Painting Part 1

Jeff here

Here's what our bedroom looked like this morning.If you're saying to yourself, "Wait a second, this looks identical to their bedroom they moved into when they got to Texas, didn't they change apartments?!?!" Then I would respond by saying, "Well, yes, we did change our apartments, and yes, our new bedroom is identical to our old bedroom, thank you for noticing!!"

This is our old bedroom in our old apartment. Look its the same!

In addition, our current bedroom looks remarkably like our bedroom in Provo. So after a year and a half of white walls with white trim we decided to upgrade and paint our bedroom a bold, beautiful color.

Here we are prepping the apartment for the paint. Angela tapped the whole bedroom so fast!

Sorry for the blurry picture... I am not a very good photographer.

Here I am in an obviously posed shot. Notice the unused paint brush... but what can I say Angela was doing all the work!

I'm reading Scott Westerfeld's "Extra's" and in that spirit I'm hoping to boost my face rank by leaving this post on a cliff-hanger. So check back for the end results of our day of painting!!

Renaissance Festival

Jeff- here

I know its Christmas time, but there were a couple of things that we did in November that we still wanted to blog about.

Over the Thanksgiving break Angela and I and two of our friends, Teddy and Sarah, drove to the Annual Texas Renaissance Festival.

It is massive. There is a whole town of little medieval-esque buildings, with shows, bands, eateries, gardens, carnival games, a jousting stadium, and TONS of weird.... well we'll call them eccentric people.The first show we saw was a magic show put on by a magician from France. It was pretty funny and only slightly crude. As the day progressed, though, most of the shows deteriorated into lesser humor, including grown men jumping face first into mud. We still enjoyed it though.Unfortunately it rained most of the day. It was cold and very muddy, but to me it made it all seem more realistic. I always imagine the middle ages as being kind of a muddy time.

For lunch most people had beer. We had huge turkey legs instead. These definitely fit with the "Everything is bigger in Texas". I would not have wanted to meet up with one of these turkeys in a dark alley.

They were pretty delicious for the first few bites.They also made me and Teddy feel like men.In fact we looked so manly that our wives took us over to the romantic gardens.Angela and Sarah thought it would be great to get a few romantic shots of the couples. Here's me kissing my Turkey leg in front of the beautiful fountain. Angela said this was not exactly what she had imagined our romantic shot would look like, so we had to take another one.
We also saw live jousting, although it was definitely staged, it was still pretty exciting. We sat on the Germany side of the jousting tournament. Unfortunately our guy only got runner up. But he did take a beautiful mud-splattering plunge when he got knocked off his horse.

On our way home we ran into this very interesting beggar.

We donated a pack of peanut-butter crackers to his cause... I mean Aliens abducting your family is a pretty horrible plight.

The Party and The Scream

Angela's work had a Christmas party last week. It was actually quite fun. We went over and had dinner at her boss's house and chatted and exchanged gifts. The food was excelent, and after dinner we played a Christmas Gift exchange game. The game once again revealed some very obvious differences between Utah and Texas. We were supposed to spend under $15 on a gift, wrap it, and then we would randomly chose our gifts. To decide who got to choose first we drew numbers, and Angela got number 1. She picked out a large bag with a pretty bow... what was inside...

YES!!! A box of Beers of the World. After opening this present I just couldn't help but wonder-- Maybe Santa Claus is real. I know it sounds silly but how else can you explain it... at any rate Cramer would have called it a Festivus Miracle for sure.

Luckily, in the rules of the game the people after you can chose to open a new present or steal the present you already got. One of her co-workers took it away from Angela-- oh drat-- and she ended up with a very lovely candle display. The interesting thing about this whole gift exchange was that the Beers of the World was actually the most fought over present. I also chose a present that would never appear at a Utah gift exchange- it was a calendar called Smart A** Trivia Questions (I sensored the name for all of the children that read are blog, and if you are a child and reading this blog I am obligated to tell you to discuss with your parent why beer and profanity are similar to flaxen cord). I was excited inspite of the explative in its name.

The last blog worthy difference between Utah and Texas was discovered just a few days ago. It's been pretty cold and rainy all week which drives little insects from their homes to find shelter where its ward. On Monday evening, I heard a gut wrenching, only-could-mean-someone-was-dying scream from the bathroom. I come tearing in the room to find this in the bathtub--- Warning do not look at the next picture if you are under 18 or have a heart condition.

Disclaimer-- I was a good husband and smashed the one in the bathroom very quickly, so this is just the closest thing I could find on the internet. Literally it measured 2 and 1/2 inches in length, and looked even more disgusting then this.

It was lucky Angela discovered it, because if she had heard the girly scream I would have let loose if I had found it, she might think of me as a little less of a man.

The apartment complex is spraying next week, but in the meantime we have set up some lovely accomodations for our roachy friends.

Jeff here! So I finished my last final today. Yea!! Unfortunately Angela doesn't get holidays until next Wednesday :(

Over the past few weeks Angela has been noticing a few differences between Utah and Texas that I think warranted a blog post. Starting with Houston's version of a white Christmas.

