door and were soon under contract on our new home.  Between the low interest rates and the below market price, we were able to afford much more than we would have ever expected.

We closed on the new house on December 21 and started moving in that day. We had reserved a moving truck for all day on Saturday from Ryder.  We went to sign the rental paperwork on Friday afternoon but due to the upcoming Christmas holiday, they gave us the truck for the full 3 day weekend.  That was an enormous help and allowed us to move in more gradually over the weekend.  Nana and Pappy came to help us move, as did cousin Mitch, Mama Jo and John.  It was such a relief to be out of the apartment and we got to spend Christmas in our new home.  We have been here for a little more than 2 months and are getting more settled in.  The drive to Fort Worth (and my work) is about 25-30 minutes and traffic is normally not a problem.  We’ve started meeting the neighbors and they are all really nice families, many with young kids.

Here are some pictures of moving

The kids thought it was pretty funny to eat on a box on the kitchen floor

Keeping the kids occupied for a little bit

Boxes, boxes, everywhere

The kids had fun playing with Mama Jo while we were moving.

We are mostly unpacked now and ready for visitors!

Aggie Football

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know this was the best season for Aggie Football in a long, long time (11-2, #5 final ranking, Heisman Trophy, Outland Trophy, upset #1 Alabama on the road).  We had so much fun watching the Aggies each week.  It was a great first season with Coach Sumlin in the SEC.

Nana and Pappy got us all tickets to watch our Ags run all over the Sooners in Arlington on January 4.  Of course the main attraction was to see 2012 Heisman winner Johnny Football Manziel.  This was the second time this season that Jennifer and I saw him in person.  Earlier this season, we went to the SMU game.  Here are a few pictures from that game (we won big time):

Our seats were right by the tunnel. Notice Johnny at bottom of the screen. This was the second game so we didn’t even know if he was going to be any good.

Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band

View from our seats.  Johnny was already on the bench at this point.

Our trip to the Cotton Bowl turned out much better than the last time.  Nana, Pappy, Rebecca, Jon Michael, Jennifer and I went.  It was probably one of the best Aggie games I’ve ever been to see.  Winning is fun!  Here are a few pictures:

Walking in to the stadium

The view from our seats was awesome.

Johnny warming up….Whoop!

After the win