That's right blogging world we are having a Houston style white Christmas. On December 3.. I'm pretty sure... I got an urgent e-mail from school about the "dangerous" storm that was coming our way. Our professor said that he didn't think classes would need to be canceled, but cautioned us to check our e-mail in the morning because it could be. The next day I did have school, but many people could not make it to class. Angela was sent home at noon from work that day, and while I was taking a test in the library that afternoon, the overhead intercom system, warned us that the Texas Medical Center library would be shutting down that day due to the "inclement weather". As I walked down the halls of Baylor people were frantic. What a storm!?! How scared they were to drive in it, and how dangerous it was!

You might be asking yourself what storm warranted all of this fuss? What was happening that day in Houston that would shut down all the businesses and schools in town? Well it was a

SNOW DAY!!!!

It was the earliest recorded snow ever in the history of Houston. And let me tell you it snowed!Angela shot these pictures when she was dismissed from work early.
This was at the peak of the storm.

Yes, it was a snow like no native Houstonian had ever seen. White, oddly-cold, round things were falling out of the sky. They didn't fall like rain drops, but more like frozen, ice flakes. If you are one of these people that are familiar with this thing they call "snow", you maybe noticing in the pictures that it is not sticking. Well you're right! it was far too warm for it to stick on ANYTHING... not even our car. In spite of this fact, very rational human beings were totally freaked out to be forced to drive in this weather. (the roads were nice and moist from all the melted snow).

To make this experience even more laughable for Angela, she came home to find a large note tapped on our apartment door with a huge WARNING written on the front. The note informed all residents that they should leave their pipes dripping that night and open all their cabinets to keep the pipes from freezing and bursting. That night it was supposed to get down to a frigged 30 degrees Fahrenheit, and obviously pipes here in Texas are just not meant to withstand such extreme temperatures.

Although Texans can't handle snow at all. We are enjoying the exceptional winter weather they have to offer. Right now its 61 degrees, sunny and beautiful.

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We had a wonderful time hanging out with Jeff's family... except I got sick. Thanks Mark for spreading the love. Jeff here. I'm supposed to give an unbiased description of the culinary masterpieces that my wife made for Thanksgiving. Her cherry pie was incredible, even though she claims that her pie crust will never be as good as her fathers. I couldn't believe how good the lattice work turned out.

She also made apple toffee tartletts which were amazing. I mean apple, score bar, pie crust, what more could you ask for.
We went down to my Aunt's house in Baytown where we got to see many of my cousins and there kids along with my brothers, their families, and my parents. It was great. Best of all we had real corn bread stuffing. I tried to make corn bread stuffing last year in Provo, but it turned out disgusting... luckily Angela gave it a second chance and liked my Aunt's corn bread stuffing.



I know this picture looks a lot like I am playing with the doll houses, but in actuality I was just showing Elle and Berkeley all of the amazing features of these particular doll houses since we used to play with them as kids... that really doesn't make the picture any less embarrassing. Did I mention I was showing them in a very manly voice.
I guess my brothers saw that Angela was taking pictures of me playing with the doll house, and decided to give Angela some more manly photo-ops or me. We had a great family football game.

Sadly I think the best player on either team was 5 year-old Berkeley. In the picture above I think she's laughing because she just tagged me while I was making my break away. In the great action shot below you will notice that Berkeley is receiving the hand-off, which she took for a huge first-down rush. She maybe only 5 and a girl, but she had some pretty wicked weaving moves. I'm going to make sure that in the next post there are some really manly pictures of me!

Blogging world, you are good to me.

I'm the winner? YES! Marta at http://martawrites.blogspot.com/ had an awesome giveaway last week. $20 gift certificate to Tape Swell .... and I won! Oh my! m.writes is one of my favorite blogs to read. As for Tape Swell, they have AWESOME products. I had a very hard time picking which products I wanted. I ended up choosing the Partridge of Joy packaging tape, and the lava lamp envelope wraparounds. Perfect for Christmas packages and Christmas notes! Yea! Thank you Marta!

broken.

I think this is a bit humorous and I hope you appreciate it. As Jeff and I moved in to our new apartment we noticed something funny in our bedroom closet... DRIPPING WATER from our AC!!! (yes we were running our AC in November) so we called the apartment complex and asked them to come fix it. We had to pull everything out of the closet (sadly, it was the first place we had started to unpack) and rewash all of Jeff's shirts that got soaked in nasty murky grey water.

We had to go to work the next day and hoped that when we got home it would all be fixed and we could start unpacking the bedroom. Well, we get home, see a little note the handyman wrote saying it was fixed. Phew. We could put all of our clothes that are piled sky-high on the bed back into the closet. This was hard work and made us hot and sweaty, so we turned on the AC. About 5 minutes later we go back to the closet....and the ceiling is dripping!! and even worse, Jeff's shirts are soaking wet! and the water is still just as murky and grey as before!!! AHHHH!

We called the apartment complex, not using our Sunday voices, to let them know what we thought of their fixer-upper skills. Luckily they sent the handyman right over.

"What seems to be the problem?"

"Uhhh remember when you 'fixed' our AC? Fixing to us means stopping the dripping, I don't know what it means in your book!"

He checks out the AC, "Yep its leaking" (Seriously?)

He tells us he came over the day before and it didn't seem like anything was wrong because it wasn't dripping (We turned OFF the AC! Why would we ever keep it on if it makes the ceiling leak?!!!)

He proceeds to investigate the problem... 5 hours later he tells us he needed to get to the pipes and would have to make a small hole in the wall. OK sure- whatever it takes, we want to actually be able to use our closet.

At this point, Jeff and I were pretty grateful that we had decided not to buy a condo. If we had purchased a place and this happened immediately after moving in, we would have been financially responsible for this pricey adventure. We'd have been pretty upset. (Not that we were singing Joy to the World while he was in there drilling)

So... the handy man works and works while we are unpacking boxes. Then he comes out and tells us he is done for now. He will bring us over an industrial fan to dry out the carpet, and tells us he'll be back in 2 days to pick up the fan and patch up the holes. Wait. Holes? You said a hole. actually you said exactly a small hole.

one...... two....... three?!?!?!

You said "A small hole".... in English "a small hole" usually implies ONE and a small hole means I can't fit my head through it!!!! good devil.

No worries. The industrial fan dried up the carpet and walls. Jeff's shirts got washed a second time. The handyman did return to patch up the wall. And we finally got to set up the closet and the bedroom. NOW we are finally unpacked and happily settled in.

the end.

Special Thanks

A BIG thanks to Janie and Bruce for helping us pack, bring boxes up and down stairs, and then unload and set up everything, and on top of that, kept us fed!!!

And another THANK YOU to Teddy for showing up at the perfect moment- when we needed him the most- our couch would still be over at the old appartment if it weren't for Teddy. (Proof, Sarah, that Teddy didn't watch sports the entire time you were in Utah)

And Sean and Elliot, you both get a thank you too because you were going to help us, and it is our fault that we finished moving an entire day early.

Moving In

How far we moved: This picture was taken from our new appartment and the door that is open on the 2nd floor is our old appartment. Yea... it was far away.... moving stuff out to a moving van would have been futher away that our new place.

I love our new appartment. I have a bigger kitchen! a bigger living room!!! and a second bedroom that is our new study....but,a smaller bedroom and... Waaaaa! I am REALLY SAD about my new bathroom. It is SO much smaller.

Look at that sink space! Seriously!!!!! It is the worst bathroom I have ever had in my life, and that is saying something- I had some pretty stingy bathrooms in college.

Moving. Again.

Can you beleive it has already been 6 months? Wow. Time has flown. For those of you who don't know, Jeff and I only signed a 6 month lease when we moved here, we thought that we would buy a condo but after realizing how much homeowner fees were every month we realized we would be better off renting. So we found a 2 bedroom place in the same appartment complex where we were living. I was excited to move to a larger place, but I hate packing and unpacking all our stuff. Especially where we just did it 6 months ago. Once a year is enough.
Our old appartment. Our new place looks pretty much the same. If I didn't tell you all that we moved, you wouldn't be able to tell from the pictures.

Jeff was amazing and helped out a TON even though he had a lot of school. We were going insane last week, last time we moved I quit my job a month before so I had plenty of time to pack and get ready, then I had 2 months before I found a new job so unpacking was a breeze. I wouldn't recomend moving while you are working, it stinks. But at least we didn't have to drive a U-haul across the country!

Finished!

A month ago, I flew back home and visited my family. My sister came over and had this really cute bag that I complimented her on. She gave me the funniest look, "Uhhh Angela, we made these bags together." Oh.

For girls night 6 months ago my sister and I began sewing these cute bags. We ran out of time and I set mine aside and it got lost as we were moving. I felt silly for forgetting about my project so after I finished sewing halloween costumes I pulled it out and finished it. It only took one evening. I think it turned out really cute.

Thanks for the extra motivation Jessica!

So you think you are crafty?

I haven't really seen "So you think you can dance" but I love project runway, so when I heard about this going on I immediatly added it to my RSS feed. Here's the rundown: 10 crafters- 10 weeks- each week there is a challenge theme, the crafters make someting- everyone votes for their favorite, who ever has the least amount of votes goes home, and the winner with the most votes puts a tutorial up for their project! Yay! I'm addicted to tutorials.

They are on week one right now, the theme is Harvest. Here are some of my favorites.

Click HERE to go to the "so you think you are crafty" website. Today (Friday) is the last day to vote! So go pick your favorite!

More Halloween

Just thought I would share some more pictures from Halloween.
I wouldn't give the girl a piece of Candy until she said "Trick or Treat." That's not unreasonable is it?

This witch costume was one of the bests. Sadly, no one really went all-out on their kids' Halloween costumes. Jeff tells me that Utahns are just more into Halloween than Texans. Anyone agree or disagree?

This costume was my favorite- She's the Morton Salt Girl!!!

Nix that, these were the best costumes! These are our friends, they are the Myth Busters! Anyone else love that show? And the hot dog on the lease? Their dog! Definitly on the best-dressed list.